WORKOUT #2 (Give it hell)

Today’s gym session was longer than usual.

I rose at an ungodly time of 5:45am to the piercing sound of the late 80’s polyphonic dance-jingle that was my phone’s alarm clock . I was supposed to meet a friend at 6am who was interested in training with me, but he ended up sleeping through his alarm.

Your loss 🙂

Because he starts work an hour earlier than myself, we would have had to finish at around 7am, but since I was flying solo, I had until 8am to give my body some hell.

But it was less of a smoldering, burning lake-of-fire-and-brimstone type hell, and more of a warm, tingly, sit-too-close -to-the-fire type hell. 

Nevertheless I still felt somewhat satisfied with the resulting pain, as us masochistic gym-folk typically do.

Today I mainly focused on shoulders after my daily ‘obligatory’ workouts (Sit ups & Squats). I’m trying out this theory which states that working multiple muscle groups in one session helps burn more energy. That, in conjunction with shorter breaks is vowed to produce some good results. I’ll give a reference for that in another post. Anyway, here’s what I did today:

SIT UPS: 15 reps, 3 sets.

SQUATS: 110kg, 10 reps, 3 sets.

45 DEGREE MILITARY DUMBBELL PRESS: 20kg dumbbells, 10 reps, followed by 25kg dumbbells, 8 reps, 3 sets

SHOULDER FLY MACHINE: 30lb, 10 reps, then 50lb, 8 reps, followed by 60lb, 8 reps, 3 sets. (I’m not sure if this is the actual name of the machine, nor can I find a picture of it. But basically your arms are bent and you are “flapping”)

SHOULDER PRESS MACHINE: 50lb, 8 reps, then 70lb, 6 reps, then 70lb, 5 reps, lastly 50lb, 8 reps. (These were done with 20 second breaks)

TREDMILL: Incline level 7.0, Speed  5.0, Powerwalk, 15 minutes.

MILITARY BARBELL PRESS: 40kg, 8 reps, then 45kg, 6 reps, then 5 reps

CROSS TRAINER: Random Hill setting, Resistence level 17/20, 9min

A couple things warrant explanation here. I’m now doing Sit ups at the start of every work out to activate and warm my core,  keeping it tight. I’m also doing Squats near the beginning of every work out for a couple of reasons:

1. Getting my quads used to the idea of operating against heavy loads everyday forces them to recover and strengthen even more quickly and tighten up (This is actually why we can do leg workouts more frequently than upper body workouts; generally our legs are used for walking everyday, so our bodies are aware that they need to recover from muscle breakdown more quickly than our arms, which are not used as much with weight, depending on your occupation I guess)

2. Squatting is an exercise renowned for its ability to encourage your body to release testosterone (same with deadlifts), which is very helpful when it comes to burning energy and building muscle.

3. When I precede an upper body work out with squats, I’m guaranteeing two (fairly) independent muscle groups being worked, and hence more energy being used.

Note that I do them with a weight that isn’t overly heavy (nor too light) for me. This way I make sure I’m still doing some work and (hopefully)I avoid badly over-training my muscles at the same time. Also note that if it’s your goal solely to increase the number, like a power-lifter, it’s probably not beneficial to Squat everyday like this. Your sessions should involve heavier weights and lower reps, and your should allow a couple of days minimum for your muscles to rest.

Part of my goal however is to achieve a good level of tone, and although I’m not certain that this is the best way to achieve this, I’m still exploring a few things, and this method so far has been feeling great!

Still not too strong on the Cardio side, hence this workout was not the fire and brimstone type hell I initially intended it to be. Ever since I started doing compound work outs I had less energy for cardio by the end (which is not too in a bad sense. Remember that your body looks for fat as a secondary, or even final source of energy. It will first look at the carb/glucose energy to burn.  When it has depleted of this, it will search for muscle and fat. That is why it is beneficial to do a weight session before cardio, and also why it’s important to supplement your diet with lots of protein. The protein will help to avoid shedding muscle at the expense of burning fat)

I may need to experiment with having days where I do mostly, or only do cardio, as I’m still keen to be fit.

Diet-wise, last night for my last two meals I had six pieces of sushi, and then a korean chicken + prawn + vege dish (without the rice) a couple of hours later. Again, focusing on minimizing carbs and maximizing protein and fibre, especially at night. I find that I do need some carbohydrate to sustain me, hence the sushi, but I figure the best thing to do is to have it earlier and not too much of it.

This morning I had some cereal with a protein powder + water mix used as a substitute for milk. Last time I had protein powder with milk for cereal, it was a big heap of frothy failure. With water, however, it worked a whole lot better, and the bowl of cereal was thus far more acceptable to my taste buds.

Today I will have a protein-shake and a piece of fruit and maybe a couple of crackers for mid morning, then for lunch, mum prepared some seasoned salmon for me (thanks mum!) which I took to work and will have with some toast and a salad.

Today = somewhat success.

Out.