November 30th, 2009 Workout – Cardio
Did 20 minutes of HIIT on my recumbant bike. Was tough… but I wasn’t absolutely wrecked and soaked afterwards, which means I need to up it a level next time I do it.
Quick HIIT reference:
http://www.intervaltraining.net/hiit.html
I’ve been finding it pretty easy to keep on my nutrition plan lately too – starting to go in auto-pilot mode which is awesome because once I’m fully into that it will be tough to break!
November 28, 2009 Workout – Upper Body
Was feeling like crap when I got home from work yesterday so I didn’t really do anything. Still didn’t have much energy this morning, so I did a quick upper body workout – a bunch of different variations of push ups, pull ups and chin ups. I need to work on a set routine for this for the future because I’m sort of just floating through it with no real plan – not good.
November 26th, 2009 Workout – Heavy Bag
Absolutely drenched with sweat right now… and loving it. I did a heavy bag workout today and it’s been a while since the last one. I forgot just how much resistance it puts back at you and probably went a little overboard – groin feels a little tight in my left leg, but doesn’t seem too bad.
Did a warm up and some stretching, then did some core work – sit ups in front of the bag, holding myself up and then hitting it. Did the 1-10 drill with kicks on each leg and squats, for a total of 200 kicks and 200 squats. Then did some light rounds working on my punching and footwork technique.
I’ve missed this feeling :D
Tomorrow is an upper body day… chest, arms and back.
November 25th, 2009 – Weekly Weigh-In
I’m going to record my weight once a week now on Wednesday mornings and record the results here. I chose Wednesday because I think it will give me the most accurate measure – I typically take my cheat meals on a day on the weekend which ends up adding water weight, all of which should be gone by Wednesday.
Anyway, I weighed in at 254 today – just over 10 pounds down from 10 days ago. It feels really good, even though I know most of that is water weight. My future losses should level off in coming weeks. At my current size I can safely lose 2-3 pounds a week without losing muscle. My first mid-term goal is to hit 230 by my birthday on February 13th. To make that goal, I need to lose weight at a steady rate of 2.1 pounds per week. Judging from the rates I’ve lost weight in the past, I will hit my goal by keeping consistent.
Next short term goal is 250 by December 5th!
November 24th, 2009 Workout – Core
I did a core workout today and I’m really feeling it! The good thing is that my core still feels really strong – definitely needs some endurance work though so as I keep repeating this workout I’ll be raising the number of reps and sets constantly.
Here’s what I did:
Knee Side Roll – 20, 20
Side Crunches – 20, 20
Reverse Side Crunch – 20, 20
Side plank – 5 seconds each side twice
genie sit – 10, 5
swiss ball crunches – 15, 15
reverse crunches – 15, 15
swimming on ball – 15, 15
back extensions – 10, 15
For each exercise I did slow controlled movements and didn’t use momentum to do any of them. The reverse crunches and back extensions were tough. Hurts now, but I’ll be thankful once I get out boarding.
November 23rd, 2009 Workout – Cardio
Did 40 minutes of cardio on the recumbant bike – up from 30 minutes last week. I think I prefer HIIT style cardio so I’ll be mixing it up more in the future. In general, I’ve got that old feeling back and I come home from work looking forward to being more active. I’m going to step up the intensity this week and really get going now.
Tomorrow is core / stability – lots of ab work and stuff on the swiss ball and balance board!
November 21, 2009 Timesheet – Flexibility
I hurt my foot a bit doing plyometrics yesterday. Feels really right around my right ankle towards the back of my foot. It’s probably just sore because Ihaven’t done anything like that in a while, but I’ll watch it.
I did 40 minutes of working on my flexibility today – just using a variety of static and dynamic stretches with some yoga mixed in. It felt really good to spend some time stretching out and I’m definitely going to do this more.
November 20th, 2009 Workout – Plyometrics
Today my workout was Plyometrics, which is another name for jump training. It’s a type of exercise that is designed to be really sport-specific and to help your functional strength – in other words, it helps your body respond better at the type of explosive movements required by various sports. I’m doing it for snowboarding to help me out with various jump tricks.
I followed the routine in the P90X Plyometric video and was only able to do the first 30 minutes out of 60 before my legs were on fire and I needed to stop. Today’s lesson: jumping is a bitch when you’re overweight. On the bright side, every single time I do this workout I’ll weigh a little less and I’ll be a little stronger, so with some consistency I’ll finish this routine in no time. Next time I do it, I’ll do 35 minutes.
November 18th, 2009 Workout – Cardio
Working on my endurance – so part of my routine is cardio. I got my old recumbant bike setup in my room and I did 30 minutes at difficulty 2 at an average speed of 24 (not sure what exactly, probably km/hr?) I’m going to track this so that I always keep increasing these amounts. Next time I ride the bike, I’ll do 35 minutes.
The side handles on the bike have been broken forever and I never got arund to getting them fixed. Today I finally went out and found bolts that were roughly the same size and got the handles fixed up.
Afterward I made up a giant pot of arhar dal (lentils) and a bunch of chicken breasts. I love lentils… yet I haven’t made them in months! They’re an excellent side dish – high in protein and fibre and they cost pennies per serving. Going to make them more often for sure.
Overall Fitness Goal Ideas
Did some thinking about what I want the fitness goals I want to reach. These are just some overall goals. They aren’t yet measurable because I need to spend a bit more time making them so. I’d rather write them down and get something started then to wait until they’re perfect – something I do too often.
- Increase flexibility and balance – through Yoga / balance board work
- Full side / front splits
- Increase endurance – through long, low intensity cardio
- Run 20 km
- Bike 100 km
- Board all day
- Increase explosive strength – through plyometrics / HIIT
- Improve high jump / broad jump
- Sport-specific – through practice
- Improve ollie / 180 / presses
Next step is to come up with a rough exercise routine – probably split by day to focus on each of these. I’m not going to get down into super-specific routines. Instead I’ll come up with a list of things I can do for each goal and make sure I do some of them, then do more the next time.
Today’s workout will be cardio – time to setup the recumbent bike. I got space cleared out in my workout room.
In other news… I’ve decided to stop buying pop. I’ll still have it every now and then when I’m out, but as I am cutting back on that as well, it should be down close to nil.