Exercise

The Squat

2009-02-03T09:34:00.000-08:00

This exercise is deceptively technical, but if you master the form, it will transform your body.

I tried to find an animation of a correct squat, but none came up. This is a demonstration of how not to squat. The problem being how far down he goes... you can see how his thighs never go parallel with the floor, this common mistake mistake is called "not going into the hole"

A real squat should look more like this.

You can see how his thighs are parallel with the floor, this is the correct bottom position of the squat, it is important to keep your shoulders over the balls of your feet, or you will loose balance.

The Chin up

2009-02-02T13:03:00.000-08:00

This exercise is fairly simple, start by grabbing onto the bar with palms facing you, you should be able to hang without touching the floor, then slowly pull yourself up towards the bar, once you make it all the way up let yourself all the way back down.

The main thing to remember here is range of motion... most people just pull themselves up to the point where the bar is about the same level as their forehead, this is a common mistake and will not develop your muscles the way a real chin up should. Pull yourself up to the point where the top of your chest touches the bar (you will find this much more difficult, and may want to start out with assisted chin ups)

The Push up

2009-02-01T06:41:00.001-08:00

The basic push up is fairly simple, start with your legs straight back behind you (use the tips of your toes to support you), with your hands at about shoulder level palms down on the ground push your body up until your arms are fully extended, then lower yourself back down to the ground until your chest touches the floor.

The main thing to work on is keeping your legs straight, they're going to want to bend at the knees (imagine they are two pieces of wood attached to your back) and your butt will want to bend up or down. Full range of motion is also important, half push ups are not push ups, so when you can't go through the whole range of motion any more, take a break.

The Burpee

2009-01-30T21:45:00.000-08:00

Starting in the standing position squat down until your hands are on the ground, then kick your legs back like you're going to do a push-up. Bring your legs back in between your arms, and squat back out of it. You'll find that this exercise is very cardio intensive, it may be easier to start out just doing 10 at a time and resting in between. I like to do them on the clock though, mixed in with other exercises in a circuit.

New plan

2008-07-21T05:07:00.000-07:00

I'm getting bored with my nutrition lately. I have a system where I can keep my weight pretty much the same, but I'm not getting any stronger/loosing any fat. I'm going to do a 30-day diet program again. This time my goal is to get my body fat percentage down to 10%. I don't care what my weight is (it will probably be around 160lbs), I just want to loose fat. I'm going to break my effort into two categories: diet, and exercise.

Diet: I'm going to follow my own re-mix of the warrior diet, with some restrictions. Instead of eating a huge meal at once, I'm going to spread my food intake throughout the four hours I'm allowed to eat based on food combining principles of digestion times. I'm going to eat lots of fruit low glycemic fruit throughout the day, without anything else until four o'clock. Then I'll have a whole grain to tide me over until my main meal. Once I get to my main meal (around 6 or 7) I'll eat whatever I want, but not until I'm so stuffed I can't breath. Finally, before I go to bed, I'll drink a 10 to 15 gram protein shake (mixed with water or skim milk).

Exercise: I'm going to train for boxing five times a week. Four times just at the Y hitting the bag's and exercising, and once down at the "friendly house" (our community center) to spar with the guys. I'm also considering getting in shape for a 5k race.

Workout Goals

2008-03-24T12:29:00.000-07:00

As you may already know, I've started powerlifting on a ten workout cycle. In other words I progressively add 5 lbs to each workout for ten workouts. Then at the end of the cycle I rest for a few days and when I start my next cycle I increase my first workout in the cycle by 20 lbs from the first workout of the last cycle. I lift and hit the bag 5 days a week, and on Saturday and Sunday I do some push-ups, and sprints (at least I'm going to start, I've been lazy).

At the beginning of this cycle I tested to see what I could bench and deadlift. I figure my bench was about 155 and my deadlift was about 225. This morning I pulled 215 no problem for a set of 5, and I put up 160 for a set of 5. I'm sure my improvements are due to the fact that I'm performing the same lifts every day and as I grow more familiar with them my technique improves. I'm getting close to not being able to do a set of 5 for my bench press, so I know I'm almost at my limit. My deadlift however is another story, my technique has improved just over the last week or so, and I think I could easily deadlift a 1 rep max of 250-275, but I'm not going to test it because I don't want to hurt myself. slow and steady, that's my style.

Powerlifting

2008-03-11T09:17:00.000-07:00

I've been reading about power lifting today. Most people who train for that use the Bench Press, Squat, and Dead Lift. I'm not interested in the squat right now for two reasons.

1. its hard. the technical aspect causes the squat to be very easy to mess up. I'm going for quality in my work out, and want to concentrate on perfecting my dead lift, and bench press.

2. the dead lift uses most of your muscles anyways, so doing it with the squat is semi-redundant. I want to keep my time spent in the gym-per-day down to about an hour.

my first goal for dead lift is to be able to lift my body weight. and the same for my bench, which will take a lot longer. I still need to figure out what my 1RM is. I'll update my goals and current progress later. I'm still new to the dead lift, and my bench press isn't that great, so first I want to concentrate on form before dumping on extra plates. I'd say that right now I've been working at 60% to 70% as I'm trying to figure out how to do these things right.