Life of a Student

Alright, so the date for my goal has come and passed. How did I do?

• “Be able to parallel squat 275 for 15 repetitions” - Not even close. I was banking on my squat progress being much faster than it actually was. I can bang out 240 pounds for 8 or 9 repetitions nowadays, which I still consider to be a relatively strong improvement. Squats are just so ridiculously challenging sometimes…
• “Weigh in at 170 pounds.” - I’m at about 165-168 pounds nowadays, depending on the time of day, etc. I’m in a bulking phase right now, so although I would like to gain as little fat as possible, caloric excess is required for muscular gain, and so in some cases it can’t really be helped. Have to address that in the cutting phase instead.
• “Be able to close the Captains of Crush No. 1 Gripper 8 times (I currently am working with the CoC Trainer gripper + CoC Expand Your Hand Bands, which I will review in a post at a later date.)” - I have a relatively easy time now with the CoC Trainer Gripper, but I simply haven’t ordered the Captains of Crush No. 1 gripper yet - I will get that taken care of in the coming weeks.
• “Weighted chin-ups with 45 lbs, at least 15 repetitions.” - I can do this. It is a bit challenging, but doable for me at this state.

So that about wraps up my goal analysis. Summer just began for me a few weeks ago, so I will be crafting a new set of goals, which I will be posting about in a few days.

I’m excited about this summer - it will be a time of massive positive personal change in many ways.

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So I’ve been doing some introspection lately, and I’ve come to a conclusion as to why my gains are not as great as I’d like them to be first.

First off, the amount of sets I’m doing is just not enough. I’ve averaging about 6 sets per workout, and while the sets themselves are fairly high-intensity, they’re not providing sufficient volume. I highly recommend MadCow’s Training Primer for a solid article on how volume must be used to shape the creation of workouts. Therefore, effective immediately, I am going to start researching workouts that I can do (given my current limited gym setup).

Secondly, I’m not giving my body the nourishment (especially protein), and simple raw caloric excess that it needs to grow and build muscle. Simply, I don’t eat anywhere near as much as I need to grow.

Building muscle is not something the body does easily and willingly. The body must be convinced of the need to develop and adapt. And nothing can do that better than 1) caloric and protein excess and 2) decent heavy volume workouts, 3 days a week.

In spite of my underperformance, I’m still managed to make some gains, and I’m currently the strongest I’ve ever been in my entire life. I know that if I can just push a bit more discipline and time management, that the body I seek will be mine soon.

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So with my goal deadline a little less than a month and a half away, I thought I would go over how my progress is going so far.

Goals:
1. Parallel squat 275 pounds for at least 15 repetitions.
Three days ago, I squatted an all-time maximum, doing 230 pounds for 5 sets of 5 reps. To reach 275 for 15 repetitions, however, will be a worthy goal. Most likely, I’ll have to increase the volume to 2 squat workouts per week to hit that metric.

2. Weigh in at 170 pounds.
I currently weigh in at around 163 to 165 lbs, depending on the time of day. My diet is undoubtedly improving (thanks to keeping better tabs on how much and what I eat).

3. Be able to close the Captains of Crush No. 1 Gripper 8 times (I currently am working with the CoC Trainer gripper + CoC Expand Your Hand Bands, which I will review in a post at a later date.)
The Trainer gripper has become far easier to work with. Improved grip strength is actually one of the most functionally useful things I’ve gained from weightlifting. It makes so many tasks easier, something I notice and appreciate almost every day. I believe this goal is within reach if I keep up my grip workouts, and increase the volume to 3x a week (instead of 2x).

4. Weighted chin-ups with 45 lbs, at least 15 repetitions.
Out of all of my goals, this is the one I am closest to achieving. Two days ago, I was able to do weighted pullups with 55 pounds strapped to my waist (5 sets of 5 reps), so it’s not too unreasonable to expect that I could do at least 11-12 reps with 45 lbs. Looking forward to hitting this one.

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The internet has been responsible for teaching me 99% of the knowledge I currently hold about weightlifting. I highly recommend the Bodybuilding.com forums as a great community that houses a wide variety of training experts. Regardless if you’re a seasoned professional or just touched your first weight yesterday, the forums will have something of value to offer you. The Nutrition and Workout Journal sections in particular have some really good information. I’d also like to add that the Teen Bodybuilding section is of a little bit lower quality than the rest of the board.

But I want to move the focus to two online tools that have helped me keep tracking my progress with the iron:

Joe’s Goals - Goal tracking system
Here’s their own description from their website:

Inspired somewhat by Benjamin Franklin’s 13 Virtues, I built Joe’s Goals to make it stupidly simple to create, track, and share your personal goals. It is a productivity application that is actually easy enough to use.

For beginners to weightlifting, a sticking point is building the habit of going to the gym regularly (3 to 4 times a week). I had this problem about 2 years ago - I would go to the gym around 1-2 times a week. Since I never tracked my gym visits, I thought that I was doing a lot more volume than I actually was.

Joe’s Goals helps with this problem by presenting a simple, clean interface for general goal tracking. For each day, you simply click off a check mark if you achieved the goal. The interface keeps track of “chains”, which are how many days in a row you’ve successfully executed your goals. There’s nothing more satisfying then keeping up a solid chain and seeing at the end of the week a nice looking row of 7 straight check marks.

Fitday - Diet Journal

There’s no doubt that nutrition is an essential part of the growth and hypertrophy process. You absolutely have to get at least 1 gram of protein per lb of bodyweight in order to promote muscle growth. Not tracking your diet is like shooting in the dark - you have no idea if you’re getting anywhere.

FitDay offers a database of thousands of foods and their estimated caloric values. Using it over a period of 3 days to log my food intake, I realized that my nutrition is lacking - I’m only averaging around 2700 calories and 110 grams of protein per day. I’m currently working on some goals and guidelines to address these deficiencies.

Hope you find these tools as helpful as I did - leave a comment on what you think about them.

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So true… I’ve made so many on-the-spot goals for myself that were driven solely by how I felt at the time (a girl I liked, or a mistake I made). Goals are far more powerful as a motivator when they are physically written out, and even moreso when they are divulged to the public. So without further ado, here are my exercise goals for the semester:

• Parallel squat 275 pounds for at least 15 repetitions.
• Weigh in at 170 pounds.
• Be able to close the Captains of Crush No. 1 Gripper 8 times (I currently am working with the CoC Trainer gripper + CoC Expand Your Hand Bands, which I will review in a post at a later date.)
• Weighted chin-ups with 45 lbs, at least 15 repetitions.

Deadline for completion: April 30, 2008

These will no doubt be challenging goals to reach, and I will need to modify my current diet heavily - I am not getting enough protein and carbohydrates currently, and diet is as important as actual weightlifting in gaining strength and muscle.

For now, I’m converting this blog from a personal one to a workout journal, complete with how I am doing towards achieving my goals, and some commentary on weightlifting and training in general.

Tags: Exercise, Goals by admin
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So a new school year has come.

Everything is going by so fast… sometimes it all blends together. I’ve heard many times from graduates that college just flies by in a flash. I can definitely attest that is true for me. It seems like only yesterday I was folding clothes at the Gap. Now I’m drowning in chemistry homework and engineering problem sets.

Which takes me to a thought I’ve been turning over in my head recently - something first brought up in one of my classes.

The majority of men live their lives for the “end result”, that reward that they get for “suffering” through life.

I certainly felt this way recently, when I battled 4 different midterms plus a huge project - all in one week. Sleep deprivation, complete fatigue, and a feeling of weakness and lifelessness were my constant companions.

All I could console myself with was the thought of the “end result” - that delicious weekend that lay only a few days in front of me. But what was that tribulation in the grand scheme of things? Should not all life be enjoyed, even the hard times? Are the hard times not necessary to fully enjoy the best of times?

If we are constantly wishing for life to go faster so we can reach the fun, does life itself not get wasted in the process? Life should be viewed and lived differently.

So easy for me to write, but so difficult for the idea to be lived. The difficulty of anything worthwhile always lies in action…

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