Six months ago this baseline workout took me 9:50 to complete. After nearly three months with Adam and Cathy I was down to 7:20. Today I did it in 3:40. That’s after the 4-Month Extreme Transformation course with Blaine. So I guess you could say I saw some gains…
I’ll know how much I progressed tomorrow because I’m going in for another BMI test. When I started I had 33% body fat (which I have since learned put me in the “obese” category). After the training with Adam and Cathy twice a week I was down to 27% body fat (putting me in the “overweight” category). So it’ll be interesting to see where I am as of tomorrow. Hopefully I continue my tour of BMI categories.
I’ll update the blog with my results and (gasp) before and after pics (which I’m really not looking forward to sharing, but will anyway)…
As the months have progressed we’ve been performing increasingly difficult compound exercises. We’ve also been increasing weight AND decreasing rest time in between sets. It’s just another way to accomplish what Blaine describes as “functional fitness.”
Here’s an example of a core-focused complex using a Physioball. He makes it look easy but believe me, it’s not. By the third rep of my first set I was squealing like a little piggy.
And here’s Blaine giving us an example of ANOTHER compound exercise in our weight matrix. It’s a hang clean into split-stance push press and it’s just one of four exercises in this week’s weight matrixes. The other included bent-over rows, back squats and good mornings.
As you can see Blaine makes it look simple but believe me – after five sets of six reps of these bad boys are enough to make you want to melt into a big puddle on the floor.
Since starting this intense training regimen about four months ago we have come to coin a new term in the gym – the sweat angel.
Obviously see where it came from. It’s kind of like a snow angel but made up entirely from your sweat. It happens when you are working out so hard that you flop on the floor like a freshly caught fish twitching and gasping for oxygen on a ship’s deck.
This is a pretty good sweat angel from my workout partner, Taryn. We usually both leave at least one of these on the floor after every workout.
“Why are you here?,” is a common question I’ve heard over the course of the last few months. It’s usually thrown out there during a particularly painful moment of the workout, designed to get the mind off the temporarily-excruciating present and keep your eye on the bigger picture.
The first few times Blaine asked that question I didn’t really have an answer. But I began to think about it after workouts. Why AM doing this? It’s really hard. The workouts are long and grueling, the diet is tough and I’m constantly sore. But it also makes me feel fast and strong and fitter than I have been in years. But why am I really doing this?
I’m doing it for the control. Over myself, my body, my situation and my future.
The responsibility. To commit to something and accomplish it. I haven’t been as faithful as I should have been but I’m gonna finish strong.
And for the discipline – to gain it. The interesting thing about something that requires you to be strong is it shows you your weakness.
This experience, like any lunge, squat or deadlift, is making me stronger so I can meet real-world challenges. The reason I’m here is because I want to be healthy, strong and stable for myself and for the people I love.
March was a tough month for me when it came to sticking to my workouts. Between spending a glorious, sunny week in Arizona watching baseball and another sweating, shaking and cramping with a fever from a bad bout of the flu my workouts have taken a beating.
Which means I’m gonna take a beating tomorrow…
But nevertheless, I’m going to finish out the Total Transformation program strong and wring all the benefit out of it I can. But one thing’s for sure, even though I’m disappointed in my performance this month I am happy with my overall progress. I have really changed a lot of bad habits and picked up a few good ones, which is a lot harder than it sounds.
One of my favorite stories about Benjamin Franklin is that he kept a log of his strengths and faults and every year he endeavored to drop one bad habit and establish one good one. He said that if a man could accomplish that feat every year of his life he’d pretty much be perfect by the time he died.
That anecdote made a big impression on me when I was a kid. And even though old Ben was one of the most flawed (and in my opinion the most brilliant) of the Founding Fathers I think his idea of slow and steady improvement over the course of one’s life is an inspirational one.
So here’s to the homestretch of our journey together. I’ve loved (and sometimes hated) every minute of our journey so far…
One of my personal heros and favorite authors is a bald little dude named Seth Godin. He’s a marketing consultant (like me) but he’s in the Forbes/Fortune 500/Silicon Valley bracket and I’d be considered to be in the junior-leaguer-over-achiever-local-whiz-kid zone.
But the reason I bring him up is because he wrote this book called “Tribes” and in a nutshell it’s about the fact that nowadays everyone has an opportunity to start a movement – to bring together a tribe of like-minded people and do amazing things.
And it was actually Blaine, while watching a morning circuit class, who remarked that Cathy and Adam have themselves created a tribe. I thought about that for a while. And realized he’s totally right.
The people who work out at The Inner Circle are there for a reason and become transformed through a shared interest. We are an eclectic mix – male, female, young, old, whatever. We are not bound together by athletic fashion choices or socioeconomic similarities. What brings these people together is a desire, nay, a hunger to get a workout you can’t get anywhere else.
Sure it’s intense, it’s raw and if you push yourself hard enough it can be downright painful. But you don’t go through it alone. It’s a community – a tribe. It’s not a gym full of dudes staring at themselves in the mirror and girls on ellipticals staring blankly ahead while plugged into their iPods. It’s a community of people working their butts off together – a tribe.
