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 During our workout today both my son and I noticed how difficult some exercises really are. I started looking back in my log and noted that some of my weights have actually gone down and yet I'm struggling. The answer became very clear. The second exercise we do is deadlifts. When you put everything you've got into your deadlifts there isn't much left for the rest of the workout. This was designed this way by Dr. Darden. I'm not really sure why I didn't catch on to this sooner, but it hit me hard today. Deadlifts hit the entire body. Thus, when you do them so early in a workout it is sort of a pre-exhaustion technique. I noticed it especially in my bent over rows, but my pulldowns were amazingly hard today as well. I will say that it makes it extra intense when you do deadlifts this early in the workout. At the same time, the intensity level goes way up for the entire workout. I was winded from the second exercise forward. It was truly intense. This leads me to a lesson everyone needs to learn. We often speak in terms of cardio for fat burning and weight training for muscle building, but this is a thought process that must be set aside. Weight training can be a great cardio workout if done correctly. At the same time, it keeps you from losing the muscle you are working so hard to build. Carlos DeJesus prescribes a weight training circuit as cardio for alot of his clients. It gets the heart rate way up and really helps to burn fat. At the same time, if you are capable of pushing yourself extremely hard during your weight training workouts you can get this same cardio benefit. That's what happens to me during H.I.T. workouts. My heart rate is racing throughout the workout. I keep the rest periods very short. In fact, the only rest I get is deloading one exercise and loading up the other exercise. Carlos sent me an email today that got me thinking. He commented about how cigarette smokers, when traveling, plan space in their luggage for their extra cigarettes. They do such a good job that they are rarely ever caught short. Thus, why is it that someone with a bad habit plans ahead better than some of us who are supposed to be so health conscious? We say we want to stick to our eating plans when away from home and yet we just don't plan as well as the cigarette smoker. In addition, cigarette smokers don't offer any excuses for what they do, but alot of us are so self-conscious about our eating habits that we make excuses when eating out with other people. Why is that?
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Things progressed well today. We both increased most of our weights/reps throughout the entire workout. As noted above, we both found that the workout got more intense today. The combination of working closer to the 80% of our 1RM and the deadlifts right at the start of the workout really kicked our butts. For those of you interested in following Matty's progress, each Sunday through this mission we will be posting an article with his pictures. We will do an end of Week 1 picture this Sunday. Each Sunday thereafter (through this mission) we will do a comparison of Week 1 with the current week's picture. It should be interesting to see Matty's transformation. |
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 Planning ahead is the only way to stay on target. |
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 What sort of plans do you put in place when you have to be away from home? Comment this post to answer the question. |
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Until tomorrow…GET BACK TO LIFTING! |
