Level 6

Okay, I realize I'm horrible at this blogging thing. It is either feast or famine. But I had a pretty good day on Friday and wanted to write about it.

 First off, we are having a biggest loser contest at the gym, and so far I'm ahead. In the past seven weeks I've dropped 26 pounds (most of it occurring in five weeks time.) That's great. It puts me down 74 pounds overall.

 Second, we had level testing at Fire House Fitness. Our trainer, Jason Muir, has six levels of fitness he would like to get everyone through. Just because you hit these levels doesn't mean you are done, but he gives you a special deal when you pass the last level and show you are committed to working out. I took my level six test on Friday.

 All levels start with a static squat. For level one it is 60 seconds. It goes up in 30 second intervals for each level until level five, then you jump up to a four minute squat. Level six it jumps another minute to five minutes. Sometime during the past few weeks I had kind of pulled one of my gluteus minor muscles and it has put a bit of a strain on my lower back. I haven't been able to do a five minute squat since then. I really just had to go to my happy place and power through it, but mission accomplished.

I was the only person going for level six at 5:30 a.m. so everyone else had started their run by the time I was done. For the lower levels you run around the block, which is around .5 miles. You then move up to a run down the street that is about .8 miles. Then one to two of those runs for level five. Finally you do a combination of the other two and run 1.5-1.75 (I'm not sure of the exact length, I just know it is over 1.5 miles.) Running has never been my strong point, but in the past two weeks it has gotten much easier. I'm not sure if it the extra 10 pounds coming off, or what. I ran about 1.25 miles without taking a break, and finished up with only one 30 second walk. My runs in earlier tests (the .8 mile run) usually took me just over eight minutes. This one that was twice the length took me 14:23 seconds. I was quite proud of that.

 We then moved into the thing I dreaded the most, the "3 minute drill". This is one of those things that doesn't seem like a big deal until you try it, and are told you have two chances to get through it without stopping or you fail. This entire drill is done in the push up position with your hands on a medicine ball. You start out with 30 seconds of mountain climbers, then 30 seconds of V hops (jumping both feet up to one side of the ball, back to the starting point, then up to the other side of the ball.) You then do 30 seconds of straight hops, just jumping both feet forward and apart, to both feet back at the starting position and together. By this time my "hops" felt like they were only moving about four-five inches at a time, very small. You then go back to 30 seconds of mountain climbers, and finish with a one minute plank, 30 seconds with your left leg in the air, and 30 seconds with your right foot in the air. The plank almost finished me because I was so unstable I almost fell over (which would have meant starting over.)

 I finished that and was told not to stop, but to run over to the TRX system for the final test. For those unfamiliar with the TRX, it looks like truck tie downs, but hangs from a bolt in the wall, and has two handles. For the final test we do a TRX 3 ab combo. This was the first exercise I ever did at FHF, and it almost convinced me not to come back! You shorten the handles so they hang between six and ten inches off the ground, and put your feet into the handles. You get in push up position, and start off with 15 pikes (basically raising your butt straight up into the air), then without stopping you switch to 15 pendulums (keeping your upper body straight and moving your legs side to side using your obliques.) Then without stopping you move into 15 peddles (you bring your knees up to your chest one at a time, this is almost like a small one legged pike with a bent knee.) Then you move into the collapsing on the floor in exhaustion exercise, which technically isn't an exercise, but nice none the less.

 At this time I realized that everyone I had thought had left the gym had really been hanging around in the front area out of site, and come back in to cheer me on after the trainers started yelling at me not to wuss out. I got a big hug from the trainers, well the ones who aren't averse to immense amounts of sweat, and will eventually get to sign the wall as a graduate. I'm pretty proud of this accomplishment, but have to keep going. I've got about another 45 pounds to lose to get back to what I weighed when I got married 16 years ago. Wish me luck!

Fun at the gym

So I've helped out around the gym. I've done some web stuff, social media stuff, I even helped lay the flooring. Last night I helped install these...



We had fun with a hammer drill, sledge hammer, and red heads. They should add some excitement to the gym. We have four to install, but didn't have enough red heads (those gingers are amazing.)

For those of you who don't know what a red head is, it is a cement anchor. It is a long bold, that expands at the bottom when tightened. This locks the bolt into the floor.

These pull up stations have adjustable bars on the uprights, and a high fixed bar. We'll be using the lower bar a lot, mainly because we don't have a bunch of members who can do full pull ups. They should be fun!

Chest Press

Went to the gym yesterday, and part of the workout was three sets of 12 dumbbell chest presses. Usually our chest workouts are either fewer reps, or kind of a pyramid (starting at lighter weights with more reps, and working up to heavier weights and fewer reps.)

Now the flashback. . . just a week ago, I had gone to the gym in the morning, and then went again in the evening with my wife. That day we did five sets of 10 reps of dumbbell chest presses. I complained to my wife that I felt week. In high school, my typical warm-up on bench press was a set of ten with 185 pounds. Then I realized that in that day I had done 100 reps of 100 pounds, and didn't feel so bad.

And back to the present. The trainer said he wanted us to go at least five pounds heavier than we usually do. We have a weird gap in our dumbbells at the gym, we have everything in five pound increments, except 60, 65, and 70 pounds. I usually use the 50's, or 55's when I do chest press, so I decided I'd push myself and use the 75's. I was happy that I could get out 27 reps of 150 pounds. I had to finish the last nine with the 55's.

The crappy part of the workout was that I started in the middle, and went really heavy. Then I had to go back to the first, and that involved a lot of burpees, and my chest was really tired. We also did tri-ball push-ups (both of your feet on one medicine ball, and then a medicine ball for each of your hands), followed by 30 more "atomic push-ups". The atomic push-up is a combination chest and ab workout. You put your feet on top of an exercise ball, or in the TRX, and do a push-up, straight into a pike.

Anyway, my chest is tired today!

Body Transformation Challenge

So the gym is doing a body transformation challenge, or eight week biggest loser. I decided I'd sign up. I'll keep you posted on how it goes. I'm half way to my weekly goal already, and it's only Tuesday.

Day two, week two

Okay, so it is now day two of week two of my flush. So far I have encountered some problems, mainly holiday foods at the office! We have a special committee, I believe their official title is the "Some Sort of Committee", because no one really knows their focus. They have arranged a Festivus for the office. This will last all week, and is centered around Seinfeld themes. Mainly it involves eating. Today's theme is the Muffin Top. This morning I came in to find, muffins, cinnamon rolls, blueberry bread, and doughnut holes all laid out for everyone to sample. Being human I did take a small amount, but have adjusted other carbs out of my meals for today.

Yesterday, someone gave me a chocolate-bacon cupcake. I only ate a portion, but curiosity was killing me. It was reasonably good. (It was really good, it just felt odd to taste bacon in a cupcake.)

I was pretty convinced that the weight-loss would slow down this week, but in two days I'm down another pound. That means over the last eight and a half days I've lost six pounds total. This is ahead of where the flush says I should be, but I also have more to loose than many people.

This second week I have cut down on many of the carbs I eat, but don't have to do the extra cardio work everyday. (It's okay, I do some extra cardio in the form of restraining our dog as we 'proceed' around the block a couple of times. I usually get a two mile walk/jog in every night.)

I'll keep you posted on how it continues to go, but so far, so good!

Uneventful Thursday

Thursday started out strong, with me waking up, looking at the clock, and then turning off the alarm and going back to sleep for another hour.

Following that I had to try and get the newest edition of our community newspaper, the Davis County Clipper, because my work's technical writer had an article being published. I zipped around to three stores, and no one had a copy. I finally ran over to their headquarters and put 50 cents into the machine. I then pulled out last weeks edition!

Well crap, there was no way that I could get one before work, so I headed over to the train station and caught a late train.

I got into work, and had a couple of meetings, and a webinar. Nothing too exciting. One of the meetings was a training on avoiding holiday related stress. This was put on by someone from Weber State University. The only problem I could see was that she started the holiday stress by giving us a test.

The important lesson I learned about holiday stress? If you don't want to do it, don't do it. That simple. If someone invites you out and you don't want to go, just tell them you're busy. They don't need to know that you are busy painting your toenails. That was the gist of the 45 minute meeting.

When I got home, my wife wanted to go to the gym. Since I had avoided it that morning, I opted in. The workout wasn't really that hard, when looked at as individual pieces. It was very tiring.

Firehouse Fitness has a main board where they post the exercises. This is broken down in five rotations to allow people to use the equipment more efficiently. Being a geek, I think of it like programming. We have a function, we'll call it the gym, that has a loop inside of it. We loop through the exercises on the board for as long as time allows. Definitely a Do While loop. You know, Do exercise While there is time left.

Thursday, we added some nested loops. For each rotation on the board, we did each set of exercises four times. This isn't that unusual, but usually we stick with doing all of the sets of one exercise, then move onto the next and complete all of the sets for that exercise, etc. Not Thursday, we did the exercises in a super-set. This means we did one set of the first exercise, then one set of the next exercise, then one set of the third exercise, then back to the beginning. I kind of think of this as a For loop. In this example it would be For(x<=1, x++, exercise).

The first rotation had you do 50 mountain climbers at one end of the gym. You then switched to frog jumps down to the other end of the gym. There you did 50 high-knees. You then frog jumped back to the mountain climbers. Do this times four. The frog jumps where the hardest part for me.

The next rotation was 50 jump ropes, followed by 20 round-house kicks with each leg, followed by 40 punches using the heavy bags. Repeat four times.

After that we moved to Five Hop-Touch-Reach, followed by ten burpees, followed by ten power-wheel extensions. Repeat four times.

Then onto 25 TRX jumping squats, moving your feet in and out. Then ten TRX Rip squat, and lat pull. Followed by climbing the ropes on the wall four times. Repeat four times.

The last rotation was ten weighted touch and reach, ten exercise band touch and reach, and 25 weighted punches. Repeat four times.

I made it through six rotation on the board. I haven't sweat that much in quite some time.

After that I was able to get my local newspaper, but I had to drive back to their headquarters to get them.

When we got home, the kids were all whining that they were hungry. Luckily I had planned ahead and had the rice cooker delayed timer on, so the rice was cooking. We were having tacos, rice, and beans, which usually doesn't take long. I felt especially proud that we finished at the gym at 7:00 p.m. I had found my newspapers, and was able to have dinner on the table by 7:18 p.m.

After that I did some dishes, and got the garbage out. We read scriptures, and sent the kids to bed.

Fitness levels

So today at the gym we did a "fitness level test.". We do these every six weeks. Our trainer has six levels of fitness. As long as you go you can typically meet the levels. The higher you get, the more difficult they become. The good news is that there are set exercises, but Jason customizes the times to the individual. I tested for the fourth level today. My only concern was reaching my individual goal of weight loss.

I was dreading it all week, because I was sitting about two pounds over my goal two days ago. I showed up early to take my measurements. When I stepped on the scale, I was a full pound below my goal weight. I'm now officially 53 pounds lighter than I was in January. I kept my goal at six pounds over the next six weeks. I'm going to try for ten. 63 pounds sounds much better than 53.

The test days are fun because of the comroderie. Everyone is pushing each other on and having a good time. Jason has some other trainers on staff (none of them run classes yet, he makes them come for six months to fully understand their expectations.) they do help on test days, so I got to see a few of them than I usually do.

I'm stoked that I passed, I completed my mile and a half run in my best time since high school. I have to run more, I still can't keep it up as long as I'd like, running that is.

Last night at soccer practice the three coaches who where there took on the six players we had show up. I have to say we won, but I let them take back a goal I scored from 25 yards out. The coaches might have played a bit dirty, or as I like to say using our experience. In all fairness, I only had to pick three players up off the ground. It was fun, and thanks to my weight loss I was able to play the entire time!

Super Ab H@$#!!!!

Oh my, that is all I can say. I got up for a nice workout, and received Ab punishment instead!

I walked into the gym and started stretching, but didn't really pay attention to the board. We were all talking, meaning everyone was complaining about how tired they were. Then Jason stepped aside and giggled. It's never a good sign when your trainer giggles.

Here was the workout:
TRX Three Ab Combo—30-30-30 (reps)
Power Wheel Three Ab Combo—30-30-30
Three Ab Combo—50-50-20
Swiss Ball Combo—20-20-20
Swiss Ball Passovers—20
Bosu 4 Point—30
One Leg Plan—45 Seconds Per Side
Crunches—100
Bicycle Crunches—100
Exercise Band Jackknifes—30
Heavy Bag 4 Point—40
Medicine Ball Jackknifes—30
Band Side Lunge—20 Each Side
Dumbbell Side Plank—30 Each Side
Tire Sit & Slam—40

As of right now, my abs don't hurt. I can tell they will hurt, but I have officially reached the "numb" stage. Tomorrow I do not think I will be able to straighten my spine.

I've documented most of these exercises before, but there are a couple new ones, so here we go.

The Swiss Ball Combo (by the way, a Swiss Ball is just a big exercise ball that you can sit on) involves holding the exercise ball between your ankles and doing leg lifts. After that, you sit on the exercise ball, roll down onto your back, and then roll as far back as you can (basically you want the ball as close to your behind as possible while you can still support yourself.) You then do crunches. After completing those, you put your feet on the ball, with your hands in push-up position and do pikes. By the time I got to these, my pikes weren't stellar.

The Swiss Ball Passover involves the Swiss Ball (surprise!) You lay on your back, with your arms extended over your head, holding the Swiss Ball. You then jackknife your body upward, and pass the ball to your feet. You then return to laying down. Each time you pass the ball counts as one. The key to this exercise is to not bring your legs to far up, they should be just short of vertical. If you go too far, you pin your crunch down, so you don't get enough of a crunch.

I've discussed Bosu Four Points before, but I'll quickly revisit them. You place the platform on the ground, so the exercise ball portion is facing up. You position your lower back on the top of the Bosu. You then spread your arms and legs, and then crunch up. This is an amazing ab exercise. Love it!

Exercise Bank Jackknifes are pretty good, but I can't get the timing right yet. You lay down, and place a light weight exercise band under your feet. You then cross the bands, so the handles are on the opposite side of your body. You then bring do a jackknife, and bring your chest and legs up, while pulling the exercise band handles straight out to the side. I end up doing a situp, or leg lift, instead of a jackknife. The key to this exercise is similar to the Swiss Ball Passover, don't bring your legs up to high, or you can pin your crunch to the ground.

Heavy Bag Four Points are just like the Bosu, except laying on a heavy bag.

Medicine Ball Jackknifes are a newer exercise for us. Similar to other exercises, you lay on your back with your arms extended above your head. You hold a medicine ball in your hands, then bring your legs and chest up and touch the ball to your legs.

Band side lunges are like starting a lawnmower or snowmobile. You hook a heavy exercise band around a punching bag. You hold both of the handles together in both hands (grab them both in your right hand, then grab your right hand with your left hand.) You step straight to the side and twist your body while holding your arms straight out. It's almost like a row, but your focusing on the twist.

Dumbbell side planks involve getting in a side plank position up on your hand. You then take a light dumbbell (like a 15 pounder) and put it in front of you. You use your top hand, hold the dumbbell and extend your hand straight up. You have to focus on twisting your core as you go.

The tire sit & slam was pretty cool. We have a bunch of regular size tires at the gym. You put one against the wall, preferably a brick wall. You put your feet inside the tire against the wall. You lay outside the tire and hold a medicine ball. You then do a situp and throw the medicine ball against the wall and catch it at the top of the situp. It's a very "Rocky" kind of exercise, but it was good.

Well, as I rely on my chair back to support myself, I will think fondly of not doing this exercise routine again today. I wont say I will never do it again, or Jason will bring it back on Monday. Have a good weekend!

Oh my aching quads?

Okay, I haven't posted for awhile. So here is whats been going on lately.

Yesterday was back to school, and my oldest started Jr. High. He seems pretty happy, and was excited that his locker is close to a girl he has a crush on. We had to go and get all those little back to school things, 3 ring binder, pad-lock for orchestra locker, 3x5 cards, etc.

The middle two (my daughters) are both loving their teachers. I think it will be a good school year.

We played a soccer game with the Priesthood from our Ward last Saturday. This was a good time. We had 15 people show up, including 3 Deacons. My team was slaughtered, but I did score a goal from midfield. The guy playing keeper for their team had never been a soccer player and was way out of position. I kept telling the young soccer players to take a shot, and no one would, so I did.

You may have noticed the post title, and thought, "That's not like Brett. He only ever complains about his back." I've decided I need to branch out, and now I'm going to complain about my legs.

For the past week the front of my quadriceps have been hurting. I've been working out, but they just don't seem to recover very quickly. The weird thing is where it hurts. Usually the outside, and down by my knee gets sore, but this was firmly in the upper-middle quad. Now I didn't loose any sleep thinking about this, but wondered why the change in the muscle pain. Then I went to the gym yesterday.

Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays are more "strength" days. That's not to say that all the other days aren't also, but we slow down a bit, and focus on good technique. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays we focus on getting an elevated heart rate, and getting a good whole body workout.

We walked into the gym on Monday, and my wife looked at me and said, "Let's go home!" This is because the first three exercises contained the term, "mountain climber". Now a mountain climber is where you get in a push-up position, and then alter bringing your knees up to your chest like you're running. We usually do them with our hands on something to give a bit of elevation. This allows us to place our front foot down, which works your legs along with your abs. We had 100 Bosu mountain climbers (where you put the palms of your hands flat on the platform of the Bosu to add instability), 100 beam push-ups (our trainer, Jason Muir, has had some handles attached to six inch square metal tubing. We use this for push-ups, standing rows, and now mountain climbers.), and 100 medicine ball mountain climbers. As soon as I started on the workout, I realized that the mountain climbers were the cause of my sore quads. This was nice to know, but not really nice when you realize you have another 200 to do.

We then moved on to our "Hop-Touch-Reach" exercise. This is similar to a burpee, but without the push-up. We also usually throw in either a weight, or source of instability for the muscles in the arms and chest to get a better workout. Monday we did all of the above. We started with 40 hop-touch-reach with a six foot section of ABS drain line (similar to PVC pipe). This pipe is two inch diameter, and filled with sand. It is awkward to grab, and adds some instability up top. The real trick was putting it on the ground when you jumped backwards, then picking it back up for the hop on the end. We repeated this with medicine balls, and dumbbells.

We then moved into the core session. We started with a TRX 3 ab combo (I discussed most of these in a lovely post title, "Ab H#$@!"), followed by a Power Wheel 3 ab combo, and a Swiss ball 3 ab combo (this is the only set of exercises mentioned in my earlier post.) For the Swiss ball ab workout we first sat on the exercise ball, and rolled our rears forward until our back was touching the ball. You then roll backwards as far as you can and do crunches. The key is keeping the exercise ball still. By being back that far your abs have to be tense the entire time and they get a great workout. You then move to pikes with your arms in push-up position, and your knees on top of the ball. Then end with leg lifts with the ball between your feet.

The next set of exercises didn't really have a theme, besides elevating your heart rate. We started with a half-mile run, then flipped heavy punching bags four lengths of the gym, and jumped up on tractor tires 30 times. Then a new exercise was tried, the double-roundhouse belly. You get in front of a punching bag, and through a roundhouse kick with your left leg, then your right leg, and then do a push-up (making sure to touch your stomach to the ground.) I did have a slight advantage as I didn't have to go as far down as some people! This was followed by 40 band touch-reach (where you stand in the middle of an exercise band, with the handles in your hand, then you squat down and touch the ground, then reach up above your head as high as you can.) We then ran another half-mile.

To cap off the workout, we did a two and a half minute static squat. It was a good workout, and no wonder my legs hurt!

It's all about the arms

Today we did something different for Firehouse Fitness, we focused on one muscle group to exhaustion. The idea behind the workout was not to burn a ton of calories, but to let your body burn extra calories over the next three days as it repairs your muscle tissue. We really focused on our arms, and through in some core exercises to burn a few more calories.

We started out with 5 sets of exercise band "3 arm combo". Each set involved standing on an exercise band and performing 20 bicep curls, 20 upright rows, and 20 triceps extensions. This makes your arms very tired.

We then did 100 crunches.

The next exercise was 4 sets of TRX band "3 arm combo". Each set involved doing 20 body bicep curls, 20 shoulder extensions (in this exercise you keep your arms strait in front of you, with the elbows locked and pull them strait out to the side. You end up standing in a "T" shape), and 20 triceps extensions. For those of you who don't know what the TRX system is, it looks like trucker tie-downs, but suspended from the wall. It utilizes your body weight to determine the difficulty of the workout. If you stand up strait it is very light weight, however, if you stand with your feet close to the wall the TRX is attached to it can be quite a heavy workout.

We then did 45 "Swiss ball pass overs". This involves laying on your back with your arms extended over your head. You place an exercise ball between your feet, and then do a jack knife and trade the ball from your feet to your hands. You then reverse it, and take the ball back to your feet.

We then did 3 sets of a dumbbell "3 arm combo". Each set was 15 "hammer fist" bicep curls (the palm of your hands face in instead of up), 20 shoulder presses, and then 15 overhead triceps extensions.

This was followed by 2 sets of a Power Wheel "3 ab combo". Each set involves 20 pikes (you have the wheel strapped to your feet, and get in push up position. You then do a jack knife movement, and bring your feet towards your head), 20 hamstring curls, and 20 leg lifts.

That is as far as I made it. There were two more circuits, but we ran out of time. I don't think anyone made it past this stage.

Great workout, but sore arms!

"New" Dutch Door

Well I didn't get to the gym last night, but I had a lot to do. First, we had to pick up a new bed for our youngest. He slept on it about half the night, then came and jumped in bed with us. But half a night is better than the whole thing.

I also took his door off, and chopped it in half.



Now it might seem weird to cut a door in half, but I have transformed it into a dutch door, one that you can open the top or bottom independently (I always think of the library door at your local LDS meetinghouse.)

This way we can put him in his room if he is throwing a fit, and we can still keep an eye on him. The occupational therapist (OT) thinks this is a good idea. I'll post a completed picture later tonight. I still have to paint it.

Basically, I took his door, and cut it with my circular saw. Then I ripped a 2x4 down to create new blocking for the inside of the door, since it is a hollow core. I glued the new blocking inside the door. I then took a 2x6, and make a little shelf for the top of the lower half. Add a slide locking mechanism so the door will still move as one unit, and viola, a dutch door.

I also made a soccer ball rebounder (I know that's not a real word) for my oldest. He's been excited for soccer, and this will help him a lot. Basically it is four pieces of 2x10 that are made into a slab with some stretchers across the back. You then add two hinged legs, with a brace between them, on the back. You can adjust how the ball rebounds to you by varying the angle the wall sits at. If you lean it back, it pops the ball up into the air. If you have it sit perpendicular to the ground, it gives you a nice low pass. We'll see how that works.

That's enough for today. Tomorrow we are having a special class at the gym on toning your arms, followed by free "Green Smoothies". Love them. Come check it out, Saturdays are always free at Firehouse Fitness. 1410 South 600 West, Woods Cross, UT.

Tuesday Night

So Monday night, for family home evening (fhe) we discussed values. We told the kids that we were going to focus on increasing respect in our household. Respect for each other, respect for the rules, and respect for the things we own. This was a lovely discussion, and the kids agreed that respect is important.

Fast forward to Tuesday. Any feelings of goodwill and respect are gone. Everyone is mad at everyone else, people are plugging their ears when others speak. There is yelling and name calling. Rules are being disobeyed. It was a pretty sever turnabout from Monday. It looks like our work is cut out for us.

We did get to break away and get to the gym last night. The wife wasn’t feeling 100%, but decided to try it anyway. After a few exercises she had to go lay down as she was feeling dizzy. I made it through, but found a new exercise that is weird.

In all fairness, this isn’t a new exercise, just new to me. My brother-in-law described it to me, and told me how much it sucked. I agree. It is called “Turkish Training”, or “Turkish Get Up.” Below is a picture. You start on your back, with a dumbbell in one hand, extended toward the ceiling. You then have to get up to your feet without using your other hand, or letting the dumbbell drop below head height. You then reverse the process for a single repetition. We did ten reps per arm, and I had to drop the weight I was using a couple of times. They were hard, but interesting.

Tuesdays are strength days. We focused mainly on lower body, but threw in a couple of chest exercises as well. The most interesting chest exercise was “Three Ball Push-ups.” You put both hands on medicine balls, and get in push-up position. You then put both of your feet on the third medicine ball and do push-ups. Getting on the balls is interesting. It’s important to have your butt down, if you try to put your feet on a medicine ball in a jack knife position it is a recipe to roll off to the side. We don’t do these to get extra-deep push-ups, but in order to cope with the instability. These are hard, but  I like them.

The third exercise I’ll mention is “Bag Slams.” These are simple. We have a number of heavy punching bags in the gym. They are not suspended, but laying on the floor. The idea is that you pick one of these up onto your shoulder, then slam it down on one of the tractor tires in the gym. These movements reflect picking up a big bag, like rock salt, and putting it on your shoulder. The slam is like using a sledge hammer. Both pretty useful motions to master. Yesterday we changed our technique a little bit. In the past we would pick the bag up by setting it on its end, bear hugging it, then sliding it onto your shoulder. The new technique has you squat in front of the bag, with the end in your lap. You then reach out and grab the bag, and use leverage to torque it up onto your shoulder. I kept thinking that this didn’t feel like something I would do ever, until I got home, and our youngest had fallen asleep on our bed. I used this exact technique to get him out of our bed, and into his. The wife commented that obviously the gym was working, because I just used the technique we learned tonight.

As of this morning, I’m officially down 38 pounds.

Cinco de Mayo

My lunch. I feel that it is very much like Cinco de Mayo. Something like it came from Mexico, and the USA just took it, tweaked it, and made it there own. It might not be so exciting to our neighbors to the South, but that's okay.

From what I understand, Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of a military victory over the French. I guess that's why it's not so celebrated in Mexico. It's kind of like being in High School and celebrating beating up a sixth grader. I mean, who really wants to celebrate that? Even the French have defeated the French. For my favorite synopsis of France's military, read here.

Now on to other stuff. My oldest had his final orchestra performance last night. They sounded really quite good. The only bad part was sitting in a High School gym with no air conditioning, and trying to keep the other kids calm.

Due to the concert, I hit the gym in the morning. My only problem with this is making the train on time. Usually it takes me about 50-55 minutes to finish my workout, but if I wanted to get home, showered, and to the train without being late, I had 45 minutes. I told our trainer that up front, and he was nice enough to remind me. I completed everything except the final ab workout. I made it half way through that. I was happy with that result.

I now have two areas on my body that are sore. The first is my back. Two days ago we did a lot of rows, and my back muscles feel it today. We varied the rows between a lot of exercises, including the "push up, row, row". This exercise is just kind of awkward. You do a push up with a dumbbell in between your hands, or you do your push ups with a dumbbell in each hand. When your arms are extended, you perform a row to your waist. I decided to have a dumbbell in each hand, as I would get a little lower on my push ups. The only problem was the dumbbells kept sliding out from under me on the floor.

The other part of me that is sore is my rear end. We did some good leg workouts yesterday, including a jog, squats, touch and reaches, and walking lunges. The exercise that really seemed to get me though was "bag hops". We had a heavy punching bag flat on the ground. You stood over it, with a foot to each side, and then put one foot on top. You then just jumped and moved the foot on top of the bag down to the ground, and the other foot on top of the bag. We use this for a soccer warm up quite often, only with a soccer ball. I started feeling it last night, but this morning as I walked to the train I couldn't help whimper a bit.

The weather is nice, so I'm going to head outside for a bit. Have a good day!

Bad picture, tough workout

Okay, the picture sucks, and so did the workout.

We showed up at the gym, and I glances at the workout board. At first I thought it was empty, but it was just a very simple workout. The board reads - Cycle 1 250 roundhouse kicks per leg, Cycle 2 1,000 mountain climbers, Cycle 3 1,000 jump ropes.

I started out strong with the kicks. My left leg was a little tired.

Mountain climbers are one of my least favorite exercises, especially when I have to do 1,000. To do a mountain climber you put your hands on a medicine ball on the floor. You get in pushup position with one leg bent forward, then you jump and change leg positions. I would bust out 100 really quick then rest and go again. The wife would just go slow and steady. We finished about the same time.

We then moved to the jump ropes. I can only bust out around 100 at a time. We got to the gym a little late, so I only finished 777, but I still felt retched, I mean good about that.

It's amazing what three simple exercises can do.

Beefy and the Manly Principles

I'm not sure this is the word that most people want to be described as. Yet last night was the second time I've been called that, and it was meant as a compliment.

We went to the gym last night, and my gluteus maximus (aka butt cheek) was sore. It kind of felt like I had a charlie horse in it. We were doing lunges and really focusing on our glutes.

After the first round of exercises, I told our trainer, and he told me some things I could do to stretch it out. He then offered to help work the knot out after class, if I was comfortable with that. I agreed, for some reason.

Now I have to tell you that this isn't the first time Jason has laid his hands on me. When we started going, I was experiencing bursitis in my shoulder. He wanted to show me how hyper-tense muscles around the shoulder were pulling it out of whack. He massaged up under my shoulder blade, and it hurt a little. He then said that the worst place on most men was their pecs. He had me raise my arm strait out, so the outer edge of the pectoral was exposed. He then grabbed that muscle. This might seem an odd statement, but raise your arm strait to the side, shoulder level. Now put your fingers in your armpit, and your thumb on the top of your pectoral muscle. Now squeeze.

I have to again describe Jason to let you know how much pain this caused. Jason is about my height. Weighs almost 300 pounds, but it is all muscle. He's been doing strongman competitions, and has an iron grip.

Now being male, there is a certain code I live by. I had to apply the "Don't show pain" principle at this moment. He was talking about how tight the muscle was, and what that means to the shoulder alignment. I was probably turning blue, as I couldn't show any pain, and the best way to do that in this situation was not to breath. I mean, without breath, I can't make any sounds, right?

Jason worked on my pectoral for a few minutes, then laughed and said, "I'm not letting go until you show how this really feels."

In response, I invoked another manly principle, the "When in doubt, call someone a bad name" section. This resulted in him letting go, so mission accomplished.

This was the first time I heard the word "beefy" as a compliment, except to certain livestock. Jason said, "You are so beefy!" Like I said, he does strongman competitions, and that's a crowd I'm not familiar with. I like to I think they would find it a nice thing to say.

Back to last night. We finished our workout, and were stretching. Jason told me to lie down on my stomach. (We had three new people in class, who were all confused. After watching for a moment, I think they were all dreading this happening to them.) He stood over me, and started feeling for knots in my lower back, and hamstring. Then I felt a lot of pressure on my right cheek, and to put it bluntly, it hurt. It turns out that he was kneeling on it, as applying direct pressure will help remove the knots.

At this point I invoked the same principle as above, no pain. I did think some bad words though, in case I was required to invoke the second principle of calling someone a name.

After kneeling on my butt for about five minutes a cheek, he looked over to my wife and told her, "He has a beefy butt."

Is this a compliment?

He then moved his knee down onto my hamstrings, they have been tight, so this helped them relax. Thinking he was done as he stood up, I was very surprised when he grabbed my calves. This led me to skip the first principle of manhood quoted above, and move directly into the second.

The past two weeks we have been jumping rope, and doing calf raises. I have big calves anyway, and they are the one part of my body that gets really tense. I don't know that this would help them relax, because I made him stop at this point.

On a total tangent, the last time someone rubbed my calved (the wife), I made a comment about how toned they were getting. Not thinking about the fact that the wife had told me a few days before that she wasn't seeing any improvement in her calves (which is a lie.) This resulted in my sore calves receiving a solid punch, and being called "show off".

I guess I do prefer "beefy" over "show off".

Fitness check

So our trainer likes to do a little "test" every six weeks to see where everyone is. It is a standardized test, and the more I think about it, the more this sounds like PE class.

Anyway, this week was our testing week. We've been pushing pretty hard lately, I did a four minute static squat the other day, my wife did a five. We've been running more, and really working hard. We got to the gym, and started with a 3/4 mile run. Did some burpees, some push ups, some crunches, a 90 second static squat, and some more ab exercises. Finished in about 30 minutes. I couldn't believe how easy it seemed, but our trainer asked us if we could have done it six weeks ago, and the answer is probably not.

So the trainer wanted us to take a few days off to let our bodies recoup. So what do I do the first day away from the gym? Why, go to In-N-Out Burger of course. (As a side note, I haven't had a fast food hamburger in about three months.) And what do you order when you go to In-N-Out Burger? A Double-double with of course! And you can't go to In-N-Out without ordering fries.

Needless to say, I was content until I put my lunch into Livestrong's MyPlate food tracker. I ate more calories in that one meal than I usually eat in a day. There was more fat in it than I usually eat in two or three days. I guess that's why it taste so good.

The wife had a Relief Society activity, she left after we ate dinner and took my oldest daughter with her. I got the youngest to bed, and the other two watching TV. Then I thought I better get off my lazy butt and burn some of those calories. It was raining, and I wasn't feeling hardcore enough to go out jogging, so I just did calisthenics. I did 100 push ups, 100 crunches, and 100 squats. This morning I was down some more weight, so no regrets. In another three months I can go back.

Guess I won't get as much of a break from the gym as I'm supposed to though.

Ab h@#!

What you see above is the result of our workout this morning, and before you ask, yes it was that bad.

As I reported yesterday, we did a horrendous workout focusing on our core. My wife did not join me yesterday, so I considered staying home today, but was up anyway, and decided it would be good for me.

We showed up to the gym at the same time as our trainer. We went in the gym, and the previous day's workout was still on the board. No one else in the 8 a.m. class had shown up on Friday, so I was telling them all how bad it was. As I finished my recount, the trainer agreed, and added, "That's why we're doing it again today!"

There was a moan from the group, well at least me. We hit our 12 ab exercises, and before class my abs hadn't felt bad. As soon as we started in on TRX Pikes to Upward Dog (a useful video at the link), my core started to scream at me, and I started mumbling things I shouldn't. The lowest amount of reps for a single ab exercise was 15 (that was for leg raises) up to 40 reps (for things like bicycle crunches.)

Here is the list:

• 20 - TRX Pikes to Upward Dog


• 20 - TRX Pendulum


• 20 - TRX Mt. Climbers (We didn't do the pendulum at the same time.)


• 20 - Crunches holding a Swiss Ball between our feet, about two feet off the ground.


• 20 - Swiss Ball Pikes


• 20 - Swiss Ball Leg Lifts (although we didn't pass the ball to our hands this time, just up and back down.)


• 20 - Power Wheel leg lifts


• 20 - Power Wheel Leg Curls (You lie on your back, lift your hips, and curl the legs back towards your buttocks. Really works the hamstrings with the curl, and the abs by lifting your hips.)


• 20 - Power Wheel Pikes


• 40 - Crunches


• 40 - Bicycle Crunches


• 15 - Leg Lifts

That was the end of abs. We then moved on to a run, which was about a mile.

This moved into the second stage of the workout.

• 15 - Medicine ball "Hop-Touch-Reach" (I know the video is of burpies, which is another difficult workout, but picture the first variation, holding a medicine ball.)


• 50 - Round house kicks per leg


• 100 - Walking lunges


• 30 - Swiss Ball Jumping Squats (I couldn't find a video of this, but you place a swiss ball in your lower back, against a wall. You start with your feet apart, jump up and bring your feet together and go into a narrow stance squat. Then you jump back out and do a wide stance squat. Every two squats counts as one for the rep count.)


• 4 lengths of the gym crawling like a bear. (You get into the upward dog yoga stance, and alternate hands and feet. It looks like Balu in the Jungle Book.)

Then we were supposed to do the ab portion again, but no one got that far.

Good workout, my abs hurt, and now I have to go be comatose somewhere. Enjoy your Saturday!

Thank goodness it's Friday, too bad it's April Fools Day.

Ah Friday, the beginning of the weekend, and more importantly the end of the work week.

My folks couldn't watch the youngest today, and my wife had to work this morning, so I took half a day of vacation. Since I didn't have to worry about catching the train this morning, I decided to hit the 6 a.m. class at the gym. I love to go to the gym in the morning, it wakes me up and gets me ready for the day. You start the day with all the wonderful endorphins. I hate to go to the gym in the morning, because you get your buttocks handed to you.

This morning we focused on our abs, and did 12 different ab exercises in a row to start off. We then went for a run, and I knocked over two minutes of my time from the last run. (We don't run quite a mile, but it's close.) We then hit the burnout phase of the workout and I had to throw 100 round house kicks, and do 100 walking lunges. That sucked.

On a side note, last night at the gym I flipped a tractor tire that weighs about 650 pounds. That made me feel good, and impressed our trainer.

Since I was so awake, I've done a ton (almost literally) of laundry, washed the dishes, and been a jungle gym for the youngest.



Here you see him trying to climb, and then either try to sit or lay on our headboard. The only way to reach such heights? Climb Dad's legs.

When I got home from the gym I did have to deal with my children trying to play practical jokes on each other. The oldest daughter slipped her iPod under the oldest door with a creepy message on it. So he tried to get her by taping down the sprayer on the kitchen faucet (the funny thing about that is he did get his other sister when he was trying to wash a spoon for her.) Then it turned into bickering and arguing about who was going to get each other. I finally had to threaten to get involved unless they got ready for school. Seemed to work for me, but my wife is pulling out her hair.

I might have to update this later, "if" I get involved in the April Fool's Day.

I'm "back" in action

Okay, forgive the stupid pun, but I couldn't resist.

As you know last week I was experiencing back problems, and after sitting in my desk chair for 9 hours on Thursday, and feeling the pain, I did something I thought I would never do. I called a chiropractor. Now I have nothing against chiropractors, but I've always been skeptical. I happen to know someone who runs an office for a chiropractor, so I called and set up an appointment. Below is how my adventure went.

My wife had to drop me off, and go pick up our son. So I went in and talked with the chiropractor, and had some x-rays taken. Then they had me lay on a table, and hooked up the electro-stimulus machine (I'm not sure what it is really called.) I laid on the table for 20 minutes while my back muscles were stimulated, with an ice sheet on my back. I'm not sure that ice sheet sufficiently describes the experience. My back felt as if the chiropractor was Darth Vader, and I was Han Solo, and they were trying to freeze me in carbonite. The main difference was the Empire was in a recession, so they didn't have a full-body freezer and had to do it a bit at a time.

My wife showed up again, as they asked me to stand up and move to the next room. I felt really good, so I pushed up off the table, and quickly laid back down. They had somehow frozen my back into the most painful position it could be in. It took me about 5 minutes to walk 20 feet, and I was miserable. I got on an upright device, and they pivoted me down until I was horizontal. The chiropractor had my wife look at the heels of my feet as I lay there. There were not level, they were about 1.5 inches out of level, and the chiropractor told her that was one of the reasons my back hurt. He did some work on me, and brought them back into level. (I hope my use of carpentry terms makes sense, it's the only way I can describe it.)

He raised me up, and I thought I was done, but my back still hurt. He had me sit in a chair, and popped, I mean aligned my neck. That felt great, but again not much for my back. He had me stand up, and move to another room where the real magic would take place. I laid down, on my side this time, and my back was aligned. By this I mean that a 200 pound man climbed up on me, and focused all of his weight and strength on one of my arms, and one of my legs. It was great! He used the shampoo technique, it was align, reverse, repeat. My back felt so much better. I was a little bit tender still, but it was livable. I went back in the next day, and had the same experience, but this time the ice sheet didn't freeze me in pain.

Well, long-story short, I am down up and around, and have just a little tenderness in my back. I went to the gym last night for the first time since the chiropractor. My back was a little sore after, but I iced it, and it feels fine this morning.

As for how the gym is going, my wife wanted me to post this picture to show my progress. The picture on the left is me in 2006, the first day of work in a new office (I found it on our corporate intranet yesterday,) the picture on the right is a self portrait from yesterday. In between these two pictures I put on about 15 pounds, so in the second picture I'm only about five pounds lighter than the first picture. I think that I've slimmed down noticeably, but then again I'm biased!