Ho… Ly… Crap

I did my first workout B of Fat Loss II yesterday and it KICKED MY BUTT.  I felt like quitting about halfway through.  Right after the first set of Bulgarian Split Squats with Overhead Press.   OH… MY….. GOD!!!!

I know that I didn’t adhere to the 60 second rest periods.  Especially during the BSSWOPs.  I don’t know what made these so hard.  I started out with 10 pound dumbbells, did 7.5lbs the second set, then 5lbs the third.  The problem wasn’t with the weight of the dumbbells, I don’t think.  I had no problem with my upper body.  It was my endurance with my lower body.

I couldn’t get through a whole 12 reps of these without pausing.  Man, it burned.  At the end – when I was doing these with 5lb dumbbells – I could get through the first 12 on my left leg (which is my weaker leg), but I had to pause after about six or seven reps on my right leg.  I know that even though my right leg is the one on the bench during the first 12 reps, it’s still getting some sort of workout, but it was just disappointing to not be able to do 12 straight with my “strong” leg.

We’ll see how it goes on Monday.  That’s when my next Workout B is.

HIIT today

I decided last night to start incorporating some HIIT back in my routine. I used to do this before my injury. This will help keep me in the habit of waking up early every morning. So now I’m going to do weight training Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and HIIT Tuesday and Thursday (maybe sometimes on Saturday?).

This morning I started easy: I did 5 minutes walking at 4.5mph; five intervals 1min@9.5mph and 2min@4.5mph; finished with 5 minute cool down walk (the treadmill does this automatically by slowly decreasing the speed from 4.5mph).

It’s been about ten weeks since I last did any HIIT, so I expected today to be hard. I was surprised at how I reacted to the workout. At the start of each work period it seemed like I could have gone up on speed (I used to do the work phase at 10.5mph). Towards the end of the work period, though, I was counting down the seconds… “Oh my God, 15 more seconds?!?”… At the end of the whole workout (25 minutes total) I noticed I hadn’t even broken a sweat. I think I’ll try 10mph on Thursday and see how that goes.

Fat Loss II Rest Periods

One thing I forgot to mention earlier was that I’m already fearing the 45 and 30 second rest periods that are coming up for this program.  There were a couple of times when I looked at my watch, saw that I was already at 1minute 10seconds, and still felt like I needed to rest.  I pushed through it, though.  I think my longest rest period today was approximately 75 seconds.  We’ll see how it goes next time.

Fat Loss II

Did my first workout A of Fat Loss II this morning.  It went quite well.  I didn’t feel like throwing up until I got home.    That was weird.

I liked the workout.  I expected it to take a lot longer than it did (about 40min) since there’s one more exercise and one more set per exercise than in the break in workout.

There are two “concerns” that I have, though.  During the front squat, I felt my forearms were strained.  I don’t know if I just need to stretch them out a bit, or if I’m doing something wrong.  The other is that the Russian upper body twist felt too easy.  Again, I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong or if my midsection is developed enough to make this exercise easy.  The first set I did with just my bodyweight.  The second and third sets I did with a ten pound plate in my hands.  I should have probably upped the weight to a 25 pound plate.(?)  I think I’ll try that next time.

In the meantime, I’m going to investigate the forearm strain thing.  I’ll come back here with any information I find.

Finally Friday

Well, it’s finally Friday.  I worked out on Monday, but it seems like so long ago.  I’m thinking it’s because I know that I’m on a week off.  But I made it through.  The weekend will fly by.  It always does just because we’re always busy doing something with the kids over the weekend.  So before I know it, it’ll be 4:15am Monday morning and I’ll be struggling to get out of bed.

I created my Fat Loss II logs last night and printed them out.  They’re sitting on my printer right now waiting to be filled in.  So I’m all ready to go!

Feeling a little anxious

Today is the first workout day where I’m not working out. I feel a little anxious about it. I’m just coming off of a six week break (I injured my elbow) and was/am really motivated to hit it hard. Now I’m in the middle of the week off. Part of me wants to keep working out — and I’m glad I feel that motivation — and part of me understands why I need the break.

I firmly believe that my elbow injury came about because I had worked out three to five days a week for nine months without a break. After reading NROL, I understand that our bodies need a break to repair some of the damage that comes from weight training.

I just can’t wait to get started on the next workout. I guess that’s a good problem to have. I can’t remember the last time I was looking forward to Monday.

Updated Stats

I updated the stats page this morning.  I took my measurements this morning.  The scale BF monitor shows 20% fat again.  The calipers I have come with a chart that has body fat numbers in increments of two percent.  That’s why I dropped from 16.8 to 14.8 percent body fat.  I actually dropped in measurement from 12mm to 11mm.

The scale is weird because when I first decided to make a change in my life, it was very helpful to track my fat loss.  I started with 25% BF and went down to 16.5% BF on the the scale.  Then I started working out (Feb ‘06) and saw my BF slowly increase to about 19-20% and it’s been there since.  That’s what led me to buy the calipers…  I saw the scale saying something and my mirror saying something else.

I don’t know.  I’ve heard that these types of scales aren’t very accurate, but can be used to track trends.  I’ll still keep track of what the scale shows to see the discrepancy between the scale and the calipers.

Done with break-in

I did my last Break-in workout today.  I’m very happy about it.  The only bad (embarrassing) thing about today’s workout is that my grip gave out on the 10th rep of my second set of deadlifts.  Luckily I was on the way down, so it only fell about six inches.  Still, it was pretty loud.  I expected to get a couple more reps in today on the deadlift (I did 15 and 10 last time), but 10 was all I got on the second.  Oh well, I still feel good.

Here are my Workout B stats:

B1:

• Deadlift: 135×15, 145×15
•  Step Up: 55×15*, 45×15
• DB One-arm Shoulder press: 25×15, 25×15*
• Close Grip Lat Pulldown: 90×15, 120×14
• Reverse Crunch: 20, 20*

B2:

•  DL: 165×15, 185×14
• SU:  45×15, 45×15*
• SP:  25×15, 25×15*
• PD:  120×15, 120×10
• RC:  20, 20*

B3: (I switched the step ups starting with this workout to the cardio alternative mentioned in the book.  I liked them a lot better.)

• DL:  185×15*, 185×14
• SU:  45×15, 45×15*
• SP:  27.5×15, 27.5×15*
• PD:  120×15, 120×15*
• RC:  20, 20*

B4:

• DL:  205×15*, 205×10 + 135×5
• SU:  55×15, 60×15
• SP:  30×15, 30×13
• PD:  120×15, 120×15*
• RC: 20, 20*

B5:

• DL:  205×15*, 205×10
• SU:  65×15, 65×15 ( I didn’t have to pause, but slowed down considerably late in the second set)
• SP:  30×15, 30×15*
• PD:  120×15, 120×15*
• RC:  20, 20

* Indicates I had to pause before one or more reps or I could barely complete the last rep.

It may seem like I didn’t improve much for some exercises because my labeling is kinda misleading.  Let’s take the reverse crunch, for example.  Because of my labeling, it seems like I always completed the first set ok, then struggled with the second set.  While this is true to some extent, the level to which I struggled during the second set was different.  For example in workout B1 I may have had to pause before each of the last five reps, where for B4 I may have had to pause just once over the span of the last five.  I hope that explains it sufficiently.

Well anyway, it’s off to my rest period (the rest of this week) then starting on Fat Loss II.  I’ll be able to sleep an extra hour and a half each day this week.  Woo Hoo!!!

Break-in Workout A done

Whew. Well, I made it. Today was my last workout A of the Break In program. I felt good. I pushed the weight up on squats. I felt good. Here are my workout A records:

Workout A1 (Felt like I was going to pass out on this one):

• Squats: 135×15, 145×15*
• Static Lunge: 55×15, 55×15* (used dumbbells – total weight)
• DB Row: 35×15, 40×15*
• Pushup: 0, 0
• SB Crunch: 0, 0

A2:

• S: 135×15, 135×15
• SL: 50×15, 50×15*
• DBR: 40×15, 40×15*
• PU: 15, 15
• SBC: 20*, 20*

A3:

• S: 145×15, 145×15*
• SL: 50×15, 50×15*
• DBR: 40×15, 40×15*
• PU: 15, 15
• SBC: 20, 20*

A4:

• S: 155×15, 155×15*
• SL: 50×15, 50×15*
• DBR: 45×15, 45×15*
• PU: 15, 15
• SBC: 20, 20

A5:

• S: 165×15*, 165×12
• SL: 55×15, 55×15*
• DBR: 45×15, 45×15*
• PU: 15, 15
• SBC: 20, 20

* Indicates I just barely completed the last rep or I had to take a few-seconds pause in the middle of the set.

One more workout B to go…

Not too sore

The morning after a workout day is kinda like Christmas to me. I like waking up, rolling out of bed, and discovering what part of my body is sore and how much. I was sort of let down this morning. After reaching that DL milestone yesterday, I expected to be really sore. So I woke up, kicked my feet over the edge of the bed, sat up and…. nothing. Well, almost nothing. I had to pull my shoulders back before I felt any soreness, and it wasn’t much at that.

I keep hoping that my body is getting quick to adapt and therefore doesn’t stay sore for long. But does that also mean that I’m not getting many gains because my body has adapted? I hope not.