History: I was athletic as a kid and teenager, started lifting when I was 17 and made some decent gains. I was doing a 3x10 routine, working one muscle group per visit to the gym, plus dips and pullups as warmup before each workout. I weight 155lbs when I graduated high school and was in single digit body fat % (never measured, but was extremely lean). Played a ton of pickup basketball, like 6 hours every saturday.
Worked out a lot in college as well, continued with the same, lifting and basketball. I would say i worked out for about two years straight, then stopped because it was taking too much time, also I was getting lazy and depressed. At my peak i weighed 175lbs, and was pretty lean, but not as lean as I was in high school. Probably still single digit bf %. Senior year I was really into running and would run in the hills near where I lived 3x a week, got up to running 5-6 miles each time (and the first half of my run was all uphill, ran from north side of campus all the way to tilden park, for you Berkeley/Cal peeps).
Now, I'm 28, 165lbs, 5'11". I'm about the same size as I was, but I think I'm at one of the highest bf %'s i've ever been, (guessing over 10%, under 15%). I haven't worked out consistently for more than 2 months for the past 5 years. I worked out maybe 5 times total all of last year. I want to get back in shape mainly because of the self esteem, and because it puts me in a good mood and just makes me feel good all around, good way to deal with stress.
Goals: Get a six pack. Be able to run a half marathon by the end of the year, and a full one by the end of next year. Also trainer asked me if I wanted to compete (boxing), said I was a natural and "have a nice snap to your punches". I'm gonna continue training just because it's a lot of fun for now, but competing is something I've been day dreaming about for the past 7 years. I have very little experience with boxing though -- I trained one summer with my college roommate, who was on the school team and made national semi-finals, and I had 7 sessions with a trainer 2 years ago who was training for Golden Gloves (he was also impressed with my ability). I sparred with that trainer for 4 of those sessions, and that's the extent of my ring experience. I'm going to see how I feel after several months of working out, and if all goes well I might consider it then (assuming I can keep up the routine, I have never worked out on a regular basis for more than 2 months, except for in college where I had roommates and friends as workout buddies to motivate me).
I changed my gym membership last week to one that's 2 blocks from my work, and I now keep a gym bag with shoes, boxing equipment, sweats, etc at my office, and just bring underwear, socks & tshirts with me from home (my commute is 1 hour on the train each way). I signed up for personal trainer to get boxing lessons, a sport I love.
The food I eat (updated daily): fitday profile
So far:
01/22/09 - Lifted a little, ran .9 miles at 5.5 speed
01/23/09 - 1 hour boxing, then ~1.13mi jogging (low speed, 5.5, with a couple of 1 minute "sprints" of 6.5 speed)
(over the weekend I read about StrongLift 5x5, and am playing with trying it out, but not really interested in gaining weight, so not sure how it'll go).
01/26/09 - did the "A" workout of stronglift, didn't do reverse crunches though, gym was too crowded. Did the bar on everything; 20,20,10 on pushups. Ran 1.4 miles, 5.5 speed, with 3 or 4 one minute "sprints" @7.5
01/27/09 - gym super crowded, hate that. Came to do boxing only, but area was crowded with non-boxing people. Ran 1.7 mi. @5.5, with 4 sprint intervals @8.5. Last sprint was 1.5 minutes instead of 1. After the run boxing area was less crowded, so i did 5 rounds of speed bag, and 3 rounds heavy, then stretched.
Starting slow and increasing intensity each workout is working out pretty well. One of the reason I usually only run for up to 1-2 months is that I tend to hurt my knees or ankles, or just feel too fatigued to go. Today when I did the 1.5 minute sprint at 8.5 speed i felt a little tiredness in my legs, so I won't run again till friday or saturday.
So far I feel good. I'm eating better, and one unforeseen benefit is that I seem to be falling asleep a lot faster, and waking up more rested even when I only get 4-5 hours. I'm already starting to show some muscles, seems like I could have a six pack if I continue like this for about 5 weeks.
TODO:
Front
Side
Back
Front, flexed
Front, biceps flex
Worked out a lot in college as well, continued with the same, lifting and basketball. I would say i worked out for about two years straight, then stopped because it was taking too much time, also I was getting lazy and depressed. At my peak i weighed 175lbs, and was pretty lean, but not as lean as I was in high school. Probably still single digit bf %. Senior year I was really into running and would run in the hills near where I lived 3x a week, got up to running 5-6 miles each time (and the first half of my run was all uphill, ran from north side of campus all the way to tilden park, for you Berkeley/Cal peeps).
Now, I'm 28, 165lbs, 5'11". I'm about the same size as I was, but I think I'm at one of the highest bf %'s i've ever been, (guessing over 10%, under 15%). I haven't worked out consistently for more than 2 months for the past 5 years. I worked out maybe 5 times total all of last year. I want to get back in shape mainly because of the self esteem, and because it puts me in a good mood and just makes me feel good all around, good way to deal with stress.
Goals: Get a six pack. Be able to run a half marathon by the end of the year, and a full one by the end of next year. Also trainer asked me if I wanted to compete (boxing), said I was a natural and "have a nice snap to your punches". I'm gonna continue training just because it's a lot of fun for now, but competing is something I've been day dreaming about for the past 7 years. I have very little experience with boxing though -- I trained one summer with my college roommate, who was on the school team and made national semi-finals, and I had 7 sessions with a trainer 2 years ago who was training for Golden Gloves (he was also impressed with my ability). I sparred with that trainer for 4 of those sessions, and that's the extent of my ring experience. I'm going to see how I feel after several months of working out, and if all goes well I might consider it then (assuming I can keep up the routine, I have never worked out on a regular basis for more than 2 months, except for in college where I had roommates and friends as workout buddies to motivate me).
I changed my gym membership last week to one that's 2 blocks from my work, and I now keep a gym bag with shoes, boxing equipment, sweats, etc at my office, and just bring underwear, socks & tshirts with me from home (my commute is 1 hour on the train each way). I signed up for personal trainer to get boxing lessons, a sport I love.
The food I eat (updated daily): fitday profile
So far:
01/22/09 - Lifted a little, ran .9 miles at 5.5 speed
01/23/09 - 1 hour boxing, then ~1.13mi jogging (low speed, 5.5, with a couple of 1 minute "sprints" of 6.5 speed)
(over the weekend I read about StrongLift 5x5, and am playing with trying it out, but not really interested in gaining weight, so not sure how it'll go).
01/26/09 - did the "A" workout of stronglift, didn't do reverse crunches though, gym was too crowded. Did the bar on everything; 20,20,10 on pushups. Ran 1.4 miles, 5.5 speed, with 3 or 4 one minute "sprints" @7.5
01/27/09 - gym super crowded, hate that. Came to do boxing only, but area was crowded with non-boxing people. Ran 1.7 mi. @5.5, with 4 sprint intervals @8.5. Last sprint was 1.5 minutes instead of 1. After the run boxing area was less crowded, so i did 5 rounds of speed bag, and 3 rounds heavy, then stretched.
Starting slow and increasing intensity each workout is working out pretty well. One of the reason I usually only run for up to 1-2 months is that I tend to hurt my knees or ankles, or just feel too fatigued to go. Today when I did the 1.5 minute sprint at 8.5 speed i felt a little tiredness in my legs, so I won't run again till friday or saturday.
So far I feel good. I'm eating better, and one unforeseen benefit is that I seem to be falling asleep a lot faster, and waking up more rested even when I only get 4-5 hours. I'm already starting to show some muscles, seems like I could have a six pack if I continue like this for about 5 weeks.
TODO:
- Buy calipers
Buy accurate scale
Set up camera to do some time lapse photography of my progress (always wanted to try that).
Front
Side
Back
Front, flexed
Front, biceps flex
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