Kyle buffs up

June to July
78.4kg total to 77.6kg
14% body fat
Lean/fat 66.1/12.3 to 66.7/10.9, +0.6kg lean -1.4kg fat

Measurements,
Neck, 40cm… no change
Chest, 107cm… no change
Waist, 84cm… -1cm
Flexed biceps, 37cm… no change
Forearms, 30.5cm… +0.5cm, probably all those chins
Thighs, 51cm… +1cm, I guess that’s where the extra 0.6kg muscle went!
Calves, 36cm… no change

January to July
Total mass, 83.0kg –> 77.6kg
Fat/lean, 62.4/20.6 –> 66.7/10.9, or -9.7kg fat and +4.3kg muscle

Still need to get -2kg fat and +4kg muscle to reach year-end goals.

I’d thought I’d made no physical changes this month, and was worried because my total weight was going down. But apparently I lost something like 1.4kg fat and gained 0.6kg muscle. Hard to say, though.

The advantage of not measuring yourself lots is that you don’t freak out all the time at changes, the disadvantage is not being sure if your weigh-in day is a one-off or not, if the figures are good. Whatever the tape measure and calculations say, I don’t think I’m 14% bodyfat.

But I am lifting more so the muscle gain and fat loss ought to continue however slowly.

I do think I need to eat more.

On Wednesday I had a half-arsed workout in the school gym, it was just the teacher seeing where we were so he could figure out who was going to need a lot of instruction in exercises, and who not so much.

With that plus the 6.5km cycle each way, I was tired and wanted to rest. But I’d left my keys at home, so I had the rest of the day to kill. I went and got lunch, then went to my regular gym. There I just tried out a few different exercises.

I think I said earlier, I feel I’ve gone as far as I can with chest alone, and it’s past time to build up back and legs, too. I’ve checked with the physio, and he tells me that,
"Any weight you can do for 15-20 reps should be fine for your back."
"12 reps?" I asked.
"Hmm, maybe, if you have to, but any pain and drop the weight."
"So I can do squat, deadlift, and press. Awesome."
"No deadlift."
"Bugger."
"Well maybe later, if the rest of your strength builds up. When you can do 15-20 reps of your bodyweight in press, row and squat, then we’ll talk."

I think that was his way of saying, "don’t be stupid - never!" Bodyweight in squat for many reps is not huge (though would be for me), but in row it’s unusual and in press it’s impressive.

Today was thus just finding what weight I could handle for those reps.

• Shoulder-width chins, 5x 8
• Decline sit-ups, 4x 30 - supersetted with above
• Squats, 20x 20kg, 3x 16x 30kg
• Press, 20x 20kg, 14x 30kg, 10x 30kg, 8x 30kg
• BB rows, 20x 20kg, 3x 15x 30kg

I am tempted to drop the chins so I can focus effort on the rows, but I’ve been getting a lot out of them.

The squat I’m aiming at doing bodyweight or 80kg total for 15 reps.

The press should involve my chest enough that if I do it for a couple of months, my bench press won’t drop to nothing - it’ll drop, obviously, but not enormously. My goal here is 1/2 of bodyweight or 40kg total, also for 15 reps. This will probably be the easiest goal since my shoulders are relatively strong from the bench.

The row I want to be as strong as the bench, and so we’re looking at 3/4 bodyweight for 12-15 reps, or 60kg. I am tempted to clean it rather than just row it, what do you guys reckon?

If I can add 2.5kg every fortnight, I’ll hit my goals by the end of the year; I don’t know if this is realistic, I need a few weeks to get the feel of things.

Thoughts from the people experienced with these exercises?

I had friends over yesterday, so I missed my workout. On the other hand, I did cycle 6.5km on my crappy bike to school, and 6.5km back. Good leg workout

I had my first day of classes today. The class is some 28 people, which was larger than I expected, and apparently surprised the teacher, too. I don’t know if that’s like they have at unis - they over-enrol, expecting that a large number will drop out quickly, leaving a decent class size afterwards.

About 2/3 are men, and 1/3 women. About half are young (21 or under), and the other half quite varied. I noticed one Indian or Sri Lankan man, one Asian man, and one Israeli woman, otherwise all pretty whitebread.

Nobody was obese or super-skinny. A couple of people were overweight, and there are at least three smokers - the smoking surprised me. There are about three people with obviously fit and strong physiques, and a couple of men who are obviously just strong. The rest look pretty ordinary.

First classes were pretty bureaucratic stuff. "Risk". You can’t just say, "hey, who was the dickhead who put this bench press right in the doorway? Let’s move it." Nope, it all has to be written down, what is the hazard, what could happen, how likely is it, get a numerical value for the risk, recommend a response… etc.

But cheffing had HACCP (hazard analysis of critical control points) which was almost exactly the same thing but for cooking - "no, it’s a bad idea to defrost the chicken on the bench overnight" etc. In theory everyone is constantly filling out forms and writing out procedures, in practice people just take normal care of things and tick boxes so that if anyone sues you, you can say, "hey look, a piece of paper with boxes ticked, see? Can’t blame us." The teacher didn’t say that, that was just my HACCP experience

I suppose it is useful to formalise things for people who aren’t used to thinking things through in that thorough way.

It seems that the classes are pretty easy-going in that each session or day they want to teach you X, and once they’re satisfied you’ve got the idea, the session is over, bye-bye go home.

Two days a week will be some kind of gym session - learning and coaching - and one day a week, far as I can tell, will be theory - anatomy and the like I suppose.

From my observations and talking to gym instructors over the years,

75% of people joining gyms disappear within one month
90% bail within three months
5% come for six months, achieve a lot but get distracted by life events and maybe never come back or only years later
3% are those who stick around, but get to a certain level and never progress - like the chest & bicep guys, or the cardio bunnies
2% stick around and actually achieve something

So today I cycled over to Moorabbin campus to sign up for Certificate III (gym instructor). It’s a bleak place, poorly-designed for student life. The car parking is within the campus rather than all in a ring around the buildings, so there are few public spaces for the students to hang out and socialise. That’s probably why all the student activities are organised by the university, rather than having lots of clubs and societies.

As I was enrolling, I said, "I hope I won’t be the oldest one in class!" and the woman just shook her head and said, "nooooo…." in a drawn-out, "oh hell no!" sort of way. I hope for a good mix of people.

I went and took a look at the gym, it’s about four times the size of my community gym. I understand that after the first couple of weeks we’ll spend a couple of sessions each week there; being a student, even a student of fitness, doesn’t grant automatic membership, strangely.

So now I guess Monday and Tuesday with classes on all day will become my rest days from my actual gym. That’s okay, they’re the busiest days there anyway.

The gym and the lecture rooms are in the same building as people doing cookery certificates, it’s almost like a phased transition for me.

The 13km or so round trip on my bicycle to enrol was uphill against the wind and my bike is crap, so that was my leg workout

For the rest, nothing new:-
- Chins Hammer/Shoulder/Wide - 3x 6 / 3x 6 / 3x 3 = 45 in all
- Bent-over DB rows - 20x 20kg, 3x 15x 25kg
- Bench press - 10x 57.5kg, 5x 62.5kg, 5x 67.5kg, 5x 72.5kg, 5x 77.5kg
- DB incline flies - 3x 10x 20kg

Saw a couple of interesting people in the gym today. One is a construction worker with a very good upper body. He trained in singlet, jeans, steel-capped workboots and cap. He had three major weaknesses: his right leg, his left leg, and his vanity. No leg work, which is pretty common for blokes - but not so common for blokes with such well-developed upper bodies. Usually if they get that far they notice their thighs are smaller than their biceps.

Every exercise he gave himself adoring looks in the mirror, and he liked to whip up his shirt to have a good look at his abs. I hope some day he can find his legs, and a woman who will love him as much as he loves himself.

The other was a guy I’ve seen around for a bit but not talked to until now. He’s got the best legs of any guy in the gym, though I’ve never seen him squat or anything like that. Has the look of a runner about him - 800m or 1,500m, maybe. He borrowed my dumbells I was using for flies and we talked. Apparently he used to be a runner but now is a cyclist, is using the winter when riding’s not so good to bulk up a bit. He was doing his dumbell work on a big inflatable ball.

"Is that for your core strength?"
"That, and it means when I get into position for the weights it’s not such a strain on my lower back, I can ease into it."

That seems pretty interesting, might be worth my trying - I need core strength, and to go easy on my lower back, too. I don’t think I’d have the balance to do the same weights as I do on a bench or standing, though - but it’s worth improving your balance, too.

I’ll be cycling a lot more too, soon - I hope it helps my legs along.

Kyle is lost
As most know, at the moment I’m a chef, and years ago was infantry in the army, some years regular, some years reserves. I love cooking, but when you hit your 30s you find that there are hardly any chefs of your age or older in commercial kitchens. People burn out, decide they want more sane hours for their families, and so on.

I have my own small business doing office catering, but lately it’s been more marketing than cooking, which I don’t like. So I’m thinking of a career change. I thought to myself, what’s a profession in which age helps you? Well, teaching. But I wouldn’t want to deal with hundreds of whiny teenagers. One-on-one, or small groups would suit me better.

Where do I want to go?
Now, what do I enjoy in work life? Well, in chef work I like to look out at the dining area and see people drinking, eating, laughing and having fun - and know that I helped make that happen. And in both the Army and kitchen, I’ve always enjoyed teaching people simple skills, seeing them go from incompetent to masters of it, and taking people who are really not confident, and getting them to do things they thought they could never do, seeing them come out feeling two metres tall and bulletproof.

So I was wondering what profession could I do these things in, and I was thinking this one day while lifting iron. Thus: personal trainer. Okay, that’s the destination: how do we get there?

Education
Education, first up. I know a fair bit about exercise and nutrition from Army, cheffing, and my own research to help my workouts. But it’s one thing to have a bunch of facts, and another to bring them together into a profession. Plus you need bits of paper to do anything these days.

There are few key things to think of. One is that there are two Certificates to becoming a PTI. The first is Certificate III (gym instructor). That just lets you hang out at the gym, show people how to bench press and that sort of thing.

The second is Certificate IV, and there you specialise in either Group Trainer or Personal Trainer. The group one is for aerobics classes, that sort of thing. The personal one is what most of us here are interested in, it’s one trainer with one to a few people. This lets you take people in at the gym or on your own somewhere, assess their fitness and strength, discover their goals and tailor a workout to suit.

The thing about TAFE courses generally is that they vary a lot from one institution to another. There are a few core subjects they have to cover, like anatomy and basic exercise physiology (eg "the pectoralis major is an abductor and is inserted on the humerus") then a whole swag of optional ones - it’s up to them which they present you with, so two people going to two different institutions, one might know about (for example) aquatic training, and the other doesn’t.

It seems that Cert III and IV each have around 100 contact hours, that is hours in classes. Supposedly it’s an hour or two outside the class for each hour in class, for reading and study. You can do these hours full-time and get each Cert in 3-4 weeks, or do them part-time an evening or two a week and it’ll take 10-16 weeks.

A few institutions offer Cert III/IV as a package, you do them both together in one course.

In addition, you need a practical placement of around 20-40 hours - that is, putting into practice what you learned in class and study. Some institutions offer this practical placement in-house, others expect you to go and ask your local gym or something. In-house is better, since some gyms will say "okay" and then just get you to do photocopying and making coffees for the day, doesn’t teach you much.

Lastly, you need Level 2 First Aid. That’s CPR, recognising signs of a stroke, stopping bleeding, recognising and treating shock, basic binding of sprains, that sort of thing. Some institutions just slot it in as part of Cert III/IV, others expect you to do it separately.

Prices vary widly, from about $1,000 per Cert to $5,000. Level 2 First Aid is $200-$500 on its own. I’m visiting the places which interest me. I think you have to balance cost with travelling distance, the facilities offered, whether the practical and first aid are part of it, how you like the instructors, and so on.

That’s all I know so far.

Standards in institutions obviously do vary - just look at gyms you’ve been to, and how different PTIs are. Some are great, some useless, some could be great but seem burned out and don’t care, etc.

I think some people enter the profession imagining they’ll be cruising along with Ian Thorpe counting his reps on his bench press or something. They’re not really prepared for the fact that 99% of clients are going to be ordinary overweight and unfit people with terrible diets who want a big change without any change, if you know what I mean

Any questions, anything you can tell me?

So yesterday I did my 3km run. Today…

• Hammer-grip chins - 5x 5, 5x 4, 1x 5 = 45 in all!
• Bench press - 5x 30kg, 5x 35kg, 5x 40kg, 5x 45kg, 5x 50kg
• Leg extension - 20x 50kg, 15x 57kg, 12x 64kg, 10x 71kg, 8x 78kg
• Leg curl - 20x 30kg, 15x 37kg, 12x 44kg, 10x 51kg, 8x 58kg
• Bent-over DB row - 20x 20kg, 12x 25kg, 12x 25kg
• DB flies - 3x 10x 17.5kg

I got chatting and forgot abs

Alternating runs and weights is working well so far, I have quite a bit more energy at the gym.

I had a chat to the PTI, he confirmed that with my slight lumbar scoliosis squats wouldn’t be much use. In the top half of the motion you use your quads, in the bottom half you use your hams and glutes. That’s fine, but in the bottom half any lower back problems will come into play, there’ll be some hip motion which will make the problems worse. So I could only do half-range squats, which would only work quads - may as well just do leg extensions! A pity, though.

He also suggested a narrower grip on the bench. You know the marks they have on the Olympic bars for the widest grip allowed in powerlifting, I tend to have my little fingers there. The PTI said, try a couple of inches in and you’ll be stronger. That’d be great! Dunno if it’ll work but I’ll try anything once except incest and folk dancing.

Old Laundry Zhu was there as always. Scrubadub with his jocks in the tub. Nobody else familiar was there.

There was an Indian bloke sort of dancing around, doing jumping jacks and so on outside the gym room, he looked pretty stupid doing that for a warmup, but he also looked in good shape, so whatever works!

A bloke was washing his face at the water fountain, in three-quarter jeans hanging low on his arse, a cap pulled down low around his eyes. After he finished washing, he quickly looked around and pulled out a little pill bottle. I caught a glimpse of the label - well, I probably can’t say the name here, but it was a horse steroid. Brilliant. Cap Boy knocked a couple back with water and strode quickly into the gym. In okay shape but sloppy workout, maybe his cap over his eyes distracted him, he’d probably be better off spending the drugs money on a personal trainer to show him some good form for the exercises, though.

As for me…

• Hammer-grip chins - 5x 4, 5x 3, 1x 5 = 40 in all
• Bench press - 10x 30kg, 5x 35kg, 5x 40kg, 5x 45kg, 5x 50kg
• Leg press - 5x 145kg, 5x 154kg, 5x 163kg, 5x 172kg, 5x 181kg
• Ab crunch machine - 20x 50kg, 15x 57kg, 10x 64kg
• Bent-over DB row - 20x 20kg, 12x 25kg, 12x 25kg
• DB pullover - 10x 20kg, 10x 20kg

… and the closest thing I had to drugs was my usual three eggs and milk when I got home

I might go through this week with 50kg of plates my bench max, then add 2.5kg next week. The leg press is pretty much maxed out for me, I might have to do some extensions and curls on the legs to build up the individual muscle strength a bit more.

I felt a bit lethargic in the gym today, yet the weights didn’t stuff me. I mean, it was hard while pushing the weights, but I wasn’t exhausted afterwards. I guess I’m recovering quicker than in the first month or two. Perhaps that’s just fitness?

I think then that alternating running with weights day will work well for me. We’ll see I guess.

I read too many bodybuilding websites, and just couldn’t sit at home doing nothing. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a good day for going out, rainy and gloomy. So I went for a run, only 2.5km but so much for a day of rest. I also did 50 pushups, 50 situps, 50 squats, and 50 rows on the sports oval’s fence. Just enough to get the blood through the body

Ah well, I’m sure I’ll slack off another day to balance it out.

I was always a skinny kid - at 1.80m, I was about 65kg, fit but very lean.

Then I signed up for the Army, and jumping out of various vehicles with packs on my back took 2cm off my height, but added 10kg to my weight. I liked this, and at my peak 1994-96 I was,

• 1.78m, 82kg, 12.5% BF
• Chest 107cm, waist 79cm, arms 38cm, and calves 36cm

I could manage,

• Bench (olympic bar plus) - 6x 80kg
• 45deg leg press - 10x 300kg
• BB curl (oly bar) - 6x 40kg
• Deadlift (oly bar) - 12x 150kg
• 15km run, 1hr21′15″
• 5km run: 17′30″

After the Army of course I slacked off and lost a lot of condition, but never became really bad. Around 2003 I got interested in fitness again, buffed up a bit but didn’t go too far with it as I got busy with work, and basically just lost the habit.

In December last year I’d grown a bit chunky, up to 83kg which since I wasn’t weight-training you’ll know was a lot of fat. We went on a holiday to Tasmania and did a lot of walking, I did alright but it wasn’t easy - and it used to be easy. I used to have a lot of energy, walk for miles quite happily, and I wasn’t. I took a look at myself. (You get to take a look when my postcount gets up a bit.)

I was getting the Suburban Bloke Physique - skinny legs and arms, not much chest except for budding man-boobs, and a belly. On the hiking trip I burst the buttons on three pairs of pants and shorts.

Time for action!

So I bought a pedometer to get my 10,000 a day, and in February I joined the gym. The gym instructor gave me a crazy workout, every session was to have time on bike, treadmill, rower, double cable lat pull, double seated row, bench press, dumbbell overhead press, machine leg press, machine ab crunch, and to finish it off a brace.

I tried it for a couple of weeks and I was exhausted. I decided to chuck it aside and go back to my roots, what worked fifteen years ago should work today, damnit! Difference is, my back’s not the best, so no squats, deadlifts or the like.

• Bench press
• lat pull-down
• crunches
• leg press

Each would have 1x warm-up set, and 3x work sets. Then I’d top off the workout with two other exercises, whatever took my fancy at the time, a couple of sets each.

Cardio was just my walks, 60-90′ and 6-9km a day.

This worked alright, I went from benching 3×12 of 20kg to 3×5 of 50kg, and so on. I was knocked back a bit in March when that gastro bug went around - over two days I lost 3kg, mostly muscle, it was about three weeks before I was back where I was before being sick.

Still, I’ve made some progress in the last almost four months. I’m back down a trouser size, from 95cm to 85cm waist. I’ve trimmed down from 83 to 77kg, much more of it muscle now. My strength has gone up a fair bit, and my fitness improved, too.

GOALS & WORKOUT

I have some goals I want to achieve by December this year.

• Chin-ups, 3x 20
• Bench press, 6x 80kg
• 45 deg leg press, 240kg (540lbs)
• Pushups & Situps, 100 each
• 5km run in under 20′
• Bodyweight, 80kg lean - no target bodyfat percentage, we know if we’re lean. 12%, if you insist

Unfortunately, my gym lacks a 45 degree leg press, I have to make do with a machine leg press, where your legs are horizontal and the weights are locked in and don’t go that high. But we’ll see how I go.

I also plan to get into Cert III/IV fitness in the second half of the year.

I was thinking that since my body seems to take a day to recover from one day’s gym workout, or two days after 3-5 days in a row, I might just go for the old,

Mon-Wed-Fri — gym
Tue-Thu-Sat — run

3km runs the first week, 3.5km the second, 4km the third, etc. I probably won’t do more than 5km since it’ll make building muscle mass and strength too hard.

Right now I’m pretty slow, about 9-10ph, which would mean a 30′ 5km run. Going on past experience, after a couple of months I should be able to manage 12kph, which is a 25′ 5km run. The sub-20′ 5km run is the end-year goal I’m most apprehensive about.

With all that in mind, my current gym workout is four basic exercises every time, plus another two depending on what I feel like that day,

Mon-Wed-Fri

• Hammer-grip chins - pump out as many as I can each set, total 40 reps
• Bench press - going for Rippetoe’s 5×5 here, from 30kg of plates to 50kg
• Leg press - 5×5 again, 127kg to 172kg
• Ab crunch machine - 20x 50kg, 15x 57kg, 10x 64kg
• DB flies - 20x 15kg, 15x 17.5kg, 12x 20kg
• Bent-over DB row - 20x 20kg, 12x 25kg, 12x 25kg

Tue-Thu-Sat

• 3km run, +0.5km/week for a month then reassess