Back On Track

Well its not been a weekly update like I should have put but at least its good news. Things are going well training wise. I am back in the gym, running, doing alot more cycling and exercise at home too. Bad news is that due to other commitments I can no longer attend Muay Thai classes so my fitness has take abit of a hit there since it was an amazing full body workout. Also due to going to the gym Bouldering has also been put on the back burner but in lue of a gym session so its a fair trade I think. The training I have been doing in the gym has been geared towards packing on some size. This has been achieved with great effect!! I feel alot bigger on my upper body and my legs are alot more defined and stronger than previously. Even though my weight is creeping up, I believe that this is due to the extra muscle I have gained because I look and feel like I have lost fat. Although I dont have a 6-pack YET I will have one in tome for my holiday. I also believe I'm losing fat because my running has improved dramatically. Weights wise I do a different session each time. No 2 sessions are ever the same and this is the way it will be staying. However I will be moving into full body circuits come July as I enter my "definition" phase. Cardio as mentioned is mainly covered by running. I go twice a week which is not enough in all honesty. For the goals that I want to achieve I need to be going three times a week minimum. This goal from this week onwards will be to do just that. At the moment my runs are fat burners as I dont feel capable of doing intervals or hill sprints etc. but when I have developed abit of a base level of fitness I will be moving onto more advanced training methods. Cycling has become a bigger part of my routine again as my main mode of transport and I feel much better for it, to the point I feel bad taking a bus somewhere when I know I could have cycled. This again is something I am phasing in to add to the regime as a little unmentioned extra. I have big plans for my training as I am now giving some serious thought to applying for the Royal Marines and this time round actually following it through!! To makw this a reality I will need to be trainig 5/6 days a week, twice a day minimum. It will be hard on my body so I will have to bare in mind the options I habe ro keep my risk of injury down. The biggest piece of advice I will give myself is to listen to my body so I dont over-do it and stretch every day. That will also allow my body to repair faster too which is an added bonus. I havent made it official that I am looking to apply to all the family. There are members I have discussd it with and they know its on the cards but nothing is set in stone. However it is becoming an ever increasing possibility and I do want it to come to fruition in the near future. Time to start working like I really WANT it.

Overdue Update

Well once again it has been too long since I put an update on here so here goes. Things fitness wise have been going pretty well and seem to be on the progressive way up. I am training in Muay Thai regularly, I have restarted bouldering and home fitness is coming on. Usual routines are based around press and pull ups as in my mind they are the meat and potatoes of exercise, followed by some resistance training with weights. Cardio is on the rise too as I have been running on and off too. The main reason for the "off" is having had blisters cover my feet from wear and tear of training and the friction from the mats at Muay Thai.

All the running that I have done has been in the woods. This is think has been what has allowed me to stay injury free from running due to the much lower impact from off road running compared to pavements pounding. I have also been running a different route every time and changing my pace accordingly. This has kept things fresh and manageable while still being difficult. I haven't measured or timed any of the runs on purpose because I want to regain the ability to know in myself how fast I should be going to reach a target training zone.

Muay Thai has been excellent exercise. Even though it has just been going to the beginners classes the level of fitness require is still great. When I first arrived the warm up was a shock to the system and a workout in itself!! I have however surpassed this thankfully!! Hopefully I will soon progress in ability to allow entry to the more advanced classes so that I will be allowed to spar.

Bouldering has been great!! I am building up a good base level of skill and my grip strength is improving after every visit. However my flexibility still remains as my greatest asset as neither my strength, grip or skill is as good as my climbing partners' I can still manage most of the more advanced routes that they do. Even if it does look like more of a struggle, which it is!!

All my training seems to be focused around bouldering with it very much in mind. I have no ambition to become some muscle bound behemoth instead I seek only to carry less fat and be physically able to complete my athletic per-suites. I need to keep my weight down so that I can lift myself more comfortably while climbing and making it easier to keep my breath while at Muay Thai. Strength is a big part of the 2 activities with one allowing my to climb more securely and the other to hit harder and faster!! Cardio is a means of controlling my weight and keeping performance high at Muay Thai.

Things seem to be on the way up and can surely only get better.

New Year, New Mountain

Well the new year is upon me and with it came a realisation. Although I had a target of where I wanted to be, I had no reason to get there. So to draw my line in the sand I have registered to take part in the Sheffield half marathon on 27th May. This means I do indeed need to go from zero to hero in terms of cardio in order to finish the damn thing. To increase the stakes I have also arranged for a number of colleagues to take part with/against me, some of which will be more competition than others!! Also since the £ will be going down to actually take part that will further my resolve to buckle down and train. Soon after that I will be running the Great Yorkshire Run but I'll come to that nearer the time.

So far there are 6 of us running the race and hopefully more to come. It is my goal to finish at the head of the pack!! Although not having ran anything as long as 13 miles I'm not sure about what time I will be looking to finish in. Some more research will give me an idea of an achievable goal.

In-depth training regime to follow shortly.

Complete and Utter Failure

In my earlier posts I set out a number of goals to achieve by xmas. Xmas has been and passed and I am still no nearer to completing most of my goals.

I cannot say if I have lost my target amount of fat because it has been so long since I got on some scales. However I do feel that I have lost fat since I can see and feel less. This has been because I have shown restraint in my diet which I previously did not. However I am still not being as stringent as I planned which will change.

There is no way in hell I could do a set of 100 press-ups or 12 pull-ups. I think my best at the moment would be 25-30 press-ups on a good day and 6-8 pull-ups. This will change. I have got in to a slack routine of cutting corners, being waited on, putting in a half arsed effort and playing too much XBOX (a recurring theme). I think it goes without saying that I have not being hitting my target of 3 exercise sessions a week. If I had I would be closer to my goal, but I am not. I have been doing some exercise here and there but nothing regimented enough to see real gains.

A real step forward is that I am in the process of creating a training plan that is based on my 5 week rota pattern. A standard week-by-week plan just isn't suitable because of my work times. A different shift pattern every week would make the same routine almost impossible. So I am planning for this and making compensations where they must but maintaining a consistant regime is the key. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

I have began to realise that a number of psychological factors have played a big part in my being and coming to terms with them ans handling them is not easy. Some days getting out of bed is a chore. My health and social lifw have suffered greatly because of this and my work is beginning to be effected too. This needs to change and with the support of my friends and family I will get there.

I also have a new means of combating my problems and that is getting back into sport. I have been asked on numerous occassions to start playing rugby again. I am currently getting full details about this so I can make arrangements with work and include it in my plan. More regular updates to follow.

The Bigger They Are....

Just been on a run with my older brother. It was only 3.5 miles from start to end but my god what an ordeal!! He sat quite a moderate pace for me at the start but eben still my lack of physical activity in recent times shone through yet again. I managed the first mile or so at this pace but that was it. After the first mile my calves were burning red hot and a long down hill section adjitated my ankle. From then on I could only manage a few hundred yards before I had to walk the pain in my calves off. My cardio was not too bad as I never really felt like I was gasping for air. It was just my lack of muscular endurance that stopped me from reaching this point.

I got my heart rate to what felt like 160BPM which I know I can handle for over 20mins as I do this on the exercise bike at work regularly. But this that is on a bike so the pounding on the legs doesnt come into it. From this I have learned that a need to address my running technique as I appear to be making things harder for myself than needs be. The first thing my brother picked up on (and always has) is that I take really small strides for a man of my size. So what I need to do is extend my stride but not too far as to feel unatural. This will take some trial and error Im sure but it will pay dividens in the long run. The second point is that my body positioning when running down hill in particular is putting more and more pressure on joints as I am trying to stay bolt upright instead of relaxing and leaning into the hill. I know I do this because even on a flat section I can tell that I am rigid and feel unrelaxed, like everything is very serious. It also tires my shoulders and biceps out from holding a stoic pose when running other than my legs. I just need to loosen up and I know it will become easier. The thrid and final point is that I sound like a herd of elephants stomping through as I run. This will be combination of an uneasy running technique and the extra weight gain. Obviously I can blame some of the pain in my calves on the extra weight on my joints from rapid weight gain and inactivity.

The run has only spurred my on to get better at running and obviously fitter. I am feeling first hand the difficulties that are coupled with being over weight and running. I now see that there is no need to have a little extra weight as stored energy. Not in this day and age when food is so easily available wherever you go. So it is my goal just to drop as much fat as I can and not really focus on the total weight Im at. This is because when I do gain muscle it would obviously bring up my total weight. To help quantify this I will do my best to make monthly use of a Bio-Electrical Impedance machine to got my total body weight but more importantly my body fat %. When I was at my peak of fitness, rather amazingly just before I injured my ankle, I was at 8% body fat. Which may seem a lot but when you consider that most other males who had the % analysed when I had mine done were all PT's, sportsmen and students alike they were getting around 15% and they were in great shape.

I can also feel it in my heart (lungs, legs, head and arms!!) that my recovery time which was once my main physical advantage over most people has not hit rock bottom. I used to be able to do 5mins rolling at BJJ and be fine to go again for another 4 or 5 rounds with only 1min in between. Now 5mins rolling would have me in A&E on a breather!! I first need to work on a base level of fitness and the technique issues before I can get into more intense training to aid recovery. My answer to this will be volume.

My training value at the moment is still too low. I will now make sure that there is a minimum of 3 cardion sessions a week done. As well as daily physical exercises that can be down around the house like press-ups and pull-ups. Through sheer volume of training I will see the base level of fitness increase to a level where I can complete I run without needed to walk the burn off!!

New Skills

After a full day of lessons and practice I am now a certified recreational level snow boarder. It was a really long day and I burned some serious kcals through training for 3hrs. It is such hard work on the lower body and core. Constant strain on the quads, hamstrings and glutes. The glutes get trashed!! Not only from none stop work but from falling flat on them too.

Made the most of the time training by running up the slope every time to get on it faster to get more practice and get a bit more phys in. I am definitely feeling the gains of my training even in such a short period of time. My legs are becoming more muscular as they feel more toned already. It is a massive moral boost to be feeling benefits already. It just spurs me on to do more and keep up the variety in the training.

I also may be starting swimming once a week because lets face it you have to search high and low to find a better workout than swimming. Obviously MMA circuit training is a close second but I think I need to get some more muscular strength and endurance before I can cross that bridge properly. Definitely going to focusing on fitness training rather than bulking up. What is the use in muscle if its for show? Not to mention the fact that a functional muscular body looks a lot better than someone who just goes to the gym and does bicep curls all day!? I have now subscribed to a new magazine "Train Hard Fight Easy" which is an MMA training magazine to give me a few more training tools and ideas to use. I am now more and more becoming a believer that variety in training is definitely the key to keeping results and gains coming so the body cant easily adapt.

Weekly Update

I know its been a while but I have been keeping on top of things. All this week I have introduced 2 press-up pyramids a day into my regime as well as using my grip master again. As a result my hands are crampy as buggery!!

The weeks events began on Monday with a run from home to Sir Jacks and back which is round trip of just under 7 miles. Not bad considering 3 miles nearly killed me the other day. The main down point with the run was that with my new trainers not being worn in for very long at they were eating through my feet by the time I got to the tan yard. So I had to have a couple of stops along the way to give myself a breather from the pain. I will also own up to having to walk from Sir Jacks to just before Wicko comp to ease the pain a bit. I then ran my heart out as far as could with only 1 stop near the stag because of the pain the blisters with giving me. My cardio was not too bad at all, in fact I was suprised and impressed that I didnt have to cop out because of poor fitness. Fair enough we were going at a pretty slow speed but then it was 7 miles!! When my shoes are worn in properly it is my goal to do the run again without stopping no matter how long it takes me.

I have also discovered snow boarding!! This was on Tuesday. It is totally awesome, not too great cardio obviously although I did run up the hill every time rather than walk to get a bit more of a sweat on. It was really a muscular workout on the legs obviously since 99% of the work done is down there. Your quads and thighs are under constant strain and its also a great core workout as the balance needed is obviously pretty high. Especially when you have got to be half squating with your hips forward most of the time!! I did level 1 lesson which is obviously pretty basic but I am off to do level 2 (possibly 3) and hit the slopes later today (Friday).

So not a world of exercise being done obviously but with my friends birthday in Leeds Tuesday till Wednesday and my brother getting home yesterday I haven't honestly had chance. So making up for it with a myriad of different sports/exercises for all round fitness. The long road continues and it is becoming more and more interesting each time I exercise.