Recent Activity

Filter by:

All

• 

  Getting better at this This week has gone fairly well. Today, I felt like I was much more stable and balanced when performing the exercises. Especially on the squats. I literally almost fell a few weeks ago .. but that was partially due to the shorts I was wearing that day .. polyester blend that grabbed my legs on the way down. Not good material and length for weightlifting.

  
  

  I haven't pushed any additional weight this week. Focus is still on form and posture. Next week, though, I will start increment on exercises where I'm feeling more confident. The bench press and the lunge are good candidates.

  
  

  
  

  

  23 days on
  Jeff - Exercise Journal
• 

  Queasy Bit queasy, especially yesterday. I skipped HiiT and did push on Tuesday. Rest on Monday. Must have been poor eating habit on Sunday .. keep that in check.
  
  
  Three areas for improvement: 
  
  

  1. Bench press rotation is wrong .. take a look and do it right next time. Snapping in the shoulder == BAD.
  2. Forgot to weight down on the side raises .. check the sheet first!
  3. Need to weight down on Curls because I'm not doing the full range.

  

  23 days on
  Jeff - Exercise Journal
• 

  Thoracic Back Pain

  For years now, my back around T4 and T5 gets sore on occasion. In most cases, it is due to some change in posture or holding a bad posture for far too long. This could either be from how I sleep in bed or even sit in a chair in front of the computer.

  
  

  When I was a kid, doctors did say that I have slight scoliosis issue. I have never gone back to really check into that and to see what remedy may work in my situation. Perhaps this soreness is a build up of bad posture and an abnormal curvature over time.

  
  

  At Spine Universe, there is an interesting article called Take Charge of Your Upper Back Pain that touches on pretty close to what I am experiencing. In addition to keeping the area stretched, you can build muscle mass in the area using some type of Row exercise. For example, a Dumbbell Row.

  
  

  It's about time that I return to Chung Shan Hospital where I originally had leg surgery and have them do a thorough check on how my exercise program has affected my leg and my back. Maintaining a running program on a previously broken leg seems to be a scary thing to do. But, I'm coming close to two years doing it and so far my leg hasn't felt any worse than it did previously. In fact, it feels stronger. Nonetheless, it's better to be safe than sorry for these kinds of things.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  

  5 months on
  Jeff - Exercise Journal
• 

  Calf Cramps Last week I went to Seoul, Korea for a business trip and stayed in the Renaissance Hotel. The Hotel gym facilities were really good and had everything I needed to continue my maintenance workout program throughout the week.
  
  Because of the one hour timezone change, I put myself on a sleep schedule to help me get out everyday .. 10:30pm sleep, 6:30am wake up. Including exercise, breakfast, etc. it currently takes about 90 minutes from when I wake up to get ready for the day. Perhaps I can optimize this in the future.
  
  On Friday, my last day in Seoul, I went for the exercise bike instead of the usual treadmill run. I went through a few minutes of casual pedaling and then put the bike into a medium difficulty to pedal for 5+ minutes. Following this, I pedaled a few minutes to warm down. This cardio preceded my regular swiss ball exercises.
  
  Throughout Friday, everything was normal and I felt great from the workouts I was able to get in that week. However, I apparently did something wrong that caused my body to have a strong reaction on Saturday morning.
  
  While I was gone in Seoul, a little bug had made its way into our family and had been making the rounds .. my wife, kids, sister-in-law, etc. were all getting something. Well, it took me just Friday morning to tip the scales in favor of the virus. I was sick in the morning and not feeling well.
  
  To make matters even worse, when I woke up on Saturday, I stretched my legs in one particular way that made my calfs cramp up. Probably the worst cramps I have ever had. It's hard to explain how painful it was but just imagine getting your leg stuck in a vise and being squeezed really hard.
  
  I spent the better part of the day massaging my legs on occasion and just relaxing as much as I could. After reading a few articles on the net about calf cramps, I found out that it may be due to:
  
  

  • Dehydration
  • Lack of salts
  • Insufficient warm up / warm down

  Perhaps change in sleep times also was a contributing factor.

  
  

  In any case, I focused on getting more water and drinking a sports drink to recover needed salts in the body. Doing this actually helped prevent a reoccurrence of cramps and my legs feel much better as a result.

  

  5 months on
  Jeff - Exercise Journal
• 

  My Body Thanks Me, For Not Being Lazy The hardest part of exercise is really getting out of the door in the morning. It's so easy to be demotivated to spend an hour a day to stay in fit. Meetings. Getting the kids ready. Email. Catching up on news. Etc. Some things are important to maintain, others are distractions you want to move out of the way.

  
  

  Today, I went through a 10 minute HiiT (30 second intervals) out on the street followed by abs exercises and yoga on wiifit. I use the wii to check progress and balance. During rest periods on the swiss ball, I downed a protein shake. I'm missing the Müsli, though; gotta stock up some more at Costco.

  
  

  One thing that I notice is that although there's discouragement at first, I find that if I stick to it, that my body thanks me. I can definitely feel it now. What I eat is also a big factor, something that I've noticed is that its really important to be cognizant of how you *feel* after you eat. That really is a motivator to stick with what's right for your body.

  

  6 months on
  Jeff - Exercise Journal
• 

  Full Week Had a great full week. Everyday, I went through the exercise sets. Trying to squeeze the time down to 30 minutes, but it depends on familiarity with the exercises.
  
  Starting next week, I'm going to only do HiiT twice a week. I think this will be better for more knee and ankle on the right side. Sprints three times a week might over do it.
  
  This week I've noticed two important things. 1) A reduction in my double chin, and 2) more definition around the chest and core muscles. The exercises are working.

  

  7 months on
  Jeff - Exercise Journal
• 

  Leg Exercise on the Swiss Ball After a month working on the Swiss Ball exercises, I have finally brought together the discipline to go through the Hamstring Curl, Quad Extension, and Leg Lift. In previous weeks, I did what was the easy route for me: 10 minute HiiT and basic core exercises. Going through the leg exercises helped me get familiar with some new techniques that will help my lower body. 

  
  

  In these exercises, I started to feel areas and muscles that I do not work on in a typical workout. Keeping balance throughout in the Hamstring and Quad helps develop many of the supporting muscles all around. Warming up with the pelvic twist helped me realize that I have a ways to go in controlling my core. The leg lifts surprised me in that they really burned the lower abdomen.

  
  

  I look forward to Thursday's back exercises where I'll learn and go through even more exercises. Once I get this down, I hope to reduce the amount of time in exercising to about 30 min. / day. 10 min. run or HiiT with 20 min. of swiss ball. Saturday I can work on Taiji, if I can work out a plan on the instructor side.

  

  7 months on
  Jeff - Exercise Journal
• 

  Swiss Ball Roll Out Don't let Adam Ford fool you. The Swiss Ball Roll Out is really, really hard! Gave it my first shot today and could only make it to 5 reps. More work to be done here.
  
  

  

  8 months on
  Jeff - Exercise Journal
• 

  New Year - New Start Wrapped up my second session for the year today with 10 minute HiiT, 30 second intervals followed by 4 different swiss ball exercises. Had a protein drink for breakfast along with the exercise session. So far, the program looks like it'll put me on good footing for the next quarter.
  
  Still need to figure out the taiji class. Turns out that it's not taught by Chen Xiao Wang, who is the head of this particular form of Taiji. It's taught by one of his "disciples". One of the biggest challenges with taking the class is being available every Saturday morning over the next few months. That'll be hard due to various trips, etc.
  
  Nonetheless, I look forward for better muscle tone, endurance, and flexibility over the next quarter with a follow on strength transformation to get me ready for the summer.

  

  8 months on
  Jeff - Exercise Journal
• 

  A New Quarter With a great three months behind me and plenty of rest in between, I look forward to creating a new program of exercise that will focus on three areas: maintenance, core, and flexibility. This period is a time for my mind and body to be brought closer together and allow my body to perform even better in future strength transformations, which I hope to get into again earlier next year.
  
  Muscle maintenance will come from a simple set of weight-lifting exercises primarily using techniques learned during the transformation phase. In summary, they are:
  
  

  • Squat
  • High stepups
  • Bench Press
  • Row
  • Shoulder Press
  • Chinup/Pullup

  For the core piece, the Ridgeline Fitness podcast on different Swiss Ball exercises were quite useful during the transformation. I'll expand upon the exercises and add in a few more during the days that I am not doing muscle maintenance exercises.

  
  

  And finally, but most importantly, to build up a strong sense of balance and increase my flexibility, I will enroll in a Taì jí quán class here in Hsinchu. The class is run by a teacher named Xiao Wang Chen who teaches the Chen style of Taì jí quán and apparently a famous grandmaster.

  

  9 months on
  Jeff - Exercise Journal
• 

  Beijing and Shanghai; Transformation End The recent trips to China show that I can retain the same discipline in exercising as long as I plan ahead of time and pick the right hotel. Turns out the Somerset in Beijing was the best hotel as it was part hotel, part apartment complex. It had a full set of equipment in its gym and a pool to boot.
  
  

  
  

  One note about what happened in Shanghai. I was Shanghai'd on the dumbbells as they had a very different center of gravity from the typical flat-plate dumbbell. It wasn't due to lifting weights at night, as further exercise sessions proved out. I tried looking for them on Google but could not find the precise model that they had. It was shorter like a hex dumbbell and made out of rubber-like material. The shape was more like a coned cylinder, if you can picture that.
  
  Typically, a full body transformation is supposed to last 3 months and happens once a year. I now have a record of 12+ weeks in doing the exercises that are close to the Strength for Life workout routines. Throughout the last few months I have had several comments about my weight loss including a few "Wows" from my wife. Just looking it from this perspective, I was very successful. Though, there are many ways that I can improve in the next round.
  
  Some thoughts on what I can do to improve:
  
  

  • Even though kind of cheesy, but take a before and after picture. Just to compare and contrast.
  • Set some clear, numeric goals on targets that I'd like to achieve. I'll need to get an appropriate tape measure to keep track of any body measurements.
  • I really need to get my own weights to use from home instead of wasting so much time commuting to the gym.
  • I need to change my sleep habits so that I can work out earlier in the morning.
  • Learn additional ways to work out to introduce variety.

  Over the next three months, I would like to focus on improving my diet to maintain weight, basic muscle maintenance, basic running endurance, strong core, and flexibility. While my previous three months were focused on overall strength, the next segment of time will be focused on the core and overall flexibility. My next post will focus on the details of this.

  

  9 months on
  Jeff - Exercise Journal