Abs Contest – The Final Stretch

6/24/2012
About a year ago some friends and I had an idea of having an abs contest. It was simple: whoever had the nicest looking abs after a period of six months is the winner. The wager: $100 per person, winner take all. However, none of us were willing or able to commit to such a feat last year and the contest fizzled out.

But things change! Six months ago we decided to bring it back and commit to the contest. We all had 6 months to whip ourselves into shape and chisel our midsections to resemble that of a Greek god's. Agreements made, wager set, it was on! And next week Saturday, June 30 marks the culmination of our journey. Here's how it's been for me so far.

My competition includes a guy a few years younger than me. His metabolism is higher than mine and he's naturally slim. He was the favorite in the competition from the start. Next is an endurance athlete. If it was a performance-based competition he would be the clear favorite, but alas the competition is judged on looks only. As for myself, I was in decent shape for a pudgy guy. I had some work to do.

Let's start with my strategy. As mentioned, pudgy guy...that's me. My core is strong, there's muscle under there, really. I was heavy into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu which builds a lot of core strength. So my focus wasn't going to be on strengthening but rather on weight-loss, well fat-loss to be more specific.

The other half of my strategy: sabotage the competition. Still hungry? Finish the rest of my food. Hey let's get dessert, and you can try some of mine...and try it some more. Basically, influence bad, fattening, unhealthy food choices to my friends and deviously laugh inside as they eat it up. It worked like a charm for the endurance athlete. No surprise because endurance athletes normally have a high calorie intake due to their training...and this guy just loves to eat. I remember one time I bought some nachos to “share” and I let him eat the entire thing – deviously snickering inside. The young guy didn't fall for it at all. In fact he turned it against me a few times when we would get a dessert and I'd end up eating cake and ice cream while he just had a small scoop of ice cream...hey, I gotta bad sweet tooth.

Now you may be thinking what a horrible strategy. Two things. 1) it's a competition and there were no rules set against it. 2) I told them up front from day one that this was part of my plan so watch out. It's legal, they were warned, so game on!

Okay, back to the fat-loss. For the first couple months of the competition I really didn't do too much working out. Illness and injury kept me inactive for a while (if you've read some of my previous blogs about training for the Great Aloha Run, you know all about it). I knew I needed to do something serious to catch up to the young guy. So I did the Insanity workout (I have blogs all about that too). I followed the whole workout schedule and nutrition plan for two months. It worked well. I slimmed down and gained some definition in my midsection along with everywhere else. At one point my love-handles almost disappeared.

It seemed like I was on my way to becoming the new favorite to win the contest but Insanity ended about a month ago. Things declined a bit since then. I still worked out, just not as much, and honestly no workout quite compared to Insanity. I still maintained a healthy diet but it wasn't as disciplined. Before I knew it I saw signs of pudgyness emerging. I needed to get back on it.

Luckily the UFC Gym opened up. They have fitness classes that push the intensity the way Insanity did. I can weight-lift or jump on a cardio machine, or both...I usually do both. The only thing about it, the young guy also joined the gym. I'm not complaining, heck I brought him into the gym, it's just going to make it that much harder to out work him now. As for the endurance athlete, he had vanished for a while and was doing his own thing. Made me a little nervous because he may have some triathlete trick to trimming down. But I wasn't too nervous because I felt I had done enough damage sabotaging his diet.

There is one week left until judgment day. My plan until next week is to maintain a healthy diet (whole grains, protein, and vegetables), keep hydrated, and get to the gym every day. I'm signed up for several fitness classes at the UFC gym throughout the week. In the past two weeks I've lost about 5 lbs so I aim to lose a couple more this week.

Stepping back from the whole competitive mindset, this competition has led to several beneficial lifestyle changes. The biggest one for me is the change in my diet. Vegetables are a regular thing now, I don't eat as much sugar and desserts, my breads and pastas are all whole grain, and I'm mindful of portion sizes – which is a freakin miracle! Doing Insanity boosted my fitness to a whole new level. A 4 mile run feels like a warm up. My recovery time between exercises is pretty quick. If I do an exercise to the point of exhaustion, a couple deep breaths is all I need to get back in it – hmm...I wonder if my idea of exhaustion is accurate.

So I guess all-in-all I'm saying win or lose this contest has been a good thing. Even though the younger guy is my competition, he's a friend first and we help each other at the gym. We've shared a few core exercises and weight-lifting tips. The endurance athlete is also a friend first, we've helped each other with running and swimming training in the past and I'm sure we will again in the future. But don't get me wrong, I still want to win this contest and I am making a final push this week to do so.

I'll write another blog next week about the contest results...might even try to get a few pictures. Be sure to check back :)

MMA Fight Fit - Round 1

MMA Fight Fit – Round 1

6/7/2012

The other day I tried out the Daily Ultimate Training (DUT) and it was a tough workout. But I've heard people in the gym talk about the MMA Fight Fit class being even crazier than the DUT. One buddy of mine described it as “the DUT on crack.” I put myself on the MMA Fight Fit wait list hoping a spot would open up and my wish was granted. I got to try it out tonight.

Much like the DUT, Fight Fit is a circuit workout with a number of different workout stations. Each exercise is performed for 1 minute, rotate to the next exercise and immediately get into it. Repeat until every workout station is hit, take a 1 minute break. Repeat for however many times we did it, felt like we were there for about 45 min...but I really wasn't keeping track of time, I was just trying to breathe.

Here's the workouts we did (I don't know what they're really called so I'm just making it up):

• Wall sit – pretty self-explanatory,if you feel comfortable in the wall sit, sit lower!
• Plank Punches – a large medicine ball is on the ground, put your right forearm across the ball and hold a plank, keep your back straight. Punch the ball 3 times with your left hand, place your left forearm across the ball, remove your right forearm and punch the ball with your right hand 3 times. Hold the plank the entire time. This one burned...a lot.
• Hooks – open palm strikes (aka, slap) on a punching bag. Focus on speed, not power. I always started fast and eventually slowed to a moderate pace I could barely hold for the whole minute.
• Body hops – A 90 lbs dummy, which resembles a human body, is placed on the ground. Hop over the dummy side-to-side non-stop keeping your feet together. A couple times I lost my balance because I tried to land as close to the dummy as possible.
• Sprawl to kick – sprawl onto the ground, hips low. Pop back up and kick a heavy bag as hard as you can. Sprawl again, kick with the other leg. Go for power on this one.
• Sprawl to jump – sprawl just like above but when you pop back up jump as high as you can. By this point I'm lucky if I jump 2 inches off the ground because I'm dying.
• 1 – 2's – jab cross, jab cross, jab cross on a heavy bag. Keep going as fast as you can.
• TRX cable jumps – hold onto the cables keeping your body at an angle to the ground, squat and jump as high as you can. I was jumping higher than I thought because I used the cables to pull myself up. Even though I used my arms a bit, my legs burned.
• 1, 2, 3, kick – jab, cross, hook, kick. Repeat and beat the hell outta that bag. I had fun with this one but I think I need to learn how to kick properly.

That's 1 circuit. We did that about 3 times then our coach Scott Junk, who is a pro MMA fighter and participated in the 10^th season of The Ultimate Fighter show, switched up a few parts of the workout.

• Instead of plank punches, we lifted the medicine ball overhead, slammed it to the ground, caught it and sprawled. This one gave my wrist some problems...dang wrist.
• Instead of body hops, we placed both hands on the dummy's chest, sat on the right side of the dummy with our left hip on the ground, shift your body to hop over to the dummy's left side and bring your right hip to the ground. Repeat. I liked this one, it resembled a jiu-jitsu drill.
• Instead of sprawl-to-jump, do 1 jumping jack, drop down and do 1 push up, then 1 mountain climber. Stand back up and repeat. I was actually thankful for this one. I had an easier time with it and was able to catch my breath a little even though I was moving fast. I did a lot of this kind of movement when I did Insanity so I was used to these kind of movements.
• Instead of jumping with the TRX cables, we held onto them, positioned ourselves so our feet were flat on the ground, body parallel to the floor, arms extended straight up from our chests toward the ceiling holding onto the cables. Keep your hips up in a bridge, don't let them dip, and pull your arms to lift your chest to your hands. This one was tough. My grip failed me at one point and I almost dropped flat to the ground but I managed to adjust my hands before that happened and held on.
• The rest of the exercises stayed the same. We did this circuit 2 or 3 times.

The workout was a killer. DUT on crack for sure. At each circuit I would start strong and when I started tiring it was only halfway through the rotation. Only one thing to do: keep going and feel the burn. During one of the breaks I was struggling to catch my breath. Coach saw it, looked me dead in the eye and said, “don't let your mind tell your body it can quit. Don't listen to it, your body can keep going.” All I thought was yes sir. Coach actually walked around yelling and barking all sorts of motivation. From the outside it sounds like he's chewing us out when he yells “don't quit,” “you're losing this fight, what are you gonna do, push or give up?” “quitting is easy, anybody can be a quitter but can you push through” and so on, but it was actually motivating when I was in it. He also helped out when we weren't sure what to do...a lot of us are new to the MMA thing.

At one point Scott Junk made a comment about taking breaks when he wasn't looking and how it's only cheating yourself and so on. Honestly, I had no idea where he was most of the time. He's got a big voice so he's loud and clear whether he's right next to you or across the mat. Besides, I was too focused on trying to keep breathing and not passing out to worry about where he was. At one point everything burned, lungs, legs, arms, core, all of it. It was awesome!

MMA Fight Fit...good stuff. More intense than the DUT classes I've done so far. I'd even say more intense than the Insanity workouts. Just like the DUT, you rotate among exercises with a small group of 3 or 4 people, which helps. It didn't matter that I didn't know who they were. We all suffered together and we all prevailed together. Before the Fight Fit class started I weight 168 lbs, when it was over I was 164 lbs. I sweat out 4 pounds in less than an hour doing that thing. I hope I can get in more of these classes. I heard that they're different every time, which is even better. Time to go check to schedule and register for another one!

Daily Ultimate Training - Round 1

Daily Ultimate Training “The DUT”
6/4/2012

Finally made into one of the “ultimate” classes at the UFC gym: Daily Ultimate Training, also known as the DUT (gotta love that acronym). I was at the gym about an hour before the class started, didn't want to do a full on workout before hitting the DUT so I did some light exercises instead. About 15 minutes on a treadmill, a few core exercises, and about 20 minutes on a bike. Just wanted to get the blood flowing and warm up the muscles. I've heard stories that the DUT is full on craziness so I didn't want to get tired before it began.

When the class started we did a few warm up exercises. All dynamic stretching movements to get moving and loosen up the muscles. My least favorite was the side-lunge walk only because my hips are really tight. I don't move well that way, which probably means I should do it more. The funnest one was the spiderman crawl. It reminded me of a jiu-jitsu drill and it's just cool to imagine yourself as a superhero.

My spidey-sense is tingling...oh wait,
 no it's the DUT

The class itself consisted of 5 exercises stations. Perform each exercise as much as you can for 1 minute then rotate to the next station, repeat for 6 circuits. So that's what....sorry gotta do some math here...5 times 1, times 6, carry the 2...30 minutes of non-stop workout. Sounds awesome! Here's what we did in the order I did it.

The first station was about a 20 meter sprint followed by a backward run to return to the starting point. Touch the ground at each endpoint. The second station utilized the TRX cables. We did bicep curls and followed by a back exercise (don't know what it's called) while suspended at a 45 degree angle from the floor. Third used a medicine ball. We got into a push-up position with our hands on a medicine ball, did 5 mountain climbers (aka bring your knee to your chest) followed by 1 push-up. At the fourth station was a 25 lbs weight, hold the weight with both hands and basically move it in circles around your head. When your arms get tired switch directions...as weird as it sounds that actually did help. The fifth and final station was box-jumps...well technically tire-jumps since I jumped onto a giant tire fit for a monster truck, maybe about 2 and a half feet off the ground.

When the workout began I was in it right away. I did well with the sprints because I'm a fairly good runner. Only thing was the distance was so short that when I started to speed up I was already at the end and had to stop to run backwards. So instead I focused on starting quickly, really had to pump the arms for that. Good stuff. The hardest thing for me was the medicine ball push-ups because my wrist gives me problems so I had to stop for a second or two a few times to shake it out.

At the 4^th station there was an option to use a 25 lbs plate or a 35 lbs plate. On the second circuit I used the 35 lbs plate. When the coach walked by and saw it he said, “all right! Going for the 35!” to which I replied, “yep, and I think it was a bad idea.” It was hurting a bit. The coach then said, “No it's not, it's a good idea. You don't want to be the guy doing the light weight and go home knowing you took the easy out. You wanna go home knowing you pushed it.” Good point, but I went back to using the 25 lbs plate for the rest of the circuits.

Around the 3^rd circuit my lungs started to burn. I knew I was working hard and reaching my limit. After the sprints I had to run to the water fountain for a quick drink. Good thing they were nearby so it only cost me about 5 seconds to get some water. I think next time I'll have a water bottle so I can grab a drink while transitioning between stations. Anyway, I was feeling the burn and reached the point where will power comes into play. This is where the real workout and test in fitness begins because here is where you have to push your body further when it's screaming for you to stop. I noticed I was breathing really heavily and grunting at times. I haven't done a workout that pushed me like this since Insanity - how y'all doin?...bring it! - if you read my Insanity blogs you get this.

I lost track of how many circuits we did and I had just begun the 5^th station jumping onto the monster tire when the coach said, “last one, keep pushing.” So I dug deep and determined to go the rest of the minute non-stop. No half second rests to take a breath or shake out my legs, just give all I have left and jump non-stop. When the minute was over I heard the coach yell out, “switch!”....what!? I thought we were done...nope, what he really meant by “last one” was that our last circuit was next. I admit, my heart sank a little knowing I just used all that was left in my gas tank to jump onto that dang tire and now I have to do an entire circuit again. Okay, take a deep breath, let's see if I can push through.

It was tough...really tough. My lungs felt on fire after the sprints and I was grunting with each exercise afterward. But I made it. 30 minutes of non-stop action. It was a good DUT! One thing I liked about it is that we moved from station to station with the same group of 3 to 4 people. Even though my group didn't say a word to each other it still triggered the competitive part of my mentality and I pushed to keep up with or out-perform my workout partners. I'm not out to actually beat them it just helps me push that extra bit when I reach my limit and would gas-out otherwise. The DUT was good fun (don't you just love the acronym). Props to everybody who made it. I'm looking forward to doing it again especially since I heard each coach has their own circuit so each DUT is different. I'll be DUT-ing it up again in a couple days.