Sluggo’s BodyBlog

Time for a new workout after being home with the flu. I started by prioritizing what I wanted to work on, then brainstormed my favorite exercises in each area, and then put them into a schedule. So here are the priorities:

• A. Stand straight (do every time I stand up)
• B. Keep glutes and hamstrings active to support upper body
• C. intervals, abs  (top priority exercises)
• D. chest, back, legs  (prime movers)
• E. arms, forearms  (other favorite muscles)
• F. rotator cuffs, stretching  (don’t neglect)

This may look a little odd, but it shows how important each level is to me at present. A-C will help my life overall, I think. D is the core of all exercise programs. E-F are extra.

My schedule, starting tomorrow:

Morning:

• every day: sit-stand, scissor lunge
• 5X/week outside: low/hi jump, sideways jump, jumping jacks
• 5X/week inside: pushups (50) + 2 variations (10)
• occasional outside: run intervals

Evening: stretching.

Day 1: chest + abs

• bench with legs raised (8 sets) (flat, incline, and/or decline; dumbbell or machine)
• sitting at angle with legs raised, push dumbbell out (2 sets)
• standing rotation & situps
• optional: triceps (2 sets)

Day 2: back + abs

• standing lat pulldown with lunge (4 sets)
• row machine & chainsaw -OR- low row & high row (8 sets)
• situps
• optional: biceps (2 sets)

Day 3: legs

• leg press (4 sets)
• hamstring -OR- deadlift (2 sets)
• weightless squat -or- light squat -or- bench burpees (4 sets)
• rotator cuffs

Day 4: arms

• triceps: skull crusher (4 sets)
• biceps: curl machine (4 sets)
• triceps: extension cable (2 sets)
• biceps: hammer curl -or-  cable curl -or- concentration curl (2 sets)
• forearms: wrist curl (2 sets)

All sets at 10 reps. Postponing shoulders because I overuse them anyway, and neck because neck contractions can cause headaches.

Benched two 75 lb dumbbells — my usual max — 20 reps twice, and went up to 85 lb.  I think I can go up to 90 next time.  So getting stronger, yippee. Did several sets of leg lifts too, somehow easier than usual.  But it may be related to the fight-or-flight stress I’ve been under for three weeks, pondering a decision that had some promises but made me very uncomfortable.  I guess all that stress energy helped my performance.  So my next challenge is to make that performance gain permanent.

Still working out with my trainer Animal, now 4x a week. 1 1/2 days boxing, 1 day upper body (mostly chest and back), 1 day legs.  On the weekends I do arms on my own.  I run intervals for cardio because it’s the best for wrestling/boxing.  I want to stay in fighting shape even though I doubt I’ll get back into it at this point, because it makes me ever more healthy and capable.  

I also discovered — when we were at a gym farther away for three months — that just walking back three miles to my house 3-4x a week was as good a fat burner as the cardio machines.  I got down to 14% which is almost my record (13% in 2006; goal 10%).  My muscle mass increased from 165 lb to 185 lb, which is also a record.  Then I got sick and couldn’t work out for 2 1/2 weeks.  My fat went up to 18% which isn’t that bad, and my muscle mass stayed above 173 lb so I’m glad about that.  I should get back up to my peak level in 3-4 weeks.

My main problem is load balance: activating the right muscles.  As I wrote before, my shoulders/quads/lower back tend to take over every movement, while my glutes/abs/upper back don’t activate enough.  I’ve gotten a lot better with the shoulders and back but the quads are still a significant problem.  That’s what keeps me from doing squats or lunges very well, my quads take all the load and max out and then I can’t move them any more.  Sometimes with squats/deadlifts I can get it mainly into the glutes & hamstrings, but with lunges or jumping it’s a lot harder.  This cuts into my boxing ability (weaves are quad-intensive, hard to keep feet together, my right hook leans).  So I expect this will take a few more months to get down.

Started a new training program a few weeks ago, focusing on stance and push/pull/legs (chest, back, squats/lunges). Been waiting to see how it develops before I blogged about it. I went to a bar to watch UFC and met a fighter who has a personal training studio. He does both jiu-jitsu and bodybuilding so he can show techniques that apply to both, and he looks like I want to (similar to dawst04 on this site).  His name is Animal.

He has an unusual routine that focuses solely on chest/back/legs (bench press, rows/pulldowns, squats/lunges), plus cardio.  The point being that these are the body’s prime movers, and everything else gets strengthened along with them in proportion to how they’re used in real life.  I was skeptical at first, but as they say, he’s got the brawn to back it up.  E.g., he never does bicep/tricep exercises but his arms are still a good 18". I’m still a bit skeptical whether this is really enough to be in good cardio shape for a grappling match — everybody else runs five miles a day or does a hundred crunches etc — but we’ll see how he handles himself at his next match.  Meanwhile, I’m still doing some other stuff on my own in the gym just in case.

The stance is 70% on your heels, knees bent, glutes way out, back way arched, shoulders back and down, head low, palms in. Similar to a horse position in martial arts but not as wide or deep.  To me it feels like leaning backward coz my body is turned inward, but I can see how much more powerful I am in this position. Basically my lower back and front delts and quads are trying to be prime movers, and my abs and glutes haven’t quite figured out how to take control, so I have a lot of strength potential I’m not realizing.  So maybe I will bench 350 lb next year.   What I do know is, when I walk in this stance I feel springy and ready to take somebody down.  But it’s still tiring over a period of time until my body gets used to it, which I estimate will be another month or two.  But I can see how things that have long dogged me, like crouching in wrestling, will become easier with this.  Similarly, if you do a bench press right at the center of your chest, with shoulders back and elbows narrow, that’s also the most powerful position to shove somebody in wrestling or to throw a punch.  So I have a lot of things I’m practicing now.  I’m going in three times a week for the next month or two, so I can really get the angles down before I go on on my own.

I’ve gained 3-5 lb of muscle since I started.  My weight keeps going up, which is the wrong direction coz I want to lose my stomach fat, but if I gain some muscle in the process that will be fine. But my fat was 14.1% this week, the lowest it has been the past two years at least. Weight is up to 230 lb, muscle mass 187 lb.  Hey, if I get the muscle mass to 200 lb, I can’t complain about that!

I was one of those thin geeky kids who avoided PE in school. I knew a wrestler in high school but never considered doing it, which I kick myself for now. I knew another guy in weightlifting class but I wouldn’t even take that either coz I was afraid I couldn’t lift the lightest weight and would make a fool of myself.

Then I went to a big university where nobody gives a sh*t what you do, so I started lifting (this was 1985). In 2000 I joined a gym and began lifting more seriously. Eleven months later i got a trainer and also joined a freestyle wrestling club.  I wrestled off and on and on and eventually moved to submission wrestling.  I started attending amateur MMA fights (like UFC). I took classes in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (barely tolerating the gi) until Ivan Salaverry’s MMA school opened in Seattle, and then did wrestling and boxing there.

I stopped wrestling in 2007 due to flexibility limitations (it’s hard to get into crouching positions, sit-down armbars, etc). I decided to focus on lifting and conditioning instead because I can have better success in that.   Then later if I want to grapple again I’ll be in shape to jump right into it.

My workouts are a combination of wrestling training (calisthenics and stretching), boxing training (bag work, kicks, running), bodybuilding (heavy weights), and yoga.

Primary Goals:

• Add 2 inches to arms and chest (18″ arms, 48″ chest).
• Increase pullups from 4 pathetic ones to 20 good ones.
• Get in cardio shape for a 3-minute wrestling (boxing) round.
• Ditto for abs.

Secondary goals:

• Work on rotator cuffs, which are unbalanced.
• Get rid of fat behind stomach, which probably means getting down to 10% fat and 200 lb. (Currently 17% fat, 225 lb)
• Stretch out hamstrings and calves, which are too tight.

Weight training:

Two weeks ago I started a routine focusing on my primary goals.  I do pullups and chest one session, and triceps and biceps the next. For each bodypart I do an easy warmup, then lift heavy (4-7 reps) x 4 sets, then light (15 reps) x 4-6 sets, with a long rest (2+ minutes) between each set so I can hit the next set maximum. This alone takes 45 minutes for two bodyparts, so I’ve had to cut out shoulders and legs for the time being.

• Pullups: heavy on bar, light on assisted machine.
• Chest: forward press machine, occasional bench press.
• Triceps: heavy on skull crusher.  Light dips, tri extension cable, or skull crusher.
• Biceps: heavy on preacher curl.  Light on concentraction curl or hammer curl.

At the end of each session I do rotator cuffs or lower back.  For rotator cuffs I do four movements which are too precise to describe, 15 reps x 3 sets, each arm, using light (5-8 lb) dumbbells.  The lower back I do just to keep my core balanced with my abs.

Cardio/abs:

I’m trying to do cardio/abs in the morning to gain energy for the day.  That depends on getting up early enough before work, which means going to bed early.  I’m still working on that.  I do a variety of cardio: sprints, heavy bag punching, kicks, the crosstrainer machine, and occasionally stairs or rowing.  For abs I do mainly situps, oblique situps, and medicine ball throwing.  Sometimes I throw in leg lifts, crunches, and roman chair for variety.

Legs and shoulders:

I’ve had to give up legs and shoulders in order to do the concentrated routine above. This was hard because I like my broad shoulders and want to make them broader and more defined, and I hear that leg work benefits the entire body, but I had to prioritize to fit my time/energy limits. Fortunately most of my cardio work involves legs, and the rotator cuff work will help my shoulder exercises when I get back to them.  To stretch out my calves and hamstrings I’m going to start doing light exercises on those and then stretch them.