I hit the weights last night, man has my muscle density gone down.  I was struggling pretty good to get what used to be my mid range sets.  Think I pushed a little too hard…have this crazy kink in my neck.  I weighed myself today and I’m about 10lbs over my last recorded weigh in, which isn’t too bad considering how hard I’ve fallen off the wagon.

We’re back at it though, I’m still shooting for 100lbs over all by October…but am hoping for a bit more than that.

week 31 – 342 (with shoes and other gear on)

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I am pretty much done doing the modifications I can afford to the bike right now and she is purring like a kitten.  I’ve adjusted the smoker a bit and should be ready for a propane run this weekend.  Without these things to tinker with I am hoping to be able to find more motivation to get solid workouts in.  I have a few other things that need to be done around the house…but I can work that in around my working out.

I have maintained my weight through this dry spell, which is a bonus…but it’s not what I was hoping for coming in to this month.  I’ve set a high goal for myself for the end of May, and with hard work I believe it to be reachable.  I have a trip to the farm coming up…so that’s going to be a few days off from the normal routine, but I should be able to walk/run a bit out there to make up for it.  I’m going to try a little on the country road and see how that treats me.  If I can run a mile I’ll be pretty happy.

week 26 – 330

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This morning I hit the elliptical pretty hard and lifted afterward.  My arms haven’t lost anything, but my shoulders went down a little.  I’m going to work the weight training back in and see how that works out for me.  Not much else going on…need to find motivation.

Since I’ve stayed level for so long, it’s going to take a bit to get the body burning things the way it’s suppose to again.  I expect things to actually go up next week.  We’ll see I guess.

week 25 – 329

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The weekend was rough, in 4 days I got 2 workouts in for 40min each…I just had no motivation.  I think a lot of it comes from not seeing the drastic results now like I was before.  My clothes have fit pretty much the same for quite a while now, the scale went up (actually went down…but the psychological effect was “up”), and I’m getting irritated about not being able to eat whatever I want.  My knee is also turning into a larger problem.  It pops and snaps now anytime I straighten it out.  I wouldn’t call it painful yet, but there is a sensation from the pop.  It’s very similar to when you pop your knuckles, only it happens all the time.  It is a bit concerning.  I am holding out hope that I can drop weight and rehab it a bit, but more and more that seems like it’s only delaying the inevitable.  Surgery is seeming more and more like a foregone conclusion.  I think there’s been too much weight on it for too long.  Hopefully I can drop weight and build strength back in the knee quickly enough that it doesn’t impact the other one.  I’m hoping to have a doc look at it the beginning of next year and if something needs to be done to it have it worked on in the spring.  I don’t want to struggle with crutches on the ice, and I want to make sure I have a solid healthy foundation to try and work through the down time.

The knee issue is really a downer.  To come to terms with the idea that allowing myself to get this/that large and now when I’m working to get down to a reasonable shape only to be hampered by an “injury” that I caused to myself because of the weight is quite depressing (follow all that?).  I’ve always been a firm believer that it’s a weak mind that allows a person to be overcome by depression.  Certainly it will hit you from time to time and you will feel down, but I think you can work through it and deal with the feelings in a reasonable logical manner.  Lets not turn this into a discussion on depression, I’m not talking about some clinically diagnosed chemical imbalance type depression here…I’m talking about the “poor me, my life sucks, I’m ugly” type pussy depression. In an effort to work through this “pussy depression” I decided to spend a couple hours at the gym last night and horse through whatever mental blocks I might have going on.  I also drug myself out of bed this morning and made it to the gym (where I was punished by the talky-talkertons) for an hour worth of elliptical.  I feel much better about the day when I get up and work out…but the bed is so warm and comfortable.  I’m not going to declare victory yet…I still have a long ways to go…but I think this “push through it pussy” mentality will help in the long run.

I’ve decided to adjust my weight lifting routine yet again.  The Monday/Wednesday/Friday thing isn’t working out very well for me.  I think I’m lifting more on the two power days, but I’m not seeing where the “cardio lifting” is helping at all.  I might as well spend that time on the elliptical.  Also, I noticed that lifting less has actually increased my strength better than when I was going every other day.  This makes no sense to me, but it’s supported by my observations.  I’ve also been doing some research online and listening to “David” on the Lex & Terry show Monday mornings.  He’s a former running back for the Rams who is now a personal trainer.  I’m a L&T disciple so my opinion is a bit shaded, but this guy had a 3.x% body fat measurement all through college so it seems like he knows what he’s doing.  Also, something that caused me to give him some more credit, when asked on the show about what to eat he gives general advise but always refers people to a nutritionist or Dr.  That to me says he’s on the up and up instead of trying to come off like someone who knows everything that’s best for you.  This past Monday he said on there that it’s not a good idea to do triceps and biceps on days you do chest…which makes sense.  The routine they had us on in high school (if you want to call it that) did all upper body except triceps and biceps on “upper” days with those muscles on “lower” days…along with legs ect.  So what I’ve decided to do is chest, back and shoulders Monday and Thursday with Triceps and Biceps on Tuesday and Friday.  This should speed up the lifting portion, giving me more time for cardio, and also get a better workout on each of the muscle groups.

I’ve said before that I’ve only been focusing on the upper body during my weight routine because of this damn knee.  I’ve noticed over the past couple of weeks that the elliptical seems to be doing a fairly decent job of building some muscle on my legs.  I’m doing 20min interval followed by 40min weight loss, no break between and both at level 10.  I sweat like a pig during this session so it must be doing something.  I’m drinking tons of water and pissing constantly so it should be working it’s way through my system.  There is a strength training routine on there that I might look at sometime this summer.  We’ll have to see how it goes.

I’ve mentioned before that I am using both the livestrong.com and mobile fitness sites to track workouts, consumption and progression.  I ended up paying for a year subscription to both sites.  The livestrong site is good and if it allowed me to track individual workout stats that would be the only one I would need…but it doesn’t.  Mobile Fitness is O.K., originally I picked it up because of the blackberry app but that didn’t work out so well.  I was a bit too lazy to try to find something better and ended up sticking with it.  As I was adjusting my workouts today I came across a section of suggested workouts.  I don’t know a whole lot about this stuff other than what I have just accepted as true in high school and college.  Most of the workouts I’ve seen hit one muscle group per day per week.  There are usually days off as well which has always seemed counter intuitive to me.  Several of the workouts I looked at were for only 3 days a week.  Naturally different workouts have different goals, and if you don’t want to bulk up I could see how 3 days would be decent, but I want to build muscle not just tone.  One workout I saw which immediately seemed pretty lame was the “superhero body routine”.  It’s a pretty stupid name but after looking it over it seems pretty intense.  It’s an 8 week routine that is designed to give you that superhero body.  I’m going to look at doing this workout when I’m more satisfied with my weight.  If I get down to 270 or so before the end of my year of working out I’ll probably kick this in to gear.  It would work out best in my sched over Sept/Oct as I don’t have a whole lot of travel planned for that time.  During the other months a guy might head to the farm for a few days or something and screw up the routine.  I still think cardio is going to be key, and will have to implement 30-60 min worth of elliptical/treadmill a day.  Hopefully by the time I’m more satisfied with my bulk I’ll be able to do the leg portion of the workout.  I’ll paste the workout at the end of this entry so you can see for yourself what it contains.  It seems really interesting to me that it focuses on one muscle group per day per week and it also gives you two days off from weight training.

Something else that I’ve known but has really come to light since I’ve been using livestrong is how much of a nose dive my eating habits take on Friday’s and Saturday’s.  Sunday usually isn’t too bad, but you can bet that a guy will go out on either Fri or Sat (if not both) and get carried away.  That might be O.K. when I’m down to where I want to be, but as I’m working to get there it’s really unacceptable.  I’ll need to focus a bit more on these days and see what I can do to bring them more in line with every other day.  It’s all about will power and understanding that the reward will come later.  Thinking that you “had a good week” and can attack the Chinese food or pizza with reckless abandon is not helping anything.  Working the plan is key.

Superhero Body Routine

Day 1: Shoulders and Traps

• Shoulder: Behind neck overhead press
• Shoulder: Dumbbell Standing Upright Row
• Shoulder: Dumbbell Lateral Raise
• Shoulder: Dumbbell Lying Rear Lateral Raise
• Tricep: Barbell Shrug
• Tricep: Dumbbell Shrug

Day 2: Legs and Calves

• Quads: Barbell Full Squat
• Quads: Machine Leg Extension
• Hamstrings: Barbell – Romanian Deadlift
• Hamstrings: Machine – Lying Leg Curl
• Calves: Standing Calf Raise
• Calves: Seated Calf Raise

Day 3: Back

• Pull Ups Front
• Wide-Grip Bent Over Row
• Wide Grip Front PullDown
• Cable Seated Row
• Straight Arm Pulldown

Day 4: Chest and Abs

• Chest: Barbell Incline Bench Press
• Chest: Dumbbell decline bench press
• Chest: Dumbbell Flyes Incline
• Chest: Machine Pec Dec
• Chest: Barbell Bench Press
• Abs: Reverse Crunches
• Abs: Oblique crunch
• Abs: Cable Crunch

Day 5: Triceps, Biceps, Forearms

• Tricep: Barbell – Close Grip Bench Press
• Tricep: Cable Tricep Pushdown
• Tricep: Barbell – Close Grip Bench Skull Crusher
• Bicep: Barbell Curl
• Bicep: Dumbbell Incline Curls
• Bicep: Preacher Curl Close Grip
• Forearm: Dumbbells Palm UP Wrist Curl
• Forearm: Dumbbells Palm Down Wrist Curl

Day 6 and Day 7: – Relax and Eat Healthy!

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The weekend didn’t work out so hot for me.  I had a good time, but I consumed a bit too much and didn’t work out as much as I would have liked to.  I got 30min in on Saturday, but the elliptical was quite a bit different than the one I’m used to.  The one’s at snap seem to simulate a cross country skiing type motion but the ones at the hotel simulate a running motion.  I couldn’t get the motion down and didn’t really get the work out I would have liked.  I also credit this new motion for putting stress on my knee that I wasn’t used to.  That along with the plethora of steps at the sporting events really fubar’d my knee.  I didn’t work out on Sunday, I was lazy…all my fault.  Can’t blame anyone or anything else.

I posted on fb about the couple of nagging “hurts” (I can’t classify them as injuries yet), my wrist and my knee.  I can’t do much about my knee, but I can help my wrist a bit.  I blogged a little bit ago about those lifting gloves I bought with the wrist straps.  Before I started lifting I tightened up the straps and made sure it came across the part of my wrist area where my hand would rest on the straps while I’m working out.  To my surprise, this helped immensely.  I didn’t even notice any twinges at all.  I pushed 275 for 8 reps this morning.

I need to rededicate myself to this workout routine.  I’ve been getting a solid work out in each day, but my two a days are not happening.  My goal this week is to hit 2 a day every day.  We’ll see how it goes.

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I have been using the gymtechnik website to track workouts, and it’s pretty good overall.  I had tried their BB app, and it was slow and shitty.  I ended up subscribing to the site though so I could track my workouts the way I wanted to.  The free options only gave you the ability to track one work out a day, and with me doing multiple work outs with multiple exercises I needed the pay setup.

A guy at work turned me on to the livestrong.com website.  This site allows you to track your workouts to some extent, but the strength of this site is how it guides you along your path.  When you setup your profile you put in your height and weight, chose your activity level and then tell it what your goal is.  I said “lose 5lbs a week”.  The site told me I would be able to consume 1307 calories and lose 5lbs a week…

1307 calories sounds like a ridiculously low amount to eat during the day, and when I started adding up what I do eat it blows that number out of the water.  The other side of the site though is your workout routine.  You enter what you’ve done (bike, elliptical, treadmill, lifting…etc) the time and so forth and it figures out what kind of calories you would burn during your fitness routine or you can free form it.  From a simple equation using your calories consumed and your calories burnt it shows you your calorie balance for the day.

What sucks about the site is there is no way to track individual exercises.  On the gymtechnik site I am able to track how one session of lifting or cardio compares to another…there’s no real good way to do that (that I can see) on the livestrong site.  If it had that feature, I could see myself using it exclusively.  The way it stands though, I’ll be using both sites until my gymtechnik subscription expires.  At that point I’ll probably track my weight training in a spread sheet.

I don’t think this site is “accurate” as far as the numbers are concerned.  I do think it’s ball park…but there is really no way to measure with any amount of certainty what it is telling you.  What it is doing for me though is making me more aware of what I am consuming on a daily basis and how that relates to my goal and my workout routine.

We’ll see how it goes, free to try and it’ll keep 45days of data.  If it seems helpful to me I’ll pay for a year subscription.  It’s worth helping them out a bit with some scratch if it helps me out.

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I’ve changed my workout routine a bit based on some stuff I’ve read online and the way I’ve felt after working out.  I missed lifting a couple of times and I noticed that when I came back to the gym I felt stronger and was able to get a better workout in.  I read some about lifting for weight loss, and in the 7 day regimen it had 1 day of heavy lifting and 1 day of light lifting.  This didn’t seem quite right to me, so I decided to modify things a little bit.  I am lifting on Monday, Wednesday and Friday…with Monday’s and Friday’s being “power” lifting days, Wednesday is a “wight lifting for fat loss” day…longer reps, less sets at lower weight.

According to my workout calendar I’ve been doing Mon, Wed, Fri for 3 weeks and the adjusted power lifting/weight loss routine for a week.  Monday and Friday felt really freekin good…and Wed was just O.K.  I’ve never really got much out of the high reps, less weight/sets routine.  Studies say it is the way to go for weight loss, the main goal being to get your heart rate up and keep it up.

I’ve also been doing interval training on the elliptical…OMG that is a bitch.  I’m soaked afterwards and my legs are jelly for a couple min…so it must be doing what the Dr ordered.  I jacked that up to lvl 10 and do a round of weight loss on lvl 10 afterwards.  I’m hoping to hit 40min of interval here shortly.

I’m toying with stepping in to the octagon in 18 months…we’ll have to see how this training goes…but I’m hoping to look like this when I do…

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I think I posted on here earlier about how I’m looking to adjust my weight lifting…and I’ve decided to tweak it yet again!  Instead of going from a strength training routine to a weight loss routine, I’m going to split the difference a bit.  I’m still going to lift Mon, Wed and Fri…but on Mon and Fri I’m going to be “power” lifting, and on Wed I’m going to do a weight loss routine.  I think this will get me closer to the results I’m looking for.  I like seeing big numbers on the weight exercises but I also need to balance that out with some more cardio.

The elliptical is going much better than I expected it would.  I’m going to look at either bumping up the resistance or switching to interval training.  From what I’ve heard from another guy working interval, that really seems to be the way to go.  I’ll see about giving that a shot this afternoon/evening.  I’m putting out about 3 miles an hour on that thing so far…which doesn’t seem to bee IMO.

The time of day really seems to effect my workouts.  The prime time for me to go is after breakfast but before lunch.  I noticed yesterday and have observed on the weekends that if I hit this window it seems like I am able to work harder for longer on both cardio and weight training.  In the late afternoon and early mornings my body feels more tired than it does in this small window.  This summer I might try to still get up at 5, but eat something and generally kill about an hour…then go work out..then clean up for work.  I’m hoping this will provide a little extra push that I’ll need to get over the hump I expect to be on by that time.

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In an effort to speed up some weight loss and get down to the results I’m shooting for, I’ve decided to change my work out routine a bit.  Instead of lifting every other day, I’m going to lift on Mon, Wed and Friday.  I’m also going to reduce the amount of sets and increase the amount of reps.  Instead of 4 sets of 8, I’m going to be done 3 sets of 10.  When you look at total reps, it’s only a decrease of 2, but over all it should help me tone and lean up some muscle a bit.  It also has the added benefit of speeding up my lifting routine a bit, this morning it must have cut about 20 min off my time.

I’m doing this because I’m satisfied with my strength, and while I would like to maintain it I don’t want to get really bulky.  I don’t think I would get to “roid freak” status…but I do think I would get a little more bulky than I would like if I maintain this pace for a year.  I would like to keep my muscles the size they are now…but get them a bit more solid.  I really want to hit the cardio a bit more…I think at this age and what I’m doing in life, cardio will help me far more than huge muscles.

We’ll roll with this a bit and see how it works out.  My previous routine helped me build the muscle fairly fast…now I need to maintain and lean out.

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I had been noticing for a little bit that my hands get dirty when I use some of the machines.  I had seen several guys there with those weight training gloves, and I figured I could get a pair of those to keep my hands clean.  I went to scheels and “shopped” a bit.

I didn’t have a whole lot of options right off the bat.  The cheap gloves ran small and the XL were -really- tight on my hands.  There were a couple in size XL that seemed to fit O.K., but not great.  They wanted $30 bucks for them, and at that price I wanted to make sure I had a good fit.  Just as I was about to give up, I noticed one of the brands ran just a bit bigger than the rest of them.  I tried them on, and noticed they had the wrist straps with them…I wasn’t sure exactly what that would do but I figured I’d give it a go.  $20 bucks wasn’t too bad a price.

Today was the first lifting day after I had bought the gloves.  I was really surprised what a difference they make.  The wrist strap provided quite a load of support.  I wouldn’t say my wrists were sore while benching, but they did “pop” occasionally. Using those braces really made a big difference.  Moving around to different exercises and different equipment I noticed a real difference.  It was easier to hold on to the equipment, and my hands didn’t get calloused like they have been.  Not that callouses are a bad thing, but if a guy can avoid it…why not?

Overall if you are seriously lifting I think they are worth the investment.

Harbinger 1250 Training Grip WristWrap Glove

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