AlanBarber.Org
Sunday, April 25, 2004
Week 2 Day 8
Well I'm into this fitness thing now. Everything seems to be doing pretty well being the first real week. No pains or soreness to report. I think now that I'm into a routine the joints are wearing into place or something. The first few days I ran my right knee was killing me but now it's just fine. Well honestly, it's a bit stiff in the morning but once I'm up and moving it's ok.So here's my end of week report.
Running is going fine. I'm doing a ten minute walk to warm up, a ten minute run/jog and a ten minute cool down. Doing it only 4 days a week is probably about right I believe. The day off between lets me rest my legs but more important it gives my mind a change to relax so I feel good and actually want to go run. I think if I ran every day I would be more tired and in my mind I would give myself time off. That would just start a domino effect and I would be likely to start by skipping a day then two then more and more days. As a result I'd end up just giving up and stop running completely.
My ab exercises are doing well. The crunches and oblique twists are easy to do and I can feel the burn after doing them. The reverse crunches on the other hand are very hard to do. I just don't have the muscles built up yet and so I have troubles doing a proper reverse crunch. I try my hardest though and with time it will become easier. My gut still looks the same though but I know it's only week one. With time it will improve. Ok, I have to admit I've been kind of bad in doing my ab exercises. Both Monday and Friday I skipped doing them. But I forced myself to do them the next morning before I went out and ran.
My pectoral, triceps and biceps exercises are fine. Chest flys and pushups are easy exercises and work very well for targeting the pectorals. Bicep curls and triceps dips as the names imply target the triceps and biceps. Again no real visible changes yet but with time they will get toned and shape up nicely.
On the weight front thing are doing excellent. I weighted myself this morning and the scale said 177.5 pounds. That means I meet and exceeded my goal of 178 pounds for week one. I'm very happy with this because honestly I wasn't eating too well the first half of the week. I binged a bit on ice cream Monday and Tuesday having big sundaes. Beef and Noodles on top of mashed potatoes one night. Plus on Saturday I ate a big breakfast after running. I was just so hungry I went overboard and ate a huge bowl of Chex cereal (it's high fiber though), two Bob Evans mini sausage sandwiches and Kellogg's Pop Tarts. I'm rather surprised I meet my goal. I can only assume that my metabolism has increased since I started exercising so my body is burning more calories. Actually, now that I think about it, it's probabbly because my girlfriend and I went ice skating last night. We skated for almost 2 whole hours. We were crusing too and most of the time were doing laps around people. So our little two hour aerobic exercise probabbly helped me burn the extra weight off me.
So, that's the week in review. I'm feeling pretty good about the schedule I designed and the level of the workouts. I'm thinking I might up the rep levels on the biceps and triceps exercises just because I'm not really feeling I'm working them to their full potential. Although, that's probably because I'm only using like five pound weights for the bicep curls. Either I'll find something heavier to do the bicep curls with or I'll up the reps. I'm just not sure which yet. Either way I'll have to adjust the triceps dips to match the workout level of the biceps.
See you next week.
on 04/25/2004 at 04:34 PM
Great job!