Killer Mighty Tough!
Today’s return to the gym was triumphant. I thought there should be trumpets playing. But I was quite happy to accept the stream of Foo Fighters, Marilyn Manson, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The music (and videos) is the reason I drive 15 minutes to this gym instead of 3 minutes to the one near my house. The one near my house has played the same 20 songs every time I’ve been there over the last year. I feel murderous when forced to endure that music. (Mind you, if I remembered my old school iPod, I wouldn’t have to worry a bit).
I decided to commit myself to 4 weeks of measuring my progress in selected areas, and working on improving all of those areas over the 4 weeks. Here’s my goal targets for what I’m going to measure.
Fitness
Pushups …. 20 / 25 / 30 / 40
DB Bench…. 120 / 140 / 150 / 160
Lat Pull…. 120 / 130 / 140 / 150
Curl2Press.. 70 / 80 / 90 / 100
Hack Squat.. 180 / 200 / 230 / 270
Romanian Ded 120 / 140 / 150 / 170
Cardio (Measuring heart rate)
Run 30 mins… 170 …………………..
Bike 30 mins… …… 165 ……………
Stairs 30 mins. …………….160 ……
Run 30 mins… ……………………155
Food (tracking +/-)
Veggies
Cheats
Monster Food
Weight
240 / 238 / 236 / 235
I imagine everything there makes sense, right? The food section just means that I want to eat more veggies, have less cheats, and no monsters. That’s easy, right? And can I attain a better heart rate in 4 weeks? Jeez, I don’t know, but it’s just a reason to push myself onto those various cardio efforts over four weeks.
Having the measurements gives me something to shoot for, and gives me something to train to. I have discovered that if I’m left to my own devices, I just kind of futz around and train in a million directions. I’m following the lifting program from the Men’s Health Book of Muscle, by Ian King.
(I think Amazon is hosed. This is showing up to me as a generic shopping link instead of a picture of the book, MEN’S HEALTH: THE BOOK OF MUSCLE, by Ian King)
The book is great for several reasons. There are some great illustrations of various muscles, including really detailed drawings that help explain the makeup of your musculature. It’s focused on guys (sorry), but the same musculature exists in women, so you can extrapolate. The workouts at the back of the book are a mix of really dorky looking (things you wouldn’t even want your dog to see you doing), and really good body mechanics.
I’ll be honest: when I’m at the gym, I do some of the dorky looking ones, but even I have limits. Most anything where I have to stand on one foot and balance, while really good for my core and several thousand other muscles, I will only do in privacy, because I have the balance abilities of a one-legged drunk. However, I follow the general gist of the program and substitute same muscle-set exercises for the ones that dork me out.
My only criticism is that the workout is still mired in the bodypart mindset instead of full body workouts. I like all the new stuff in plyometrics and overall body strength workouts that I’m reading about. I’ll probably follow this stuff by King for a few more months, but in the end, what I’ll really want will be a little more holistic, and not so focused on specific parts of the body.
So, I felt mighty today. I hit those first week goal numbers with no problem. I could’ve done more pushups. I could’ve done 10 more pounds on my DB bench. I was a little week on the dumbell curl to press efforts (mostly because I don’t work my biceps separately to any other exercise). Yes, I’m the ONLY guy at the gym not obsessed with curls. But man, I’m tough.
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