Weekend Preview (05/01/2009 – 05/03/2009)

Coming up this weekend:

1. Shiner GASP – Saturday May 2nd, is the Shiner GASP (Great Austin to Shiner Pedal). A 100 mile bicycle ride starting in Austin, TX and culminating in Shiner; home to the Spoetzl Brewery. The Spoetzls are the brewers of the Shiner family of  beers, pretty popular in these parts of town. This should be a friendly ride which rewards you as you get to Shiner with an all you can eat and drink party. Yup you heard right, all you can drink beer right out of the keg and all you can eat Texas BBQ. If it wasn’t for those pesky 100 miles in between Austin and Shiner this would be the best $50 investment you can make in this economy. Needless to say, I let my friend and girlfriend convince me that participating was a good idea; according to them, there will be busses picking stragglers along the road and giving them and their bikes a ride to the finish line. I’m counting in the later quite a bit…. because I don’t think I’m good for more than 20 to 30 miles. Either way, it will make for a good story so keep an eye out for blog post on this even and some photos.
2. SHPE Volleyball Game – The annual SHPE Volleyball game between the Austin Professional chapter and the UT Student chapter will take place on Sunday, if weather permits. Although I should not play, it should be a fun activity to go watch and take some pictures.
3. Multimedia Computer Setup – So I received my copy of Lightroom 2 on Tuesday and inherited a fairly powerful computer from V. So I will be installing Lightroom and migrating my whole photo library from a currently chaotic  (almost non existence) system to a nice, organize and friendly environment… Let’s see how that works out. Don’t get me started with my music library, which will also be migrated.

Phase 1.5 of the Road to Fitness

Yesterday, I wrote about the 1 year weight training plan that I started a couple of weeks ago. Today, I want to talk about my goals with this plan and some of the changes I’ve notice I need to make in order to continue improvement.

Long Term Goals

I want to be in shape for my wedding, but what does ‘in shape’ means? As I search on-line there are a lot of people and formulas trying to define the very same term. But, my conclusion is, that opposite to the majority of things in life, the term ‘in shape’ gets to be defined by us, our priorities and motivations. It is very easy to say ‘my goal is to be fit’, but never have a real definition of it. Thus, going to the gym endlessly without the results we would like to have. Sooner or later becoming frustrated and quitting as an end-result.

The first and second step is to define ‘in shape’ and to set a time frame. The sequence in which this is done doesn’t really matter. In my case the time frame was set, 1 Year from now. Now, I have to decide what is my reasonable ‘in shape.’  ‘In shape’ goals could be something like running a marathon or a little bit less challenging like going up the stairs without needing a tank of oxygen. Just don’t cheat yourself. Pick reasonable goals, but make sure that they are challenging as well. In other words, if you are a couch potato don’t expect to be able to run a marathon in a month or two, it is very unlikely that you will be able to do this, but you should also challenge yourself and maybe you will be able to complete a 5Km in a decent time.

I have three goals:

1. Strengthen my legs. I have bad knees and my legs have suffered because of it. There are days in which I can barely go downstairs without hanging to the hand rails for dear life. At the end of the year I would like to be able to play a basketball game and not limp for a week, go back to playing volleyball and carry my wife through the door of our honeymoon suite. ;-)
2. Loose fat. At this point I am at somewhere between 28 to 34% of body fat. I would like to lower my body fat percentage to below 20% and ideally 16% or lower. Notice that I said lower body fat, not weight. I weight around 233 lbs. (around 105.7 Kg), I am guessing that I would end up some where around 210-215 lbs., but the weight is not important to me, the fat percentage is.
3. Gain Flexibility. Limber has never been a word used to described me. This is the challenging aspect to me. In the past I was able to loose and maintain low fat percentage and have strong legs, but I have never been flexible.

Of course these goals are not set in stone, it may be that I reach my goals ahead of time and I need to find new goals or that I find it too hard to reach in the allotted time or maybe my focus has changed from pure weight training to cycling. In all these cases it will be OK to modify my goals.

Short Term Goals

As mentioned on yesterday’s post my year training plan is divided in 9 phases. I figured (no scientific method here) that it would make sense to make short term goals as I go through the phases with slight modifications as I see fit. the following is my Phase 1 short term goal:

• Stick to it. No diet, no calorie counting, no cardio, no set schedule, no weight limits…. my only rule is to go to the gym three times a week, try to rest a day between workouts and take it easy with the amount of weights. Some may find it ridiculous that a proper training plan doesn’t include any food plans or cardio and I completely agree, but that’s not what I’m looking for in the first month. I am looking to get used to finding time to go to the gym. After 2 wks into it I have been very inconsistent when it comes to workout times, I have been to the gym at 7:45 AM, 10 AM, 10 PM and 6 PM… but I have been there 3 times a week.

Two weeks into it I realize that I need to set a second short term goal. I have been able to increase my lifting weight dramatically, but that takes more energy and in the last couple of workouts I’ve had problems finishing strong. I need to start thinking about nutrition pre, during and post workout. I’ll keep you guys posted with my nutrition changes. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

1 Year Road to Wedding Shape

Hello Everyone,

I created this blog on 2005 and never got into it. I had actually forgotten about it. I never got into it because I didn’t think I had anything to share, that someone else would find helpful. Today, as I write this blog entry, I realize that just sharing my experiences is enough and if only one person finds them helpful or I get to motivate one soul to take a step forward then it is more than worth it.

I am the lucky man engaged to a beautiful, intelligent woman (which I’ll call V from now on), but that topic if for a future entry. Our wedding is scheduled for April 2010 and of course I’m starting to feel the heat when it comes to getting into wedding shape. I think every one wants to look his or her best in one of the most important days of their life. I’m no different, that and the fact that she is a running, tri-athlete, gym freak who easily gets up at 5:30 AM to go running or swimming… need less to say, I’m kind of the opposite.

Two weeks ago I decided to start a 1 year plan to get in shape. After doing some googling, I came across Todd Opheim’s BodyBuilding.com article; ‘One Year Workout Guide!’ The article explains and recommends a series of workout through the time span of one year. The workouts are divided in 9 different levels:

1 – Getting Started (1 Month Long) – Full body workout with basic exercises.
2 – Continuation (1 Month Long) – Full body workout with more advance and challenging exercises.
3 – 2 Day Split (1 Month Long)
4 – 3 Day Split (1 Month Long)
5 – Super Sets (1 Month Long)
6 – Back to Basics Mass Gain (2 Months Long)
7 – Hypertrophy (1 Month Long)
8 – 4 Day Split (1 Month Long)
9 – Decrease Fat (3 Months Long)

I have only been in this program for two weeks and I have seen some progress, especially in my legs. I’ve had knee problems for a few years, which have made slack on leg exercise, but I started easy and have been able to see exciting and motivating gains. I’ll keep you guys updated.

Please take some time to take a look at the workout site and post your opinions and workout recommendations.