MIA

Where have I been? Surfing in California, drinking fine wine, hanging with family, and "growing" a mustache!

It's been great, and one of the most satisfying things for me after this trip is that I don't feel I lost anything in my training and progress toward awesomeness at all...in fact I feel like I gained some strength. I suppose surfing for 8 one day and 3 hours the next will leave you feeling like you accomplished something physically.

It used to be that I would drop every form of exercise when I went away on a trip. I always had great expectations for running everyday, doing bodyweight work in the hotel room, or weights in the gym, but that never seemed to happen. I think this may have happened for a few reasons; 1) I was getting too mentally exhausted with my obsessive workout routine that I needed a mental break, 2) I couldn't get myself to workout if it wasn't going to be a world-class workout - so if I didn't an hour or have weights/pull-up bar - that would serve as a reason to postpone rather than doing something, and 3) some combination of those two and other factors of which I am currently unaware.

So, in keeping with my Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule...I worked out on Wednesday before I left, and then on Friday...while I was on vacation! The Friday workout consisted of this:

-warm-up/stretching/mobility

-3 sets of:

10 one leg squats

20-30 pushups

20 restricted range of motion body weight rows

-Finished up with core stability work and bridging

Nothing too interesting or ambitious, BUT I actually did it, and that was what I was looking for. The body weight rows are the one exercise I would note...I had to use one of those foldable suitcase holders/stands that are in most hotel rooms for those. I just balanced it in the "folded" position and did rows under that. Again, it wasn't full range of motion, but it worked and gave a pulling exercise in the hotel room.

Then Sunday and Monday I hit the beach for surfing. Some of the spots required lots of paddling...Mondos in particular had breaks hundreds of yards off the coast, so I got a nice workout doing that. And I couldn't have had more fun doing it!

Then I was back in town, and picked up working out again on Thursday.

I've decided that the next phase of my training is going to focus on "bulking"...as I'm still under-weight from where I feel I should be post motorcycle accident. I'm going to do my best to have the gains be primarily "lean" much like some of the ideas discussed at Martin Berkhan's blog Leangains.

For this phase the nutrition plan I'm going to try will be a modified version of the IF (intermittent fasting) approach that Martin describes on his blog. On off days, I plan on fasting through breakfast, and using an 8 hour eating window. On my workout days I plan on working out early and eating soon after. I plan on eating more carbs on workout days and less on off days. The majority of my diet should be whole foods with plenty of protein and fats in the diet as well. I haven't quite worked out how this is going to go exactly, but I'm just going to jump in and try it and see how it goes.

As far as workouts go, I want to focus on strength gains. Based on reading ideas by Steve Maxwell and Martin Berkhan, I plan on my strength gains being largely representative of body composition changes. If I am increasing in the number/weight I can chin...I am probably increasing muscle while losing, maintaining or having minimal fat gains. If I notice that I am starting to have lower numbers in my chin-ups then I'll know that I'm probably gaining too much fat. So, my strength will be a good gauge of how I am progressing.

I think I will be trying Nashville Kettlebell for a while. I hope that in doing so I'll strengthen my weaker links...especially my lower back. If I feel the urge, I'll do some strength work at home consisting of pulling exercises (chins/pull-ups/BW rows), pushing (dips, pushups, handstands), and leg exercises (deadlifts, squats).

See you tomorrow...