bigdimmortal’s BodyBlog

About a month after passing my PT test, my motivation just dropped.  I have been debating on what happened with my motivation and I think I figured it out, Lack of competition.  In college and high school I always worked out to be better at basketball and it really paid off for me, but now I can’t play ball cause my knee is totally screwed.  I played volleyball in the sand a few weeks ago and it really did a number on my knee, I wasn’t even playing that hard.  The games was just with a bunch of older guys for my wifes company picnic.  My knee was swollen and stiff for almost two weeks.  It has really killed my motivation not being able to compete on a regular basis.  Yeah I have a pt test every 6 months but its just not the same.  I miss being able to play pick up games and see the results of my hard work, but now my knee can’t even withstand volleyball theres no chance in hell I can take basketball.  And its just soo frustrating to go to the gym and see people play and me just watch on the side wishing…I dont know.  The only motivation I find is when I come on here and see other peoples great success and hope that I can be a success story…its not much motivation but I guess its a start.

Well today was the day to see if my hard work of working out and eating right pays off and it did.  I did 70 pushups in 2 min and 90 situps in 2 min and 12:18 in a mile and a half.  Got a score of excellent low.  After completing my test I want to splurge for a little but not too much.  All i’m gonna do is go to burger king for dinner today and then this weekend my wife is awarding me by taking me to a brazilian steak house.  She said its a buffet with sushi and other foods plus they cook the steak in front of you.  Tomorrow i’m taking a day off from working out but i’m still going to eat right and then continue exercising the day after and stick to my diet.  I’ve decided that my next goal will be to get down to 290 by the end of august.  That should be pretty easy I would think but we’ll see.  I know I have to keep up with the intesity of my cardio and that has proven to be a huge key for success for me to lose fat.  I think what i’m gonna do is workout 6 days 2 times a week except for one day only do cardio in the morning.  All the days do cardio in the morning and then 3/4 days do weights and the other days do cardio in the afternoon.  That should really throw my body off and keep my metabolism going.  Wish me luck, give me your input.

I ran a mile and a half on the treadmill this morning and felt great.  Then while walking from my car to my job my knee kinda "clicked/poped", so now my knee is in a little pain…UUUGGGGHHHHH, this couldn’t have happened at a worse time. 

Alright, lately I’ve been browsing various blogs talking about how to be faster and most of them say "lift weights will make you faster".  THIS IS COMPLETELY FALSE.  If you are trying to be fast you only lift weights to maintain stability of the joints doing light exercises of 3-4 sets of 12-15 reps.  REMEMBER TO DO LIGHT WEIGHTS.  
Now to the point:
IF YOU WANT TO BE FAST YOU HAVE TO RUN FAST CONSTANTLY!!!!!  Time yourself when doing these exercises so that you can keep track of your progress.  Here is a list of exercises that you can do.
Interval sprints
-SPRINT 100 meters rest for 10 seconds and repeat.  Do this 10 to 20 times.
Suicides
-Basketball players know what this is.  At one end of the court sprint to the first free throw line and back, then half court line and back, the second free throw line and back and the other end of the court and back.  If you can do this in under 35 seconds  Your fast otherwise keep on training.  You want to do about 10-15 of these with 30 seconds of rest in between.

Hill Sprints
-You want to find a hill that is pretty steep and long.  Do the following regimen.
–Sprint up hill going forward 10 times with about 30 seconds of rest in between, of course this may change depending on the size and steepness of the hill.
–Run Backwards up the hill.  You will feel the burn in your quads.  Do 5 of these.
–Sprint forward up the hill 5 times.

Stairs
-Find a LOOONNNGGGG flight of stairs and pretty much sprint up them.  This helps keep constant hard tension on your legs and also helps with breathing when sprinting, cause it exhaust the shit out of your body.  In college we had a long ass flight of stairs called "Jesus steps".  Cause no matter how good of shape your in EVERYONE says "ohh jesus" when going up them. But anyway I would do this regiment with the steps.
–2-3 sets each
—Step on each steps
—Go up by two steps at a time
—Go up by three steps at a time.
A word of caution be careful around outdoor metal bleachers, you know, the ones that you sat on at the high school football games, these tend to be a bit slippery and one slip sprinting up them can lead to serious injury.  

Lastly Jump Rope.
-This helps you be quick on your feet.  I would recommend doing running in place jump rope but its up to you.  Different people have different results depending on what they do with the rope.  But running in place and some mixing up helps me out.  Key phrase "DO IT FAST".

A key not that alot of people dont take into account when building speed:  Mix some long distance running in as well.  Yes you will get fast if you do the speed exercises, but you need some long distance so that you can have endurance.  I know that wide receivers and running backs do alot of sprints and are very fast but whenever we would play them in basketball after about 5-10 min of straight pickup without stopping they would get winded. NO DISRESPECT TO FOOTBALL PLAYERS, I admire their hard work ethic when they train.

So that sums it up for how to be fast.  I guarantee if you use this as a guide or add it to your regimen you will be fast.

God I hate running in formation.  Because we always go as fast as the slowest person.  We ran about 2.5 miles in 40-45 minutes, I could do that on the treadmill or on my own in about 20-25 min.  I ****ing hate doing that.  I was fine with the run, but for some odd reason my whole entire body was sore the next day…if anyone can explain why this happened please let me know.

I’ve worked out great for the past two months, however i’ve only lost 3-5 pounds, and that is very very slow progress for the amount of exercise i’m getting.  So i’ve decided to revert back to my old ways and see how it will do.  Lately I haven’t been able to push myself really hard cardio wise because of my knee, but I tested out my knee strength and stability two days ago when I was doing mountain climbers and holding in a squat position.  I did each exercise for 30 seconds one right after the other and did 5 sets of that.  I WAS BURNT OUT AFTER THAT, but my knee was stable and strong.  So I pushed it even further yesterday, I did various cardio exercise after exercise. Here is the list of what I did:

Mountain climbers 30sec
scissor kicks- 30
arm circles 30 sec
holding the ball in the air and bringing it to my ankles crunches- total of 30
squat and hold 30 sec
planks - 30 sec
8-count pushups 5-8

I did 6 sets of that yesterday and I was drenched in sweat and was exhausted.  So i’m going to stick with this and try and do this 4 times a week as a cardio workout.  However I still plan on going to see a doctor this Friday and ask if there is anything wrong with me since i’m not losing as much weight as I hoped I would be losing.

I had major knee sugery in June 2008.  I had my ACL, meniscus and my LCL repaired (yeah it sucked).  SO my main setback to me getting back into the swing of things is leg strenght.  In college I had powerfull awesome legs.  I could squat a max of 550lbs, do single leg curls at 150lbs, and single leg ext at 140lbs, but for right now my bad leg can only do 60lbs.  And its been like that for MONTHS.  And it pissed me off I couldn’t find a way to get over the hump and start getting serious results.  So I work out at an on base gym and my wife works out at this gym offbase.  My wife invited me to come to her gym and they had this rotating stair steper (stairmaster) machine.  But it wasn’t like the other so called stair stepper where all you would do is move your legs up and down, this one was more like this

http://www.nautilus.com/nautilus_brand_commercial_equipment/products/steppers/prdcdovr~SM00140-005/StairMasterreg+StepMill+SM916.jsp

http://www.nautilus.com/nautilus_brand_commercial_equipment/products/steppers/prdcdovr~SM00130-005/StairMasterreg+StairClimber+SC916.jsp

 and it has really helped me out ALOT.  I’ve finally got over the 60lbs hump and am now able to do 75.  I’m slowly working my way up to be able to do 130lbs again.  But man that step mill has really helped me out, and its helping getting my heart pumping and I burn a shitload of calories after being on it for only 20 minutes (350-400cal).  So if you have any humps regarding conditioning or leg strenght do the step mill.

Like I said my biggest set back is getting my legs back and i’m starting to get them back and hopefully I can start seeing some huge results real soon.  I workout first thing in the morning doing either 20 minutes of the stepper or 30 minutes of HIIT on the elliptical.  And then in the evening I do weight with 20 minutes of cardio afterwards or I do 45-60 minutes of cardio.  So far i’m set up to lift only 3 times a day but do cardio 6 days a week, two times a day.  So we’ll see where that takes me. 

peace8-)

I know what I should consume after lifting weights, but I’m wondering what should I consume after doing a cardio workout (running, basketball, treadmill, elliptical etc)?

POWER GUACAMOLE
Ingredients
1 Ripe Avocado
1 stem of broccoli chopped
6-8 spinach leaves chopped
2 wedges of fresh lime
1-2 tablespoons of chopped fresh cilantro
2 1/4 inch slices of fresh (big) tomatoes
2 tablespoons of chopped red onion

Take the avocado and cut in half and remove the seed.  What I learned the best way to scoop the fruit out is to slice it in cubes while its in the skin and then scoop it out and place in a bowl.  Throw away the skins. Take the tomato slices and remove the ripe fruit of the tomato and leave a quarter inch thick of cubed tomato skin.  Mix the tomatoes, spinach, red onion, cilantro and broccoli in with the avocado.  Squeeze the the lime wedges into the mix.  With a fork blend the ingredients together until you get a nice creamy mixture.  If you need to you can mix a little bit of water to make it not so thick.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Serve with baked tostitos or triscuits.  

This is great to take an hour and a half to two hours before you go lift, and it will give you the energy you need to maintain your workout.  This recipe has over 400 calories and is super loaded with nutrients and omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids.  

ENJOY!!!