Anodyne: Physio

Yesterday was my appointment at Anodyne Chiropractic and Sports Therapy.  I had a one hour session with a Chiropractor and a one hour deep tissue massage after.  This is the first time I've ever been to either chiro or massage, and I gotta say, it was a pretty good experience.  When I had first called I was looking for physiotherapy but I was surprised when they said they don't have actual physio therapists.  I thought Chiropractors only worked on things regarding the spine, but I guess I was wrong.  He worked in my foot, trying to mobilize the soft tissue.  It was apparently called the ART soft tissue treatment.  After that, he used the Graston technique, where he rubs a butter knife like tool over the injury, trying to break down the scar tissue.  I was a little worried at first because my doctor had told me we wanted everything to get real stiff to stabilize my foot, but I guess after a year, it's time to bring back some mobility to my joints.  My foots a little sore today but that's expected.  He also cracked my back, aligning my spine.  Apparently I'm really stiff and he had a hard time cracking my upper back haha.  The massage was pretty painful at times but I felt pretty good afterwards... I guess.  Pain is good right?
Later that afternoon I went to the gym, and when I was doing squats, I noticed an improvement in the strain on my lower back.  There seemed like no strain on my lower back at all and everything was stretched out, so I guess something was outta line before.

I've heard good things about Anodyne from quite a few people so I'm optimistic they'll get my foot stronger!  And if you've never had a deep tissue massage... get one, it's definitely worth it!

Getting in the groove of things

Ever since I moved it's been hard to find the time to blog.  Nonetheless, I've been keeping up with my goals I mentioned earlier.  Weight wise I stepped on the scale at 145 lbs today!  An all new record.  When I was living at home, my weight would fluctuate but never really go up, but with my new diet and training regime it's well on it's way.  I haven't gotten around to count my calories or any of that stuff, but I structure my meals around a few basic rules:

1. Use the food pyramid.  When buying groceries I make sure there are proportionate amounts of each food group.
2. Eat healthy.  I want to gain lean mass, not get fat!
3. Eat LOTS.  I try to get in 6 meals a day, with each meal not being extremely large.

Here's typically what I eat in a day:
6:15 AM  - Omelette with 2 eggs and red pepper, green onion, mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, ham and cheese. 
                 - Bowl of oatmeal
10:00 AM - Ham, lettuce, and cheese sandwich
                 - Bowl of yogurt with berries
                 - An orange, or apple
                 - Handful of almonds
12:00 PM - Either pasta, or rice with chicken and brocolli
                 - Another fruit
3:00 PM   - Tuna Sandwich
                 - Another fruit
6:30 PM   - Rice, with chicken breast and vegetables on side
9:30 PM   - Fruit Smoothie

And here's the graph of my weight progress

 

Lastly, I just finished week 6 of the MadCow lifting program.  I'm seeing gains already, so I can't wait until week 12!  Since things are starting to get heavy though, I started taking creatine again.  Today was my first day so I will be on a 5 day loading phase this week!  

Baked Lemon Herb Chicken Breasts

Chicken breasts offer a great source of protein, and they can be cooked so many different ways and compliment a variety of dishes.  For example, for dinner I would have a chicken breast with sides of rice, potatoes and asparagus/broccoli.  A chicken breast contains approximately the same amount of protein as a scoop of protein powder, so next time you get out of the gym try this recipe instead of guzzling down that sandy mixture. 

Protein: 30-40 grams
Servings: 4 breasts
Prep time: 15 minutes
Inactive prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons minced garlic (9 cloves)
1/3 cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon lemon zest (2 lemons)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 whole lemon (3 lemons in total should do the trick)
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
salt and black pepper
4 boneless chicken breasts

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Warm olive oil over medium-low heat, add garlic, and cook just for a minute, not letting the garlic brown.  Remove from heat, and add the white wine, lemon zest, lemon juice, oregano, thyme, and 1 teaspoon of salt.  Pour mixture into a baking dish.

 3. Pat chicken breasts dry and place them in the sauce.  Brush the chicken breasts with olive oil and sprinkle them with salt and pepper.  Cut the lemon in 8 wedges and stick them in between the chicken breasts.

4. Bake for about 30-40 minutes. 

Enjoy! (sides: tomato salad and soy sauce eggplant w/ rice)

Recipe Source: Television Food Network

Switching to the Madcow Strength Program

I've probably said this before, but here are my fitness goals:

1. Bulk up via strength training to about 150 lbs (~10-15% body fat is fine)
2. Join the 1000lb club (Deadlift, bench, and squat must add up to at least 1000lb)
3. Bring my conditioning up (Cut back on strength training and focus on circuit training ~5-8% body fat)

Obviously when I start the conditioning, my weight will drop a bit, maybe settling down around 145lb.  The idea is to become lean yet still strong, so I have to gain a bit of extra weight when I'm bulking to anticipate the weight loss after.

Moving to Grande Prairie kept me busier than I thought it would, and during the transition I didn't go to the gym for about a month.  Now I'm finally settled in, I'm back in a routine and going to World's Gym for my weight lifting needs.  Like I mentioned in previous posts, I said I would start a new program to help me break over some of the plateaus I was experiencing.  This new program is called the Madcow Program.  There's speculation over where exactly this program came from, but these 5x5 programs are nothing new and they have been proven again and again.  Essentially 5x5 programs are structured around the ideology of 5 sets of 5 reps.  5 reps is less than the usually 8-10 rep standard that many in the fitness world preach, but in order to really get strong, you need to lower the reps and increase your load.  To offset the low number of reps, you maintain the work output by increasing the standard 3 sets to 5 sets.  There is a popular lifting program called Starting Strength, and it is a 5x5 program aimed at people fairly new at lifting weights.  It gets people strong pretty quick!  It's a program by Mark Rippetoe, a highly regarded coach with 25 years in the fitness industry and 10 years as a competitive power lifter.  He has a website here: Starting Strength, with lots of useful tips and videos and he also has a book by the same name.  Needless to say, more and more people are starting to jump on the 5x5 bandwagon.

Now the Madcow program is a intermediate lifting program, usually for people that have completed programs such as Rippetoe's Starting Strength.  Because gains are harder to come by, the program ensures optimal recovery, and slowly ramps up weight over the course of weeks.  Here is some more information on the Madcow program: http://stronglifts.com/madcow-5x5-training-programs/

Some fantastic person created a spreadsheet that is easy to use and follow where you enter how much weight you can normally lift at max, and it calculates exactly what weight to use each workout.  Here's a screenshot of the spreadsheet and you can see in the red box my workout for today.  This is my second week doing it.  During my one month hiatus, I lost a bit of muscle and I'm finding myself not as strong as before.  I still kept my "maxes" the same as before though, so I'm hoping that I regain my former self pretty quickly here.  By week 4-5 you should be breaking your old personal records, so until then it's supposed to be pretty easy.  Also, if I stick to this, by week 12 I should have hit the 1000lb club!

Now you might be asking, so do you really only do 3 lifts a day?  In short, yes.  These compound exercises are your bread and butter and should result in the most gains for what you are putting in.  Since you are stressing your body so much with a lot of weight, you need a lot of recovery.  However, there are complimenting exercises that you can throw in.  As long as you don't spend another hour working your biceps, you should be fine.  For example, one day i did some pullups, the other day I did some light clean and jerks.  Don't overdo it.  Of course, what do I know, this is my first time doing this program.  What I do know is though, in weight lifting there is the law of diminishing returns.  Up to a certain point you can work out for hours on end and not get corresponding gains.  Ever worse, you can overtrain and get sick, and that throws your body really out of whack.

Anyways, food doesn't cook itself, so I better get off the computer and make some lunch.  Oh and on that, I'm going to post some of my new nutrition and put up a recipe I tried out and like.  It's nice and simple, and got lots of protein for your weight lifting grunting needs! 

Grande Prairie Update

Sorry, it's been over a month since I've posted.  To be fair, I didn't have my computer or internet access for about 3/4 of that time.  I've finally moved to Grande Prairie, and this is the first weekend where I'm settled down and not too busy.  I was in a hotel for the first week because I couldn't move in until August.  It would have been 2 weeks in the hotel, but luckily the manager let me move in a week early.  Not to say the hotel was horrible... the place I stayed at had it's own kitchen so I was able to cook at least!

I ordered Internet and TV from Telus as soon as possible, but somehow they always manage to disappoint me.  They screwed up my address and when I called them to correct it they said "oh yeah, we have the right address, don't worry".  Sure enough, they call me that day and tell me that they can't hook up my services because of the wrong address.  ugh.  So I had to wait an extra week and a half before I had internet/tv.  It wasn't too bad though, because I drove to Calgary for the long weekend and drove back up with my girlfriend.  She stayed for a week, and on the weekend we drove down to Two Lakes and did some hiking.  We got lost in the bush, but it was a pretty fun adventure.  It was a rainy day and by the end of the day we were soaked from head to toe.  Here's some pictures:

My muddy truck!

Amazing

Beautiful girlfriend at the wapiti river!

Missing the cowboy hats...

For whatever reason, the grasshoppers in GP are breeding like crazy this year, and these little buggers seem to really like my grill...

Anyways, my girlfriend is gone now, and I'm settled in, and it feels like every minute of my time is spent cleaning and cooking!  I joined World's gym, and also joined the team at GP boxing.  They're a small group of guys but a great bunch and we can all help each other improve our game.  Anyways, I train Monday to Thursday at the boxing gym, and then I work out 3 times a week.  As a result, I don't have much time for cooking and I need to cook a lot of food in advance and I've become best friends with tupperware.  Here's a picture of one of my better creations :)

Baked Lemon Chicken with herb roasted potatoes with rice and broccoli. Mmm!  

I'll make another post about my new training, but until then, here are pictures of my new apartment!  I really need to go to sleep cuz I'm bagged!  

Ciao!

Top 3 Mistakes in Weight Lifting

Over the years I have seen people do some pretty stupid stuff at the gym.  For example, the other day I saw 3 high school kids walk over to the squat rack, put 10 lb bumper plates onto the barbell, and proceeded to do bicep curls.  I stared at them in disbelief but they were too busy comparing their biceps to notice me.  Cutting to the chase, here are the 3 biggest mistakes in my opinion in weight lifting:

1. Forgetting to breathe:  When going for that new personal record sometimes people forget that their brain needs oxygen and that by holding their breathe they are some how stronger.  Breathe!
2. Lifting on an upset stomach: for all those who know what I mean, I empathize.  For those who don't, just don't do it.  Make sure you do what you have to do in the washroom before lifting.
3. Overestimating one's abilities:  Not only does this hinder your progress, if you're lucky you can end up on the internet for everyone's amusement.

Now that I've explained that, I'm sure a few people will disagree with me, but rest assured I was not completely serious when I came up with these.  In fact, they really just complement the videos below... and although they may not be the biggest mistakes... we should all take note.

Enjoy!

Note: Pay attention to the area between the lifter's feet in the first video

Update

Gains!  The past couple weeks has been good in terms of personal records for me.  Last week I clean and jerked 165#, and few days later followed it up with a 195# clean.  My weighted pullups went up to +55#, and I managed to lift 375# on the deadlift!  It's interesting that most of these new records were done at times when I'm training minimally.  I'm really busy right now, with finding an apartment, buying furniture, booking hotels and flights, etc etc, and I just can't train as much as I did before.  It's actually probably because of this that I'm able to lift these weights in the gym.  My body is well rested and strong when I go into the gym, and it's not struggling to recover from previous days workouts.  Sometimes when I take a week off from the gym, either because I'm busy or I'm going on vacation, I come back to the gym expecting that I will be weaker, but usually it's the opposite.  So I figure it's good to give the body a break once in a while, let everything recover back to 100%, and then get back at it after. 

More on deadlifts, I was talking with a friend who competes in strongman competitions, and we're going to try and race for the 3X bodyweight deadlift.  I'm around 135#, so I would have to DL 405#.  He's around 190# and would have to DL 570#.  I think right now he deadlifts just over 500?  Anyways, it seems like a fun challenge and a good goal to set.  Hopefully I can get there in less than 6 months.  I finally went out and bought wrist straps and chalk, so that should help with my deadlifting. 

Anyways, this was a pretty boring post, but like I said I'm busy.  I'll try to make something more interesting when I get time!