Late Class, no workout.

November 5, Monday, I had a night class to teach so I got home late and was unable to do a regular workout. But knowing that I wouldn't be able to get a workout in, between classes, I walked around my campus for about half an hour just to get some movement in.  When I got home, I did my required number of Chin-Ups for the Chin-Up Challenge.

November 4 - Tennis + Chin-Up Challenge

Tennis Day!

Today was a good day.  Started off with the regular drills, but I was especially happy about the matches.  I won two out of three matches, but won all my service games pretty handily.  I was serving well and with control.  Not too many double faults either which is always a good thing.

When I got home, I did the required number of reps for the Chin-Up Challenge.

I had a good burn today at 2244 kcals.

Two semi-off days going into the weekend.

On Friday, November 2, I was in a time crunch so I wasn't able to do a regular workout, but I did get in my Chin-Ups for the Chin-Up challenge and I did a left arm concentration because I am working to balance the strength between my right and left sides.  My right is clearly much stronger because I play tennis so I need to do extra work to keep my left side strong.  I also did Ab EMS to get my core back to a strong level.

Saturday, I was thinking to do a workout after sunset, but my wife and I ended up going out with some friends so it didn't happen.  However, when I got home, I did the same line up as I did on Friday.  No gaps in my Chin-Up challenge this month is one of my goals.

I also bought into one of the sales pitches I saw on Facebook.  I saw an ad for Acupressure insoles, and with a money back guarantee, I decided to give it a try.  These companies depend on people being lazy and not requesting a refund when products don't work.  That is how they make a lot of their money, I assume, but I DO return products that don't work.  I have tried a lot of the "magic pill" supplements that are supposed to help my lose belly fat, and so far none have produced results as advertised.  And I have sent back all the empty bottles for a full refund.  I end up paying about $5.00 for shipping the empties back, but it is worth it to me to give these things a try, if for any reason, at least to alleviate my curiosity.  So, when I get the insoles, I'll try them out and report on the results.

Getting November started right. Back in the saddle!

November 1, 2018, Thursday.

HY: T25 - Alpha: Total Body Circuit + ChaLEAN Extreme - Extreme Core Circuit + Free-Style Upper Body Resistance + 30-Day Pull-Up Challenge + TCF.

Normally I wouldn't be able to do a long workout on a Thursday because I usually have a night class to teach, but due to scheduling issues, I get today and next Thursday off. WOO HOO!!!  So I was able to start the month with a nice workout.

I am still in sort of a recovery mode so I have stepped away from Body Beast for a while to get some stamina and strength back to a level where I can feel justified in picking up where I left off back on September 1.  I had only one routine left to do to finish out the Bulk Phase of Body Beast and I was planning to start Phase Three of Body Beast when I came back from the US.  But as I explained in yesterday's post, that didn't quite work out and I ended up not doing much of anything for a month and almost no other workout routine aside from mostly tennis up until around this week.  So, with my Beachbody Coach starting a "November King of the Hill Challenge", and the fact that I have won most of those challenges since she picked me up as a client, I decided to get back into the game and give it a go.  I'm not really aiming for the crown this time, but I just want to get my consistency back and renew my inner motivation.  That is something that I have lost since my father passed away.  I'm still feeling not like myself and I still feel like I'm living in a haze so I'm going to have to work to at least go through the motions of working out this month.

Today was my third workout of T25 having first done Alpha: Cardio and Alpha: Lower Focus, I was debating whether or not to do Alpha: Ab Intervals, but decided on Total Body Circuit because I'm not pressed for time and I could really focus on form, range of motion, and time under tension.  I also wanted to work with more Eccentric movement to increase gains.  Alpha: Total Body Circuit is the only Alpha Phase workout that I wasn't able to do a straight 25 on the last time I went through T25.  And I think I have only done a Straight 25 on Total Body Circuit once since the beginning.  So I was a little interested to see how far I could go with it being in the condition I am in.  Long story short, I when all the way to about the 6:20 mark until my body just wouldn't move anymore and I had to take about a 30-second break.  But when the Burnout began at the 5-minute mark, I took a break after almost every other move, I was so spent.  And even though my room was a bit cool, the sweat was pouring from me.  The move that got me, Spider Push-Ups.  Then I had to stop between those and the first move of the Burnout with is the Shoulder Tap Push-Ups.  That is extremely BRUTAL doing two tough push-up moves in a row.  When the routine was finished along with the 3+ minute cooldown stretch, the 25-minute workout turned into 36+ minutes.

I did the ChaLEAN Extreme - Extreme Core Circuit again to burn out my abs.  Again, I didn't use any extra weight, but I got a huge burn.  I've got a long way to go to be able to get back to being able to use the 2kg dumbbells again.

I also wanted to get in some resistance training, so I found an upper body workout on Pintrest that had just 5 moves, so I did that minus one move, the Rows.  Reason being I just wasn't in the mood to do rows.  But the moves I did was Curls, Shoulder Presses, Triceps Extensions on a Balance Ball, and then Bent Over Shoulder Flys.  I did three sets of each move in a 20-15-10 rep progression and an increase in weight for each set.  Then I also did 3 sets of 5 reps of Wide Pull-Ups.  That led me to the 30-Day Pull-Up Challenge I also found on Pintrest.  It is a relatively easier one than I usually do, but this is baby steps to get back.  Today was only 1 rep, but I actually did a Chin-Up instead.  And that was in addition to the other Wide Pull-Ups I just did.

I topped the workout off with a nice series of Tai Cheng Flows, as usual for my workouts.  Today felt good.  I hope I can keep it going for this month and beyond.

In the end, I burned 911 kcals.  This is more than I would normally burn for this type of workout, but that just goes to show how out of shape I am.  I hope to get back to my old self in more ways than one.

Why I took September and most of October off from working out.

Why I took September and most of October off from working out.

On September 3, Monday, I left for the United States.  My plan during my stay in the US was to mostly play Pickle-Ball as often as possible, I was looking at 6 days a week per my plan and expectations.  However, all did not go according to plan.  I arrived at my home in the US about 7 hours late because of a delayed flight due to weather, I almost didn't make it out of Chicago.  But I did and the transport service drove me home.  As I pulled into my driveway, the first glaring thing I noticed was the ambulance with lights flashing.  I paid the driver and ran into the house.  Apparently, my father had fallen in the bathroom and was in need of medical attention.  To make a long story short, my father was taken to the hospital and stayed overnight.  My mother stayed with him in his room.  I started to suffer from jet lag right away so I stayed at home and slept in till the late morning.  In the early evening, I finally made my way to the hospital at the request of my mom.  I arrived in my father's room around 6:30pm...  15 minutes later my father passed away.  This totally caught me and my whole family off guard.  Needless to say, I was in no mood to do much of anything.  The events of the following two weeks until the Memorial Service on September 15 is all sort of a blur.  But I actually did get in one session of Pickle-Ball with my mom and brother at their courts the next Sunday.

 At my father's memorial service.

September 17 - Pickle-Ball - 2020 kcals

Heading back to Japan.

On September 18, I made my way back to Japan.  Again, I was knocked out by jet lag and add to that the stress and grief of losing my father, I really was not feeling any type of motivation to do anything.  I started back to work that next Monday in sort of a haze.  Just going through the motions of teaching and working.  Again, it is all sort of a blur.  I did get in one session of Pickle-Ball.

October 1 - Pickle-Ball - 1137 kcals

And then I tried to keep the workouts going so on Friday, just to get in at least 30 minutes of exercise, I did...

October 2 - X3 Yoga - 382 kcals

I was out of shape and desperately needed to get back into tennis because I had another tennis tournament to play in that next Sunday.  I did get in a practice on Wednesday, and that was it.

October 3 - Tennis - 1523 kcals

October 7 - Tennis Tournament - 3986 kcals

I actually didn't play that badly.  My partner and I (This is only the second time to play with the partner I played with back in August.  Since we did so badly in August, I wanted some redemption, so I asked him to pair up again for this tournament.)  We lost our first match 3-6, but we won our next match 6-1, but we missed out on getting into the main draw on game count because we were tied with another team.  Then we lost our first match in the consolation round.  But I sort of threw that match at the end because both my calves were on the verge of cramping.  The score was 6-6, and we were in a tie-breaker.  With the tie-breaker score at 5-3, when I lunged for the shot to go to 6-3, I felt the pain strike in both calves.  We only needed one more point to win.   I didn't say anything until the game was over, but we eventually fell behind 6-7 and on my serve, I double-faulted twice.  I just couldn't move.  I couldn't have played in the next match anyway, so it was better for us to lose this one.  Not doing much exercise for a month really took its toll on me.  The next week and a half was just tennis.

October 10 - Tennis - 1772 kcals

October 14 - Tennis - 2028 kcals

October 17 - Tennis - 1688 kcals

But the itch to do weights started to come back, but I wasn't really feeling physically up to lifting at my present max, so I went with a nice short workout...

October 18 - Body Beast: Lucky 7's + ChaLEAN Extreme: Extreme Core Circuit - 915 kcal

Lucky 7's was a tough workout.  I didn't lift really heavy weights, but for the last two or three pyramids, I had to go down in weight just a bit.  But at the end, it felt good to get back to resistance training.   But with all that has been going on in my head, I still didn't feel totally like myself and I decided to shift gears and go a slightly different route with my workouts for a little while... outside of the regular tennis and Pickle-Ball sessions when I do them.  The following is a list of tennis dates which is regularly on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights.

October 21 - Tennis - 1983 kcals

October 24 - Tennis - 1566 kcals

October 28 - Tennis - 1205 kcals

October 31 - Tennis - 1783 kcals

The much lower calorie count on the 28th was due to the fact that I missed the first hour of the usual three-hour session because I had to make a quick appearance at a work function.  But I was able to play well and still get a good burn.  There was no Pickle-Ball this month except for the 1st because of two reasons, 1. my playing partner was under the weather a bit on some days, but mostly because of, 2. his mother was sick so he went back to the UK for a week or so, then as he was leaving his home, his mother passed away so he was back for only a week before he went back again.  He comes back this week but I doubt he will be ready to play for a couple of weeks.  The travel he has done will be brutal for him so I'm not going to push him to play.  I won't say anything until he approaches the subject first.

In between those tennis sessions, I did two alternative workouts using Shaun T's  T25 program, and back to Abs focus.

October 26 - T25: Alpha-Cardio + ChaLEAN Extreme: Extreme Core Circuit

October 29 - T25: Alpha-Lower Focus + ChaLEAN Extreme: Extreme Core Circuit + Upper Body Weights

During Alpha-Cardio, I was dying at the end of the Run Progression but kept on going with modification when it came to the Jacks Progression.  I had to modify with the In & Outs and a little with the doubles.  I had to take a break at 9 minutes, then a minute later just before the first Burnout.  Then I took a break again before the second Burnout.  But the breaks were not because I was dead tired, but rather because of the pain in my arches or my calves from all the jumping to move my feet around.  For my Abs, Extreme Core Circuit is great because it's on the balance ball.  On the 18th, I used the regular 2kg dumbbells.  Today, I went with no dumbbells.  And I still got an excellent burn in my core.  So that is the way I did them on the 29th as well.  The Lower Focus was brutal and I really burned out my calves that day.  More pain in my arches and calves.  But I added some upper body work day.  For each move, I did a lightweight and one athlete helper per ski run. But again, it felt good to be pushing some good weights.

This ends my Off-From-Workout days.  I'm going to try to be on it with regular workouts this month.  Today is October 31, 2018, and I'm going to do my best to maintain a workout schedule.  I really want to get back to be in a show.  From November 1, tomorrow, I'm back to individual workout entries.  See you in November.

Back after being MIA for a month and a half.

I have been MIA for the past month and a half. 

Since it has been a while, I am just going to post the workout sheets that I filled out for the rest of August.  The last two weeks of August I pretty much was all over the place with my workout schedule.  Below, is a list of my workouts, then below that are the workout sheets for all the weight days I did over the last two weeks, in no particular order. 

August 15 - Tennis - 1506 kcals

August 17 - X3 Yoga - 264 kcals

August 19 - Tennis Tournament - 3945 kcals

August 22 - Tennis - 1231 kcals

August 23 - Pickle-Ball

August 24 - Body Beast: Bulk - Shoulders - 935 kcals

August 26 - Tennis - 2153 kcals

August 27 - Body Beast: Bulk - Legs - 605 kcals

August 28 - Body Beast: Bulk - Chest - 528 kcals

August 29 - Tennis - 1319 kcals

August 30 - Body Beast - Bulk: Back - Missed Count

August 31 - Body Beast - Bulk: Arms - 514 kcals

September 2 - Tennis - 2082 kcals

In the next entry, I'll tell you what happened.

8-13-18 (Monday) HY: Body Beast - Bulk: Arms + Anabolic Stretch + ChaLEAN Extreme - I've Got Abs + TCF.

8-13-18 (Monday) HY: Body Beast - Bulk: Arms + Anabolic Stretch + ChaLEAN Extreme - I've Got Abs + TCF.

In the end, I burned 554 kcals.