Archives for 2008

100 Pushup Challenge: Week 2 Exhaustion Test

On friday I finished week 2 of the 100 pushup challenge. As they suggested on the 100 pushups website, I waited a couple of days, and then did the exhaustion test to find out what column I should be starting in tomorrow for week 3 of the challenege.

I got up this morning, got hydrated by drinking a couple of 12 ounce glasses of water, and then proceeded to pump out as many pushups as I could without stopping.

I quickly made it to 10 pushups, the point at which I stopped on my initial exhaustion test. So already I’m ahead of the game! I then made it to 16, my previous high number of pushups that I performed this past week. I finally topped out at 20 pushups – my new high.

Now if you had asked me if I could do another pushup after that 20th one, I may have been able to squeak out 1, or possibly 2 more. But after seeing week three’s workout, I knew there was no way I could finish it if I had to do column 2. Even column 1 looks hard to near impossible.

So next week, I start with sets of 15, 12, 12, 10, 15. Could it be my first fail? I hope not!

100 Pushup Challenge: Week 2, Day 3

By Peter Leave a Comment

Today is day 3 of week 2, and once again it’s slowly upping the number of pushups.

Tonight is our 4th of July BBQ, so I figured I better get my pushups done in the morning before I get weighed down by hot dogs, burgers and beans. It is not going to be a healthy eating day today.

After having a yogurt for breakfast, and drinking most of a 32 ounce water bottle, I got down on the ground to do my pushups. The first set seemed harder than they normally do for some reason. (or do I say that every day?) I eeked out my 10 pushups, and then moved on to sets of 10, 8, 8 and then my max set. I took probably 60-90 seconds between reps, although it says to take 120 or more if required.

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On my max set I wasn’t even sure if I could hit the max minimum of 10 pushups, but I was able to make it to 10, and then 11, 12, 13 and finally 14! So in the end I was able to do just as many pushups today as I did 2 days ago – 50. It doesn’t feel like that many each rep when you’re doing them, but when you put them together you’re actually doing quite a few pushups. It feels good!

This weekend I’m supposed to do another exhaustion test to figure out what column to continue in for week 3:

At the end of Week 2 it will be time to check your strength and perform another exhaustion test. In simple terms, perform as many good-form push ups as you can manage before you physically can’t do another rep. The number of push ups you complete will determine which level of the program you’ll start in Week 3

If I’m able to do 16-20 pushups (which is what I expect probably), I’ll be starting on Monday with sets of 15, 12, 12, 10, 15. That’s 64 pushups, and 14 more than I’ve done before. Why did I sign up for this again? Wow.

If you’re doing the 100 Pushup Challenge right now, and you’re blogging about it – please let me know on the Quick to Fit Forums, I’m going to do a roundup in the next few days, and I’d love to link to you!

Quick To Fit Forums

100 Pushup Challenge: Week 2, Day 2

By Peter 1 Comment

Today was day 2 of week 2 of the 100 pushup challenge. I was not feeling it today, and was not looking forward to doing my set of 11, 9, 7, 7, 10(max). I changed once I got home, and got to work.

It seems like the first set or two I’m usually pretty tense or stiff, and they’re a bit harder to push out. Once I get warmed up they feel a little better, but they start getting harder to do. The first set of 10 I got out, but my muscles were pulsing a bit. It wasn’t hard necessarily, but my muscles weren’t warm yet. The second set of 9 was a little easier. By the third set I was pushing them out no problem. By the fourth I was starting to get tired. And on the last set I really pushed myself.

On the last set I was able to keep going until I collapsed after doing 16 pushups. My new high! So today’s final numbers were 11, 9, 7, 7, 16 (max). 50 pushups!

Day three is just around the corner – could 17 or 18 pushups be the new high after today? Somehow I doubt that because the numbers of pushups on each rep go up next time. I think I’ll be lucky to reach the max on the final set of 10. We shall see!

QuickToFit.com Forums

Are you a pig if you eat more than 3 meals a day? Or smart?

By Peter 2 Comments

I apologize if the title for this post is a bit crass, but the question I think is a valid one. How many times should you eat every day if you’re trying to lose weight?

photo credit: jessicafm

One thing I’ve done since embarking on my weight loss journey is changing the way that I eat. My diet tends to be the most problematic part of my weight loss plan. I love to eat, and I have a huge sweet tooth. I usually don’t have too much problem exercising, but my diet stinks and I usually sabotage my efforts to lose weight by not watching what goes into my mouth.

On a normal day I have 3 square meals, and I usually eat oversize portions. Granted I’m a big guy, but I will admit that that my portions are way too big. When you’re trying to lose weight a lot of diet plans will have you seriously cut back on your calories and food intake, while still eating 3 times a day.

What I’ve been learning in the last couple of years through the Body For Life system is that a healthier way to eat is to plan meals and eat about every 3 hours throughout the day. I guess you could call it grazing. That way your body is constantly processing food, your metabolism is revving up and you’re never really that hungry. Bodyforlife.com explains:

If you’ve been following the typical nutritional advice of cutting back on calories and consuming no more than “three square meals” a day in the hope of shifting your fat-burning efforts into high gear, you may actually be throwing the whole process into reverse. According to scientists at Georgia State University, active folks who skimp on calories and eat infrequently (only three times a day) may be training their bodies to get by on less energy and therefore more readily storing unburned calories as body fat. Instead, these researchers and many others advise active people to eat frequently (about every three hours) to accelerate metabolism and maintain steady energy levels throughout the day.

Since I started doing this system I’ve found that because I’m eating constantly all day I’m almost never too hungry, and that I feel healthier, and the weight comes off faster. So the answer to the question posed in the title is: “Yes, it is smart to eat more than 3 meals a day – and no – you are not a pig”.

Body for life gives a few other tips to try in order to help your nutritional portion of your plan:

Combine carbohydrates and protein at every mealThe simple fact is, our bodies work better with a balance of carbohydrates and protein. Not only is protein essential for building healthy muscle and maintaining a strong immune system, it stabilizes insulin levels, which leads to steady energy throughout the day. One more benefit: eating protein has been shown to reduce your appetite. So, avoid high-carbohydrate nutrition plans and instead balance your protein and carbohydrate intake.

Choose “appropriate” portion sizesUSDA statistics show that because of increased portion sizes, the average total daily calorie intake has risen from 1,854 calories to 2,002 calories over the last 20 years. That increase—148 calories per day—theoretically works out to an extra 15 lbs. every year. Portion size is important to weight management. Employ a common sense approach, such as using the palm of your hand or your clenched fist for gauging the portion sizes of food.

Plan meals ahead of timeYou may even want to try different recipes and decide what works for you before you begin your training program. Experiment with different seasonings, try a variety of vegetables, and find which microwave settings work best for preheating food. By the time you’re ready to start, you’ll have the supplies you need and the confidence that you know what you’re doing. Then, fix your meals in advance and freeze them. It’s important to shop at least once a week. If you forget, you’ll run out of good food and be tempted to cheat on your diet.

Get containers to store your food

Purchase plastic storage containers, sports bottles, a water jug and a cooler to store and carry your food. Having nutritious meals within reach during a hectic day can keep you on track.

So my goal this week is to get my eating back on track, eating six small appropriately portioned meals every day, and making sure I’m eating the right kind of foods. (That would not include the big piece of cake I had for lunch this afternoon!)

Check out bodyforlife.com for 5 more tips on eating healthy.

Soreness after a workout: Burn and recover

By Peter 5 Comments

Last night I did my pushups for week 2, day 1 of the hundred pushups challenge. Afterwards I went running for about 1.5-2 miles. It feels good to get back into the swing of things, and once you get going you can feel that your body enjoys getting the exercise (mine does at least). Your body starts to crave it.

photo credit: eyeliam

Since I only restarted the workouts this week I’ve found that my body is adjusting slowly to the routine, but that I am extremely sore the next morning. I’ve found that the first week or so of working out is usually the hardest for me in terms of soreness, muscle fatigue and exhaustion. After that first week I still get tired and sore, but not to the extreme that I do during that first week. So what causes the soreness? Soreness is discussed on DrMirkin.com:

On one day, you go out and exercise hard enough to make your muscles burn during exercise. The burning is a sign that you are damaging your muscles. On the next day, your muscles feel sore because they are damaged and need time to recover. Scientist call this DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness.

It takes at least eight hours to feel this type of soreness. You finish a workout and feel great; then you get up the next morning and your exercised muscles feel sore. We used to think that next-day muscle soreness is caused by a buildup of lactic acid in muscles, but now we know that lactic acid has nothing to do it. Next-day muscle soreness is caused by damage to the muscle fibers themselves. Muscle biopsies taken on the day after hard exercise show bleeding and disruption of the z-band filaments that hold muscle fibers together as they slide over each other during a contraction.

So I’m damaging my muscles, that doesn’t sound good? But is it necessary? He continues:

Next-day muscle soreness should be used as a guide to training, whatever your sport. On one day, go out and exercise right up to the burn, back off when your muscles really start to burn, then pick up the pace again and exercise to the burn. Do this exercise-to-the-burn and recover until your muscles start to feel stiff, and then stop the workout. Depending on how sore your muscles feel, take the next day off or go at a very slow pace. Do not attempt to train for muscle burning again until the soreness has gone away completely. Most athletes take a very hard workout on one day, go easy for one to seven days afterward, and then take a hard workout again. World-class marathon runners run very fast only twice a week. The best weightlifters lift very heavy only once every two weeks. High jumpers jump for height only once a week. Shot putters throw for distance only once a week. Exercise training is done by stressing and recovering.

Stressing and recovering is the key to success when you’re working out. This sounds a lot like what I’m doing with my Body For Life exercise regime. On cardio days they have you do interval training where you start out slow, and then work your way up to sprinting 5 minutes later, and then back to slow to repeat the process 3-4 times. Burn and recover, burn and recover.

The weight workouts are the same way. Start out with high reps/low weight, working your way towards high weight low reps, and then one set to exhaustion. Burn and recover.

So there you have it, while the soreness may not feel that great, it is to some degree a necessary part of exercising. Embrace, it, use it to your advantage, and you’ll be on your way to being fit.

100 Pushup Challenge: Week 2, Day 1

By Peter 2 Comments

Monday evening I began my second week in the 100 pushup challenge. Week 1 was tough, but not exceedingly hard.

After doing my reps for day 1 of week 2, I felt pretty good after I finished. At the end of the sets I was able to max out my pushups with 15 pushups, which is the most I’ve done since starting the program. I know, it doesn’t sound like much, but it does make me feel like I’m working in a positive direction.

Week two starts out with a few less pushups (42) than week 1 ended on (44). So for tonight, my pushups went as follows: 9, 8, 6, 4, 15 (max). Total of 42 pushups for the day.

Wednesday will be day 2 of week 2. Stay tuned – will I break my new max pushups of 15?

Building a basic home gym doesn’t have to be expensive!

By Peter 2 Comments

photo credit: mrflip

A few years ago I decided that I wanted to build a home gym in one of our extra bedrooms, so that I could stop paying my high monthly fees to the gym we belonged to, and just start working out at home.

I wasn’t sure how expensive it was going to be, but after all was said and done we had probably spent almost $1000 for a treadmill, dumbbells, weight rack, weight bench, TV and mount, exercise videos and more.

Looking back I now realize that we could have gotten much the same value for a lot less money. If I were going to do it over, I am sure we could get everything we need for less than $150. Here is how I would do it.

Equipment

Dumbbells: I would buy a set of dumbbells for weight training that range in weight from 10-40 lbs or more. I bought individual weights, but probably a more frugal way to do this might have been for me to buy an adjustable weight set. I have seen a 40 lb weight set at my local Wal-Mart that adjusts from 5lbs all the way up to 40 lbs. It is similar to this one found at Wal-Mart.com ($150), but it wasn’t as nice or fancy. It cost about $65-70. Or if you want a fancier set, keep an eye out on Craigslist.com for a set at a greatly reduced rate. Craigslist is your friend when trying to find expensive workout equipment, you can find things for pennies on the dollar!

Weight Bench: Buy yourself a weight bench. Having one of these makes it a lot easier to exercise and get the most out of your workouts. I bought a cheaper bench that has worked just fine for about 4-5 years for $50 at a local sports store. If you look you can also find one with a built in weight rack to save you some money on a rack.

Shoes: Buy yourself a decent pair of running shoes if you don’t already have some. After you’ve been running for a couple of weeks you’ll be glad you’ve got some good shoes. You don’t have to buy an expensive pair to get a good value. I buy my shoes on sale at a local kohl’s, and can usually get them for $30-40.

So for around $150, you can get everything that you need to get started working out. You can obviously get fancier equipment, and spend a whole lot more money, but in my opinion you won’t get results that are any better.

The Plan

After getting the equipment you’ll need a plan for working out. There are a ton of free resources all over the web designed to help you in getting fit. I would suggest reading up on a bunch of them and finding one plan that you think will fit your lifestyle.
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For me, I chose to follow the Body For Life fitness plan. Basically it boils down to this:

Eat healthier
Exercise more (6 days a week, with one rest day).

Through the plan I’m eating leaner foods, more vegetables, and eating smaller portions more often during the day. I end up eating about 6 times a day.

For exercise I’m working out six days a week. Here is how it breaks down:

Day 1: Aerobic exercise, usually in the form of running, a workout video (The Biggest Loser Workout is a good one), or riding my mountain bike.
Day 2: Upper body weight lifting using the dumbbells and weight bench. I’ll do pecs, shoulders, back, biceps, triceps and stomach. All these exercises can be done using your cheapo dumbbells.
Day 3: Aerobic exercise again
Day 4: Lower body weight training using the dumbbells, and your own body weight.
Day 5: Aerobic exercise.
Day 6: Upper body weight training, same as day two, but possibly doing different exercises.
Day 7: Rest

Right now I’m also doing the 100 Pushup Challenge to augment my other exercise. So far so good on that front, but it’s only going to get harder from here on out. You can follow my progress on both the fitness front, and the pushup challeneg e right here. Good luck on your plan, and I hope you stay tuned for my own progress updates.

LINKS:
Build a home gym for less than $200 @ FrugalDad.com

How to build your home gym

100 Pushup Challenge: Week 1, Day 3

By Peter Leave a Comment

Saturday was day 3 of week 1 for my 100 pushup challenge. I didn’t get to my pushups yesterday because I was entertaining, and people showed up early. So I performed my pushups this morning.

One hundred pushups

Day three was a bit harder than day 2. Once again the reps on each set of pushups was slightly more than the day before. Since I was in the second column, the sets went from 10 pushups, two sets of 8, to 5, and then a max set where you do as many as you can.

I was feeling a bit stronger this day, and though it was tough, I was able to get through the sets doing 10-8-8-5-13. My set of 13 at the end was the most I’ve done so far. Not exactly impressive, but I was happy with it.

Here is my progress so far in chart form. As you can see the amount of pushups is going up, ever so slightly, ever day.

Next week, the pushups increase. I hope I can keep up!

LINKS:
100 Push-Up Challenge Website

100 Pushup Challenge: Week 1, Day 2

By Peter Leave a Comment

Wednesday was day 2 of week 1 for me in the 100 pushup challenge. Tonight I’ll be performing the day 3 routine. But first, how did day two go?

One hundred pushups

Day two was similar to day one, but the reps for the number of pushups you performed were slightly increased. If you wanted the rest period was also increased.

Pushup Challenge

On day 1 I was able to complete the reps without too much problem. Day two was a bit more difficult due to the fact that I was a little bit sore from day one, but I completed the reps again without too much problem. They went as follows: 9-8-6-5-11.

Once again as before the last set of at least 7 was a struggle all the way, but I pushed myself. Day three promises to be the hardest one yet. Stay tuned!

LINKS:
100 Push-Up Challenge Website

100 Pushup Challenge: Week 1, Day 1

By Peter 2 Comments

Last week I decided that I was going to start getting back in shape by joining in the 100 Push-Up Challenge that several other bloggers have been talking about the last coule of weeks. J.D. over at GetFitSlowly.com started the trend last week by asking who else would join in the program. I decided to join after several other bloggers I’m familiar with, including The Happy Rock, decided to jump on board as well.

One hundred pushups

The one hundred pushups program requires joiners to do pushups three days a week for six weeks. Each day you perform five sets of push-ups, with a 60-120 second rest period between each set. The number of pushups you perform every week increases until at last during the final week, there is a slight cool-down week. A few days after you finish week six, you try for the magic number of one hundred push-ups.

Can I do it? I don’t know, but I’m certainly going to try! I’m going to be re-starting my Body For Life program at the same time, and I think they’ll work nicely together.

Last week I performed my initial push-up test, and it was extremely humbling. 10 push-ups was all I could manage! Because of the number I completed in my initial test I started the pushup challenge earlier in the week by doing a series of push-ups as shown in column 2 below:

I was able to do the recommended reps. My reps looked like this: 7-7-5-4-11 (with 60 seconds of rest between each set) . After I was finished doing my pushups my arms were shaking. The next day I was sore, so I know I was working some muscles that hadn’t been worked in a while.

I know this isn’t going to be easy, but now that I’ve started and I’m blogging about it, I’m committed. Will you join in and start the pushup challenge too? If so, let us know how you’re doing! Stay tuned for Day 2 of the challenge!

LINKS:
100 Push-Up Challenge Website
100 Push-up challenge @ GetFitSlowly.com
Exercise for Free @ TheHappyRock.com
Free Workout Program @ TheHappyRock.com