“Reps” – Season 01, Episode 02: Bloody & Broken

I can without-a-doubt state that this week’s training sessions so far have been eventful.  Well not the training sessions themselves but the wacky events that have occured.

It’s Wednesday, Back, Traps & Biceps is on the weight-training menu.  3 body parts means it’s going to be a long session (throw in some cardio & stretching too).  After blasting my back I feel a bit hungry and also the need to drain the vein.  Back to the change room I go and open up my locker.  Guy taps me on the shoulder and says in a concerned tone, “Hey I don’t know if anyone’s told you this, but you’re bleeding from the neck!“  Oh.  Inside my mind here’s how the following 2 seconds played out… 1/3 of a second: panic!  2/3 of a second: “Ok what can I do to minimize blood loss?  Ah calm down, slow down your heart rate, stay cool Ryan , stay cool.” 1 second: pretend like it’s not a big deal and slowly proceed about your business… go ahead and take your protein cup out of your locker and ever so casually lightly wipe the back of your neck with your fingers to see if your crushed and exposed vertebrae is bleeding profusely.  Did so.  A bit of blood.  Not a heavy flow like that time of the month.  Grabbed some tp and wiped the back of my neck once again.  Ok defintely a noticeable amount but certainly not life-threatening.  A couple more pieces of tp, a few more wipes, a ton of looks in the mirror and we’re good to go.  I would have appreciated it if someone had told me about the funny business trickling down my neck during my back session.

Folks I’m the type of person that would like to know (before he embarrasses himself even more) about the booger hanging from my nose, or the flake of dry scalp that is prominently displaying on my hair line.  Tell me!

Thursday was more of a prolonged kind of fun.  Glasses feel a little loose fitting.  No problem let’s bend them a little bit backward.  Ok that looks a tad too much.  Let’s bend them a tiny bit forward.  SNAP! You know how even in the most dire of situations there’s always that slim chance of a resolution or temporary fix?  Well this situation was pretty obvious.  Your fricken’ glasses are 1000% guaranteed snapped in half and broken!  It’s a shame, they looked darn good and no one had any idea they cost less than 50 McDonald’s Double Cheeseburgers.  For a good long pause I considered going home.  Heck I didn’t even get to start my workout.  I was in nearly the exact same spot the previous night.  Standing in front of that cursed locker.  But I trekked on.  Hardcore guy that I am (only in the gym).  Fellow gymrats must have been split in 2 camps that night: “Ryan’s being a total snob” or “Holy sh!t that guy is so focused he ain’t even lookin’ at anyone.“  I was set on the fact that I’d probably have to walk to the 7-Eleven nearby, score some tape and do it up Urkel-styles.  Shapes Fitness staff saved the day and provided me with the sticky adhesive.  I was slightly cross-eyed on the drive home.

Don’t bend your glasses, let an optician do that.

And now for the only real fitness-related part of this post…

Here are the updated stats:

Start-date – 09/14/09
End-date – 10/31/09
Goal – 12% bodyfat

As of 09/23/09:
Weight – 157.2lbs (-2.6lbs)
Bodyfat – 18.2% (-1.9%)

“Reps” – Season 01, Episode 01: Rest does your body good

I’m on the fourth day of my new program and it feels that I’m already behind. It’s understandable however since this new training split requires a couple more rest days than I’m used to. Here’s a breakdown:

Day      Muscle Groups
   1          Triceps, Biceps, Forearms (Workout 1)
   2          Legs, Calves, Core
   3          rest
   4          Chest, Shoulders, Triceps (Triceps Workout 2)
   5          Back, Traps, Biceps, Forearms (Biceps Workout 2), Core
 6-7         rest

As you can see there are 3 rest days in one 7 day cycle.  In the past I’ve been stubborn and didn’t give myself enough complete rest days.  Another big thing you’ll notice is that I’m priority training my arms.  I think they’re puny or it may be that too much fat is covering them.  Well either way torching a huge amount of fat combined with priority training will give them definition, size and excellent muscularity overall.

Let’s restate the goal: “attaining 12% bodyfat composition before October 31st, 2009“

So how exactly are we going to attain this?
It’s a 4-pronged attack:
a) HIIT – High Intensity Interval Training
b) reducing rest between sets – from zero rest to 2min
c) diet – portion/calorie control, stagger meals, optimize protein/carb/fat ratios
d) supplementation – hey no ‘roids ha! Green Tea, Caffeine/fat burners

Maybe I should have stated a 5-pronged attack, because the most important factor has to do with that organ attached to the top of your spine. Motivation, focus, concentration, mental toughness… you get the idea. The mind is reponsible for holding all these factors together; even if 1 is off, well, you can kiss results goodbye!

Time to bombard the chest, shoulders and tri’s tonight.
I’ll report back Sunday night and let you know if I survived.

Let’s do this!

“Reps” – Season 01, Prelude

Welcome to the first season’s prelude episode of the “Reps” show on channel R3.

This season we’ll be following Ryan’s progress towards attaining 12% bodyfat composition before October 31st, 2009.

Expect new episodes every Sunday & Wednesday.

We’ll blog about the whole experience from a training standpoint: nutrition & diet, weight & fitness training etc, but we’ll also delve into his personal thoughts and document his trials & tribulations in and outside the gym.

We will reveal: nutrition plans, workout splits, exercise details, supplementation specifics, motivation techniques and other interesting and helpful tidbits throughout this season so stay tuned!

Start-date – 09/14/09
End-date – 10/31/09
Goal – 12% bodyfat

As of 09/14/09:
Weight – 160.8lbs
Bodyfat – 20.1%