I have to say thanks to everyone who has posted, read, or told me in person, that they enjoy reading this. It isn't all that easy for me to be doing, since who really wants admit openly that they haven't exercised enough and eat badly/too much? I guess I have always felt like if I talked about how out of shape I was, then it would call attention to it, (as if looking like I swallowed a pygmy wasn't apparent unless I talked about it). Like there was some spell that that kept it hidden from everyone, and if I talked about all it of a sudden the illusion was broken, when really the spell was just in my head. If I didn't talk about it, it wasn't there for me to see.
The second part about this being a bit of a challenge, is that writing, and having other people see it, has always made me a bit uncomfortable. Doing anything creative, and showing it to people has always made me more uncomfortable than anything. I am less uncomfortable naked, than letting anyone read anything I write.
Now that I have those two issues out of the way, I can think a lot clearer about what I have to do. Writing this blog is a great way for me to organize myself, and break what I have done/have to do, into manageable chunks. Today I am going to post what my workouts are as well as what I ate for the day. I thought about not doing this because it occured to me, "who gives a shit what you eat for the day?", then I realized I don't care if it's boring, it's a good way for to me see it laid out next to writing about it. The synthesis of doing and expressing, and seeing those together, has to get a couple of new synapses firing. So in the interest of the mind body connection here is my food intake for the day, and a rough sketch of my workout.
Ball squats, with curl and press: 3 sets of 15 reps using 20lb weights
Seated Calf raises: 3 sets of 15-20 reps using 80lbs (he isn't dropping his heels far enough by the way)
Back ext cybex: 3 sets of 20 using 155lbs
Cybex chest press: 3 sets of 15-20 using 80lbs
Cable upright row: 3 sets of 12 using 50lbs
Dumb bell row: 3 sets of 12-15 using 30lbs
Swiss ball crunches: 3 sets of 30
Cable torso twist: 3 sets of 12 with 50lbs
Sorry if some of these have ads before them; I tried to avoid that as much as possible.
After this is done, it's 5 miles on the treadmill.
Today is a good day to for me to really beat myself up. Since I took yesterday completely off and I feel great. The thing I have been slacking on is stretching. I do stay for about 10 minutes after my workout and stretch, but I don't do enough after I get home, or on my rest days. That being said, I am going to stretch for a bit before I have to catch the bus to get the gym. Let's see how I feel tonight after I get home. I will make sure to write it down, so tune in tonight, at the same bat-time on the same bat-channel (This doesn't really make sense, but I watched some clips of old the old Batman t.v. show today and I couldn't help it).
3 comments:
One of my issues with yoga classes are that they go through everything too fast, so when I started working out regularly last spring, stretching became my favorite part of the routine. I could take my time, relax all my muscles, feel them burning with the workout I'd just finished, and hold the poses as long as I felt necessary. I had to plan for about 45 minutes of stretching after my workout, because that was the pace that satisfied me the most. Also, if your gym has a sauna or anything like that, I highly recommend it. Nothing like some good heat to sweat out the toxins and help the healing/strengthening process.
Keep it up!! :)
Nice man, I'm sure you're seeing results instantly. That's basically what I was doing 5 days a week and it worked rather well.
Is your goal to build muscle mass (with the added benefit of burning more calories at rest)? After a diverse daily workout like yours I hit a plateau... you know, like where the muscles stopped being sore so they probably weren't growing. This dude who was a high school coach back home got me on a program where you pick 5 muscles (we've been doing chest-shoulders-biceps-triceps-back) and you beat it up until it's taffy. It seems to work pretty well.
Good to hear, man. Oh, and I don't know what kind of diet you're on, but after I lost 40 pounds they gave me my yearly blood test here and I had high cholesterol (from reducing carbs and replacing it with meat).
I've since decided to replace meat with tofu. We'll see how that goes.
I've gained 10+ pounds since I quit smoking and stopped running. You're giving me motivation, man.
Thanks Rachel, I need to start putting that kind of time into stretching. And is this you Mike? I can't tell. As for the muscle mass thing, I am generally just going for toning and strengthening and building up endurance. I have been switching it up often, and hopefully prolonging any upcoming plateau.
That's good to know about the meat and Cholesterol. I have been using whey protein a lot lately, and this product called Vega, which is a plant based protein shake.
I have heard from a few people that this is helping motivating them, and that was wholly unexpected. I think thats great. The more people tell me that, the more motivated I am, and hopefully that will keep coming around.
Post a Comment