All Aboard the Pork Chop X-press!!

[Suntzu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys4q72RC9Yc

enjoy

[Pork Chop]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys4q72RC9Yc

enjoy

yikes I remember being a lot smoother than that.
Julio's got a way of making anyone look uncoordinated. LOL
Shoulda got when you and I were holding for each other.
Seriously tho, thanx for posting it.

Monday
Went swimming again.
Could've done a lot better last weekend about eating & living healthy so it felt good.
Felt fresh today, fresher than i have in a while.
Taking it easy last week might've been a good idea.
The guys in my lane didn't look as fresh - one of them swam the 5k this weekend that I slept through - they usually swim faster than me and I was having to slow down not to run 'em over.
Really feel like getting back on it this week.
I'm setting Saturday as my goal day to go back to muay thai.
I've been reluctant coz I know I haven't lost any weight; but at least I've gotten over the break in period of the swimming, so at least I'm in prime position to melt off the weight doing both (plus a little lifting).
My shoulder's not 100%; but I am starting to doubt that it ever will be; I do think the SuperCissus is helping.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday
Well I can definitely say the shoulder's improving.
Swam Tuesday morning.
Came home at lunch time to pick my dog up from the groomer and do some work from home.
Weighed myself the first time yesterday and I was 235.2 on a relatively full stomach.
My shoulders weren't bugging me so i swam again in the evening; from 5:30 to 7.
The evening session was the same routine as the morning session, with some relatively easy stuff added at the end.
It was still brutal swimming in hot water under the bright sun.

Wednesday
Weighed myself this morning before going swimming again and almost couldn't believe it:
231.6
That's like 7 or 8 pounds since 2 weeks ago.
Needless to say I was pretty motivated this morning.
Swimming went well; good workout, but wasn't super exhausted.
Tonight I'm going to try to hit muay thai for a light to medium workout (in other words, not really gonna try to kill myself).
Think I may lay off the weights a little while, no more than once a week, just to facilitate staying in weight loss mode.
Weight's more important than bodyfat %age to me right now, but I'm eating healthy & eating a lot of protein, so I'm doing what I can to keep the weight coming off mostly fat.

[Pork Chop]

Wednesday part 2
Went back to muay thai tonight.
Coach jetted before I could pay him.
Feel kinda bad about that.
Next time I'll pay first.

The workout was pretty brutal.
Me and my favorite workout partner held pads for each other after warm ups:
3 rounds of thai pads (5 min, 3 min, 3 min) each
3 rounds of focus mitts (5 min, 3 min, 3 min) each
worked a round on the heavy bag and was basically done by that point.
My endurance is not 100%; but some of the rounds didn't burn me out like I expected.
Didn't spar, coz I wanna get back into a routine first and then build up to it.

Came home tonight and a guy I couldn't see was honking at me as I was pulling into my spot.
Normally, this guy uses his motorcycle to reserve a spot in front of his apartment for his truck, but tonight he was also trying to claim a spot for his girlfriend as well - a spot i was apparently taking.
The selfishness of the situation kinda caused me to blow up.

I can't tell you how many nights I've come home with groceries and couldn't park in front of my building coz his little motorcycle was sitting all alone in a spot, just so he could come home after midnight and park in front of his apartment.
He had the nerve to ask me "well where's she supposed to park?" and I shot back "Where the rest of us are stuck parking; on the other side of the lot!".
He's probably gonna do something to my car... o well, it's old anyway & I know what both his motorcycle & truck look like.
After our little tiff, he told his gf to go park in the handicap spot.

I know my grumpiness is getting the better of me coz i'm tired and worn out, but I've had it out for this guy for months. Ever since back in February; when my friends came to pick me up, but he ran out and told them they couldn't park in the one empty spot in front of the building because his friends were coming later and deserved the spot more. I was actually in the parking lot approaching my friends' truck and saw the exchange - if I'd actually heard what he'd said, I probably would've knocked the jerk out then.

For a little background, my apartment complex is horrid for parking. I am paying 30 extra a month for a reserved spot and it's on the exact opposite corner of the entire complex - they couldn't have possibly assigned me a spot further away from my apartment. So this guy reserving spots like that's just way too much for me to stomach.

[SAAMAG]

Hey Chop...what apartments do you live in? (PM me considering it's a public forum)

I can solve problems ya know!

[Pork Chop]

Was still sore from Wednesday so I took Thursday off and still had a hard time waking up on Friday.
Ended up going to the 8:30am practice.
Swam for about 1 hr 15.
Coach wasn't there, but she left a workout.
Kinda went at my own pace with nobody to really push me.
Good workout, but not a killer.
Don't think I mind though coz I needed a medium-intensity day.

[Pork Chop]

Nice, lazy weekend.
Decided to make my weekends my "cheat days", instead of just having one.
The reason is because in the past, with one cheat day, I'd rush out and eat as much junk food as possible in that day and sometimes rack up 10K calories.
If I stretch it out over 2 days, I tend to binge a whole lot less- just the occasional bad meal.
We'll see how it works.

Monday morning was surprisingly easy to wake up to given that I went to bed around 1 and got about 4 hours of sleep.

Swimming was fun, lots of sprinting.
It was a lesson in pacing.
In the past I had bad performance anxiety whenever getting back into swim meets after long layoffs, I think fighting is much the same way.

The sprints were 200s, broken up by 50s.
So sprint a lap down & back, get exactly 10s rest, then go again for 4 times straight.
We did 2 200s with a few minutes in between.

The first 200 I did try to pace myself, but ended up sprinting from the get go, i could feel myself tensing up. I made the first 2 in 40s each, but lost 3 seconds by the third (43s), and another 5 seconds after that (48s) - I was just plain exhausted.

The second 200 I did a much better job of pacing myself, the first 3 I came in at 42s and the final one I came in at 44s (messed up the flip turn).

In training it's good to go all out; but I think when it comes to doing it for real - much better to operate within my bounds; instead of going all out, in order to maintain a faster pace for longer.
In doing it for real, it'll just need the presence of mind to be able to shift gears down & the defense to be able to keep myself doing it. I have been pretty good in sparring about doing just that; even when going hard - but I'll need to make sure to keep it in mind come fight day.

Feel pretty good today - the distance today mighta been a little short at around 2200m.

[Pork Chop]

Got tired towards the end of the work day and went shopping right after for groceries (also needed some more Omega3-6-9 and some joint health).

Went to bed around 9:30. Had a couple interruptions, but slept pretty well.
Weight was up to 234 this morning even though my stomach has very obviously changed.

Swimming Tuesday morning was a ton of sprints.
Feeling worn out and it's almost lunch time.
It was actually supposed to be a "tapering" day as the coach and another lady are competing this weekend; but it sure didn't feel like a taper.
On the main set I swam the fastest 50m of freestyle that I've swam in a long time.
600 warm up + 450 extended warm up + 9 x 50m pull on 55s (450m, fast pace) + 5 minute kicking sprint (probably 250) + main sprinting IM sets of 9 x 50m alternating stroke (450m) + 50 cool off + 150 sculling drill = 2400m...about a mile and a half... pretty good little distance especially considering the sprints.

Have to see how I'm feeling tonight, but I was thinking of going to do some elliptical sprints and lift some weights. Right now, I could easily go back to sleep.

[Pork Chop]

couldn't wake up wednesday
It was one of those mornings where your alarm is set for 5:15 and your back up alarm's set for 5:45, but you wake up at 9:30 with both of them going off....
Guess my body needed the sleep.

Went to swim after work (took off an hour early).
I did a 500m warm up and we got about 650m into the workout (total 1150m - bout half a workout) till it started thundering and we had to get out of the pool.

After that I went inside and jumped on the elliptical crosstrainer.
The elliptical was a star trac one, and it was my first time on that one.
It's weird, coz the arms and legs aren't connected to each other.
The arms have a separate resistance setting and alternate positions to accommodate pushing or pulling.
The legs have a lot of bounce to them so it feels more like running.
All in all I liked it.
I did a "total body interval" workout on the "difficult" setting at level 15 for 30min with a 2min cool down.
At one point the pushing resistance was so high it was like lifting weights; thought my heart was gonna pop.
Good workout, tired me out real well.
I wanted to do weights after but there was no assisted dip/pullup machine and I think all of the squat racks were actually smith machines.

Hoping the hurricane gets all its rain done with tonight so tomorrow morning I can go swimming again. If I get rained out tomorrow morning I may go lift weights early and swim after work - assuming i have an easy time waking up.

I've decided not to go back to muay thai for a while btw.
My decision is purely financial as I can't afford paying over 200 a month for various gyms.
Gotta try to live as lean as possible the next 2 months so I can save up enough for my trip to Japan, which is going to cost a pretty penny.

[Pork Chop]

Woke up Thursday morning to check the weather.
At 5:30 it was drizzly out, so I went back to bed - pool's out door's.
At 7:30 there was the occasional light sprinkle.
Around 8 I called the swim coach asking if there was practice.
Around 8:20 she finally called me back.
Rushed out to the pool and got in the water by 8:45.
Swam from 8:45 to 9:30 and was really booking it to make up for being late.
I missed about 400m off the workout- so not a huge deal.
Gonna jump rope for 15 min tonight sometime to make up for it.
Gonna be at work till real late though.

[Pork Chop]

Friday
A typical pool is 25m long, making a typical lap 50m.
A mile is 1600m (give or take a few meters).
This morning I swam 3,300 meters in an hour and 15 minutes (with some breaks).
I barely have energy to type this.

[Pork Chop]

Okay, so my lil brother was in town last week.
I had to entertain him and really didn't have the time or energy to work out.
Keeping up with a 17 year old is hard work.

Tuesday I still couldn't wake up on time so i went to work a bit early and went swimming afterwards. This was probably a huge mistake. A new coach was there, he's going to be taking over the evening swimming. He coached Olympian Josh Davis when he was in high school; so the guy's good. He didn't know where we were at so he just tried to stress test us. The problem is that I'd already warmed up for 800m before we even got going.
In the end I swam a total of 4100m (yeah, almost a 5k - brutal); which consisted of many laps of IM (including butterfly) and finished up with 100m sprint.
My lower legs (just below the calf) were cramping up BAD and still hurt.

Wednesday I actually DID wake up, coz i didn't want to suffer any more of the other coach. Put in close to 3k today. My shoulders are killing me.

Good news is I didn't gain much weight during my week and a half of dirty living.
I'm still hovering around 230 and I have a feeling I'm going to drop more in the next few weeks as I get back into clean eating and working out.

[Pork Chop]

Last Thursday I was dog tired.
I went home after work and slept.
Woke up around 10 and didnt get back to bed till after 3.
Needless to say, I wasn't able to wake up at 5 for swimming on Friday.

Saturday I went to Corpus Christi; actually the beach we went to was on Padre Island.
Spent a good 5 hours catchin small waves on my bodyboard and actually managing some good rides on my skim board (requires lots of little sprints).
Pretty good workout when you do it for that long.
Went to this awesome seafood (sushi) buffet afterward before driving home.
At home had a little beer and went to bed kinda late.

Went to bed late on Sunday; woke up a bit late on Monday.
Went to the 8:30 swim practice - got there more than 15 min early.
Had a good hard swim; but came into work later than normal coz i had to talk with the coach for a while after.

I got 5 weeks left till I go, so it's time to stop screwin around.

[Pork Chop]

Tuesday
As soon as I finished my warm up (300 swim 300 kick in 15 min), it started to thunder and lightning; so we had to get out of the pool.
In the evening I went to gold's gym.
I did 33 min on the elliptical for around 500 calories (i was booking it).
Squats w/ 135 4 or 5 sets of 10 -either way, my legs were cramping by the end; the cardio took a lot out of me.
around 15 minutes (130 cal) on the recumbent bike - first few minutes hurt my knees, after a while it was okay, not my favorite exercise for sure; but not that difficult
around 15 minutes (200 cal, 3500+m) on the rowing machine - again, was weird on my knees at first, but was okay after a while

Wednesday
Woke up nice and early for swimming; which actually hurt a bit.
Swimming went okay until we got to these 3 sets of 200s.
The workout was mostly for distance, but i was treating these 200s as speed sessions; going easy the first 2 or 3 laps and swimming hard the last 1 or 2.
By the final one, it was just too much - especially combined with all the water I was accidentally swallowing today (an unusually high amount) and I puked on the deck.
My morning workouts are usually on an empty stomach so at least it just looked like water.

EDIT: Wed night time workout
13 min on the elliptical, lots of sprinting
abs -
crunch machine: 100lbs x 30; 110lbs x 30; 120lbs x 20; 130lbs x 30; 140lbs x 10; 150lbs x 10
twisting oblique machine: 6plates x 30 each side, 7 plates x 20 each side, 8 plates x 10 each side
reverse crunches: 30, 20, 10 - unweighted
boxing workout -
jump rope: 10 min straight
shadow: 3 rounds of 3 min
heavybag: 6 rounds of 3 min
Duration around 1 hour, 45 min; a lil longer than I wanted to be at the gym.

[Pork Chop]

Thursday
woke up bright and early for swimming.
waking up hurt, but was bearable.
at the pool, i must've been suffering grumpiness from exhaustion; coz i wanted to start a fight with this dude in my lane- he kept swimming over the black line down the center and smacking me.
the first 3 times, i swam into the next lane over (either into or under the lane ropes); but eventually i just got tired of it and we collided a bunch.
Until I got angry at the guy, I had no explosiveness in the pool whatsoever.
I couldn't kick up my speed when i wanted to - the anger didn't really help till the end.
I came to work today with good intentions of doing a little lifting this evening, but my body's stiffened up so bad and become so sore that i almost think I'll be lucky to make it home.
Gonna try to get some rest tonight and swim tomorrow.
It would be nice to get one more weight session in this week and 1 more swim team workout.
There's an open-water, lake swim saturday morning that I'm thinking of doing as well.

Another month of weeks like this and by the time I hit Japan, I should be in the best shape i've seen for a looooong time.