A couple of weeks in

Take a sledgehammer and wrap an old sweater around it. This is your "shovelglove." Every week day morning, set a timer for 14 minutes. Use the shovelglove to perform shoveling, butter churning, and wood chopping motions until the timer goes off. Stop. Rest on weekends and holidays. Baffled? Intrigued? Charmed? Discuss here.
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barooo
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 1:55 pm

A couple of weeks in

Post by barooo » Fri Sep 29, 2006 2:28 pm

I haven't been religious about doing it every day, but I've managed 3-4 times a week, plus one lifting workout and one actual day of doing actual work with hammers and stuff (we had a company-wide habitat for humanity type volunteer day and I was a carpentry lead for our house... Beats sitting in front of a computer all day). I'm actually seeing results already. I think I need to focus on diet more, because I'm actually up about 3 pounds to 221 and I'm not conceited enough to think it's muscle, but my arms and shoulders feel different. Much harder, and I can feel those little muscles in your shoulders and back. For the past couple of days I've been doing about 12 minutes of SG plus one set of something with dumbells like shrugs or side raises or bent over rows, plus either pushups or hanging leg lifts (using ape hangers, those straps that you put your upper arms into and hang from, I'm not strong enough to do them from pullup position, or, actually, even to get into pullup position :). I've also managed to squeeze in 2 or 3 runs (I'm going to do 4 miles this afternoon, and try to get a full weight workout in this weekend with squats, deads, and bench presses).

Impressed I am. I think the biggest change is my posture, I'm definitely sitting and walking more "at attention". And I just feel more strong in general, it's amazing how quickly it's paying off. When I lifted weights hardcore (well, semi at least) previously, it seemed like it took me a month or two to really notice improvement. My plan next week is to go hardcore on the diet front, I'll probably alternate hardcore diet with not so much in alternating weeks, from past experience it seems like if you keep your metabolism guessing, things progress better.

One thing I am doing differently this time is going heavy on the protein from the start which makes a huge difference. Last time I lifted it took me 6 months to realize how important protein was, this time I'm taking 50g of whey isolate every morning, plus trying to get at least one high protein meal like tuna or chicken or eggs.

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david
Posts: 582
Joined: Fri Jan 13, 2006 8:49 pm
Location: Oklahoma, USA

Post by david » Fri Sep 29, 2006 4:04 pm

Way to go baroo! It sounds like you have set up a simple, yet broad spectrum routine for yourself.

On the diet front, I would go for No-S and keep the plates full of good nutrition.

I also do the whey supplementation sometimes. I'll usually go one month on and one month off. The cool thing about getting enough protein is that not only will it help construct muscle but it is also good at helping burn the fat.

Keep us updated!

--david

barooo
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 1:55 pm

Post by barooo » Fri Sep 29, 2006 5:58 pm

david wrote: On the diet front, I would go for No-S and keep the plates full of good nutrition.
--david
Well, I am (maybe not strictly, but pretty close) doing No S, I just think that I need to make sure to be honest about what actually constitutes a meal and be a little more strict. I had a little too much chipotle and pizza this week, and some of my breakfasts were pretty S-laden (muffins and such, hard to resist when they're free and I'm hungry. I need to be better about either eating breakfast or having something at my desk other than peanuts).

I wanted to focus on picking up my activity level a notch or two and get in that habit, then focus more on diet.

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