HST Round 2 Reboot - 10's Day 2 and 3

Did day two of 10's on Saturday afternoon, which went fine. I was especially careful of my lower back and I didn't so much as feel a tinge. I did a less steep incline dumbbell set which left me actually feeling a tad bit sore in my chest, which I haven't had for awhile. Also did a nice set of regular seated pull-ups (versus the set of wide grip and even wider griped pull-ups I usually do) which also left the muscles in my upper back feeling sore. I know you're not necessarily supposed to feel sore after a work-out, but it feels good once in awhile to know you've hit a muscle group differently enough to surprise it. Of course, the soreness could have been more due to the infrequent work-outs due to travel, or the lack of sleep/rest with having to catch up with stuff when I got back. Friday night last week I actually slept 12 hours, which NEVER happens for me. Then Saturday I slept 9 and took a nap on Sunday. Hopefully, I'm all caught up now.

Today was day three of 10's and it went well. I was still feeling a tad sore in the chest and back, so I didn't push them crazy hard, just hard enough. I also think I helped my legs a bit today by doing more warm up squats and lunges in between other lifts before I got to those exercises. I may need to add a note to my work-out plan to do those warm-ups, as they left me ready to lift heavier. I may need to add a chest and back warm-up too... but of course that's just what I need, more time in the gym :P

I wrapped up today with a quick five minutes on the elliptical machine at level 13 and then a record three minutes of jump-roping. I could have kept going on the jump-rope, but I figured I'd leave some room to set a new record for myself next time.

Half way through this round of HST and I have to say it is nice to be finally lifting semi-heavy weights again. I know I shouldn't care, but until I'm finally putting those 45's on the barbell to do squats and bench, I feel kinda silly.

HST Round 2 Reboot - 10's

I managed to finish off the 15's after my reboot right before having to run off for business to Tokyo for a week. I did some light working out in my hotel room there, but it was effectively a week of deconditioning. To be honest, with the jet lag I didn't sleep well at all there, so working out probably would not have gone well anyways.

Anyway, just got back yesterday and hit the gym this morning to start off the first day of 10's. Still feeling the jet lag, but it was good to feel my body work again. Overall I felt strong and all the weights were pretty good except I'm thinking I may need to up my bench press weight as I blew past 10 reps and probably could have kept going to 20.

I'm feeling a tinge in my lower back in the gym that has me a bit worried. I really don't want to hurt it as I know too many people with back injuries from lifting. I've always been really careful because of that. Gotta watch my form.

Off to work now. Super busy there, but having fun and it's REALLY nice to have a job in a city I love. Oh and she finally found a job she loves. She just started, and for now it's a temp position, but I have no doubt that they'll hire her full time and if she wants to, she'll move up quickly in the company. Yay!

REBOOT HST Round 2

Well, with lots and lots of stuff going on (traveling, significant vows taken by people, conferences where lots of friends came to visit, family in town, etc.) I skipped a week of HST and rather than pick up where I left off, I decided to do a reboot. I did day 5 of 15's yesterday and it went great, probably in part because I had to skip two days while I was up in Vancouver for business (so I had an extra day of recovery in there, although I did do some cardio in the hotel gym the day before). I just got back from doing some light cardio in the gym this morning, including a new record of 2 1/2 minutes of jump-roping (hey! it's f*cking hard!) and I'm looking forward to day 6 of 15's tomorrow morning.

Work is getting VERY busy with travel and the season push to get products out, so making time for the gym is getting more challenging, but I've been through this before and I think I can keep it up.

What I haven't been able to keep up is low carb - it's just tough when you are traveling so I'm "trying" to eat right, or at least eat reasonable portions. But it's difficult for me becuase I'm such a food lover, so I have my doubts I'll loose anymore weight. But not running a carb deficit does make the work-outs easier, and maybe I'll pack on more muscle this way.

I'll do some pics soon.

Round 2: HST Day 6 and Low Carb

Day 6 was rough. About half of my exercises I barely did 15, a few a didn't quite make it, and a few I was able to do more, but overall I felt the steam drain out of me about 2/3rds of the way through. Well, I wanted more intensity this time around, and I guess I got it. And I guess today was supposed to be the most intense of the 15's... Okay, it was awesome, but man, it was tough and it left me tired all day.

So it's been two weeks since I last ate carbs, and today with guests in town I decided to enjoy some. I also think you need to take a break every once in awhile so that your body doesn't get too used to being low carb; just like you have to keep working your muscles in different ways, you have to keep your metabolism adapting to different ways of feeding it... okay, that doesn't totally make sense, but I have found that I do better on low carb when I mix it up once in awhile. Anyway, the carbs didn't help me feel less exhausted, or maybe they did and I would have been waaay worse had I not enjoyed. I'm really looking forward to a good night's sleep tonight and having two days off from lifting. But I'm also looking forward to my first days of 10's.

Round 2: HST Day 4 and 5

Okay, so the new routine is proving to be extremely intense as I enter the second and final week of 15's. I was barely able to finish 15 in about half of my exercises, lunges being one of the really difficult ones (I do these last after squats, deadlifts and clean&press). Chest starts out pretty easy with bench, but rapidly gets harder as I go through dumbbell chest, incline bench and finally dubmbell incline chest. Behind lunges today, clean and press were the most intense, followed by dead lifts, as they use a ton of different muscle groups. Assisted pull-ups were perfect, as I hit 15 as I'm just starting to hate them. I go up a notch (actually down 10 pounds, as they are assisted) for the final day of 15's and I'm excited to see if I manage to pull them all off (or should I say "up" :P).

I meant to do a set of regular machine pull-ups (I generally do wide-grip), but I forgot... just added that to my work-out chart so next round of HST I include that exercise. I did do a new exercise today, twists and wood-choppers I believe they are called, where you hold a cable and twist your body around to hit your core muscles (mostly abs). They were cool. I've been doing barbell twists, but they feel a little funky and in comparison these cable twists feel more natural. In general, I feel like I need to mix up my exercises for different muscle groups more so my body doesn't have a chance to really adapt fully to any.

Post work-out, I had some very yummy frozen blueberries that I got at Costco. I drop them in a glass of water and they are a bit like eating ice cream. They are actually really good, tasting better than any fresh blueberries I've ever had. Go figure. I went to Costco last weekend to pick up more, and I did, but it's a different brand. Hopefully they'll taste as good as this last bag. On day 4 I also had a banana, but it will have to wait until I get to work later to have one of those as I'm out at home.

I'm now taking Whey before and after my workout, then a combo mix during the day (a back of mixed kinds of protein I got at Costco) and finally some casein protein, which takes longer to digest, before I go to sleep. I've found I'm recovering faster with this mix, but I've also been sleeping more, so not sure if I can credit the new protein mixtures completely.

My weigh-ins the last three days (did Day 4, then a light cardio day yesterday, then Day 5 today) were all around 233 lbs.

Oh, and I went to the doctor yesterday for a check-up and he said my blood pressure (which I forgot to memorize) was REALLY good. I'll be doing some blood screens a few weeks, so we'll see how those are, but since I've always been good, I'm hoping that will still be the case. At the doctors office I weighed in at 232 for some reason.

Round 2: HST Day 3

Well, I did in fact make it into the gym later that day, and it was awesome. I felt really strong but challenged throughout my entire workout, even doing very close to my full set of lunges. Interestingly enough, I found that by the end of my workout I was pretty thirsty, despite drinking a fair amount of water before and during my workout... I'm going to need to watch that moving forward as the last thing you need when hitting the gym hard is to get dehydrated.

Later that day, I could feel how I destroyed myself in lots of great ways, but the next day, today, I felt great, like I could seriously go right back into the gym again. I didn't of course, but it was nice to see my body had adjusted to my routine again. Oh, and I took a nap yesterday, then got lots of sleep last night, so I'm sure that helped, AND I finally bought some casein protein that I'm using along with Whey, the later for quick protein hits and the later for longer term absorption, like for right before I go to bed. New protein and lots of rest, as well as a week into a routine seems to be a good mix.

Both yesterday and today I've been pretty solidly in ketosis... actually yesterday evening when I checked (a few hours after the work-out) I was in crazy red-stick ketosis. The cool thing is that this time I don't feel much weaker than before. Of course, I haven't been not in ketosis or on the verge of being so for months, so what do I know about feeling weak or strong anymore?

Yesterday's weigh-in: 234 exactly. I may have still been a bit dehydrated, but I didn't hold back post-workout in drinking as much water out of the fountain as I could before I weighed in.

Skipped today to really rest the body (even though I REALLY wanted to go in because I felt so good), but tomorrow morning I'm planning on do something light cardio to take advantage of being in ketosis (and wake me up; I find I don't fully wake up during the day, or at least it takes a much longer time, if I don't get a work-out in).

Round 2: HST Day 2

It's actually day three today, but I won't make it to the gym until a little bit later as I'm showing off the car to a prospective buyer. This is the second time we are showing it to him, as he was here last night, but I think he wants to see it during the day and take it for an actual test drive before he makes an offer, which is fine, but did he have to pick first thing in the morning after a night a friend was spinning at a local bar/club? And seriously, when that local bar/club has a backroom with Karaoke, and I put my heart and soul into a tear wrenching rendition of "Careless Whisper", how am I supposed to get my exhausted ass up the next morning and act as a sales-man?!?

I don't know either, but here I am sipping Green Tea and trying to wake up.

Anyway, Day 1 of HST kicked my ass so hard that I had to wait two days before doing Day 2. I was was just too sore to wait only one day. And even with two days rest, I was still feeling a bit sore, so I only did half the prescribed lunges. Most people would probably conclude that with Lunges, Dead Lifts, Squats and Clean-Pushes and inner and outer thigh machines, I'm over-doing the number of leg exercises on my HST plan and I should probably cut back, but that would be crazy talk :P And I know it may even be a tad bit underproductive for muscle growth to be over doing it, but I'm hoping my body will still gain muscle while loosing fat on this intense HST routine. And frankly, the intensity is part of the fun; about mid-way through HST, when your body gets used to it, the work-outs get kinda boring, so I wanted to make sure that this time around it was always exciting to go in and do each day. Well, so far that's the case!

I did Day 2 in just about an hour, and it was fun. I barely had time to catch my breath as I pushed myself through each exercise, and I found that doing 15's on some of them were already straining my muscles. F*ck yeah! This time around, I want that last day of 15's to be nearly impossible. In fact, I wouldn't mind if as that day gets closer, I'm not quite able to do 15 reps, but instead am only able to do 13 or 14, so when day 1 of 10's comes, I'm already challenged by those too.

Anyway, so except for the full 15 reps of lunges, I did everything with a gusto and wrapped up with a little jump roping. Later I tested and found I was hard-core in ketosis, which explains my weigh-in:

Wiegh-in: 134.2 (same the next day, when I just did some light cardio on elliptical, the day between HST 2 and 3).