Well, we had our final day of SS for 2011 last night. This Friday we're setting up for the big new years party, so we got one final workout in.
I don't know if it was laziness or because we had a small group or because it was the last workout of the year or because it's the only workout of the week (for SS that is) but we decided to switch it up. We kept the bar at 135 the whole night and did more reps.
I did squats, 3x10 at 135. It wasn't as hard as I thought, but it was definitely tiring! Doing that many reps is something I haven't done in a long time. After that was bench, again 3x10 at 135. This ripped my chest! It was much heavier than I thought it'd be, but overall I think I could have probably done 5 sets. Finally we did deadlift, and I did 2x10 and 1x5 at 135. I wasn't planning on doing 30. Instead my goal was to do 25, which is half of what I'll be doing on 300. It was much harder than I thought. I felt like the life was sucked out of me from lifting that much. But I did it so it was awesome.
Next week the weight goes back up, but it was fun to work like this. No more workouts the rest of the week. The gym is filled with furniture due to some cleaning and getting ready for the new years party. Next week the gym gets a redesign too (more mat areas so we can get more people doing DVD workouts) and Monday the girlfriend and I start P90X Lean! And a week from Saturday I start running 300 (technically 150) workout! Should be fun!
This will probably be the last post for 2011. Happy New Year everyone! I'll see you in 2012!
Bring it!
Let's get Mazel-Tough!
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Cardio X
Last night the roommate and I did Cardio X. It looks like SS is going to be put on hold this week and we'll get back into it next week, after the new year. Anyways, we got started around 3pm and overall it was a great workout. The yoga section felt good, the kenpo section was fun as always, the plyo section got my legs feeling good and my heart rate up and the core section was a good finish. I really like this workout and overall it was a good workout day.
I'm going to try to get some more PT 24/7 in starting later this week. The holidays need to end so I won't be so busy!
Bring it!
I'm going to try to get some more PT 24/7 in starting later this week. The holidays need to end so I won't be so busy!
Bring it!
Thursday, December 22, 2011
I'm running out of titles
I'm running out of titles for the SS workouts. Fortunately I'll start P90X in just over a week and my titles will be taken care of for me.
Last night we got into SS around 7. We warmed up with the first 10 minutes of Game Day from The Asylum, and then hit the weights hard! First up was squats, and I made more progress at 180. The first set felt just as heavy as ever, but by the end I felt really in control. I'm not working out Friday (Reel Big Fish concert!) so I'm going to repeat this throughout next week and hopefully move up to 185 after the new year!
Shoulder press was next and I stayed at 115. I did all of my reps (5x5) and they felt much better than last week's. I'm planning on repeating this one more time, next week, and then moving up to 120 after the first of the year as well. 2012 is going to start off hard!
I decided to repeat 205 on deadlift, and I'm glad I did. This was HEAVY! I did all 5 reps, but I felt so beat afterwards. It's so weird that I can't move up on shoulder days, but I definitely would have struggled with 210. Also I felt like my form was rough last night. No one said anything, and my group's usually good about saying if form is bad, but I just felt like it was rough. Not back, but a little bit, I think. Hmm. That said, I do feel fine today aside from the usual muscles being tired, so maybe my form was better than I thought.
I've been slammed with work all week and haven't made it into the gym in the mornings. I want to work out tonight, but I also want to finish my last report (I'm halfway through) so I can sleep in tomorrow. It's going to be a game time call. I have 3 programs that have 30 minute workouts, Jillian Michaels (less than 30), PT24/7 and ESP-XC. I may just do one of those tonight to get my heart going, but we'll see if I have time. I'd say worst comes to worst I'll finish the report tonight and workout in the morning, but I want to sleep in tomorrow so I have a ton of energy for Reel Big Fish!
Overall last night was awesome and hopefully tonight or tomorrow I can get some conditioning in. Wish me luck!
Bring it!
Last night we got into SS around 7. We warmed up with the first 10 minutes of Game Day from The Asylum, and then hit the weights hard! First up was squats, and I made more progress at 180. The first set felt just as heavy as ever, but by the end I felt really in control. I'm not working out Friday (Reel Big Fish concert!) so I'm going to repeat this throughout next week and hopefully move up to 185 after the new year!
Shoulder press was next and I stayed at 115. I did all of my reps (5x5) and they felt much better than last week's. I'm planning on repeating this one more time, next week, and then moving up to 120 after the first of the year as well. 2012 is going to start off hard!
I decided to repeat 205 on deadlift, and I'm glad I did. This was HEAVY! I did all 5 reps, but I felt so beat afterwards. It's so weird that I can't move up on shoulder days, but I definitely would have struggled with 210. Also I felt like my form was rough last night. No one said anything, and my group's usually good about saying if form is bad, but I just felt like it was rough. Not back, but a little bit, I think. Hmm. That said, I do feel fine today aside from the usual muscles being tired, so maybe my form was better than I thought.
I've been slammed with work all week and haven't made it into the gym in the mornings. I want to work out tonight, but I also want to finish my last report (I'm halfway through) so I can sleep in tomorrow. It's going to be a game time call. I have 3 programs that have 30 minute workouts, Jillian Michaels (less than 30), PT24/7 and ESP-XC. I may just do one of those tonight to get my heart going, but we'll see if I have time. I'd say worst comes to worst I'll finish the report tonight and workout in the morning, but I want to sleep in tomorrow so I have a ton of energy for Reel Big Fish!
Overall last night was awesome and hopefully tonight or tomorrow I can get some conditioning in. Wish me luck!
Bring it!
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Last night's workout
Last night we did Starting Strength. For some reason I wasn't feeling like working out so here's how it went down. First off was squats. Once again I revisted 180, and it felt just as heavy as ever! I was starting to feel better by the last set, but overall they still felt hard. Hopefully I can finish this up this week and up the weight next week.
Bench was next and I made more progress on 170. Actually, I completed 170. The very very last rep my arms started to give out and someone had to help a tiny bit, but according to Vince he only used a finger and I lifted it all myself. So I'm chalking this up to success, even though I'll be repeating it next week.
I did a few pullups, but like I said I wasn't feeling like working out and that was that.
Tonight start Hanukkah! I celebrated a little this morning with the girlfriend (she got me cigars and scotch! She knows me very well!) and tonight we're with my folks. Tomorrow is more working out. Should be fun.
Bring it!
Bench was next and I made more progress on 170. Actually, I completed 170. The very very last rep my arms started to give out and someone had to help a tiny bit, but according to Vince he only used a finger and I lifted it all myself. So I'm chalking this up to success, even though I'll be repeating it next week.
I did a few pullups, but like I said I wasn't feeling like working out and that was that.
Tonight start Hanukkah! I celebrated a little this morning with the girlfriend (she got me cigars and scotch! She knows me very well!) and tonight we're with my folks. Tomorrow is more working out. Should be fun.
Bring it!
Monday, December 19, 2011
Friday and Sunday
Let's recap the last few days.
Friday we got into Starting Strength with the goal of finishing quickly and getting the weekend started. It was a long week and we all needed to relax!
Squat started off with 175, and I felt pretty good about these. For some reason they hurt so much at the bottom, and I'm starting to think that that's never going to go away. But after the first set (the first set is always the hardest) I felt like I was able to go fast still with solid form. Not extremely fast, but definitely like I can control the weight. If I have to hold that much weight I'm going to do it as quickly as possible and that's what I did. So overall I felt good about them.
Shoulder press was next, and somehow I didn't finish 115. I did 4x5 and 1x4. The very last rep my whole body just gave up and I couldn't lift the weight anymore. It was lame!
I finished with 3x5 on pullups and called it good.
That was Friday. We've put abs on hold until the first of the year.
Sunday I was at WalMart, and low and behold they were selling PT247! If you read this blog often you know that I have an obsession with fitness DVDs, and this is one that's been on my list for a while now! I also hate ordering fitness DVDs online (at least from their regular store....I'm still an Amazon.com junkie), so seeing this at WalMart was a great find. This is basically an amped up version of Tae Bo, taught by Billy Blanks and everything! The big difference is the attitude of the whole thing (way more self defense than just aerobics to music) and as you probably know I'm a martial arts junkie too. This was right up my alley. Also cool about it is the gloves that come with it. They are mock MMA gloves that connect to resistance bands which connect to your feet. The whole program is like this (I'll get to why that's cool in a moment) where you use the gloves, and since it's designed around the gloves every move focuses on using them correctly. Just holding my arms up in guard was difficult!
The reason the bands themselves are cool, though, is that this is a new trend I'm seeing in the fitness DVD craze. Too many people are pirating the DVDs, so now trainers are selling DVDs with a piece of equipment and designing the workout around that equipment. This makes it much harder to pirate, and since I'm kind of a late night TV fitness equipment junkie too I find the trend amazing. I also want to get Rip 60 someday too, but that's a different story. They were selling it at WalMart also, but I wanted PT247 more.
So I got home, sat on the couch for a while, and then around 4:45 hit play on Cardio from PT247. This was a great workout! It was like a shortened version of the punching part of Kenpo X. Just combos and movement. But like I said, with these gloves just holding my arms up in guard was pure pain! Throwing punches was really difficult too! Overall I was very impressed, and might be doing another workout tonight.
The only thing I didn't like was how short this workout was. I guess they're all a little over 30 minutes and I need (want) more of a workout than that. So I also hit play on Level 2 of Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. I'd done level 1 twice before and felt ready for level 2. This was a good workout, working pretty much the whole body in about 22 minutes. Mostly weights (endurance wise) and cardio with a little ab work. It's 3 circuits of 3 minutes of strength, 2 minutes of cardio and 1 minute of abs. I really like this workout and will be doing it again (even though it's for girls...ha!).
So ya, good Sunday for working out. Tonight is Starting Strength. This is my last week of organic protein and I'm looking forward to getting back into synthetics next week. Also tonight starts the new Monday/Thursday routine. Should be fun. And if my friends Jacqi or Rod decide to come over early I'm going to get them in the gym and we'll do a cardio DVD. Probably the cardio/combo one from ESP-XC, but we'll see.
Bring it!
Friday we got into Starting Strength with the goal of finishing quickly and getting the weekend started. It was a long week and we all needed to relax!
Squat started off with 175, and I felt pretty good about these. For some reason they hurt so much at the bottom, and I'm starting to think that that's never going to go away. But after the first set (the first set is always the hardest) I felt like I was able to go fast still with solid form. Not extremely fast, but definitely like I can control the weight. If I have to hold that much weight I'm going to do it as quickly as possible and that's what I did. So overall I felt good about them.
Shoulder press was next, and somehow I didn't finish 115. I did 4x5 and 1x4. The very last rep my whole body just gave up and I couldn't lift the weight anymore. It was lame!
I finished with 3x5 on pullups and called it good.
That was Friday. We've put abs on hold until the first of the year.
Sunday I was at WalMart, and low and behold they were selling PT247! If you read this blog often you know that I have an obsession with fitness DVDs, and this is one that's been on my list for a while now! I also hate ordering fitness DVDs online (at least from their regular store....I'm still an Amazon.com junkie), so seeing this at WalMart was a great find. This is basically an amped up version of Tae Bo, taught by Billy Blanks and everything! The big difference is the attitude of the whole thing (way more self defense than just aerobics to music) and as you probably know I'm a martial arts junkie too. This was right up my alley. Also cool about it is the gloves that come with it. They are mock MMA gloves that connect to resistance bands which connect to your feet. The whole program is like this (I'll get to why that's cool in a moment) where you use the gloves, and since it's designed around the gloves every move focuses on using them correctly. Just holding my arms up in guard was difficult!
The reason the bands themselves are cool, though, is that this is a new trend I'm seeing in the fitness DVD craze. Too many people are pirating the DVDs, so now trainers are selling DVDs with a piece of equipment and designing the workout around that equipment. This makes it much harder to pirate, and since I'm kind of a late night TV fitness equipment junkie too I find the trend amazing. I also want to get Rip 60 someday too, but that's a different story. They were selling it at WalMart also, but I wanted PT247 more.
So I got home, sat on the couch for a while, and then around 4:45 hit play on Cardio from PT247. This was a great workout! It was like a shortened version of the punching part of Kenpo X. Just combos and movement. But like I said, with these gloves just holding my arms up in guard was pure pain! Throwing punches was really difficult too! Overall I was very impressed, and might be doing another workout tonight.
The only thing I didn't like was how short this workout was. I guess they're all a little over 30 minutes and I need (want) more of a workout than that. So I also hit play on Level 2 of Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. I'd done level 1 twice before and felt ready for level 2. This was a good workout, working pretty much the whole body in about 22 minutes. Mostly weights (endurance wise) and cardio with a little ab work. It's 3 circuits of 3 minutes of strength, 2 minutes of cardio and 1 minute of abs. I really like this workout and will be doing it again (even though it's for girls...ha!).
So ya, good Sunday for working out. Tonight is Starting Strength. This is my last week of organic protein and I'm looking forward to getting back into synthetics next week. Also tonight starts the new Monday/Thursday routine. Should be fun. And if my friends Jacqi or Rod decide to come over early I'm going to get them in the gym and we'll do a cardio DVD. Probably the cardio/combo one from ESP-XC, but we'll see.
Bring it!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
More Starting Strength
Well, it's been a busy few days but we got into the gym last night.
Jacqi came over early to do some cardio and we decided to do Phase 1 of Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. I really like this workout. It may only be 20 minutes, but it's a killer. And it's only level 1. Jacqi did really well for the first two circuits. She took a bit of a break during the third, but I was still really proud of her. As for me, I tried not to overdo the weights because we were lifting after, but I did get some good bicep work and I love the cardio sections. When I get a chance on my own I want to try levels 2 and 3 sometime soon. I'll let you know how they go.
Starting Strength was next. I was a little tired from not working out Monday, but overall I made some good progress on most things. I got started on 175 on squats, and aside from the first set feeling really heavy I felt really good about these squats. I'll repeat on Friday and plan to move up next week.
We decided to do bench instead of shoulders since we missed it Monday. I did 3x5 at 170, but my body felt week as Hell. I think the pushups in Jillian Michaels tired me out. I did another 2x5 at 165, but I'll stay at 170 overall starting Monday.
I got my deadlift in next. I've had a theory that I can only move up on deadlift on bench days, and I put that theory to the test. Sure enough, 205 was much easier than it should have been. It's interesting that I can only move up on those days, but hey, it worked and I felt awesome. Everyone said my form looked better than ever too, so that was cool.
For kicks I did 3x5 on chinups too. We're cutting out abs until the first of the year, so that was the end of the workout. I felt good about it.
So some quick updates. After this week no one can do Fridays anymore until the end of the year. We had talked about moving to a 2 day split on Mondays and Thursdays after the 1st, but I think we're going to start that next week. It's slower progress overall, but it works better with people's schedules. Plus we're losing a spotter (the roommate is upping the jiu jitsu practices). We're going to a 2 day version of a program called StrongLifts 5x5. This is the program that got me thinking about doing 5 sets instead of 3. I've heard it working as a 2 day, even though it's usually a 3 day. It works best like that if you're doing other stuff too, and I'm still starting P90X Lean in January with my girlfriend. Here's what it's going to look like:
Mondays: Squats 5x5, Bench 5x5, Barbell Rows 5x5
Thursdays: Squats 5x5, Overhead Press 5x5, Deadlift 1x5
It's pretty similar to what we do now, except it won't switch workouts on different days. Also we have barbell rows in now, which will work the back. I think we're going to keep the chinups/pullups too, which will be on Mondays and Thursdays respectively. I'm excited to put this one into motion.
What's cool about this is I won't have long workouts on Friday nights anymore. This will give me more energy, because frankly I pass out on the couch within an hour of SS every night. I can also start taking my amazing, patient girlfriend out to dinner on Friday nights. She's waited a while for me to have Friday nights free, so she deserves to be taken out on the town more often!
Also to document, I think this Saturday my buddy Richard and I are going to start running the 300 workout. It's supposedly the fitness test the 300 guys took when training for that awesome movie. It's 300 reps total of 6 different exercises, 50 reps each. The goal is to do it in under 20 minutes. I'm going to start with 25 reps of everything and time myself. Then Richard will go, and anyone else who shows up to do it. Once I can do the whole thing in under 20 I'm going to add 5 reps to each exercise, and keep doing that until I can do the whole thing as written.
So that's what I have going on. Tonight is dinner with my girlfriend and possibly my folks and tomorrow is SS.
Bring it!
Jacqi came over early to do some cardio and we decided to do Phase 1 of Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. I really like this workout. It may only be 20 minutes, but it's a killer. And it's only level 1. Jacqi did really well for the first two circuits. She took a bit of a break during the third, but I was still really proud of her. As for me, I tried not to overdo the weights because we were lifting after, but I did get some good bicep work and I love the cardio sections. When I get a chance on my own I want to try levels 2 and 3 sometime soon. I'll let you know how they go.
Starting Strength was next. I was a little tired from not working out Monday, but overall I made some good progress on most things. I got started on 175 on squats, and aside from the first set feeling really heavy I felt really good about these squats. I'll repeat on Friday and plan to move up next week.
We decided to do bench instead of shoulders since we missed it Monday. I did 3x5 at 170, but my body felt week as Hell. I think the pushups in Jillian Michaels tired me out. I did another 2x5 at 165, but I'll stay at 170 overall starting Monday.
I got my deadlift in next. I've had a theory that I can only move up on deadlift on bench days, and I put that theory to the test. Sure enough, 205 was much easier than it should have been. It's interesting that I can only move up on those days, but hey, it worked and I felt awesome. Everyone said my form looked better than ever too, so that was cool.
For kicks I did 3x5 on chinups too. We're cutting out abs until the first of the year, so that was the end of the workout. I felt good about it.
So some quick updates. After this week no one can do Fridays anymore until the end of the year. We had talked about moving to a 2 day split on Mondays and Thursdays after the 1st, but I think we're going to start that next week. It's slower progress overall, but it works better with people's schedules. Plus we're losing a spotter (the roommate is upping the jiu jitsu practices). We're going to a 2 day version of a program called StrongLifts 5x5. This is the program that got me thinking about doing 5 sets instead of 3. I've heard it working as a 2 day, even though it's usually a 3 day. It works best like that if you're doing other stuff too, and I'm still starting P90X Lean in January with my girlfriend. Here's what it's going to look like:
Mondays: Squats 5x5, Bench 5x5, Barbell Rows 5x5
Thursdays: Squats 5x5, Overhead Press 5x5, Deadlift 1x5
It's pretty similar to what we do now, except it won't switch workouts on different days. Also we have barbell rows in now, which will work the back. I think we're going to keep the chinups/pullups too, which will be on Mondays and Thursdays respectively. I'm excited to put this one into motion.
What's cool about this is I won't have long workouts on Friday nights anymore. This will give me more energy, because frankly I pass out on the couch within an hour of SS every night. I can also start taking my amazing, patient girlfriend out to dinner on Friday nights. She's waited a while for me to have Friday nights free, so she deserves to be taken out on the town more often!
Also to document, I think this Saturday my buddy Richard and I are going to start running the 300 workout. It's supposedly the fitness test the 300 guys took when training for that awesome movie. It's 300 reps total of 6 different exercises, 50 reps each. The goal is to do it in under 20 minutes. I'm going to start with 25 reps of everything and time myself. Then Richard will go, and anyone else who shows up to do it. Once I can do the whole thing in under 20 I'm going to add 5 reps to each exercise, and keep doing that until I can do the whole thing as written.
So that's what I have going on. Tonight is dinner with my girlfriend and possibly my folks and tomorrow is SS.
Bring it!
Monday, December 12, 2011
Friday's workout
K, quick update. Friday we did SS and it went pretty darn well. I made more progress on 170 on squats and will be adding 5 lbs to the next workout. Shoulder press was next and I felt even better about 115. I'm going to repeat that on Wednesday and hopefully move up next week. I also did some pullups, 3x6.
Decent workout but short.
Tonight is our buddy Anthony's birthday so we're doing sushi which probably means no workout. I might try to hit the weights in the morning. We'll see.
I have big plans for the new year, but right now I'm taking December easy.
Bring it!
Decent workout but short.
Tonight is our buddy Anthony's birthday so we're doing sushi which probably means no workout. I might try to hit the weights in the morning. We'll see.
I have big plans for the new year, but right now I'm taking December easy.
Bring it!
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