Day 144 - Gross!

Gross! Yup, that's a dozen dozen, 144. Post is late since last night was Friday night and my gf and I entertained a friend. Just thought I would get yesterday's pic up.

Had a good workout yesterday, mixing things up a bit. I did the full CrossFit Warmup 3x which included 10 kipping pull-ups and 10 dips each round. This replaced my scheduled weighted dips. I conentrated on speed this since I didn't have any weight slowing me down. I also substitued some power clean work instead of the scheduled bent over barbell rows.

I'll make a longer post later today with today's pic and hopefully if I have time, it'll be a nice article type post. I've got a couple things in my mind that I want to talk about, I just have to get enough time to devote to them to do justice.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 26

Day 143 - Big Reward

..and now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Tonight was a big reward meal for myself and my girlfried. We celebrated the 4th anniversay of our first date by going out for supper. I'll spare the details and just say that it was a feast. But as of right now, I'm feeling totally guilt free. I love my girlfriend more than anything in the world and it was nice to get out and celebrate.

But I'm right back on track after that meal, so no worries. It almost renews the excitement of eating healthy again!

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 25

Day 142 - 2 steps forward, 1 step back

Today's workout was pretty good, but I think I almost could have used another days rest. I didn't quite feel as strong as I did on Monday. I just didn't quite have enough gas in me and my form started to suffer a little. I don't know if it was my nutrition or just that I haven't slept well the past couple nights. I'm going to see how things go on Friday, but if I can't pull the weight that I want to, I'm going to do a short "intensity cycle" where I will back off on my weights to 80-90% of what they are right now, and then slowly work my way back up, and then exceed!

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 24

Day 141 - Impressive bar skills

Who knew that a playground was still so much fun even when you grow up? Check out the following video, especially the first move that the guy does. They're called "elevators", and you'll see why. It's mind boggling.



After stumbling upon this impressive display of pull-ups, chin-ups, muscle-ups, I am now determined to be able to do a muscle up. I'm adding it to my list of goals. I can already do pull-ups and dips, so now I just have to string them together.

CrossFitters usually do these on rings, and I'm guessing most of you are like me and don't have rings at your gym. I'll have to settle for trying to do them on a pull-up bar like these guys.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 23

Day 140 - A bit of fat

Today was another fat pinch day, so here are the results:

M2 Week 3: 2008-01-21 to 2008-01-28
Weight: 137.23 (+0.90)
Suprailiac: 10 mm -> 11.6% (no change)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/14/11 -> 9.44% (+0.31%)
Avg BF: 10.52% (+0.12%)
Lean Mass: 122.79 (+0.64)
Fat Mass: 14.44 (+0.26)

Well, this week showed some bigger gains, both in the lean mass and fat gains. Although I think the fat gain has more to do with the "jump" from the caliper measurement due to it's limited precision. I think it's been more of a slow fat gain so I think it's safe to say that the fat gain has been more a result of the past 3 weeks in total rather than just the past week. Unless I see a similar fat gain in 2 consecutive weeks, I won't change anything up.

The lean mass gains look promising though, although I'm skeptical about how much is actual muscle. The latest protein powder (Nitro-Tech Hardcore) I got has some creatine in it. I wasn't looking for creatine specifically, it was just that this particular protein powder was on sale, so it was a good deal at the time. The amount of creatine in it is no more than 2 g per serving (probably really closer to 1 g). This is smaller than what they recommmend people usually take (I think anywhere from 3-10 g/day is recommended), so people specifically wanting to use creatine wouldn't get enough from this protein powder, but I think it is enough for me to see some of the increased water retention that is associated with it. I probably won't know for sure until after I go through the two tubs (they're 4 lbs each and it was buy one, get one 50% off) and then flush all the excess creatine out of my system. That might take a while though. Until then, I'm making sure I drink a lot of water, even more than I was before!

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 22