Well, I made it this far - (New Blog Chapter)

[Pork Chop]

Light boxing workout yesterday:

2 rounds of heavybag going full out
2 rounds of shadowboxing, kinda relaxed
2 rounds of jump rope- this really gave me problems.

heat was getting to me, but a couple minutes after resting i felt better.

Spent too much money last night going out on the town. They were charging me 3 bux for each diet coke i was drinking, which added up. I didn't drink or smoke, which was cool, but i wasted too much time and money.

I didn't finish enough studying for my certification test and didn't get enough sleep last night. Long story short, I didn't go. Again, an aggregious waste of money with nothing to show for it. I gotta make some changes.

Diet yesterday was pretty darn good if i do say so myself. Had 2 balthouse farms drinks- the green one and the whey one. Other than that I just had some chicken marsala with a lot of veggies- squash & mushrooms. The drinks had a lot of calories, but they also had a ton of vitamins, nutrients & a good amount of protein. If i drank those 2 every day i wouldn't need any ZMA. I also feel a lot better when I get my full servings of veggies.

Today had leftovers from the chicken fiasco.

Gonna call my buddy Ian and see if he wants to do anything while he's in town.

[Pork Chop]

Saturday was useless.
Felt kinda guilty from the sheer waste of money.
Wasted too much on Friday night and wasted even more on saturday coz I didn't go take my cert test.
Didn't work out on Saturday either; slept almost all day.

Sunday was a bit better; went to the gym for a workout.

Dumbell Swings: 50lbs x 20

Decline Situps: slight decline x 30

Bends: 30lbs x 25 each leg

Lunges: 95lbs x 10 each leg, 115 x 10 each leg, 135 x 10 static each leg. Felt good and could walk afterwards. I think I usually pull muscles on this exercise and not actually work them out.

Bench: 155 x10, 165 x 10, 175 x 6 / 155 x 5 - the 175 felt much stronger this time and I probably could've finished the set with it or at least gotten half way; i just get real nervous when benching alone.

High Pull into Jerk: 95 x 10, 95 x 10, 95 x 10 - this was EXHAUSTING. By the last set, I was pretty much doing singles.

Wide grip Cable Pulldown: 100 x 10, 120 x 10, 140 x 8 - Some guy was using the assisted pullup machine, so i jumped on this one. The angle & the cables made it difficult- it was 2 cables, not 1. Felt a lot more like actual pullups than classic lat pulldowns.

Tricep extensions: EZ Curl + 50 x 10, +40 x 10, +40 x 10. First set was a lil scarey but do able.

Barbell curl/Pushup superset: EZ Curl +50 x10 / 10 Pushups, +40 x 10 / 10 Pushups, +40 x 10 / 10 pushups. Dropped weight to take it easier on my wrist.

Monday I mostly just relaxed. I went to the pool for about an hour. I did 3 laps (50m pool) of freestyle with my head out the water- this is more exhausting than normal freestyle and I think it's why beginners find swimming so difficult. Lil bit sunburned coz I hate putting on lotion. My dad's worn sunblock almost his entire adult life and still has had 3 separate skin cancer treatments spanning 10 years; the last one taking a chunk of his scalp. Either I'm gonna get it (probably) or I'm not.



[edit: forgot some stuff]
Diet this weekend was somewhere between "not so good" and "atrocious". Saturday just had some more chicken tenders. Sunday had chinese buffet (focus on sushi rolls, kimchi, and pan fried dumplings) and later in the evening I had sashimi, sushi rolls, and some chocolate chip cookies. Monday i had a bit of Thai omelette (with beef and peas) and in the evening I cooked up fajita marinated chicken, which I used to make fajitas and quesadillas.

Still no Grant Gloves, which ticks me off.

Really looking forward to the Taiji Legacy Sanshou event, I am going to use it as motivation to stick to my routine & see where I'm at in July. There's a good chance if my body cooperates (ie that I can move like I wanna) & the rules are accurate (ie 16 oz gloves) that i'll be competing.

[Pork Chop]

My gloves came yesterday

My workout felt like a marathon, but looking back on it, it's actually pretty sad:

4 rounds jump rope
4 rounds shadow (2 with weights, 2 without)
4 rounds heavybag
2 rounds slip bag
20 medicine ball situps
20 medicine ball tosses
20 medicine ball twists
20 hanging knee lifts (5 were full leg lifts)
20 x 4 neck exercises (curling my head up forward, backward, and each side)
20 laying hyper extensions (we use to call em swimmers)
20 count of a plank
10 count forward bridge
10 count backward bridge

my shoulders were burnt from the 2nd round of jump rope on. I think it's coz i've gained some muscle and my arms are actually heavier. Today I'll do more bag work, and more footwork.

Diet was solid: chicken salad in a can, odwalla green goodness, 1 can 7 up, 1 big glass of chocolate milk, my creatine, and some diet soup.


Went to bed by 11 but couldn't wake up at 5 this morning to lift, so i'm going to try to get it in tonite.

[Pork Chop]

My diet soup was smelling bad so I didn't even bother. Think I'm gonna have to throw out the other 2 containers of soup as well.

Around 4 I snuck out for some viet food: 2 fried spring rolls, 2 raw beef spring rolls, and a plate of grilled beef on rice. Too much carbs & probly bad fat, but I was getting dizzy again.

Otherwise I had a couple servings of odwalla green juice, a starkist albacore tuna pack, a chicken salad pack, and an RC cola. Had a tall glass of chocolate milk after boxing and another after lifting. Had some gatorade during lifting and some creatine an hour afterwards.

Boxing workout was suprisingly tough. My shoulders are burnt... like bad burnt, i may have to take time off if they don't stop achin- not when I hit something, just keeping my hands up makes them burn more than i ever remember.

2 rounds of shadowboxing

8 rounds of heavybag (cant remember if i cut it short by one coz my shoulders were so bad i could barely keep up any sort of work rate).

4 rounds of mitt work - didn't even rest for some of those rounds. still workin with the guy to make things flow coz i'm so backwards

3 sets of 10 jumps back&forth over the stair stepper block.

couple laps back&forth under the bob&weave rope


With my shoulders this burnt i really don't know that i could do anymore. i hope they get better soon.


Went to the gym and I knew that upper body lifts were out of the question, so i stuck strictly to lower body:

standing crunch machine- 10 plates (150lb) x 30

seated calf machine- 100 x 10 each leg, 160 x 10 each leg, 220 x 10 each, 260 x 10 each, felt easier than actually doing calf raises leg by leg.

lunges - 95lbs x 10 stepping, 95 x 10 stepping back, 95 x 10 stationary- went for speed, kinda easy.

squats - 135lbs x 10 x 3 as low as i could go (almost azz to ground) - was pretty easy, was getting a lil tired, so slowed down a bit at different parts.

leg press - 1 45 each side x 10, 2 each side x 10, 3 each side x 10 - practically sprinted the last set, pretty easy

quad kickout leg extensions - 65 x 10, 80 x10, 95 x10 - pretty easy, but a bit sore

lying ham curl - 65 x 10, 80 x 10, 95 x 10- again, easy but sore

seated back extensions - 150 x 10, 180 x 10, 240 x 10, 300 x 10 - kinda like a deadlift with no arms. doing the whole stack was pretty easy, just had to struggle to keep my bootie down.

Gotta get to sleep as soon as i can and wake up so i can get out of work by 4 and hit up the kickboxing gym. Hope I've improved enough to hang in that class. Hope my shoulders stop buggin me.

[Pork Chop]

Went back to the kickboxing gym today with some mixed results. I was happy to return and kind of explain my disappearing act.

Started with a somewhat shorter version of my good ole joggin warmup- with footwork drills and stuff.
We did a few rounds of jump rope and then it was on to the bags.
Did a lot of heavybag work.
Finished up with some 2 person technique work and some calisthenics.

2nd class started and I just shadowboxed while they jumped rope- they don't take a lot of time for free form stuff, so the shadowboxing was a welcome addition.
After that, I tried to work this 2 person drill by myself on the heavybag.

Didn't wrap my hands and had an awkward punch on the heavybag, kinda pulled something that runs along the bone from the left wrist to the base of the pinky. I don't think it's busted or a stress fracture, but it feels like shin splints. Didn't swell up or anything.

As a result, my punches weren't all that today. As before, some of the combos were awkward (especially when i was trying that 2 person stuff on the heavybag), so a lot of times i was working more on form than really bangin.

Eventually I kinda gave up on the heavybag and started to rest up. The second class continued with some calisthenics and then wrapped up.

Today I was in for a special treat. My timing on my comeback was perfect. They're starting a sport-specific exercise class in the vein of Crossfit and Scrapper's workouts. I signed up for 8 sessions of that- so I'll do kickboxing and this workout every Tues and Thurs for the next month.

With today being the first class, it was an assessment class- testing our limits on various exercises. We'll chart our progress from beginning to end. The guy teaching it knows a lot of stuff, so I had fun kickin it with him; he gave me some advice on my lifting program too. The workout was pretty exhausting though- going to failure on almost every exercise. Finished up with Tabatas and had to lay down for a while- but at least I wasn't sick this time, like before- no vomiting.

It was a personal victory to make it through this class without getting heat exhaustion (dizziness, vomiting, fatigue, weakness, confusion, and a crampy achey feeling).

That's the good.

The bad was that the scale in the gym showed me at 255, which is even higher than before. In fact, I think i was 245 when I first worked out there, I hit 250 at the boxing gym and now this scale. My arms feel big as heck right now, i don't think they've ever been this big, and i think it's part of the reason for my shoulder problems. In other words, I'm trying to look at the positive aspects of possibly having put on a significant amount of muscle.


The advice the trainer gave me on my workout program was to take out the arm isolation movements and maybe take out the jerk from the hanging clean + jerk (to save my shoulders). He didn't think my old program was a bad idea (deadlift, squat, dip, pullup) he also liked the "bend to opposite foot" lift that I've been doing. I think I'm going to stick with what I've been doing for another week or two. Want to make the 8 weeks the program recommends before switching things up. The only nice thing about keeping the arm isolation is that bigger arms at least make me look more proportional & more muscle will burn more fat.

The new program I'm considering at the end of the 8 weeks looks something like:

dumbell swing (or snatch), weighted crunches, deadlift (heavy), squat (bootie to ground w/reasonable weight), bend to opposite foot, lunge, hanging clean + press, assisted pullup, dip, seated row, bench.

That could be 33 sets if I'm not careful, so i may have to go only a set or 2 on some of the exercises or decrease the number of reps.

I could just cut it into 2 workouts: the lunge with everything before it, variation on the first 2 exercises with everything after the lunge.



Diet today was solid again. Glass of orange juice, half a bottle of the green superfood from odwalla. Lunch was a rather large bowl of leftover fajita chicken w/ salsa and cheddar cheese. Snacked on a couple of granola bars. Chocolate milk (4 servings) after all that working out and some creatine.


I guess if my body wants to blow up, it's gonna blow up. I really like the program I've been on and what I've been working up to. Not gonna freak out, starve myself, overtrain, and add a ton of cardio like I would normally do at this point. At least if I feed myself I may eventually become proportionally strong enough for my size. Leary of overtraining by adding the 2 new workout days, but I'm gonna take my time with it and go easy if i gotta.

[Pork Chop]

My legs were hurt from wednesday, doing all that stuff on thursday didn't help out any. Friday I took off coz i could barely walk. Today I am still hurting real bad. I'm not even sure i'll be good for Sunday.

Friday had a good diet- just some chicken tenders, lots of veggies, a roast beef wrap, and some chicken fillets for dinner.

Saturday's my cheat day- donuts for breakfast, german food for dinner.

[Pork Chop]

what a weird day
only got 3 or 4 hours of sleep last nite coz i slept most of sunday afternoon- hate it when that happens.
at least last night i went grocery shopping and got a bunch of food to cook; even cooked 2 dishes.
the first dish was a veggie beef stew; the second was turkey parmesan.
brought a huge thermos of the stew and a couple turkey parmesan patties with a couple whole wheat hogie rolls.
the stew ended up being way too much; less soup and a single sandwich, with less cheese would've been ideal.
all-in-all not so bad.
yogurt for breakfast, chocolate milk post workout.

by the end of the day i was getting a bit lethargic.
i didn't wanna go to the gym coz of the lack of sleep.
i ended up going anyway.
this week is power week in the gym.

I started off with jump rope. It was really giving me fits, so about 1 min or 30 seconds into it i switched off for some shadow w/weights.

did shadow with weights for another 3 rounds. my footwork was actually a lot better and more light & explosive here, which makes no sense considering how much trouble jumprope was giving me.

I jumped on the heavybag for a good 4 rounds of throwing absolutely everything i had with just about every shot.

I finished up with 3 sorry rounds of jump rope- i just couldn't keep the rope going, don't know if it was the heat or what, just kept getting dizzy.

Afterwards I was totally exhausted. The weird thing is that i don't feel heat sick, so i think i may be adjusting. I mean, the gym was a good 95 degrees according to the thermometer on the wall- the hottest i've ever been in there- but i still don't have the ill feeling of heat sickness, like i sprained something inside and can't think straight.

if i have any energy i wanna take a walk before bed

[Pork Chop]

Fell asleep almost as soon as i wrote that. Slept a LOT last night, from like 9pm to 6:30 this morning. My wrist is real sore from the power work yesterday, messed up one hook, tried to fix form & punch again but still wasn't fixed. Threw like 4 hooks in a row with the same nagging pain. by the end of the round i was throwing them better, but today i'm payin the price.

[Pork Chop]

wrist is buggin me at weird times.

went to the kickboxing gym today.
only hit the second class, the padwork one.
wrist wasn't too bad on jabs.
at the beginning of the workout the heat was almost unbearable.
felt like i was gassing bad and gassing early, but looking at the other people in the class, i wasn't doing too bad i think.

after doing that for an hour, took a few minute rest.
then it was on to extreme fitness.
Again, these workouts are a little like Ross' stuff from Rossboxing, a lil like Scrappers stuff, and a little like Crossfit.
The differences are that it's nicely toned down to account for people's abilities; with lots of room to kick yer own azz.
Didn't realize it but the conditioning guy's the conditioning guy for Lion's Den texas.
Managed to puke once towards the end, but it was from the shock of the last exercise in the last circuit, not from heat exhaustion, thankfully.

After class kickboxin coach started telling me about amateur bouts starting back up. told him bout my taiji legacy idea and he thought i should wait. I think he wanted me to wait coz he didn't think my takedowns were there; coz i got the impression that he wanted me to do the thai amateur events. gonna jet by there tomorrow night after boxing for some sparring @ around 8. I can't move normal yet- don't feel my footwork's there, don't feel my kicks are there and don't feel my combos are there- but i'm gonna go anyway and just try not to screw up.

diet today-
yogurt for breakfast, chillimac for midmorning snack (i was hungry), spent the rest of the day sipping on the bolthouse farms stuff, had a granola bar late in the afternoon. Think i"m gonna get my postworkout stuff before bed- yeah, i know it's late but i didn't feel like ingesting anything.

[Pork Chop]

ow

ow


ow

ow




ow

Okay yesterday I woke up earlier than i thought, even with the neighbors playin the bass loud at like 2am.
I was somewhat zombified at work, not totally falling asleep at my chair, and not as bad as i've been other days, but i definitely wasn't feeling 100%.

After work i strolled on over to the boxin gym. Thermometer on the wall said 97F, a new personal record. If I survive through August, Thailand's gonna be no big thang.

3 rounds of jump rope - still giving me problems, at least this time by the 2nd or 3rd round i could jump for over a minute without flubbin up.

3 rounds of shadow boxing - 2 with weights, 1 round bare handed.

6 rounds of heavy bag - took a tour of all the bags in the gym.

1 round of focus mitts - really feels like the coach is trying to burn me in a single round. I did much better this time than last time. Still have a problem dropping quick enough on my bobs.

1 round on the maize bag - focused on improving my bobbing.

20 medicine ball situps
20 medicine ball twists

Found out that we got a huge tire and a sledge hammer in the gym and that Daniel Zarzamora had come in and killed it for like an hour straight on that tire; at the age of 38.

Stopped by the gas station for some gatorade and chocolate milk.

By the time i got to the kickboxing gym my whole body was stiffening up again.
the 5 sets of 5 negatives that we did on tuesday really tore my back & shoulders up. I ended up just watching the coach rotate out with 2 other guys in MMA sparring. I liked how controlled those guys were- actually working with one another instead of trying to kill each other.

Afterwards i was chatting with an old friend till a lil after midnite. Couldn't get to sleep. At around 1 I got real anxious and my heart started racing for no reason. I was feeling nauseous. I think I was really hungry and that it hit real quick with no hunger pains. No tightness in the chest so it wasn't a heart thing i don't think; just a fast heart beat.

Diet yesterday was 2 servings of yogurt, chocolate whey drink (bolthouse) for midmorning snack, chilli mac for lunch, and left over turkey shnitzel w/2 slices of dark bread for late afternoon snack. After working out i just had the chocolate milk, gatorade, and creatine.

Woke up late again this morning, which might mess with my plans to hit the gym. Couldn't stop watching the Zarqawi footage, can't believe we finally got him, guy was a bigger threat than obl imho.

I'm real sore today. Tonite might be hard. Back, shoulders, chest, obliques, forearms, biceps, hair, eyelashes, fingernails, shoes, jeans, shirt... ow

[Pork Chop]

Well, I survived it: my first 4-day-straight workout week in a while.

Yesterday I woke up late, had to work a lil late. Still made it to the second kickboxing class for an hour and then an hour of "extreme fitness".
I like sledgehammer work.
Turkish getups are a pain in the hiney.
even 1-armed 1-pood kettlebell swings are getting way too easy.

Not quite as sore today and feel pretty good except for maybe my rear shoulders.

Diet yesterday:
1 serving yogurt. 2 Tyson chicken fillets in Buffalo sauce with whole wheat hoagie rolls, 1 can soda, 3/4 a bottle of bolthouse farms green, 1 bottle of their whey drink, chocolate milk, and creatine.

Tonite's the boxing match in downtown that i got a ticket for.
I think i'm gonna need to find a way to sneak in some bag time to get my kicks back. I'd definitely prefer it if the kickboxing classes were more open.

[Pork Chop]

Friday was kind of a rest day. The fights were good. Got out and went to the afterparty, where I had one diet coke and spent a good hour or 2 dancing.
Diet was meh. I knew I needed protein, so i wasn't so strict.
Breakfast was eggs, biscuits, gravy, and a strip of bacon.
midmorning snack was some bolthouse farms green stuff.
lunch was a chopped beef sandwich.
afternoon snack was a sliced brisket sandwich.

Saturday I woke up a lil late.
Tried to make it to the boxing gym so i could do some sledgehammer work.
i got down there at around 11:30, wasn't supposed to close till 12, only wanted a good 10-15 min on the sledgehammer but it wasn't meant to be, the place was closed.
Instead, I went shopping for some stuff and went to the pool where I spent an hour doing jogging laps back and forth across the pool. Good workout, really burned my legs. Did a few sets of poolside dips too.
Today's cheat day- lunch was a gyro, with baklava and a soda. afternoon snack was a stromboli (kind of a meatlover's pizza crossed with a burrito). Dinner was some pita and hummus.
Didn't get to weights today,, will hit that tomorrow.

[Pork Chop]

Seeing as how Friday and Saturday weren't really rest days, I decided to listen to my body on Sunday when I was feeling drained instead of anxious to work out. Part of it was again the sleep issue & getting to bed too late. i'm in a marathon here, not a sprint, so the goal is to keep making improvement week to week and not try to blow my wad any given week.

food wise on sunday i think i had an omelette (egg, ground turkey, onion, & tomatoe), some cookies, and a bomb pop (small one from the grocery store, not big one like the old days). I don't remember eating anything else.

pulled something in my neck today and it's buggin me.

[Pork Chop]

Monday

food- yogurt for breakfast, green goodness bolthouse farms (drank all day), turkey chilli mac for lunch, whey drink for afternoon snack, chocolate milk & creatine post workout, tyson's chicken tenderloin a couple hours before bed.

workout was
3 and a half rounds on jump rope
5 rounds shadow boxing (only wore the grant gloves)
5 rounds of heavybag (did the big tour of the gym)
30 sledgehammer swings on the tire- was fadin pretty bad by this point.
30 medicine ball situps
20 medicine ball self passes
20 knees to chest on the roman chair thing where you support yourself on your elboes
20 neck curls each direction- front, back, each side

did 30 pushups straight back at home before bed.

weight was down in the mid 240s (with clothes and shoes) so that was a nice change from the 255 i saw before.

traps are aching could really use a massage.

[Pork Chop]

Gonna pull a sevenstar here and post a bunch of days today. heheh

Tuesday

kinda killed it today. did the 6 o clock class, the 7 oclock with the conditioning coach, and finished up with about 2 rounds on the heavybag. Class was a little bit of pad work and some skills drills. Conditioning was upper body "heck". I was pretty burnt in time for the heavybag.

Went grocery shopping afterwards and was DYIN'. Thought i was gonna fall out a few times. Shopped for a good 30~45 min so it was like a cardio session.

Diet was just okay. Had a big breakfast with eggs, biscuits, gravy, & hashbrowns for breakfast. the rest of the day i didn't eat so much, did have all my healthy drinks- creatine, chocolate milk, bolthouse farms, etc. Think I had a small bowl of beef salad in the evening.

Wednesday

Had to be up 2 hours earlier than usual for a meeting today. Between the jolt to my sleep schedule and the endless meeting that had no interest to me, i was passing out by mid afternoon. I ended up leaving an hour later than i wanted to so instead of going to the boxing gym and going to spar; i ended up barely making the drive home and passing out. Slept from about 6 to 11, woke up for a lil bit and went back to bed.

Didn't eat anything in the evening. During the day i had oatmeal for breakfast, eggs with some sausage bits midmorning, and chilli mac for late lunch.

Thursday

Okay eggs for breakfast is beginning to be a bad habit. Had to get gas and didn't have anything cooked so I did some mini-mart shoppin.

1 sausage egg biscuit for breakfast, 1 more for midmorning snack, 1 turkey sandwich on a wheat hogie as a late lunch, and a bolthouse farms green. In between workouts I had a bolthouse farms whey shake. After workout I had a banana, my chocolate milk, and creatine.

Workout wise, Thursday was a killer. Started off with a strong 45 min on the heavybag. Chilled for a lil while, had half my whey shake, and then did the 6 o clock pad work & skills work. After that I finished my shake and did the 7 o clock conditioning class. Nearly fell out in the conditioning class at the beginning but stuck it through. After my workout was finished, i wasn't nearly as drained as i have been lately after workouts. I felt pretty good.