90 Day Transformations

Merry Christmas!

The end of another year.  New Year's Eve is next week and I am sure that everybody is thinking about what new transformations they want to make in 2011. 

I, for one, finished both the Beginner and Intermediate progams from the Men's Health Book of Muscle and started Starting Strength to get my lifts up.  I stopped at Thanksgiving and am just going to pick it up again after the first of the year.  I lifted for about 14 months non-stop and that's a huge accomplisment for me.  I'm not resting on my laurels, though, because it's pointless to do that much work and then just stop.  So this is simply a short break to just relax, enjoy my friends and family and good food, and not worry about getting sets in.

When I stopped, I got my bench up to 165, my deadlifts held steady at 305 (I backed off for Starting Strength), and my squats are 175.  Decent, but in no way impressive.  I feel that I have so much more strength I can gain.  Interestingly enough, my strength protocols weren't producing much in the way of hypertrophy that I can see, and I really don't care.  Feeling - and being - strong is it's own reward.  I've always been a skinny dude (even under my fat suit I wore periodically) so having the beginnings of some real strength is kind of intoxicating.

Anyway, I also picked up The Four Hour Body, by Tim Ferriss, and have been continuing my exploration of Paleo.  Once I get my lifts up to 1.5 plus times my bodyweight, I'm going to move away from the strict strength stuff and get more into the metabolic conditioning stuff.  Perhaps another round of P90X?  Crossfit?  Some kind of martial arts?  Lots to think about and plan for 2011.

So everybody enjoy your holidays and get excited about 2011! 

The Transformations continue..

Week Seven

Drawing my first recovery week of the Intermediate Program to a close.  The weeks just fly by, don't they? 

Here's my next three workouts for the next three weeks..

   

Let's do this!

Lactic Acid GOOD

No, I mean REALLY good.

So during my workout this morning I made a conscious effort to ignore lactic acid burn.  I did this during P90X Ab Ripper and found myself easily pushing through plateaus (can you say "Fifer Scissors?").  I just decided that no matter how much it hurt and burned, I would keep going until the muscle failed.  No surprise that I ended up being able to do Fifer Scissors like some kinda hero after only one session of forced reps.

Today, I decided to do the same thing with my legs workout.  If you check out the latest entry before this one, look at Workout B.  Strip sets on leg extensions and leg curls.  Ow.  So I burned them.  Hard.  More ow. 

When I got home, on a whim I did a search on "lactic acid burn," half expecting to get results saying that lactic acid causes cancer or some such nonsense.  Imagine my surprise when I find this headline:

Lactic Acid Is Not Muscles Foe, It's Fuel

And then this one:

Lactic Acid Not Athlete's Poison But An Energy Source - If You Know How To Use It

What the what?!!?  The articles are worth reading and pushing through the burn is worth doing.  So my workout mantra is now, "if the muscle is still working, keep going."

Just keep going.

Keeeeeep Going..

I'm pleased to say that since I have been adhering 90/10 to the diet, that I have actually dropped about 2 pounds over the past couple of weeks.  I'm displeased that I don't suddenly overnight look Ryan Reynolds ripped because of it. 

Ah, well.  Takes time.  Patience is key.

As far as the diet itself goes, I have found that a half of a large sweet potato does the trick.  I just cut it into 1.5" pieces and steam the pieces either by themselves or with a handful of broccoli for about as long as it takes to cook my steak.  And no, I'm not eating red meat every night, but I do eat it probably 3-5 times a week. 

Lunch is probably the most challenging since it has to be prepared in advance.  But here's my method for cooking the chicken:

Items required..

1.  Thermometer with alarm (cheap)
2.  Cookie sheet
3.  Aluminum foil
4.  Onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper, and cayenne powder if you're feeling frisky
5.  Boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Set the oven to 350F and hit preheat.  Place a sheet of foil on the cookie sheet (for easy cleanup) and lay out your breasts flat.  I cook up to three at a time, as any more than that can sometimes get wasted.  Apply however much of the seasonings to the chicken as you think you might like.  Set the temperature on the thermometer to 165F, turn on the alarm, and stick the probe into the middle of the thickest piece of chicken.  Slide the whole thing into the oven and wait for the alarm to go off when the interior temp reaches 165.  If you are brave and like a juicier chicken breast, you can set it for 155 or 160. When the alarm goes off, I pull the whole thing out of the oven and cut up the one I want and put it in a tupperware container so I don't have to cut it up later when I'm out in the field working.  Refrigerate the rest.  I usually do this right after I finish breakfast.

It's important to me to treat my food as fundamentally as important to my health and well-being as shelter and other basic needs.  Therefore my mindset is that I eat for my body, because it will make my body feel good, and not for my mouth.  My tastebuds are only one tiny part of me and even though they are directly linked to feelings of satisfaction and pleasure, I have to be sure that what passes over them is also good for the rest of me.  This is quite simply the hardest part of all of these programs, whether it's basic bodybuilding, P90X, Jenny Craig or anything else.  Oh, and it's very important that the clean stuff I do eat tastes really good, otherwise I'll never stick to the program.

1.  I choose not to use food as a reward. 
2.  I choose not to use food as a salve for my ego or emotions. 
3.  I choose not to use food to make me feel better because I'm having a bad day.

Consistently eating a clean, balanced diet makes all the difference in the world for the way I feel physically, mentally, and emotionally.  It really does.  Even when I'm not working out, if I stick to a clean diet, my weight doesn't yo-yo and I always feel better than if I just can't keep out of the drive thru or eat one big unhealthy meal a day.  I would never suggest not eating pizza or ribs or fried chicken or double cheeseburgers again, but just every once and while on a special occasion. 

Ultimately, I believe that if I can conquer the diet and keep it consistently clean and balanced all year long, that all the rest of this is easy. 

Keep going, people.

Just Keep Going...

Sometimes I have to remind myself that transformation takes time and that each and every single millimeter of new muscle has to be earned through hard work. 

Back when I was doing P90, I was so ready to be in shape that I scrutinized myself in the mirror even during the first week, looking for any sign that what I was doing was working.  Of course it took much longer than a week to start seeing my jawline and for my pants to start feeling a tad looser..  But not nearly as long as one might fear. 

On my current program I have guesstimated that I have probably gained somewhere in the neighborhood of about 6 pounds of muscle.  I have agonized over the calculations, but without an actual reliable measurement of my current body fat, I'm still just guessing.  I could be off by as much as 5 pounds for all I know.  Who knows?

What I do know is that I am definitely picking up some new muscle in some interesting places.  Since I started doing the real deadlifts and squats, my quads, hamstrings, and glutes have all firmed up and gotten a little bigger.  Most noticeable are my hamstrings, which are visibly bigger and bulging where they used to be borderline concave.  Doesn't seem to take long, does it?  Also, my triceps and forearms are filling out as well as my shoulders (finally).  I am also experiencing a kind of general, all-around thickening.  It's hard to explain, but I just seem to be a bit more substantial, muscle-wise.  Also, much stronger.  This is all very good and very encouraging. 

But I have to continue to remind myself to just.. keep.. going..  So in that spirit, despite having been sent to New Jersey to work my usual 7 day a week gig, I have been getting my workouts in on their appropriate days.  No shit.  I do have to go to the gym, but thankfully there are a few 24 Hour Fitnessii in the area here that I can use.  I've had a membership to 24 Hour for years and only use it intermittently. 

I just started the second to last stage and here are the new logs:

   

I promised photos at the end of the Beginner Program and I won't renege on that.  I will say that since I am in a mass gain phase I am probably going to leave my shirt on for the photo shoot.  My abs aren't quite ready for prime time anyway since my dietary focus is to make sure I eat enough food and not like it was under P90X where I didn't want to eat too much food, if you get my meaning.  I'm far from fat or even overweight, but we don't need to see the love handles when we are really interested in the guns, am I right or am I right?  I may change my mind on that in the mean time since when I am on the road I generally eat really, really clean and never drink alcohol.  At this point I honestly couldn't care less if I am carrying around an extra 10 or so pounds of fat.  I know how to get rid of that in a jiffy (wink).

It's worth mentioning that the ab routine in this program is kinda lame, at least as far as P90X standards go.  I've been modifying the prescribed exercises to make them more difficult (I feel like I may have mentioned this a while back).  Currently, I am doing Mason Twists with a 5 pound medicine ball and I'll be damned if I can't get up to 50.  Tony would be so proud!  I also end up doing more reps when I feel like it.  At this point, it's two sets and the book asks for 10-15 reps, but I try to do 15-25 (and the Mason's I just go until my guts fall out).

Anyway, keep up the workouts, everybody.  Swimsuit season will be upon us very soon. 

ps--I forgot to mention that I just learned a new Apple trick for screenshots.  Shift>Command>4 lets you drag a box around the thing you want a screenshot of.  Sweet!

69 Weeks to Go!

I'm halfway through my third week of my new program and things are moving along quite nicely.  The first couple of phases of the program I am using assume that the user is a complete beginner so the daily exercise at this point is pretty basic.  The workout for the first 3 weeks is a circuit that can be done through one to three times per session and three times a week.  15 to 20 reps with moderate weight:

Thin tummy - kind of an isometric ab workout. 

Static lunges - single leg lunges with weight.  30 pounds in each hand.

Dumbell lying rows - instead of doing single arm rows bent over, you lie on an elevated bench and do both arms.  Kind of like doing cable rows vertically.  30 pounds in each hand.

Upright rows - 25 pounds in each hand.

Curlups - slow and controlled situps

Bench step - step up about 18" with the right leg then step down with your right leg using weight (30lbs in each hand in my case).  Repeat with left leg. 

Lying pullover - 25 pounds in each hand

Dumbell bench press - doing about 40 pounds each arm on these for 15 reps at this point. 

Pushup hold - basically a plank on your elbows

Single leg calf raise - 30 pounds in one hand.

Seated hammer curls - 25 pounds in each hand.

Triceps kickbacks - 15 pounds in each hand.

It's a pretty easy routine that doesn't take too long.  Before I start I do a typical Tony Horton-style stretch (start at the neck and stretch each body part down to calves).  A few ballistic stretches and jogging in place for a minute or two to warmup.

Even though I know I can do a much more strenuous workout, I am going to go ahead and follow this program to the letter.  I can see that many of the exercises here are designed to prepare the user for the big exercises that come in the next few phases.  Exercises like deadlifts and squats that require a base level of neural and muscular adaptation in the legs and core, as well as good grip development and upper body strength. 

My diet is as follows (for the most part):

Breakfast - two eggs sunny side up, 1/3 cup of Fiber One cereal with a splash of soy milk and a 1/3 cup of fresh blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries (the pre-packaged stuff in the produce section), and a cup or two of coffee.  First thing I do in the morning is chug at least one big glass of water.

Snacks and Lunch - 2 or 3 turkey sandwiches with pretty much everything on them except mayo. Lots of water.

Dinner - Annie Chun's Rice Express sprouted brown rice, grilled chicken or poached salmon, and a big tall glass of R. W. Knudsen Very Veggie low sodium veggie drink with half a lime squeezed in it, pepper and a splash of hot sauce.  Water, water, water.

This is the "clean 80%" of my diet.  The "not-clean 20%" is pretty much whatever I feel like eating.  If it's over the holidays or I am visiting friends and family out of state, the ratio can go more in favor of junk food.  If I am home and have no social events going on I can bump that up to pretty much 100% clean.  I think it averages out to about 80/20 overall.

Response to Airynn

(I was originally going to just respond to Airynn in the comments, but I this is probably one of the most common questions I get about exercise.  So here's a post instead)

Hey, Airynn (cool name!),

P90X or Insanity?  Depends on a few factors:

1.  What is your current fitness level?  Couch potato?  3 times a week on the ellipse machine?  Calisthenics 5 times a week an hour each time?  Triathlete?  If you aren't already in a fairly strenuous exercise program (30 minutes of treadmill or ellipse doesn't count) I would start with P90, not P90X or Insanity.  Like I have said before, I lost almost all the weight with 2 months of dieting and 3 months of regular P90 - about 45 pounds.  P90 will help you lose the weight AND will most definitely tone you up. 

2.  If all you want to do is tone up, then I wouldn't bother beating myself up with P90X or Insanity.  Again, do P90.  After that, reassess what kind of physique you want and what level of conditioning you are interested in and go from there (trust me, at the end of P90, you will be in pretty good shape.  And if you are like me, you will probably want to bring it to the next level.)

3.  If you are actually interested in getting ripped, in SUPER shape, and have at least an hour and 20 minutes to dedicate to your workout (not including shower, etc) 6 days a week, and you are in good physical shape already, I would do P90X.

4.  If you just want to get shredded and don't have as much time and don't want to do any free-weight stuff (or don't have the equipment), do Insanity.  Don't misunderstand, even without weights, Insanity is a killer workout - there are still pushups and burpees and squats and more plyo than you can shake a 30" vertical jump at.  So this program is also for an already fit person.  Those workouts rocked my world.

Since I sense that you don't already have a moderate to heavy workout program you are doing, my recommendation to you, Airynn, is to get P90 and follow that program to the letter, including the diet.  You can kill two birds with one stone with P90.  Here's how:

A.  It utilizes a calorie-deficit diet which will help you shed that 50 pounds.

B.  You will not only get toned, you will gain strength and flexibility.  Believe me, you will need that strength and flexibility when you move on to P90X or Insanity.

If you just diet now and then try to tone afterwards, it's going to take you forever.  Why not do both at the same time?  Besides, exercise will give you a tremendous high that stays with you all day and brightens your mood and makes you feel like anything is possible.

Truth be told, that's really the main reason I work out.  Bad diet and no exercise makes me feel like crap.

All that being said, you can still try to do P90X or Insanity without working up to them.  But the unfortunate reality is that if you are completely out of shape, you won't have developed the physical conditioning required to start those programs.  And that will make your chances of successfully finishing either program very small.  After the very first workout, an unconditioned person will wake up the next day feeling like they were beaten with a baseball bat.  I'm not kidding.  Not only that, but your risk for injury greatly increases, which will effectively sideline you for days, most likely weeks.  And that prevents you from reaching your goals.  I pulled my Achilles tendon about halfway through P90X and it made downward dogs and plyo most unpleasant.  It took months for that to heal, especially since I made myself finish P90X despite the injury.  Not smart.

Ease into those programs, but do your best in P90.  Be patient.  Remember, this is a lifestyle change, not a quick fix.

Status Report

Just when I thought things couldn't get any crazier, they did.  I've been out of the loop and struggling to get caught up with work and social obligations and I am sad to say my personal health responsibilities have been sliding.  Thankfully, even though I don't have time to do much of a workout, I have a very active job and my diet has been about 80-20 good to trashy.  All that means is that I've been in a holding pattern fitness-wise since my last post.  I did get through about 2 weeks of Insanity and I have to tell you, it kicks ass.  If anybody is on the fence about it and wants to lose a bunch of weight and get killer conditioning quick, go buy it.

Since I've been home most of the year and, unless a big hurricane makes landfall or there is a late-season hail storm, will probably be here for much of the rest of the year, I'm going do something a little different with my program.  I need things to slow down with work and all these damn weddings.  I've been doing some research and have found a couple of resources that synthesize all that I have learned previously and added some new stuff to my health knowledge-base.  (I am reasonably certain that the above paragraph makes just about zero sense.  See what happens when I'm too busy to proofread?  Oh well, no time to fix it right now)

Stay tuned.  And thank you for your patience.

P90X Modifications, As Promised..

Since I am on the road all the time, it only makes sense for me to use the most efficacious program for my fitness goals.  In this case, even though I was all excited about getting back into the gym to do big lifts, it's just not meant to be. 

So I think I've come up with a way to modify the schedule and workouts of P90X for mass gain.  Check it..

Here's a sample modified schedule (Phase 1 workouts):

Monday:  Chest and Back

Tuesday:  Core Synergistics

Wednesday:  Arms and Shoulders

Thursday:  Yoga

Friday:  Legs and Back

Sat/Sun:  Off

The first thing you might notice is that there are none of the traditional P90X cardio workouts included.  This is because the goal is mass gain and not getting lean.  I need all those carbs and protein for building muscle so I don't want to burn them up doing Plyo.  Besides, resistance training is great cardio all by itself. 

Second thing you might notice is that Core Synergistics is included in the regular workout schedule.  I'm not sure why classic P90X only has Core Syn as part of the Recovery Week because I think it's a great functional strength workout.  I've included it here because most of the sets are big compound exercises.  And I love it.  Also, since Core Syn and some parts of Yoga are all about the midsection, I'm only going to do Ab Ripper X once a week, maybe after Legs and Back (or whatever the last strength workout is of the week).

Now, for the workout modifications.  Once a person is a P90X grad, I honestly can't see any real good reason to even watch the dvd's when doing the resistance workouts (cardio might be another story).  The pacing for mass gain is different, slower, than the classic P90X pace.  I found that I was either ahead of or behind the gang on the dvd when doing the workouts under normal circumstances.  But in order to maximize the strength and size benefits of big compound exercises, they have to be done slower with relatively low reps and as much weight as possible (keeping good form for the desired reps, blah blah blah).  For example, pushups.  How in the world do we modify pushups to be less of a muscle endurance workout and more of a strength workout?  Well, a pushup is basically a bench press upside down.  Of course, a bench press will strengthen and work a lot of different stabilizer muscles than a pushup, but a pushup will get more core strength.  And both can be tweaky on the wrists.  Anyway, the bottom line here is that I can't reasonably carry an Olympic weight set and bench around the country with me in my car, so what do I do?  The only thing that can be done to increase the difficulty of a pushup is to add weight to it.  According to my excursions around the net, the most effective way, aside from having housekeeping staff sit on my back, is to wear a weight vest.  The good ones aren't cheap, but considering the amount of weight you end up with and the quality you can get, they actually aren't that bad.  V-Max Weight Vests seems to make some nice ones.

Anyway, the point is to be able to do 8 to 12 controlled, paced pushups and then 4 or 5 negatives wearing a weight vest instead of blasting through 45 pushups at light speed a la P90X.  Dips, pullups, and the leg workouts look like they could benefit from adding weight.  This will be a work in progress so expect a number of follow up reports on my ability to do more than one pullup with a weight vest on!  

The third and final modification is the periodization of the phases.  Again, my plan is not terribly scientific so bear with me.  There is, of course, plenty of info on the internet regarding periodization.

Phases will include Recovery, Hypertrophy, Strength, Endurance, and Lean.  Each phase will last about three weeks, with a standard P90X Recovery Week thrown in.  I will be experimenting with this periodization schedule as I move through the program, seeing what works and what doesn't.  Incidentally, periodization is similar to Tony's "muscle confusion" in that it changes things up periodically.  But the goal isn't to confuse muscles into stimulation.  Instead it's used to change up the intensity and focus of the workouts in each phase for recovery, mass gain, strength gain, and fat loss, etc.

I feel like it's going to be difficult to really find a distinction between the hypertrophy and strength phases so at this early stage (that is, this summer) I am probably going to lump them together as just Heavy Phase.  And Heavy Phase is where I will use the weight vest and do everything to complete negative failure.

Here's my plan (for now):

Phase 1 - Muscle Endurance/ramp up.  Regular P90X for one month done TH-style.

Phase 2 - Heavy P90X

Phase 3 - Heavy P90X

Between Phase 3 and Phase 4 an extended Recovery Phase of maybe two weeks of light cardio and light lifting.

Phase 4 - Regular P90X

Phase 5 - Heavy P90X

Phase 6 - Heavy P90X

Et cetera.  It will be interesting to see how well this works.  I honestly don't care about being cut right now.  I'm just too damn skinny to not look scrawny when I'm at 8.5% bodyfat.  And yes, despite all my objections about how healthy I am and how I can leap tall buildings in a single bound, run up 984 flights of stairs while calmly reading the Boston phonebook, and break cinderblocks on my iron abs, I had many more than one person exclaim that I looked emaciated after I lost the weight.  Or, with furrowed brow of concern, asked after my health.  This completely defeated the social and self-confidence goals I was going for by doing P90X and the only way I can avoid people asking "do you have cancer?" is to simply put on some weight.

The new program starts tomorrow.

There Are Only 51 Weeks in 2009 for Me

I am on Day 6 of the worst flu I have ever had.  I'm recovering now, but it has been a very rough week, what I remember of it anyway.  

I went to bed Monday night feeling just fine.  I woke Tuesday morning with a 102 fever, body aches, headache, chunky coughs, a frog-voice, and no appetite.  Then I went back to sleep for 30 minutes.  Then woke up again for an hour.  I repeated this cycle until Friday night, when I actually got 3 hours of sleep in a row (it was glorious!).  Wednesday my temp was 104.  104 Thursday.  104 Friday until early afternoon when it broke and went down to 101.  3 hours later it was back up to 103.5.  It took more than 24 hours to finally break down below 101.  Saturday it was 100.  Today, finally, it's normal.  I still feel like crap, however.  

I anticipate to be fully recovered by the end of next week.  

Naturally, since I couldn't even remember my own name for four days, there was no working out.  None of that, "hey, if it's from the neck up, go ahead and workout, it'll make ya feel better, buddy," business when you have to throw your self in a lukewarm (that's COLD, people) shower to bring you back from the brink of a deadly fever.

So one week is officially missing from 2009 and my life.  I suppose it could have been much worse.

My workout will resume tomorrow with something in a light yoga.  Presently, I am working on putting together this new workout plan I keep talking about and I will post it up along with how I plan to integrate elements of P90X into it soon.

Until then, back to convalescing here at HQ Mateo.