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I’ve been into fitness since I was little, as my folks tell me of when I used to run incessantly back and forth between our yard and the neighbor’s yard before my dad built a fence between the two properties. That didn’t last, as I became rather overweight for quite some time due to growing fairly fast, having an excessive diet, and not doing enough cardio. While I haven’t kept on top of the diet and cardio until the last few years, I’ve been into weightlifting for quite some time and I also enjoy performing feats of strength like flipping tractor tires. With Festivus coming up on Wednesday, it’s fitting that I chose this point in time to do this post. Childhood Sports I did quite a few different sports when I was younger, such as tee ball, softball, soccer, shot-put, Ultimate Frisbee, and disc golf. Not a lot of these had much impact on me, though I do seem to have a few vivid memories of when I played soccer. I was nine years old at the time and I was the right guard. We used to practice at the Ballard Community Center and play games all over the greater Seattle area, usually during pretty miserable weather – I recall one game at Interbay where it poured the whole time. We weren’t a great team by any means, as our record was 2-10 or something terrible like that. It’s not surprising, as I ended up kicking one of my other teammates in the balls after he gave me a tremendous amount of grief for some reason. I had to run laps for that one, but I remember it being worth it. While I don’t remember if I was the greatest soccer player (seems like I was alright), I do remember that I could block a soccer ball with my face pretty well and get right back up. That said, I played one season of it and had my fill. Karate and Tae Kwon Do I went to the Loyal Heights Community Center during the summers of my pre-teen years due to my folks both working during the day and them not trusting me to stay at home by myself. I would have been fine, as I was on a huge gaming kick at the time and wouldn’t have caused any trouble. It could’ve been that they wanted me to go and socialize with other kids instead of staying inside and gaming all day. Go figure. In any event, one of the counselors taught karate after the daytime program was over, and I thought it would be fun to take her class as I believe my old friend Ben was taking her class as well. Unfortunately, the only thing I really remember from that time is that I got kicked almost in the balls (it landed a couple inches to the left) and I went down like a sack of potatoes. Perhaps it was karma catching up to my for my previous infraction while playing soccer. I ended up doing Tae Kwon Do not too long after that, and I stuck with it for a year or so. I had a really good and friendly instructor named Paul, and he was good in training us how to do the katas and all of the particular strikes. I passed both of the tests I went to (you have to perform your level’s kata and spar with someone from a different gym) and made it to first-degree yellow belt. Unfortunately, I ended up getting the flu shortly thereafter and didn’t continue with it in a formal setting. I did remember most of the strikes (especially the spinning back kick), so when I got a striking bag a few years down the road, I continued to drill what I had been trained to do (save for the katas). Weightlifting in High School Four classes of physical education were necessary in high school to graduate, and while my first class was a general physical education class (which usually entailed sneaking off to the lower gym and hanging out or playing Magic: The Gathering), the last three I took weight training and I was serious about it. I don’t have any real strong memories of the time, but I remember working out pretty hard on all those machines that they had in the dingy little basement gym of the old Ballard High School. It was pretty cool to go in and press some weight first thing in the morning, as it helped to take the edge off the rest of the day. I don’t think I got especially strong at that time and I wasn’t losing any weight (thanks to the diet & cardio issues mentioned above), but it planted the seeds well for what was to come. Weightlifting & Walking at Community College When I made it out to North Seattle Community College, I used their workout facility quite a bit. It was quite a step up from the basement at Ballard. The machines were nicer, there was a big window, and I could use it as I pleased. It was a little cramped, but the wide array of machines they had to work on was great. I bulked up a little in my time here, and finally dropped some of the weight I’d been hanging on to, though it was from walking home from college three days a week. It was about a two-and-a-half mile walk and I got down to about 250 during this time. Unfortunately, the weight came back after I graduated, but that's what happens when you quit working out and don't watch your diet. Anyway, I really enjoyed walking and I don’t think I’ve been on a good long walk for a couple years now. I should rectify that soon. Weightlifting at the University of Washington’s IMA Working out at the old IMA before the remodel was kind of weird. The gym was a giant room with lots of great weight and cardio machines, but there were no windows. At least when I worked out at Ballard in a windowless facility, it was because the room was underground. The big gym at the IMA was on the 2nd floor. I did use the workout rooms on the lower floor as well, as they had the dumbbells and certain machines that weren’t upstairs. They reminded me more of working out at Ballard, as they were smaller and there weren’t any windows in there either. Another issue I had with the IMA is that most of my classes were in the Red Square area and it was a good 10-15 minute walk to get there. While I won’t complain about the extra exercise, that was an extra half-hour round trip to go work out. I was spoiled at NSCC since the gym was right next to the building. I know UW is a huge campus, but they could have made the gym a little more centrally-located. Suffice it to say, I had a bench at home that got more use during my UW years than the facility did. Weightlifting at Home As I mentioned earlier, I got a weight bench and a striking bag for home, and I did use those to some extent during my UW time. I still used them after I graduated and before I started at my current job, but not with enough frequency to get any real results. Pure Fitness/Xplore Fitness/Vision Quest Shortly after I started my current job, I signed up at what was Pure Fitness at the time. They got me started on personal training, a meal program, and dietary supplements that really made the results appear. When I started there, I was at 305 and I lost 50 pounds in the first eight months. Fifteen of those pounds dropped off right away with the change in diet, which was due to watching the quality of food I ate and reducing my caloric intake, as well as eating smaller meals more frequently through the day and drinking more water. I dropped another 15 in 2007, dropped another 20 in 2008, and I’m about around the same this year. I was down to 205 at one point this year (as I’ll talk about more in an upcoming post), but I’m back up around 210-215 now as I’ve started lifting a bit more in the last couple of weeks. My diet hasn’t been the best lately either, but that’s a discipline fault that will be tuned up once 2010 is here. I can’t complain too much though, as my body fat percentage is about the same with the increase in weight. In my time at this gym, I’ve also gone through a slew of personal trainers, but that’ll be the focus of Wednesday’s post. Jeet Kune Do, Muay Thai, and MKG One of my personal trainers (that I’ll talk about a lot on Wednesday) got me into watching Bruce Lee and Tony Jaa movies, whose martial arts disciplines are Jeet Kune Do and Muay Thai, respectively. I was extremely impressed with the finesse and brutality that both of these arts possessed, so when I found out that MKG (Minnesota Kali Group) had classes in both and was within walking distance of home, I signed right up. Two of my good friends had trained there over the years and could attest to the quality. It was a pretty fun experience to begin with and it helped step up the intensity in which I train. However, the value of it began to decline quickly as they cancelled the Jeet Kune Do class fairly early on in my time there, and they only had one Muay Thai class per week that I could get to due to my job. This led me to train Savate at well, which is French kickboxing. I like the finesse of that art, but there’s little brutality. Also, in these classes I’d usually get paired up with someone that was interested in punting my head through the goal posts rather than honing their technique. One of the disadvantages of being tall, I suppose. Current I’m currently in the gym four days a week, Monday through Thursday. I do an hour of weights on Monday and Wednesday and 45 minutes of cardio on Tuesday and Thursday. I’m trying to get a supplemental Saturday session going here at home, but the weekends have been a little too busy as of late. That’s another goal for 2010! Monday’s usually my personal training day, so that workout is up to the trainer. Wednesday is the day that I get to get creative with my own routines, and I’ve been focusing on doing “giant sets”, which is doing three different exercises in a row, taking a breather, then doing them all over again. I was doing four giant sets with 15 repetitions of each exercise, but the 3rd and 4th sets kept feeling excessive, so I’ve dropped it down to two giant sets currently. This also allows me to hit more areas of my body and keep my muscles guessing more. The last time I worked out, I did six different giant sets, which is 18 different exercises. It equated to a set every 10 minutes, which is a lot of work to do in a short period of time, but I know I got some good results from it. The Future In 2010 and beyond, I’d like to finally get below 200, and I know that’s going to take a ton of hard work. It’ll also require a lot of creativity, because if I stick to the same thing over and over again (see my high school and college days), there won’t be a whole lot of results. The routines have to be changed up after a while (usually a month or so) to get the most benefit. One resource I find useful for keeping things interesting in the gym is [Strength Training Anatomy - 2nd Edition  ] by Frederic Delavier, which has an absolute wealth of different exercises you can do to train your muscles. I also find that doing my striking drills with a pair of dumbbells in my hands for the punches and elbows and wearing a pair of ankle-weights for the knees and kicks help to give me better speed, endurance, and balance.Do you have any good weight training tips to share? I’m always interested in learning new things to incorporate to my workouts. Let me know on the message board! Discuss this post at [The Forum of Jason Vincion]! Posted on December 21st, 2009. |
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 Compilation Volume Three |
 Shizz Block Volume One |
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[December 2009 Index] [2009 Index] [Index] |
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[2009 in Review] [A Change in Profile] [A Creative Introduction] [Breaking the 200 Pound Barrier] [Endurance Routine] [For the Love of Finance] [For the Love of Music] [One More Trainer Down] [Rediscovering Fitness Goals] [Revolving Trainers] [Working with Pyramid Sets] |
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