Day 156 - 3/4 Tabata Something Else

University gym was closed due to the snow storm, so I had to miss my scheduled strength workout. Decided to do an abbreviated "Tabata Something Else" without pull-ups within the comforts of the living room since it requires no equipment as our first CrossFit styled workout. "Tabata" is a specific type of high intensity interval training using a strict 20s/10s work/rest scheme. Each exercise was completed for 8 rounds with no rest between exercises. The official CrossFit "Tabata Something Else" calls for 8 rounds of pull ups before the push ups.

Pushups 21/17/15/14/10/8/8/7 = 100
Situps 8/11/11/12/10/10/9/7 = 78
Squats 18/18/18/17/17/17/16/18 = 139
Total: 317

This works out to an incredible amount of work done in only 12 minutes. I ran out of gas on the pushups due to working them hard last night I think. The squats felt pretty good until the last 2 rounds. My quads were burning by the end and I collapsed on the floor. Had to force myself to get up off the floor to stretch them out and walk it off! I can't imagine adding 8 rounds of pull ups ahead of that workout.

Oh, I thought I would throw in a comparison pic to show how much snow came in the last 24 hours.



It just keeps piling on. It almost makes me want to go out and do a Rocky training montage running in the knee deep snow.



Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 38

Day 154 - Numbers and Pushups

Went for the "all out, as many pushups as possible, with rest, but not breaking form in one set" count. I'll use this new counting scheme as my measuring stick from now on.



M2 Week 5: 2008-02-04 to 2008-02-11
Weight: 138.72 (+0.74)
Suprailiac: 10 mm -> 11.6% (no change)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 7/14/11 -> 9.13% (no change)
Avg BF: 10.4% (no change)
Lean Mass: 124.29 (+0.66)
Fat Mass: 14.43 (+0.08)

Still slowly putting on muscle. Hasn't seemed to slow down yet. How much longer can I go?

Oh, and here's a pic (not my car) for Adam showing off the snowfall we got over the weekend. It wasn't as much as was expected though, but it's been blowing around a lot.



Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 36

Day 126 - Snowed in, a bit late

This is actually an entry for yesterday, which I missed posting on, but I'll still post for today this evening.

Well, I thought I was going to jump right back into my workout schedule, but mother nature had a different plan. After a quick thaw that saw most of the insanse amount of snow that had cumulated over the last few weeks melt away, we got dumped on again. A nice fresh layer of clean snow on top of the crusty, dirty brown stuff that remained. The snowfall started at pretty much the worst time, early enough that by the time my scheduled workout came around there was a good amount of snow down and they shut down campus (including the gym) so that folks could get home safely as more was coming in the night.

So yesterday's workout got pushed to today, which I had planned to be a rest day for yesterday's workout. This should mean I'm good and rested and able to put in a maximum effort in the gym tonight. Since my current workout plan is only 3 sessions/week, I'm not going to beat myself up about it being a day late, as long as I get my 3 sessions in this week.

Also yesterday was measurement day, so here are the results:

M2 Week 1: 2008-01-07 to 2008-01-14
Weight: 135.78 (+0.56)
Suprailiac: 10 mm -> 11.6% (no change)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 7/14/11 -> 9.13% (no change)
Avg BF: 10.4% (no change)
Lean Mass: 121.66 (+0.5)
Fat Mass: 14.12 (+0.06)

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 8

Day 97 - Nordic Track

The day started off with a mini-milestone. I went to the local sports equipment store and picked up a new hockey goalie stick. It was a great feeling to be able to pick out a stick, feel it in my hands, take my stance and try it out. It was also a weird feeling to realize that I had been out of the game so long that my preferred model had been discontinued.

We got nailed with another snowstorm here, so most people were hibernating inside. I had planned to take another rest day, as I think I might have been over-doing the cardio lately. Well, it turns out that I had a movie to return tonight and the roads weren't in any condition to drive in. So, what to do? Most people would probably just pay the late fee and take it in when the roads were cleared. But there are few things that can match my love for freshly fallen snow. My gf bundled up in our scarves and toques and headed out to face the Great White Blizzard.

Walking through knee deep snow turns out to be pretty good exercise. All that snow can get heavy and add a lot of resistance! It was an eerie feeling, as the outside is always so quiet when it's snowing and there were very few cars on the road, and almost no other people walking about. We took some time out of our trek to make some snow angels, make big snow piles to jump in, and jump as high as we could and land in the soft snow.

By the time we had returned the movie and made it back to our apartment, we were wiped! We had wet boots, rosy cheeks, and runny noses. It's great to be a kid in Canada...Oh, I'm not 10 anymore? Ooops.

Well, tomorrow I'll be back in the gym, back on the regular, more traditional exercise program, working even harder.

Get your game face on!
Raiden

Ok, so my other image editing program isn't behaving right now, so I'll post how I was before:

Day 97

Day 85 - Snowed in!

Well, the snow continued to fall last night and for most of today. We got totally hammered and pretty much everything was shut down all around the city. That also meant that my gym was closed down. Boo-urns I say, Boo-urns! This meant that I had to improvise on my workout today. I am not so well equipped in my humble apartment, but I did some resistance band work and some stability ball exercises. Not close to a full workout, but better than nothing I guess. I really wish I had some free weights and a bench. You can do quite a bit with just those. I might look into getting the Bowflex select-tech set which are close to $500, but I don't know if I really have the money to spend on those, especially when my gym is essentially free. I mean, it's not like it gets snowed in every week, so 500 bucks is a lot to spend just for those rare occassions when it snows a ton.

Believe it or not, even with almost a foot of snow on the ground, I was running around doing other things, so I didn't quite have time to sit down and focus on making my video. I could put up the quick and dirty version, but I'd rather wait a bit.

Oh, just thought I would add, I found out today that the "pick-up" hockey game I'm planning to play in on Boxing Day has now become a charity game in memory of a former arena employee who died of suddenly of cancer a couple years ago. All proceeds will be going to the Cancer Society. They're also looking into getting it filmed for the local community channel. Talk about added pressure now! There could potentially be a lot of people coming out to watch this game, including a lot of old town folk who used to watch me back in high school. I definitely gotta up my conditioning now! After I found out about this, I told my girlfriend and then she proceeded to practice "shooting" on me by throwing balls at me from point blank. I think my reflexes and hand-eye co-ordination are still there, but we'll see.

Anyway, here's today's pics:

Day 85

Day 63 - Snow!

Well, we got some snow up here today. I guess winter is now here. It's been hovering around freezing temps the last few days, so I guess the snow wasn't really a surprise.

Just a quick post today as I've been pretty busy with finishing up some work, but I must say, today I really felt the effects of the added lunges I did yesterday. Really felt it in my glutes! I think I've hit a mini-plateau, as my weight hasn't really budged the last week or so, maybe even gone up a bit, but I'm hoping my new routine will give it a spike and help me get rid of that last bit of fat. Today was my lower back and shoulder session. I added an exercise to each for a total of 9 sets for each muscle group, up from last weeks 6, increased the weight, but lowered the reps. I'll probably feel it tomorrow!

Anyway, here's today's pics.

Day 63