I really don’t expect anyone to read this. I am writing mostly to try to organize my thoughts. I posted one blog way back when (June?) and have not followed through. At the time I was doing pretty well, dropping weight from 227 to 209 and increase strength in all areas. But then my mother-in-law passed away and I spent considerable amount of time with my wife during her grieving process. Responsibilities and pressures at work increased at about the same time, further complicating an already complicated schedule. I work 360 miles from where my family resides. I work Tuesday through Fridays, ten hour days, head home Friday night and return late Monday afternoon. It got to the point that I was extremely short of time and inadequately motivated to make the time to work out.
So, over these recent holidays my weight blossomed (mushroomed?) up to 217 and I was feeling really sluggish, in appearance as well as image. I have started back with a slightly different approach—actually quite different approach. I subscribe to a blog of Tim Ferris (http://www.fourhourworkweek.com), Experiments in Life Style Design that, for me, has a very interesting series of articles (and more being published weekly) on a wide variety of personal issues. (He has been nominated as one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People of 2007,” is author of the #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek, which has been sold into 33 languages.) On December 18, he published an article on his blog entitled "Pavel: 80/20 Powerlifting and How to Add 110+ Pounds to Your Lifts", written by a Russian emigre named Pavel Tsatsouli<strong />ne, a former Soviet Special Forces (Spetznatz) physical training instructor. Pavel wrote about a simple routine developed by Alexander Faleev, Russian Master of Sports, that resonated with me. Admittedly, one reason it resonated is the time required of this routine is considerably less than what I was previously dedicating. The main points of this article (and the related book — Power to the People— are as follows:
Maximum strength using minimum exercise and training time
Using bare minimum equipment (a Barbell)
Very few sets & reps
Never train to failure
Flexible training cycles
I have been working with this program, along with fairly strict dietary restrictions, since about January 6 and am rather pleased with the results. On that date, I weighed 217. Today (January 22), I weighed in at 208. This weight loss includes rather significant (for me) increases in strenght in the three exercises recommended by Pavel (I use his first name because his last name is so Russian, long and difficult to pronounce). These exercises are the squat, the bench press and the dead lift. So, I assume that my body fat loss is considerably more than the move from 217 to 208 would suggest, since the muscle I’ve been putting on weighs more than body fat (how much more, I dont know).
Pavel’s program focuses on building strength rather than bulk and, at this point, that’s okay with me. When I reach my goal of 190 pounds, I will look at ways to increase muscle bulk in those ways that seem to enhance appearance. I sort of like Pavel’s book, Power to the People, (I’d give it three out of five stars) but it has serious limitations and detractions, primarily the self-promotion of his other books. When I get to 190, I’m going to invest in one of the Stuart McRobert books (Brawn series). It appears that his approach is somewhat similar to Pavel’s but McRoberts is much more detailed in terms of development of exercise programs.
That’s it for tonight.
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