Yep, I put on a couple of pounds over the winter. Not too proud of it, but I ate well and lifted a lot of weights. It's just that I didn't do much else. A whole lot of sitting went on, and I have gained some waistline softness because of it. But no worries, with the nicer weather I've been getting out for walks much more often and last week started doing some interval training to burn off some fat! Along with that I'm doing some intermittent fasting a few times a week. Basically, whenever I feel like it. Trying to keep it a little random. The one bad thing is that one of my favorite intense cardio exercises is the "Burpee" but a last week ago I tweaked my back after stupidly deciding to throw an extra 50 pounds on my deadlift and even though I gave it a week and all seemed well I went to bust out some Burpees the other day and during the third set my lower back went into spasms and locked up on me! It sucks. So today I had to come up with something I could do to get the heart pumping without putting a lot of strain on the lower back. So here's what I did:
8 High Jumps
8 Overhead Presses
8 Squats
Sprint to the end of the driveway (about 30 yards) turn and sprint back to the garage.
I repeated this for 20 minutes, taking breaks when I needed them and lifting only the bar (45 pounds) until the about 12 minutes in when I decided to add 20 pounds to it.
It totally did the trick, my back didn't ache or lock up and my heart was pumping really hard!
I also did this workout in a fasted state and ate immediately afterwards. Was good.
-Ultimate Russell
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
The Winter Doldrums are coming to a Close. Time to get back to Business!
Holy crap, it has been above freezing for a few days now, any snow we get melts promptly and I swear before Aquaman that I have actually seen the sun the last couple days. You know what that means... Winter is officially OVER!! Oh man, I cannot believe it! I seriously thought it might never end.
So that's great. Now with that aside I need to address something...
Sorry for infrequent/no new posting. I was kind of in hibernate mode and didn't feel like I had a whole lot to talk about. Even though I did have some pretty cool stuff to talk about. Guess I was just dealing with the crap weather and not feeling motivated. But with the big thaw going on I feel the motivation engine firing back up, so I promise you can expect more updates more frequently.
So what HAS the Ultimate Russell been up to? Well, a couple things:
1. I did some playing around with some DEEP ketosis! I'm talking practically ZERO carb for probably about 45 days. All I ate was meat, eggs, and a little butter to cook in. Also drank some clear alcohol ro wine on the weekends. It was interesting, for the most part I felt really good and didn't have some of the power drops like some people complain about. But when I started mixing in a little more high intensity activity with my heavy lifting I did start to feel a little beat up. So I have begun instituting a once or twice a week carb re-feed and that has helped tremendously!
2. The Pavel Tsatsouline 5x5x5 lifting protocol. This is a pretty cool setup and I like it, you are able to get in, get out, set some PR's, and get big and strong. But what is the 5x5x5? I'll tell you...
-You lift 5 days a week. When you lift you do 5 exercises. For most of the exercises you do 2 sets of 5 reps. Those are the basics. A little more detail goes like this. Lift HEAVY! If you know your one-rep-max I would operate in the 85-95% range. Also don't do touch and go deadlifts! Take a big breath between each attempt and STOP IF IT HURTS!! When you achieve 5 reps for both sets it's time to bump up the weight a little bit. That's a LITTLE bit. I usually go with 5 pounds at a time.
My 5x5x5 looked like this:
Deadlift - 2x5
Bench Press - 2x5
Weighted Pull-Ups - 2x5
Kettlebell Swings - 1 set max reps
Weighted Sit-Ups - 1x5
So that's how I started and everything was going fine until I started getting some pain in my shoulders during the bench press. Turns out it was the old rotator cuff. So for the last 3 or 4 weeks I've been substituting weighted push-ups for the bench press and enjoying that much more. And while the bench press is indeed an awesome and powerful lift I do find it a little non-functional and the weighted push-ups just appeal to that side of my brain a little more.
So I've been doing this program for a solid 10 weeks and am definitely much stronger than when I started. My back is much bigger, broader, and dense. And while I initially did not expect to see huge results in body composition I've had better results doing this than anything I have tried previously. My chest has gotten much more broad and muscular. I like.
But, one piece of the puzzle was missing, and that was the fact that I basically was only doing this 25-30 minutes of lifting a day and otherwise just sitting around the house, eating lots and lots of meat. So that had to change. So for the last 2 weeks I've also been doing some Zombiefit.org routines and trying to get out for a nice walk whenever I can. I don't do the Z-fit as religiously as I do the lifting but I have really been enjoying getting the heart pounding with burpees, push-ups, box jumps, and sprinting. And yeas, that was SPRINTING in there! It seems my Sartorious issue's have been completely healed up! So I've been getting outside on nice days and pounding out some intervals. In the future I'll probably forgo most of the Z-fit programming and do my one thing but it's nice to have it there when I run out of cool ideas.
Now to address sitting:
It's simple... Sitting = Death. You sit a lot and don't move... you're gonna get sick and die. Our ancestors sat, but they did stuff while they sat. They didn't have TV, Video Games or Facebook to veg out on. So as I write this I am standing. I kicked my chair out and have done all computer related stuff standing up this week. And it surprisingly has not been hard, AT ALL!! It has been easy, and my normal sore lower back in the morning has gone away completely! Totally awesome! Now to be honest I do sit down sometimes, but I've been trying to spend as little time just sitting and doing nothing as possible. It's only been a week and I haven't been weighing/measuring to monitor results, and honestly I don't much care because I feel better physically and mentally. So that's that.
That's enough for now. Expect to see a couple reviews in the near future, as well as some stuff about homemade equipment and workout logs. Glad to be back atcha'!!
-Ultimate Russell
So that's great. Now with that aside I need to address something...
Sorry for infrequent/no new posting. I was kind of in hibernate mode and didn't feel like I had a whole lot to talk about. Even though I did have some pretty cool stuff to talk about. Guess I was just dealing with the crap weather and not feeling motivated. But with the big thaw going on I feel the motivation engine firing back up, so I promise you can expect more updates more frequently.
So what HAS the Ultimate Russell been up to? Well, a couple things:
1. I did some playing around with some DEEP ketosis! I'm talking practically ZERO carb for probably about 45 days. All I ate was meat, eggs, and a little butter to cook in. Also drank some clear alcohol ro wine on the weekends. It was interesting, for the most part I felt really good and didn't have some of the power drops like some people complain about. But when I started mixing in a little more high intensity activity with my heavy lifting I did start to feel a little beat up. So I have begun instituting a once or twice a week carb re-feed and that has helped tremendously!
2. The Pavel Tsatsouline 5x5x5 lifting protocol. This is a pretty cool setup and I like it, you are able to get in, get out, set some PR's, and get big and strong. But what is the 5x5x5? I'll tell you...
-You lift 5 days a week. When you lift you do 5 exercises. For most of the exercises you do 2 sets of 5 reps. Those are the basics. A little more detail goes like this. Lift HEAVY! If you know your one-rep-max I would operate in the 85-95% range. Also don't do touch and go deadlifts! Take a big breath between each attempt and STOP IF IT HURTS!! When you achieve 5 reps for both sets it's time to bump up the weight a little bit. That's a LITTLE bit. I usually go with 5 pounds at a time.
My 5x5x5 looked like this:
Deadlift - 2x5
Bench Press - 2x5
Weighted Pull-Ups - 2x5
Kettlebell Swings - 1 set max reps
Weighted Sit-Ups - 1x5
So that's how I started and everything was going fine until I started getting some pain in my shoulders during the bench press. Turns out it was the old rotator cuff. So for the last 3 or 4 weeks I've been substituting weighted push-ups for the bench press and enjoying that much more. And while the bench press is indeed an awesome and powerful lift I do find it a little non-functional and the weighted push-ups just appeal to that side of my brain a little more.
So I've been doing this program for a solid 10 weeks and am definitely much stronger than when I started. My back is much bigger, broader, and dense. And while I initially did not expect to see huge results in body composition I've had better results doing this than anything I have tried previously. My chest has gotten much more broad and muscular. I like.
But, one piece of the puzzle was missing, and that was the fact that I basically was only doing this 25-30 minutes of lifting a day and otherwise just sitting around the house, eating lots and lots of meat. So that had to change. So for the last 2 weeks I've also been doing some Zombiefit.org routines and trying to get out for a nice walk whenever I can. I don't do the Z-fit as religiously as I do the lifting but I have really been enjoying getting the heart pounding with burpees, push-ups, box jumps, and sprinting. And yeas, that was SPRINTING in there! It seems my Sartorious issue's have been completely healed up! So I've been getting outside on nice days and pounding out some intervals. In the future I'll probably forgo most of the Z-fit programming and do my one thing but it's nice to have it there when I run out of cool ideas.
Now to address sitting:
It's simple... Sitting = Death. You sit a lot and don't move... you're gonna get sick and die. Our ancestors sat, but they did stuff while they sat. They didn't have TV, Video Games or Facebook to veg out on. So as I write this I am standing. I kicked my chair out and have done all computer related stuff standing up this week. And it surprisingly has not been hard, AT ALL!! It has been easy, and my normal sore lower back in the morning has gone away completely! Totally awesome! Now to be honest I do sit down sometimes, but I've been trying to spend as little time just sitting and doing nothing as possible. It's only been a week and I haven't been weighing/measuring to monitor results, and honestly I don't much care because I feel better physically and mentally. So that's that.
That's enough for now. Expect to see a couple reviews in the near future, as well as some stuff about homemade equipment and workout logs. Glad to be back atcha'!!
-Ultimate Russell
Saturday, January 15, 2011
A sign of hope on the running front.
So I don't quite remember why I thought it but the other day I was wondering if my mysterious lower abdominal pain while running had anything to do with what I was doing bio-mechanically. So I began doing some more research, looking at profiles with similar pain issues related to running and not just limited to the minimalist/barefoot crowd. And I made a one very interesting discovery. It seems that over striding can lead to a similarly described pain in some people. I read one post from a man who said that he was a heel striker, had the lower abs pain, switched over to a mid foot strike and was now pain free. The only question was if this would pertain to me. As I have mentioned before I am a forefoot striker and thought I was pretty much clear of any over striding woes due to that fact alone. But that may not be the case. Today I went out for a very short one mile jog and really forced myself to stay locked into a mid foot strike. And surprisingly enough the whole mile was ab pain free.... almost. First, at one point I tried to do more of a heel strike and purposely over stride, and that did cause a slight twinge in the abs. Also, once or twice my mind would wander and I reverted back to a forefoot strike and experienced the same twinge. So I locked it back down and continued the mid-foot strike. And both times, immediately upon switching back to my mid-foot the ab pain went away. So, it's not exactly conclusive that my issue all along was related to over striding but it certainly is an interesting thing to try. Next week I'll go for another one mile run and see what I think. But for now, I'm hopeful that this will correct my issue.
-Ultimate Russell
-Ultimate Russell
Thursday, January 6, 2011
What I Learned About Food During Vacation.
So last week I took a few days off work and went on vacation. Now, from what I understand vacations are usually taken fairly regularly. I myself have not been on a proper "Vacation" for maybe 10 years or more. The last time I went on vacation was probably shortly out of High School, so it might have been more like 12 years. And while not all my jobs have been super intense the fact is I'm one of those guys who are always "Hustlin' for that cheddar, son." So even times of relative ease I try to maximize things. So whatev.... I went on vacation.
Where did I go? Madison, WI to visit my wife's sister. It was a VERY good time, lot's of laughs and fun. Even though the weather wasn't great we did a lot of exploring. Good times were had by all.
The only negative was that I went WAY off the Paleo Diet while I was there. Now, could I have made it work while I was down there? Definitely. There was a grocery store just down the road called "The Willy Street Co-Op" that had the most awesome collection of Grass-Fed meats, Organic, Non-GMO foods, and Supplements without a ton of crap in them.
So yeah, I could have provided myself with food for the duration but that would have been pretty rude. So instead I decided just to enjoy myself and play loose with the Paleo.
And here's what I experienced:
I was bloated, had quite a bit of GI distress, slept horribly, and was generally nowhere near 100%. All that being said it was totally worth it for the fun and battery re-charging. Immediately upon arriving home I got to work cleaning up my food and instantly all the bloating and GI issues evaporated.
So what did I learn? My body loves meat, veggies, and fruit with occasional small amounts of dairy. My body hates Grains, most Processed Foods, and massive sugar bombs. But with how good I feel now my body also enjoys occasionally throwing all caution to the wind and just straight up enjoying myself.
Lessons, lessons, lessons.
-Ultimate Russell
Where did I go? Madison, WI to visit my wife's sister. It was a VERY good time, lot's of laughs and fun. Even though the weather wasn't great we did a lot of exploring. Good times were had by all.
The only negative was that I went WAY off the Paleo Diet while I was there. Now, could I have made it work while I was down there? Definitely. There was a grocery store just down the road called "The Willy Street Co-Op" that had the most awesome collection of Grass-Fed meats, Organic, Non-GMO foods, and Supplements without a ton of crap in them.
So yeah, I could have provided myself with food for the duration but that would have been pretty rude. So instead I decided just to enjoy myself and play loose with the Paleo.
And here's what I experienced:
I was bloated, had quite a bit of GI distress, slept horribly, and was generally nowhere near 100%. All that being said it was totally worth it for the fun and battery re-charging. Immediately upon arriving home I got to work cleaning up my food and instantly all the bloating and GI issues evaporated.
So what did I learn? My body loves meat, veggies, and fruit with occasional small amounts of dairy. My body hates Grains, most Processed Foods, and massive sugar bombs. But with how good I feel now my body also enjoys occasionally throwing all caution to the wind and just straight up enjoying myself.
Lessons, lessons, lessons.
-Ultimate Russell
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
No more running for who knows how long...
Damnation! Well apparently whatever the damage that stopped my running this Summer was NOT the Sartorious Muscle. It's something else like a tear in my lower abdominals. Tried to run for about 10 minutes today and had to stop because the pain started up again. Guess there will be no racing this Summer.
So yeah, that really sucks as I was really looking forward to getting back at it. I may be able to do some sprints once a week this Summer or something but I don't know. Very disappointing. Normally I would just run through the pain but it ends up affecting all other aspects of my life. When it's bad even simply sitting up in bed is a struggle. So I'd rather continue to have a full range of movement and not be able to run instead of running, being in pain, not enjoying it, and also not being able to perform in other areas.
One of the strange things is that it's really a running specific pain. Out of all the different lifts I do none of them seem to bother it except occasionally when doing lunges I would feel like it was stretching but not painfully.
I don't know what to do. If I could afford it I'd go get some tests done but that's kinda out of the question right now. Probably just gonna do a lot of bike riding this Summer.
-sigh-
-Ultimate Russell
So yeah, that really sucks as I was really looking forward to getting back at it. I may be able to do some sprints once a week this Summer or something but I don't know. Very disappointing. Normally I would just run through the pain but it ends up affecting all other aspects of my life. When it's bad even simply sitting up in bed is a struggle. So I'd rather continue to have a full range of movement and not be able to run instead of running, being in pain, not enjoying it, and also not being able to perform in other areas.
One of the strange things is that it's really a running specific pain. Out of all the different lifts I do none of them seem to bother it except occasionally when doing lunges I would feel like it was stretching but not painfully.
I don't know what to do. If I could afford it I'd go get some tests done but that's kinda out of the question right now. Probably just gonna do a lot of bike riding this Summer.
-sigh-
-Ultimate Russell
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Vacation
Gonna be out of town starting today til the new year!! I know I've been promising lot's of updates and they haven't appeared but that's changing with the new year. Hope you guys have a good one!
-Ultimate Russell
-Ultimate Russell
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The Plan takes effect January 1st, 2011!!
That's right, the long awaited return to regular running begins January 1st! I'm gonna start heading out in the Five Fingers as it's still cold and snowy here, to begin putting the running machine back together. I've done a couple little practice jogs and my form is still pretty good. Initial distances will probably not be much more than a mile or two for a couple weeks but soon I'll be doing three's and five's to start preparing for the Melt the Ice 5k in March. We'll see how it jives with the weight lifting (which is going great, btw) hopefully the two disciplines together should make for some awesome body comp changes. Also, I don't believe I'll be shooting for anything further than a 5k this year. Running is great and all but it does put a big stress on my body and I simply don't have the time for 3-4 hour training runs. Oh well, guess it just means I get to do more fast, short distances. I like those better anyway.
-Ultimate Russell
-Ultimate Russell
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