Hi guys.
I’ve been reading a few things here and there on the site. Let me introduce myself and my situation.
I’m 30 years old and recently began trying to get fit again. I worked out with lifting, cardio, running and sports from the time I was in jr. high school. I played basketball, tennis and ran track.
The sport I excelled in was pole vaulting and in order to remain competetive I kept a lean frame of 5’11" at 180lbs. I focused on upper body strenght instead of mass. Most of my training for pole vaulting consisted of a climbing rope.
Once it was decided to do away with a climbing rope at our gym, I bought a 30ft tugboat rope and tied it in the highest tree available at my parents house. For upper body conditioning, I climed hand over hand without using my legs for grip as well and climbing inverted.
After high school came a 3 month construction job of working 12 hour days 7 days a week. This job required a lot of climbing, and carrying heavy equipment up stairs and across scaffolding as well as working in confined spaces.
The combination of hard work, and long hours and being really hungry to support all this activity caused me to pack on 20 pounds in just 3 months.
Fast forward through the next few years of sitting in long college classes, and the dreaded office job and I really packed on the weight. I think I added about 20 more pounds when my wife got pregnant. (go figure)
I had made a halfass concious decision by the time I was 29, that when I turned 30, I was really going to give up my bad habbits and get in shape. I started eating better foods, smaller portions, and lost an inch or two, but I Was still hovering at 250lbs.
I went on a hiking trip for my 30th birthday to give me inspiration to center myself and think about how I Was going to bring about change in my life.
Where I hiked, there was no access to fresh water and I was not comfortable depending on finding water sources to purify, so I packed on 24 pounds of water for a three day expedition, along with my other geat with a pack weight of about 60 pounds. ( I tried to condition a month ahead of time).
On the apogee of the trip, I realized how out of shape I was when my pulse was around 130 just from walking with a weighted pack and I knew what I was up against.
This trip made me realize that I needed cardio workouts in my life more than ever. Just the task of eating right was not going to help me shed the weight I Wanted to get rid of. Once I was back home, I purchased a pro-form elliptical machine and started on cardio.
The first few workouts were hell. After two minutes, my legs and back were on fire, and I could not get enough oxygen. After 5 minutes, I was useless. I couldn’t go on. But, I stuck with it and within a two weeks, I was up to 20 minutes of cardio a day, and another week I was up to 30 minutes of cardio.
After a month of daily cardio, I felt better than I had in years. Physically and mentally, I felt younger, and more centered and focused. I decided to step it up a bit by adding a suppliment to my workout and the guy at GNC reccomended SuperPump250.
The first time I took ‘superdump’, I extended my cardio to 45 minutes. And afterwards was still pumped, I hit the floor to bang out some pushups, and suprise, After 10, my arms were spaghetti and I could hardly hold them up. With my blood still coursing through my veins, I got back on the elliptical for 20 more minutes.
I continued to incorporate more body weight workouts in my routine and the norm became 30 minutes on the elliptical, 5 sets of 10 pushups, crunches until my abs gave out, dips, and some other froo froo exercises I’ve seen on some of my wife’s aerobics videos.
At four months, I dropped from 248 to 226 and about 4 inches of my waist. I expected the pushups to bulk up my arms a bit, but it seems that they have only toned up. I’ve had to take a couple of links out of my watch band. My definition in my upper body has returned. Overall I’m happy with the elliptical, bodyweight workouts and the superdump.
My workout escalated from a 15 minute workout in the evenings, to about 90 minutes total and it began to cut into the ‘routine’ of my workweek, plus, it was harder to wind down by bedtime, so I started working out in the mornings before work.
There seems to be two problems.
If I take the superpump250 when I wake up, I can complete my workout just fine since it kicks in within about 15 minutes. But, I have better results by cycling on and off of it every 3 days.
I’ve noticed that if I take it everyday, by day 4, it doesnt seem to be effective. So, I’ve found that its really difficult to get the momentum to work out in the mornings without it. I seem to be weaker, have less energy and I just dont get the same amount of blood circulation.
The other problem is one I have just noticed, when I work out in the mornings, I have an odd feeling in my elbows and shoulders when doing pushups, its almost like I’m doing pushups without using all my muscle strength. I dont know if that makes sense, but it seems like my tendons ache. I may not be warmed up enough, but when I used to hit the iron, I did pushups to warm up.
I’m also unsure how many pushups I should do. If I use superpump, I can usually get 6 sets of 20 before I begin to feel the burn. (and by then, my arms are swole to a vanity size. I wish they would look like that throughout the day). I know that for strength, you need heavy weights with low reps, and to tone up its the opposite.
Also, at 5’11", I should be an ideal weight of around 188. But, I have really muscular legs and a broad frame, so I doubt I would get to that weight. I would be satisfied if I could get down to 200.
Where I’m at now, I think I have hit a plateau and need to change up my workout a bit. I’ve got my diet down to 2000 calories a day with leafy greens, veggies, chicken breast, tuna and as many raw fruits and veggies I care to eat.
I also know that its not really feasible to target fatloss in one area of the body, but at the moment, I’m still looking at about 10 pounds of belly fat to shed. (or more).
So the questions I have are, how should I adjust my workout to drop from 226 to 200?
Why do I feel discomfort in my elbows and shoulders with early morning pushups?
Whats the best way to get psyched up for an early morning workout?