Big_James’s BodyBlog

My wife has decided to join me on my quest for great fitness. I know I know people who know us are saying WHAT she really doesn’t have any weight to lose but she does want to start eating healthier and putting a small amount of muscle on. I created an entire workout and diet program for her the program is designed for toning. I know being a fat guy what could I know well I read and read and read some more so frankly I have been studying health and fitness for almost 10 years. I just have not gotten it right for me or followed my own advice but that is changing.

Lets look at Tracy’s program given her data 5′3 and 110 lbs.

Tracy’s Diet Plan

Diet being a relative term as you are not trying to lose weight but instead eat healthier. Your goal is to consume a proper nutrition level to increase lean body mass and strength.

Caloric Needs: 1400 – 1800 Calories

Protein 100-120g per day

Protein     
Chicken - Lean Cut Steak - Turkey  - Egg Whites
Protein Shakes - Veal - Salmon - Tuna
White Fish - Low Fat Cottage Cheese    - Beans

Carbohydrates 90-120g per day

Carbohydrates   
Brown Rice - Whole Meal Pancakes -  Pasta - Sweet Potato
Rice Cakes - Apples -  Oat Meal - Pumpkin
Yams - Smart Choice Cereal

Fats Total Fat content should not greater then 40g per day

Healthy Fats   
Avocado - Almonds - Peanut Butter - Flaxseed Oil

Veggies / Salad try to eat something from this group in every meal.

Veggies/Salad
Broccoli - Mushroom - Tomato - Lettuce
Cabbage - Cucumber -  Cauliflower - Green Beans
Peas - Zucchini

Condiments
Fat Free Dressing - Mustard - Salsa  - Tomato Sauce
Balsamic Vinegar - Lemon / Lime Juice - Pickle Relish - Fresh Herbs

As you can see I am not being too restrictive but this diet cuts fat and adds more protein to give her more muscle. This diet of course can be altered to just about anyone. For her exercise program I have her only working 3 days a week giving her plenty of rest and possibly makeup days as my wife has a very busy schedule.

Tracy’s Workout Program (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

Superset – Meaning to take two different exercises and switch between them without rest typically working the same muscle group.

Superset 1 (1 Set of 12 reps each, with no reset between exercises)

• Bench Presses
• Lat Bar Rows

• Bench Presses
• Lat Bar Rows

Superset 2 (1 Set of 12 reps each, with no reset between exercises)

• Lat Pulls
• Upright Rows

• Lat Pulls
• Upright Rows

Superset 3 (1 Set of 12 reps each, with no reset between exercises)

• Dumbbell Incline Curls
• Triceps Pushdowns

• Dumbbell Incline Curls
• Triceps Pushdowns

Superset 4 (1 Set of 12 reps each, with no reset between exercises)

• Ball Crunches
• Ball Back Extensions

• Ball Crunches
• Ball Back Extensions

Superset 5 (1 Set of 12 reps each, with no reset between exercises)

• Dumbbell Step-Ups
• Pile Squats (Child or DB)

• Dumbbell Step-Ups
• Pile Squats (Child or DB)

Aerobics: 30-40 minutes Elliptical Machine moderate or brisk pace (75 percent effort)

There are a few terms you may not know for instance Pile Squats what are they well they are a wide stance Squat that hits the legs and gluts typically with a Dumbbell in the middle or in our case possibly while holding our daughter Elizabeth. Lat Bar row really if you had a gym to go to this would be a lat machine. We are getting the same motion from a slight declined angle using the lower cable of our rack. You will now see everything we ate each day being posted the next day so you can see what we are putting in our bodies. My routine has been outlined below so you have it and I will keep you updated on any changes.

James

So as you can see from the photo I am starting to get somewhere.  So after having a few problems this last week I made some more changes and really feel like the changes are making a serious difference.  I can’t wait to measure again in a couple of weeks I expect to see some good gains in arm size and reduction in waist size.

So here is what I changed going back over past routines and see the little progress I have made I decided to shift my focus a bit.  So I have included more recovery time and even put an entire week of just cardio with zero lifting.  My goal is to run this program for 2 months and see how the results turn out.  I am done with week one and look forward to week two.

Week 1
Sunday - Back
Monday - Off
Tuesday - Chest / Shoulder
Wednesday - Off
Thursday - Legs / Abs
Friday - Off
Saturday - Arms

Week 2
Monday - Back
Tuesday - Off
Wednesday - Chest / Shoulder
Thursday - Off
Friday - Legs
Saturday - Off
Sunday - Arms

Week 3
Cardio Monday - Friday (40-60 mins)

Week 4 - 5 - Repeat Week 1 and 2.

Week 6
Cardio Monday - Friday (40-60 mins)

The key here is the 48 hour recovery time this data comes from the Colorado Experiment as well as several others.  Basically I am keep my diet with rotating carb amounts with a 225g-245g protein level and lots of green vegetables.

I hope you enjoy the update I am going to push for at least 20 posts in January.

James

So I don’t monitor my weight that often but I do watch my measurements. During a recent measuring my wife noticed that my thighs were looking very tight and rigid. We did some measurements and found 4 inches of growth. My wifes comments were everything from "they are fatless!" to "I think your thighs look like Conan’s." Needless to say we were both amazed at how they looked. I can only say that my hill running and squats are paying off in huge ways.

Here is my current program.
2 weeks on weight training (Extra Heavy)
1 week straight cardio work.
Repeat.

When I workout I don’t have a partner so I do most things with either dumb bells or in a power rack. The rack safety bars are tested regularly as I always push myself past my limit and as I try my hardest to get that last rep out I hit them. This is what I think is giving me better success I don’t do the three sets of reps I always try to push myself to failure and really concentrate on the target muscle.

Hope you have a wonderful holiday just remember your body doesn’t know its a holiday.  Try to eat clean and light and workout.

James

So a long time ago I was going to do some video for Geekfit but guess what I ran into problems.  My life went to hell in a hand basket once my Dad died and pretty much everything I was trying to do just exploded.  I think I actually knew it was coming I mean if you look back at what I had on plate and what I was trying do back then well it was insane.

So instead of video I figured I would do a little sharing with you in photos instead.  So I should start by saying I do a have a 24hr Fitness membership it gets used about 4-6 times a year.  I use to have an excuse of not going to the gym because when you add in traffic, waiting for people to move off equipment, and other gym related issues I just couldn’t get it done.  So I wanted to remove that excuse from my life so I built a home gym.  We have a three care garage now but I use to have this at my hold house on just half of the garage.  The wife got to park in the garage while my car got parked outside.

You can see from my main photo that I have a pretty good setup.  I have free weights that are modular this means at 15lbs and up they jump 20 lbs and then if I need the in between sizes I just add the weight to the outside edges.

You can also see I have some Olympic plates for the rack as well.  You might also see my sons hip-hop ball but that’s because my wife uses it for her ball crunches it fits her back better.

Most home gyms don’t have to be so complex right I mean you don’t need cardio equipment.   Cardio can be done outside even in the snow.  Just bundle up and go for a walk, jog, or run.  You really need just the free weights and bench. Well the combination of the bench, the floor padding, and the weights was less then $700 dollars.  If you think about a gym membership sign-up fees etc you end up paying a hell of a lot more and you always seem to stop going.  Where with this model I am never more then 100 ft from my gym so no excuses for not going for at least 30 minutes.

The Kettle Bell you guys and girls have heard me mention it before well here it is this is the most common weight for Kettle Bells and is the one more used.  Kettle Bells are awesome for full body type workouts that double for cardio and weight training.  The types of exercises you do with these small little objects will really surprise you as well as make you cringe in pain the next day from your body being so sore.

Finally one last shot of the entire place you can see that I have squeezed a lot into a small amount of space which really means you have no excuses.   Remember fitness is not just at th gym it is a change in life it self so try to incorporate it where ever and when ever you can.

James

So I have been gone for a couple of days and have not gotten a chance to finish this posting up. So lets make this short and get it done. The circuit training I started out with was a variable system where the workouts changed constantly. I never did the same workout twice I gave an example in the previous post but what I wanted to show is this break down.

I always did 2 full body with more focus on upper and 2 full body with focus on lower body. Than I would throw in a dash of cardio and some abdominal work.

Full body but focus on upper
Chins / Pullups
Pushups / flat / uneven
Barbell Presses
Kettlebell Swings
Kettlebell bent presses
Dips
Medicine Ball

Full body but focus on lower
Squats / Front / Back
Deadlifts
Olympic Lifts to press
Kettlebell clean and press
Wall Sits
Walking Lunges

Dash of Cardio
Jump Rope
Spin Bike
Box Jumps
Elliptical
Jumping Jacks
Drop Runs

Abdominal
Crunches /Flat / Ball
Medicine Ball / Crunches / Sides / etc..
Leg Lifts / Flat / Hanging

Than I chose something from each group and changed the order each time. This gave me complete variety and made my workouts always change. I got a lot of gas out of these versions throwing in occasional one offs that read in a magazine or saw on the Gym Jones site. My current program is straight HIT but I will be changing that up as well here is what my future is looking like.

Week 1 HIT
Week 2 HIT
Week 3 Cardio
Week 4 Circuit
Repeat

James

You notice how I use that singular not plural form when talking about readers. Well I got a voice message from Steve who was wanting to know how I really got started. He noted that I talked about a program I was on for 8 weeks that kind of conditioned my body a bit. Well in the post I really gave a starting program layout for a basic lifting program anyone could use it. If you want to know what I did for the last 8 weeks well I can break that down too.

This will not all be discussed in one post this may take a while.

Let starts off that I am a big believer in the idea of getting your cardio and resistance training rolled into one. Which means you get a cardio workout at the same time also known as circuit training. I would hope that you have gotten a green light from a doctor before you ever start a program but especially this one as it gets your chest pounding.

I will break this out hopefully in tomorrows post but maybe Friday.

For 8 weeks I never did the same workout twice. The only thing that was constant was a 10 minute warm-up session that varied only between a spin bike and an elliptical machine. These 10 minute warm-ups got your heart pounding too as I would do 5 minutes nice and even the second 5 minutes as hard and fast as I could.

After my warm-up I did a Gym Jones style workout.  If you don’t know what Gym Jones is I suggest you head on over to the web site.  These workouts were sometimes the most brutal things you could imagine but I almost always got them done in about 30 minutes.

I will get some photos up of the tools I used but basically almost all movements were full body movements. Here is a sample of a workout I did about 2 weeks ago.

10 - Minute warm-up beat your best distance
20 reps - Uneven Pushups
20 reps - Kettlebell Swings
20 reps - Olympic lift to press
20 reps - Chins (assisted I can’t lift my body weight that many reps)
Jump Rope - 200 Revelations
20 reps - squats
repeat minus the warm-up.

Now I created a matrix type formation to try and keep things always changing kind of grouped items together and than rotated them. This was pretty complex but over a 8 week period I never did the same routine twice.

More on the matrix later but one note my current program consist of two weeks HIT 1 week circuit style on that week though I do only 3 training sessions that week. When I was doing this program I was doing it 5 times a week which is pretty insane.

James

So this is what my wife taught me this weekend.  I have been working, working, and working.  The problem with working from home is that you are never too far from the office.  Currently I have several deadlines looming and finding time to complete them all is becoming more and more of a challenge.  I won’t miss a workout this is something that I just have beat into my head sometimes I workout while on calls I find time no matter what.

Sometimes though you need to relax and this is what my wife taught me this weekend.  I was working away at my desk on a long conference call to discuss a training project I have been tasked with.  The progress has been good but a lot of other items have slipped off my plate because of it.  About 11 am these hands come in behind me and give me a bit a of a hug.  I turn around and my wife is home (normally she works and is not home until around 6 pm) I am surprised to see her and kind of confused.  So as it goes she hatched a plan with my boss to get me out of the house on Friday and off to do a little bit of relaxing.  She had planned everything dinner reservations, hotel, harbor cruse, etc…it was amazing.

I did workout on Friday but that was about it, unless you count the hours of walking around on Saturday at Disney Land.

So remember we all have things to do but you have to make time to relax.  Working out is vitally important but this is not a race it’s a lifetime commitment.

I know for this crowd this is nothing new but I write a blog on blogger and got some feedback from a reader so I figured I would spread the blog.

So at the request of my one and only reader (thanks Steve) I will give you a breakdown of getting started with weight training. I guess I should start by saying you don’t have to have a gym membership to do weight training or resistance training. You can start off simple or complex but the main key ingredient to success is consistency.

When starting a resistance training program you want to more or less start from scratch. What does that mean well for me it means start with full body routines and usually with a 3 day split. A 3 day split means weight training 3 days a week. You have to make a decision on how much you want to workout. I am driven so I tend to workout a lot but for a lot of people they may get burned out. Here is an example of a 3 day split to get you going.

Monday - Weight Training
Wednesday - Weight Training
Friday - Weight Training

Now if you miss a day say Wednesday do it on Thursday and then do your next training session on Saturday.

It is also important to include cardio programs to your training especially if you are trying to lose weight. You can do the cardio on the same day or you can do it on non training days it it up to you. I should also point out that cardio does not mean a walk around the block (which is great after eating a meal) cardio means sweat, sweat, and more sweat. If you don’t have a gym membership find a big hill to climb. If you have the space at home and money buy an Elliptical machine, treadmill, or rowing machine. If you have not done any of these types of cardio before I would start off slow maybe try doing 10 mins each time and workup each week adding 2-5 minutes. Your goal should be 30-45 minutes for cardio at least 3 times a week plus the weight training.

How long should you do one program I have asked this question myself and it may very but you really don’t want your body getting to use to the workouts so I would say no more then 8 weeks. If you do the routine I suggest here it will give you a chance to really get your body use to the work.

Supplementation - You maybe thinking you don’t need to supplement but you would be surprised at how much protein you need when lifting weights. Here is the easy math method for your protein intake. Figure your goal weight out mine is 225-235 lbs which means I need 225-235g of protein. Simple right 1g of protein for 1 lb of body weight. You can either eat a lot of Chicken breast (loaded with protein) or you can start your day off with a protein shake of 40+ grams of protein.

Now for your workouts I should try and do a video to show you my home gym etc…but I left the camera at the in-laws and I may never finish the post.

Lets set these parameters in place so you know how many of what to do.  3 sets per exercise total of 12 reps per set.

Bench Press (Machine, Dumbbell, or Barbell) - works chest
Lat Pull Down or Bent Over Rows or Seated Rows - works back
Kickbacks or Seated Dips or Push Downs - works triceps
Dumbbell Curls or Preacher Curls or Barbell Curls - works biceps
Squats - legs
Overhead Press or Arnold Presses - Shoulders
Ball Crunches or Flat Crunches - Abdominal

Now if you notice this looks simpler than most routines you find in the magazines thats because it is. Magazines have to come up with a new routine every month to keep their readers interested. If you are getting started these are not for you most of these have some crazy movement in them that is just to hard for the novice. You will also find out that magazines tend to talk about the abnormal as if it is the normal. Example over training you hear about it every magazine yet most people are not training hard enough. With a 3 day split this shouldn’t be a problem for anyone.

You could do the entire routine I have listed above with a flat bench and some dumbbells. Don’t be afraid to ask me any questions about this routine either. Maybe you don’t have a gym you can do almost the same routine with body weight resistance.

Let me here some feedback.
James

I got an email from a friend of mine who was talking about some back pain he was having from standing around all day on a job site.  The funny thing about us Geeks we sit around at a desk and if we have to go out to a client site it can get painful.  We typically find ourselves leaning over servers, hunched over reading a screen, loading servers into racks sometimes nearly a 100 lbs worth.   These things can not only cause serious injury but lifetime problems.  I know this may sound funny but tech jobs like this really should require working out.  My first job in the technology sector was in 1995 my boss liked to workout and in a short amount of time he got me to workout as well.  Now obviously I didn’t keep up that trend or I wouldn’t need to be dieting as hard as I am now.

So lets talk about the back you have several sections of muscles including Lower back, Rhomboideus (Middle), Latissimus, and Trapezius.  When we say we are going to workout and do back that means we work the entire back and in this case to failure.  This means we are going to be using heavy weights and really putting all our energy into each move.

Guides to Back Exercises
Lower Back Exercises
Middle Back Exercises
Lats Exercises
Traps Exercises

Food for thought for us geeks every lb of muscle you build enables your body to burn more calories and thus more fat.

Here is the routine I did last night.

Lower back
Stiff Legged Dead Lifts - Some people love them some people hate them.  I am just getting back into lifting so I kind of started light 225 lbs that’s one 45 lbs weight bar, 2 x 45 lb plates on each side.  The important thing here is form.  You should also go slow through the motion fast doesn’t work the muscles as hard I take about 3 seconds per rep.

Middle Back
Bent Over Rows - I used my Olympic bar again here I don’t take a lot of time to hang up the weights I just drop it off fairly quickly.  I started with 185 lbs fingers facing away and again focused on form and my back.  I took about 3 seconds per rep I felt the burn early on this one which is a good thing.

Lats - For lats I used a lat pull down I used 120 lbs of weight and again focused on form and my lats.  I really tried to flex them through the motion and took a nice 3 second per rep pace.  This is hard as you will quickly find out you can’t get the bar to the chest very easy going this pace.

Traps - I finished off my entire routine with my traps for this I used dumb bell shrugs.  I started with 60 lbs thinking that would be enough but I was easily able to go 10-12 reps which is not what I wanted so I went up to 80 lbs and then 100 lbs.  At 100 lbs going nice and slow I was about to get 5 reps which was my target.

This routine if done right should get your done in 20-30 minutes tops.  I only did 2 sets per exercise, but fully worked my entire body on my second set I stopped and started as I struggled to get just one more rep.  To give you an idea that rep might have been only number 6 or 7.  Low reps high weight is what I am doing right now.

Now when I hit this group again next week I won’t be doing the same routine I might change the order I also might change exercise but I try not do the same routine twice.  You can use the guides I linked to on BodyBuilding.com to find something that works for you.

Have a great workout.
James

Well the time has come that I switch up my workout routines 8 weeks of circuit training complete. I am feeling very good about myself. I have officially stopped looking at the scale and decided to go with measurements. I am going to see if I can place my measurements from BodySpace.com on here some how other then just linking.

New program is 3 weeks HIT with cardio then 1 week of circuit training with high rep light weight. I am hoping for some good results I know it will be hard sense I am traveling again we will see if I can find some way of getting my HIT on the road.

Eating is still low GI diet style with cutting back of carbs after 4 pm I am impressed with my total waist line changes but still would like to loose another 4 inches.

Any questions or comments would be great.

James