Hey everybody, today we get a break from lifting/bodyweight movements and overall isn't too tough of a day. It is heavily cardio based I consider it mainly a rest day. Here it is!
Workout
1000yard swim
3 mile jog
Core
500 bicycles
500 russian twists
So as you can see nothing too challenging today, the swim won't be too bad, the jog today will mostly be to loosen up the legs a little bit and just to keep them from getting stiff. The core is relatively easy also. what I will probably end up doing is 5 sets of each and do one after another.
Well tbat's about it for today! Nothing too difficult and I think it'll be a fun day. I'll post again after my workout to post how it felt and what is going on tomorrow! Have a great day everybody.
Afro-
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Thoughts on Kipping Pullups
Hey everyone, like I promised I'm going to talk a little bit on kipping pullups. You either love kipping pullups or you hate them, it all depends on who you are. I believe there is a lot of unneeded hate on them however. It can help you break through a wall in your pullups and help you increase your max pullups where strict pullups couldn't do alone. Let me explain a little more.
During my sets I try and keep them as strict as possible. Yesterday I did a 4x12 of pullups and did them all strict pullups because I didn't need to kip. I believe that no matter who you are, you understand that if you can do strict pullups for your sets, why wouldn't you? Stict pullups are obviously harder, but that doesn't take away from the benefits of what kipping pullups can bring to you. For example, a few weeks ago I did a pullup set where I did 5 pullups on a minute for an hour. For the first 27-30 minutes I was doing them completely strict and had relatively no problems. However, once I started to falter in my form and struggling to do strict pullups no longer benefited me I started doing kipping pullups. From about 30 minutes on, I did 7 on a minute and then the last 15 minutes I did 5 on the minute. My lats the next day were absolutely toasted. I felt great and I believe I benefited from doing that set.
When it comes to the point where you can no longer do a strict pullup, why wouldn't you do kipping pullups? It is almost like doing a burn out set for your legs or arms, where you drop the weight and keep going. It's almost like dropping the weight of your body and continuing to hit your lats. There is a time for kipping pullups and there is a time for strict pullups. I have always been indifferent on crossfit, and their philosophy's on lifting. Do I think that you should do kipping pullups from the start? No. However, if you get 10 strict pullups and can no longer do another one, but then you bust out 10 more kipping pullups, that is simply beating up muscles that would have been resting if you didn't. Why stop when you can keep going! I believe to a lot of people, pullups can be intimidating. So start with kipping pullups if you're not very good at strict pullups yet and work your way up. Do I think being able to do 100 kipping pullups is as impressive as doing 40 strict? No. However, if you can do 40 strict and then 20 more kipping pullups then that is simply helping you break though a wall that you wouldn't have been able to before.
This post is simply my opinion, if you disagree or agree please tell me! I am always looking for feedback on what I post, negative or positive. However, if negative please explain why you think that, even if it's positive explain why! I love talking and trying to help people in their goals and aspirations. That's it for me today, I'll see you all bright and early!
Afro-
During my sets I try and keep them as strict as possible. Yesterday I did a 4x12 of pullups and did them all strict pullups because I didn't need to kip. I believe that no matter who you are, you understand that if you can do strict pullups for your sets, why wouldn't you? Stict pullups are obviously harder, but that doesn't take away from the benefits of what kipping pullups can bring to you. For example, a few weeks ago I did a pullup set where I did 5 pullups on a minute for an hour. For the first 27-30 minutes I was doing them completely strict and had relatively no problems. However, once I started to falter in my form and struggling to do strict pullups no longer benefited me I started doing kipping pullups. From about 30 minutes on, I did 7 on a minute and then the last 15 minutes I did 5 on the minute. My lats the next day were absolutely toasted. I felt great and I believe I benefited from doing that set.
When it comes to the point where you can no longer do a strict pullup, why wouldn't you do kipping pullups? It is almost like doing a burn out set for your legs or arms, where you drop the weight and keep going. It's almost like dropping the weight of your body and continuing to hit your lats. There is a time for kipping pullups and there is a time for strict pullups. I have always been indifferent on crossfit, and their philosophy's on lifting. Do I think that you should do kipping pullups from the start? No. However, if you get 10 strict pullups and can no longer do another one, but then you bust out 10 more kipping pullups, that is simply beating up muscles that would have been resting if you didn't. Why stop when you can keep going! I believe to a lot of people, pullups can be intimidating. So start with kipping pullups if you're not very good at strict pullups yet and work your way up. Do I think being able to do 100 kipping pullups is as impressive as doing 40 strict? No. However, if you can do 40 strict and then 20 more kipping pullups then that is simply helping you break though a wall that you wouldn't have been able to before.
This post is simply my opinion, if you disagree or agree please tell me! I am always looking for feedback on what I post, negative or positive. However, if negative please explain why you think that, even if it's positive explain why! I love talking and trying to help people in their goals and aspirations. That's it for me today, I'll see you all bright and early!
Afro-
Day 2 Thoughts
Hey everybody! Day 2 was pretty successful and I enjoyed it a lot more than yesterday. I'll start with the sprints. It was the first time I've ever done a sprint workout in my life and overall I was pretty happy. for the 10x200's I averaged 31-34 seconds each time which for me is alright. It's not fast but it will get better. After that I went to the gym to do a little bit of legs. for the 5x5 of squats I managed to do 245, 255, 265, 275, 295, which is right around where my max says I would be so I was pretty content. The wallsits were a good time and then I did 5 sets of the hamstring curl machine which was at 105lbs.
For my diet, I had about 2400 calories which is a little low so I might add in a protein shake or two to boost up my protein intake and calorie count. I'm still getting used to the calorie counting and dieting so bare with me as I try to get my feet under me! I usually just eyeball everything and eat whatever tastes good so it's a little different! Any advice or thoughts on nutrition/questions for me please email me at TrainWithMe00@gmail.com or comment below! I will be the first one to say that I am a student of my passion and will never know everything or even come close. I learn everyday about what I love to do and I would love to learn from you! That's the beauty of doing what you love and learning from it. I'll see you all tomorrow bright and early, have a great night!
Afro-
For my diet, I had about 2400 calories which is a little low so I might add in a protein shake or two to boost up my protein intake and calorie count. I'm still getting used to the calorie counting and dieting so bare with me as I try to get my feet under me! I usually just eyeball everything and eat whatever tastes good so it's a little different! Any advice or thoughts on nutrition/questions for me please email me at TrainWithMe00@gmail.com or comment below! I will be the first one to say that I am a student of my passion and will never know everything or even come close. I learn everyday about what I love to do and I would love to learn from you! That's the beauty of doing what you love and learning from it. I'll see you all tomorrow bright and early, have a great night!
Afro-
Day 2 Sprint/Leg Work
Hey Everybody! I'm excited about today because this is the first time I'll be running on a track in probably 2-3 years! I have been a distance runner my whole life and I would laugh at the thought of sprinting! I have never been a sprinter and if you were to see me sprint you would know why! However, I need to get my top speed up and faster and that requires more than just running miles. So first off, here is the workout for today.
Workout
10x200 Sprints
5x5 Squats
5x1:30 wallsits
Krav Maga Training
To explain further, I'll be sprinting a 200 as hard as a can and then a slow jog for the other 200 and continue that cycle for the 10. For me I think this will be pretty difficult because like I said I have never been a sprinter and we shall see how this goes. For the leg workout today it is pretty easy for the most part. I think I will add some hamstring curls and leg press as optional exercises. I am still researching and looking up what to do for my leg workouts, so for now I will stick with what I know. If you don't know what Krav Maga is, it is a form of self defense that is very intense and fast. I will be training that for an hour today so I will definitely break a sweat. I will try and find a program that I can post on here for anyone who also wants to train. But for now, simply look up what it is and try and find videos on different styles and combinations to throw and go kill it on a heavy bag.
That is basically it for today, like I said yesterday I will try and get the kipping post up sometime today, probably after my second "thoughts" post. Also, I will try and find a training video to help anyone wanting to learn krav maga and to break a sweat! I'll see you all later tonight!
Afro-
Workout
10x200 Sprints
5x5 Squats
5x1:30 wallsits
Krav Maga Training
To explain further, I'll be sprinting a 200 as hard as a can and then a slow jog for the other 200 and continue that cycle for the 10. For me I think this will be pretty difficult because like I said I have never been a sprinter and we shall see how this goes. For the leg workout today it is pretty easy for the most part. I think I will add some hamstring curls and leg press as optional exercises. I am still researching and looking up what to do for my leg workouts, so for now I will stick with what I know. If you don't know what Krav Maga is, it is a form of self defense that is very intense and fast. I will be training that for an hour today so I will definitely break a sweat. I will try and find a program that I can post on here for anyone who also wants to train. But for now, simply look up what it is and try and find videos on different styles and combinations to throw and go kill it on a heavy bag.
That is basically it for today, like I said yesterday I will try and get the kipping post up sometime today, probably after my second "thoughts" post. Also, I will try and find a training video to help anyone wanting to learn krav maga and to break a sweat! I'll see you all later tonight!
Afro-
Monday, March 24, 2014
Day 1 Thoughts and Nutrition
Hey Everybody, I just got back from the gym about 45 minutes ago, ate my post workout meal and now I'm writing to you! So for being my first day of a new program I can say that it was pretty challenging. To start my day at 07:00 with a ballbuster swim set was a good way to wake up! I ended up doing the 500 yard ballbuster set and then swimming another 200 yards because at 07:00 my local pool gets very packed and it's very hard to keep a lane. The core wasn't too bad at all but I will definitely feel it tomorrow. The "Beef" of the day which in my opinion was the bodyweight movements of pushups, pullups, and dips was much different than I expected. The dips were the easiest part, the 15x15 went by pretty quickly and overall I had no problems. The pushups were hard for the first 5 sets because my triceps were pumping from the initial dip sets and shoulders were all ready toasted because of the full day. However, after those 5 sets my arms and upper body almost went numb and I felt like I could have kept going. For pullups my 4x12 was challenging and to make one thing clear I do not kip in my pullups until I can no longer do a "real" pullup. I will actually have a separate post about what I think about kipping and the benefits/opinions AND what I do during my sets. The run however completely fell apart. I don't know if it was the fact that I maxed out on Sunday or what, but I couldn't get my legs going and my lungs couldn't seem to get any clean air. I ended up doing about a mile and a half at a 7 minute pace and then called it quits on that. Hopefully tomorrow will be a new day and I will feel better.
For my diet I ended up clocking in at about 2800-3000 calories. I actually use an app called "Fat Secret" which in my opinion is one of the best calorie counting apps in the app store/google play. It is completely free and comes with a barcode scanner and gives tips and meal ideas which I find very helpful. I had about 150 grams of protein, 110 grams of fat, and 300 grams of carbohydrates. For me I feel like that is a healthy balance of carbs/fats/proteins mostly because I do not want to lose weight, and I think with the amount of cardio that I will be doing keeping a moderate to high fat/carbohydrate intake will be key in maintaining my size. I also take a multivitamin, 3 fish oils, and drink joint juice. If you have never heard of joint juice I highly recommend you check it out. It is filled with a lot of great stuff to help support healthy joints and gives them a little more nutrients that they need. I've heard many mixed reviews on joint juice but overall in my experiences I'm generally rather happy.
I will be putting my my kipping post up either tomorrow or the next day depending on work and scheduling. As of now I am going to bed! I will be writing to all of you bright and early tomorrow to start another day of training. Have a good night!
Afro-
For my diet I ended up clocking in at about 2800-3000 calories. I actually use an app called "Fat Secret" which in my opinion is one of the best calorie counting apps in the app store/google play. It is completely free and comes with a barcode scanner and gives tips and meal ideas which I find very helpful. I had about 150 grams of protein, 110 grams of fat, and 300 grams of carbohydrates. For me I feel like that is a healthy balance of carbs/fats/proteins mostly because I do not want to lose weight, and I think with the amount of cardio that I will be doing keeping a moderate to high fat/carbohydrate intake will be key in maintaining my size. I also take a multivitamin, 3 fish oils, and drink joint juice. If you have never heard of joint juice I highly recommend you check it out. It is filled with a lot of great stuff to help support healthy joints and gives them a little more nutrients that they need. I've heard many mixed reviews on joint juice but overall in my experiences I'm generally rather happy.
I will be putting my my kipping post up either tomorrow or the next day depending on work and scheduling. As of now I am going to bed! I will be writing to all of you bright and early tomorrow to start another day of training. Have a good night!
Afro-
Day 1
Hey Everybody! Today starts day 1 of my new program and I'm ready to go! It's about 06:45 here and I'm going to try and get half of my stuff done now and then half after I get out of work. I've decided that I'm going to post the whole day's workout in the morning and then talk about how it was at the end of the day. So today is primarily focused on upper body and core, with a swim and a run thrown in. Here it is.
Workout:
500yard swim
500yard ballbusters
1minute plank with 30 seconds rest x 10
15setsx20 pushups
4setsx12 pullups
15setsx15 dips
3 mile run
To explain further, I'm going to get the swim and core portion out of the way this morning and then around 6PM I'm going to run and get the bodyweight movements done. What "Ballbusters" are, are a set that I used to do with my highschool swim team that ss were you swim 1 lap, do a pushup. You then swim back down and do 2 pushups and then 3 pushups, 4 pushups and so on. Since its 500yards, that's 20 laps so it should be about 210 pushups all together.
For the core I believe it'll be challenging but nothing that I cannot handle. I don't know what to expect today of the bodyweight potion. Mostly because I've been so weight oriented for the past year or so.but I guess the only way I'll find out is to do it! The 3 mile run I'm going to shoot for mid 20's and hopefully I can achieve that. Anything below 21 I will be happy with.
For my dieting, I'm going to eat 4 eggs after my workout today, I'm going to be pack some pineapple for lunch with 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and drink lots of water. I'm going to try and shoot for a gallon a day. I have a nalgene water bottle with the measurements on the side so it will be easy to track. Dinner wise will probably be some form of chicken and a vegetable. I'll count my calories and get a rough estimate of my fat/carbs/protein intake.
Alright I'm to head out and get this done! I'll post again in the evening for post workout thoughts on day 1 and how it went. And any changes to my diet and what I ended up eating all together. Have a great day!
Afro-
Sunday, March 23, 2014
A New Beginning!
I've decided to start this blog to track my progress and to share with people who are interested in their fitness goals as well. Tomorrow starts day 1 of my new program and I've decided that I wanted to begin this as well. This is my first blog I've ever had and I've always been interested in other fitness pages so I figured I'd give it a shot! I'll be posting my daily workouts and dieting so you can do what I do!
To give you an idea of where I am. I am 6'1'' 185lbs. Today I maxed out the three "Main" lifts and I had 245 for bench, 335 for squat, and 455 for Deadlift. Right now I run a 20:30 5k, which is down quite a bit from where I began which was around 23 minutes. I have 5-6.5% body fat and eat about 3000 calories a day give or take. I don't normally track what I eat to that great of an extent but hopefully writing this blog will keep me on track.
Starting tomorrow begins my new cycle of training which will focus mainly on body weight movements, running 4-6 times a week, swimming every other day, and there will be weight training involved but not to the extent where I did before. I've taken the past 3 days off to give my body a rest except for today which is when I maxed out. Usually however, I would run 4 times a week, swim occasionally, and weight train 4-5 times a week. I'm hoping the switch to body weight movements (Pushups, pullups, etc.) will give me a lot of gains since I've always focused on weights so extensively.
My main goals are to get my 5k down to around 17-18 minutes, be able to do 40 pullups from a dead hang, 120 pushups in two minutes, and 150 situps in 2 minutes. The reasoning for this is because I am joining the Marines next year and my main goal in life is to become a Navy SEAL. I'm hoping this blog will keep me motivated and talking to whoever wants to follow my journey.
So starting tomorrow I will begin posting my workouts, what I generally eat every day, and my thoughts and concerns during my journey to becoming in better shape! dieting will not be too specific, however I will try my best. Any questions or comments please feel free to email me at TrainWithMe00@Gmail.com, I hope to inspire and train with you all!
Afro-
To give you an idea of where I am. I am 6'1'' 185lbs. Today I maxed out the three "Main" lifts and I had 245 for bench, 335 for squat, and 455 for Deadlift. Right now I run a 20:30 5k, which is down quite a bit from where I began which was around 23 minutes. I have 5-6.5% body fat and eat about 3000 calories a day give or take. I don't normally track what I eat to that great of an extent but hopefully writing this blog will keep me on track.
Starting tomorrow begins my new cycle of training which will focus mainly on body weight movements, running 4-6 times a week, swimming every other day, and there will be weight training involved but not to the extent where I did before. I've taken the past 3 days off to give my body a rest except for today which is when I maxed out. Usually however, I would run 4 times a week, swim occasionally, and weight train 4-5 times a week. I'm hoping the switch to body weight movements (Pushups, pullups, etc.) will give me a lot of gains since I've always focused on weights so extensively.
My main goals are to get my 5k down to around 17-18 minutes, be able to do 40 pullups from a dead hang, 120 pushups in two minutes, and 150 situps in 2 minutes. The reasoning for this is because I am joining the Marines next year and my main goal in life is to become a Navy SEAL. I'm hoping this blog will keep me motivated and talking to whoever wants to follow my journey.
So starting tomorrow I will begin posting my workouts, what I generally eat every day, and my thoughts and concerns during my journey to becoming in better shape! dieting will not be too specific, however I will try my best. Any questions or comments please feel free to email me at TrainWithMe00@Gmail.com, I hope to inspire and train with you all!
Afro-
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