FITNESS UPDATE: Insanity progression

Well, I made it through the first stage of "Insanity," the Beachbody workout program that I have been doing for the past couple of months. It only took me six weeks to get through the four-week stage of the program, being as I could only work out 3-5 times a week instead of the 6 days a week the program has scheduled. I don't know if this negatively impacted my progress. I do know that I did see some progress, because the "Fit Test" showed gains on most of the moves. Also, I was able to do some of the exercises better at the end than the first time around.

During the "recovery week," the program provided a specific workout to do five days in a row. It took me two weeks to get in five workout days, and I decided to alternate the ":recovery" workouts with the "upper body weight training" workouts, because I want more upper body weight training. 

I don't think this is fighting against the intention of the program too much for a couple of reasons:

1. The recovery workouts, both in this period and once a week during the regular program, are low on the cardio, as is the UBWT. 

2. Those recovery workouts focus on building strength, as does UBWT.

The one big difference is that the recovery workouts really focus on building leg strength, while the UBWT, of course, is about the upper body.

Leg strength is really important in building cardio, it seems. Most of the exercises involve variants of running, jumping, hopping, and squatting. I have found that my ability to complete a set is dependent on my cardio and my leg muscle endurance being both better, and at an equal level. I can tell when my lungs and heart are not done but the legs won't move any more, and when the legs can still do more, but I can't breathe and my heart is about to explode.

I am still using the Indian Clubs to augment my shoulder-arm workout. In fact, as I get stronger, I use them more. Although their weight combined is barely equal to my daily weight range, I can feel the resistance and it does add marginally to  my fatigue, but particularly in the shoulders.

I also notice that the way the clubs are held affects the exercize. When held at the bottom of the handle, the clubs can be swung, creating the opportunity to exercise my fingers and sword-gripping muscles (hand and forearm). Also, when at arms length, they feel heavier. If I choke up on them, I am still holding the same weight, but the stress is different. In some moves where I am supposed to pretend I am punching something, I adapt to striking them with the clubs. SCA-style.

More to come...

Fitness Update: Lessons and Realizations

A short history of Indian Clubs and their use in exercise. They are mentioned in the post below.

I started this portion of this Blog in the hopes that I would share discoveries and revelations and realizations and lessons learned and gains made after every single workout. Then it became every week. Then it became...eventually, like today.

I am realizing that my 60-hour work week, with "free time" taken up by helping my mom (who is "at that age," as they say), spending time with my GF (which MUST be prioritized!) and sleeping allows little time to do this at all. The best I can hope for is a slow period at work where I can squeeze this in. that being the case, here are some observations and achievements of the past few weeks...

I finished the first month of Sean T's BeachBody "Insanity" program (from a ten-year-old DVD set). It only took me six weeks because I could seldom get more than three or four days of workouts in per week, while it was designed for five days a week. Sometimes I threw in the "Upper Body Weight Training" workout during the "off" day of the rotations because the regular program does not do much in that regard. That specific workout has left me dizzy and even a slight ringing in my ears the way it mixes lifting weights with cardio in 4-part supersets done at high intensity, often working more than one body part per exercise.

Because I still need to focus on my surgically repaired shoulder, I would occasionally follow up a workout with a half-dozen shoulder-focused exercises from a Wai Lana yoga DVD I found in a thrift shop. There are some things that shoulder will never do again, and I am coming to the realization that I am going to have to work that shoulder out more often to get it to do certain things that it can do to do as well as the other shoulder. 

These and other workout, fitness, and yoga videos are available on Amazon.com. I get a small percentage of any purchase you make if you click on any Amazon link to get there.

 

 Mostly, right now, the trouble is the strength and the endurance. For some movements I must recruit my shoulder blade and my abdominal muscles to get the shoulder to go places it used to by itself. Those muscles are not used to working that hard to do that, and even simply rotating them tires out the new shoulder faster than the old one. 

My fitness gains are sort of a competition between my muscles and my cardio. When I started, I found that my muscles gave out before my cardio did. Maybe this was from the jogging I had done a few times? Or perhaps my base-level of fitness and the way my body has become accustomed to cardio work has stayed with me better than the muscle strength I used to have? But my muscle strength is coming back, slowly. 

 I have incorporated my Indian Clubs into my workout. While their total weight is probably less than the natural variance of my body weight on a busy day, they do add just a touch of weight resistance hen moving my arms in running- and jumping-type exercises. Adjusting how I hold them gives different effects to the act of moving them, lifting them, swinging them. Sometimes they even encourage me to do more shoulder-focused movements, which I need. 

You can shop for Indian clubs and books and videos on how to use them on Amazon.com. If you buy anything after clicking one of the links below, I get a small percentage.

 My abs are weak, but a lot of abdominal exercises in Insanity really are all about the hip flexors, those muscles that lift the legs. Mine are also pretty weak. It turns out that lifting one leg over and over again is a tougher workout than marching, or moving your legs in the same manner alternately. I guess that is because when you walk or march you give the hip flexor time to recover between each rep (or step). 

I have worked my way down from my starting max weight of 205 lbs to a minimum weight of 198, with about a 3-lb variance over the course of a day. My goal is to get comfortably under 200 with some solid muscle and less fat around my middle. I am capable of "sucking it in" with the best of 'em, showing some abdominal definition, but when I relax there is a significant pot that "dun-lopped" over my belt.

My ultimate goal is to have a functionally strong body that looks it, and to return to armored combat, grappling, and stage combat. I am a little concerned that my shoulder won't be ready and that my non-surgically repaired knee, injured last winter in a slip-and-fall, my need surgery before I return.

MORE TO COME...

Fitness Update: Lessons being learned 7/23/2021

 You can support this blog by buying this product through this link. Or click on the link and then buy a different product. Either way, I get a small percentage of the sale :)

 So I have been at the "Insanity" fitness videos for the past month or so (Click on the Amazon product ad above for more into about it). While they are designed to be done 6 out of 7 days, I am lucky to get in as many as five, more often, three or four, but I have tried to make up for some of those missing days with a 30-minute workout I found on YouTube, or a routine with various weights I have at home. This is mostly because my double-work schedule often means that if I am home and not working, I must chose between sleeping and doing anything else in the world, and sleeping is the thing that most needs to be done.

That having been said,  I have discovered a few things:

Initially, my cardio was stronger than my muscles, meaning my legs would give out before my cardio reached its peak. The muscles have been catching up a little bit, though, or else my cardio has gotten a little worse.

I need to do squats and other leg exercises with weights, because on pure body weight I am just not getting the power I need.

About 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through a set, I find my self flagging. I can dig in and do the move great about 3 or 4 times, then I fall out again.

Judging by my push-ups and chest presses, much of my chest size must be fat, not muscle.

My serratus anteriors are starting to show definition, if you look real hard.

There is a layer of fat around the middle of my torso. It juggles on my back when doing things like "floor sprints" and "in-and-out abs. It is still there, but it is "jiggling' just a little bit les, like it is becoming more solid.

My weight can vary as much a 3 lbs a day!

My weight was getting just under 200 lbs, when I went to a wedding. The next day I was at 304lbs. I could not get back under 200 lbs until just yesterday, after a couple of days in which I spent most of the daytime in bed, asleep, after working overnight shifts. Maybe that weight was just bloat from eating?

As the program goes on, I am using a pair of Indian clubs I have by carrying them in my hands through the warm-ups and some of the regular exercises. I started after the first week, and have been gradually increasing the number of sets I do with them in my hands. They combined weight is barely equal to my daily weight fluctuations, but it does add just a bit of resistance to the movement of my arms, particularly if I hold them at the ends of the handles during certain moves. I consider the number of times I pump my biceps and shoulders when jogging in place, doing the "Heisman, or jumping jacks, that little bit of resistance must be accentuating the work out here just a little bit. Eventually I will move up to wearing my steel gauntlets, which I did the last time I went though a hardcore period of these workouts.

But these workouts alone will not get me back to anything near my top physical shape, I don't think. For that I have to get back to serious weight training, fighting in armor, and doing kickboxing, BJJ, or both, five days a week. For that, I will have to quit one of my jobs.

Stay tuned...

Fitness Update: Actual "Worst Shape of My Life." Part 2

 ...but before I tell you exactly what happened, let me describe just a little bit more of my fitness journey. Bear with me, it won't take long and everything else will make more sense.

I had started fitness training (mostly weights) from the influence of a friend of mine whom I would later start dating. I found that it very positively affected my fighting in the Society for Creative Anachronism. I later took up Brazilian jiu jitsu, competing in 50 matches, and then full-contact medieval armored combat, going to world championship competition with the USA team for three years.

Here is possibly the most epic match of my competitive grappling career:

With each of these new challenges I found myself experiencing more means by which to gain strength and endurance and reached new levels of fitness. At my peak I was doing some form of training or fighting five or six days a week. My weight ranged from just under 180 lbs to a bit above 190 lbs depending on what I was training for.

In addition to the SCA armored combat and the BJJ, the training I did included weightlifting, running, Crossfit, kickboxing, Insanity videos. and various bodyweight exercise drills.

Then I tore the ACL in my right knee:

I still trained, but I was unable to fight, and when I got my knee surgically repaired, I was unable to train in certain ways until I was fully healed.

Then I tore my rotator cuff (sadly, no video of this exists). This again limited my training, as there were things I just could not do with my shoulder after that.

Then other "life stuff" got in the way and my weight ballooned to over 200 lbs. I took pictures of myself. I can "suck it in" with the best of 'em, but when I released my belly, I honestly looked like the fat guy with skinny arms.

When I decided to get back to training, I started the Insanity videos again. This time, however, I could actually feel the fat on my torso jiggling up and down when doing any routine that involved having my hands on the floor. It was disconcerting. But progress was being made. I would wear my steel gauntlets  and padded gambeson while doing Insanity videos, getting a little extra resistance and sweat in my workout...and then my room got hit with the "Order to Repair/Vacate Order"....and that brings us up to date.

So, after the yoga, and looking at my bathroom scale not making the number go down below 205, I started up with the Insanity again.

I determined that my muscles were not as strong as my cardio. They would get too sore and tired to continue before I would get too out of breath to continue. I felt the jiggling of the fat in my chest and my stomach when doing running and jumping things, and again I felt the fat around my torso bounce up and down as I did "floor sprints" and other hands-on-floor exercises.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? WAIT UNTIL THE NEXT POST AND FIND OUT!

Fitness Update: Actual "Worst Shape of My Life." Part 1

 So, if you have been hanging on, waiting for the answers to the questions left behind in my last post on this blog, wait no longer. The answers are here:

I was unable to keep up a diet and exercise regimen to maintain my fitness gains from Pennsic 2019. Let me tell you how it went:

I got back from Pennsic and returned to my 80-hours-a-week two job schedule. this left me with little time for any kind of working out, as there were only two days a week that I was able to put together more than two hours at a time in which to sleep. It was all I could do to put on armor for the Tuesday night fighter practice.

Then, in late November, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development put my room under an "Order to Repair/Vacate Order" for lack of a fire escape, which my building manager tried to parlay into a de facto eviction. I had five days to get my stuff out of the room before it would be locked,  I took the week off from work and spent it packing and moving stuff into storage spaces while running around to lawyers and community activist groups and Housing Court to figure out my rights.

I was able to move in with my GF for a while, but by the end of that week and all the carrying of boxes and running up and down stairs, I had gone from about 225 lbs to under 215! My cardio and strength was up, and though I was an emotional, sleep-deprived wreck, I was pretty fit!

Then I had my shoulder surgery. It had been planned for months, and I needed it, because there were things I just could not do with my right arm anymore, like swing a sword or lift a drink to my mouth without sticking my elbow out sideways like John McCain.

That surgery, of course, meant that I could not fully operate my arm until the physical therapy brought it fully back. I was using the stationary bike in my GF's house and doing all the required exercises, but I still had to keep the arm in a sling for several months.

Spring, 2020 came, and with it, the COVID-19 shutdown. This prevented the local SCA from having any more fighter practices, but I kept things active by going outside every Tuesday and  conducting a "virtual" fighter practice on Facebook Live. I posted the videos on YouTube weekly, and you can actually see my arm go from being in a sling to being able to do pushups over the 15 weeks that I did this.

Here are all the videos in a convenient YouTube "playlist" and the first and last in the series:

SCA Virtual Fighter practice YouTube Playlist

 

I did have to  move again in July, and then again in October. The last time I was able to find an apartment of my own in which I could keep almost everything I had placed in storage. This required another massive move of stuff, including up and down stairs. By the time that was all done, I was down to 205 lbs.

For better or worse, during that summer I had been furloughed form one of my jobs, so I was able to do all this moving and even get in a workout once or twice a week (usually either an Insanity workout or some 30-minute, total body workout I would find on YouTube. I should start reviewing those...).

But shortly after moving into my new apartment, I got the call from the job that furloughed me that they needed me back part-time. So from then until now I have been working 60-hour weeks, with occasional weeks in which my "full-time" job would not have work for me for a day or three.

So I was back to not working out. I could not find the time, and even the weights that I used to have did not seem to have made it to my new home. I developed a routine for my shoulders at my night job, but it really was not anything that would give me cardio or visible muscular gains.

So I stumbled on some beginner yoga DVDs at a local thrift shot, bought them up, and, in February, when my "full-rime" job had barely one or two days a week for me to work, used that available time to do one DVD after another (And yes, I do intend to review those).

So that is my first tome doing yoga as a regular Thing. I have had enough experiences with various fitness, dance, martial arts, and movement programs to be able to recognize how each of these disks trained in a different way. They sent my body into positions I had forgotten I could o, and now no longer could! They al got my body out of its stiff, weak place and awakened unused muscles. It was a great way to bring a body that had been simply standing all night, sitting all day and sleeping in between back to the world of Being Active. One particular program even had a series of exercises deliberately hitting the shoulders in a way that my repaired shoulder specifically needs to be hit!

I also went running a few times. My leg muscles needed work, but I felt that my cardio was still good for the distance.

So after a few weeks I figured it was time to get back to something more intense. So I pulled out the old Insanity videos.

Now, I had gone through two or three periods of doing the Insanity program pretty seriously. but I never got far enough along to move to the upper level. Still, I could measure my relative fitness by how good I was at keeping up with the cardio and strength demands. So I did the "fit test" and came  in with numbers that were comparable to what they had been in the past, if a little lower on most of them. Then, the next day, I did the first workout...

TO BE CONTINUED!

Fitness Update: Return from Pennsic

Confession: One reason that I have been hitting the workout trail so hard is to both look good and move well at the Pennsic War this year. For those unfamiliar with Pennsic, here is the trailer for a documentary I made with Simply the Best G.A. West:

So I went to Pennsic. In the year that I was in "the worst shape of my life," I would go out to the battlefield in the morning to marshal the battles (I was recovering from knee injury) and that knocked me out for the day. In successive years I made sure I had some fitness going on so I could marshal or fight and still recover soon enough to do things before the sun went down. This year I can say that such was the case again.

I only fought one battle due to my shoulder injury. It was the bridge battle, and no, I did not hurt myself worse. In the four rounds, I died in two "glory charges" against an advancing enemy and the killed three people in one battle and one in another.

I marshaled other battles, and though I was capable of being active the rest of the day, it actually turned out that I did not go around much. I felt an overall felling of low energy the entire event, and it was not the same kid of out-of-shape fatigue I had before.

I suspect it has to do with diet and energy drinks. Because I am currently working multiple jobs and long hours many days, I frequently don;t get much sleep and use a variety of energy drinks to keep myself going. Depending on the time of day, the task at hand, and what is available I may use 5-hour energy, Arizona Extreme Energy, Red Bull, Monster, or some random alternate-brand energy drink that is low-cost, on sale, or right in front of me. I have learned when it's time to chug and when to sip. I know that one does not have to finish a whole can in one sitting. Sometimes I believe the taste of a 5-hour energy is more Pavlovian or placebo in its effect, and make sure I am not hungry when I use it so I don;t wash the taste from my mouth.

At Pennsic, I made an effort to not use energy drinks as much as possible. I did not quit cold turkey, but for the most part I was able to avoid them. This may have been why I felt low-energy so much. Fortunately, except for marshaling and fighting there was not much need for energy this year (and those activities usually pick me up by themselves, no chemical additives necessary).

I also notice my diet was different at Pennsic than in NYC. On most days I have a big bowl of high-fiber cereal in the morning, a lunch of rice & beans with roast pork or bacolao and a dinner of leftover lunch or (if at my overnight job) a roast beef hero. This diet also includes 2% milk, orange juice, and snacks of nuts and dried fruits, chocolate candies like Snickers Peanut Butter and Reese's Nutrageous, and yogurt. The occasional chicken burrito, lamb gyro, pork shish-kebab, or ice cream cone gets in there as well. And I drink green tea every day.

With this diet I had been maintaining a small gut that has stuck with  me for the past few years. I was just starting to see some results from the Insanity workouts and switching to vegetables instead of extra beans for lunch.

At Pennsic I ate less, and was more careful about what. I had cereal, yogurt, and orange juice at breakfast, but when given the option at lunch or dinner, I would choose a salad over french fries. I would have a double scoop of ice cream after a battle and a moderate turkey-and-ham cold-cut sandwich later for lunch, and not eat again until dinner. There was little rice, no pasta, and again, few energy drinks. There was also less snacking (though I did make sure to have a couple of pickles every day).

When I got back to the city I looked at myself. I was slimmer! I don't know if I lost weight (I don't own a scale) but my serratus anteriors had returned! I did an Insanity workout and I was not feeling that fat roll on my back!

Now the question is: can I adjust my NYC diet and keep up my exercise level to maintain and advance these gains?

And more intensely, what will my forthcoming shoulder surgery mean for my fitness regimen?

Stay tuned!

FITNESS UPDATE 7/23/2019

So, again it has been a while since my last post. I can let the cat out of the bag now. The objective for which I was training was the TV show "Knight Fight." I had been invited to be on the show and, despite my torn rotator cuff (more about that someday) figured I would be the "(my age) comeback kid." I worked out like a fiend to get in shape, even feting back into the full-contact arena at Sword Class NYC. In the end, however, they decided to cut me before my episodic was to be shot, and I would up watching it from Emblem Sports Bar with the members of the NY chapter of the Armored Combat League (including several fighters who were on the show).

But then I got cast in some plays, and was not making it to the gym as often, so my fitness diminished. I made up for it a bit by bicycling to the rehearsals, and the rehearsals did include a strong dance element, which was good. But when spring came back around, those jogs around the lawn were tougher than hey had been at the end of last summer.

So about two months ago I made the decision to get back on the fitness track. I did not feel like I was in the "top 5" of the worst shape of my live (the bicycling and dance were keeping me active) but I was definitely "fatter" than I have ever bee. Those 34-waist pants have not closed around my waist in a few years now. My serratus anteriors had disappeared. I had that fat roll under my arms that connects the back to the chest that football linemen have.

Now, I still have that torn rotator cuff (looking at surgery very soon), so there are certain things I cannot do with my right arm. But I still have those "Insanity" workout DVDs, so I have been using them.

More to come.