tenaciousglee vs feBROary

[tenaciousglee]

I'm going to take advantage of the shorter challenge duration and try a little experimentation with my training and diet.  Plus, I have a Spring Break trip planned for the end of March and I'd like to work on my beach muscles.  So, bring on 

 

FE-BRO-ARY

 

 

Quest 1 - Pack on some pounds

 

Eat at least one pound of meat every day.  I tried eating at a surplus and counting calories last challenge and my weight dropped a little.  And I disliked counting calories.  So this month I'm going to try and simplify my goal by just ensuring I eat 1 pound of meat every day: chicken, beef, pork, turkey - bring it on!

 

 

Quest 2 - Before Bed Benjamins

 

I recognize that it's foolish to try and pack on pounds while also honing my six-pack, but I'm not trying to get shredded to show off my abs.  I have to build some abs first.  To that end, I'll be attempting the Before Bed Benjamins: 

 

• 20x knee touch
• 20x toe touch
• 20x reverse crunch
• 20x reverse crunch cross
• 20x "butterfly"

 

Since my core really needs some work, I'm going to ramp up for this one.  My goal will be doing the BBB's once during Week 1, twice during Week 2, thrice during Week 3, and four times during Week 4.

 

 

Quest 3 - Treasure Chest Quest

 

What's a bro-tastic challenge without a little emphasis on the chest?  My goal is to have a dedicated chest day each week as well as to include at least one chest-focused exercise in each workout.

 

 

Quest 4 - Break a mental sweat

 

In order to fit in my Chest Day, I'm dropping Deadlift Day.  I have other reasons for that, though.  I have gotten kind of bored with the traditional sandbag deadlift.  I got up to 5x250# at the end of 2015 and a 250# sandbag is just a pain to deal with.  I have heard a few podcasts with Josh Henkin, the inventor of the Ultimate Sandbag and Dynamic Variable Resistance Training (DVRT) and he keeps talking about how there's more to progressive overload than just adding weight.  So, my goal for this quest it to read all of the DVRT book that I bought several months ago.  It's about 290 pages, so I'll need to complete 10-15 pages a day.

[tenaciousglee]

Week 1, Day 1

 

Bodyweight Mastery workout

Assisted One-Arm Push-ups (off hand on basketball) - 8/8, 8/8, 7/7 *chest exercise*

Pistol Squat (seated to 15" bench) - 3/3, 2/2, 2/2

Incline One-Arm Push-ups (30" counter) - 5/5, 4/4 *chest exercise*

Hanging Forearm Leg Raises - 7, 7, 7

 

I also just polished off 1/2 pound of pulled pork with some veggies and rice for lunch!

[Wolverine]

Starting to look awfully warrior-like to me...

[tenaciousglee]

Starting to look awfully warrior-like to me...

 

Indeed.  I considered joining the warriors for this one, but my Bro-game needs some work before I join your ranks.  Plus there is a decided iron deficiency in my training.  And I thought that dropping my deadlift day (even if only for a month) wouldn't win me any favor...

 

Plus Star Wars Mini-challenge in the Assassins!!

[Sea Level]

Wow, you're hitting the ground running! I'll be following along.

[tenaciousglee]

Week 1, Day 3

 

So far, so good on Pound Of Meat A Day (POMAD) and reading DVRT.

 

Now, drop the weight and pump up the volume, because it's: 

 

Chest Day!

Decline Fly - 4x8x10#, 4x8x20# (30 sec rest between sets)

Sandbag Floor Press - 8x8x55# (30 sec rest between sets)

Incline DB Bench Press - 8x8x50# (30 sec rest between sets)

3 sets of:

5 Dips

5 Pike Push-ups

5 Suspended Chest Flyes

[Wolverine]

[Sea Level]

POMAD!!!!

[Eilyd]

Agreed, you sound like a warrior!

[tenaciousglee]

Week 1, Day 4

POMAD - 4/4

BBB - 0/0

Chest Day - 1/1

Mental Sweat - 4/4

Just finished reading about some foundational hip hinging movements with DVRT: deadlift and front-loaded good morning.

[tenaciousglee]

Got up and rocked my typical Friday workout this morning.  Then walked outside and it was sleeting.  It was 70 here two days ago!

 

Squats + Press + Pull-ups

Towel-assisted one-arm pull-ups to test for the mini challenge - 1 (and a half)

Balance assisted pistol squats to test for the mini challenge - 4/3

Sandbag Floor Press - 5x137.5, 7x122.5, 9x110

Pull-ups - 5x25#, 5x25#, 3x25#

Seated Pistol Squats - 2/2, 2/2

Zottman Curl - 8x50#, 6x50#

 

Now I've downed half a pound of chicken, some carrots, and a baked potato for lunch.  I have a feeling I'm going to be hungry later.

[tenaciousglee]

Week 1 wrap-up

 

Quest 1 - POMAD - 6/7 - I did very well with tracking/eating all week, but then slacked off on Sunday.  I ate a bunch of ribs while watching the Super Bowl, but I doubt it was a pound.  Still an experiment, though, because I'm not sure if it will result in any weight/muscle gain.  My 7-day average weight stayed pretty much the same as last week.

 

Quest 2 - Before Bed Benjamins - 1/1 - I foolishly left this one undone until Sunday night.  I struggled through it, and it wasn't pretty, but it got done!

 

Quest 3 - Treasure Chest - 3/3 - pretty easy, actually.  I'll probably bump up the weights on this week's Chest Day

 

Quest 4 - Break a Mental Sweat - 7/7 - cruising through this one.  I'm about 100 pages in and it's less than 300 pages long.  38% complete according to my Kindle.

[tenaciousglee]

[Sea Level]

Week 1 wrap-up

 

Quest 1 - POMAD - 6/7 - I did very well with tracking/eating all week, but then slacked off on Sunday.  I ate a bunch of ribs while watching the Super Bowl, but I doubt it was a pound.  Still an experiment, though, because I'm not sure if it will result in any weight/muscle gain.  My 7-day average weight stayed pretty much the same as last week.

 

Quest 2 - Before Bed Benjamins - 1/1 - I foolishly left this one undone until Sunday night.  I struggled through it, and it wasn't pretty, but it got done!

 

Quest 3 - Treasure Chest - 3/3 - pretty easy, actually.  I'll probably bump up the weights on this week's Chest Day

 

Quest 4 - Break a Mental Sweat - 7/7 - cruising through this one.  I'm about 100 pages in and it's less than 300 pages long.  38% complete according to my Kindle.

 

You're crushing it! Great start.

[tenaciousglee]

Week 2 Wrap-up

 

Quest 1 - POMAD - 5/7 days, (11/14 total)

 

Quest 2 - Before Bed Benjamins - *slacker* - only once this week and I didn't even finish all 20 reps of each exercise (1.5 out of 3 total)

 

Quest 3 - Treasure Chest Quest - Chest day is the best day!  3/3 (6/6 total)

 

Quest 4 - Break a mental sweat - killed it.  I finished the DVRT book two weeks ahead of schedule.  I had a little external motivation because the DVRT guys were having a Valentine's sale on the Ultimate Sandbag (25% off).  I wanted to finish the book so that I could make a more educated decision on whether or not I wanted to purchase an Ultimate Sandbag instead of just continuing to use my duffle bag of sand.  I decided to purchase a bag, even though I'm not sure I'll use the DVRT programs from the book.  A big lesson in the book is to know your goals and pick exercises that fit those goals when you build your program.  I still think I want my program to be a combination of sandbag, dumbbell, and bodyweight exercises.

[tenaciousglee]

Straight up skipped a workout yesterday for the first time in a while.  I had the day off and was going to sleep in a little and then go workout, but when I my alarm went off, I found it had snowed the night before and I just didn't feel like trekking the 15 steps through the snow to my shed.

 

I also figured I could make it up later in the day because it was just my bodyweight workout and I only had one thing on my agenda.  Long story short, it just didn't happen.  I don't think I got my pound of meat in, either.

 

Anyway, back to my routine today, so hopefully things get back on track.

[tenaciousglee]

Weak 3 wrap-up

 

I have to say, it feels like FeBROary won week 3.

 

Quest 1 - POMAD - 0/7 (11/21 total) - I blame colder weather wanting people to make soup.  I had soup 3 or 4 days last week, and they're not usually loaded with meat.  Even so, I was much better during weeks 1 and 2 about supplementing with extra meat when I knew I was going to come up short for the day.  It also didn't help that my wife took all the chicken I had pre-baked for the week and turned it into enchiladas.

Quest 2 - BBB - 0 (1.5/6 total) - this is just a case of me not liking ab exercises and not liking pre-bed workouts.  Turns out this was a bad idea for a quest.

Quest 3 - Treasure Chest - 2/3 (8/9 total) - As stated above, I skipped Monday's workout.  I ended up going extra hard on Wednesday's chest day, but then I was still fried on Friday, so I missed my PR attempt for sandbag floor press.  D'oh.

Quest 4 - previously completed

 

 

On to Week 4 (and planning/adjusting for the next 4 week challenge)!

[tenaciousglee]

Week 4 and Challenge wrap-up

 

Quest 1 - POMAD - 4/5 (15/26 total) - This one was a little harder than I thought it would be. I had a pretty good idea that my standard diet didn't consist of a ton of meat, but I hadn't counted on how much extra effort would be involved in hitting the one pound mark every day.

Quest 2 - Before Bed Benjamins - 0 (1.5/10 total) - I probably should have punted this one early.  I essentially ignored it after Week 2.  I learned that even minimal exercise right before bed is not a habit I am motivated to build.

Quest 3 - Treasure Chest - 2/3 (10/12 total) - Skipped another workout this week, but stayed pretty consistent overall.  I guess I could even technically count my extra push-up burpees for the mini challenge as a chest exercise and give myself 3/3 this week.  What I learned? I like Chest Day!  I am still tweaking my workout format for the coming challenge, but I think I will want to have some form of upper body/lower body split.

Quest 4 - Break a mental sweat - Completed during Week 2 - I finished the DVRT book and wound up buying an Ultimate Sandbag.  I'm looking forward to adding some true "sandbag training" to my workouts as opposed to my previous attempts to just do barbell lifts with a sandbag.