300 Workout #2 – 15 at a Time
My Dave’s 300 workout post has proved to be fairly popular, so I though I’d throw out another 300 workout I use occasionally to shake things up. It’s pretty damn brutal. If you like pain, you’ll like this.
As far as weight goes, you should probably be somewhere around 50% or so of your max for each exercise. What I’ve done below is list the weights I used last time I did this a few weeks back.
As I mentioned above, you do 15 reps of each exercise unless otherwise indicated. For the chin-ups, pull-ups and dips, if you can’t do 15 all at once, break it up. But do 15 reps total before going on to the next exercise.
-
Squats: 155
-
Dead Lift: 185
-
Flat Bench Press: 125
-
Incline Bench Press: 115
-
Pull-ups: Bodyweight
-
Chin-ups: Bodyweight
-
Bent-over Rows: 135
-
Military Press (bar): 95
-
Front Rows: 85
-
Arnold Press: 45
-
Dips: Bodyweight
-
Standing 1-arm Alternating Dumbbell curl: 25
-
Sit-ups superset w/ Push-ups: 2 Sets of 30 (30 sit-ups, 30 push-ups, 30 sit-ups, 30 push-ups)
It might look easy, but you’ll be sucking wind like a Hoover by the time you’re done with the squats, and you’ll only be 5% done!
Good luck and make sure you know where the trash can is for when you puke.
Cholesterol Experiment Update
Sure enough, on Friday, January 29, the Fitness Center had cholesterol screening between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m.
And sure enough I forgot to go….
Sorry folks!
For those of you keeping track, I’m still taking
- 500 mg Niacin 2x daily
- 200 mcg Chromium Polynicotinate 2x daily
- 2,000 mg Vitamin C 2x daily
- 3,000 mg fish olk 2x daily
I’ll keep this supplement regimen up for this month as well, and try to remember to go to the gym early on the last day of teh month to get my cholesterol checked.
Starting A Life Of Health And Fitness
Starting a life of health and fitness can be a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. Most people are put off even starting because the majority of advice is to go on a strict diet and join a gym or go jogging.
The problem is that after a lifetime of bad habits, and being overweight, it makes it all seem much too difficult. There is so much information about health and fitness that it’s very easy to become overwhelmed and not know where to start. The end result is that nothing changes, it’s easier to simply carry on as normal.
This is a pity because it doesn’t have to be so much of a struggle to get started, and it’s surprising the results that can be achieved by only making a few, small, changes.
The really good news is, once you start and begin to see and feel the results, it gets easier.
Losing weight, which really means losing fat, makes all forms of exercise easier and the more body fat you lose the more exercise you can do with the same amount of effort.
It’s starting that’s difficult. Making that all important decision to begin and then taking action.
Health and fitness advice are topics that are on almost everyone’s mind these days. What’s the latest fad diet? Will it work? Where can I go for a workout? Are there workouts that guarantee fat loss?
Even with the growing popularity of health and fitness, only a few actually adhere to a healthy lifestyle. Most people will still eat junk and will still fill their plates with fats and carbohydrates. Some would still rather chill out in front of the TV than work out at the gym or do some jogging. Old habits, after all, die hard. But starting a healthy lifestyle is not really as impossible as you think it is. In fact, with commitment and a little discipline, you can actually start walking the road to health and fitness. It might not be the easiest thing to start, but when you do the rewards that you will get in return will help you to keep going.
The way to start is by making small improvements at a time. don’t suddenly change all your eating habits from huge portions of junk (processed food) to smaller portions of healthier food like salads, you won’t manage to stay with it for long.
Instead, substitute just one junk food item for a healthier option and reduce your portion size just a little. Let this become a habit over a week or two. Then do it all over again, substitute another junk food item for another healthier option and let that become a habit.
While you’re adjusting your diet a small bit at a time, increase your physical activity. Again, this does not want to be dramatic, just a small step at a time. the best way of doing this is to start going for a short walk imediately after you finish a meal. This aids digestion and helps speed up your metabolism. And, like increasing your healthier food options over time, you should increase the distance you walk over time as well.
You won’t see or feel any dramatic results, but if you keep this up, at your own pace, you will see a steady improvement.
Your lung function, mobility, energy levels, brain activity will all increase.
At some stage, the earlier the better, you should incorporate some weight training into your daily routine. This does not have to be a gruelling workout, but the weights should be heavy enough to cause you some effort, and five to ten minutes should be long enough.
This will help you to maintain your bone density and muscle mass while you’re losing weight. The aim is just to lose body fat. Without any weight training, you will lose bone density and muscle mass, not just body fat, so it is important.
Just remember that you should do all this at your own pace. Don’t be tempted to rush at it too fast. If you do, you’ll run the risk of giving up. Plus, it’s better to lose weight gradually over a longer period of time because your body has a better chance of adjusting to your new healthier regime and a gradual weight loss has a much better chance of staying lost.
So taking it easy when starting a life of health and fitness will benefit you more in the long run, just make the decision, take some action and stick with it… it will work.
Bent Over Row Round Back Retards
So I’m in the gym yesterday doing hanging clean to presses. On the drop pad next to me is a young feller doing bent over rows. Between my sets I watched him – hey, I don’t have anything else to do.
He wasn’t using much weight, well, let me rephrase that, he wasn’t using much weight compared to what I would be doing. His legs were almost straight, he was bent at the waist, and his lower back, when viewed from the side, was as rounded as a banana. Not only that, he was using a pull from his lower back to impart the momentum to his arms to pull the weight up. It was a veritable picture of how not to do bent over rows. I was waiting for one of his discs to come pinging out of his spine like a frisbee.
Now here’s were my personal struggle came into play. It’s been my experience that most people in the gym, especially young people who already know everything there is to know about everything everwhere, don’t want to hear advice. And it’s not like I was a lot bigger than him; we were probably close to the same size. You could tell he’d been lifting a while and wasn’t a newbie.
I struggled between keeping my mouth shut (sometimes a remarkably hard thing for me to do) and offering advice. I eventually lost to the devil on my shoulder telling me to help him out. Surprisingly, he was receptive. Whaddyaknow.
Here’s the summary of what I told him:
- Stand over the bar like you’re getting ready to do deadlifts
- Flatten your back by rotating your hips forward
- Now without moving any other part of you body, pull the bar up to your chest with your elbows tucked and high
- Lower it back, again without moving any other part of you body, until it rests on the floor
- Repeat
And that, my friends, is how you do bent over barbell rows.
I backed up my words by easily and effortlessly performing several reps with the weight that he’d been fighting with (and losing). Gotta love that old man strength.
In the old blog section, I wrote a more complete How to do Barbell Rows post, if you’re interested and don’t already know everything about everything, everywhere.
Cholesterol Experiment # 2 Update
Are you waiting with bated breath for my cholesterol results after adding fish oil to my supplement routine? Me too….
My gum didn’t do cholesterol screening at the end of December, what with Christmas week and New Year’s and such. So the soonest I’ll be able to get blood drawn is the last Friday of this month.
I have to admit my diet has been pretty poor, compared to how stricy I usually am. I’ve mentioned before I eat around 80% clean – this month I’d say I’m probably closer to 50% (or even less!). The snacking is killing me – I’m pretty dang hungry when I walk in the door at the end of the day and the carb cravings hit. And I’ve been lazy about cooking my CBO. And Christmas and New Year’s time off was all rolled in there.
So even though compared to the the average person I probably eat pretty good, for someone genetically disposed to high cholesterol, I probably haven’t been.