START Reason for starting: Since I have addressed PTSD issues in social situations enough over the past 6 months I am now able to attend school full time in the pursuit of attaining a Residential Contractor License to grow the business I'm a partner in. My current significance within the company does not require me to actually be working, so my current job is basically going to school. Due to this I've become much more sedentary, fatter, lazier where physical activity is concerned, and have different physical ailments constantly creeping up on me due to my lifestyle. Without actually going to work every day I also feel like I'm accomplishing nothing significant regardless of passing all my classes with the highest achievable grades. I need something more, and getting myself into shape and strong again is going to be it. Current State: Fat, weak, lazy, suffering from ailments related to sedentary lifestyle, suffering from ailments associated with prior injuries exacerbated by sedentary lifestyle. Goals: 1.) Get not fat. 2.) Get not weak. 3.) Get not lazy. 4.) Address ailments and maintain addressing ailments from past injuries. Time Frame: 17 months - time until degree is earned. How I'll Do It: From today until the end of 2018: 1.) Starting off slow but plan on ramping intensity up in cardio/physical activity quicker than increasing intensity in weight lifting. 2.) Walking. Walking. More walking. Walking some more. (Not logging in physical activity I do with the intent of increasing step count) 3.) Boxing - heavy bag work and rope skipping 4.) Mobility work and stretching 5.) Captains of Crush Grippers for fun (Note* been working with these for about a month so this is further along than everything else) Other goals will be set within log depending on what I decide I want to do. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2018/08/11 (During 40 min. drive) - CoC #1(140lbs) - 10 x 10reps Rotator Cuff Warm up Bench Press - 6 x 10reps - 115lbs CoC#1.5 - 6 x 5 reps (167.5lbs) 3 mile walk Final Ped Count: 11,385 steps
"suffering from ailments related to a sedentary lifestyle, suffering from ailments associated with prior injuries exacerbated by sedentary lifestyle." I know people are going to tire of this, but please talk to your doctor for help planning out your exercise regimen. Learn to know the difference between "out of breath" and "potential heart attack". Learn when to push yourself and when to sit down. It's easy to push yourself too hard when you're determined to get back into shape. Please be careful.
I guess I wont do my 20 minutes worth of tabata springs, plyometric jumps, 500 lb tire flips and hang cleans tomorrow then : ( I appreciate your concern! Most of what I'll be doing is going to be centered around increased physical activity (walking) more than it will be pushing my fitness. Until later in the year, most bag work is going to be for fun and I'm definitely not going to be jumping into skipping rope for significant time periods any time soon. All weight lifting is going to be significantly lower in weight than what I'm capable of and centered around addressing the "ailments" I've alluded to (which is really general stuff except for prior injury stuff, which is mostly neck, upper back, and shoulder tension/mobility). Also I'm only 30 dangit. I'm not going to have a heart attack >: O. I'm not sure how to address asking a general practitioner for diet and exercise help. Out of all the people I've been exposed to in the health and fitness community, from dietitians to personal trainers to physical therapists to athletic trainers, general practitioners have always been the least informed on diet and exercise and always had the most outdated information (like suggesting the dang food pyramid). Might just be my experience? If I have a heart attack or an organ explodes I'll let you tell me "I told you so." xD
My twin brother had a heart attack at 28. Yes, the average GP is not the best person to ask. You mentioned that you have ailments related to your sedentary lifestyle. If you're seeing a specialist for those ailments, I would suggest consulting that specialist. If not, find someone in sports medicine. I just want to see you be able to continue your training and your life.
Sorry to hear about your brother : / Other than a fatty liver none of the stuff related to getting fat and being sedentary are anything worth seeing a doctor about. It's all muscle length shortening, weight on joints, and muscular tension related. All things I'm familiar with and have addressed successfully multiple times in the past. Some of my older injuries get exacerbated by these factors, especially since I might not do anything but school work for three weeks then one random day I have to move 3,000 lbs worth of construction material or something. Even my fatty liver gets cured when I'm physically active and am at a decent weight (according to my blood test records over the years anyway, and I don't drink or anything so the only explanation for fatty liver seems to be just getting fat : P). I don't want to bore you with a medical and fitness history. When I say sedentary I do mean sedentary, but I still do far more physical work/activity normally than what most people who would be medically described as sedentary do. I'm "muscular fat biker" fat, rather than ghost buster's marshmallow man fat. It's also mostly just from the last 6-8 months since I started school back up and am not on jobsites regularly. Anything you'll see as far as weight lifting goes in this log is probably 50-80lbs lighter than what I could actually do for the sets/reps, as I'm targeting more of the ailments with resistance movements currently than I am trying to get stronger. By stating "1.) Starting off slow but plan on ramping intensity up in cardio/physical activity quicker than increasing intensity in weight lifting." By the end of the year I want to be doing a solid 10 x 3 min rounds on heavy bag work and the same for skipping rope, maybe doing some easy, low impact/stress tabata exercises. I think I can manage that in five months, given that's stuff most people can jump right into without dying : P.
Well, nobody can deny that your goals address each and every one of you current state 'concerns', that is for sure. Good luck with the journey - I look forward to reading along with you, as you go. Travess
GP's are pretty dreadful for anything fitness related to be fair. It's not their area of expertise at all.
2018/08/12 3 mile walk upon wake up Final ped count: 11,408 steps Not much today. Got an old heavy bag from a friend and set it up on the frame I built. Dug out all my old boxing gear to find it was all kinds of moldy so i spent time giving it all a nice vinegar soak and scrubbing. Hoping the florida sun will dry the gloves out tomorrow. Didn't stress not working out due to reaching my 10k step goal, neck is a bit tight and have my final exam for contract law in the morning so I'm turning in early. Hopefully I'll get to hit the bag tomorrow!
Thanks. He survived, by the way. It sounds like you have a good handle on what you're trying to do. Just be careful. Some of us here want to hear more of your exploits for quite some time to come.
Please note I didn't inquire further about your brother as I didn't want to be nosey or make you feel you had to talk about something you didn't want to! I'm glad he made it through! Just don't read the threads "A Boxing Journey" or "It's all in your head" xD
2018/08/13 5x10 reps #1 CoC (140lbs) during 30 minute drive 5x2 min rounds::1 min break:: Heavy bag work 5x10 reps 75lb barbell row 5x60 reps small arm circles w/ 25 lbs 5x6 reps #1.5 CoC (167.5 lbs) 3 mile walk Final Ped Count: 10,336 steps Notes: First time hitting heavy bag in 4-5 years since injury. Was bitter sweet. I like it but it's weird doing martial arts related stuff with no intent beyond fitness. Confused on what I should be working on, or if I should be working on any sort of skill at all since I probably wont be sparring any time in the near future or training to fight. I'm super out of shape but it was a nice surprise that I was able to stay relaxed pretty easily. Arm circles intended to help with shoulder stamina for bag work, but it was a surprise that the minimal movement with arms extended laterally was stretching out some strange places in my shoulder and upper back (in a good way). The CoC 1.5 was pretty hard today. Lots of sweat since I'm working out outside and this was after bag work, which made the CoC hard to grip. As a side note, whenever I do bench press it seems to prime my grip to close the CoCs much easier for some reason.
Currently I'm focusing on shoulder mobility specifically focused on strengthening and stretching the rotator cuff areas via therapy bands. External rotation and stability, especially in the left shoulder, is currently a big problem. The situation going on doesn't prohibit a full range of motion, but full range of motion under resistance is painful and get's difficult when sore beyond what one would normally expect. Getting them strong enough to handle weight I'm capable of pushing on bench press is a significant issue that has injured me before due to not addressing it. I have never in my life been unable to bench press at least 225lbs, but my rotator cuffs (the left being the worst) can't handle it yet hence why I'm only working with 115lbs currently. Just that weight is aggravating the area enough but not near enough to cause injury. I'm also maintaining strength/mobility exercises for my neck, as they are under constant tension due to habits developed by anxiety/ptsd related symptoms and can get bad enough to cause debilitating tension headaches and even migraines if left unattended. The exercises revolve around being able to turn my head left and right, as well as retracting the head/chin. Due to the muscles involved with tension that affect my neck, retraction at a downward angle of the scapula is also focused on which is providing a major stretch in the shoulder/trapezius area. This is all augmented with the use of the Tim Tam Massage Gun I've been using. I'm finding that using it in the scapular region where it hits the rotator cuffs to be a bit painful on some days, but the benefit of loosening up the area and getting blood flow there prior to warming up is preventing post bench press aggravation/soreness. Clearly I'm avoiding my legs currently : P. I have flat feet which cause significantly shortened calf muscles that take work on gaining flexibility in. Other than that, most of the mobility in my hips come back once I start doing squats and deadlifts. It's not amazing mobility or anything, but after a couple weeks of resistance training I'm able to drop into a full squat without resistance and keep my heels on the deck and back straight. Most of my focus right now is probably going to remain on my neck and shoulders, as it's a bad enough issue that even putting a bar on my back for squats can create issues for me. I've done this whole process before and it generally takes about two months to get my neck/shoulder/upperback area up to par to handle working out muh' legs. When my workouts do start getting more intense with weights, I'll probably move beyond normal stretching for the legs (basic dynamic and static stretches), and start working on more hip mobility. I do want to start up BJJ again at some point, and being able to do splits and do the shooting motion effortlessly would be a big benefit. That's all in the not too distant future.
2018/08/15 Total Ped Count: 14,924 steps Note: Came back from mini vacation. Doing something for working out resumes tomorrow.
2018/08/16 10x10 reps #1 CoC throughout morning while driving around for work 3 mile walk Total Ped Count: 13,394 steps Note: Started raining when I had a chance to work out and didn't really let up. Walked the three miles in the rain, was going to do something for a workout but it started lightning and all my stuff is outdoors.
2018/08/17 ?x15 reps on #T CoC (100lbs) while driving 6x 70meter x 150lb (75lb per hand) farmers walk 6x 10 bodyweight squats 1 Tabata Round - Sledge Hammer/Tire 3 Mile walk Final Ped Count: 14,263 steps Note: - Used CoC #T just for the hell of it while driving. More of an active rest type of thing. - Farmers walk was done sporadically. Girlfriend came home after 2 sets, had to help her with some things, did second 2 sets, then girlfriend shows me demon spawn spider stuck in bathtub with with egg sack and baby spiders coming out of it by the trillions. Finished last two sets, girlfriend went to get spider killer spray. - Hit heavy bag to keep body warm until girlfriend got back. Killed trillions of little spiders and one large demon spawn. - Tabata round was easier than anticipated, but still sucked. I want to start forcing oxygen in my system to help burn at a quicker rate, tire hits with the sledge hammer was an easy enough movement to start with that didn't strain my fat, out of shape body too much. However I did note I need to start doing some core strengthening exercises so I don't end up hurting my back. - Tabata does funny things with your body. Sometimes, due to my PTSD I get waves of panic that will knot my throat up and cause tingling sensations in my hands or make them go numb. I know that sounds weird, and that it could possibly be something super wrong with me, but I promise anyone reading this that this has been a symptom I've had for years and am very familiar with it. It's just anxiety. Tabata helped me have one of these panic waves roughly 30 minutes after completion due to pushing myself into a physical capacity I haven't done for years (common occurrence) . #ImplimentedAnxietyReliefTechniques and it only lasted a few seconds. Three mile walk right after to take advantage of increased oxygen in system for fat burning. I swear though someday something is actually going to be wrong with me and I'll do all the stuff I've learned to mitigate anxiety and then I'm just going to die because I thought I was ok xD - Feeling good after all this, but my legs are going to be shot tomorrow. Getting my steps in is going to be a real pain. - Going to bump up to 15,000 step goal once my legs get over soreness.
2018/08/18 I'm gad dang resting today. Sore as hell. This is day 9 or 10 (started doing stuff prior to the log) of purposely increasing physical activity and working out. While I didn't work out on the mini vacation days there was a lot of walking and swimming so no complete down time. I'm playing World of Warcraft all day, maybe do some stretching later.
2018/08/19 Fasted 3 Mile Walk upon wake up 5x 12 #1 CoC & 2x 20 #T CoC while running errands 6x10reps 120lbs bench press 6x6reps #1.5 CoC 3x5min rounds heavy bag Total Ped Count: 13,928 steps
2018/08/20 - through - 2018/08/25 Either got a migraine on the 20th or the tension in my neck or back was so tight it was causing me to have such a severe tension headache I felt sick. Slept most of the day. Felt pretty crappy the next couple days and didn't work on addressing the issue around my neck/back that was causing the tension headache. Grandmother up north had a fall and broke her femur so she needed surgery. Pops went up north to help out so I had to be around to do random stuff at work and be on stand by. School started this week so I've been figuring all that out. Other than that I've either been running errands or laying down due to not addressing the tension issues until couple of days ago. I'm starting to rebound and plan on getting back to walking tomorrow. I'm not sure what caused the tension to hit so hard suddenly, but I possibly strained it doing something. I am going to start looking up and putting together a body weight program for mobility and stretching and do that as workout. I think I have too many issues that need to be addressed before I start trying to do the stuff I've been doing. It's really frustrating to get started with fitness stuff due to my neck and back. I look at what I'm logging in and it's basically nothing. It's not even physically hard for me to do and is so far beneath the threshold of what I could probably do it would normally be registered as a warm up. I wonder if I could still operate if I cut my neck and upper back off? That said, even with debilitating tension headaches lasting for days because I wasn't addressing them, I made it through school and other social stuff pretty easy which is a big deal for me as the combination of those things used to shut me down completely as far as anxiety goes. (Gotta reframe for a silver lining here, because this is a depressing log entry)
