Brownay’s BodyBlog

Overall, a sound first week on my new gym regime. Although I’ve had a busy week outside of the gym, I have managed to keep to my schedule. I’ve definately decided to do 2 body part days in conjunction with a jog around the village, and then do an hours mixed cardio on the days in between. I figure while I’m still getting used to doing more cardio, a quick jog and a double-bodypart gym sesh in one day is far better than a double-bodypart gym sesh followed by an hours cardio.

The running already seems easier and I already feel fitter in myself - although I’m fully prepared for it to get a lot tougher. I’m not quite sure how long I should keep up my ‘breaking in’ period going for, and also when to make my run harder etc. I guess when I feel like it’s getting too easy, or every 2 weeks or so… I’ll figure something out. Im still sucking around 1 protein shake a day, just for good measure. I’m also trying to keep my diet as healthy as possible. This isn’t really hard as such, but I think it would be tricky to change my diet completely. If I ever start to crave something sweet I usually just have a shake.

I made a post about abs and got some good feedback, although I’m still a little unsure whether my question was really answered properly. I have a natural aversion to abs and I’m just going to take it slow and do crunches and a few roman chair leg raises for the first 4-5 weeks. I don’t really see the point in going crazy with abs at this stage: 1. Because I don’t feel like my abs are strong enough to even start a propper abs session and 2. I need to get atleast below 10% bodyfat before I’ll even see them anyway.

It’s going well, but sticking at it wil be the hardest part.

Cheers,

Brownay.

Today was the first official Monday of my new workout regime. I have quite a busy few weeks college wise because of exams so I decided to switch my initial plans a bit. I went to the gym as normal with two muscle groups in mind - which went very well. I did shoulders and tri’s and I felt really pumped during the shoulder sesh. I went for a ‘free weight’ spree and did straight dumbell press, lat raises with dumbells and seated rear delt raises with dumbells too. I felt like a change from the usual shoulder press machine and cable lateral raises. The triceps went well but I did become aware, as ever, of the unbalance in my arms - my left tricep looking especially smaller than my right.

Where I should have gone for an hours cardio later on, I instead decided to just go for a 25 minute run around the village instead, and to save the hours cardio in the gym for tomorrow. This way I’m breaking in at a slightly more managable rate as well as saving myself a bit more time today for work (boringggg).

Overall pleased with my first day, and to top it off, I remembered to blog it! Off to do some ab movements now,

Brownay

Finally have time to write about what I did on Friday 4th. I went for a double session with my gym bud (as expected) and did bi’s and legs. The gyms that I go to aren’t really equipped well enough to do legs properlly, they don’t have barbells for a start… it pains me to miss out such a major bodygroup like legs, but at the moment I don’t really have a choice. Anyways, the session was good and my bi’s still hurt abit today.

Later on I went to my home gym with an hours cardio in mind. When I arrived there it was absolutley wedged with people, so I hit the X-trainer (fun fun fun) for 10 mins - then I just did a chest session instead. The last 3-4 days have been a bit slap dash, but that’s because my week started on wednesday. The real beginning starts tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to making some solid progress over the next couple of months.

Cheers,

Brownay

Missed blogging yesterday already… bad start I know. However, that isn’t reflected in my gym efforts which are so far (2 days in) going to plan. I did an hours hard cardio yesterday: 10 mins warm-up on the bike, then 30 mins run on the tredmill, trying to keep a low heart rate and burn those calories steadily. I then did a 2000 km row for good measure - pretty slow though as I was knackered (like 8 mins +). I had to skip a weights session with my mate also to go to a ‘new years lunch’, which wasn’t great - but the cardio later on made up for that. I had a salad and a shake when I got back too, a fair start I think.

Today I went for a gym session with my usual mate to make up for missing it yesterday. We did shoulders and triceps which felt good after an unkind christmas. I’ve dropped a little bit of stamina and strength but I’m not looking too different physically. Going for a run later round my village to in-keep with the regime, and tomorrow is a double sesh with my mate again - all good.
Cheers,

Brownay

As of the 01/01/2008 I will be recording my daily gym and excersise progress in this blog. It is primarily to keep me motivated as failure to excersise or go to the gym will result in a poor looking blog! However, it will also be interesting to see any comments/suggestions.

I’ve been going to the gym for around 1 and a half years and I’ve decided that I’m going to change. I was doing a muscle group approach focussing mainly on gaining mass and overall strength. However, I think I need to go back to the drawing board and get an overall ’stonger core’, which I can use as a base to pursue any later training goals. Therefore I’ve decided to get a lower bodyfat % - from my current 10-12% to around 6-8%. Also I’m going to focus hard in on my abs while doing much more cardio for the required fat burning - the six pack may be “overated” but it isn’t exactly a bad thing to have. I’ll do cardio 5 times a week - 3 times for an hour in the gym rowing, treadmill, x-trainer and abs, then 2 times a week jogging for around 20 minutes. I’ll also do wieghts 3 times a week, with 2 muscle groups per session - monday, wednesday, friday - to keep things ‘ticking over’.

My short term goal is to increase my fitness and build a stronger core, and in the long term (by April) to have visible abs and 6-8% bodyfat. Diet is important too so I’ll have to remember that!

Cheers,
Brownay.

Welcome to the Bodybuilding.com BodyBlogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!