Not Gone

We have not disappeared. We are still doing the workouts and all is going well, improving as would be expected. We did skip Kempo on Saturday but did the X Stretch Sunday. This week Sarah has been sick so I have done the workouts on my own. I did miss last night and tonight is hockey but not going to worry too much just keep plugging away at it. The nutrition has been good and I am felling stronger. I started a new job this week which is why I have not been keeping up with this, I will try to be better but time is limited as I am busy with the new job.

Days 3 & 4

Sorry I missed posting a day but it was a bit hectic with the snow around here, I did get the workouts in though. I played hockey on Tuesday so did no workout that day. Wednesday we did arms and shoulders. This is a fun workout that goes by pretty quickly and since it focuses on muscles that you can generally see results with quickly it gives pretty good gratification. We took a little extra time doing this one because it is all weighted exercises and since we had not done it in so long we had to get the weights we were going to use right but it all worked out and my arms feel good. Yesterday we did yoga during the middle of the day since Sarah was hosting some sort of candle selling party last night. This is another workout that will humble the crap out of you if you have not done it in a while. Clearly I am not very flexible any more and my core strength is down from where it used to be. we skipped the last two vinyasa sequences but other than that I think we made it through fairly well but 3 months will do a number on you, as Tony says in one of the videos I am just a bit loose in the cage but we will get that straightened out here pretty quickly.

Day 2, Plyo

Well that was a humbling experience. If you look back through my historical posts you will note that this has always been my favorite workout but I also have never done it coming off of an actual break from working out. We have not worked out in 3 months other than Sundays day 1 and man did this plyo workout put the smack down on our asses. This is the only time, including the first time we did this workout in the first round, that I ever had to do modified moves on any of this. I was always able to complete each exercise as prescribed but not this time. It was only a few things I had to modify though and I did still do them even if in the modified form. at one point when I was doing a modified move Sarah asked if I wanted her to skip that section, that is why she is not the motivator of the two of us. It felt good to do this workout again though and I am looking forward to seeing the improvements as we move ahead. What I am not so much sure I am looking forward to is tonights hockey game because my legs are likely to be getting sore by then.

Day 1, again

Feeling much better now after the stomach flu and we did the day 1 workout, chest and back, again yesterday. I think it went a little better than last week but am sure we will be sore as hell again tomorrow. The ab ripper workout, while still a horrible struggle was better than last week and should get better real fast doing it 3 times a week. We started on Sunday because I have hockey on Tuesday so we will do Plyo tonight and then resume the regular schedule on Wednesday. We have been doing well with the nutrition with the exception of pizza Saturday night when we had some friends over but that kind of thing will happen from time to time and we are not going to go crazy about things. I also still have a couple Sam Adams in the refrigerator that I will probably finish of at some point over the next couple weeks, maybe super bowl. Nice to be back at it, it feels good to get those muscles doing something again.

Sore, have some ginger

Interesting article about some recent studies into ginger and its ability to ease muscle soreness in the days after a tough workout. Looks like there may be something there based on the current research. How long you think it will be before everyone is marketing new ginger supplements for some outrageous price?

What the hell happened?

Well this was supposed to be the first week of a new round but things got a little messed up and it did not really work out that way. I played hockey on Monday as panned and we were scheduled to do Plyometrics on Tuesday night but I came down with a stomach flu that day and didn't eat anything really for a couple days. I am still pretty tired but am at least back to eating normally now. This appears to be the same bug Sarah and the kids had a week or two ago which I thought I had escaped, no such luck. An interesting thing I noticed was how long it took the soreness from the chest and back workout to go away. Sarah and I were both pretty sore given we had not worked out in about 3 months but her soreness was gone a couple days before mine. Mine did not seem to get any better until after the flu cleared up. I assume this is just the body prioritizing what it needs to work on but I have nothing to back that up with. I just found it interesting. On a good note I lost 4 pounds over this week, I weighed in this morning at 159 pounds down from the 163 I was on Sunday. Not the ideal way to lose the pounds but whatever. The plan now s we will reload and start again on Sunday, hopefully this week will go a little better.

Long term burn

Read an interesting article in the NY Times here. I have, over the past couple years, read a lot about exercise and weight loss and this claim that people who exercise continue to burn calories long after finishing the workout is fairly pervasive in the fitness community. This research and the one of a kind machine used to execute it seems to contradict that, sort of. If I read this right you do get long term burn IF you exercise intensely and not if you exercise moderately. The other thing I get from this article is that even if you don't get the extra burn people who exercise vigorously have a warm feeling for hours after their workout is done. My conclusion is unchanged by all of this. Exercising intensely makes me feel good all day long. It also burns lots more calories while I am doing it than if I don't go as intensely. Finally the key to weight loss remains unchanged, diet. The nutrition is the key and the exercise is the support for it so work hard during every workout but pay very close attention to you diet and eat smart if you want good results.