12-31-17 (Sunday) HY: Body Weight BOOM, Workout B + OCR Dead Hang, Day 31 + TCF + Ab EMS.

12-31-17 (Sunday) HY: Body Weight BOOM, Workout B + OCR Dead Hang, Day 31 + TCF + Ab EMS.

Today I went with the second routine in the BW BOOM program.  The 4 moves were: Burpees, 1 1/4 Split Lunges, Supine Scissor Kicks, Oblique Static Plank.  Again, these moves were deceptively difficult.  But I tried to do the same thing I did on Friday: Focus on the target muscles, Perfect Form, Full Range of Motion.  Again, it took a lot longer than anticipated, almost 40 minutes.  The Lunge move is easy, but the slower reps really activate the muscles a lot quicker and bring a lasting burn sooner than even weighted lunges.  I was sweating by the second round.  Great all around routine.

I hit my secondary goal of straight 60's.  My main goal was to hit a 90 second initial hang, but that didn't workout because of a pain in my forearm, possibly due to overwork with all the tennis.  But I'll get that goal later, after the tournament.  Today, I got the Penta-Split: 60-60-60-60-60-60 Seconds, for a total of SIX MINUTES! Until today I was afraid to go upside down, but thanks to this challenge, I have confidence in my grip strength. Benefits from this challenge are very evident in my tennis game and weightlifting. Definitely continuing this long term.

I also closed out my workout with a beauty of a Flow Series.  I little erratic with those recently, but I'm going to try to be more consistent with it.  Then totally closed out the year with my Ab EMS.  Final Ab work of the year.

In the end, I burned over 650kcals.  So it was a good workout.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!!! Best wishes in 2018!!!

12-29-17 (Friday) HY: Body Weight BOOM, Workout A + OCR Dead Hang, Day 29 + Ab EMS.

12-29-17 (Friday) HY: Body Weight BOOM, Workout A + OCR Dead Hang, Day 29 + Ab EMS.

Today, I'm just trying to stay safe and maintain a level of activity that will carry me until the tournament.  So, I'm just going with body weight routines.  Today's routine I got sometime ago, and did for a bit when I wasn't in a good condition.  So it is going to help me maintain my fitness for a few days.

The routine is pretty straight forward.  A circuit of four moves done in five sets.  The moves are: High-Low Plank Drill, Contra-Lateral Toe Touch, Scorpians, and 1 1/4 Squats.  The moves are deceptively difficult.  It took a good 30-35 minutes to get through the 5 sets.  One reason is because I was really trying to keep perfect form and have full range of motion.  I was also not trying to rip through the reps, but I was focusing on activating the target muscles for each move.  I didn't want to just mindlessly get through the moves.  I was surprisingly breathing heavily from the beginning of the third set.  I was very satisfied with the time under tension for each move.  Surprisingly, again, Scorpions were probably the most taxing move.  I still can't get my leg over to touch my hand.  But I'm working on it.

I wasn't worried about the workout affecting my grip strength, so I was able to warm up my body and arms.  I was very happy with my performance today.  I think yesterday's "easy" day with the Hepta-Split really helped my forearms recover.  Today was the best day ever for the hang. I felt strong and stable. Got a Hexa-Split: 60-60-60-40-40-40-40 Seconds, for a 5:40 total. I had intended to do the same thing as yesterday, but right off, I felt good. I could have gone longer, for sure, but I started to feel the pain in my right forearm, so I tapped out. I can’t believe there are only two days left of the challenge. Thank you all for the support!

I got in an Ab EMS session before bed.  Nice way to end the day.

In the end, I burned just over 450kcals.  But the big thing was the run in my dead hang.  I'm really happy about that.

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12-30-17 (Saturday) HY: OCR Dead Hang, Day 30 + Ab EMS.

Today was an off day from a regular workout, but I still had to do the Dead Hang, so here it it.  Totally crushed it today with a Penta-Split: 60-60-60-60-60-50 Seconds. Grips are excellent! Unfortunately, I discovered that the Lever Pull-Up takes away some of the forearm tension. I got a second wind after minute 3, and was able to hammer out the rest of the time with much shorter breaks.

Finished the day out with my Ab EMS.  Hardening and sculpting my abs takes no vacation!

12-28-17 (Thursday) HY: Tennis + Ab EMS + OCR Dead Hang, Day 28.

12-28-17 (Thursday) HY: Tennis + Ab EMS + OCR Dead Hang, Day 28.

Well, today was a busy day.  Not a lot of time for relaxing or being lazy, except for getting up at a nice late hour(8:30am).  But once the day got started, it didn't stop until the evening.  I was able to do that work task in the morning, then it was shopping with my girls.  I wanted something very specific, but couldn't find it, so I came away empty handed.  By the time we got home, I had to start getting ready for tennis.  Today was the last session with my Thursday club.

Today was the ideal situation for me at the Thursday club.  Only 4 of us came at the earlier hour so we were able to warm up together and start match play quicker.  The warm up was exactly what I needed to get used to the faster surface.  I was mis-timing balls all throughout the warm up.  The funny thing is that the style of play during warm up as compared to match play is very different.  During warm up, they hit hard and without reserve.  But during match play, they lob and bloop most of the time.  Timing is always an issue at this club, but today, I was zoned in and I was hitting out without reserve.  Everyone was commenting about how I was not missing any shots.  In the first match, it was basically true.  I was so on.  90%+ of the points we lost were due to my partners misses or the opponents good shots.  I really didn't have any unforced errors in that first set.  My serve was on as well.  I was especially happy with my backhand service return.  I wasn't trying too much, I was getting the ball back into play and then trusting my ground strokes.  It was a good first set which we won 6-3.  We switched partners for the second set.  I also cooled off just a little bit.  I netted a few balls, but my serve was still on.  So far, I had been able to win all my service games pretty handily.  In the first set, I hit a lot of service winners, but it was in the second set that my serve really came alive.  I hit two BOOMING aces to the ad court with my flat serve, then another two aces with my wide out serve to the deuce court.  The best thing is that my mechanics were good, so no pain in my shoulder.  I was also very crisp at net.  My volley's were tight, but I was still a bit off on the put away volley, but second chance balls were gone.  A couple time, I hit my opponents, but I quickly apologized.  We ended up taking the set, 6-3.  By this time, another member had come, so we switched partners again and started a third set.  My first service game was a blast.  But my second service game, I guess I just got a little conservative and it got to Deuce, and... I double faulted.  I was very disappointed.  I really wanted to have a perfect night for my service games.  But we still took the match, 6-4.  So I was perfect with matches, so I was happy.  This was a good boost for my up coming tournament so I hope I can keep the focus and intensity up.  Truth be told, I was considering not going to play today because I was still really tired from yesterday.  I was feeling really sleepy even on the way to the gym.  But I knew that this was going to be my last chance to play before the tournament so I pushed myself to go.  And I am happy that I did.

I did my Ab EMS, and Dead Hang just before going to bed to give myself as much recovery time after tennis.  Super surprised that I got in a Hepta-Split: 30-30-40-40-60-30-60-40 seconds, for a total of 5:30. The initial hangs were short, but they were like warm ups, because the 60’s were pretty easy. A lot less stress pain than yesterday. Oh, and yes, I’m THE HULK!!!

In the end, I burned a good 1100+kcals.  It was a great practice and a great high note to end my tournament tune up on.  Now, I just have to stay healthy, focused and loose.  Game on in 5 days!

12-27-17 (Wednesday) HY: Ab EMS + Tennis + OCR Dead Hang, Day 27.

12-27-17 (Wednesday) HY: Ab EMS + Tennis + OCR Dead Hang, Day 27.

Today didn't start out as I was hoping.  I was supposed to do some work for school, but because someone didn't fulfill their duty, I was forced to waste a day and push the work to tomorrow.  My son came back from Tokyo yesterday and we were planning to play tennis for a couple of hours from 5pm to 7pm, then I had my regular tennis club from 7pm to 9pm.  Yep, that is a lot of tennis.  That wouldn't be so bad, but it was close to freezing temperatures outside so I was getting ready with a lot of layers.  Also, I knew I wouldn't be in the mood to do anything, so in the early afternoon, I got my Ab EMS done.  I was going to do the Dead Hang also, but I got caught up in helping my wife with some house chores and before I knew it, it was time to go.

My son and I don't usually play matches, so we just started off as usual.  An extra long warm up, followed by simple stroke practice through regular rallies.  But I wanted to do a little practice in singles point play, so I asked if I could serve some points.  My son capitulated.  So, I started serving, point after point.  I hadn't intended to play a match, but we were both sort of keeping score, and before I knew it, I had served and won enough points to have won two games straight.  Then my son asked if he could serve.  I really wanted to practice receiving a fast serve, so I said, "Sure".  We started acknowledging out match, so we actively started keeping score.  My son, also easily won two games.  So I started serving again while keeping score.  I lost my first service game but won the second.  Game count was 3-3. Then when my son served his first game, and I had a break point, but I couldn't convert, and I had another break point in the second game, but I ended up losing both games.  My son was now up 3-5.  I got the serve back and pretty handily won the game.  Time was short, so I told him that I wanted a chance to break his serve, so I gave up my second game and let him either serve out the set, or we tie.  I jumped to Love-40 and then he hit a good serve to go 15-40.  But I finally was able to close out the game, breaking him.  Game count 5-5.  Then we had to go to our respective next sessions, me to my club and my son to his friend.  We played standard rules, and about three games had multiple deuces and ads, so the game actually went pretty long.  That 5-5 set was close to an hour long.  It was a lot of fun, and I was actually very surprised that I was able to keep up with my son.  I thanked him for taking it easy on me, but he said that he was playing at 100%.  I'll take it!  It was a great practice for the up coming tournament.

The Club was extremely sparse at the beginning.  There were only four of us at the beginning and I was already warmed up, but I did warm up drills with a partner for close to half an hour until some other members finally arrived.  There were only 11 members total that came, so we had a lot of practice chances with a lot of rotations.  Menu for the practice session was as usual, starting with Stroke/Volley.  Since we got a late start, we did that for a long time, then switched to Point Simulation.  We did that to the end.  This was the last club session of the year so we all said our end of the year greetings and closed out the club activities for 2017.  These last three months as a member of this club has boosted my skills and more importantly my confidence in my game, so I am really thankful for this club.  I look forward to seeing what will happen with my skills in the coming year.  I really want more consistency and stability with my strokes.

I was exhausted when I got home.  I haven't played that much tennis in a long time and my body was feeling it.  But I had to get in my Dead Hang for the day.  My right forearm, from the beginning of the tennis at 5pm was already feeling a sore pain, and after all that tennis, it was tired and very sore.  I didn't want to hurt it or strain it, so I decided to do a lot of 30 second intervals, and lose the weights.  I could feel the strain pain right from the beginning of the first hang.  But it was actually getting a bit easier as the intervals progressed.  I ended up with 30x7 seconds, 50 seconds, then 30x2 seconds. for a total of 5:20.  The pain was very present during every hang.  I want to push, but not at the risk of the tournament, so I'm placing the tournament prep as priority over logging a long initial hang.  But after the tournament is finished, I will continue to do the Dead Hang, not as a challenge, but as a move to keep strengthening my grip strength, then, I will go for that 2 minute mark.

In the end, I burned 2417kcals.  That is almost a pound's worth of calories.  I was VERY happy with the big burn today. 

12-26-17 (Tuesday) HY: OCR Dead Hang, Day 26 + T25 - Alpha: Ab Intervals + TCF + Ab EMS.

12-26-17 (Tuesday) HY: OCR Dead Hang, Day 26 + T25 - Alpha: Ab Intervals + TCF + Ab EMS.

Another "relaxing" day.  Didn't really do anything all morning.  I was planning to go shopping to use a coupon I have for the local electronics store in the early afternoon with my wife, but I apparently lost the coupon book.  We looked for it everywhere, but it was nowhere to be found.  That pretty much put me in a bad mood.  But we went shopping anyway and got stuff we needed for the holiday.  One bright note, my son came home today from Tokyo!  But before he arrived, I got in my workout.

As usual, I started off with the Dead Hang.  Today was nothing to write home about, but pretty standard day.  I went back to a Hexa-Split: 70-52-43-40-40-35-30 Seconds.  As you can see, I hit failure long before I wanted to on a couple hangs and got a weird number.  On the 52, my grip just gave out as I was going for a 60.  Then I compensated on the next hang, the 43.  I was about to give out at 33, but barely hung on for 35, and that allowed a normal 30 on the last hang.  Right forearm was still extra sore, but for some reason, my right hand was more sweaty and slipped off the pad more.  It's always something.  But I got through it, that's all that matters right now.  I challenged my son to hang when he got home.  He arrogantly said, "I can hang all day."  He tried twice, and on both hangs, he got 29 seconds.  In the first 10 seconds, "This is easy!"  By 20 seconds, "Ahh, AHHHH!!!"  Will these young guns never learn. LOL!

I didn't want to do another resistance, or a hard cardio today.  I was thinking to do Yoga, but as I was looking through my library, my eyes fell on a routine I hadn't done in a long time, and it just hit me to do that one.  So, I went for it.  It was brutal.  I had to modify several times, and on a few of the "Heels up" moves, I had to tap down.  But I didn't stop due to fatigue.  However, there were a few times that I couldn't understand Shaun T's explanation while my face was close to the floor, so I stopped to see what he was doing, then rewind the video and start again.  One time I can remember when  did that was on the Back moves.  I wasn't sure of the verbal cues, so I stopped to make sure what was going on.  Really good and ab burning workout.

I was able to do a clean and smooth series of Flows.  I haven't done a Flow for a few days, so it was nice to get them in today.  Even though I did Abs for my workout, I still got in my Ab EMS in the evening before bed.

In the end, I burned only 400+kcals.  But my shoulders were really feeling it today, especially after those Plank to Down Dog progressions.  That was really tough!  It is one week before my tennis tournament so I am going into intensive tennis match preparations for my workouts.  I'm going to do everything in moderation for injury prevention.  So from tomorrow, non-tennis days will be a little less taxing.  Exercise to maintain, not build.

12-25-17 (Monday) HY: OCR Dead Hang + ChaLEAN Extreme - Burn Circuit 3 + Ab EMS.

12-25-17 (Monday) HY: OCR Dead Hang + ChaLEAN Extreme - Burn Circuit 3 + Ab EMS.

Merry Xmas!  Today was a very unusual Xmas season.  For the first thing, for reasons beyond my control, we weren't able to set up our Xmas tree until Xmas Eve, last night.  We usually set it up on the first weekend of December, so it was odd with no tree in December.  Second, my son isn't able to come home from college until after Xmas so he's not here, and my daughter had plans with friends from the morning, so she was gone.  Third, Everyone didn't really have anything we "wanted" so there were literally no "unknown" presents to be opened.  There was one present that my wife wanted, but that is an annual traditional present.  She knew about it.  There was one gift that I was working on, a calendar with Family Pictures that was a surprise.  But that was it.  We are planning to celebrate Xmas when my son gets home, though.  So getting a workout in on Xmas is no problem at all.  In fact, I was able to get it in early.

I started off with the Dead Hang.  I guess I was still not totally recovered from last night, because my initial hang was back down to 70 seconds.  But I was able to keep the Penta-Split: 70-60-58-40-42-30 seconds, for 5:00.  The first two hangs brought me to failure but I was able to gracefully release the bar.  On the third hang, I wanted to get to at least 60 seconds, but my grip was giving out, and I eventually just slipped off just before that mark.  The final three hangs were tough, and I could have gone to 40 again on the last hang, but opted against it.  My right forearm was still feeling the pain from the night before.  I am not counting this in the time, but during my resistance routine, I did four sets of Pull-Ups and I was curious about their time, so I timed each set, and I did an additional 110 seconds (25-30-20-35 seconds) on the bar.  My forearms were on fire by my last set of Pull-Ups.  Also holding the heavy weights for long periods of time was just brutal.

The final circuit in the Burn Phase is focusing on Shoulders and Legs.  Plus, I did some extra stuff, too.  I still kept the extra 9kgs for the regular Pull-Ups and Chin-Ups, but not the 1-Arm Pull-ups.  I needed the assist bands for that.  But I upped my weight on the heavier moves, but I wanted to get full range of motion on the moves with lighter weights so I kept them as is.  The first few reps were easy, but by the end, I pretty much hit failure.  My grip was just strong enough to keep holding the dumbbells for all the moves.  There was no need to break because of grip weakness.  There was one move that I did the minimum 10 reps because my overall strength failed.  That was move 7. Squat with Double Overhead Press.  I was going deep in the squat, and pressing the weight up burned me out.  I barely got in that 10th rep.  But after a quick shake out, I got the last to reps to finish out the 12 rep total, and I combined that with the Break Down set of 3 reps.  But kept the combo move with the Squat, not just the Press.  After all the regular moves, I added one move for my Calves.  I did a Weighted Speed Calf Raise with 12kgs, 40 reps on each leg.  I couldn't have gone one more rep on my right leg, but surprisingly, I had a little strength remaining on my left leg.  But I stuck with the 40 reps.  Then I closed out the workout with the 5x Switch Grip Pull-Ups, 3 reps on each grip, and yes, with the 9kgs in toe.  But I was again very happy with my 1-Arm Pull-Ups.  Here is a little Time Lapse to show you what it looked like:

My forearms, shoulders, Legs are feeling it now.  I wondering how it will be tomorrow? 

I got in a good session of Ab EMS also later in the day.  Keeping those abs hard.

In the end, I burned a good 860+kcals.  This was my Xmas workout.  Good to the last drop of sweat! 

Merry Xmas, Everyone!  And Happy Holidays!

12-24-17 (Sunday) HY: Tennis + OCR Dead Hang + Ab EMS.

12-24-17 (Sunday) HY: Tennis + OCR Dead Hang + Ab EMS.

It was surprisingly not too cold today.  So I didn't need to wear a ton of layers.  But it was forecast to rain.  I was a little wary of it, but we went with it.  The main leaders of the club were not there, so the practice was a little disorganized, but we got through everything as usual and did a little bit of a different drill.  After warming up, we did the usual, Stroke/Volley drill.  Then we did the Serve/Return drill.  Then we moved into Match play and Stroke Drills.  I was in the first match, but again, my partner was off, and we lost 1-4.  Yes, Sets are only  4 games in this setting.  I won my first service game, which was our only win.  Then I moved over to the drill court while the women who came played their match.  There, we did Point Simulations.  Today's simulation was much more serious but fun than last Wednesday.  Felt much better playing the points.   Then I went back to play a second match, and this time, I was playing a little better and we were able to win the match, 4-0.  By this time the rain was starting to fall, but not enough to get us off the court.  My serving was still consistent, and I was placing the ball better.  Still hit a double fault, though.  But I was able to hold it together in the rallies so I was happy.  Then, it was back to the drill court and we closed out the practice session with Volley Points.  Keeping the ball in the service court.  It was fun, but difficult to keep the ball in play for the beginners.  Great practice session.

In the evening, I could feel the sore point in my right forearm and was worried it would be an issue.  It was.  Right off my first hang, I could feel the muscle tense up and I could feel the pain coming on quickly.  Day 24, Done. Yes, I did 4:50 again because I didn’t get the new stamps yet. So, I’m glad I get to stick with the pack. I solved two problems: 1. My 4kg dumbbell kept slipping from between my legs so I wrapped it in a towel and hung it around my neck. 2. The original pads on the bar ripped off so I was using different grips. They were working, but started slipping around the bar, so I wrapped some grip tape I use for my tennis racket on the bar. It works great and made a huge difference. Had another Penta-Split: 30-60-60-60-50-30 seconds. I grabbed the bar badly on the initial hang and the skin on my fingers felt like it was ripping off. I learned from my mistake and killed it the rest of the way.  Except for that bad initial hang, I was very happy with today's hang.

I got my Ab work in just before going to bed.  I almost forgot to do it.

In the end, I burned a nice 1735kcals during tennis.  I good start to my winter vacation.  Got to keep it going during the holidays!  No rest for the Goal Oriented or the Fitness minded!