Preparations...

As I have stated I am getting ready to start the Insanity program and to help me along the way I am going to be starting a new diet. The diet program I am starting is based upon your blood type and how certain foods react with your body. This along with controlling my caloric intake, based upon my BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). BMR tells you how many calories your body will burn in a 24 hour period of you were just to lay still and do nothing all day. Using this information and along with foods targets to your body you can get the most from your meals. With my current BMR of 2471.2 I am going to have a target caloric intake of about 2000. Meaning if I do nothing but take in 2000 calories in one day I will start to lose weight. Now coupled with the right foods plus exercise I should notice results fairly quickly.

Now I am not starting on this right away I need several days to shop prepare meal plans and such I will make an announcement when I do.

Also today I had a body fat check done. And while not the best looking of numbers it is better then my last check of about 3 and a half months ago. Then my percentage was at 34%. As of today it was down to 25.7%. As I said.. not overly impressive. but great improvement. So once I start this program, both diet and workout I should see see a great improvement.. my over all goal is to get to around 10% body fat.

Beachbody - 3 Cardio Power & Resistance (preliminary review)

This was a bit shorter workout, but no less intense. This being more of a power workout it was at a bit slower pace. The warm up was a little bit different, and it was followed by the usual stretching. The workout as I said was a bit slower paced but focused more on power moves. new moves are brought it. some noticeable from the fit test like the globe jumps. as other workouts it seems to focus on plyo, abs and upper body. but this one does not hit the breakneck pace of the previous. Now do not let that fool you. it is still higher paced and its slower level then the majority of other work out programs. this one just focuses more on strength exercises hitting the large muscle groups including some fun looking tricep exercises.


From watching the first two videos and random bits of the others I do not think my reviews of each are going to vary a lot so I will try to focus on some of the unique aspects of the previous ones.
they all include a warm up and stretch. then the workout itself followed by a cool down stretch.

Beachbody - 2 Plyometric Cardio Circuit (preliminary review)

This was the first work in the program. Just finished watching it. Now like all the workouts it starts with a moderately paced warm up and then the intensity level picks up as you go through the same warm up two more times but increasing the pace of it each time. then once you are warm it gets nice and slow with some stretching. Through out the host Shaun T stresses the fact that you should 1, never sacrifice form, and 2, rest when you need to. then after the st reaches it gets crazy with suicide drills, power squats and other insane exercises one after the other at a pace that has those in the video being forced to take breaks outside of the scheduled breaks. Each circuit is done 3 times with about a 30 second rest for water. with during the breaks reminders that form is more important then the speed you do the exercises at. This is very important because after each break the pace increases. this is the Max interval training talked about.. as it goes on the exercises change with a mix of lower body plyo, ab work and upper body. and "Insane" cardio the whole time. the last section is "Sports" style drills with stuff taken from football and basketball work out as well as some boxing drills at the very end. To be honest, watching this is making me anxious. Both in the feeling of WOW.. am I going to survive this and too, man I can't wait. The people in the video all appear to be in very good shape and some of them are struggling.

Beachbody - Insanity Fit Test (preliminary review)

(Over the next few days I will be watching these videos and taking notes getting familiar with the exercises and movements in this program as I have never really done a program like this. I once attended a cardio kick boxing class, notice the word once As I watch the videos I will post my initial thoughts and then when I begin I will just give my feelings on how I felt at the end of each session and post my fit test numbers here as well. Now onto the review)


WOW... INSANE... I mean really I just watch the fit test for this program. This is what you will be doing every two weeks to see your progress. It is 8 exercises. Many you most likely know if you work out often, though these are kinda slight variations. You do each exercise for 1 minute, with a 1 minute rest. It involves a few minutes of stretching warm up then at the end a few minutes of stretching for cool down. I will be listing the names of the exercises here no real descriptions for them I hope in the future to record one of my fit tests and I will post it for all to see. It did leave me with one question. Something I thought odd about the test but I have a theory already as to why. Keep in mind this is just a fit test.. not the work out. The names are what they are called in the program, So here it is

Switch Kicks, 1 min rest
Power Jacks, 1 min rest
Power Knees*, 1 min rest
Power Jumps, 1 min rest
Globe Jumps, 1 min rest
Suicide Jumps, 1 min rest
Push up Jacks, 2 min rest
Low Plan Obliques, and Done

Now before the last exercise there was a 2 minute rest the people in the video looked pretty wiped by this point.

* I bet you are wondering why I put that. Well it was simple cardio knees but for the fit test you apparently only do them to one side.. I assume this will be your strong side as in the video he said all to lean to the left and they were kneeing with their right leg. now I suspect that since this is just a test that the exercises during hate program will be working both sides, so here you are just testing to one side.

How does Insanity differ from other workouts. Well as you may be aware most other workouts of this type use interval training. You typically go at a moderate pace then push hard for 30 seconds to a minute then slow back down. For Insanity they call in Max Interval training. Where you push hard for most of it then slow down for about 30 seconds to a minute. It so far seems to be a mix of stretch, Plyometrics and traditional cardio exercises with some slight variations.

now I am not sure the exact date I will be starting this program. I have to find a place where the kids will be out of the way but I have access to a TV and room to jump. Not much room in my house for this.

Update.

OK just to give you all an idea of how I am progressing in my workouts... When I first started training in BJJ I was weight in at about 290 pounds, and I would get winded with in a minute or 2 of rolling.
once I started training I started to hit the gym a little bit and things started to get better.
I got down to around 270-275..

Then I started this blog. over the last 2-3 weeks I am walking around at about 264, meaning if I were to compete MMA I would not have to cut weight to reach the 265lbs limit on the Heavyweight class.. Over the next week or two I plan on increasing my gains as I will be changing my diet plan and starting on the Insanity program by Beach body.

I plan on getting a BMI (body mass index) check done at work on Friday and regardless of how ugly the results look I am going to post them so you can all see my progress.. probably some pictures as well so there will be physical evidence of my progress.

Once I start competing I will be posting pics and vids here as I get them as well. I was hoping to compete this weekend in teh state championships, but my instructor advised against it as you all can see I have only made a few training classes in the last 2 months or some. with some good news at work yesterday I am hoping to have a good schedule that will get me more class time.

Physical Training.

OK.. I know I have not posted in awhile and for that I am sorry.

Things have been a bit hectic. I have started a new lifting program and I just got my hands on a copy of Beach Body's new Insanity program. Which I will be starting shortly and will be talking about. Now for those that may not know. Beach Body is the same company that made the P90X program. I know many on it and it seems to work as they say.The one disadvantage to the P90x is that you need some extra equipment. Things like some dumbbells or resistance bands. and a pull up bar. Now from all I read the new Insanity program requires nothing but some space. It is similar in concept to P90X how it alters itself over time to prevent the plateau effect. It is filled with lots of cardio, stretching and plyometrics. I figure doing this along with my new lifting program should give me some, well... Insane results.

Now as for the lifting program I am doing. It is a 3 day program consisting of 4-5 lifts each day using either drop sets or rest-pause sets. now both are similar in how you do them, but on a drop set you decrease by roughly 20% weight. Now for each set I need to do a min of 8 reps or a max of 10. with a 20 second rest between each set for a total of 3 sets. Either going down in wait as stated for the drop sets or staying at the same weight for the rest-pause sets. And as stated I am doing 3 to 4 exercises a day 3 days a week. Now to keep things different I do, do different variations of the exercises

Day 1 - Monday
Incline or decline bench press, Drop sets
Military Press, Drop sets
Dips, Rest-pause
Bicep curls, drop sets

Day 2 - Wednesday
Standing Rows - Drop Sets
Lat pull downs - Drop Sets
Shrugs - Drop sets
Back Extensions - rest-pause

Day 3 - Friday
Squats - rest-pause
Leg curls - Drop sets
Leg Extensions - drop sets
Calf press/raise - rest pause
Crunches - rest-pause

For the moment on the off days I am doing cardio running for at least 25 minutes and a min of 1.5 miles.. still not much of a runner. Once I start the Insanity program that will be a daily so that will be my cardio.. I still plan on lifting as well.. though I may be forced to change my weights and such.


So now you are up to date on what I am doing. More to follow.

Sambo & BJJ

Tonight in class was a lot of fun. The first hour was our Sambo session. We went over some neat things. My favorite was a transition from the north south position into a knee bar. and we covered some other legs locks from when you are stuck in half guard. Then we did some rolling Sambo style. Mainly it was just Bill and I rolling. Bill caught me in a submission to end it, but I did a nice take down when we were standing and started off good.. As I said he finally got me but I was glad to get a small victory.. good confidence boost.

Then we went into BJJ.We went over a few more take downs and some guard passes as well as how to defend them.. plus worked on how to defend side control with some neat spin thing.. really hard to describe.
The rolling was fun.. went with one of the other guys. he is a bit faster and lankier then me and we went to a time stoppage. Since no points were kept it was simply fun. Then I went with Bill again.. not once.. but twice.. the first time he caught me in a vicious ankle lock, which still hurts somewhat. The second time we had just a few seconds left before the time was up and he caught me in a position where I just could not breath.. not an actual submission but with how tangled up we were I had a mouth full of Gi and could not get air. Over all that session was good. I was able to work a few things and defended from many more.

Physical Training

OK as part of my training as over the next two months I am going to have a hard time making my actual classes do to a new work schedule I am going to take this time to work on the physical condition of my body. Where I work we have a full health club and I am starting on the One Hundred Push-ups program and its 2 sister programs Two Hundred Sit-ups & Two Hundred Squats. I will be attending my BJJ classes on Thursday evenings and Friday mornings before work.

Last night was day one of the aforementioned programs. Now for details of the programs I suggest you check them out as here i will just be telling about the results of the final sets as they are based your max you can do after the first several sets. So for the final set you are trying to push yourself to your max after you have already worked the muscle groups hard.

My inital tests to get my baseline and see where in the program I start I did a few nights ago my base lines were:
Push-ups - 25
Sit-ups - 40
Squats - 63

So here are my results after the first night..

Push-ups- final set min required was 17. I was able to do 17. To be honest the last 3 or 4 I had to go down onto my knees.

Sit-ups - final set min required was 25. I over indexed and hit 76

Squats - final set min required was 27. I maxed out at 50. Since I have a bad knee I may have been able to do a few more but I did not want to take a chance on it going out on me.

So to date on the program here are the total numbers for each exercise

Push-ups total - 97
Sit-ups total - 197
Squat total - 194

Well that's where I stand on that so far.