What can I say...

Well, apparently, I'm very good and skipping workouts. Here's the breakdown:

Week 1
Sunday: Workout A
Monday: None
Tuesday: None
Wednesday: Workout B
Thursday: None
Friday: None
Saturday: Rear lat raises

Week 2
Sunday: Workout A, ab work
Monday: None
Tuesday: None
Wednesday: Workout C
Thursday: None
Friday: Squats, pushups
Saturday: Run - 1.8 miles @ 9:13 pace

Really no excuse for my laziness besides having my wrist bother me again. Well, this cough is still here, so sometimes I just don't feel like heading out to run. Then there's my ankle; the recovery time is really bugging me. I definitely notice the lack of cardio. I haven't changed my caloric intake, so I feel like I've put on some mass. However, I've also put on some fat. So really, I've unintentionally went on a very basic bulk phase. I'm trying to fit the runs back in. I've ran Saturday and yesterday, so hoping to keep the consistency in. I still want to meet my goal of running a 10K in 2010.

Ski season is beginning, and I usually try to prep by adding some hops and other lower body exercises, but this ankle is making my wary of pushing it too much. I've already got two ski events planned, so I hope to be good enough soon. Also, with 2009 winding up, I'm pretty excited to push myself to some new limits in the new year. Can't wait.


Last weigh-in:
173.5 lb

Need to run more...

Blah, another double week update. Just not staying on top of this. But here it is:


Week 1
Sunday: Run - 4 miles @ 11:30 pace
Monday: None
Tuesday: Shoulders, hammer curls, squats, calf raises, ab work
Wednesday: None
Thursday: Workout B
Friday: None
Saturday: None

Weigh-in: 173.0 lb


Week 2
Sunday: Workout A, ab work
Monday: None
Tuesday: Workout C
Wednesday: None
Thursday: Workout B, 1-mile cooldown run
Friday: None
Saturday: Run - 1.5 miles @ 9:13 pace


As I've mentioned before, I've switched to a simple full-body routine where I'm targeting almost every group about twice a week. After my first couple workouts, my muscles were sore for a few days, so that means working out is a challenge again. Nice! I've gained some weight over the Thanksgiving holiday, but I seem to be settling back to around 173.0 174.0 lb. It's heavier, but I think it's a combination of the increase resistance-training and the decrease in cardio. I think I'll drop back to 171.0 - 172.0 when I start running again. My motivation is back again, so I'm actually looking forward to working out and running.

My ankle is still not quite 100%. I can't fully flex my foot, and lateral range of motion is still limited. I've been trying to lightly stretch it out, but it's a very slow process. Wrist was doing fine up until yesterday. I forgot I usually do upright rows with 25.0 lb dumbbells and did 3 sets of 8 with 32.5-pounders. Tweaked it a bit, but not as bad as before...I hope. In general, the upright row is very stressful on the wrist area, so I'm going to drop it temporarily. I might not even perform it again unless I have access to an EZ-curl bar so my wrists can be in a more natural position. Overall, I need to baby my wrist again and that means biceps curls are back on "we'll see" basis. Hammer curls are okay though.

I've had an annoying cough for a couple weeks now as well, and I think it's beginning to subside. So, I'm going to try to hit the treadmill some more. I still would like to get to running 10K's by spring.


Last weigh-in:
173.0 lb

Simple Full-body Routine

I've been somewhat on a split-body routine for a bit now. As much as it's been easy-going, it's not producing the results I'm looking for. As always, I evaluate a lot and upon some thinking, I'm realizing that I'm not hitting my muscle groups often enough. I perform resistance training a few times a week and try to do cardio the same amount, so with split body workouts I'm hitting each group about once a week. Hardly a challenge. So I decided to change it up.

I sat down and wrote down the basic areas I target: chest, back, shoulders, arms, legs. Then under each category, I wrote down the usual exercises I perform for those areas. I like to try to hit the weights three times a week, and my shoulders can be finnicky, so I opted for one shoulder workout with two "full-body" workouts per week. This is what I wound up with:

Workout A
Lateral raises
Front raises
Shoulder press/Shrugs
Calf raises/Upright rows

Workout B
Press/Row
Incline Dumbbell Press/Deadlifts
Dips/Lat Pulldowns
Squats/Shrugs
Extensions/Hammers

Workout C
Pushups/Pullups
Dumbbell Press/Dumbbell Rows
Chest Flies/Rear Lat Raises
Lunges/Upright Rows
Skullcrushers/Biceps Curls

Not a bad setup. With the new routines, my muscles are sore again, which is great news for me. It shows that my muscles were very used to my program before, so I'm very glad I'm shocking them again. Now I'll be hitting my most of my muscle groups twice a week, albeit in slightly different ways. For shoulders, I'm sticking to once a week with shrugs and upright rows getting action twice a week. My shoulders gets injured often, so I'm gonna take it easy on them. I'm going to try to do cardio on the days that fall between workouts.

Holiday double update

Got caught up over the holiday and didn't have a chance to update. But here's the breakdown:

Week 1:
Sunday: Pullups/pushupsMonday: None
Tuesday: Upright rows, curls
Wednesday: Shoulders, light legs
Thursday: None
Friday: Chest/back, 1 mile cooldown run
Saturday: None



Week 2 (last week):
Sunday: Pushups, ab work, upright rows
Monday: Pullups
Tuesday: None
Wednesday: Shoulders, hammer curls, ab work; run - 2.0 miles (9:13 pace)
Thursday: EAT
Friday: Chest/back, upright rows, calf raises; 1.0 mile cooldown
Saturday: None


Really not much to say. I've been pretty lazy on the cardio front and even worse on the eating. I've even fell back into candy! If I were one to place blame, I'd blame it on the cold. "It's too cold to go out to workout...It's so cold, candy will make it better." No excuses, though. Had a pretty rough week in terms of eating due to the holiday, so it's time to make it better. Ironically, the bad eating is actually motivating me to focus on working out again, so let's see how this makes out. I still need to work on reworking my routines as I've mentioned a couple weeks ago, so got some work to do on that front.


Last weigh in:
172.0 - 173.0 lb (I really don't know since I weighed before Thanksgiving week, but not after)