Super-Mega-Ultra-Cardiovascular-Fat-Burning-Update of Doom November 7, 2007
Posted by Jeff in Boxing, Cardio, Exercise Program, Fitness.Tags: Boxing, Cardio, Fatty McGee, gym, heavy bag, pop, soda, target pads, Weights
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I made it to the gym last night, after missing both times last week, making me feel a bit like Fatty McGee again. I’m getting a cold, so I didn’t swim and I was a bit “woozy”. However, I managed to get a decent workout in, even if it was off track for my circuit training.
I started out with 10 minutes light cardio on a bike, then did some Iron Crosses with Scott and Ken. 10lbs is about my limit, my right arm could do more but my left shoulder is still weak from last winters spectacular skiing crash. The Crash of 2006 you could call it.
I did military presses (20lbs) and incline presses (20) and seated rows (45).
I then took a break and did a couple minutes of target pads with Ken. I’m really loving the target pads, havn’t had them since boxing so long ago – great cardio workout. The everlast gloves I bought that work like handwraps are stellar – they are quick to put on, quick to take off, and have nice foamy-gelly-paddy stuff over your knuckles – allowing you to do pads and bag work and stuff without a dire need for bag gloves – which I’m still going to buy a pair next spending money time.
I’m already thinking about where I can put a speed bag and heavy bag in my house – no good ideas yet.
On the Soda Challenge – well, I’m covered in loser-sauce. I managed it for a couple of weeks, but now I’m back to drinking Pepsi probably once or twice a week on average. Still not bad, but not meeting the challenge requirements.
[[With all this talk of boxing, I'm wondering if Mr. James-ey boy is jealous yet.!?!]]
My Goals October 3, 2007
Posted by Jeff in Diet, Exercise Program, Fitness.Tags: Diet, Fitness, goals, healthy
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My goals are threefold I think.
1) Lose Weight.
This should really be expressed as lose body fat. I don’t worry much about my weight (currently 183lbs) as I do about getting my body fat down. My target weight is 165, +/- 5 lbs. However, if I stay how heavy I am and lose my fat, I’m still a happy camper.
2) Tone Muscle
I want my muscle to look better. This is partly losing body fat, and partly sculpting larger muscles. This counts everywhere, abs, back, chest (especially), arms etc.
3) Improve Posture
I plan to do this partly by strengthening my muscles, partly by stretching, and partly by attempting to adopt better posture in my day to day life.
Where I am Now.
I am 183 lbs, give or take. I wear a size 34 waist. I have man-boobs and a gut. This all needs to be fixed. This blog is my motivation to do so. If something I’ve written strikes home – do yourself two favours.
1) Build yourself a simple easy to follow fitness plan. Copy mine if you like – I don’t care.
2) Attempt to eat healthier. This doesn’t mean a diet – but attempt to fix imbalances in your diet, attempt to eat more lean protien, more raw and undercooked veggies, and consume less fat and refined carbohydrates like sugar and white bread.
After you’ve done those two things for a while you should be able to make some bigger changes, but I’m betting just those two will set you on your way to feeling better about yourself.
Tuesday Gym Review October 3, 2007
Posted by Jeff in Exercise Program, Weights.add a comment
Awesome gym night. One of the cool things is that Sami is recording House and NCIS on DVD for me so that I have more motivation to get to the gym – I just get to watch them time shifted when I get home. Who would have thought TiVo type devices would be partly responsible for me getting more fit.
I managed my circuit twice tonight. It felt good to be doing it and I had plenty of energy so I bumped up my schedule and did it through again. Of course, I’m still not doing dead lifts (back) or crunches (abs) due to doctors orders. She says my scars are not pliable enough yet for me to be doing strenuous ab or back exercises – however, my core is getting a workout just from my elliptical running and my free weight balancing. I hope.
I’ll be upping my military press and my incline press next time, from 15 to 20 lbs. I need to start hitting the weight if I want to bulk up at all (which isn’t my primary goal). And I need to watch my diet. In that regard I had a can of tuna and a glass of milk when I got home. Extra protein does a body good.
Oops. October 2, 2007
Posted by Jeff in Diet, Exercise Program, Fitness, Site Updates, Supplements.Tags: hydroxycut, Supplements, workout
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I had two cups of orange soda on Sunday. I was helping friends moved and chose Orange Crush over milk or water.
I guess I’m made of fail. Oh well, still going to keep going with my soda-less diet as well as possible.
I have been making a conscious effort to eat a little healthier. Not a diet – I’d never stick to it. Just making more sensible choices, like salad instead of fries when possible, or a chicken burger instead of a BigMac etc. I’ve also been eating my tuna (canned, in water) when I get back from the gym if it isn’t too late, and taking Hydroxycut again.
The Hydroxycut has a bunch of stuff, going to do a post on that. I’m not good at taking it regularly, but it is a energy booster and appetite reducer. It works ok it seems, no noticeable negative side effects – I’ll decide whether to continue with such supplements when I’m done this bottle, this was from long before when I was at the gym.
I also put up static pages for my workout partners, they aren’t updated but will be soon. Scott comes regularly with me to the gym, and Chris tries. Ken hopefully will be too – he’s back from basic with the Canadian Military – he didn’t meet requirements to fit into armoured soldier – he’ll be re-applying after his minimum time has run out.
Allergies? September 26, 2007
Posted by Jeff in Exercise Program, Sicko!.Tags: allergies, circuit training, doctor, emergency, hospital, sick, workout
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Yesterday about 11am I felt like I had something stuck in my throat, while I was on the phone with a customer. After hanging up it wouldn’t go away, I went into the bathroom to cough. The coughing turned into puking, with blood and of course insulation from blowing in the crawlspace this weekend.
My coworker Vijay took me to the hospital emergency room, and they found my throat was swelling, so they gave me a big needle of benedryl. It seemed to do it’s job, and I could soon enough breathe normally. I went to see my Dr. after, and she figures it was an allergic reaction of some sort, but I wasn’t stung, and didn’t eat anything or inhale anything that I can imagine causing a reaction to me, especially as I’ve never been allergic to anything like that in the past.
Needless to say, it was a bit scary, but since I’m well known at emerge it wasn’t too bad. I got to see Lori’s mom. ;)
That meant I missed my gym day yesterday, so it’s going to throw off my schedule this week. I’ll go tonight instead, but that means I’ll probably move my thursday workout to friday to give me a day off in between. Maybe not though, we’ll see how it goes.
Tonight will be attempt two at my circuit training routine. I found some new exercises I can add in my copy of Men’s Health too, in the Jason Statham article. So after a couple months I have some extras to rotate in and change up my workout.
Gym Update September 22, 2007
Posted by Jeff in Exercise Program.3 comments
My first circuit night went well. The circuit is tough, and really works me. However, it goes fast, and since you don’t do one set, wait then another set, you can have mulitple people doing it at once. I think that’ll be handy.
It’s quick too, as you only do 12 reps and then move on to the next exercise, and there’s only 10 or so in my list. Scott has two more than me, and we’ve both added some things we like. I’m going to be adding 1 or 2 1 minute rounds on the heavy bag once I get bag gloves and wraps again.
Scott is letting me post his weights and routine too, I’ll have mine up soon so I can edit them. I think I’ll do them as static pages that we can update as we see fit. I want to get Chris on the same routine, it seems like a good all-around gym routine, that should put some mass on Chris and get him moving.
If any of you (James, Greg etc…) want to edit this to put your own stuff up, or post your own routines and weights and stuff, let me know and it can be arranged…very easily. It’s good motivation.
New Circuit Training Routine September 21, 2007
Posted by Jeff in Exercise Program, Fitness, New Idea.add a comment
Here is the rough out of my new circuit training routine. It’s from the current copy of Maximum Fitness and is developed by some wrestling guy called Batista. He looks sort of tough.
I’m going to try it for about 2 or 3 months, and see how it works. The idea is that you don’t do traditional cardio, you get your heart rate up by repetitive strength training, taking almost no time between sets and doing sets of 12 reps. To start off you do the circuit once per gym trip, after a while you up it to 2 or 3 times per trip.
Here is the layout, I’ll fill in the weights and notes as I try it out tonight.
Circuit Routine – Do once or twice, 12 reps each, minimum downtime
Dumbell Shoulder Press
Weight:
Notes:
Single-Arm Dumbell Bent-Over Row
Weight:
Notes:
Dumbell Incline Press
Weight:
Notes:
Dumbell Lunge
Weight:
Notes:
Standing Dumbell Calf Raise
Weight:
Notes:
Barbell Curl
Weight:
Notes:
Triceps Extension
Weight:
Notes:
Dumbell Leg Curl
Weight:
Today I go to the gym again. September 18, 2007
Posted by Jeff in Cardio, Exercise Program, New Idea, Weights.add a comment
Last thursday was probably one of the better workouts I’ve had in a while, partly because I went alone.
I did 15 minutes on the elliptical trainer. Then I did some stretches and did about 10 rounds of jogging/skipping in one minute rounds. In between these I either stretched for 30-45 seconds or did sets of weights.
I did:
20lb bicep curls x10, 3 times.
15lb dual-bicep curls x15, 2 times.
45lb pec-deck x10, 2 times.
Assisted (-70lb) pullups/chinups x10, 2 times.
So I averaged about 25 minutes of cardio or so. It seemed to work well, energized me without tireing me out, and I didn’t swim. (/ laze in hottub.)
Scott might come tonight, and maybe Chris too. I’m going to try to stick to the same routine, because I think it’s a good start. I’m not too worried about weights right now, except that building muscle helps metabolism and it’ll help my waistline shrink.
Upcoming post on my diet changes that I’m going to try implementing.
Today when I go I’ll be checking how long until I have to pay for my locker again, putting my name on the list for a big one, and getting my yearly pass. Last time I did that I failed, but with Sam pushing me, and me pushing me, and Scott around to motivate me, this blog to motivate me, and me to try and keep Chris and Ken motivated, I should be in better shape. (round. ;)
We’ll see.
Where to start…? September 14, 2007
Posted by Jeff in Cardio, Exercise Program, Fitness, New Idea, Weights.1 comment so far
A couple of years ago I was 220 lbs. I’m about 5′7″ – so I was pretty overweight.
A combination of poor diet, stress, depression and gym trips got me down to about 175 lbs. I cruised along for a while, but then injured my shoulder in a skiing accident (jumping over a picnic table) and was out of the gym for 4 months or so. Just as I got back, I had my gall-bladder removed.
Now I’m just getting back to the gym 4 months later. I’ve been ordered by my doctor to hit the gym twice a week, doing mostly cardio. I’m to stay away from abdominal and back exercises, as my scars from my laprascopic surgery aren’t healed properly, the’ll need another 3 months or so to get to the point where they’ll be stretchy.
Everything else though is fair game.
So – I’m back to the gym. I’m currently at 186 lbs, but I look larger as I’ve lost whatever muscle tone I had built up. My fitness goals are as follows:
1) Build my muscle tone in my arms, chest, shoulders and legs.
2) Lose some weight. Rough target is 160 lbs.
3) Tighten up my abs – this is going to have to be a lower priority as I can’t just hit them with lots of work, I need to do it slowly and carefully.
4) Fix my posture.
So far my plan is thus:
Tuesdays
Cardio 10-20 minutes (about all I can do, on elliptical or stationary bike)
Stretching in 30 second rounds interspersed with skipping or jogging in place in 1 minute rounds
3 sets of weights on arms, freeweights for now. Currently at 20 lbs per arm.
3 sets of weights on one other muscle group of my choice.
Thursdays
So far same as tuesdays.
As things go along I’ll update this. I may add other authors later if friends want to get onboard.
