Day 51 - Chest & Rest

Big Chest Day!

So it's been interesting this week, late starts, a quiet gym and the feeling of more freedom to give myself a really good workout. So, that's how it went this morning. 2 hours in the gym, meant I could really give my chest a good workout, and my abdominals a longer run at it...although I still want to add new workouts to my abdominals, constantly trying to improve the quality of my abdominal training - a healthy core is a strong core!

Endurance training for strength is not as easy as the normal power training, where you knock out 4-6 reps three times over for each exercise. Endurance training means pushing hard for a longer duration. Endurance training is exercise that is working the aerobic system, whilst developing muscular endurance. It works the slower twitch muscle fibres, which enables the body to improve catabolism. This then increases capacity to use fat and glycogen stores as energy.

This is how I've been working out, this week.

I arrived at the gym, and got stuck into a 6 set bench press. Starting with a total weight of 50kg I worked hard to push to my new Personal Best (PB) of 90kg. I did 10 reps for the first 2 sets, then 8, then 6...well my first set of 6 reps on 90kg was only 4 reps, but still. I quickly moved from flat bench to inclined and repeated the same rep system. I maxed out at 80kg, and then moved to the decline bench and reached a maximum 75kg. After working the bench for around 45 minutes, I moved to the dumbbells for a quick inclined pectoral flye workout, which I followed up with pec-deck for 3 sets of 8 reps. I then moved to the cable cross-over to do some fine tuning / isolation work. I did my usual low, medium, high fly sets to finish.

Abdominals, although I'm trying really hard, are a little dull. I'm going to add some new lifeblood into abdominals tomorrow. I've spent this evening (early) to research this exact subject, so tomorrow I'll let you know how I went.

Social Time

I believe, and thats all I have to go on really, that if you are working really hard at your job, and at the gym, you need to make/find the time to dedicate to unrelated things. I opt to use my wednesday evening participating in the weekly EOAC Quiz Nights. These can, rarely, end up as a social event, to network, Chit-chat and take the time to get to know each other. For example, after tonight's quiz I moved to the foyer to spend time with Mr Peds, Crawf-Dawg, Mr Potent, Dolphins-Lee, and more peeps, talking shit and drink red wine. I like this part, and usually, Holmie and I drink with the new legal-oh Mrs Spinnah, but tonight I felt the urge to mingle with the table of big drinkers... Mr Dutchie, even joined us, it was his birthday and thats awesome!

Seems reasonable enough to me...

I think its important to balance this fun time with work time, especially since I'm a naval officer. Friendship, work mates and learning how you fit seems to be a vital part. I think it was also really cool to finally see Mr Q at the quiz...its only taken since January to get him to come!

SO, it's time to fess up. I just drank some cognac, some single malt and a few additional glasses of shiraz.... I'm gonna try and wake up early...really want to keep my constancy at the gym...

I saw this quote, and it made me realise I'm like this...I'm falling asleep writing this blog, but I'll rest when its done, and not before.

Goodnight folks! 

Day 50 - My Half Century!

And here we are.... 50 days into regime to build functional strength and endurance, and to see if I could travel from Fat to Fit. Time is ticking along, and I am moving steadily from unhealthy to healthy - which I guess is the first stepping stone.

Today, not too dissimilar to most early mornings, I was out of bed after a very therapeutic sleep, at 0515h. I was at the gym by 0600h and was stuck into my workout really promptly.

That's me.

Shoulders

Super Strong Shoulders, train them hard and turn them into boulders! Well, that's the plan anyway!  Following on with endurance strength training, I decided to start with shoulder press (military style) using the barbell. With a slightly gingerly taken start, owing to slightly sore shoulders from last nights swim. I did a quick warm up with 10kg loaded on the 20kg bar, 12 reps. I then added an additional 20kg to the bar, and knocked out 8 more reps. I continued to add in 5kg increments over another 3 sets (total weight including bar was 55kg). The last set was only 4 reps, but at this point I dropped to 20kg on the bar and pumped out 8 more reps. After this, I worked back in 5kg drops each 8 reps until I was on an empty bar!

I then warmed up my trapezius, by conducting 12 straight up (to my chin) rows. I then added 5kg to the bar and did 4 more sets of 8. Nice!

I moved to dumbbells to work the front and side raises. I worked with a set weight (12.5kg per dumbbell) for front raises and knocked out 3 sets of 8 reps. After, I felt my shoulders starting to burn (endurance training is so much harder than low rep training) and dropped to 10kg dumbbells to to 4 sets of 8 reps of side raises...well, on the last set I needed to drop to 6kg weights to maintain technique, but thats most important so as to avoid injury!

My workout continued onto the cable cross-overs for a final isolated burnout. My shoulders were pretty much cooked after 60 minutes. I moved to abdominals, gave myself a good 15 minute burnout - the usual exercises. I think I'll be adding some new exercises soon.

PFT Training Circuit

So, as a serving member of the RAN, I am required to annually pass the Physical Fitness Test (PFT). That is 25 Push-Ups, 25 Sit-Ups and complete a timed cardio event (2.4km run, 500m swim, Beep Test are the usual methods). HMAS Cerberus has a really good team of trainers (PTIs) and they like to keep us ahead of the curve - so here we arrive at the PFT Training Session. Nobody likes this session, because its simple yet very effective maximal workout. Do as many push-ups, and sit-ups as possible. We were told that today PFT training would be "army style" - i.e. time based, not cadence for push-ups. So 2 minutes and off you go.... I knocked out 75 reps, which is a heck of a lot more than during NEOC (37 reps). For the sit-ups I did the full 100 reps (50 unassisted, 50 held - as ordered), then for the beep test, I got to level 9.4 or something like that...felt a little twinge in my hamstring and backed off...no sense in returning to step one again! So, at last, I listened to my body. Very happy with my performance.

Squish...

After catching my breathe, taking in some hydration and stretching, I asked Commanda Handa if he fancied a game of squash. Squash, is a fantastic sport, great for endurance, speed, agility and well breaking a sweat. Its not a game to 'get fit playing', but one that keeps you fit. I love it, and its been way too long between playing... Again, I reference my heyday in squash, playing box leagues, sunday evenings and just for fun, back in the UK. Well, today's game was a peach. I played from the 'T', used some lovely straight drives (backhand and forehand), added a few little, tight drop shots and a whole lotta aerial floaters! Commanda was not giving up easy, even though we were both tired. It went to 4 games, nearly a full 5 games! I won out in the end, but a good game around. Mr Peds and Crawf-dawg were playing in the next court, looked like a great match too...

Perhaps not this good....

Our game ended up 9-5, 7-9, 9-4,  9-7 - so as you can see, a pretty good game. Plus, it seemed to help stretch out my hammie, and glutes which meant no injury! Phew.

After a long morning of activity, I was actually really pumped, but looking forward to an easy class and a well earned relaxing evening. During class there were a whole heap of giveaway scones, with jam and cream, plus little cakes and treats...Clearly, I did NOT take any, and showed a new level of self-control... I did take photos, they can't hurt me! See You tomorrow....

In swoop the vultures!

Staring at me, eat me, eat me, eat me.... I didn't eat them.

Day 49 - Week 8 Commences

Rest is Best...

This week is going to be a weird one. All of my classes are in the afternoons and evenings, which leads to only mornings being free to train. I will endeavour to make sure I get at least one of my normal daily workouts, and I'm certain I will make up for it at the weekend and into next week....

I clearly needed to recover from my ride yesterday, even though I'm not sore, my body needed to replenish itself...I therefore slept a little longer (through 2 alarms in fact!). I still hauled my butt out of bed, rocked up at the gym at 0745h and trained until 0900h.

Back Day

Monday is "back day", so I pushed through a relatively quiet 60 minutes. This week I have decided to continue with core development, and increase strength work - basically to be an alround strong triathlete, I'm gonna need to train for it, and that includes adding endurance workouts (not just endurance cardio). I'm achieving this a slightly different way. I am increasing the number of sets I perform on each exercise, and trying to maintain 8 reps on each, until I have loaded to a max set of 4 reps. In addition to this, to enable the longer endurance on my muscles I am incrementing the weight increase each time, by a smaller amount. This is allowing me to run around 5 sets of work, ending up at (or close to) my normal finishing weight. I have noticed, however, that this is very hard to do... So, this week should be interesting!

I worked pretty hard in barbell rows, deadliest and lat pull downs. I added some isolation exercises, then did a particularly long set of declined/leaning rows. I completed my back session with high, medium, low single arm rows using the cable crossover. By the time I got to this I was feeling really strong, and managed 3 sets of each side, on each level, using 15kg. After this I closed out using the rope to row and tweak my back using 15kg, but going slow for 3 sets of 8.

As usual, I finished with abdominals. I did hang knee crunches,  and overhead holds interchanging to reduce rest time to zero. I then did a similar activity with leg raises, knee lift crunches, farmers walks and obliques using 20kg disks (for the walks and obliques).

Freestyle Training

After a strange, but interesting day, we were let go at around 1730h - which was pretty cool. As we leaving to go for dinner Mr Peds asks "are you going to dinner, or dya wanna train tonight?"...to which, without thinking, I said that I would prefer to train...after eating lots of snacks (healthy snacks of course) in class today, it felt like a good idea. We decided on a swim, so I quickly grabbed my stuff and we headed to the pool.

After thinking about it for a while, I jumped into the pool (which felt cooler than usual) and so did Mr Peds. He was 'planning' a quick 100m then a 500m swim, initially... I just said that I was going to try and go as far as I could using only freestyle!

I wasn't very warm, so the first 10 laps felt like an eternity on my aching arms and legs, but as I reached the end of 500m I started to drift into a focus-zone (or meditative state) that allowed me to think/mantra: "...1, 2, 3, Breathe.... 1, 2, 3, Breathe...." and before I knew it I was at 20 laps. My first kilometre out of the way and behind me, I decided to push for 2km. At the 1500m mark I decided to make that 3km.... at 50 laps I thought, Nah, I can do 4km and thats the stuff of Ironmen, like IronRay! 

With that as motivation, and trust me IronRay is highly inspiring to me, coupled with the sight of Mr Peds zipping along beside me, pushing just as hard (if not harder) than I was, made me stay focused  to make the 80 laps. I normally get to 2km of pure freestyle and start to keel over. Today, I was driven, inspired by Mr Peds, thoughts of IronRay's recent Ironman success, and the possibility that I might actually make it through this swim. Mr Peds stopped at 3km, good job buddy! He did some laps with the pool buoy, so I hope his shoulders are now burning as much as mine are!

I completed the last 20 laps in the pool, by myself. Yet another relaxing end to a dreary Cerberus day!

80 Laps, 4km in 02:00:57, which is an average pace of around 30 min/km, and a the icing on the cake is the very pleasing 1422 calories burnt! I'm pretty pleased with that effort! Now I need to build swim speed, with more speed sessions, so I can improve upon it! Oh, and this was my first time to 4km with freestyle only! Strangely enough, the only areas I am remotely sore are my abdominals (why is this?) and my shoulders (which is obvious)....

I can never seem to wash the smell away....

With my swim session over, I decided to rinse off and head home. I now plan on relaxing with a yummy bowl of Steaming Quinoa, Raw Spinach and a beautifully Smoked Salmon fillet! I'll also enjoy my Casein shake before bed tonight. I've even earn a glass of 'Nudie' apple juice it! :)

Determination

To me the real thing about this whole process I'm going through, 49 Days in, is that to be consistent, to Just Freaking Do It, to be satisfied (and the rest); I need to have real, focused Determination. In my mind, and really that's why I write this blog (to unload my thoughts each day), determination is the will to keep trying, to set a goal and smash it. Its knowing your limits and pushing yourself, safely beyond them each and every day. 

Rewind to pre 2000, When I used to kick box, remember the good old days Mr Mouldie, I used to say that to deliver a good hit, sometimes you need to take a few to get inside their guard. I took a lot of hits, but I'm not an ice sculpture, not made of glass. If on the first try I got knocked down, I got back up (cue the Rocky soundtrack) and I tried again....and again, and again until I did succeed.

So fast forward now to today, I still live like this. I push, push a little bit more and keep pushing until I get what I want...Soreness is a sign that I'm trying hard, but I'm good with that - I'll sleep easy knowing I woke up with determination, and kept the intensity all day and now I sleep satisfied!

Don't just half-arse it, bloody well do it. Get stuck in and keep going, even if it hurts a little. Break your Personal Bests and keep doing it. Goodnight.

Days 46-48 Rest, Reload & Ride

Lots of Rest....

After my fairly intensive Thursday, I found myself using my rest day to its fullest, sleeping and enjoying a day off on Friday. I ate some yummy squares of chocolate, and rewarded my big week of training.

Just a couple of squares....

Saturday, wasn't a good weather day, so no good for long runs or rides thanks to the addition of wind gusts. So, I used my additional rest day to buy some groceries, relax at a little French Cafe, and chill out. After all, it is just as important to rest your mind as well as you body.... Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! I also took the opportunity to load up with some healthy carbohydrates, in the hope that I might get to burn them off at some point over the weekend....

Biggest Ride Yet

After a slow start, and a later than normal wake up, I decided (since the sun was shining) to take a ride. Since my first road cycling milestone is to ride from Crib Point to Frankston, I decided to give it a stab. I really wanted to use my new quick disconnecting Garmin bike mount, and see how easy it was. Full visibility of the displays, ease of connect / disconnection on the mount and just the level of cool this lifted me to, made this so worthwhile!

I headed out from Crib, toward Hastings, turned off the highway just prior to Tyabb and cut across the peninsular toward Mornington. As I approached Mornington, I turned onto the highway in the direction of Frankston. I shortly after turned off the highway again, and in my infinite wisdom, took the turning for Mount Eliza.

Not knowing the elevation of Mount Eliza, I continued ahead (in hope of a good view of the peninsular).... In the few kilometres that were between me and Frankston, I started to feel the burn.... Incline getting steeper I was up out of the saddle, in the small chainring on the largest sprocket of my gears...basically as loose as I could get it....on and off the saddle I went, moving very slowly. The long, winding climb, never seemed to end.... Eventually, after what felt like forever (in reality around 15 minutes of riding), and as I saw my heart rate reach the highest I've ever seen it rise, 175bpm (95% Max HR), I saw a black BMW pass me and almost instantly disappear in front of me...

"WOW!, that must be some freaking awesome decline I'm about to riiiiiiiiiide! Yeeeee-ha!" 

As I sped down hill, in the drop bars, I saw my speedo on my Garmin 910XT reach 63kph! Oh yea! So speedy! That was a pretty awesome reward for the hard climb. As I continued to speed past Frankston, I had a thought....I'll just turn around at Seaford.... As I passed Seaford, I thought I'll be okay until Edithvale....then at Mordialloc I thought about pushing onto Black Rock. So as I reached Black Rock, and 60km travelled I pulled a u-turn and headed back toward Mordialloc. I stopped at the "Tour de Cafe" for a little rest. This place was awesome. There were purpose built racks to 'hang' your bike by its saddle, and it felt safe enough to just leave it there! 

Tour de Cafe

The other awesome thing about this place was that they not only sold coffee, food, but cycling fuel - bananas, electrolyte and carbohydrate gels, energy drinks and lots of other cool stuff like that. It was a haven for all those cyclist coming from Melbourne, or like me, from the south. With a lovely marina view, and the sun in my face, I enjoyed a cappuccino and a banana for $5. The Dextrose gel (cola flavour) which I got for $5 as I left, perked me up on the way home.

As I sat there, contemplating my return to Frankston, and the potential for butt-soreness if I went any further than that, I munched on one of my GU Chomps (which I brought in a ziplock) and downed a swig of coffee....BUZZ! Game on! After a few minutes of polite chit-chat with an older fellow rider, I jumped back on my trusty Cannondale and head on my way. I return the 20 odd kilometres to Frankston and pulled up at the train station, just in time for the next train to Crib. Perfect. After such a great day out on my bike, I feel like I've worked my body from head to toe! - especially my hip flexors and thighs! So, my first time beyond 80km and I feel good - 83.94km in 03:22:52...plus I was riding all by myself. I'm very happy with that result :) Even if I am writing this post a little after midnight - I called my Mum back in the UK to wish her a happy Aussie Mumma's Day! Did you call you mum tod?

 

Well Look at that - Max Speed 63kph, Max Heart Rate 175bpm, Max Cadence 123rpm!

 

Balls

After dinner, and a little more work on my engineering service paper, I decided to watch some movies and make some Protein Balls. This week I plan to use them to prevent me snacking on bad snacks, and to hold-off hunger. My 'balls' are simple, they're made up of almond meal, chopped dates, shredded coconut, Mayvers peanut & cacao spread, coconut water, ground cacao nibs and a generous scoop of Casein protein powder. All mixed, rolled and squished together, by my fair hand to produce an epic tummy filler of healthy goodness!

I'm pleased with the outcome, 7 days worth (2balls per bag) plus some spare to give to friends! 

Sharing is, indeed, caring!

Day 45 - Resistance & Run

Thursday was another early start, racing down to the gym to get stuck into another workout. 

I smashed my pre-workout drinks and sent myself with renewed vigour.

Absolutely Arms & Abs

Continuing with the weeks' theme of compound exercises first, followed by selection of tweaking isolation exercises, I got stuck into arms. Starting with Biceps, I pushed myself through some dumbbell work, then grabbed the biceps bar, chucked on some green disks (10kg) to either side of the bar and got involved! I maxed out with 4 reps of 17.5kg on each side (total 35kg), which was around 5 sets (the previous sets were 10 reps, then 8,8,6) then moved into a second blast of 3 sets with 10kg on each side, doing the barbel slide - from hip to chest to finish my biceps off.

After a quick set of triceps with the dumbbells and set of tricep dips (off of the bench), I moved to the cable crossover. I like using the cables for triceps; I can do over head, and pull downs - plus I can interchange from straight bar, to ropes to really work the entire muscle. Love arms day! 

After burning through my arms session, I gave myself a good going over in the abdominal department - with hanging knee crunches, leg and knee raises, farmers walks, overhead holds.

Not bad for a workout that lasted 60 minutes!

Resistance (is futile) Circuit

After the arm workout I was totally warmed up and ready for RAN PT! Which, as it happened by lucky coincidence, turned out to be a resistance circuit. So, more of the same...well, not quite. Partnered with Mr Peds, the objective was a partner 100 club. The following exercises were to be worked through: Bicep Curls, Squats, Lunges, Overhead Tricip Dips, then high knee sprints, star jumps and burpees. Peds and I shared the load evenly and worked together to get as far through the workout as possible during the hour. We were mid-way through the 100 reps for burpees as the session drew to a close. Not bad, and another well worked team effort with Mr Peds!

Night Run

After a full day of work, and prior to commencing some crash study for Friday's exam, I decided to head out for an early evening run. Another longish day, causing some minor procrastination, held up the start of my run for a while. I set of on the long run, headed for Somers - and I nearly made it there too....except sunset and the lack of street lights put an unexpected turn-around point in my trip....Running the remaining 50% of my run, in the dark employing my red arm light and my iPhone for direction was an interesting experience; one I'd prefer not to repeat, for safety's sake!

I ended up running 18km all up, nearly the half marathon I'd been aiming for....

Not a bad Thursday.

Day 44 - Tri-Harder!

Well, here we are again.... Another fun-filled, exercise fuelled training day. 

Mornings

Getting out of bed at the crack of dawn is really getting easier. I'm just rolling out of bed, with a spring in my step. I briskly walk in the dark every day, planning my training session, thinking about the things that drive me to keep going. I seem to arrive at the gym, and I'm all prepped and ready to go. I step into the gym, with a focus and determination unlike any other. I train my heart out and feel great because I'm training so well.

Training Chest

I'm getting a lot out of chest day. Since adding some additional sets to my bench workouts, I'm feeling really strong. I powered through 7 sets of flat, inclined and declined bench. I tried a powerful lift followed by a slow return. I gradually increased from 50kg to 85kg, and reduced reps from 8 reps down to 4 on the last. I repeated the same process, on the incline bench, but reached a maximum of 75kg. On the declined bench I repeated for a third time focusing on technique reaching a maximum of 85kg again.

After Barbell-ing the heck out of the benches, I did a quick three set dumbbell pectoral fly, to warm up for a big set of fly drills on the cable cross overs. I worked slow, long fly drills with lower weights working the squeeze on my pectorals. I set up the cables with a central position (mid-chest height), then high, then low. After this I moved into abdominals (hanging knee crunch-lifts, leg and knee raises, farmers walks and over head holds).

Big session, but I felt awesome, for the rest of the day!

Tri-Hard!

During class today, Mr Ped offered a good idea for Wednesday arvo tri-club training - A Swim/Bike brick session. Since I was ahead of schedule, I decided to push it a little further. I decided to try a little harder during my cardio-endurance session. I decided that I'd knockout a 1.5km swim, followed by a good hard spin session - planned distance 40km, target time under 2hours, preferably within 90minutes....but that'd be pushing it.

Whilst on my swim I pushed through a multitude of things; soreness in my upper arms and shoulders, initially crap breathing rhythm, heavy legs and then a bit of a slog for the last 5 laps. I did pretty good. I swam the first 500m in 13 minutes, the second in 13 minutes and the third leg was 14 minutes. So an overall 1500m swim of 41 minutes was a great result, since I did swim only freestyle too!Very happy about that! As I jumped out of the water Mr Ped jumped in. He was planning a shorter swim - I think I knocked over a 10 minute 500m - awesome time dude!

After a quick rinse, to remove the stinky chlorine from my skin, I was soon gearing up to hit the spin bike. My plan was ambitious, and I worked hard, even though my heart rate stayed relatively low throughout. I was working with a heart rate of 120-130bpm, and was spinning at 85-95rpm in gear 6 from start to 10km, then up at gear 8 for most of the ride. I stayed seated and tried to simulate my awesome road bike - the only saving grace with a spin bike is the pre-fitted aero bars that make it a really good work out. Whilst spinning, I managed to employ my over infectious enthusiasm and motivation, to draw in Mrs Legal-oh. She's a Reserve lawyer who is posted to Cerberus for a few months. Missing her hubby (who is in West Australia), she's turned to fitness to fill her spare time - good girl! Oh and thanks to Mrs Legal-oh, we had some music to spin along to.

After about 10km, Mr Peds joined us and got settled onto his bike. It was nice spinning at a "talking pace", since I love having a good chin-wag. I pushed myself and ended up finishing my ride not that long after the others had left me. I was a sweaty mess as I pulled into the final 5km, with very little time to cover the ground, and being so near to my target goal of 90 minutes I stepped it up a notch. I lifted gears to 11 and powered through with a few short stints of standing. I ended up finishing the ride at 40km, in 89 minutes - Stoked! I got off the bike, stretched (way longer than normal) and made my way back to my cabin.

I actually got caught as I walked back, to stand at attention, and watch sunset. Its the RAN ceremony that is conducted at sunset each day that returns the Australian White Ensign and Australian National Flag from their flagpoles.

After dinner this evening I relaxed in the comfort of knowing how well I'd worked through my training session, and enjoyed a couple glasses of red wine with Holmie and Mrs Legal-oh.

Now I'm going to bed early....ish.

Day 43 - Totally Tuesday!

Tuesday, Tuesday...

 I "Heart" Tuesdays at the moment. I get to train, participate in organised physical training, play team sports and if I'm really lucky - I get to Zen myself out with a healthy Bikram Yoga sesh!

Well, today I had a great day. An even better one when you know you need to pay back a deficit from the day before - as you know I had to work and my training suffered (Boo!). I always pay my debts.... Or is that the Lannisters? Game of Thrones overload, perhaps!

Important Rest Time

I'm learning the hard way, as I'm a bit of a slow starter with resting, that rest is just as important as the training we are doing. I'm starting to see that for me, rest and zen time are essentially my mind and body having a workout....albeit without the sweat. Its like a recuperation workout and its nearing time to go get into that session.... I'll just write this post, and drink my yummy Casein Protein shake first. The shake can then start to give my muscles nutrients as I rest and set my digestive system to work. I sleep much better knowing that my sleeping body is getting heaps of good amino acids delivered over a slower duration to help improve recovery, L-theanine to help relax me, plus a large injection of calcium to support my bones! Awesome, but the key here is that my sleep is starting to be just as important as the training is - Oh My! That lovely wife of mine will be pleased with this! I'm doing well too - last night I managed nearly 6 hours of sleep time...which is a vast improvement!

There has been a great deal of research into sleep and weight loss. I even read a very interesting article that suggested training in the early evening to improve rest. It suggested this because it is a good trigger for the body to prepare for sleep. In brief, we raise the body's temperature whilst training, and the subsequent temperature drop is what 'triggers' this, so if you ever wondered why it takes ages to fall asleep at night when you're too warm...that is why!

Is this you?

Personally, when I sleep best its usually naked, or on top of the covers (even in winter) and sometimes both combined! :) Sleep is a good idea for people who are training, trying to lose weight, or to just be a bit healthier, since sleep restriction leads to an increase in a hormone called ghrelin, which is attributed to stimulating appetite. This alone may explain why during these past 6 weeks I've been even hungrier than before - Extra training, plus sleep restriction is not a good combo! This has become very apparent to me whilst sitting in class, since the start of this journey. My lack of sleep makes my appetite soar (I try to ignore that and stick to my regime), but I guess this builds as I further exhaust myself during the day. This leads to my excess tiredness causing a serious case of the snack-monster! This could be something to watch out for. If you're not careful, you too, could be reaching for the coffee and donuts at 3pm because you didn't sleep well the night before....think about that the next time you're making your stand-easy brew or popping to get some more munchies to gorge on just to stay awake...I know I will be. 

 

At least until we get our sleep habits improving, we should carry some healthy snack options to make sure we don't detract from the good work we are doing the rest of the time! 

Sleep, rest and Zen Time appear to be very important, don't you think? An interesting observation that led to a little research may have uncovered something about why I get so "hungry" when I'm tired...I'll definitely be monitoring my sleep and eating behaviours much more closely in future.

Super Shoulders

My usual start to the day being a big shoulders set, focussing again on primarily using compound exercises to develop a strong core. I worked bloody hard, lots of barbell work today. I pushed some extra sets onto each exercise, keeping the weight hard enough to sustain it. Feel the burn...the yummy burn that tells you you're working hard! I finished with some hefty cable work to really isolate the muscles, whilst keeping the core engaged - really enjoying pushing myself now! I finished with some abdominal work; farmers walks, overhead holds, hanging knees up crunches, leg raises, oblique training and crunches.

Cardio & Abs Circuit

This guy is cray-cray, I hear you say...Ahem... Well, this morning's PT offering is my favourite circuit - Abs and Cardio. Today, I partnered up with Pon-Goh the ex-Army dude who is in my class. He has a strong training ethic and works hard, so I naturally wanted to partner him! The circuit involved cardio such as: skipping, ladder sprints, sprint starts, spinning, toyota jumps, grid sprints, mattress sprints. The abs worked everything...which made me feel the familiar burn of hard work! Love it.

Footie & Yoga 

After a full day of class, Mr Dutchie had organised the weekly footsall (indoor football) game at the gym. Mr Sos and I were to play for 30 minutes, as a warm up then leave so we could get to Mornington to catch some Zen at Bikram Yoga, Meeting our other yogi, Holmie, there.

When I returned from Yoga I received a picture text from Winnie, and it made me laugh... You see, I quite often fart in the yoga room, and its normally due to my straining as I work hard to bend, stretch and...well, normally during "wind removing posture" funnily enough...still I thought I'd end with something light hearted... Goodnight.

Love my wife!