Full Week

Had a great full week. Everyday, I went through the exercise sets. Trying to squeeze the time down to 30 minutes, but it depends on familiarity with the exercises.

Starting next week, I'm going to only do HiiT twice a week. I think this will be better for more knee and ankle on the right side. Sprints three times a week might over do it.

This week I've noticed two important things. 1) A reduction in my double chin, and 2) more definition around the chest and core muscles. The exercises are working.

Leg Exercise on the Swiss Ball

After a month working on the Swiss Ball exercises, I have finally brought together the discipline to go through the Hamstring Curl, Quad Extension, and Leg Lift. In previous weeks, I did what was the easy route for me: 10 minute HiiT and basic core exercises. Going through the leg exercises helped me get familiar with some new techniques that will help my lower body. 

In these exercises, I started to feel areas and muscles that I do not work on in a typical workout. Keeping balance throughout in the Hamstring and Quad helps develop many of the supporting muscles all around. Warming up with the pelvic twist helped me realize that I have a ways to go in controlling my core. The leg lifts surprised me in that they really burned the lower abdomen.

I look forward to Thursday's back exercises where I'll learn and go through even more exercises. Once I get this down, I hope to reduce the amount of time in exercising to about 30 min. / day. 10 min. run or HiiT with 20 min. of swiss ball. Saturday I can work on Taiji, if I can work out a plan on the instructor side.

Swiss Ball Roll Out

Don't let Adam Ford fool you. The Swiss Ball Roll Out is really, really hard! Gave it my first shot today and could only make it to 5 reps. More work to be done here.

New Year - New Start

Wrapped up my second session for the year today with 10 minute HiiT, 30 second intervals followed by 4 different swiss ball exercises. Had a protein drink for breakfast along with the exercise session. So far, the program looks like it'll put me on good footing for the next quarter.

Still need to figure out the taiji class. Turns out that it's not taught by Chen Xiao Wang, who is the head of this particular form of Taiji. It's taught by one of his "disciples". One of the biggest challenges with taking the class is being available every Saturday morning over the next few months. That'll be hard due to various trips, etc.

Nonetheless, I look forward for better muscle tone, endurance, and flexibility over the next quarter with a follow on strength transformation to get me ready for the summer.

A New Quarter

With a great three months behind me and plenty of rest in between, I look forward to creating a new program of exercise that will focus on three areas: maintenance, core, and flexibility. This period is a time for my mind and body to be brought closer together and allow my body to perform even better in future strength transformations, which I hope to get into again earlier next year.

Muscle maintenance will come from a simple set of weight-lifting exercises primarily using techniques learned during the transformation phase. In summary, they are:

• Squat
• High stepups
• Bench Press
• Row
• Shoulder Press
• Chinup/Pullup

For the core piece, the Ridgeline Fitness podcast on different Swiss Ball exercises were quite useful during the transformation. I'll expand upon the exercises and add in a few more during the days that I am not doing muscle maintenance exercises.

And finally, but most importantly, to build up a strong sense of balance and increase my flexibility, I will enroll in a Taì jí quán class here in Hsinchu. The class is run by a teacher named Xiao Wang Chen who teaches the Chen style of Taì jí quán and apparently a famous grandmaster.

Beijing and Shanghai; Transformation End

The recent trips to China show that I can retain the same discipline in exercising as long as I plan ahead of time and pick the right hotel. Turns out the Somerset in Beijing was the best hotel as it was part hotel, part apartment complex. It had a full set of equipment in its gym and a pool to boot.

One note about what happened in Shanghai. I was Shanghai'd on the dumbbells as they had a very different center of gravity from the typical flat-plate dumbbell. It wasn't due to lifting weights at night, as further exercise sessions proved out. I tried looking for them on Google but could not find the precise model that they had. It was shorter like a hex dumbbell and made out of rubber-like material. The shape was more like a coned cylinder, if you can picture that.

Typically, a full body transformation is supposed to last 3 months and happens once a year. I now have a record of 12+ weeks in doing the exercises that are close to the Strength for Life workout routines. Throughout the last few months I have had several comments about my weight loss including a few "Wows" from my wife. Just looking it from this perspective, I was very successful. Though, there are many ways that I can improve in the next round.

Some thoughts on what I can do to improve:

• Even though kind of cheesy, but take a before and after picture. Just to compare and contrast.
• Set some clear, numeric goals on targets that I'd like to achieve. I'll need to get an appropriate tape measure to keep track of any body measurements.
• I really need to get my own weights to use from home instead of wasting so much time commuting to the gym.
• I need to change my sleep habits so that I can work out earlier in the morning.
• Learn additional ways to work out to introduce variety.

Over the next three months, I would like to focus on improving my diet to maintain weight, basic muscle maintenance, basic running endurance, strong core, and flexibility. While my previous three months were focused on overall strength, the next segment of time will be focused on the core and overall flexibility. My next post will focus on the details of this.

Shanghai Workouts

Went to the gym on Thursday evening and found out that: 1) there are hotels with the right equipment I need, I just need to look out for them when I travel, and 2) working out at night is killer on performance. Not sure whether it was from a long day or what, but most of my weights had to be cut by 50% in order to get the right amount of sets and reps in.

Another thing that I have noticed is that there is soreness between my left Ulna and Radius either due to RSI at the computer or improper form with weights. Since, due to most unfortunate circumstances, I really don't write that much material, I'm willing to posit that it is most likely due to improper form. On the Mun Fitness Blog, there's a decent article titled
How To Prevent Wrist Pain From Your Weight Training. Tomorrow, I will make sure that my wrist does not bend backwards at all while lifting. Come to think of it, I do recall letting my wrists bend on some lifts, so I have to watch out for this at all costs.

Skipped HiiT and Circuit training this week. :(