Side By Side

It's funny when you look back and THANK GOD you made the right choices.

26:35

Chantal I’m dedicating this 5K to you. Everyone’s talking about this 5K run, so I figured I’d give it a try. I never run on the treadmill. I always beat myself up on the elliptical machine. Anyhow, Tuesday, I decided to try it. I put it on the 5K loop on the treadmill. I set it up like this. Speed 7.0 and incline at 1.0.  At the 2-mile point I was dying. I quit and walked about another lap or so and waddled to the locker room in disgust. At noon today I figured I would try it again. All I was shooting for was to get a little bit further than I did Tuesday. My calves are killing me from Monday’s standing calf raises. I know quit whining and get back to the story.  When I hit the 2-mile point, I really wanted to quit again. I just kept thinking keep going and quit looking at the controls. It started getting easier after that. My legs were starting to get numb and boosted the speed to 7.5 for the last quarter lap. I finished at 26:35. I almost did that Tarzan yell, but I figured the older lady in front of me would think I was a dork. I’m pretty proud of myself, and my calves really hurt now. My next goal is 26:00. I think I’ll attempt that next Tuesday. Ciao

Getting dressed; a workout?

The side effects of building muscle hit me this morning while I was getting ready for work. For the last few weeks, I’ve been wearing shorts to work. (You know those tan dressy shorts) Short guys like me look pretty ridiculous in shorts but its way to hot not to. Anyhow, my weight loss has me wearing size 29-30 waist shorts. Well this morning, I was having a hard time getting my shorts pass my thighs. It was a pretty funny sight I imagine.

On another note, this Waterbury workout is a killer. Today, which was day two, week 3, made me feel like I ran a marathon.  The weighted burpees are nuts. It’s where you hold two dumbbells in each hand and do a burpee.  I did three sets; 15 reps of those.  If you get a chance look at what day 3-week 3 looks like. I’m going to die on that day I believe. If I live through it I’ll let you know. Ciao

I'm Here To Make It Easy

People have been asking me about my workouts. I designed workout sheets for the Waterbury Summer Project.  I only have week 1-4 done at this time. I will finish the remaining 4 very soon. These are in .pdf format so you can print them out as they are.
You will notice where the rest periods lay. The way this workout runs is; you do A1 and A2 then rest. You go to B1 to B2 then rest. It makes sense when you look at it. If the rep says 6 and the load is 8, that means the weight is 2 shy of your max rep. The exercises that have a / between them means or. The first exercise on week one is different. You do a hang clean then go into a squat. Please ask me if you have any questions.
WEEK ONE
WEEK TWO
WEEK THREE
WEEK FOUR

Back At It!!

I couldn’t wait any longer so I worked out yesterday. My chest was still a little sore but manageable. The workout was a circuit. The set consisted of 2:00 minute intervals at 25% of you R.M. I had to complete a circuit of 3.  I’m not sure what my R.M. is so; I make an uneducated guess and put on a comfortable weight. I didn’t want to overdo it by any means. The set were 2:00 minutes of dead lifts, push-ups, squats, and lat-pulls. When I got to the squats I couldn't do it. I could really feel the pain of stretching my arms over the bar. It was pulling my ribs to far apart. So I substituted decline leg press instead. Good call on my part. That was a tough and really fun workout. The push-ups did a little damage but it was manageable.  It felt awesome to be back in the gym.

My Diagnosis

The Diagnosis is costochondritis.  My doctor is Asian and doesn’t speak English very well; so watching him try to say this word for me was just funny. He seemed very interested in my involvement with pools. He couldn’t wait to drop my problem and get on with his. Apparently, his wife and him argue about the solar panels and their life span and he wanted me to give him an answer that justified his side. I won’ be lifting weights for a while and that is a major bummer. I went and did 35 minutes on the elliptical today and sat in the gym locker grimacing in pain. That 450 calories I burned really hurt a lot!

There is a guy in my gym that is a real big inspiration I remember when I was pretty over-weight, I thought I could never obtain the kind of body this guy has. He is one of those guys that every guy would like to be. The guy is built like Tarzan and has the nicest and most genuine attitude that is a rare thing these days.  I haven’t seen him in a long time and today he was there. I guess he’s had some problems and now he’s back to cause havoc with the weights again.

I want to give Eileen a big shout out for visiting my blog. I haven’t thanked her yet and she deserves my deepest gratitude. Thank you Eileen!

AAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Last Monday I was on my last workout and I blew it. I’ve been feeling so good that I miscalculated my limit. I was doing weighted dips. I usually put 70# on the belt and this day I put 80#. I finished my 4 sets of six, but felt something go a little haywire in my chest. I finished my workout and didn’t heed my body’s warning.  I think Friday was the day I sunk the last nail in my coffin. I did something like 180 push-ups and I believe that was when the worm turned. I was taking a shower afterward and my chest hurt so bad I could barely breathe. All I could think of was “Hurry with the shower cause I don’t want to die naked in the gym’s shower.” It was pretty scary.  I decided to go ahead and try to workout today. I got about 1/3 through and just couldn’t continue. I haven’t quit on a workout yet until today.   This is pretty upsetting. I set up a Doctor’s Appt. for tomorrow and I’ll find out what the deal is. I would have to say the moral of the story is…don’t be stupid.

Team Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

I think were gonna win, win, win! I'm just talking tracker trash.

Anyway back to me. ha I just finished week 1 of the Waterbury project. I think I damaged something in my chest because it hurts to breathe. (a little) It's probably because I did about 180 push-ups yesterday. If you can see the form on the earlier post you'll see what I mean. I took a vic*din last night so I could sleep. I'm much better now. I went pretty hard on the elliptical this morning and that felt great! You guys and gals have a wonderful week and stay focused. (unlike me :)

Friday was a Tuffy

Wow, yesterday was a brutal gym experience. I had set out a plan to follow and, as always, I change it. Sometimes on Fridays, I make the workouts a little harder because I know I have two days to recover. Instead of doing my set routine I took all sets to failure. I bumped all the weight loads up to an uncomfortable and sometime scary amount. For instance, I put two 35 lb plates on the preacher bar and did preacher curls. I did 10x10x6. I usually don’t curl this much-let alone preacher curl it. I could hear pops and tendons creaking with each pull. Maybe someone can tell me what the gym preacher bar weighs by itself, than I’ll know what my total load was.  I’m starting Waterbury’s summer program Monday. As usual I went all out and made up new forms for it. I think I do this to help motivate me, plus I like to be organized in the gym. I’m sure some of the other lifters think I’m pretty anal about all this logging in my journal, but oh well. If any of you want this new form I can send it to you in .pdf format.

If you’re into really hard-core lifting you may want to check out this site. They have tons of videos to watch. These guys, gals, and kids even, lift some very impressive weight.

A couple links of interest

Hey Guys and Gals. I was really interested in joining this gym. Well, until I found out it was 75.00 a month. The price is little too steep for me (my wife).  If I could get it past the wife, I’d do it. BodyTribe Gym Anyhow, you women might like this gals’ website. She seems really knowledgeable concerning women and weightlifting. Stumptuous

What I Eat.

My typical daily meal is so normal in the BFL world I'm sure this wont be of any surprise.

Breakfast: 1/2 cup oatmeal,with 1/3 cup blueberries(yummy),1 scoop of MAX Muscle's High 5.(french Vanilla flavor), 1 TBL spoon of ground flax seed, 1/3 cup skim or low fat milk. I mix it up and I'm in Heaven

Meal #2 (snack) Low fat cottage cheese w/ pineapple, 1/3 cup almonds, water

Lunch: Ezekiel 4:9 wheat bread with turkey,ham, or chicken with lemonaise(from whole foods market) spread, yogurt yoplait light, protein drink.

Meal #4 (snack) Protein shake, whatever else I can think of. This usually varies depending where I am or how much time I have.

Dinner: Chicken with a good for me marinade, half of a bake potato with budder buds.(pttthhh) green salad or greens of some kind. You get the point.

Meal#6 Smoothy..1 scoop protein powder, fat free milk, fruit, 2 tblespoons of natural peanut butter(yummy)4 cubes of ice.

Well it's week 8 of my TBT.

That means I'm actually done. I'm going to create another 4 weeks worth of hell for myself so I can claim I finished another 12 weeker. Some people have asked me about this workout of mine so I'll show you an example. I've got 8 weeks worth of this stuff. If you are reading this and are interested in this form of working out let me know and I'll send the workouts to you(no charge) You should have Micro-softy Excel on your computer.Be sure you click on the picture to see it in all it's glory.