Two more negatives, and then I’ll go positive again. Bad eating has brought 2 pounds back to me, as reported during my interim weigh-in. (Doesn’t count til next Monday). Not doing chinups regularly has brought me back down to 1 consecutive chinups (though more negatives).
*I must tune my eating efforts even further, being aware of extra calories that’ve popped back into my week. I was good for a while. I need a new streak.
*I am done with the as-is Men’s Health GET FIT NOW program I have only followed for a few weeks. I find it inadequate for my interest in building strength through high intensity effort. There are just too many “pretty” exercises mixed in with it.
Plan of Attack
*Write down everything I eat again. For the days I was doing that, I was 100% cheat-free. The moment I got off the log, I started sneaking it in. Something about textual guilt, I guess?
*Rebuild my own program, focusing on compound exercises, bodyweight exercises, and maintain my high intensity efforts. I’ll talk more about this.
Retooling the Program
What worked well in the program was my continued pushing past my limits. I’d select weights I couldn’t move more than five times at the most, and then work around that. I’d aim for #’s of reps that were beyond my ability and force as much effort towards that as I could. I’ll keep that.
I’ll throw a “boot camp” day into every week, maybe two. That’ll include a session something like this, fast as possible, and 3 or 4 cycles of it:
*Squat/thrust/pushups (do you know this one?)
*Walking Lunge
*Mountain Climbers
*Chinups
*Ski Jumps
*Planks
*Knee to gut jog
*Pushups
*Crunches
For my intensity, I’ll continue to focus on the larger muscle groupings and the bigger exercises:
*Bench
*Chinups (eventually pullups), supported by rows.
*Squats
*Lunges
*Deadlift
*Box hops
*Plyometric stuff (all the hopping and jumping stuff)
*A boatload of core stuff still (too many to name)
Eventually, if I can find someone to teach me, I want to learn the olympic lifts, like the clean & jerk. That’s the Crossfit kind of stuff, but I’ve no access to anyone who does Olympic stuff.
I’m itching to throw even a little bit of running back in, but I’ll limit it to sprint drills for another few weeks. Basketball court running, etc.
Change
I believe that continuously adapting my program is what’s got me moving forward on all my efforts. These recent slips are temporary, and just show me that I’ve got some adjustments to make. The most important part of the mental game in this instance is to stay in the game. Dig in and push, friends. I have goals with time frames on them, and that requires all my focus.
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