Someday I Will Be Immortal

I don’t wanna come back down from this cloud

kongholiday — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 02:13:10 +0000

It’s a week into the 52 day challenge now and things are going pretty good for the most part. I’ve had some surprises both good and bad, so I’ve taken some time to reflect on the week and see how I can do better from here on out. Because that’s what it’s all about right? Bettering ourselves by learning from our past so we don’t continue the same mistakes over and over again. One of our hosts posted up the Tony Robbins quote that I really like “if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.” This goes along with another good quote from Einstein “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

It stands to reason that we would wish to repeat our best actions over and over again because we’ll continue to produce results. And we want to eighty-six those that are not moving us towards our goals. With these things in mind, I approached this weeks review.

The Good: I set a new personal record on squats today! I did 2×5 with 315 lbs. It’s the most I’ve ever squatted, and I wasn’t even sure if I’d be able to do it once. I’ve been a little reluctant to “go big” in the weight room especially on squats since I had a knee injury several years ago. I’ve had doctors tell me that the knee is fine and the ligaments are strong but there are times when it just doesn’t feel 100% to me. The other reason is, being a poor college student, I don’t have health insurance at the moment, and am scared of a hernia or some other injury that would require surgery. I don’t need that right now. But I digress, the good news here is I went hard and realize that I’ve gotten a LOT stronger on squats.
Other good items from this week:

No skipped workouts. I hit all 6 scheduled CT/RT sessions and even did another CT on my planned “rest” day.

No skipped classes. I’ve done this a lot in the past, and really wanted to this morning, but I dragged myself to class anyway! I HAVE to keep on top of this, it being my last semester!

The Bad:
3 Blown CE’s. All three were bad, unplanned cheats that were either from lack of planning, or lack of self control in social situations. You just can’t blow 3 CE’s in a week and expect to lose weight that way. That’s still eating right a majority of the time, but 3 cheats in a week will erase any caloric deficit you’ve created during the week FAST. I must, have to, will tighten up on these from here on out. I have to.

Needing to get to bed earlier. I just get too entrenched into my reading sometimes to put the book down and go to bed. I need to give myself a set bedtime and stick with it no matter what.

Other than that, the week went off pretty good. I’m excited to make the changes necessary to have a more successful week number two.

You’ve Gotta Promise Not To Stop When I Say When

kongholiday — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:28:09 +0000

A full blown cardio workout, that’s just as good as a 20 minute HIIT session, but in only 4 minutes? Yeah right. I’ll believe it when I see it. There’s no way a sufficient amount of ass can be kicked in just 4 minutes.

I was skeptical when I first read about Tabata, the “revolutionary” 4 minute workout from our friends over in Japan, which purportedly has the ability to replace the traditional long winded steady state cardio and even the ever so popular HIIT workouts. With a promise of even less time on the hamster machines, I was game to try it, but I wouldn’t believe it until I saw it in action.

I got on the elliptical machine, fully intending to supplement the Tabata workout with a free weight complex afterwards, and cranked the resistance of the machine up to the max. I set the timer for 6 minutes (figured a 1 minute warm up and cool down sounded sufficient for a 4 minute workout) and started warming up. At the one minute mark, I broke out into an all out sprint. Legs were going hard, arms pumping with the elliptical’s arms. At 1:20 I got a rest. For 10 seconds. Then I had to do it again, all out, pushing the machine and my body to their limits for another 20 seconds. And then a 10 second rest.

3 minutes into the workout, I started thinking I might not finish. Which I pushed out of my mind. “I can endure anything for 60 seconds.” And I did. I finished the Tabata protocol. Now I can’t honestly say whether it’s better than HIIT for burning calories and inducing EPOC. What I can definitively say is that it’s hard. Really hard. If you aren’t lying to yourself, and are actually going 100% during the work intervals, this will kick your butt. Anything less than 100% won’t do. I mean come on, if you’re only giving me 4 minutes, you can give me 100%.

On the way back to the locker room, my legs almost gave out on me going back down the stairs. It took a full 15 minutes before I could walk normally again. And even after getting dressed and sitting for a full 10 in the locker room my HR still seemed elevated to me.

You can read more about tabata here: http://www.tabataprotocol.com

The desert sky is their bluescreen

kongholiday — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:27:08 +0000

So the plan was to go through the spartacus workout yesterday, but I went to the gym and didn’t have my stopwatch with me so I chose to do Cosgrove’s “Evil 8″ Complex instead. The basic idea of the complex is to start with a lighter load on the bar and to do several exercises all in succession. Your hand position never changes, and what I like about Cosgrove’s complex is that the ending position for each lift is the starting position for the next one. So you start by doing 6 Deadlifts then roll into 6 romanian deadlifts, followed by 6 barbell rows, 6 power cleans, 6 front squats, 6 push presses, 6 standard back squats and finally 6 good mornings. You then get a full 90 seconds (!) to rest and then you have to do it again this time with 5 reps of each exercise. After another 90 seconds you repeat the complex with 4 reps and continue repeating the cycle down to one rep of each. The workout is to be used more as a cardio workout than a strength training workout, and I guarantee you it works!! You’ll be sweating, blacking out, wanting to puke before you’re done with this one. And it only takes about 10-12 minutes. That’s my kind of CT (though I did follow it up with a 10 minute jog on the dreadmill).

Read more about complexes here: http://www.tmuscle.com/readArticle.do?id=3281627

Currently reading Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. While I don’t agree with everything he says, he makes some good and interesting points about the impact of processed foods on our diets. I’ll most surely have more to say, maybe a full review, once I’ve finished the book.

A dream is what you wanna do, but still haven’t pursued

kongholiday — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:18:10 +0000

Today is the first day of the Winter 52 DC. I’ve set some pretty ambitious goals for myself because I’ve found in the past, that the harder my goals are the more it challenges me to rise to the occasion. I have big goals for my last semester in college, and getting myself into top shape is at the forefront. I’ve gone through several cycles of busting my ass, and then slacking off over the last few years and I’m going to end that right here. The next 52 days are going to be all out war. And what better way to prepare for war than the Spartacus Workout. This is by far the most sadistic workout I’ve yet to experience, but man is it fun. Check it out here:

http://www.menshealth.com/spartacus/workouts/

My challenge goals are:

CE: 97/104 (that’s a max of 1 cheat per week. I’m not fooling around here!)
RT: 21
CT: 21
PG1: 5% Weight Loss (11 lbs)
PG2: Read 8 books
PG3: 8 hours of sleep 42/52 times (this is going to be hard for me. It’ll mean bed before 2 am!)

Get ready because the next 52 days are going to be intense!

Gonna try with a little help from my friends

kongholiday — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:05:29 +0000

My friends the olympic barbell and plates that is.

Today was my first day back in the gym for a RT in a while. The gym here at school closes for two weeks over Christmas break and since I work for the school I was also off work those dates. I was going crazy with cabin fever since all my friends were also out of town.

So I started off with a light workout to get back into the flow of things:

2×15 Squat – 185 lbs
2×15 Neutral Grip Shoulder Press – 25lb dumbbells
2×15 Static Lunges – 35lbs
2×15 Dumbbell Rows – 60 lbs

I had intended on doing some other stuff too, but after I nearly blacked out on my last set of squats I figured that was probably enough to ease back into it for now. I look to have a better session on Thursday.