Day 67: The gym at the Westin

March 15, 2012 by

Check out the gym at the Westin that I stayed at this week while on a business trip. The gym was awesome for a hotel gym. I’m not sure if all Westins are this way, but this one really made it easy for me to ensure I got my workouts in this week while I was on the road. Check it out…

Free weights:

Plenty of treadmills:

Quads:

Triceps:

Chest Press:

Shoulder Press:

Oh, and also a Lat Pulldown that I didn’t get a picture of for some reason. You can kind of see it in the picture from outside the Westin Workout door:

They also had some elliptical machines and exercise bikes for those who like to use them. Kudos to Westin for putting such a nice gym in a hotel. Most hotel gyms don’t have very much in them at all.

Filed Under: Body For Life, Workouts

Day 66: Fourth Interval Running Increase

March 14, 2012 by

This will be a short blog post, as I am out of town on business in DC. Yesterday I increased my interval running again by .1 to 1.4 inbetween each interval. I am now doing four reps of one minute each on 5 — 6.4 — 7.8 — 9.2 with 10.0 power burn on the final rep after then last 9.2 . I’ll do this for two weeks, then I’ll do my final increase and will be at my goal.

20120314-224052.jpg

Filed Under: Body For Life, Workouts Tagged With:

Day 53: Third Running Interval Increase

March 1, 2012 by

This week I increased my intervals again – this time another .1 for a total of .3 increase since I started. I’m doing my increases every 2 weeks and will hit my goal in less than 4 weeks now. When I started my intervals were:

5 — 6 — 7 — 8

They are now:

5 — 6.3 — 7.6 — 8.9

The power run at the end was 9 when I started and it is now 10 for the last minute before the 2 minute cool down. I’ll do the current intervals for next week as well, then increase another .1 the week after. The final goal is to be 5–6.5–8–9.5 then power at 10. I don’t really want to go any higher than 10.0 on the treadmill. 10.0 is 10 miles an hour, or a 6 minute mile. I’m doing 10.0 now for my power run and will keep it there. The last minute is pure sprinting at a 6 minute mile pace.

This week has been one of my harder weeks. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve had a harder time getting motivated. I still haven’t missed a workout, though. This morning was especially difficult – more of a mental difficulty than a physical difficulty. It is a huge mental challenge to keep up with going to the gym 6 days a week. I think the thing that helped motivate me was that I knew it would only be 21 minutes. That’s not really that long at all if you think about it. I think there is a reason why Bill Phillip’s book is titled “Body-for-LIFE: 12 Weeks to Mental and Physical Strength”. It’s not just getting fit, eating right, and building muscle. It is also about mental strength. Training yourself to put health in front of other things in your life is a huge life change and something that will stick with you for the rest of your life if you do Body For Life. I’ll end with the motivational tip from the Body For Life website today, which I really liked:

If improving your life and your health are that important to you, you’ll find the time and make it flow with the groove of your life.

Filed Under: Body For Life, Workouts Tagged With:

Day 45: Running and Music

February 22, 2012 by

I haven’t talked about music yet on my blog, but music is a big part of my life. I love, love, love music. All kinds of music. My mom started teaching me piano lessons when I was 5. I played the oboe in middle, high school, and college. I was in the drum line for the marching band in high school for 2 years, and marched the sousaphone for 2 years. I also picked my dad’s guitar in high school and he taught me my first few chords that I learned (the chords to Puff the Magic Dragon). I then proceeded to learn some Candlebox and Weezer (yes, I was in high school the early 90s) and have been dinking around on the guitar off an on since then. I’m actually about to head over to band practice. I’m in a band and we have our first live performance this Friday night – woohoo!

How does this relate to running? I have to listen to music when I run. It is what drives me. It gives me energy. When doing my standard 21 minute interval run, the toughest part of it is the last 5 minutes before the 2 minute cooldown (minutes 14-19). Right now I’m at 5 — 6.2 — 7.4 — 8.6, and then for the last minute the sprint at 9.8 before cooling down at 3.5 on 19-21.

Years ago Nike partner shipped with Apple and came out with the Nike + iPod system to track your runs. I used it a while ago, but now I use Runkeeper to track my runs. There is a very cool feature of the Nike + iPod system: the Powersong. The powersong is the song that you put on when you need a boost, generally at the end of your run to pump you up. I still use the concept when I’m doing my interval running at the gym, but I just do it myself. My powersong changes from time to time. I like to pick one that has a beat that is around 160 bpm for my footsteps. Sometimes the song is in 4/4 and is actually around 80 bpm, but if so I’m stepping twice per beat (on the downbeat and upbeat). That seems to be the perfect speed for me to have good long strides as I ride out the last part of my run. Right now for my power song I’m doing Linkin Park’s “Somewhere I Belong”. It is 3:34 and I time it so that it ends right as I’m done with the sprint. So, when I’m at 15:25 (it takes about a second to queue up the song and start playing), I hit play on the song. It finishes exactly at 19:00 after the sprint and then I cool down for two minutes. Here is the video for the song I’m using:



Linkin Park is one of my favorite bands. I love their combination of heavy guitars, singing, and rapping. What is your powersong?

Filed Under: Body For Life, Technology, Workouts Tagged With: ,

Day 43: Protein after Workout

February 20, 2012 by

After working out with weights, you are supposed to consume protein within 30 minutes in order to ensure that your muscles can grow to their full potential. The more muscle you have, the more fat you burn. I have been trying to eat protein as soon as possible after a workout, but I’ll be honest – sometimes it isn’t within 30 minutes. The gym is only 5 minutes away from my home, but by the time I walk out to my car, head home, sometimes stop at the grocery store, get a call from work, then cook some egg whites or make a protein shake when I get home, it has sometimes not been within 30 minutes of my workout.

The other day as I was leaving the gym, I saw a guy getting his stuff out of a locker and he had a protein bar in his locker. Why haven’t I ever thought of that? Bring a protein bar to the gym – then you can immediately consume protein right after your workout! When doing weights 3 times a week, I’m going to try for the next little while to bring a protein bar to the gym so I can consume protein immediately after doing weights (for me Mon, Wed, Fri). We’ll see if it makes a difference in my muscle gain.

Our printer finally died in our office and it was time to get a new printer. I left the gym today and went straight to Fry’s Electronics to pickup the printer that I had ordered online for in-store pickup. Btw, I will never buy another “brother” brand printer again! Horrible driver, not very compatible with Mac and Linux, and just all around gave us problems. I went back to my bread and butter – Samsung Laser Printers. I’m not a fan of ink jet printers. I prefer a solid basic black and white laser printer. If I really need something in color (which is like never), I can print it at Kinkos, or if it is a photo use one of the many sites online or upload it to Costco or Walgreens. My laser printer toner will last for several thousand pages compared to several hundred for an ink jet. It’s much more economical and looks way better. I generally buy a very basic laser printer, and have had really good success with the basic Samsung Laser Printer. It was only $69.99 at Fry’s! You really can’t beat that, especially considering it was $95 at Newegg, which is usually the cheapest place online for computer stuff. Our last Samsung that we had before the brother lasted us for years. Oh, and I saw a sign at Fry’s today that said they match internet prices…hmmm. Good to know when I need something tech related in a pinch, but don’t want to pay local store prices.

Oops – got on another techy tangent. My bad. I have a tendancy to do that sometimes….back to my blog post – so I went to Fry’s to pickup the printer, and ate my protein bar while driving in my car on the way there to ensure that I got the protein in my system immediately following my intense lower body workout.

Rocky Road Brownie

Btw, this brand of protein bars is quite yummy, and on par with the Body For Life recommended EAS brand of protein bars in regards to protein/carb balance. Not all protein bars are necessarily good for you. I’ll probably do a blog post soon about that my new discovery of these protein bars.

Filed Under: Body For Life, Nutrition, Random, Workouts Tagged With:
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