Day: 22, Calories: 0, Insanity Pure Cardio

Workout

Insanity Pure Cardio Status: Completed Good workout, and I'm coming off of a bad diet weekend. Thanksgiving. 4 meals. The biggest was last night with Friendsgiving, the potluck for the friends. We had all sorts of food, and aside from my chicken salad none of it was on the diet. So I woke up feeling full. Didn't eat much today. Ran errands and spent the day with the girlfriend and then got in the gym at 5:30. Pure Cardio went well. I definitely take it easier when I'm alone in the gym, but I worked up a hell of a sweat and I was proud with my progress.

Workout

Insanity Cardio Abs Status: Not Complete Cardio Abs did not get done. I've decided that with the doubles schedule I don't like doing abs on a non Starting Strength day. I can do abs twice a day, but if I sleep in between workouts my abs feel rough. Also, I was planning to do day 1 of Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred with the girlfriend. Here's how that went.

Workout

Other (Use Note Field) Status: Completed Day 1 of 30 Day Shred was actually pretty awesome. It's interval training and the workout was pretty hard! It starts with a stretch/warmup for 2 minutes, then 3 intervals. The intervals are 3 minutes of strength training (2 resistance workouts like pushups or shoulder presses while in a lunge done for 45 seconds twice) 2 minutes of cardio (2 exercises done for 30 seconds twice) and 2 30 second ab exercises. Each of the circuits is completely different. It wasn't the hardest workout I've ever done, but it's definitely a great workout. I was sweating really hard and my shoulders got a great burn. I was also impressed with how many pushups I could do in the pushup section. My girlfriend did amazing! She hasn't had a chance to work out in a while and wants to start training since family is coming for the holidays. She started this program today and I think I'm going to join her as often as I can, Sundays especially. She struggled a little bit, but she never quit and was doing a lot of the same weights as I was! She looked drained by the end, but she had a huge smile on her face. She totally beat day 1, and I think when she realized she could do it and it's only 20 minutes for the whole thing she could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can't wait to see her progress on this workout and the next two levels. I'm so proud of her! I'll do cardio and tomorrow, either before the workout or after insanity. I'll keep you posted. The diet is back on! Bring it!

Day: 20, Calories: 0, Insanity Plyometric Cardio Circuit

Workout

Insanity Plyometric Cardio Circuit Status: Completed I got into today's workout feeling tired from thanksgiving, but after a good warmup I got into it and got some good cardio. Overall it was a good workout. However, I skipped the second half because the guys were coming over to play football and do starting strength early.

Workout

Football Status: Completed First off, we won. I'm terrible at football, but my buddy rod is not and he was our team captain. We played for an hour. It was fun. Too bad we don't have time to play before every workout.

Workout

Weights Status: Completed Starting Strength was the final thing. I did squats at 180 again, but they still feel heavy. I'm taking another break from supplements starting next week, so I'm going to deload again and try to get past 180 once more. Shoulders were next and I rocked out 5x5 at 120. It was heavy and I'm gonna repeat this, but awesome. Finished with 5x5 on pullups. No abs for time, which explains the short post today. Bring it!

Day: 19, Calories: 0, Insanity Cardio Power & Resistance

Workout

Insanity Cardio Power & Resistance Status: Completed Today's workout is in the books. It's Thanksgiving so I got to sleep in a little, but I also had to get my workout in before the first of today's feasts. Yes, multiple feasts today. Multiple feasts today through Saturday in fact. That in mind, I needed today to be a good workout, and man it was. My roommate was home today too, so he tried this workout with me (he said he wanted to work on his endurance). Because someone else was in the gym, I refused to go easy or modify, and by the end of the warmup I was soaked in sweat. The stretch felt nice, and then the workout happened. It was difficult, but I didn't modify and had a great first half. The second half I was struggling, and I barely did any globe jumps, but overall it was decent too. I'd give this an A as far as my workouts go. This was the best I've done on this DVD. Also a shoutout to the roommate. He did really well for his first full Insanity workout. He looked tired but I guess that's the point. Congrats dude! One more day in week 3. I think I'm gonna get up, do Insanity at 10 and then get starting strength out of the way so I can make it to tomorrow nights feast. I'll let you know how that goes. Wish me and my diet luck! Happy Thanksgiving folks! Bring it!

Day: 19, Calories: 0, Insanity Cardio Power & Resistance

Workout

Insanity Cardio Power & Resistance Status: Not Complete Placeholder

Day: 17, Calories: 0, Insanity Pure Cardio

Log Entry

Daily Note: We got into Starting Strength last night, and it was a pretty decent night! We started out with some light warmup consisting of hitting the bag and light sparring. Then the heavy stuff came in. Once again I did 5x5 on squats at 180. I tried this a week ago, and ended up going back down to 175 because it was just too heavy. This time the first set felt really heavy, but sets 2 through 4 went very well. I felt like I was able to go lower than I've been going the last few weeks, and I definitely felt great after that 4th set. The last set was difficult, it was feeling heavy again, but I pushed through. I'm going to repeat this weight on Wednesday, but overall I think I'm getting a lot closer to beating 180 than I was last week. Shoulder press was next, and once again I completed 5x5 at 115. Before starting this, my roommate suggested that we start doing a warmup set; something he'd read about online. We didn't do them for the squats, but we all did 1 set of 10 with just the bar before getting into shoulder press. I'm not sure if it helped, but I will say shoulder press felt better than it did the other day. The first set, despite doing the warmup, felt heavy. The last four sets felt a lot better, but like squats set 5 did feel heavy. I completed this one and did better than I've done before, so I've decided to see how I'm feeling on Friday. I'm either going up 5 or repeating one more time, and next week I'm for sure moving up to 120. Chinups were last and I did 1x8 and 4x6. These were really good chinups, great form and I was really proud of them. My original goal was 5x6, but the group talked me into doing a set of 8 and it went very well. We finished with the usual ab ripper, and that was that. By the way, I've been thinking about doing the 300 Challenge. My buddy Richard and I said we were going to start doing it in 2012, but he started training for it and I think I might add it to my Sundays too. It's 6 different exercises, 50 reps each for a total of 300 reps. The goal is to do it under 20 minutes. If I start, I'm cutting all of the reps in half and trying to do 20 minutes with that, then adding 10 reps every time I complete the circuit in under 20 minutes. The reasoning behind this came from a discussion with my roommate about martial arts and starting strength. He said he can now out muscle anyone his size no problem, but his endurance is crap. Since I'll apparently have the strength when I start Muay Thai soon, working on my endurance would help a lot too and fill in that gap that I expect to have. I'll keep you posted how that goes. That was last night. This morning was Insanity....

Workout

Insanity Pure Cardio Status: Completed Another round of Pure Cardio was this morning, and it went very well. The warmup was kicking my ass at first. These early mornings are a pain. But by the end of the warmup I was feeling good, and the stretch felt amazing. Then came the pain... Overall I'd say it was a good workout. My quads still ache from squats, so I've succumbed myself to modifying during anything deep quad. That's a lot of the Insanity program, but my goal is to get my cardio up, and as long as I'm moving I'm happy with it. The leg stuff that Insanity has in it I don't really want to do, since I'm doing squats three days a week. So modifying is the name of the game, and I'm really happy with how much I was sweating by the end of this.

Workout

Insanity Cardio Abs Status: Completed Cardio Abs closed out the day. I was tired from Pure Cardio, but I pushed through and got through most of this workout. The C-Sit position section was probably the best I've ever done, and my abs were on fire by the end. When we got to the plank stuff I decided to turn it off. My abs still ached from last night's Ab Ripper, and my girlfriend was leaving for work soon and I wanted to spend time with her, so I called it quits and got to spend about half an hour with my girl. I'd say it was a good trade. Overall I've had some great workouts this week, and I'm looking forward to continuing that throughout the Thanksgiving week. Speaking of which, wish me and my diet luck this week. There are massive amounts of food to be had, and I must do my best to control myself. Also tonight I'm having sushi with my boss and a client, so I've got to be mindful of the cream cheese rolls. Diet is the name of the game....and this game is set on Difficult! Bring it!

Day: 16, Calories: 0, Insanity Plyometric Cardio Circuit

Workout

Insanity Plyometric Cardio Circuit Status: Completed Pretty decent workout this morning. My chest really hurts today from a base case of the hiccups, but aside from that I pushed through and broke a good sweat. The second half really killed my legs, but overall I think I burned some good calories. I'm noticing my legs begin to hurt a lot earlier than I get tired. Even after the fit test yesterday, my quads felt like they are bigger than the skin around them, and it's a really tight, exhausted feeling in the muscle. I'm not sure what to do with that. Oh well. Week 3 has begun. Bring it!

Day: 15, Calories: 0, Insanity Fit Test

Workout

Insanity Fit Test Status: Completed I got into the Fit Test and it went pretty well. Every one of my numbers went up; only by a little, but they all went up. After the workout I did 16 minutes of the Bas Rutten All Around Workout. I felt this would give me the extra boost of cardio I needed for the day (the diet wasn't so hot over the weekend) and get me working on my striking a little bit too. Overall it was a decent workout. By the way, Friday I did get into Starting Strength. I squated 175 very well and benched 160 with no problem. Both are going up +5 on Monday. I also did 5x5 on pullups, and we finished with Ab Ripper. Very good workouts the past few days! Bring it!