I gave up running because, as usual, I was crushing my ankles and knees, but I started doing forced marches instead since they're easier on my body. I've ramped up from 25 to ~50lbs (22.5kg) now, and can even shuffle-run for short periods to make a traffic light or whatever with no problem.
The 6.5km (~4mi) forced march is in the morning before breakfast with nothing in me but black coffee. This makes it harder than you would think. I'm making the distance in about 50 minutes right now, including down time for a set each of pull-ups and dips, and hope to hit 66lbs (30kg) by next month while keeping the same time. This will be about 28 - 30% of my body weight by then.
Combine the morning march with 3-4 days of endurance lifting and an odd evening march, and you'll spend all day with random cramps just like me.
I'm looking at a ruck sack instead of my backpack to ease the pressure on my lower back and get the weight up higher. That should make the treck less painful. I'm handling the winter with a motorcycle face mask and several layers of sweats, which I sweat completely through every day.
Since I haven't done any real power lifting this year, my lifts are down by 30-40%. I'll fix that in the spring. I want to drop this gut first. Since I'm not losing any real muscle size, I figure I can wait.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Out of Shape but Not Giving Up
I was sick for a couple of months with an ENT infection that wouldn't go away, then I ripped my hamstring and had to take another three months off. I ended the summer overweight and weak.
I've started lifting again, but focusing on warm-up + 3x10 instead of my normal 6x6. I'm also doing 6km forced marches in the morning with an 18kg pack on an empty stomach. That's burning the fat off pretty well.
Halloween wrecked me, though, and I had to take an entire day off to recover from the hangover.
Yes, that's me making an ass out of myself.
I've started lifting again, but focusing on warm-up + 3x10 instead of my normal 6x6. I'm also doing 6km forced marches in the morning with an 18kg pack on an empty stomach. That's burning the fat off pretty well.
Halloween wrecked me, though, and I had to take an entire day off to recover from the hangover.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Why Squats Rule, and a New Workout
It's been four months since my last blog on this site. The amount of time is excessive mainly because I stopped working out in February and for most of March. I got my chest up to 48 inches before I stopped working out, then went on an extended rest period. I lost 40kg off of most of my lifts during the break and my waist got up to 43 inches (from 40.5 in November).
We ended our gym contract and hd trouble finding something good enough for home use, but we eventually got it.
We bought 140kg of weights and mats for the floor. We were ready to go. The problem was time. We just didn't seem to have more than 45 minutes to work out. That's not much of a seesion, so we had to make them counts. Here's our new plan:
A 6-day rotating schedule over a 7-day week. There are no schedules days off. We can take one or two a week if we think we are over-training. The nature of the rotation helps ensure that we don't lose the same workout every week.
Day 1
Morning: 30 minute core workout with planks, supermans, and other core exercises.
Evening: 40-minute chest workout featuring the straight and inclined chest press.
Day 2
Morning: 30-minute kickboxing workout
Evening: 40-minute back workout with BB rows, deadlift/shrugs, and pull-ups
Day 3
Morning: 30-minute callisthenic workout with push-ups, scissor kicks, squat jumps, and the like.
Evening: 40-minute shoulder workout with seated BBpresses and Arnold DB presses.
Day 4
Morning: 30-minute jiujitsu workout on a mat.
Evening: 40-minute chest workout with DB straight and inclined presses
Day 5
Morning: 30-minute endurance stairs workout carrying weights up and down my front stairs in pyramids
Evening: 40-minute back workout with DB rows, deadlift/shrugs, and pull-ups
Day 6
Morning: 30-minute kickboxing workout
Evening: 40-minute leg workout with squats, cleans, and the like.
Other daily activities:
Workday: Two 15-minute biking sessions going and coming to work.
Saturday: Some extra jiujitsu
Sunday: A forced march with weight.
Needless to say, we're exhausted. Sometimes we don't have time for the full workouts, but we try. For example, we only had about 15 minutes for lifting yesterday, so I just did squats. I figure if you're going to only do one leg exercise, that would be it.
I did five sets of 6-8 reps, with my ass just about hitting the floor. My thighs hit my claves, anyway. The weights were:
40kg
70kg
90kg
110kg
125kg
The funny thing is ... I don't have any knee pain now. Before I started lifting, my knees were shit. I couldn't walk around without problems. If I made a hard right turn, my knee would collapse and I'd go down on the floor like a sack of potatoes. When I started doing squats, I died. I did them the recommended way, stopping at 90 degrees (sometimes not even to there), but mt knees screamed every day.
Now that I drop to the bottom, I don't have knee pain. I only wore braces for that last, heaviest set. Isn't that odd?
Anyway, that one exercise ruined my legs for today. Real muscle soreness. Squats are great that way!
We ended our gym contract and hd trouble finding something good enough for home use, but we eventually got it.
We bought 140kg of weights and mats for the floor. We were ready to go. The problem was time. We just didn't seem to have more than 45 minutes to work out. That's not much of a seesion, so we had to make them counts. Here's our new plan:
A 6-day rotating schedule over a 7-day week. There are no schedules days off. We can take one or two a week if we think we are over-training. The nature of the rotation helps ensure that we don't lose the same workout every week.
Day 1
Morning: 30 minute core workout with planks, supermans, and other core exercises.
Evening: 40-minute chest workout featuring the straight and inclined chest press.
Day 2
Morning: 30-minute kickboxing workout
Evening: 40-minute back workout with BB rows, deadlift/shrugs, and pull-ups
Day 3
Morning: 30-minute callisthenic workout with push-ups, scissor kicks, squat jumps, and the like.
Evening: 40-minute shoulder workout with seated BBpresses and Arnold DB presses.
Day 4
Morning: 30-minute jiujitsu workout on a mat.
Evening: 40-minute chest workout with DB straight and inclined presses
Day 5
Morning: 30-minute endurance stairs workout carrying weights up and down my front stairs in pyramids
Evening: 40-minute back workout with DB rows, deadlift/shrugs, and pull-ups
Day 6
Morning: 30-minute kickboxing workout
Evening: 40-minute leg workout with squats, cleans, and the like.
Other daily activities:
Workday: Two 15-minute biking sessions going and coming to work.
Saturday: Some extra jiujitsu
Sunday: A forced march with weight.
Needless to say, we're exhausted. Sometimes we don't have time for the full workouts, but we try. For example, we only had about 15 minutes for lifting yesterday, so I just did squats. I figure if you're going to only do one leg exercise, that would be it.
I did five sets of 6-8 reps, with my ass just about hitting the floor. My thighs hit my claves, anyway. The weights were:
40kg
70kg
90kg
110kg
125kg
The funny thing is ... I don't have any knee pain now. Before I started lifting, my knees were shit. I couldn't walk around without problems. If I made a hard right turn, my knee would collapse and I'd go down on the floor like a sack of potatoes. When I started doing squats, I died. I did them the recommended way, stopping at 90 degrees (sometimes not even to there), but mt knees screamed every day.
Now that I drop to the bottom, I don't have knee pain. I only wore braces for that last, heaviest set. Isn't that odd?
Anyway, that one exercise ruined my legs for today. Real muscle soreness. Squats are great that way!
Saturday, December 22, 2007
It's been a while...
It's been a while since I last posted about my workouts. There's a good reason for that: I had nothing to report.
Last I mentioned, I was switching to high reps, trying to take some time off for my joints, hhen I just took some time off for myself. I didn't work out much at all for almost a month.
Now I'm back, though, and have been lifting heavy for about a week. I'm using a workout based on the October issue of Muscle Mag International's 3 on / 2 off MASS workout, but my gym isn't open on Sundays, my evening schedule is sporadic, and I can't work out in the morning because the workouts are too long, so I'm down to three days at about 1:45 each workout. This is not actually too bad for gaining mass, because I have a lot of recovery tie and it's too cold to bike right now.
Diet-wise, I've upped my calories by about 40%, having two to three 600-calorie gainers a day. There's virtually no sugar in my diet now, and I've almost completely cut out snacks.
Because I'm only on three days, I've moved the MASS wokout exercises into a total-body format -- I just wouldn't get the frequency I needed otherwise. Let's look:
All the exercises get 1-2 sets as a warm-up, then three sets of 8 reps heavy.
We did a week of testing on teh workout, as usual, but this past week was the first really heavy week.
Monday
Leg press 345kg 8 reps
Bench Press 110kg 8 reps
Barbell row 110kg 8 reps
Thursday
Squats 113kg 8 reps to the floor
Inclined bench 93kg 8 reps
DB rows 55kg 8 reps
Saturday
SLDL 153kg 8 reps
Dips 15kg 8 reps
Lat pull-downs 90kg 8 reps
Shoulder presses 60kg 8 reps
Last I mentioned, I was switching to high reps, trying to take some time off for my joints, hhen I just took some time off for myself. I didn't work out much at all for almost a month.
Now I'm back, though, and have been lifting heavy for about a week. I'm using a workout based on the October issue of Muscle Mag International's 3 on / 2 off MASS workout, but my gym isn't open on Sundays, my evening schedule is sporadic, and I can't work out in the morning because the workouts are too long, so I'm down to three days at about 1:45 each workout. This is not actually too bad for gaining mass, because I have a lot of recovery tie and it's too cold to bike right now.
Diet-wise, I've upped my calories by about 40%, having two to three 600-calorie gainers a day. There's virtually no sugar in my diet now, and I've almost completely cut out snacks.
Because I'm only on three days, I've moved the MASS wokout exercises into a total-body format -- I just wouldn't get the frequency I needed otherwise. Let's look:
| Body part | Monday | Thursday | Saturday |
| Legs | Leg presses Leg extensions | Free squats Leg curls | Stiff-legged deadlifts Calf raises |
| Chest | Straight bench presses | Inclined bench presses | Weighted dips |
| Back | Barbell rows (high) | Dumbbell rows (low) | Lat pull-downs |
| Shoulders | Upright rows | Dumbbell lateral raises | Free barbell shoulder presses |
| Arms | EZ bar curls EZ bar skull crushers | Seated dumbbell curls | Overhead dumbbell tricep extensions |
| Abs | Machine crunches |
All the exercises get 1-2 sets as a warm-up, then three sets of 8 reps heavy.
We did a week of testing on teh workout, as usual, but this past week was the first really heavy week.
Monday
Leg press 345kg 8 reps
Bench Press 110kg 8 reps
Barbell row 110kg 8 reps
Thursday
Squats 113kg 8 reps to the floor
Inclined bench 93kg 8 reps
DB rows 55kg 8 reps
Saturday
SLDL 153kg 8 reps
Dips 15kg 8 reps
Lat pull-downs 90kg 8 reps
Shoulder presses 60kg 8 reps
Monday, November 5, 2007
Evenings are so much better!
I had been working out in the morning due to time constraints, but that eased up lately. I enjoyed mornings because I had most of the equipment to myself.
Evenings, though, mean that I have plenty of energy to work out. Plus, there are a couple of new HUGE guys at our gym, and they make me want to push myself further than before. I watched them deadlift 200+ kilos last night. Envious!!
My heavy lifts are down a little from the month of high reps, but I'm doing hard five-day splits now.
Starting in December, I'm moving to the strict MASS program I got in my last issue of Muscle Mag International. It's Push/Pull/Legs. I'll post it later. I think this will be my last gain phase ever (I keep saying that), so I want to make it count. 10lbs of muscle in six weeks!
Evenings, though, mean that I have plenty of energy to work out. Plus, there are a couple of new HUGE guys at our gym, and they make me want to push myself further than before. I watched them deadlift 200+ kilos last night. Envious!!
My heavy lifts are down a little from the month of high reps, but I'm doing hard five-day splits now.
Starting in December, I'm moving to the strict MASS program I got in my last issue of Muscle Mag International. It's Push/Pull/Legs. I'll post it later. I think this will be my last gain phase ever (I keep saying that), so I want to make it count. 10lbs of muscle in six weeks!
Saturday, October 20, 2007
New Max Lifts
Today was Saturday, and I went to the gym to play around. I normally do very high-intensity workouts on Monday to Friday, keeping them at about an hour. I really miss the two and a half hour workouts I used to have in Thailand.
Anyway, I will sometimes train on Saturday and take my sweet time. I generally do whatever feels good or strikes my fancy on those days, trying out new exercises or routines. Today I decided (thirty minutes in) to test some max lifts.
Since I didn't have a spotter, I couldn't test the more dangerous ones like bench press and squat, so I did deadlifts, decline hammer presses, and leg presses. The results of my lifts were:
Decline Hammer Press: 160kg (+rack ~10kg) x 4 reps
Deadlift: 153kg x 1 rep (It took me two tries to get it)
Leg press: 330kg (+equipment ~25kg) x 6 reps
I was really excited about the totals earlier, but now I'm just in pain.
Anyway, I will sometimes train on Saturday and take my sweet time. I generally do whatever feels good or strikes my fancy on those days, trying out new exercises or routines. Today I decided (thirty minutes in) to test some max lifts.
Since I didn't have a spotter, I couldn't test the more dangerous ones like bench press and squat, so I did deadlifts, decline hammer presses, and leg presses. The results of my lifts were:
Decline Hammer Press: 160kg (+rack ~10kg) x 4 reps
Deadlift: 153kg x 1 rep (It took me two tries to get it)
Leg press: 330kg (+equipment ~25kg) x 6 reps
I was really excited about the totals earlier, but now I'm just in pain.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Holy Leg Pain, Batman!!!
45 deadlifts
45 Squats
45 Hack Squats
60 Calf Raises
40 Leg Curls
Oh, the pain! The Pain ....
Leg days suck, but they're awesome. What a contradiction.
45 Squats
45 Hack Squats
60 Calf Raises
40 Leg Curls
Oh, the pain! The Pain ....
Leg days suck, but they're awesome. What a contradiction.
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