I took a measuring tape to the basketball court near me. Turns out that the basketball court has a bit of a tennis box or something inside the court that is exactly 10 yards width and double that in length. So it’s perfect for the 10 yard shuttle test by TSC. Is this Albert Hayneworth’s nightmare? I dunno.

Anyway, I warmed up a bit and ran it like this:

Attempts:
1st: 00:15:92
2nd: 00:15:64
3rd: 00:14:92

Between each attempt, I took a 2 minute rest but tried to stay limber. The side to side action I feel is where I’m the slowest. Straight ahead speed and acceleration really doesn’t help you much. Really the hardest part is stopping the clock when you’re running backwards at the end.

I’ve also been playing basketball everyday to see what my limit is. It’s 7 days. I tried to play some one-on-one yesterday (on the 7th day) and never been so stiff after taking a short break. I’m currently doing shin splint stretches to try to reduce the shin ache.

This also nearly is the one year anniversary when I promised myself I’d get fit again. It was kind of a slow ramp-up of learning, getting used to the gym and starting a routine. I started running, then hit the gym exclusively, then started doing intervals, then screwed up my ankle with tendonitis and now I’m on a basketball kick.

It’s all for myself. Nobody cares. And that’s ok. That’s been the advice for a while. I blog for myself, I workout for myself. I’m getting better at basketball (even if I’m short) for myself. Case in point, working on my shot. I got into the zone and hit 6 three pointers in a row. The net snapping, perfect spin, exactly where I wanted to put it. The playground, field and court are full of people. Nobody noticed. I laughed to myself: “nobody cares, do it for yourself”.

My one-on-one game sucks. I lost 05-13 and 02-11. Can’t guard the layup moves. I have no layup moves. I miss the hard shots and only have hard shots. My speed can’t blow by the defender without tiring me out. I think another year of random pickup games and screwing around and my 1v1 game might give the former HS/College players more of a 07-13 loss-feel. For now, I suck. I’m ok when I’m the medium to tall guy in a 4v4 full court game. I just take hard shots that barely miss. Two bounces on the rim, miss. I need to work on my under-pressure game.

Joined a pickup group using meetup.com and went out to a field nearby after work. We had 11 or so people and played a pickup game for about 2 hours. Pretty casual, half field. I hadn’t played in 6 years and that was only one game since college. I had already expected to die on the field. When I play basketball, I run all out all the time and then die on the court. I figured my same crap pacing would happen on a much larger scale except instead of a blacktop smack, there’d be a dull piff of grass. And then oblivion probably.

There was a variety of personalities and people, one of which was of the female variety. A ball was in the air and then she chest-trapped it to the ground. A prepubescent player actually stopped playing to giggle. I checked my pockets for red cards but alas, no justice could be exacted. If not for the respect of women, at least to clear out the center striker down-field position.

I had a few nice goals, it really wasn’t an issue or exciting to anyone playing. If you can imagine a basketball game of 21 on ether, this was the mood. People were playing and scoring but no one was keeping track. I seemed to be the only one happy to be outside running myself ragged on a beautiful day. At the end, it was dark and everyone was tired. I half-heartedly clapped for the good experience and everyone joined in. But then it was an awkward “wtf are we clapping for” and everyone just left. Again, I think I was by myself when I laughed at the situation. This sort of mismatch is typical with me. When I haven’t played in 6 years I’m an afterburner engine dumping gas and energy into the burning inferno of enthusiasm and everyone else is a slow burning candle. They are more suited to a consistent Catholic mass whereas I, the F-35b completely destroy myself trying to perform a VTOL into a pew.

I have blisters the size of quarters now. Some are red, some are white and some are gone leaving only skin that can feel changes in indoor wind movements. I am unable to walk straight because my skin stings when it bends. On the field, there were many moments when I thought I would not be able to play anymore and simply throw up while passing out. But this is why I signed up. I’ve been running and going to the gym and none can prepare you for the cardio that soccer demands. It is a torture test.

I didn’t ever think I’d count grams of protein. That’s for nut jobs. Ok, I didn’t ever think I’d start another post with “I didn’t ever blah blah”. Ok, let’s count grams! (nutjob)

I just chow down on a few things in the morning, have lunch, more protein snacks and then dinner. On workout days I have an extra shake afterwards. So I wonder if this is enough. A rule of thumb I’ve heard is .5-.7 for every lean pound you weigh. So if you weigh 100lbs with 20% body fat then you eat 40g of protein. This is a conservative number, people selling protein product double the number saying 1g for every lbs. Whatever.

My typical non-workout day looks like this:
- 9am: small breakfast of banana, coffee, orange (maybe a bagel) + Clif Bar (12g)
- 12pm: Lunch, salad with meat or sandwich (35g estimate)
- 3pm: protein snack (20g)
- 6pm: Whatever is for dinner (35g estimate)
102g total

Workout day is just another 20g with a shake = 122g

Last time I weighed myself I was 180lbs and I’m guessing I’m at 15% bodyfat (shame in college I was 6%). That’s 153lbs lean is about 77grams (.5) to 107grams (.7). Looks like my diet is just about right. I guess I just need to stay consistent.

Btw, I wonder what pure protein tastes like? Is it even a thing? Or maybe it’s a ‘kind’ of thing … so it depends? Hmm.

Before pic: summer running but no lifting. After pic (this is a no pump pic): crappy workout schedule and lots of gym time, including natural protein bars and 5 small meals a day instead of 3 big ones. Improving routine and will track more progress. Before it was about going from zero, now it’s about continuing to build.

My routine has gotten seriously complicated after talking with a lifter at work. He said I wasn’t doing enough activity in my 1 hour. So I reworked everything and I’m going to give it another month to see if it works (thus the pictures). I’m really sore today from dead lifts. I think this new routine is going to work. I hope I can stay focused during the winter.

Vibram shoes helps speed

I got some vibram fivefingers shoes. It’s near-barefoot running. It might sound painful but it’s not that bad running on pavement and asphalt. You have to learn to run right because the Nike foam platform is gone. Is it hard on the knees? No one knows yet. My knees don’t hurt but that’s just anecdotal.

Anyway. My goal of sub 06:05 mile came suddenly close when I ran a 06:35 after running a 07:00 flat. I think some more time at the gym doing squats and time at the track with the barefoot stuff will let me break 6 minutes. Just once. I just need to do one mile sub 06:00 to break my middle school and all-time fastest pace. Suddenly it seems very possible. In running shoes, I’d kill myself for 07:15 but barefoot forces you do concentrate on fast turnover (versus long stride). Your feet just can’t hurt themselves when you run barefoot, it’s too painful.

I could go on about general fitness stuff but there’s just too many resources and tips on youtube for free. You can get training tips just by watching a bunch of short videos. I found that a fixed routine isn’t that important but proper technique and insight from these videos is valuable.

So that’s the running bit, let me ramble on about the weight training.

The gym

For my own records, 2 weeks ago I was doing around 3 pull ups and yesterday I did 11. 4 days ago I did 10. These pullups are where my thumbs face me (halfway between a pullup and a chinup), it’s just the type of bar the gym has. It’s good to see the weight that I use go up too. Yay progress. My upper body routine goes something like this:

1. Do as many pullups as I can, last was 11
2. Two hand tricep cable pulldown (overhead leaned over, not in front) – 77 x 15 reps
3. Military pulldown – 90lbs x 10-12 reps (my forearms really burn here, I don’t think I’m doing it right)
4. Do as many pullups as I can again, usually 2 or 3, tired
5. Tricep cable again, 77lbs x 15 reps. Then another 15 with 60lbs keeping hands apart (harder)
6. Bicep curl with 30-35lbs (cable or dumbells)

After all this, I’m just doing repeats of all these in random order. I aim for 45min to 1 hour. Usually I do it too long and sometimes throw in a set of 10 squats @ 110lbs if the gym is busy or I’m getting bored. It’s probably bad to be mixing so many things together. If I’m really pumped and worked hard, I’ll have a protein shake at the end (usually have a protein shake 1 hour before working out). Some days I jog to the gym, on those days it’s really hard running home because my arms feel stiff. I don’t jog to the gym on lower body days.

A full-out lower body day goes something like this:

1. 10x squat rack @ 110lbs (I was using 70lbs to get my form right) These are great! So much energy to do these! Form is key here. Find youtube videos. Don’t hurt yourself. At the end I am very out of breath and hamstrings/quads are burning
2. 10-20 Calf raises @ 70lbs – dumbells or squat rack. Just started these because my calves give out first while running. Not sure yet, running form might be wrong and my routine isn’t solid on these.
3. Leg press. Nothing makes you feel stronger than moving a couple of tons. I do 2 or 3 sets of 10 reps @ 270-290+lbs. I try to explode up and lower slow. Then some calf raises with same weight.
4. Hamstring curl with machine. These are really good for running. It seems to give me more ass-kicking (literally) power during a sprint. I do 2 sets of 10x @ 90lbs.

So the other thing I’ve realized is that remembering my workout isn’t important. If it’s too light or too heavy you learn quick after going 7-10 times to the gym. Eventually you figure out what you should be working out with. I try to work with weight that I can do 3 sets with. If I can’t do 3 sets then I’m doing too much weight. Many times I do a subset of the workouts above. Someone told me that going past 1 hour in the gym is too much.

Rest is important. I wait a day in-between these routines to rest. If I went hard I won’t jog on the rest day. If I jogged on a rest day, I won’t go hard at the gym. Starting out, I was really sore. Now I usually am not sore the next day unless I started a new exercise. For example, playing tennis with a friend made me sore because it was new motions. I don’t know if the protein shakes help with the soreness, I’ve recently stopped drinking them to find out.

So if I do hit sub 06:00, I wonder if I’ll stop all of this crap? Hmm …

Went to the beach and boogyboarded. All of the guys (read: husbands) in our group were 30+ years old. Each of us had a wipe out that screwed up something. For me it was my legs going the wrong way over my head and my lower back was like “eep”. So these stretches really helped. You have to be careful with back pain, but for me the stretches took away the soreness instantly.

Edgar is running every day (slacking is every other day). *sigh* I’m trying to run every other day and slacking for me is two times a week. I do about 2mi and it includes up and downhill in a loop. It’s pretty brutal actually, about 1/3 is uphill slowly and then 2/3 is downhill quick and flat. My nike+ shoes say it’s burning about 300 calories. That’s not a lot. Running doesn’t burn that much but your core gets in shape and your VO2 max starts coming around in 4-8 weeks (watch NOVA’s marathon challenge on Hulu).

I don’t know exactly what my goals are. I guess I want to play soccer or tennis again. In the short term, I wanted to feel better and have more energy. I think that has already happened just in 3 months of running and barbells (I’ll get to the weights in a second). There’s a few pickup leagues around here but I think I’ll really get a reality check when running around with 20 somethings on a soccer field. My longer term goal was posted a while back (beating 6:05 mile time). Right now my easy jog pace is 2.06 miles @ 9:05 per mile. If I rest and book it, I can do about 8:15 per mile. This is far and away from where I need to be but it’s been improving even in 3 months when a 10 minute pace was medium difficulty.

Today I went for a run down to a local high school (1.6mi) and then did a fast 1/2 mi (7min pace) followed by 4 100m sprints. I was dying on the 7min pace, I had to stop. I did the 1st 100m in 12.75sec (but this is with an ipod clock), my fastest since I can remember (because I never timed in college or H.S.). I’d love to get this time way, way down but I was really hurting after all this activity. I jogged back home really slowly and my calf was threatening to ball up on me (I’ve had that happen in soccer … wow ouch). So I think I pushed my muscle limit with the speed burst crap.

So reading on youtube and forums, I need to set a goddamn goal. I can’t do long distance jogging and expect to get better at sprinting (fast vs slow twitch muscle). So I’m going to try eating more carbs during the day and do interval running. It goes like this:

5min warmup run
30sec sprint
2.5min slow jog
30sec sprint
2.5min slow jog
Until about 20minutes.

There’s also a video of resistance training called the “300 routine” (because you do 10 sets of 30 reps), maybe it’s related to the movie .. I dunno. It goes like this:

30x elevated pushups
30x one arm dumbbell swing
30x lat bell
30x jump squat with DB
30x elevated pushup
30x split squat jump no DB
30x band row
30x shoulder press
30x stationary lunges
30x russian twist

So I ordered some bands and weight lifting gloves. I have a set of dumbbells (it’s crazy how much you can do with those). There’s a lot of those sets that absolutely kill your legs but that’s really what I need to increase my speed. At the gym, I’m going to change it up and do some squats once I figure out good form (so I don’t kill my back). They have a rack assist thing.

Ok, weights. I’ve been doing an upper body thing for about a month or two. I don’t know how I feel about this. Sprinters will use upper body but long distance slow twitch is opposite. I don’t know any soccer or tennis players that are huge. So I dunno what I’m going to do about this. In college, I’d barbell fly 65lbs at 10 reps. My chest was pretty far along considering I weighed about 155lbs @ 5’9″. I wasn’t benching max more than 140 but I wasn’t doing benches that often. So I guess I want to get about 65lbs flies just because it never slowed me down in intramural sports in college. Right now, 40-45 is where I’m at. I got this set of bells from Dick’s sports for like $60 and some extra weight was like another $40. They are kinda annoying to change weights on but the Bowflex bells were too expensive and I read they break easy.

So my routine kinda changes. I drink a protein shake 1 hour before I lift. Then I try to work 2-3 muscle groups hard. I go until failure and then back the weight off and go some more. I don’t know if this is right but it seems to work. When I’m done I have another shake. It’s the Cytosport chocolate stuff. It’s like half a glass of water … doesn’t taste too bad. It helps get rid of soreness (or at least it’s hyped too). I don’t have a control group but I bought it after I was really sore and wanted to not wait 3-4 days before going again.

Bell curls have really increase my triceps and biceps. I’m not huge but my shirts are fitting differently. Crew shirt sleeves aren’t hanging anymore (sometimes they get caught) and everything is filling out a bit. It’s pretty cool. The best part is, many things in the world are lighter. Doors, boxes, “honey move this please” and even the push lawn mower are lighter and easier. I still break a sweat but I’m not out of breath or hurting after lifting stuff. Maybe I’m just getting un-wimped. I don’t know.

Most days I work out at home and watch the daily show and colbert report on Hulu. I can watch and do my routine. But I think I’m going too long because I watch 3 episodes total some days and that’s 1.5 hours. I talked to a guy who’s been lifting for a long time and he said I’m going way too long. So I might be over-training. I’ll see if I can get it down to 45min this week.

For sure I overdid my triceps one day. First time using the pully thing at the gym, I did these overhead tricep things. I did 100 reps and my arms were so swollen that my elbow disappeared. I couldn’t scratch my back for 5 days. That was bad. I’m really a noob actually.

Well I guess that’s about all I have to say about this summer fitness thing that I’m doing. I’m learning a lot and it’s been a lot of fun seeing changes happen so quickly (albeit I’m not some ripped dude) and the best part is thinking that a lot of my free time to work out has come from quitting World of Warcraft. Squarism has less meat-head oriented testaments to that fact perhaps.