stachedwalker’s BodyBlog

Supposed to have been a speed training but fighting off the beginnings of a cold, so I decided not to push it.  I did one hour at 4.5mph … a nice, steady pace.  Supposedly used up some 500 calories.  Instead of trying to go fast I was concentrating more on my form.  You have to have form down so much you don’t think about it because you’re disqualified if you start doing things like bending your lead leg, or not having one foot down on the ground at all times.  The longer the race goes, the worse your form gets.

I was just under 180 lbs this AM when i got up so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to register 179 come Thursday’s weigh in.

One nice thing about working out later in the evening … most people are gone and there’s minimal waiting/fighting for the equipment.    Today was upperbody day and I was successful, really, at getting everything I wanted.  Here’s the workout

Abs
Naut Rotation machine  35×12, 45×10, 45×10
Hammer ab machine  35×10, 35×10, 35×10

Torso
Nautilus low-back  150×10, 15×10,150×10
Hammer Shrugs  90×12, 90×10, 90×10 (need to raise weight next time)
Nautilus pullover   90×10, 90×10, 90×10
Nautilus freeweight incline bench  110 (55 each side)x12, 110×10, 110×7
Machine 1arm row  60×10, 60×10,60×10

Arms
Dumbbell laterals  15×10, 15×10,15×6
Nautilus curls    75×10, 75×6, 75×8
Triceps pulley pushdowns  52.5×10, 52.5×10, 52.5×8
Freemotion Hammer curls  35×8, 35×7
Dumbbell Overhead press  45×11, 45×8  (two hands on one dumbbell)

As soon as I got home had 2 glasses of skim milk for my protein and carbs … in liquid form for quickest absorption.

Today was again a distance day.   Last week I did 7 miles, I wanted to do at least 7 miles again to.  It was pushing it a bit at the end, but I upped the day’s walk to 8 miles.  Total time of about 103 minutes to do it all.  My speed started out at 4.5mph, and every 1/2 hour I upped it 0.1mph.  So I was doing 4.8mph at the end. The treadmill estimated that I used up about 900-950 calories.  Given what I ate yesterday … I need to burn that up.

Friday night I got a pretty good leg workout in.  It started off with singled legged, no weight squats on the smith machine for 2 sets of 15 reps (each leg).  Next I went to the Free-motion step up machine. It’s like climbing/descending stairs while holding onto 70 lbs … 3 sets of about 10 reps.  Next was heavy weight with a seated leg press (3 sets).  Quads were finished off with 1 leg leg extensions. (3 sets again)  After quads I headed over to do stiff legged deadlifts for the hamstrings, followed by standing 1 leg legcurls.  After hitting the major muscles, it was onto the smaller ones.  I’m in the process of adding some glute exercises in the way of a leg extension the back with weights.  In racewalking, most of your power comes from pushing the leg behind you … so the bum gets used a lot.    Legs were finished off with 3 sets of straight leg calf raises and 2 sets of seated calf raises.

more speed walking tonight.  1 hour again.  4.75 miles total   About 550 calories.  Let’s see what tomorrow’s weigh-in says.

speed training day.  An hour on the treadmill.  I started off at 4.0mph for about 5 minutes to get warmed up.  then upped the speed to 4.6mph to start the speed portion.  For the next 45 minutes I slowly upped the speed to a max of 5.2mph.  I didn’t stay at the max very long … remembering what happenned to my hip the last time I was there.  This was just to get the feel of it.  50 minutes into the training I slowed back down to 4.0 for 5 minutes and then slowly upped the speed by 0.1mph each minute until the 60 minutes were up.  Grand total of 4.58 miles in an hour, over 500 calories burned.

The last two weeks have been busy, hectic, frustrating … and at times pretty emotionally draining (a lot going on), but I did get some workouts in.  

I was on the road for 2 1/2 days the end of the first week in April.  The good news was that even with that I didn’t do too badly on the eating.  Most of it was pretty healthy.  I got the chance to visit an old favority … Boston market … and had steak, cornbread, yams, creamed spinach and spiced apples.  Not low cal (or low sodium) but not bad for food on the road!  

Sunday the 8th I spent the afternoon doing 6 miles on the treadmill … starting at 4.0mph and stepping it up by 0.1mph every mile.  Monday night I missed my weight training, but got up at 5am on Tuesday mornining to hit the gym.  With gents like Red Weston and others doing the early morning thing, I couldn’t wimp out and not do it myself.    Tuesday and Wednesay nights were spent doing 1hour walks on the treadmill.  

Weigh day for work’s 15 week, 15lb weight challenge was Thursday.  This was week 10, and I’ve lost some 17 lbs by that scale in the 10 weeks.  That’s possibly a little off since week to week can vary alot due to whatever we’re waying.  I did weigh in at 181 lbs at home, so I figure about 15 lbs in the 10 weeks is realistic.  

Thursday - Friday no exercising … except for gastric juices due to what was listed in the first sentence.  Today, back to the long distance walking.  7 miles in 1:38…. appx 700 calories used up.  Again started at 4.0 mph, adding 0.1mph each mile …finished off at 4.6mph.  

the plan these days is to spend the weekends doing long walks, then weight train Monday, 2 days of fast walks, weight train on Thursday or Friday.   Now, if I can only get my schedule to agree with this. 

Yeah …. like Hip adduction and abduction.  Thursday was leg day … and a good one it was.   I did nearly all my exercises that I had planned on doing.  The one thing I bypassed was a butt blaster.    But the rest of it was good, as I said.  So good that Friday and Saturday I had some trouble walking.  The inside of my thighs ached!  Friday was supposed to be chest/back/abs day …but I was so drained from work my 1 hour post-dinner/pre-workout nap ended up going from 7pm until midnight.  Consequently … no workout!  I did that on Saturday and had a good day then, too.  Sunday my legs were still sore so I forego the walking, and finally got on the treadmill this evening.  Still taking it easy.  I did 4.25 miles in an hour.   No pains at all.  However, if I’m going to do the 1/2 marathon this June I need to start doing longer weekend walks.  Starting with about 6 miles this weekend and adding a mile every weekend until I get up to 11-12 miles.