Reading the manual (carefully)!

Over the last couple of months, after having started my new workout program, here are my latest thoughts. These are based on the New Rules of Lifting as mentioned in previous entries.

 

I went through the prep phase and Fat Loss I; effectively finishing this part of the training July 29, 2007. I have become stronger. I know this because I track my progress. I use “The Ultimate Workout Log” by Suzanne Schlosberg. I can record all the different workouts in there, from running on the mill, weight training, sleep habits, nutrition notes, etc.

 

When I started the Fat Loss I phase, doing squats and dead lifts, I gave myself some room to grow. The first set of squats, were done with 2x45lbs plates plus the bar for a total of 135lbs. Doing 3 sets of 15 went pretty well. As I increased the weight and did same amount of sets but less reps it became clear that these workouts were a lot tougher than expected. When I finished the last workout in the program I was at 265lbs squats 3 sets of 8 (my modification). Dead lifts were increased in similar fashion. By the time I the last workout dead lifts were at 235lbs. for 3 sets of 10 reps each.

 

While doing all of these, someone at the gym kindly made me aware that my Romanian Dead Lift was not correct. I have been doing this for quite a while so my initial thought was…well I’m doing it according to the book, what could be wrong? I humbly checked the illustrations and checked the text. Lo and behold, all these years (five to be exact), I have been doing it wrong!

 

This revelation, prompted me to examine the workout descriptions further. Guess what, I was not doing those in the proper order either. No wonder I was completely exhausted by the time I finished each individual workout. I was supposed to do supersets, in other words do one set of squats jump immediately (with some rest), to the next exercise, go back to the squat and so on.

 

Oh boy! I guess the moral of the story is: when all else fails, read the manual (carefully)!

 

This is my recovery week. So I’ll be playing hoops and doing some light work to completely get over all this madness. Onward!