Back into the zone sorta…

It’s good to finally rest my wrist on the laptop and type without it hurting.

Reading my previous post, it’s roughly been about 2 weeks with this injury.

I haven’t been injured in maybe 15 years, the last serious one was when I used to play b-ball and had a bad sprain that popped!

Otherwise I’ve had minor injuries but nothing that’s put me completely out of action.

The last 2 weeks have been up and down, I went through a phase of “yeah Im going to keep this training up, I’m in the zone. I can still train even with this wrist problem” to some weird depression thing where I realised damn, I just can’t do anything. I couldn’t even type, wash the dishes, or hold any kind of weight in my hands.

Training wise, I’ve had to regress right back down to using machines. I could only do exercises that allowed my wrist to be in a neutral position.

So thing’s like machine flyes, neutral grip seated row, and any other open chain movements I was fine with. I felt demotivated, diet was okay for the  most part but too many neolithic foods, I ended up getting weird cravings to eat salt and alot of sugary things.
I find that usually happens, it’s like it snow balls.

I decided to force myself into 16 hour  intermittent fast with an 8 hour feeding window. Still eating the same amount of calories, just condensing it down.

I’m not recommending everyone should go on a fast, especially if cortisol levels are high, you’re doing weird shift hours and lead a fairly stressful life, then eating every 3 hours in that routine works better. Again most of this stuff is individual.
I was pretty impressed by beradi’s report on fasting and his results.

So anyway, having got my nutrition back on track, I’m feeling better about training right now.

Main thing I’ve been doing is sprints, some plyo’s and mobility work and machines for upper body.
I’m pretty bored to be honest.

I love training and I just can’t do what I want.

It must be very frustrating for people that are going to the gym, suffering from back pains, knee problems etc.

Anyway back to work.

______________

Amy – the butternut squash thing you made looks awesome. I’m going to try and attempt it and post a picture.

 

A sprain!

So I haven’t been able to blog because I managed to sprain my left wrist.

This was the move I was doing.

A little too crazy perhaps, too much load on my wrist.

Sometimes I think doing too many crazy exercises for the sake of it is pointless if you can’t do a standard movement. Clients seem to get a kick out of it though. I guess you could still do a few “special moves” but still follow your core lifts.

I can kinda type now. It hurts to rotate my wrist though so the pronated position hurts as well as supinating.

I managed to do 4 sprints on  treadmill within 10mins because the gym I went to was shutting down. It sucks not having a gym that stays open late.The ones that do open late are crappy and you just get a bunch of guys hogging the bench press or doing curls on the squat rack :S

anyway I’m hoping I’ll be back into it by next week. I can at least still train the rest of my body.

 

26/1/12 – Hip Dominant workout

Went to bed / woke up: 11:10 / 05:31
Total time: 6h 20m

Analysis made by the Sleep Cycle iPhone app.

My sleep graph for the entire night:

I woke up late for my early morning session but I made it on time.
6am alarm call.

Shut off all 4 alarms, lay there for a bit then just dozed off again……

18mins later I woke up and jumped out of bed and flew down to work. Not good!

Todays work out was hip dominant, It was fairly short, but I felt great doing it. I havent done any lower body bodyweight exercises for a while. It feels pretty good. I used to hate doing leg work but somewhere between doing the deadlifts and squats etc but now I seem to get a kick out of doing it.
For some reason I actually really like doing the burpee (with the press up)

	Exercise Name		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3
A1	Reverse lunge + OH reach	Reps	10	10	10
		Weight	0	0	0
A2	KB 2 arm press long cycle	Reps	8	10	12
		Weight	16	16	16
B1	Lateral Lunge	Reps	20	20	20
		Weight	0	0	0
B2	SL DL into SL hop	Reps	5	5	5
		Weight	0	0	0
C	Hang High Pull	Reps	3	3	3
		Weight	40	45	45
D	DB bicep curl	Reps	16
		Weight	16
E	hip flexor into piriformis stretch	Reps
		Weight

The hang high pull I was just testing and playing with it.
Bicep curl – the most boring move ever….why I did it, I dont know, you can see I gave up after a set. I just felt like I needed to do more…

Anyway my ass was burning. Now I just need to find some activity to do. I need to get back into my kung fu lessons.

Oh yeah also check out my sleeping log, woke up at 2.30am – I don’t remember that at all.
Anyone know what the deal is?
I’m pretty annoyed at myself because the last 2-3 weeks I’ve been getting in 6 hours a night. Grrrrr…

25/1/12 – Insane hunger

Went to bed / woke up: 12:27 / 05:29
Total time: 5h 02m

Analysis made by the Sleep Cycle iPhone app.

My sleep graph for the entire night:

Check out my sleep. I couldn’t understand why I was waking up at 3.30am so I tried to google it.
All the answers I could find were just religious/spiritual, I dont wake up at 3am every night but according to yahoo answers usually thats the dead hour where spirits come to visit.
I just need some scientific facts, I’m pretty sure it’s cortisol related.

	Exercise Name		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3	Set 4
A	Y-T-W	Reps	10	10
		Weight	0	0
B	Push press	Reps	5	5	5	3
		Weight	40	50	50	60
C	Lateral Raise into Rear fly	Reps	6	8
		Weight	8	8
D1	Dips	Reps	8	8	5
		Weight	0	0	0
D2	Pull ups	Reps	5	5	3
		Weight	0	0	0

 

 

 

 

 

 

So this was my forced workout.

When I was about to start dips, all I could think about was eating. Like if I don’t eat now I’m gonna eat a foot!

Focus for the workout was mainly the push press everything else was just supplemental. Which reminds me of Wendlers 5-3-1 programme, need to look into that.

 

24/1/2012

Went to bed / woke up: 10:45 / 05:47
Total time: 7h 01m

Analysis made by the Sleep Cycle iPhone app.

My sleep graph for the entire night:

I haven’t logged anything here for ages. Past few weeks have been stressful but everything is going well.
Today was a 20min run only – not that I care but just to record – 328kcals, 3.10km, 9.0kmph

I’ve been trying to walk a little more going the train station rather than driving around everywhere. It’s pretty cold here in london.

Diet over the past week hasn’t been optimal, it was chinese new year, so I was visiting families etc.

I need to basically get right back on the saddle anytime I stray off.
However so far I’m performing fine, I haven’t done squats for a while but just squatting with 50kg for 10 reps and I felt my legs were going to cramp. Pretty poor.
Stupidly I thought I could just walk into it and pull something magic out the bag but I wasn’t even conditioned for it. Funny thing is, it was just my two warm up sets and I was like um yeah ok this is not good….

So I think the rules are to squat, push horizontal/vertical, pull, deadlift, lunge and run at least once during the week.
Only thing is deciding whether to do higher repetition or go for strength. I guess I need to periodize it but then again I’m not an athlete, I’m not concerned with getting massive, or super strong in power lifts. The goal is to be good all round.
Arghh, I’ll figure it out. As long as I get my ass to the gym and lift shit then I’m cool!!!

I’m going to start hitting and kicking the bag again, some quote bruce lee said that stuck in my mind was that there was no point having all this muscle and strength without being able to utilize it.

I have a couple of flakey clients that are just testing my patience. I’m pretty soft as a trainer as I understand peoples lives are busy and they have a lot stuff going on, I’ll push when they can and back off when they can’t.

I’ve been trying to get an appointment with this one lady who keeps moving her appointment, 3 weeks running now.
I dont know if it’s because I’m approaching 30 but I have no patience for their shit anymore. I understand why some of the older trainers act the way they do.

anyway I’m about to eat so the rant must end!

Haven’t caught up with all the blogs I’m following but will be reading at some point 😀

17/1/2012

Went to bed / woke up: 11:43 / 05:42
Total time: 5h 59m

Analysis made by the Sleep Cycle iPhone app.

My sleep graph for the entire night:

I’m waiting to go see my next client. Thought I’d blog about random stuff.

My postings have been sporadic, I’ve been trying to find my feet with work. Since everyone is back from the holidays most of them have started to come back to me wanting to train so I’m just figuring out what free time I have to train.

I’ve been enjoying following all your blogs, its been interesting reading.

One of them caught my eye, it was a lady that had previously joined a weight watchers group, but I think she left them. From what I’ve read she’s been doing home workouts such as a P90x, insanity etc.
She was ranting that she didn’t feel great, often ate/binged on the naughty stuff, she trains 6 times a week (3 resistance 3 cardio), 1 day of rest, she’s also quitting smoking. She uses a scale to weigh herself. I can only assume every morning.

I kinda want to tell her not to go on the scale anymore.

Then I read this from a blogger I’m following – (bubble and squeak, hope you don’t mind me quoting you)

“The further I get into my Paleo diet, the more I am loving it. I wake up every morning feeling fantastic, not bloated, not sluggish and actually looking forward to meals”

I want to tell her what to do but I understand that people blog to vent out their frustrations and write down their own opinions and thoughts. I have to say well done to her for really trying hard.

Also I really hate naturally skinny people telling people what to do to lose weight. It’s hard having that extra weight and moving about, motivation is low, they have a book of excuses not to train.
Then the diet advice they give is something like eat a lower fat diet and switch to whole grain bread because it’s healthy….But is it?

Did they actually look into the studies or are they just repeating what they’ve heard? from magazines?…

There was a recent study about how processed meats such as bacon and sausage increase the risk of pancreatic cancer. It’s been bugging me because I want to find out the truth. Is this just media hype?

I can’t find the study at all. And so far it’s just the media repeating iself, even some of my colleagues are repeating it.

To each their own. Hopefully the truth comes out.

Edit – I’m still unsure about all this. I understand processed foods are crap and the quality of your meat is important to health, people seem quick to jump on a vegan/raw vegan diet because they believe it to be healthy, even then the media pushes a low fat, barely any meat type diet. This seems to have led people down a path where they develop food intolerances to grains,legumes, dairy, and any other antigens. People don’t seem to question why the media puts out this information.

– http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/2012/01/16/pancreatic-cancer-processed-meat-and-a-load-of-bologna/

 

14/1/2012 – Just sleep log

Went to bed / woke up: 12:53 / 08:15
Total time: 7h 22m

Analysis made by the Sleep Cycle iPhone app.

My sleep graph for the entire night:

Early morning tomorrow booooo!

13/1/12 – First proper workout, back into routine.

Went to bed / woke up: 11:11 / 05:52
Total time: 6h 40m

Analysis made by the Sleep Cycle iPhone app.

My sleep graph for the entire night:

So I had more sleep than the day before. I’m feeling better, workout felt good, upper body dominant. Wasn’t going for strength, I just wanted to hit upper body in a superset fashion. Rest time 1min -2mins.

Pull ups felt better, endurance was still rubbish. Would like to improve that. Going to add in more higher rep days.

	Exercise Name		Set 1	Set 2	Set 3
A1	Flyes	Reps	10	10	8
		Weight	18	18	18
A2	Alternating incline db press	Reps	10	10	10
		Weight	24	20	18
A3	Push ups	Reps	8	8	6
		Weight	0	0	0
B1	Cable rear fly standing	Reps	10	10	10
		Weight	3.75	3.75	3.75
B2	Elbows out Row	Reps	10	10	10
		Weight	14	10	10
B3	Pull up close grip	Reps	5	5	3
		Weight	0	0	0
C1	incline bicep curl 2 rep into stand	Reps	4	5	6
		Weight	12	8	8
C2	Lateral raise into rear fly 3reps each	Reps	3	4	5
		Weight	4	4	4
D	Situps	Reps	20	20	12
		Weight	8	8	8

12/1/2012 – Easy workout…really easy

Went to bed / woke up: 11:57 / 05:38
Total time: 5h 41m

Analysis made by the Sleep Cycle iPhone app.

My sleep graph for the entire night:

I watched 3/4 of the Dragon – The Bruce Lee Story yesterday as it was on TV and I couldn’t help it damnit. I know I should have went to bed early and I’m running on a sleep deficit but I’m a sucker for any bruce lee/fight related film.

After watching the film,  I flicked opened one of the older bruce lee books I’ve got about how he trained and he was using Kettle Bells back in the day. The only exercise I saw was the kettlebell row. I wonder how much better he could have been if he explored a bit more into how the kettlebells could have been used.
Actually with the training knowledge we all have now, imagine how good he could have been.

So anyway I was really motivated to go work out after the film, but I obviously didn’t feel like that with 6 hours sleep when I woke up this morning.

It was more like playing today rather than a focused workout, did a few movements, nothing really that special.

I don’t feel optimal. I think all I need is some rest.

 

A	Bike 10mins level 12 3.67km	Reps
		Weight
B	Burpees	Reps	10	10	10
		Weight
C	Active rest skipping 5mins	Reps
		Weight
D1	side bends	Reps	10	10	10
		Weight	18	24	20
D2	hanging leg raises	Reps	10	10	10
		Weight	0	0	0
E	Kneeling BOSU Pallof press into vertical 3sec pause	Reps	5
		Weight	7.5
F	pull ups wide grip	Reps	3	3
		Weight	0	0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11/1/2012 – Sleep log for tuesday 10th sleep

Went to bed / woke up: 01:08 / 06:33
Total time: 5h 24m

Analysis made by the Sleep Cycle iPhone app.

My sleep graph for the entire night:

Again a late night, pretty annoyed that I haven’t been able to get enough sleep. Brother was still here watching anime or whatever all night. I didn’t seem to get much of a deep sleep due to someone being in the room.

Hell no am I working out. I just want to have some time to myself and chill out and sleep early. Easier said than done.
Late finish tonight and early start tomorrow. 😦

I have the rest of the week to get myself in check. Hopefully train tomorrow thursday. We’ll see….

Oh yeah nutrition has been crrraaapp. Few slip ups with gluten in meals, however I didn’t get any digestive problems but still it was supposed to be a gluten free month. Need to get on it.