dorito’s BodyBlog

I thought I’d add this in because it has some PT relation to it.  It’s not an easy thing to do, the training they have out here.  The educational stuff is… I guess I shouldn’t say that’s hard.  It goes over a lot of what a leader should be, how to be one.  Things to keep in mind when dealing with subordinates and seniors.  A lot of things they emphasis is integrity, dependability, bearing.  Basically being a really honorable person.  It’s cool stuff, that aspect of it.  They teach drill too, and sword manual.  For those of you who don’t know, sword manual is marching with a sword, different positions.  A lot of commercials you see with Marines have exactly what I’m learning now.

The hard part is the PT.  We’ve been doing strenuous exercise every day.  I’ve been getting my butt handed to me.  PT is never within what I’m able to normally do.  They design it so that it isn’t.  It’s something I have to keep pushing myself through, ignore the pain and keep going with it, even though half an hour ago I hit the point I thought I’d have to stop.  It’s motivating kinda.. but there’s a lot of hard things about it.  Lots of running at a really fast pace.  Faster than I’m used to.

You have a lot of jumping jacks, tons of push ups, and 8 count bodybuilders, which is something like standing up, then doing a push up, then standing up again, except a slower motion, that really sucks!  Man, thinking about a lot of what I have to do really sucks cause I have 6 more days of it… wish me luck..

Yesterday we had a large sandstorm.  I’m not a professional Iraqi storm chaser so I can’t tell you if this one was huge or not.  Suffice to say at points I couldn’t see 5 feet in front of me.  I’d say it was bad enough.  Kept everyone in doors and not wanting to go anywhere, meaning everyone stayed out of my office   Usually, whenever there’s a lot of wind, sand isn’t too far behind.  The storm started before I work up in the morning, and ended some time after evening chow.  That’s a long storm!  I think the latter part of its duration was more of the dust settling than any actual wind.

While I"m at it I’ll also let everyone (all two people), who read know that I’m going to be gone for two weeks, and my training is going to be post-poned.  I’m going to be doing Corporals Course, basically leadership training that will take up my whole day. Will return to this site as soon as I can after that and start posting more of my misadventures here.  Later all!

Today was the 2nd day of my new schedule.  It was all about cardio/abs.  I jumped on the treadmill for a moderate pace of 6.1 mph and .5% incline.  Cool thing was I’m conditioned enough to the point that I was able to do 4 miles without really breathing heavy.  I remember before I joined the Marines, that pace kicked my butt.  I’m definitely getting better at running.  On my Zune I put together a new playlist of my favorite songs, there’s a lot them that are high intensity, wanting to make me run 12 mph.  The songs really just put me in the zone and kept my mind off most of the discomfort I might be having for about the 50 minutes that I was going at it.  Pretty sure I’ve found that runner’s high that I always hear about.  Strange thing is, this is all coming from a person who used to despise running.  I guess it’s a thing you just need to get used to.  I did 4 miles under 40 minutes, the last .3 mile that I ran was at a very slow walk.  I think that long of a cool down as a good idea, kept me from feeling like I was going to throw up.  I stretched before and after the workout, thus this mornings I don’t feel any ill effects from such a run.
When I was in CAX, we had a good amount of down time.  In my platoon I was falling out of runs all the time before then.  I decided I’d finally fix that problem and work on my running.  Went to the gym almost every day and did just running, starting with a 5.5 mile run the first day, and working into a consistent routine of 2 mile sprints to 4.5 mile runs.  I alternated between the two so I could work on a speed workout and an endurance run.  After that month, I cut my normal 3 mile pft time down by 1.5 minutes and was one of the few who never fell out of our runs.  Since then I’ve been working on my running, while not as often, it’s still 3 times every week.  Running overall has become much easier and enjoyable overall now.  It sucked at CAX, but pushing through the pain it’s now something I don’t mind.  Partially because I now feel good at it.

Last night was chest and back.  It’s hard for me to bring a workout log and keep track of all the numbers and everything I do, it seems to distract from the actual workout itself.  Then it begins to make the whole thing seem to mean nothing but numbers, and x amount of reps.  To me that destroys the point of going in the first place.  You’re not there for x amount of reps, you’re there for the movement itself, not the completion.  Finishing the movement means nothing if you don’t get anything out of it.  So I focus on the feel of the movement, feeling that the muscle that I want to use are being used.  More often than not, this leads to fewer possible reps as its a slower motion most of the time.  There are the workouts that I use heavy weight at a more intense pace, it really depends on the goal of that day.  To me my workouts are erratic in what I do and how I do it.  I feel this gives way to a better shock on my body as it NEVER has a chance to get used to what I’m doing.  I’m still noticing improvements.  I’ve dropped over a % of body fat while gaining 4 pounds, not too bad.  This is my bulking type phase too.

So last night was chest and back.  Worked out pretty intense with chest, but it was slowed down overall because of an odd pain in the shoulder.  I felt my form was right, but for some reason that pain was still there, so I did less weight than I normally could.  I went to exercises that isolated the chest itself vs. a compound exercise and finished off my workout that way.  Back was pretty easy, there wasn’t any odd pains doing that.  It’s just not that fun of a workout for me.  I should try to do the one I enjoy the least first, so that way I still have a good workout left for me when I leave the gym.  Normally back/shoulders I don’t enjoy too much.  The most enjoyable for me is chest/arms.  That 3+ mile run is also pretty fun too.  I hate to say it but i think I’ve started to enjoy them.  Today is 100% cardio.  This is going to be a 5-6 mile run lasting at least an hour if not more. Abs always goes after a cardio workout, and I hit them intense enough they wont be able to heal 100% in just one day, so it has to be every other day.  We’ll see how this new workout goes.

I finally took my first short day since I started going to the gym.  It wasn’t as exciting or fulfilling as I had hoped it’d be.  I’ve been destroying myself at the gym, and it felt like I really needed to slow down.  It’s weird how that can effect your mentally though.  I went from destroying myself to taking a short workout, and now I feel like i haven’t gone to the gym in weeks!  I swear, I don’t go one day and it’s almost like the end of the world.

On Another note….  There was a meritorious Sergeants board that was going to happen and they almost put me on it, if not for the fact that I hadn’t done my MCI’s yet I would have been on it.  I’m one of two people out of my shop that they considered worthy, only reason they didn’t was because I wasn’t competitive enough without them.  Two wrongs don’t make a right   Now I need to work on furthering my education as well as my physical fitness, otherwise I’ll be over shadowed.  Anyways, this wasn’t a great day.  It’ll get better though…

Tim and I were walking away from the gym last night pretty beat up, and in fact the turtle would have beat us had we been in a race, at the pace we were going at.  The intense workout we did followed up with 35 minutes of cardio finished us off as well as any Mortal Kombat move might have.  As I was going 12 mph on the treadmill, rushing to hit that 3 mile mark in the last 2 minutes of my cardio, just as I complete dit, I could almost hear, "Fatality!"  Yeah this turkey was done, well, after the abs anyways.  Always have to do those.  My only regret that I have from my workout is that it was going to leave me with 5.5 hours of sleep.  If I want a good workout, then I might always end up with just that.  Steadily as my endurance increases, and I get a better feel for my workout, I add more.  It’s gotten to the point I can only fit in two muscle groups a day before I run the risk of not getting much sleep at all.  So Last night I did chest/triceps.  Using the flat, incline, and decline bench, then for good measure threw in some dips.  As dips deal a lot with triceps, I flowed into tricep extensions, both overhead and using the cables.  Been pushing my max with flat bench.  Finding my limits more.  It looks pretty nice having 2 45 pound plates on each side.  Of course I’ve seen guys with almost 4 on there, and… I see them do that 4 days in a row… before I never see them in the gym again.  I think it’s been a week since I’ve last seen them, and I go the same time every day, except for my strategically placed days off.  I have 2 gym buddies right now, and have gained two more that follow my workout, but we’ve broken it off into groups.  Otherwise I’d be waiting for my turn at the exercise again too long.  Tonight I have ANOTHER two coming!  It’s a GySgt that I think I spoke about yesterday, and his minion.  They want to learn about my exercises, ’cause they’ve seen the DRAMATIC improvement in me.  And using Tim as a bill board for what my awesome training can do helped.  He’s starting to gain weight again, but it’s definitely from muscle, he didn’t have much to start with   I’ve been with him every meal of the day, and he eats really healthy.  You work out the weights as hard as we do, and it’s impossible not to see gains from it.  He’s looking a lot better, has a lot more energy, and has received many comments from those around him.  He used to get harassed by our command about his weight all the time, since he’s been going to the gym with me, he hasn’t been spoken to once about it.  Now that my friends is results if nothing else is!

This workout I’m doing is pretty intense, has been since I started it really.  It tears up the muscle groups I use pretty good, to the point there’s nothing left to give.  Some times there’s the fear of over training, but with all the water I drink, stretching I do, and pretty darn healthy diet I keep, I don’t get many muscle pains.  There’s always that slight soreness, and it seems consistent for the most part since I work out all the time.  There’s been only one day I haven’t gone when I intended to, and that was a day I did a lot of manual labor that kind of made up for it.  The workout keeps me in the gym for about 2 hours, and all but 35 minutes of it is using weights.  That 35 minutes on average is all cardio.  I have in between days that is 15 minutes long, or 20 with a cool down.  By the end of the cardio I pretty much look like I walked through a car wash.  I have that runner’s high stuck with me, or bodybuilding high.  The feeling of being all pumped up, thinking I have energy to spare.  Well then you go over to the rack to pick up a 5 lbs weight and your arm collapses, your body says, just kidding, and you find out you really have nothing more to give.  I enjoy making every day I go to the gym like that.

I just want ya’ll to know I went to the gym.  It was good stuff.  Worked out hard, my legs felt like my one rep max was standing up when I finished.  Then I did a 30 minute HIIT run, moving up to 10 mph.  After that, I looked like I took a shower with my clothes on, and did my ab workout.  Then I watched my SSgt play basketball with the Army, not sure who won, couldn’t tell what the teams were.  Then we walked back to the rooms to get cleaned up.  We as in Tim and I.  On the way back that SSgt offered us a ride the rest of the way even tho there was only 2 minutes of the walk left.  We declined, of course, ’cause we’re fat and needed to lose weight :p

Last year I was deployed for a month before, weighing as much as I do now, I realized I was getting fat.  Now don’t get me wrong, for some people being overweight works or them.  Like Chris Farley.  What I’m getting at is that it took a month and 10 pounds before I realized that i needed to start working out.  When I went to the gym, the motivation was just to lose it.  It wasn’t for any enjoyment, ’cause I could honestly say I hated going to the gym almost all last year.  It felt like work, not fun.  Every exercise I did was just for the motions of it.  I’m not going to say losing weight is the wrong motivation, but it wasn’t enough for me.  I managed to lose a lot of that weight, but I’d say the progress in this last month with the passion I have for working out now, far exceeds anything I managed to accomplish last year in the whole seven months.  When I leave the gym, I leave making sure I have no regrets about how I did in the gym.  If I don’t feel I worked out hard enough I keep at it until I feel there’s nothing more I can do to myself.

There’s so much more than I said but for some reason it didn’t save all of it… So I’m just going to leave it at that.

It’s kind of strange, how a month ago I barely went to the gym.  I had all the intentions of going.  Ever since I came back from Iraq the first time, it was always on my to do list.  I’d be a fool to say it might not happen again.  I’m sure some of you know how it is, you take a couple of days off from being a tornado in the gym, and they feel really nice.  Those couple of days turn into a week, maybe two, and you think, you earned the rest.  You ignore the gaining weight or a healthy diet ’cause you think, hey, I’m going to the gym soon, I’ll burn it all off.  I wont mind the extra work anyways.  Then it’s been a month, and the truth you’ve been hiding from is starting to stare you back in the face.  You might not be coming back to the gym after all.  Can you deal with who you’re becoming?

Well I guess I did, was adding on the weight, people in my unit were making comments.  Something had to change.  So now I’ve been going to the gym for a month.  Each passing week the intensity has been revving up even higher.  The gym has become an addiction, and I definitely can’t go without it.  Which brings me to the point of this blog.

Went to the gym yesterday looking to destroy myself.  It’s my favorite workout of the day, chest/arms.  Well I never got to fit triceps exercises into it because my work day is so long, and by the time I finish with the gym anyways I get 6 hours to sleep after cleaning up.  Still I did chest/arms and definitely to the extremes of failure.  I was pretty exhausted by the time I finished them, next was the treadmill.  I began my interval training going up to 3 miles.  By the time I was done doing 3 miles and my 5 minute cool down finished, it looked like I took a shower wearing my PT gear.  My olive green shirt was now a dark dark green, almost black.  I should add that I stretched throughout my workout, before I ran, and when I finished.  I contribute the low amounts of muscle soreness I get to that.  After that killer run, I did my ab workout.  It was crunches, doing 45/25/15, and then that one exercise where you’re standing with a 45 plate in one hand, like a bobble head except just sideways.  Finished those and I was done, finished.  Being already dead, I started my 12 minute walk back to my room to get cleaned up.  It was definitely a good day.