The 90 Day Program - Week 2

I didn’t think Week 2 would turn out well- due to work and social obligations, I ended up only lifting twice that week. That is..teh suck. It didn’t turn out all bad though…

Week 2

• Monday: Light swimming / gym
• Tuesday: Swimming: 8 laps
• Wednesday: Light swimming / gym
• Thursday: Swimming: 11 laps
• Friday: Light swimming
• Saturday: 7 laps
• Sunday: 14 laps

Overall, my general exercise level was good but I felt my lifting could have been better. It turns out I needed the break though, as by the start of Week 3 (Monday) I had significantly more strength and stamina. I think the 3 day upper body weekly workout will have to go back to 2 day upper body.

I also think it’s time to start back on lower body to keep in sync. I’m going to look at sticking to the Monday - Thursday upper, Wednesday - Saturday lower original schedule. With my lasik surgery being this week, and being banned from swimming for at LEAST two weeks following it, I need to compensate for the activity somewhere.

You can view the workout stats / spreadsheet here.

The 90 Day Program - Week 1

I’ve decided instead to do a weekly rollup instead of a daily post- frankly I just don’t have the time or energy to keep updating every single day.

Week 1

• Monday: Light swimming / gym
• Tuesday: Swimming: 9 laps
• Wednesday: Light swimming / gym
• Thursday: Swimming: 11 laps
• Friday: Light swimming / gym
• Saturday: Light swimming
• Sunday: N/A

I learned a few things, like swimming before gym tends to turn out badly for me.  While it helps weight loss (I lost ~ 6lbs this week following the above schedule), I think it greatly impacted / negated any gains on gym progress.  I could DEFINITELY tell a difference in strength and stamina by the end of the week.  All workouts were 1.5-2 hours in length.

You can view the workout stats / spreadsheet here.

The 90 Day Program - Day 2 and Day 3

Day 2 was pretty easy,  I hit the pool and swam 9 laps.   They weren’t full “around the pool” laps, just from one end to the other and back.  I guess that’s a total of 18 pool lengths, but however you want to count it is fine.  One thing I did notice is swimming got rid of a lot of my soreness and stiffness.

Day 3 I went off my planned schedule a bit. My upper body was stiff, not sore, so I decided to basically repeat Monday’s workout.  My lower body is pretty built anyway (trying to play catch up with the upper body), so I’m thinking M/W/Sat upper body, and Thurs lower body.   I went swimming for about an hour, then headed to the house to gym it up.

Exercises	Primary Areas	Secondary Areas	Reps
Lying Leg lifts	Abs	Lower Abs	25	25	20
Dumbbell Lateral Raises	Shoulders	Side	20 x 6	15 x 6	17 X 6
Front Dumbbell Raise	Shoulders	Front	20 x 7	20 x 6	17 x7
Lying Rear Deltoid Raise	Shoulders	Rear	15 x 6	12 x 7	10 x8
Incline Dumbbell Bench press	Chest	Triceps, shoulders	30 x 7	30 x 6	30 x 6 20 x5
Bench Press	Chest	Triceps, shoulders	110 x 7	110 x 4 105 x 3	105 x 5   95 x 6
Dumbbell One Arm Triceps Extension	Triceps		15 x 5 12 x 3	12 x 6	12 x 6
Reverse Grip Triceps Pushdown	Triceps		45 x 8	45 x 8	50 x 3 45 x 4
Hammer Curls	Biceps	Forearms	30 x 8	30 X 6	30 x 5
Standing Bicep Cable Curl	Biceps	Forearms	60 x 6	55 x 6	55 x 5

Approximate time: 1.5 hours.

One thing I did notice was an increase in strength on whatever exercise hit a muscle group first, with a sharper decline in weight on reps and the second exercise (compound exercises first, isolation second if at all possible).  I’m not entirely sure if that means I wasn’t quite ready to hit the same areas again, or if I just wasn’t taking enough time between sets.

The 90 Day Program - Day 1

So as a means of starting off, let me begin by saying this is not some hack fitness program off the Internet.  I call it the 90 Day Program because that’s how long I’ve given myself to hit my goals.   It’s not meant for anyone but me, however if it helps someone else by serving as a guideline, fantastic.

So the first thing I needed to figure out was a workout schedule that I could stick with.  When I first started exercising around January of 2008, I would use the excuse of work, social life, whatever to miss workouts.  This was counterproductive.  I needed a schedule where I felt like I was making progress (more than 3 times a week), I didn’t want to big of “rest gaps” (I get lazy easy), and I wanted something that left me social time.   This is what ended up coming together:

• Monday - Upper body
• Tuesday - Off / Cardio (walk, bike, swim, whatever.  Something light / different)
• Wednesday - Lower body
• Thursday - Upper body
• Friday - Off / Cardio
• Saturday - Lower body
• Sunday - Off

This schedule gives me two days between working the same muscle groups, variety (I’m bored easily), and best of all plenty of time on the weekends for social activities.  The important thing for me is that it also gives me “make up days” if  I don’t get enough sleep or I miss a day.

Today was day one, and here’s how it turned out:

Exercises	Primary Areas	Secondary Areas	Reps
Decline Crunches	Abs		25	24	17
Dumbbell Lateral Raises	Shoulders	Side	17 x 6	17 X 6	17 X 6
Front Cable Raise	Shoulders	Front	17 x 8	17 x 6	15 x 8
Lying Rear Deltoid Raise	Shoulders	Rear	15 x 6	15 x 7	12 x 10
Incline Dumbbell Bench press	Chest	Triceps, shoulders	30 x 6	30 x 6	30 x 5 20 x 4
Bench Press	Chest	Triceps, shoulders	105 x 7	105 x 6	95 x 6
Cable Shrug	Traps	Shoulders	75 x 10	85 x 10	95 X 9
Dumbbell One Arm Triceps Extension	Triceps		15 x 6	15 x 5	13 x 7
Reverse Grip Triceps Pushdown	Triceps		35 x 9	40 x 7	40 x 7
Hammer Curls	Biceps	Forearms	30 x 6	30 X 6	30 x 5
Standing Bicep Cable Curl	Biceps	Forearms	60 x 7	60 x 5	55 x 7

Approximate time: 2 hours.  Now… shower/sleep.  I’m pooped!

Fitness for Dummy (me).

I think it’s safe to say that in this day and age, everyone wants to be fit.  Fitness is everywhere: people jogging, gyms on every corner, self help CDs, DVDs, books, magazines, personal trainers, you name it.  It’s not much of a stretch to say that our fitness crazy is driven by Hollywood either.  You see beautiful people on the screen, and you want to have the life they have.

On a deeper level however, fitness is more than just simple beauty jealousy.  It starts that way for most, but I think in many cases it ends up being more about being generally healthy overall.  Once you start, you can’t stop.  You get addicted to the endorphins and then.. there ya go.  Fitness is the new drug of America.

So here’s my testimony to my own fitness.  I was poking around on a random runner’s blog site the other day and he mentioned how much it helped him.  It gave him documented goals and an enormous support network of people who came by and encouraged him.  While I have my own support network in real life, I did want to be able to encourage others in their goals too.  I was already tracking my exercise, food, and weight routines via spreadsheet, but I decided to put it all together here.

Going forward, on the first of each month, I’ll be posting stats here.  While I try to exercise in some form or another (swimming, hiking, lifting, etc) at least 5 times a week, there’s no way I have time to update this site that often.   Once a month I’ll post the latest figures from my spreadsheets and we’ll see how we go from there.   Even though there won’t necessarily be a new issue every month, you can always click the fitness tab on the front page to see the latest post.