Monday, December 07, 2009

Pumping Iron


So I started working out in May 2009 with the Fukami brothers (and now with Xtian) and I have some results to report!

I originally started at 182lbs, I'm 5'7' with a 32 inch waste.

My diet was crap. Ate barely any fruit and drank a ton of Pop. I skipped out on breakfast a lot and always ate late late at night.

I started working out (doing cardio, lifting weights) back in May and doing it till now and I have lost 13lbs and probably about 5lbs of muscle mass since. I am now sitting at 169lbs. I have never weight trained in my life, have only done cardio.

This is what I did and still am doing:

Cut out pop completely and just drink water
I make sure not to eat late at night and make sure I have a health breakfast and eat on time (never skip meals).

May 2009
-I started with Cardio by doing a bootcamp twice a week at 6AM for an hour. This bootcamp lasted for 16 weeks (4 months).
-I started working out with weights 3 times a week. Each workout was comprised of squats, bench, biceps, triceps, shoulders and abs. This was more to get my joints and muscles used to lifting and training with proper technique.
-I was also playing flag football once a week and had Ice hockey once a week.

June 2009
-I was into my second month of Bootcamp by now and hated waking up at 5AM but I still dragged myself out of bed.
-After 4 weeks at 3 times a week I changed my workout. I did 4 times a week, but each day focused on a different group of muscles. I also superset my workouts (I'll post what my routine consists at the bottom of this post). Wed = Chest & Triceps, Friday = Legs, Sat.=Shoulders, Sun=Back & Biceps. Basically killed the specific muscle group on that day and then let it rest for a week.
-Ab workouts 4 times a week. I also superset these. And would do on average 8 different exercises.
-I was still playing hockey and flag football once a week

July 2009
-I was into my third month of Bootcamp, still hated it but still went twice a week starting at 6AM
-Continued my new weight training of 4 times a week. This included doing abs 4 times a week
-Continued to play hockey and flag football and now added Ultimate to the list! Ultimate is a great cardio game.

Aug 2009
-Last month of bootcamp. I was so excited
-Continued my weight training 4 times a week with abs 4 times a week
-Continued to play hockey, flag football and Ultimate
-At the end of this month I ended up injuring my right toe pretty badly by getting turf toe (toe sprain) from all the running in cleats.

Sept 2009
-No more bootcamp
-Had to cut out a few exercises that involved standing on my foot. So no more leg days. Workout was now only 3 times a week with 3 times of abs.
-No sports due to injury

In September I also decided to re-weigh myself and I had hit 168lbs! My arms were bigger, my legs were more toned, lost 2 inches in my waist, and my chest felt more compact!

Oct 2009
-Restarted my weight training with Xtian this time
-Restarted doing my basic weight training of one exercise to get joints and muscles used to lifting and getting proper technique (exact same thing I did in May 09). Did this 3 times a week. Did abs 3 times a week doing 6 exercises.
-Play hockey once a week

Nov 2009
-Back to hypertrophy workout with supersets 4 times a week (W,F, Sat, Sun), with Abs 4 times a week.
-playing hockey still

Dec 2009
-Same as Nov

So here is my hypertrophy superset workouts

Wed = Chesticles and Triceps
Bench press superset (SS) with dumbbell press
Incline press SS with inclined dumbbell flys
decline press SS with push ups till failure
tricep cable press downs SS with bench dips (using a bench for hands and a fitness ball for resting feet on)

Friday = Legs
-Squats SS with Speed half squats (do as many as you can in 30 seconds)
-1 leg lunges (do both legs can hold weights) SS with speed lunges for 30 seconds
-Straight leg dead lifts SS with Hamstring ball curls

Saturday = Shoulders
-military dumbbell press SS with lateral raises
-Barbell shrugs SS with rear deltoid flys
-front dumbbell raises

Sunday = Back & Biceps
-Pulley pulldown SS with Wide grip pull ups (do till failure)
-Bent over barbell rows SS with seated cable rows
-Bicep curls with dumbbells SS with two handed cable curls

*I start the workouts and do it for about 2-3 weeks starting at 8 reps and 2 sets for each exercise (that doesn't have a time limit or that goes to failure)
*I then push it to 8 reps at 3 sets for 2 weeks
*then push it to 10 reps at 3 sets for 2-3 weeks
*then push it to 12 reps at 3 sets for 2-3 weeks (haven't gotten this high yet, but it will be insane when I do!)

After my exams are over I will try to get in 1 hour of biking twice a week to cut fat and increase my cardio.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

My STinky



The Accord is gone. Sold it to my girlfriends brother. Have had the Impreza WRX STi since late January of 2009. I definitely miss driving an auto at times, but the STi does have it perks (AWD, 4 doors, bigger boot, and more power).

Since then I have added a few things to it:

-Replaced the god awful "premium" factory stereo that sounded like a bad AM radio with a premium Focal System
-Bronze Advan RS rims for the summer and use the factory BBS for winter
-Toyo Garret XS Winter tyres
-Escort 9500 CI radar/laser shifter system (front/back)
-Rally Armor Mudflaps
-Window deflectors

In the next couple years I do want to get a new downpipe with exhaust, possible headers, CAI and a Cobb Engine Management System to push out a few more horses/torque. I've been researching lately on downpipe and exhaust and it is just so hard to decide on since everyone seems to be split on what brand to go with (Invidia, Perrin, Cobb, etc.). So far I am leaning towards going all Perrin. But I will be patient and do my full homework before diving in to squeeze more power out of her. For now I'll settle with the 305hp/300tq that she offers.

For handling, I'm not too worried about it at the time, but if I do go for a power upgrade I would upgrade the sway bars/end links to get rid of the body roll that the new GR's suffer from and perhaps lower it with some decent coilovers. The pricey component here would be coilovers, and from what I have read so far is that the STi actually peforms worse when lowered, and really I would only need to adjust my suspension if I were to track it in an autocross (which I'll probably never do). So they can wait.

After watching Top Gear now, I am wondering what is better to upgrade first? Power or Handling? Richard Hammond would say Handling and Jeremy Clarkson would say POWER!

New Snowboard


Picked up a new Burton Custom V Rocker 154 cm for the upcoming snowboarding season to replace my 2006 Burton Clash. The V-rocker system is similar to the Banana tech that Lib tech offers, but just a different name. It's supposed to help out with powder as it keeps the nose/tail up a bit more. Took it out to Lake Louise this past weekend with my buddy and it proved to be quite awesome. Much lighter and responsive than my old Clash board. I'll either give my old Clash board to my brother or just use it as a rock board.

To add to this post: The 09/10 snowboarding season is starting off incredibly well. All the mountains around us have been receiving record snow falls and some have been open since early October! Sunshine had a 100+ cm base in mid November! These are definitely Base numbers I don't expect until January. When I was at Lake Louise last weekend the base was 90+cm, which was more then when I went last year at Christmas time! I hope this keeps up for the rest of the season!

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Lights+Calgary+2009=AWESOME!

Lights is coming to Calgary this January 13, 2009. She will be performing at The Warehouse (Boo). I already got my tickets for me and the boys, woohoo! I can't wait.

P.S. Who will drive my soul?

P.P.S. I leave you with a better quality of Drive My Soul.

LIGHTS - Drive My Soul (official music video)

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Halloween 2008

For Halloween this year I was a....Stormtrooper! I haven't been out for Halloween these past few years due to exams but this time all my exams were done and I partied it up! We hit up the Students Club Crawl that started at Crazy Horse and went to Tangerine, HiFi and ended up at Tequilla (Booo!). It was a lot of fun! Probably one of the best nights I've had in a long time!

The Pros about the costume:
-Everyone loved it
-Looked sweet dancing in it (such a hit on the dance floor)
-Guys/Girls bought me drinks because apparently it was "so sweet"

The Cons
-VERY HOT
-Difficult to see in
-Difficult to sit down in
-Sharp edges cut up the back of my knees and wrists



P.S. I think our group of friends had the best costumes that night!

Obama!

Monday, September 22, 2008

First F1 Night Grand Prix in Singapore!

This looks damn sweet! 1600 lights are going to be used to light up the course. You can check out the demo of the course from this youtube video. Don't miss it on September 28th, it should be amazing!

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Canon 50d

Canon's new DSLR. Seems fantastic. Would be a great upgrade from the XTi (higher sensitivity, full size camera, great vga screen). But 15.1MP seems overkill. It's being released at the end of September. Check out the review here.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Kukodo Bunnies

I want this Jersey! It's a team in Tokyo I believe. Perhaps Michal can hook me up!

Top 100 Books...

So I was just at Michal's site WWM and came upon one of his recent posts in regards to the top 100 books. According to the The Big Read BBC most adults have never read more than 6 books on this list!

Books I have in bold and italics are the ones I have read.
Books with a * are ones I have but haven't read yet.
Books with a + are ones I have seen the movie version of.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien+
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling+
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens*
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell+
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams*
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll+
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis*
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis*
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell+
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown+
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding+
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert+
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas+
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding+
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens+
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker+
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White+
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad*
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams+
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare+
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl+
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Note:

I think I only made it pass the "6" due to a lot of them being read while in school (junior high/high school). Only a few of them have I read that were out of class. I think this list would be great to go through once I am retired. It would definitely give me something to do, heh :P