rockdawg21’s BodyBlog

I’ve been doing a fat loss for the past few months and decided to see where I am fitness/cardio/mental-wise and go for the UFC Championship belt. We’re talking 5 5-minute rounds, with 1 minute rest periods. I don’t have a fancy gym like Sherk or Brock has for Caveman Training, but I do hill sprints for my difficult cardio so I figured I’d give it a shot to see if I can go all-out for a fight. I know it’s different since there’s no grappling, punching, etc. involved, but it’s still a heck of a test since it’s still a very high intensity cardio session.

I’ll probably set this as a once-a-week log because I always push myself harder each time I do cardio, so if I can get more hills, increase my avg. heart rate, max heart rate, go 5+ rounds, etc., I feel a sense of accomplishment.

About Me:
Age: 29
Height: 5′7″
Weight: 159 pounds

Set Criteria:
Warmup: Light jog around 400m track (approx. 5-6 minutes)
Hills: Grass hills, approx. 40 yards uphill, approx. 40 degree grade, hill faces due north
Method: Uphill - 90% effort sprints, Downhill - fast walk
Cooldown: 1 lap walk around 400m track
Heart Rate Monitor: Polar F6

Today’s Criteria (7/5/09):
Temperature: 69 degrees F
Humidity: 64%
Wind: From NNE at 10mph (I had to fight the wind uphill today )
Time: Around 9:30am
Food: 1.5 scoops of whey protein prior to cardio (keep in mind, I’m doing this only for fat loss. If I were really going for the belt, I’d have a nice blend of simple/complex carbs and a small amount of lipids [fats] prior to a fight).

Cardio:
Warmup
Round 1: HR* Start - 130, HR End - 181, Hills - 10
Round 2: HR Start - 148, HR End - 188, Hills - 11
Round 3: HR Start - 160, HR End - 189, Hills - 11
Round 4: HR Start - 167, HR End - 188, Hills - 10
Round 5: N/A
Cooldown
*Heart Rate in BPM (Beats Per Minute)

Totals for workout:
Duration (including warmup & cooldown): 39:44**
Max Heart Rate: 191
Avg Heart Rate 163
Calories Burned: 516 (I never pay attention to this, but thought some members might be interested)
**I made a mistake and didn’t turn off my heart rate monitor for my first 4 stretches, but my HR was still 144 when I shut it off. Stretching still keeps the HR up if you’re stretching hard.

Overall, I think if I’d of had some carbs in my system to give my muscles some glycogen, I could have handled 5 rounds, remember, I only had some whey protein prior to this. By hill #7 on the 4th round, I bent over to catch myself, then told myself “get up pu***!” (literally did that, lol). Plus, I had to fight 10mph of wind in my face today.

Next week, I’ll give it a shot with a nice simple/complex carb mixture about 30-60 minutes before my cardio to give my muscles some glycogen for fuel; I really felt that was the problem as I was fine mentally and could still breathe pretty good, but my legs tired too much near the end of the 4th round, so I felt it was just best to “fight another day”

Great workout, that was a lot of fun!

Just thought I’d rant about all the people who are in the gym the first 2-3 weeks of January claiming they’re going to live a healthy lifestyle, then give up on their "resolutions" and go back to eating ice cream and potato chips and watching episodes of American Idol or Lost, and be stuck in a 1-2 year contract they will never use.

Just think of the economic impact…$600 per year for a gym membership could have been used on a lot of other things such as another rent/house payment, credit card bills, etc. If the membership is actually utilized, thousands of people would be able to lower their health & life insurance premiums and increase their longevity, thus, meaning more money in their pockets, more money to stimulate the economy, and more years of healthy workers to generate more money circulated in the economy.

But nope, "Who has time to go to the gym?" is the justification when EVERYBODY has plenty of time to sit on their asses and watch American Idol while eating potato chips and ice cream.

Rant rant rant….

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