My Training Regime

At first I thought that, tonight, after walking through my new fitness programme, I'd be regaling you all with tales of my new regime - favourite bits, new challenges and new goals. But I can't. Why? Because it's so bloody long. I can't remember it all. I'll start writing a blog with the new workout in it and finish it (hopefully) next week. What I will say is that it's very different, and at the end of walking through it with Chris (who you may remember from last week), I finally found out why.

What I can do for now is show you my old training regime (and thereby not get in trouble for false advertising for the title of this entry), and talk about my week anyway.

I thought my old regime was already up on the net but it isn't anywhere I can find. I did email it to some mates ages ago, so thankfully I don't have to recite it from memory, although I'm sure I could.

Here it is, it takes about two and a half hours in total:

Gym workout:
Designed to work on increasing fitness, weight loss, increasing core strength, and increasing shoulder strength. Duration: approx 2-2.5 hours. Done twice a week.

Warm-up:
5 minutes on rowing machine on level 10 (max)
Stretches

Cardio:
Treadmill - 15 min run @ 12kph, 4 degree incline
Bike - 15 mins on level 4, keep pedal revolutions above 100/minute
Cross trainer - 15 mins on level 8
Rowing machine - 4x500 metres on level 10, 1 min break between sets; aim for 1:45 per 500m

Weights:
Lat pull-downs - 3x15 on 25kg
Shoulder press - 3x15 on 20kg
Lunges - 30 on each leg
Chest pullovers - 3x15 on 4kg (shoulders on a fitball and feel on ground, slowly bring weight from above your head to chest and back)
Lateral raises - 3x15, 4kg in each hand

Resistance Work:
Reverse fly - 3x15 on level 1 (pull weight from in front of your chest to sides)
Bicep curl - 3x15 on level 2
Tricep curl - 3x15 on level 1 (opposite of bicep curl)

Core Strength:
Stomach crunches - 45 on 25kg (machine)
Lower back - 45 on 15kg (machine, opposite of stomach crunches)
Standing raises - 45 at 4kg (standing, bring medicine ball up from between legs to shoulder level, and slowly down again)
Superman - 45 on each leg
Plank - 60sec
Bridge - 60sec on fitball
Side plank - 45sec on each side

Cool Down:
Stretches
Treadmill - run 5 min @ 10kph

Not a bad workout eh? It was quite an effort, but in a good way. I'd come out feeling really great, but if I'd cut corners I'd be upset and a bit guilty. The system worked.

This week is hopefully the last before I revert to something approximating a routine. French starts next week and I'll be back at cricket training. This week there were the following disruptions to the normal routine:
- a four day weekend (Monday and Tuesday off): I only drank on Sunday and Monday nights, but I did eat pretty well all weekend
- At Rotto I thought I'd be riding a bike everywhere, but barely got on a bike at all
- on arrival back home I planned to swim on Wednesday night but ran out of time. I had to shop, do a load of washing, and a few other things. Even without swimming it was past midnight before I hit the sack
- no cricket training on Tuesday or Thursday (it at least pretends to be exercise)
- Thursday at the gym was a lighter than a normal session as I spent an hour being toured around the machines by Chris, so I actually did an hour of training
- I can't do anything on Friday because I'm heading down south for a wedding early afternoon

All told, plenty of excuses. But I weighed myself tonight and I'd lost a kilo. I'm down to 95kg.

The journey has begun!

Curing Rottnest Amnesia

OK, I'll admit it. I forgot.

I forgot how awesome Rotto is.

To be fair it has been twelve years since I last visited (mid-year 1997, when we one of our mates was given a "home made" mullet, we had a Greek wedding in our chalet and we were kicked off the island in 48 hours). But the length of time between visits is, if anything, more damning for me.

I headed over last Sunday morning to the famous island escape 30 mins from Perth, to join some mates that had been on the island since Thursday. We had a great chalet just south of the pub which had a view of Thompson Bay, but I had hardly arrived before we were off to the west end of the island to leap off Jump Rock, which was awesome. Without a bike I was otherwise a little constrained in my movements but managed to get to the pub OK while there. I was told a lot about the changes to Rotto, and that it would be unrecognisable. There weren't that many changes I noticed really. Only the following come to mind:

- the drinking water is much better

- the pub has been extensively done up

- the bakery is much bigger and swankier

- additional shops: Subway and the gourmet café

- the chalets have been done up a little bit, but not much

Also I should mention that most things were much less expensive that I expected. $7.50 pints at the pub for example. But the bakery made up for all of that.

For our part, the highlight was the night time festivities, which include appointing someone to cook and organise some drinks for nationality-themed nights. Australia Day was a no-brainer (kangaroo on the barbie), but the real genius was having an American-themed day the night before.

The animosity we received was breathtaking. Sure, we bought it on a bit by being insanely loud and obnoxious, but that's just being American, right? Also we all had large plastic hats full of bourbon. Really. Anyways, the neighbours riding up and down the street at first took a curious interest in us (including playing "American Idiot" on their stereo), and then got resentful. The kids waterbombed us, and some of the dimmer members of our little community just started abusing us.

It got worse when we got to the pub and insisted we stay in character. It was probably more annoying that our accents were disgracefully unconvincing.

On reflection I can't imagine why we were so unpopular.

Anyone who managed to read this and is from Perth, I'm sorry but none of that was very new to you. But those of you unfamiliar with Rotto, and not planning on using ridiculous American accents, should definitely get there when you visit Perth. As I was reminded on the weekend, there really isn't anything like it in the world. Not that I can think of anyway.

The Fitness Appraisal: I'm Officially a Freak

Let me get two things out of the way before I begin. First of all, I think I mentioned joining a gym and updated my weight (no change) at the end of the blog. A couple of you have pointed out I don't lose weight by actually joining a gym. Of course, I failed to mention that I swam a couple of times last week (2km each) and did a brief, 60min workout in the gym. Hence the expectation that I might lose some weight. Not to be though!

Secondly, yes I am writing a blog entry on a Saturday night. It's sad I know, but it would be sadder if I wasn't going to Rotto on Sunday and Monday nights. I'm treating those two days as my weekend, so it was quiet last night and will be tonight also.

Anyways, there is a reason for writing this now. Today I had my fitness appraisal and I have a lot of figures to remember. Today raised way more questions than it answered.

I just made it to my 11am appraisal. The chap to appraise me was Chris, who's South African. He asked me to fill in a form - the usual stuff: what injuries I've had, what my aims are, what sort of things I want to do, and how much time I'm willing to give. So I filled it in.

A few minutes later Chris came back and read through the form. Obviously he'd already seen me and formed an impression. He saw that I'd written, among other things, that I want to work out twice a week for two hours.

He raised an eyebrow.

He asked why I wanted to work for so long, and I told him: its about as long as I was working out when in the UK. Then he told me that it was futile - that anything over an hour was of no benefit. In fact he said that, without putting additional sugar into your system you'll be burning muscle.

Now, I'm not sure I can really agree with that, but then I don't have any expertise. But other experts gave me that programme in the UK, so what do you say? I'm sure in health ed we were told you burn sugars first, then fats and finally muscle. He totally skipped fats! Maybe he knows what he's talking about, but I might seek a second opinion.

Nonetheless I handed him my old programme, which I took along with me.

He had no problem with my aim.

Things got more interesting when he started taking my measurements. Quite a bit of them actually, including weight, height, skin folds, blood pressure, resting HR, etc. The weight was 94.7kg, but that doesn't count as loss as it was a different set of scales. I'm 181cm tall by the way - 5' 11.5".

Blood pressure was OK (117 over something), resting heart rate was surprisingly low at 60, but still OK (72 is normal). Lower is better, but being only 60 was a surprise to Chris.

Come to think of it, Chris was surprisingly indiscreet and not very good at all at hiding his surprise at some of my (better than expected) results. I'm not entirely sure that's a good quality in someone who is dealing with people looking to improve themselves on a daily basis.

Turns out my body fat is 25% or so, which is about 5% outside of the ideal band for healthy people. That was absolutely no surprise to me (or Chris).

In this time he'd looked over my programme. I spoke about my previous efforts. He looked at me, dumbfounded.

"You ran at 12kmh for 15 minutes on a 4% incline"

"Yeah - 4% or 4 degrees. I can't remember"

"Really?"

"Um, yeah."

We moved on. I found that I had to moving.

I explained what I focused on last time, and what I enjoyed. As mentioned I'd already done a session at the gym on Thursday - just a quick one - and it was clear they didn't have all the equipment I needed to continue that old programme. I'll publish my old routine when I get a chance (I don't have it hear, I think I have it at work).

My focus in the previous programme was on shoulder strength (for bowling and, I'll admit it, appearance) and core strength (for balance and a healthy back). I wasn't too worried about building up muscle mass, and I certainly wasn't worried about building strength in my legs.

We'd looked at what I wanted to achieve, and we'd looked at my body shape. The final test was one of fitness. Nine minutes on an exercise bike, keeping the RPM to 60. He asked me how fit I thought I was. I had no idea (or, really, any idea of what units I would use in giving an answer - really, what should I say - "two-thirds of an aerobics instructor"? "one-and-a-half golfers"?).

He hooked me up to a heart monitor and I hopped on. It was really very easy at first, a little too easy. He'd started me too low. After three minuted he increased the resistance on the bike and it was a little harder but not much. Three minutes later, for the last leg, it got a little harder. I was sweating moderately. Towards the end of the final leg he said he set the bar too low for me.

Once again, he looked surprised.

"This is actually on quite a high level, and you're not even meeting the target workout heart rate. I haven't made it hard enough for you."

He'd been taking readings all the way through the session, and as I removed the monitor and sat down he did some calculations. He looked at them and did them again. Then he looked at the tables.

"OK, so we've looked at your power output in this session and converted it to power output per kilogram. But your figure is artificially low as you never reached the target heart rate of 145bpm - you only got to 138."

The figure was 2.14 (watts or kilowatts per kg - I'm not sure which). Looking at the chart and trying to make his jaw-dropping look less obvious. For a male my age there were a series of figures - percentile figures. The median was about 1.6 I think. There was another figure for 75th percentile, about 1.9. I remember the highest figure though - for the 95th percentile. It was 2.34. I was in about the 85th percentile for fitness, given my age.

OK, now you're all surprised too, just like my South African friend. He was stumbling over his words trying to figure it out.

Suddenly some stroke of inspiration came over him. I thought he'd finally realised he forgot to carry the one or something, and that would make my figures better correspond to ... my figure.

But I was wrong. His stroke of genius, as we exited the appraisal room and moved to the counter was that he now gets to design a workout for me. I'd already mentioned I'd need a new one about half an hour ago.

All-too-casually he mentioned it again.

"So, you still need a programme then?"

"Yeah I think so."

"We don't always do programmes for members you know."

"Oh really? That's OK then - I'm happy to use my old one. I'll just do the ones I can."

"No! Um... no, it's OK, I'll sort one out for you. I can't do it now, but when will you next be in?"

"Wednesday or Thursday I think. So Wednesday's fine."
(I wanted to get it done as soon as possible - I'm at Rotto before that)

"Can we make it Thursday? Thursday afternoon? I'll be in on Thursday afternoon."

"Yeah, OK, if you like. Do you need to do it because you did my appraisal?"

"No I don't normally have to do it but I should this time. The others might not ... get it."

"Um... OK." I was getting a touch uncomfortable. My form was still out so I picked it up to file away: "So this form I filled out - that goes in this filing cabinet?"

"No leave it out - I'll keep it separate. I won't let the others see this, they probably won't ... get it."

"Um... OK." Genuinely getting uncomfortable now.

"And I'll keep your old programme - is that OK? I'll keep it with your forms here. Separate."

"No problem. I can print out another one."

"OK, great."

"Yeah, see you Thursday I guess. I'm gonna do a bit of a session in the gym now if that's OK."

And I did. Bigger than last Thursday's one, and enough to be sweating profusely. After a 5 minute run to cool down I swam 500m too, to cool down further and wash a bit of sweat off me. It was a nice day for it.

Anyways, now I'm filed away separately from everyone else (under C for Circus Freaks I imagine), we shall have to wait and see what my programme will look like on Thursday.

I was curious tonight after I was weighed. I went to the original set of scales and weighed myself.

I've lost two kilos, but that still doesn't count as weight loss! My weight always fluctuates during the week (usually goes up on the weekend when I booze and eat through my hangover). I weigh myself every Thursday (there's a reminder in my phone). So the true test will come when I return from Rotto.

Until then...

Choosing a Gym

So I'm still enthusiastic about this New Years Resolution, a full week after committing to it. Don't laugh, that's far longer than normal for me.

Of course, to achieve my goal of getting down below 80kgs I need to join a gym, just as I did in the UK.

I had joined Fitness First, which is located right near work in the city, when I was back last year, however I didn't really find it acceptable. I was down to two choices really, based on two different philosophies.

The first was a gym close to work which was well equipped but expensive, good at ensuring you were trying to reach your goals but difficult to get to on the weekends, and I only know one person who goes there, but I wouldn't be going at the same time as her.

Alternatively there is a smaller gym, run by a local council, which is cheaper and allows access to the pool. There are less machines but it is easier to get to on the weekends and after work. There is less contact with staff after the first appraisal but at least three of my mates are members there.

In the end, I went for the option of peer pressure as the best source of motivation, and headed to the smaller gym. I didn't need peer pressure as a motivation in London (although the gym I chose was recommended by housemates), but then I didn't have this crazy New Years Resolution to live up to.

So there you have it. I'm a member of Beatty Park gym (and get access to the pool and facilities there for no extra cost).

I weighed myself again tonight and no change. I'm still 96kg.

The Challenge for 2009

Svelte.

It's a wonderful word and one I aspired to in my time in the UK. To be honest I doubt I have the frame (or the implied grace and dignity) to pull off svelte, no matter how thin I get. But it always seemed like a nice aspirational goal.

Alas, since returning to Australia and being rather well-fed since, that goal has got a bit further away. I notice little things, comparing myself to photos from Europe. My shoulders have slumped, so I'm actually shorter now. My bowling action has changed.

Of course, I was fiercely proud of the way I looked at the end of my time in the UK, as light as I'd been since high school. And the better you feel when you're at your best, the more resentment and disappointment you have with yourself when you let yourself go. So while I know I'm not morbidly obese, I'm pretty determined to get back to my former glory.

It's funny: you notice friends saying different things to you when you're a different shape. They're all well meaning, but you notice the difference. For example, some, when I lost the weight, would say how "fantastic" I looked. Some couldn't hide their shock and blurted out
"you've lost so much weight!" Then, as the weight slowly comes back on, the comments change to "you're looking well" and then more recently "you're looking healthy."

For my mates at the cricket club it was a bit simpler: it went from "you're a prick" to "you're a fat prick".

If you read a bit of my rather long NZ email and blog entry, you'll know that Eammon had a pretty grand New Years Resolution. I didn't have one ready for January 1 I'm ready to set one now for 2009.

I weighed myself the other day and was shocked to find myself at 96kg. Some of that (about 4kg) is post-Christmas "baggage." But I'm determined to get as low as I was before, if not lower. So my new years resolution is this:

By the end of the year I will have a weight that begins with a seven. That is, I'll weigh less than 80kg.

Why on earth would I make such a claim in my blog? Well three reasons. First, I've done it before so it's not uncharted territory. Secondly, if I write about it and make it a bit more public, I'm more accountable, and I feel more peer pressure to push myself a little harder. Even if
hardly anyone reads this, all my friends know about it so if they happen upon it they'll keep me on the ball.

The third reason? Well if anyone else wants to do the same they are welcome to do so!

I should stay from the start that, in terms of knowledge, I am a complete novice - I don't know anything really about nutrition or exercise except the obvious stuff and little tidbids I picked up along the way. My only guiding principle is pretty logical: if I want to lose weight and keep it off, and maintain fitness, I can't do a cash diet or manic exercise - it has to be part of a lifestyle I can sustain. That's why its unrealistic, for example, for me to say I'll give up alcohol when its such a big part of my social life.

So there it is. Under 80kg (on the same set of scales I weighed myself on a couple of days ago) by the end of the year. I'll try to update this every week, and I'll talk next week about choosing a gym and more about what I did previously too. But for now you can consider this a bit of a mission statement. I've done it in the UK, and I want to do it in Australia.

Svelte may not be possible but I'll see what I can achieve in 2009.