Sunday, April 3, 2011

Still going strong! Where my exercise is at!

Just a quick note to say I am still here and going strong. Work has been extremely busy the first quarter and I have been using free time for playing and relaxing as much as possible.

Diet has been good - I am still doing IF daily with a 16/8 eating setup. I love the freedom to get up and go to work without any prep and enjoy using lunch time at work to go shopping for the evening's fare. It has become a routine break to avoid any chronic stress - for some reason that 45-60 minutes out of the building recharges all the batteries for the afternoon so much more than shutting the office door and reading news or making calls.

For my twice weekly body weight sessions I have incorporated a suspension trainer for some exercises. Mostly I alternate them in for push-ups every other session instead of plyometric ones. I also use them for Australian pull-up which I have added to the routine and hanging L sits.

This weekend I just finished up a set of parallettes to incorporate more gymnastic type work. I find it very challenging. The last bit I am considering acquiring is a punching bag - I think I would enjoy it and the kids are asking about one as well.

My body weight workout sessions have grown from Mark Sisson's primal blueprint framework - I have included more exercises as I have progressed. I have not done anything with added weight and I still maintain the muscle mass I had when I was using heavy weights and a bodybuilding type routine 6 days a week.

Here is my current session with original exercises from the primal blueprint noted (PB):

Twice weekly:

20 Plyometric Clapping Push-Ups (PB) or 20 Suspension Trainer Push-Ups
12 Pull-Ups (PB) or 12 Chin-Ups (PB)
16 Full Dips
12 Australian Pull-Ups using Suspension Trainer
15 Pistol Squats each leg (PB) (I am still using the suspension trainer for balance on these)
16 Hand Stand Push-Ups (PB) (Legs against the wall still)
90s Cross Spiderman Planks (PB) (One arm one leg touch cross knee to elbow)
60s One leg one arm rotating planks (PB)
25 Leg Raises (Dip Station)
10 Flag Raises
Back Bridge Progression - 30s Feet - Shoulders, 30s Feet Hands, 30s Feet Head, 30s Full back bridge
3 x 15s L sits using the suspension trainer


Typically one properly completed rotation is enough to exhaust everything - if I am particularly energetic I will do a second round hitting the alternate exercise for those listed as either or. I also add one sprint session once a week that takes up ~10 minutes of time.

So total weekly for exercise is probably around 2 hours not including any walking/playing. I don't exercise to lose weight - I do exercise to maintain whatever weight I am in the best form possible. I still get a lot of comments at work about how much dedication it must take to lose all that weight - I just nod politely. Really two hours is nothing - and I really enjoy it! I suspect they are assuming I am working out daily for hours.......so sad it does not need to be that way!


Now that I have the suspension trainer and parallettes (both home made!) I am going to work on gymnastic skills - mostly for the challenge and fun. It would be totally badass to be able to take them out on the lawn and do some free form head stand push-ups, planche push-ups, etc...

I amazed each workout - I always think back to 415 pound me and how impossible it would have seemed to him that he could in two short years be doing pull-ups, Dips, etc...Hopefully by the end of the summer I have even more feats of fitness he would disbelieve.

With spring here I will be spending less time inside so if you don't see a lot of posts I am still here. Follow me on twitter for updates, etc...or the posts also show up on the right sidebar here.

I am off to enjoy the semi-spring day (we just had snow Friday....).

-LL