tbisgrove’s BodyBlog

To say the least, I’m disappointed with myself.  Despite feeling better, being able to go longer in cardio and more reps and seeing part of a four pack, I looked at my one month progress pictures and my weight and this isn’t what I was expecting.  I wanted to cut some weight back, and didn’t check my weight for one month to avoid discouraging yo-yo effect with daily weight changes.  I gained a pound.  While I can probably chalk this up to muscle gain, I had hoped to see some fat cutback, at least noticable.

I’ve been working out 5-6 days a week from anywhere from 45mins to 1hr30min.  Each starts off with 10-20mins rowing to warmup at the highest resistance for 35-36strokes per min.  Then singular muscle group focus alternating with situps.  Then, if I have time at the end, 15-20mins cooldown biking.  Needless to say, this is a lot more cardio than I was doing, and despite cutting back on regular cokes and chips for occasional snacking, I would have expected to see at least some change.  This leads me to some conclusions, 1. gotta cut starches to jumpstart (was having mash potatoes or some pasta 3-4 days a week). 2. No diet soda (had cut back from regular to diet and 5-6/week to 3). 3. Lots more water (32-48oz is obviously underdoing it, especially if cutting back other liquid intake). 4. Increase workout intensity. 

My intensity has been lacking.  Most of the time, I was settling on 3 sets of 10 reps with breaks in between of 3 or 4 different exercies (I’ve also, in the last month, supplimented 2 protein shakes a day to help with muscle gain).  Its safe to say, I think, that my muscles have grown accustomed to the workout and need some shocking to get past this plateau.  I’ll be trying a little longer on the cardio warm up, same time on cool down as before, and go with 5 to 6 different exercies with 4-5 sets or tapered down weights (meaning that I start off with say 35lb dumbbells and go to exhaustion, then immediately move to 30lb to exhaustion and so down till I get through 4-5 weight changes in one set).  I plan on doing this for two weeks, then switch to a lighter load to recover for two weeks using pyramid lifting (going up in weight and then back down) and then back to my regular sets, but this time 10-12 reps for 4 sets at the maximum weight I can lift for that many reps.  Hopefully, by mid March, I can come back to this blog and say its been an outstanding improvement.

     Ok, so here it goes.  Just like everyone else, today I woke up with a fitness plan in mind.  Hopefully, I can weather the fair weather workouters that will be gone by spring break.  It happens every year.  For every 100 people signing up at a gym, or starting to workout, about 1/3 are gone within a month.  Another 40 are gone by spring break now that they are "in shape" for the beach.  I plan to keep working out past that through the year, at least 4 times a week. 

     As 2007 wrapped up, I was averaging 4 days a week at the gym with 10-15min warmup on the rowing maching at the highest setting, averaging 31-32 strokes a minute.  I’d follow that up with a workout for a specific bodypart, usually biceps one day with a few triceps, Chest the next day, Back and the rest of the triceps the following day, and then the fourth day would be whatever I felt the weakest on during the week.  I’d finish up the day’s workout with about 20mins of cardio on a bike at medium pace.  After the workout, immediately take my protein shake and then after a shower, Cellmass.  My workouts were preceeded by 2 scoops of BSN’s No-Explode.

 So far, the workout has been productive.  I’ve had some sleep issues, where, even with 8hrs sleep, I still feel the need for a nap during the day.  My wife has scheduled me for a sleep study towards the end of the month so we can figure out if an enlarged tonsil, or something else is causing the issue.  My bet is somewhere along the line, during my sports playing days or during one of the times playing with my daughter, I caught a good knock to the nose and this probably caused some trouble breathing at night.  Who knows.  Not a doctor, so any insight from the study would be welcome.  As for downfalls that I’ve created myself, I still have a beer or two a day, my lunches are usually not the healthiest (think two fast food burgers, no fries), and a decent amount of carbs during the day.  Portion sizes are a little on the large size, but unlike how women describe themselves online in saying average (when average is not 180lbs as we all know), I’m not eating a plate covered 2in deep in food.  I could stand to cut back portion size, but I feel that it is an innate reaction by me that I’ll just be hungry again in 2hrs if I do.  I think I should try to get over that, and plan more healthy, smaller snacks.  For some reason, this is difficult for me, and I’m a stay at home dad… Who figured?  I feel that if I can overcome that holdup, and incorporate more water and less diet cola/beer, then a lot of my issues will resolve themselves.  This will all begin at the end of this week.  Just giving myself the time to get over my excuses, and my daughter to get healthy again after a bout with a bug over Christmas, so I can get back into the gym with her.  The next step, the food correction, begins tomorrow, and on Monday, I plan to swing by the store to pick up some healthier snack options.  For being in Men’s Health’s top 10 lists of places to live, Madison isn’t the greatest place for healthy food selections in their stores and I’ve found a lot of the fruits and vegetables to be borderline rotten.  It seems like forever since I found one pint of strawberries that didn’t have a single overripe/rotten strawberry buried in it.

     Checkins with the blog, I’ll try for every monday during my daughter’s naptime, and pictures to update monthly.  Here’s to dropping to the high 150s and cutting back fat into the single digits by April…

Its been spotty, at best, for me to get workouts in over the past 8 weeks.  In that time, I’ve moved 3 hrs from Chicago to our new home here in Wisconsin, I retired from my job to take up raising our little girl (at least for the next year), the triathlon I was training for was scrapped (they lost their insurance liscense, the friend competing with me bailed, and there were concerns about arthritis in my knee during a checkup with an orthapedist).  I know, I know. A long list of bad excuses.  I let myself down on this one and now that its getting too cold up here in the great white north, my triathlon days for this year have dwindled to none.

 On an upside, I am now coaching little 7yr olds for a soccer team.  http://www.oregon-soccer.com/season/teampage.asp?pagename=U7Lust&d=U7Lust . Well, I’m the assistant coach… didn’t know they had teams up here until a week before games started, but the idea is to get some experience with the little kids and translate that into coaching the older ones in the spring.  I do have a D license course coming up in November (able to coach through 21yr olds).

 I’ve since joined a new gym here.  Previously, my job had one attached so my lunch consisted of working out and a quick sandwich afterwards.  Now, around 10:30am-11am, I get my little girl up and ready, we head to the gym, and while she plays in the daycare, I work out for about 1 1/2hrs.  Usually, a little less.  I’ve been consistantly going since Monday the 10th.  As of now, it looks to be a regular thing, going 5-6 days a week. 

 Since its been so long since I was working out regularly, I’m currently trying to recondition.  Its been focusing on one bodypart, alternating 20-30 situps between reps, followed by 20-25mins of cardio (usually on a bike).  The weight is steady, and so is the bodyfat.  Unfortunately, this means that over 8 weeks, I lost muscle as my bodyfat went up about 3% and my weight down about 4lbs.  Oh well.  If you don’t suffer some setbacks, and work through them, then you can’t deal very well when real issues come up.  We’ll see by the beginning of next week how I’m faring.

The muscle definition is definately starting to show.  Starting to make out a six pack where I had 2-4 maybe on a good day.  Not quite there yet, but as long as I keep the rate and loss, I should be showing decently in the next month.  Gotta admit, its pretty hard to stay off the cokes.  My cheat days have been Thursdays where I’ll have 2-3 cokes (free refill at medium) and about 15 or so boneless hotwings at Buffalo Wild Wings ($.50 wing day).  The rest of the time its protein shake in morning and again mid afternoon.  Decent lunch and dinner (ex- tuna breast, chopped tomatoes, half a baked sweet potato in olive oil and broccoli or carrots.)  Still trying to find a couple good exercises for the biceps.  I try to mix between barbell curl, dumbell full extension curl, dumbell alternating, and underhand pulldowns, even mixing in some concentration curls, but it never really feels like I’m getting a full pump.  Everything else has been great.  Getting good vascularity on the forearms.  The downside, I’ve been neglecting a lot of my cardio other than a couple walks out after dinner with the wife and baby.  I figure anything is better than nothing, but I should get more running in for the sake of keeping the lung endurance up for the sprint triathalon.

Since I went to the BSN supplements and cut the cokes… Well, most of them.  Did have two for the week, but down from the 7-8 a week before.  Strange part, the weight dipped a little, but overall wasn’t affected.  I thought it would show more, but I am noticing serious gains in the weights, and sure this is a combo of the cutting back on soda and supplements I’m taking.  Did like the body fat was cut significantly, so the only thing I can attribute the maintained weight is increased protein intake and some moderate muscle growth.  Just will keep an eye on that.  Also upped my water intake from a glass or so a day to between 90-110oz per day.  Didn’t think my kidneys were ready for that… going to the bathroom every 2 hours or so is new.  Guess I know what it’ll be like later if I have prostate problems.  Hopefully, the fat cutting keeps up and if so, plan on 12-14% by end of June and 10% by July… Almost to the goal then.  Hoping to start seeing some good abs definition by then.

Wow, haven’t entered something in a long time on here. Over the last 3 weeks, I’ve worked out 4 days a week and gotten in 1 cardio day and then another 2 hrs of walking with my wife and baby now that the warm weather arrived. The workouts have been Sunday- Chest/Tri Monday- Back/Biceps Tues-Legs/Shoulders Wed-circuit training (2 sets of each w/ 10 reps and then a third in whatever I feel I was lacking in. Thursday is kicking around the soccer ball on a field near work for 30-45mins. Forgot how much my lungs were out of shape. Doing the treadmill and elliptical has been fine on the muscles, but the stop and start and interval sprinting in soccer put my lungs through a ringer last week. Gonna have to keep that up. Always liked that feeling that I was getting old gunk out when I just get started running outside again. Should be gone in the next 2 weeks with only 1-2 days outdoors running. I also cycled off the San V-12 turbo and the San Infusion protein powder last week. I took four days off and I haven’t seen any really drastic improvements, so a change was needed. Cut off all soda as of Saturday the 19th, and started up on the BSN NO and BSN Cellmass for recoup after working out. I also picked up a 1500mg Amino complex from the Vitamin Shoppe. Since then, granted only 4 days, I dropped 2lbs. Also, my workouts go about 20% longer and I’m not as tired during and after the workout. Well, never really was that tired, just sore. Sure this mostly is due to the cutting out the 16oz soda a day, but once you start a program, you have to ride it out to make sure you are seeing the results. Going to reasses when I go through the two BSN products, but so far so good. The reasses should be in about 1 month.

Wow, talk about taking a lot out of you.  I was ok with dedication to workouts, but after my little girl was born, I’ve had trouble maintaining weight and working out.  I figured my weight would shoot up because of not paying attention to portions and a really messed up sleep schedule, so I guess I should be glad I only gained 5 lbs since I think I was able to workout for a total of 30mins in 2 weeks.

Anyone that is planning on having a baby, a big lifesaver was premade meals like we got at Trader Joes.  Any will do, so if you have favorites like lean cuisine or something use em.  Even hungry man works, just don’t eat it all.  My problem was some snacking in between and since my new little cutie wakes up every 4 hrs or so, that meant I was up so I wasn’t getting a lot of sleep.

 Over the last 4 days though, I’ve managed to get in about 30mins of cardio a day.  Since my current goal is a september sprint triathlon, my current start has been 15mins bike, then 5 min run fast past, 5 min walk, then 5 min run medium, then cool down.  Hopefully in about two weeks, I’ll have that stepped up to 20-25min bike and 30min run.  The main problem is that my current run totals out to 1mi, a far cry from what I used to be able to do and my pace is for, well, you get the idea.  I plan on a 7:30 mi by April 15th and by July have that at about 7min and a run time of 50mins, which should put me just over 7mi at a 7min pace.  Since the triathon is a sprint, I only need 5k, but I figure this will help with endurance.  Hopefully, I’ll have the bike to run back to back down by June to cover both the 20mi bike and 5k, and by then, it’ll be warm enough to get swimming in so on odd days, I can lap swim, and follow by 5mi or so of bike to get acclimated.

Well, my workout schedule is about to get really thrown off.  My wife is going to be induced on Sunday at 11pm, so I know i’m in for a wacky schedule, sleeping when I can, working out if I can.  Honestly, if I get any more than cardio in in the next 2-3 weeks, I’ll be impressed.  My lifting probably won’t resume until I can get back to work and lift again in the gym there.  The upside to look at is, I may be able to finally shed some poundage.  I have lost all of 2 lbs in the time I’ve been on here, but have to admit with a lot more muscle, my body fat is finally on the edge of making it back into the teens.  I’m going to try to keep in with some pullups, pushups and situps in the meantime too.  Hopefully, after this "break" from lifting, I can get back in a regular schedule and get past the little plateau I seem to have hit in both weights and measurements.

Well, there was some good and bad about the holidays.  The bad, I didn’t get a chance to workout for four days because of the hectic atmosphere for the holidays at work and different responsibilities.  The good, was I got a lot of turkey left over for sandwiches and I managed not to not put on any weight.  In the past two weeks, I’ve managed to lift for 5 days and do cardio for another 2.  Not the best of attempts, but not too bad.

 I managed to be pretty consistent in my lifting and after each session, did feel quite a pump, definately a good feeling.  Also managed to have some knee pain, not from any lifting directly, but I think from bad positioning while doing cardio and overworking it a bit.  Otherwise, not much new.  I plan to do my measurements before year’s end so I can see if any discernable growth happened, even though I managed to make some decent improvements in my lifting.

Well, after consulting with a surgeon, he said I can keep working out till the hernia presents.  He couldn’t tell if I had one or if I managed to just pull something really well with some swelling, but after two weeks, the pain and discomfort subsided, so its his conclusion to follow up again in the spring and just go a little easier during workouts.

That being said, I’ve seen some decent gains, but nothing to speak of in my biceps or calf/thighs.  I’ve talked to a few of the guys that workout at the gym with me and we’re coming to the conclusion that either a) I’m going to easy on those spots, or b) I need to mix up my workout on those points.  I tried one week like that and definately felt the "burn" and did notice some satisfying tightness almost like my biceps wanted to burst out from under my skin after the workout.  We’ll have to try through the end of the year and then do another measurement to see if its growing like it feels.  For those of you wondering, I’ve switched to a pyramid lifting approach with my biceps.  Currently, 20lbs at 10 reps, then 25lbs at 8 reps, and 30lbs at 6 reps, then back up.  Then I switch over to my current workout for back, then back to biceps doing a straight bar escalating from bar+20lbs up to 30lbs in 3lb increments order and then back down.  Once I can easily get through this, I’ll up the full amount by 5lbs each.  So far the nice result is constant vein popping, albeit not a lot, but enough to notice even when I’m not working out.  I’ve also managed to get my workout load to Back/Bi monday, Chest/tri on Tues, Wed is shoulder/legs, Thurs is off, Friday/Saturday is Bike/run for 30mins (1 one day, 1 the other) and sunday off.  So far so good and if I’m having an off day, I throw in 30-40mins of elliptical machine.