Thursday Sept 29

Oh, things are changing slightly these days ... gone are the days of going for a relaxing walk with the family after a nice dinner in shorts and a t-shirt. Man, the fact of the matter is, we're friggin' busy.

Unreal.



Anyway, I'm also working my way though Convict Conditioning, a rather interesting tome on working out with just your body weight. Rather cool. I included some of the midsection material in today's workout:

Five rounds of
30 KB swings
20 BW squats
20 second wall assisted hand stands
15 knee tucks
5 chin ups
20 push ups

It was cool, man. Good tunes today, too. Just didn't feel like killing myself today, not really. Body was and is hurting from .. I don't know. .... "stuff"?

Ate this today:

Breakfast: Steak and scrambled eggs, water to drink

Snack: coffee on the way in

Lunch ; Tuna sandwich, veggies. Water

Dinner small bowl of pasta

Post rugby snack: a pint of beer

After training, I did a ladder, of sorts:

10 push ups and 1 BW squat, all the way to 10 BW squats and 1 push up. Between switching, I did a 20 m sprint. I also got a sneak peak at the selection list for Saturday. I was reading it upside down and ... I don't think I was on the list. That's what happens when you don't make it to rugby training. Ok, well...on with Friday.

Wed Sept 28

So ... today was supposed to be a rest day, but since I had a light day yesterday, I figured I could do the same today. I went for a 20 minute run and did two one minute sets of kettlebell snatch for each arm.

I got 25 reps per side for both the 30 and the 40 lb bell. Since I'm no math guy, I figured I'd write it out here; 25 reps per minute, times five minutes is 125 reps for one side. And I have two sides ... so 250 reps. Hmmm. Not sure I'd get that high on November 6th, but it might be interesting to try ... lol. 237 on the scale.

In any case, after that, I ate this:

Breakfast: eggs and chicken breast. Water to drink.

Snack: coffee on the way into work.

Lunch: tuna, veggies and water

Dinner: steak, veggies and water

After night school ; water.

Tues Sept 27

I woke up pretty cranky today, but I'm glad to write that my family were really nice to me. Kids were listening to me and everything (so far) went off without too much of a hitch.

Got to work and it was fairly slow, so I pulled out my copy of Convict Conditioning (on my laptop) and read a few pages from the Abdominal section. I can recall feeling a lot of pain after doing some of these movements. I'm pretty sure I can add some of them back into my training without really hurting myself. Well, I'll at least try, anyways.

I still felt kinda crappy from yesterday's workout, so I kept it short and good:

Four rounds of:
20 KB swings (40 lb kb used)
10 KB snatches each side
20 crunches (yeah, I know, I know)
10 ab side flexes (see pic)
20 BW squats



Did some light stretching to start and finish.

I ate this:

Breakfast: smoothie: frozen berries, milk and chocolate protein powder. Deelish. Coffee on the way in.

Lunch: tuna sandwich, veggies and water to drink.

Snack water, water and more water

Dinner: Roast beef and veggie wraps. Lots of Sarachi sauce, which simply made things awesome.

I'm glad to report that I honestly tried to stay up and watch the Canada v Japan game, which of course ended in a tie. I'm going ot blame myself, of course. If I had been up, Canada would have won .... ;)

Sunday and Monday Sept 26

Sunday was a day of recovery. Lots of foam rolling, stretching. I did work up a bit of a sweat with my kids in my garage, but nothing major. Just too many of them and only one very sore me.

My ankles were are fire, man. I dunno if that's the game I play, or me. I'm icing them a day later.

I any case, on Monday, I was pretty happy with a weight check (238) and did a really good workout. I did this for five rounds:

8-10 tire deadlifts - got up to 190lbs inside the tire, plus the weight of the tire
10 TRX body rows
20 feet up push ups
20 KB swings - 44lb bell used
10 bicep curls (40 lbs used)
10 triceps extensions
20 weight overhead lunges (25lb plate used)
10 knees to chest while hanging off the chin up bar




Man, that was grueling. I'm pretty sure I'll be sore tomorrow.

Ate this:

After training breakfast: protein smoothie: powder, milk and frozen berries in the blender.

Snack: coffee on the way into work

Lunch: tuna sandwich, veggies with hummus and pita. Water to drink.

Dinner: Roast beef, rice and veggies. Water to drink.


Monday wasn't nearly as ugly as I thought it was going to be. On top of that Canada is about to play rugby v Japan. It'll be awesome.

Wed, thurs, fri and sat Sept 24

Oh, man ... I send this link to someone and figure it's all good .. then realize that I've not posted in a few days. Ugh

Wednesday was an off day - everything was sore, man. I ate well, though. Need to be more focused on my food, though.

Thursday I did this five rounds in my gym:

20 BW squats
20 feet up push ups
20 Kb swings (53 KB used)
5 chin ups

It wasn't hectic, but I was pressed for time. I did eat well, but missed Rugby training in the evening. I'm just glad I got this done

Friday was also an off day, as I made arrangements to play rugby Saturday with another club. Meh, w/e. Steak and eggs for breakfast, tuna for lunch. A big salad for dinner. I also watcher Inside Job in the evening. Banks suck.

On Saturday, of course, I played rugby. I felt I played ok - certainly I did almost 100% in the set piece. A few times I completely crapped the bed, man. I was working with a rather weak set of backs, though. It got to the point where if we lost a set piece, the other team scored. I will be playing against the same team for my regular club sometime in the next few weeks, and I'll see some better back play, I'm sure.

I did an awful lot of recovery stretching after today's game - I had the boniest shoulder pressing into me for most of the game today. My left hamstring needs more beer. Everything else was cool Good to run into a few friends from years gone by today and make some new friends, too.

On with Sunday.

Sept 20 ... renew a wish list

So about a year ago, I put together a wish list for myself. I thought it was about time I gave an update and point into the future.

1. Longer barbell/bar and plates - my current 6 foot bars only let me put 150 lbs on, as a combination of length and thickness of the plates I own. I'll get a pic up later to show what I mean.

2. I think I'd like an even bigger tire for lifting, flipping and looking cool.

3. A heater - I thought I'd really need this last February, but as it turned out, it was ok. Not 100% on this one, but I do know that I will move my KB's indoors and may have to invest in some gardening gloves for lifting this winter.

4. Boxing/grappling gloves. Still looking on Kijiji, really though, I have no idea what to look for in a decent glove.

5.Judo gi - 'nuff said.

6. Door seal. Yeah, there are now mice nibbling at the current door seal have made quite a hole for themselves. I swept out some poop this morning. Ugh.

7. Posters - 'cuz I still like looking at muscles and sweat while working my sweaty muscles.

8. Instruction - I think that if my current financial situation improves, I'll be able to afford this. But, I'd like to get on the mats, get some help with the basic lifts and train hard with people around me.

9. Battling ropes. I've had some success with playing with ropes this year, but I think it is time to bite the bullet and pony up for some real ones from extremekettlebell.com

10 rowing machine - just because the Crossfitter in me wants to stay warm and dry inside my garage, rather than going out for runs in the snow.

Things I've gotten done:

1) Wrestling mats - almost 2 inches wall to wall. And they store quite nicely. Pretty happy with this purchase. Good protection and really just "ties the room together".

2)moving stuff out - last year and this fall I moved a lot of stuff either to the basement or to the curb. Loads easier to clean the gym and to move inside.

3)Got a rather cool heavy bag this winter - even got the clips off of it, too. I'd like to start punching it, though.

4)I also got a scale from my Airmiles. It's fairly accurate, although I'd never swear by it. Meh, it's cool.

5)Still struggling with finding time for reading/researching though. Now, with uTorrent, I can find almost any book or movie, the problem is that I cannot find the time to actually study them.

Anyway, on with what happened today:

I did this workout today:

1A) KB farmer Walks 4 x 150'
1B) Chin Ups 4 x 5 reps
2A) Incline DB press 4 x 15reps (30 lbs used)
2B) 1 Arm Rows 4 x 6 - 8 (53 lb KB used)
3A) Standing DB Cleans 3 x 10
3B) Curling Exercise 3 x 5
3C) Triceps Work 3 x 10
4) finishing was a ladder of KB swings and ab roll outs. Started with 10 swings and 1 roll out, finished with 1 swing and 10 ab roll outs.

Whoa, what was pretty intense. I'm pretty sore, man.

Ate this:

After training: smoothie - i scoop of protein powder, frozen fruit, a little 2% milk in a blender. Oh, that was good.

Breakfast: BELT from Tim Hortons with a coffee. Mmmm.... 500 calories never tasted so good.

lunch: tuna, veggies, water.

Dinner: chicken breast served over pasta. Water to drink.

OK, well, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow looks like a nightmare... ;)

Monday Sept 19

This is a pic of what happened in my garage gym today. Simply put, I felt awesome. I did this AMRAP - six rounds- in a half hour.




6-8 dead lifts - I honestly don't know how heavy, but it was heavy.
10 TRX Rows
20 feet up push ups
10 kettlebell on the chest side arch
6-8 KB on my back KB arch ups
20 KB swings
10 bicep curls/tricep extensions

Breakfast: poached eggs and chicken, water and coffee to drink

Lunch: Tuna sandwich, veggies and water to drink.

Snack: water, water and water.

Dinner: chicken breast from the slow cooker, rice and veggies. Water to drink.

All in all, not a bad day. Not awesome, but not bad.

Sat and Sunday Sept 17 and 18

Well, there's not much to write about these days. Saturday morning I woke up late, as I stayed up to watch rugby. I felt like a zombie for most of the day. I did go and see my old rugby club Saturday - was weird being there and not playing. I'm going to try and get on the field somewhere next week, as I'm going ot have to be off for a chunk of October.

Sunday I was also a zombie. At least on Sunday I got my kids over to my parents place. Forgot my youngest' chair, food and diaper change blanket inside my front door ... but such is the price for good rugby.



Ate ok - meh.

Monday will be gooder.

Thurs and Fri Sept 15 and 16

Whoops, sorry about the non-posting. I'm not saying it's never going to happen again, but I am watching an awful lot of rugby online at the moment. Between that and uTorrent, I'm seeing a lot of stuff, man.

Thursday was this workout five rounds:

1A) KB farmer Walks - used 30, 44 and 53 lb kbs' - got heavier as the rounds went.
1B) 5 Chin ups
2A) Incline DB press 4 x 6 - 8
2B) 1 Arm KB Rows 8 x 53 lbs
3A) Standing DB Cleans - 70 lbs
4) 10 ab rollouts

I ate well, too:

Breakfast was eggs and roast beef. Coffee and water to drink

Snack was water.

Lunch was tuna on salad with prunes and walnuts, water to drink

Dinner: chicken and rice with veggies, Water to drink.

Friday I woke up with lots of aches and pains. Ugh. What ever, I did this workout five rounds:

8 deadlifts . 140 lbs, then added more and more weight
20 KB swings - 53 lb KB used
10 TRX body weight rows
20 feet up push ups
10 lunges with 30 lbs overhead
10 bicep curls
10 triceps extesions

Ate well today, too:

Breakfast: eggs and chicken breast, coffee to drink

Lunch: tuna sandwich, veggies on the side

Snack: water, water and more water

Dinner: homemade chilli. Ground beef, lots of veggies and tomato soup. I added the spicy sauce. Water to drink.

I watched Steve Cotter's Extreme KB workout today - lots of stuff for the abs, which I'm going to add to the works here:




There's other stuff, too, but I'll take pics of myself doing it ... I feel like I'm risking getting sued for putting that pic up...

Last thing, did a quick weight check this morning and I'm down 4 lbs from my last weigh in Sunday. I'm pretty happy, especially since my diet hasn't been perfect, merely pretty good.

Wed Sept 14

Ok yesterday's post was late ... and I'm working on this one, right after posting the other one.

I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I got to bed about 3am, to get get up at 6:30 for work. Yeah, I made it into work - after getting the kids to school-on time. Man, did I ever drag my butt around all day. But it was so worth watching Canada win a game at the RWC.

I ate this:

Breakfast: coffee and a Belt from Tim Hortons.

Lunch: tuna sandwich, water. Carrots and celery. Water to drink.

Dinner: avacado with bacon and sliced turkey from Quiznos. That was awesome. Extra picked peppers along side, water to drink.

I'm so sore from Monday and Tuesday. I did some some rolling of my legs and shoulders yesterday .. I know I need to get a run in - or something - tonight. But I'm pretty beat up. Meh, suck it up, buttercup.

Tues Sept 13

ok, so my legs were sore this morning. I was pretty happy with I can do two workouts in a day and not be crushed the following day. On the lighter side, my alarm clock didn't go off, so I got an extra hour of sleep, too. Which was nice.

I got this workout done:

1) Strict Mil. Press 5 x 3 - 6 (first round was 50lbs, finished with 70lbs.)
2A) Flat DB bench 4 x 6 - 8 (20lbs up to 25lbs)
2B) Double KB rows 4 x 6 - 8 (40 lb kbs used)
3) 5 minutes max reps of:
A) feet elevated push ups B) TRX rows (80 and 40 respectively)
4A) DB side raise 2 x 10 - 15 (10 lbs used)
4B) Kettlebell Triceps 2 x 10-20 (40 lb used)
4B) Curls 2 x 6 - 8 (20 lbs used)

I'd not done this workout before. Interesting. I didn't think I'd get that much of a sweat going by the end, but I did, especially with the max push ups in 5 minutes item.

I ate this:

Breakfast roast beef and veggies, water to drink.

Snack: coffee on the way in.

Lunch Tuna sandwich with carrots and celery. Water to drink

Dinner Salad with two slices of pizza. Water to drink.

Beer while I watched Canada beat Tonga at the Rugby World Cup.

Monday Sept 12

A bit of a shocker today ... I checked my weight ... 242! Unreal. After the progress I had been making throughout the year. A real setback, I must say.

It would be easy to "blame rugby" but I'm thinking it is my associating bad diet with rugby that is probably getting me into trouble there. That, and eating like an idiot through August.

In any case, I will start again.

I got this done this morning. Five rounds:

8 deadlifts . 140 lbs
20 KB swings - 40 lb KB used
20 step ups - 10 lbs in each hand in the later rounds
10 TRX rows
20 feet up push ups
20 BW squats
4 chin ups
10 ab roll outs ... I watched a video on how to do them. Gotta watch the form. I got my front to touch the floor today. A first.

I was sweating a lot at the end of this workout. Drenched. I felt awesome, though. I know I need to get heavier dead lifts, and use more weight on most of the exercises, but after a long rugby season, I need to start a little more slowly.

I ate this:

Breakfast: steak and eggs, water to drink

Snack: coffee

Lunch: tuna sandwich with extra veggies. Water to drink, coffee for snack

Dinner: Pasta and garlic bread. Pretty yummy.


After the kids went to bed, I worked on getting uTorrent to work for me. I was downloading stuff onto my Macbook, then saw that I had a half hour before anything interesting was going to happen ... so I went for a run. Took 24 minutes to run 4k. Meh, my legs were pretty sore at the end of it.

Friday Sept 9, Sat Sept 10 and Sun Sept 11

First of all, it was ten years ago that the world and my world got a slap in the face. For my part, I stopped being such a child and began my journey. I'm now a dad.

I still like to hop back to being pretty silly once in a while, but I see that as a luxury now. Most of the time, I have to be serious.

On with this post.

Friday I didn't work out, I just was too sore.

Ate this:

Breakfast: roast beef wrap - roast beef, tomato and onion in a wrap. Coffee to drink.

Lunch: tuna sandwich with extra veggies on the side. Water to drink.

Dinenr: lasagna with large salad and a glass of red wine.

Watching the Rugby World cup snack: tuna wrap. Extra spicy goo, too.

Saturday I woke up a little groggy to say the least. I was up until 2am watching Fiji and Namibia, man. Ugh. I'm too old to do that anymore.

Breakfast: coffee

Snack: water. tons of water

Lunch: roast beef wrap - with a lot of water, too.

Dinner: I finally felt ok, so I had a left over meal; lasagna, roast beef ... I think there was some veggies with hummus, too.

Some light stretching and some rolling happened after the kids went to bed, before the Romania / Scotland game .... that was a good 'un.

Sunday

Felt a lot better, but went to bed earlier, so that's a no brainer.

Ate this:

Breakfast: coffee and water on the way to Church.

Snack: roast beef, dipped in ketchup.

Lunch: veggies with hummus.

Snack: walnuts with water.

Dinner: another serving of roast beef with a side of veggies and a giant salad. A glass of red wine was awesome, too.

Did this workout five rounds in the afternoon:

6-8 big wheel dead lifts (dunno, but it was lighter than I thought)
20 KB swings -first rounds with 30, then finished the last round with the 53 lb bell
20 push ups
10 TRX BW rows
15 slams of the 5lb slamball (yeah, I need something bigger)
10 bicep curls (20 lb DB)

Nice pleasant workout; nothing hard core, to be sure. I did want to go a little harder today, but I'm still feeling some of the injuries from rugby. Meh, this week should be better.




On with the week!

Thursday Spet 8

Woke up, got the kids to school and then got this done:

30 two handed swings
30 LH swings
30 seconds of figure 8 around the les
30 RH swings
30 seconds of Mountain clibers

30 seconds of hand stands
30 push ups feet up
30 BW squats

And then I did a lot of foam rolling on my legs... oh, did that feel good, um ... after.

I ate this today:

Water when I woke up

Breakfast: steak and tomato wraps, coffee to drink. This was after training.

Lunch: tuna and veggies. No salad; I will be doing some shopping tonight.

Dinner: a little pasta with some garlic bread. Glass of red wine to drink.

I got an email telling me about some post season rugby tonight. Not sure about my commitment level at this point in time. If I do it, I usually have to go in 100%. Not sure I can make that 100& this time around. I'll go and see what is what tonight, but ... I gotta say, the prospect of ending rugby season early is a little alluring at the moment.

Wed Sept 7

Back in the gym today, did four rounds of this in 20ish minutes.

20 two handed KB swings (30 lb KB used throughout)
6-8 big tire dead lifts
3 chin ups
30 push ups feet up
8-10 KB rows
10 ab roll outs

Felt good.

Saw this graphic at work about 15 Hard men in Rugby.


Ate this:

Breakfast: eggs and veggies. Coffee to drink.

Snack: coffee ... I was falling asleep at work, man.

Lunch: chicken and veggie wraps, water to drink

Dinner: steak, broccoli and potato, red wine to drink.

Snack: water, water and more water. I was so dry.

Felt good until the baby didn't let me sleep. Or do work. Ugh.

Tuesday Sept 6

So, this is late ...whatever.

I had to get myself to work today ... and I thought there was going to be a rugby training session, but there wasn't. At least not for me.

I ate this:

Breakfast: steak and scrambled eggs. Coffee and water to drink.

Snack: coffee.

Lunch: chicken and ham with veggie wrap. Water to drink. It sounds awful, but it was tasty.

Dinner: two slices of home made chicken and tomato pizza.

Snack: red wine to drink.

No, there was no training session today. I thought rugby was on, but I was wrong. Ah well, tomorrow I will be back in my garage, man.

Mon Sept 5

Yup, this is a late post, but I'm going to do it anyways.

I had to be a dad today, which means I was up stupid early. 5:30am, feeding a crying child. I fed him, changed him and got him ready for the day. And that took more than a few hours to do. He's fussy little guy these days, if only because he's teething.

Got the rest of them up a little later, got them dressed and we went out to a local park to play. I got a chance to stretch my shoulders a little; they feel tight at the moment. We went to a pick your own fruit place, too. Fresh fruit... mmmm..

As we got home, the two older ones started to pick on one another, so I took the middle child and we went walkabout. We ended up in a pub ... imagine that. After, we went home and ate dinner and got ourselves ready for the school year.

I ate this:

Breakfast: coffee and a steak wrap. Steak, onion, random veggies and chimichurri sauce.

Snack: water

Lunch small bowl of pasta, water to drink

Snack: beer.

Dinner: chicken with peas and rice. Water to drink.

I'm not really ready for this year, yet. I need to get myself together, but I'm guessing that will come tomorrow. Meh, whatever.

Sun Sept 4

Today ... was an ok day. I got up early ... I'm getting ready for my September, after all, and gotmyself busy with my youngest. I fed the little guy, changed his bum, and then I fed my child ... yar, yar, yar...

Seriously, I got my family ready to go back to school today. I did a nice walk with the famikly today .. about a half hour. I also cleaned up my gym a little bit and did some internet searching for the Burlington Tapout. Looks good.

Lots of water today. I ate this:

Breakfast: coffee and ham on bread.

Lunch: water with veggies and hummus.

Dinner: Steak ... 9off of the BBQ ... it was awesome) potato and salad. Red wine to drink.

It was an awesome day.

Aug 27 - Sept 3

Well, as sort of planned but not announced here, I went away on a short vacation to a cottage for a week.

It was sweet.

My diet was crappy, my sleep was of the "up late, up early with naps" sort, which didn't lend itself to , well, anything, really. I did try a lot of fruity drinks while reading loads of Harry Potter. I've done them all, basically.

I did do a few workouts, but generally just kept active with swimming and walking around the place. Seriously.

Next week .. I guess which starts tomorrow, I will be going back to the daily postings and more careful tracking of diet and research.

In any case, I'm glad that I get to sleep in my own bed tonight.