30DWW, Day 1

It's been said that, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it," and since I didn't make the most out of 30DWW the first time around, I'm going to put a little more effort into it, and today's Body Weight Strength Day was a good start thanks much in part to being 23 lbs. lighter than before. Also, going through all those single-leg exercises paid off. 

Tomorrow I'll be trying out the Body Endurance Day again, and I hope to come out of it in one piece.

In case I get bored with what I'm doing (like the same old push-ups), I can always swap the exercises I stumbled upon in Another 30 Days Without Weights. (As if the first 30 days wasn't brutal enough.)

Maximum Strength: Moving Day

It's been a little over 4 months since I started Maximum Strength with Packing Day, and today I finished it with Moving Day. With the exception of my Deadlifts, I'm quite happy with the results I got, in particular, the unintended 14 lbs. weight loss, which may have affected my over-all performance, but I have to admit I prefer being smaller (for now) and may keep up the fat loss until I'm below 170 lbs.

* Didn't do it as a Box Squat the first time.

Body weight	192 lbs.	178 lbs.
Broad jump	81"	92"
Box squat	414 lbs. (Squat*)	374 lbs. (Box squat)
Bench press	254 lbs.	274 lbs.
Deadlift	364 lbs.	334 lbs.
Three-rep max chin-up	BW+20 lbs. (212 lbs.)	BW+45 lbs. (223 lbs.)

Thoughts

• I'm not going to miss doing Broad jumps at the gym. They're kinda more embarrassing to do than yoga with people watching and wondering what the hell I'm doing.
  
• Pretty self-explanatory what happened to my Box squat. Basically I didn't have record to beat, just one to make. I went for 384, but I didn't get my butt to even touch the box.
  
• Really wanted to 284 on the Bench but I just couldn't muster the strength to get past the sticking point. At least I'm a bit closer to my goal of 314.
  
• I bet if I didn't hurt my back back in January, my Deadlift would've been a lot better or at least matched what I did before. And I suppose my core had already gotten tired by the time I got to this point, but still, it's a disappointment.
  
• Moving up from adding 20lbs. to 45lbs. to chin-ups would have been impressive were it not for the fact I lost some weight since the last time I tried it.

Now that I'm done with this program, I have to think about what to do next, and thanks to the suggestion of the trainer who usually helps me out, I'll have some time to decide while I do the exercises in 30DWW, which he says, probably triggered the start of my fat loss last year.

MaxStr. IV, Day B, Workout 4

Had a really quick and easy workout this morning, and I hope I can make the most out of the next three days to rest up for "Moving Day" this Saturday.  I'm not expecting any great progress since November 08, but I think if I just don't regress, I'll be OK.

MaxStr. IV, Day A, Workout 4

After my workout yesterday,  I brought out the old booklet on Stretching I bought a couple of years back and tried out some of the exercises. I forget exactly when I stopped doing it regularly (probably around the time I started YRG), but I hope I can get it started again.

MaxStr. IV, Day D, Workout 3

Yesterday's and today's workout were the last time I'd doing Days "C" and "D" respectively, and in fact, Day "B" gets pushed one day earlier so I have a some time to rest up for "Moving Day".  (Pretty considerate, I'd say.)

Since this was the case, I tried making the most out of my workouts, which I think worked too well, as my triceps and even my chest got cramps while I was riding on the train headed for home. Ouch.

MaxStr. IV, Day C, Workout 3

Yesterday's workout was markedly improved over last week's, but I remain unsure whether I'll be able to beat my records decisively in next Saturday's Moving Day with the exception of the Box Squat, which I fudged up during Packing Day where I forgot to pause at the bottom of the rep, so I don't have a record to beat.

MaxStr. IV, Day B, Workout 3

Since I didn't have a couple of 2"x4" boards handy (didn't have time to go hunting around the hardware shops either), I used two rolled-up phonebooks (they ain't as thick as they used to be) as substitutes for the Two-board bench press. Also, I used an elastic band to keep the books on my chest, and I managed pretty well on my own until I decided to start progressively upping the weight mid-way through which was when I had someone spotting me. Each single rep per set was supposed to be 90% of 1RM anyway.

I prefer this exercise over the Pin press as it felt more natural to do. Too bad today was the only time I could get to do it since it's being omitted in next week's workout.

MaxStr. IV, Day A, Workout 3

Since this week is the "heavy" week of this phase, I've been making sure I've been getting enough rest like I did two nights ago for yesterday's workout (yup, missed blogging about it again) and I hope for tomorrow as well. I certainly want to avoid what happened to me last week.

As for yesterday, I did my first official Sumo deadlifts, and I have to say they were a lot of fun even though I'm not used to them. Thing is, I only get to do them once this entire program as next week will see a bunch of my exercises dropped to help me prepare for Moving Day, which I'm not looking forward to as much as I did a few weeks before when I was slightly heavier but stronger.

MaxStr. IV, Day D, Workout 2

Since I've had 3 not-so-good-but-not-too-bad workouts this week, why not one more? Even though I finally got in a good night's rest, I felt like I was running on empty. On the bright side, I lost 2lbs. over the past 2 weeks, which now brings me below 180lbs.

MaxStr. IV, Day C, Workout 2

The late nights this week finally took their toll on me, and so I played it safe this morning. I hope next week won't be as bad.

MaxStr. IV, Day B, Workout 2

Got home late last night and completely forgot to blog my workout yesterday, which was drained by not getting enough rest when I got home late Tuesday night, and so I hope that even though I got home late again tonight, I'll still do OK tomorrow.

MaxStr. IV, Day A, Workout 2

It's taking a while for my abs to fully recover from last Friday's workout, but thankfully they held up to today's core-busting exercises. Have to say I'm glad I only have to do cardio tomorrow.

MaxStr. IV, Day D, Workout 1

My beat-up abs from yesterday really made today's workout harder than it should've been, and they certainly made my cardio oh-so-fun.

Hope tomorrow's rest day will be enough to let my body recover by Monday.

MaxStr. IV, Day C, Workout 1

Whenever I get into a programming mood, I always forget to update my blog like I did yesterday where I would've said something about how the workout went pretty well right up till the end when my abs got blasted from the abs wheel exercise which I haven't done in a couple of months.

MaxStr. IV, Day B, Workout 1

Like in MaxStr. II, Day B once again blasts the 3 "Bs": biceps, brachialis and brachioradialis, and I have a couple of weeks to figure out how to do a Barbell board press without having to go out and buy a couple of boards.

MaxStr. IV, Day A, Workout 1

If the first day of this final phase is any indication, it looks like Eric Cressey has saved the best--or for me, worst--for last. For example, not only did I have two Front squat exercises this morning, the second one was single-legged. Talk about a double whammy.

Kidding aside, I've been pretty happy with how my body's been reacting to this program and even moreso that I met my first weight goal of going below 82.5 kg/181 lbs. Funny thing is that I learned two days ago the scale I've been using at the gym needs to be calibrated since it was reporting weights heavier than it should've been.

Height	5'3"	Feb 09
Weight	180.5 lbs.	-2.5 lbs.
Chest	42.25"	-0.25"
Neck	15.5"	no change
Upper Arms (unflexed)	14.75"/14.5"	-0.25"/-0.25"
Upper Arms (flexed)	15.5"/15.25"	no change/no change
Forearms	11.75"/11.5"	-0.125"/-0.125"
Waist at navel	35.5"	-1.5"
Hips	41"	-1"
Thighs	25"/25"	-1"/-1"
Calves	15.875"/15.875"	no change/no change

Even though I only lost 2.5 lbs., I was surprised to see how much I lost around the waist and hips--not that I'm complaining. In fact, this gave me a good reason to go shopping for new pants as I put away the ones I bought a year ago when I was over 20 lbs. heavier. I also took this opportunity to update my profile pic, the full version of which appears below.