InShapeMike

Sunday, November 8, 2015

Sun, Nov 8, 2015

Waist - 40.25"
Weight 225 lbs
Body Fat 25.8%

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Sat, Oct 31, 2015

Weight 227 lbs
Body fat - 25.8%
Waist - 40"

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Tim’s book has a few sections on tracks for improving fitness. The two that I’ve focused on are Occam’s Protocol and the Effortless Superhuman. This post discusses both sections as well a custom plan that I developed for myself based on principles of each workout.

Occam’s is all about muscle mass gains. This is a hyper-focused workout that uses maximal strain to build muscle the quickest way possible.

Effortless Superhuman’s focus is mainly on running faster, but you can take some of the principles and apply them to other workouts.

You can read about the details in the book, but to summarize:

Occam’s Protocol

Occam’s uses the principle that, the more you’re struggling trying to push the weight up, the more muscle mass you are going to gain. This means you lift slowly. Semi-painfully (but not awful). Logically, there’s a balance where if you’re straining too long or under too much weight, you’ll get injured. The bench press is what got me, and I started to get pretty bad knots in the deltoid area. That being said, it is a great workout. And, if you’re feeling like you might be getting injured, you can swap one workout for another. For example, when I started to get injured, I switched from bench press to tricep dips.

The book is pretty prescriptive about how to determine how much to lift, how to increase weight over time, and how to pace the speed of lifting and bringing the weight back down. I used a metronome app to help with this.

The main disadvantage for me with this workout was that you have to be willing to go to the gym on any given day of the week. It provides a set number of rest days between workouts. That number grows over time, giving bigger muscles a longer time to rest. However, for me, it’s tough to get in the mood to work out on the weekends. So, if my workout days would fall on a weekend, I would push it to Monday. Not the worst thing, but not the best for a consistent growth regimen.

Another issue that I had, and this isn’t really a big one, was there wasn’t really a guide for how to add more carbs to help feed your growing muscles over time. Muscles need carbs, so low carb diets don’t allow for great gains without being supplemented. So, I noticed that I was gaining fat by eating too many carbs too early in the program. Best to start with eating rice just after a workout, then adding rice at different times of the day, then supplement with organic whole milk. Each of those being graduated to when your reach different levels of “failure”, as Tim describes.

For those reasons I stopped doing Occam’s Protocol. While I really enjoyed the protocol, the required commitment to go to the gym on any given day didn't work for me. I don’t like to lie to myself and tell myself to just be more disciplined when I could just alter a protocol or make something that works better for me.

Effortless Superhuman

This is an interesting regimen that, as it is written, is prescribed to help you increase your running speed. It uses deadlifts, bench press and an awkward treadmill regimen along with other things to truly enhance how fast you can run. After I did this for a while, people were amazed at how quickly I could cover a tennis court. I’m not a small man, so that’s saying something. Very fast.

While running fast is great and covering a tennis court is fantastic, it really wasn’t on the top of my list. So, I borrowed a few principles from this workout and took the exercises that are mainly used in Occam’s to make a hybrid plan that worked for me.

Mike’s Custom Plan

There were a few principles that guided this custom plan:

A plan that works regardless of if I missed a day at the gym.
Focus on the lifts that gave the best results.
Interject plyometrics into the lifting days
Include simple, quick, focused ab workouts
Cardio days between lifting days.
Fits within my lunch break.

This has really worked well.

To make a plan that worked regardless of days missed, I set specific workouts to only happen on specific days of the week. That is, I have 3 different workouts that I do, one for Monday, another on Wednesday, and a third on Friday.

To focus on the lifts that I felt were most important, I looked at the lifts that were in Occam’s and in Effortless Superhuman, and separated them out in some fashion that seemed to divide up the strain on the body.

To interject plyometrics, I bring a jump rope (gotta be able to look a little different in the gym if you want to have uncommon gains). Sometimes, I’ll trade box jumps for the jump rope. But, this is a personal choice. Any plyo should help with metabolic training.

Cardio is on Tuesday and Thursday. The focus here is “time in the heart rate zone”. This is split between treadmill and stationary bike, and is mainly a way for me to catch up on Netflix.

Ab workouts are directly before or directly after the lifts are completed, and are simple.

This is what the plan looks like.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday (optional)
Ab - 10 Crunches on Bosu Ball	Treadmill - 15 minutes at heart rate above 145 bpm	Abs - 120 Bicycle Crunches	Treadmill - 15 minutes at heart rate above 145 bpm	Abs – 10 "Cat Vomits"
Bench Press	Stationary Bike - 15 minutes at heart rate above 145 bpm	Pull Down Bar (Close Grip Supinated)	Stationary Bike - 15 minutes at heart rate above 145 bpm	Shoulder Press
Bicep Curl (standing against wall to mitigate cheating)		Pull Up Assist Machine		Squat
Leg Press (Time Permitting)		Deadlift (Time Permitting)

Truly, all days are optional. However, my lack of desire to go to the gym on Friday has led me to mark that day as super-optional.

The starting weight at all lifts (except squat, bc of my low flexibility and desire to do it right) is your starting 5-rep max. Tim walks through how to determine this.

For all exercises, do 5 reps, do plyo and rest. Repeat this 3 times at the same weight. If you have all the time in the world, 5 minutes rest time is ideal. Since I’m trying to fit this in during a lunch break, I really only take a minute’s rest.

So, that’s 3 sets of 5 reps at your 5-rep max with rest and plyo between sets.

When you find you can easily do the third set, mark it down in a journal, and add some weight the next week. I usually add 5 lbs between weeks. This has worked very well for me. In the last few months, I’ve added 30 lbs to my 5-rep max on almost all the lifts.

For plyo, as I said, I use the jump rope. I mix in fast, slow, forwards, backwards, etc. I do 100 jumps after each set of lifts. This has helped me greatly with footwork in tennis.

For cardio days, I get 15 minutes of time above a threshold heart rate. Cardio is all about sufficient time in the zone. So, I have a few extra minutes on the front end working up to the heart rate.

What I’d recommend if you’re starting off is to determine what time of day you’d be most likely to work out without skipping it, ending up getting down on yourself for not being disciplined enough, and going to eat ice cream. If you can work in a lunch break that passes you by a gym, or if you can carve sometime in the afternoon, go for it. If you drive by a gym on the way home, make a habit of stopping at the gym for the next few weeks. Even if to sit there and drink a smoothie and check your phone for 15 minutes. Just get in the habit, find a time, build something into your subconscious so you just end up going at a set time. After a while, once the habit is there, start working out.

Try the different plans in the book. Try not to hurt yourself. Try to enjoy your time. I mostly enjoy my time at the gym. The cardio isn’t the most fun, but it’s a chance for me to increase my lung capacity and burn some fat, all while zoning out to Netflix (ends up being the perfect amount of time to watch an hour-long episode without commercials).

It’s great to feel myself getting stronger and better steadily over time. It’s also great to have a plan that I can constantly execute. One that fits what I need and lets me feel like I am disciplined enough.

DISCLAIMER: This is not professional guidance. This is my personal experience.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

4hour chef - experiment 6 - Harissa Crab Cakes

These were pretty good. As expected, they don't stay together.

A tbsp of harissa is pretty spicy, so adjust down as needed.

Cornboyz Video 8 - Correct Syntax and Code

It took a few iterations to get the code correct. Looking at the comments, other people seemed to have similar issues. Here is the code for the various java classes and xml docs.

Realized that I added some code from the next lesson on playing the mp3 file.

myMain.java

package com.mikeyj777.trial2;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.media.MediaPlayer;
import android.os.Bundle;

public class myMain extends Activity {

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.splash);

//oddly enough, having more than just the activity and bundle imports causes issues with setContentView, so you may have to remove the other import statements, clean the project, add this line, and then re-add the import statements.

MediaPlayer mpSplash = MediaPlayer.create(this, R.raw.bootybounce);
mpSplash.start();

Thread logoTimer = new Thread() {
public void run() {
try{
int logoTimer = 0;
while(logoTimer < 5000) {
sleep(100);
logoTimer = logoTimer + 100;
};
startActivity(new Intent("com.mikeyj777.trial2.CLEARSCREEN"));
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}

finally{
finish();
}
}
};
logoTimer.start();
}

@Override
protected void onDestroy() {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
super.onDestroy();
}

@Override
protected void onPause() {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
super.onPause();
}

@Override
protected void onResume() {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
super.onResume();
}

@Override
protected void onStart() {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
super.onStart();
}

@Override
protected void onStop() {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
super.onStop();
}

}

myMenu.java

package com.mikeyj777.trial2;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;

public class myMenu2 extends Activity {

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
}

}

layouts

main.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

android:layout_width="fill_parent"

android:layout_height="fill_parent"

android:background="@drawable/bkgrng"

android:orientation="vertical" >

<TextView

android:layout_width="fill_parent"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:gravity="center"

android:text="@string/hello" />

<TextView

android:layout_width="fill_parent"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:text="blah" />

<TextView

android:layout_width="fill_parent"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:text="@string/title" />

<Button

android:layout_width="fill_parent"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:text="Click Me"

android:textSize="25dp"

android:textStyle="bold" />

<Button

android:id="@+id/ClickMe2"

android:layout_width="fill_parent"

android:layout_height="wrap_content"

android:text="Click Me 2" android:textSize="25dp" android:textStyle="bold"/>

</LinearLayout>

splash.xml (splash screen picture is named "newer")

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

android:layout_width="fill_parent"

android:layout_height="fill_parent"

<ImageView

android:src="@drawable/newer"

android:layout_width="fill_parent"

android:layout_height="fill_parent"

</LinearLayout>

Android Manifest

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

package="com.mikeyj777.trial2"

android:versionCode="1"

android:versionName="1.0" >

<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="8" />

<application

android:icon="@drawable/trashy"

android:label="@string/app_name" >

<activity

android:name=".myMain"

android:label="@string/app_name" >

<intent-filter>

</intent-filter>

</activity>

<activity

android:name=".myMenu2"

android:label="@string/app_name" >

<intent-filter>

</intent-filter>

</activity>

</application>

</manifest>

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

4 hour chef results - 3. Coconut cauliflower mash

I like how it says to simmer 180 ml of liquid to boil in a regular sized Dutch oven. Well, I don't think I burned anything, but could use a lower cooking setting.

In the end, it tasted OK. Couldn't get my bebe very much into it...