JoeJustice
12-02-2008, 08:11 AM
It's about time too! And I weigh 198lbs. Not too shabby. :)
I've been struggling to get all of my numbers up for awhile now and I'm finally seeing good progress. For a long time I was stuck around 7 chin-ups, I'd gotten as many as 9 in the past but was never able to hit 10. So I'm pretty happy about the accomplishment.
I know my numbers aren't all that impressive to a lot of people on here. Many of you are able to do 20 pull-ups and 100 push-ups in a single set, but considering where I started, I think I'm doing alright. And considering I'm a pretty average with no kind of athletic background, I'm pretty happy with my accomplishments. One day I'll hit 100 push-ups and I'll get 20 pull-ups and I'll have six pack abs, but in the meantime I'm going to enjoy my life and not obsesses or injure myself along the way. (BTW, I have been pain and injury free the past year which is a plus in my book)
Throughout most of the summer I had a long period where I wasn't gaining muscle, losing fat or adding to my repetitions. At least half of the year's training I was spinning my wheels and it wasn't until the past two months or so that I have really started to take off and see gains again. John explained to me that part of this was due to overabundance of estrogen due to being overweight. I know it's not a very manly thing to say I had too much estrogen in my body, but facts are fact; better for face them head on. The estrogen will "burn off" along with the fat and there's a point where that happens and the testosterone kicks in. John mentioned awhile back that it looked from my pictures that that had recently happened and sure enough, that was the period when my reps were starting to steadily increase and my stomach was beginning to shrink millimeter by millimeter.
But with hormones being an issue, I think the training method is important as well. Unfortunately, I think a big part of my problem was take a break from Transformetrics to try P90X in the summer. A lot of people will probably be aghast that someone tried P90X without stellar results. After all, just look at all the before and after pictures on the website and on the infomercials, right? Well, I don't want to bash Beach Body or P90X, I do think they put out a good product and respect their business but I'll just say don't get sucked in by the marketing. Many of the before and after pictures are not 90 day pictures, they're often after several 90 day cycles - in other words a year or more - and many are former athletes that have just gained weight. Again, I'm not bashing P90X and I'm not saying it doesn't work, obviously it works for some people. But it wasn't for me and therefore isn't for everyone.
So why didn't it work for me? I think it's because it has an excessive amount of cardio. The program is designed as a HIT style workout, exercising a bodypart once a week, with a large amount of cardio in between. (Royce will probably be the first to mention that you can't mix HIT with large amounts of cardio for most people) I think the cardio was actaully counter productive to burning off the excess estrogen in my body and I should have maintained a focus on strength training.
In the past couple of months I have switched to a daily full body strength training routine based on the Transformetrics system and have seen my best results all year in the brief period of time. More recently I have bifurcated this training into two 30 minute sessions; AM and PM. I feel this has really given me a performance boost and I really enjoy this type of training. This might not be for everyone either, just as P90X isn't for everyone. I'm sure some people work better with HIT or some other training system. But this is working well for me and I'm enjoying myself every step of the way.
These are my thoughts and insight. Just my opinion and experience. Take it for what it's worth to you.
-Joe
EDIT: Just for the record, I shot a video today. A little grunting and a little struggling, but I got it done.
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I've been struggling to get all of my numbers up for awhile now and I'm finally seeing good progress. For a long time I was stuck around 7 chin-ups, I'd gotten as many as 9 in the past but was never able to hit 10. So I'm pretty happy about the accomplishment.
I know my numbers aren't all that impressive to a lot of people on here. Many of you are able to do 20 pull-ups and 100 push-ups in a single set, but considering where I started, I think I'm doing alright. And considering I'm a pretty average with no kind of athletic background, I'm pretty happy with my accomplishments. One day I'll hit 100 push-ups and I'll get 20 pull-ups and I'll have six pack abs, but in the meantime I'm going to enjoy my life and not obsesses or injure myself along the way. (BTW, I have been pain and injury free the past year which is a plus in my book)
Throughout most of the summer I had a long period where I wasn't gaining muscle, losing fat or adding to my repetitions. At least half of the year's training I was spinning my wheels and it wasn't until the past two months or so that I have really started to take off and see gains again. John explained to me that part of this was due to overabundance of estrogen due to being overweight. I know it's not a very manly thing to say I had too much estrogen in my body, but facts are fact; better for face them head on. The estrogen will "burn off" along with the fat and there's a point where that happens and the testosterone kicks in. John mentioned awhile back that it looked from my pictures that that had recently happened and sure enough, that was the period when my reps were starting to steadily increase and my stomach was beginning to shrink millimeter by millimeter.
But with hormones being an issue, I think the training method is important as well. Unfortunately, I think a big part of my problem was take a break from Transformetrics to try P90X in the summer. A lot of people will probably be aghast that someone tried P90X without stellar results. After all, just look at all the before and after pictures on the website and on the infomercials, right? Well, I don't want to bash Beach Body or P90X, I do think they put out a good product and respect their business but I'll just say don't get sucked in by the marketing. Many of the before and after pictures are not 90 day pictures, they're often after several 90 day cycles - in other words a year or more - and many are former athletes that have just gained weight. Again, I'm not bashing P90X and I'm not saying it doesn't work, obviously it works for some people. But it wasn't for me and therefore isn't for everyone.
So why didn't it work for me? I think it's because it has an excessive amount of cardio. The program is designed as a HIT style workout, exercising a bodypart once a week, with a large amount of cardio in between. (Royce will probably be the first to mention that you can't mix HIT with large amounts of cardio for most people) I think the cardio was actaully counter productive to burning off the excess estrogen in my body and I should have maintained a focus on strength training.
In the past couple of months I have switched to a daily full body strength training routine based on the Transformetrics system and have seen my best results all year in the brief period of time. More recently I have bifurcated this training into two 30 minute sessions; AM and PM. I feel this has really given me a performance boost and I really enjoy this type of training. This might not be for everyone either, just as P90X isn't for everyone. I'm sure some people work better with HIT or some other training system. But this is working well for me and I'm enjoying myself every step of the way.
These are my thoughts and insight. Just my opinion and experience. Take it for what it's worth to you.
-Joe
EDIT: Just for the record, I shot a video today. A little grunting and a little struggling, but I got it done.
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