Thursday Training (Muscle Build - Session 3)

Back in the Gym tonight for my third muscle build session.

I trained under the watchful eye of Chandra tonight, so there was no room for cheating (not that I would anyway...)

Session went as follows:

Warm Up

1 km treadmill (5:08 - 8:13 min/mile pace)

Weights Room

Chest Press - 6 sets of 6 reps (50kg)
Pecs - 6 sets of 6 reps (35kg)
Shoulder Press - 4 sets of 6 reps (30kg)

Vertical Traction - 6 sets of 6 reps (50kg)
Low Row - 6 sets of 6 reps (55kg)

Upstairs to the Stretch & Tone Room

5 sets of 10 SB Sit Ups (feet together and only up to 45deg)
5 sets of 10 SB Sit Twists (feet together and only up to 45deg twisting through waist)
(Have cut out the dumbbell work having done the chest and pecs earlier)

Back downstairs again

Abs Crunch - 6 sets of 6 reps (50kg)
Leg Extension - 6 sets of 6 reps (50kg)

Cool Down

4 km treadmill (21:05 - 8:27 min/mile pace)

A really good session tonight.  I was glad Chandra was keeping a close eye on me as its good to know that I'm doing everything correctly.  Chandra has now changed my Swiss Ball routine to make it a few degrees harder and I was feeling the sit ups around the 4th rep so it proves the intensity was greater.  As Chandra said, he knew all he wanted to know from looking at my face.  It must have been a picture.

Wednesday Training

Out with the Plums tonight. Out to Bexley, through the farms on the other side of the North Cray Road and then back up Gravel Hill and through Bexleyheath to the club.

Was a decent run tonight. Nothing overly taxing as with all the Wednesday night runs, its very much a social chat pace. The 09:05 min/mile average moving pace shows that. Sadly the knee felt a lot sorer tonight than it has done recently. I think its time that I went for another visit to the physio to get it sorted once and for all.

Tuesday Training (Muscle Build - Session 2)

Totally and utterly beasted.  No other words for it.

Chandra has now totally changed my routine and it has come as a bit of a culture shock.  He did warn me it would feel like that and god he was right.

Plan is to cut my warm up cardio and then make up for the short fall at the end of each session, concentrating on the Weights Room first then doing my Swiss Ball circuits afterwards.  The idea that I'm at my freshest for the weights works.

So the session went like this...

Warm Up

1 km treadmill: 4 mins 47sec (7:42 min/mile pace)

Weights Room

Chest Press: 3 sets x 6 reps (50kg)

Leg Press: 5 sets x 10 reps (90kg)

Leg Extension: 5 sets x 5 reps (50kg)

Chest Press: 3 sets x 6 reps (50kg)

Abs Crunch: 10 sets x 10 reps (40kg)

Vertical Traction: 6 sets x 6 reps (50kg)

Low Row: 6 sets x 6 reps (50kg)

Pecs: 6 sets x 6 reps (25kg) – ouch

Shoulder Press: 3 sets x 6 reps (30kg) – bloody ouch  then another 1 set x 6 reps(same weight) but stopped at 4 reps had a rest and done another 2.

Upstairs to the Stretch & Tone Room

10 sets of the usual Swiss Ball circuit...

12 sits ups, 8 chest press (with 8kg dumbells), 8 chest fly (8kg), 12 sit up twists with a 6kg bar.

Cardio Finish

4km treadmill.  First 2km at 0.5% incline, second 0%.  

Started at 11km/h then increased by 0.5km/h every 0.5km, so was at 12km/h after 1km and then held it there for the remaining 3km.

All in all, I can safely say that was the hardest Gym session I have ever done.  It was good feeling I had some energy for the weights but I couldnt believe how quickly that energy (and power) drained from my body.

Half way through the 4km treadmill run at the end of the session, I felt on the verge of giving up and was seriously considering stopping the treadmill at 2km.  Lets not forget, I've run 10-13 milers for almost fun this year but the energy levels werent there.  I fault on and got to the end.  I think thats the first time I've ever run with anything other than 0% on the gradient and it killed me.  I'll be doing more of this in future.

Headed home for a chocolate milkshake to top up on protein but will now be looking at some protein supplements to use to aid recovery.

I feel broken tonight but I feel good for it.  NO PAIN...NO GAIN!

 

 

Monday rest day...

Monday was rest day for me as I'm planning another Gym session for Tuesday and Thursday, which fits around the Plumstead Runners night on Wednesday.  Talk about organised.

However, when I say rest night, I got to 8pm and I was bored as hell, so I thought it wouldnt be a bad idea just to do a light weights session with the Swiss Ball.  10 sets of my usual 12 sits ups, 8 chest press, 8 chest fly then 12 sits twists with 2 x 9kg dumbbells.

10 sets in 40 minutes built up a sweat in my sauna of a living room.

I am conscious that in this muscle building stage I'm in, I need sufficient rest between weight sessions now to allow the muscles to rebuild otherwise I will be risking weaknesses and injuries.

Sunday Training (Muscle Build - Session 1)

Sunday was the first day of weight training.  Minimum cardio and maximum weights.  As of 7pm this evening, I'm broken :)  However, the phrase "no pain, no gain" is important to remember at points like this.

As per usual, I started with a 2.5km warm up on the treadmill, at a slightly greater intensity than normal but then I hit the weights...

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I started off working the quads but then went upstairs to work on my usual swiss ball routine.  Handily, Chandra was in the Gym today and he came up just as I was finishing.  I told him what I'd done on Saturday and suggested upping the weights but reducing the repetitions for greater results.  Obviously he knows what he is talking about so I nodded my head and headed downstairs to the bigger boys room.

Got on the leg press machine and filled in Chandra with the latest on the knee situation.  I ended up doing one legged leg presses of 60kg just as an experiment and the left knee felt ok under stress.

Then Chandra dragged me to the chest press.

C: "What did you say you done yesterday?"
J: "40kg"
C: "Right, we'll start with 45kg then.  You're aiming for 6 sets of 6 reps...doesnt matter if you dont hit that right now, we'll work up to it..."

...so I do 1 set of 6 reps.

C: "How did that feel?  Do you think you could do another one?"
J: "Yeah, think so!"
C: "Ok, not heavy enough then, lets go to 50kg! Try another set and see how you get on"

...so I do 1 set of 6 reps.  I'm literally blowing out of my backside.

J: "OMG that was hard"
C: "Sounds the perfect weight then!  Aim for 3 sets then build up to 6 then we'll go from there!"

...so I done another 2 sets.  I was beasted by the end and had nothing left.

Same process for the pecs machine, up 5kg to 25kg, abs crunch machine up 10kg to 35kg and so on.  Everything I done the day before was upped in weight but the reps cuts.

I spent just over 2 hours in the Gym.  Approx 25 mins on the treadmill with the cool down included and about 90 mins doing the weights.  I felt really good when I came out.  The levels of motivation are back up and more of a sense of achievement too.

Chandra insisted that to begin with, the weights are only to be done 2 times a week with sufficient recovery in between.

Oh...and something to bear in mind, I got my brother to take some pics of me in just my boxers tonight, so I can do a before and after comparison once I start to take shape properly.

Saturday Training

I dropped Izzy back home to her Mum today before lunchtime as her choir was doing a performance of some kind, so I had Saturday afternoon pretty much to myself today so I thought it would be a great idea to get myself back in the Gym and make a start on the minimum cardio/maximum muscle building routine I'm beginning to incorporate into my training.

So off to the Gym I went.

A basic 2.5km warm up with the usual 0.5km increments in speed, hit the weights then a 2.5km cool down.

The session looked like this...

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As you can see, the weights session (highlighted in blue) heavily outweighed the cardio today.  Several hours later, as I type this, I'm feeling the effects.

My regular routine in the Gym is to use the Swiss ball, a pair of dummbells and a bar.  Since the patella tendonitis and the work required on my quads, I've been using the leg extension and leg press machines but today I've started using the upper body machines.

It was a really good session and I came out of the Gym 2 hours later feeling as though I'd really pushed myself.

The workload charts should see a significant change in the workload schedule at the end of August and hopefully will show that I've spent more time in the Gym than I did when I started the year in January.

He was born to play for Spurs...oh and so was he...but he wasnt

The Marca headline...Levy wants £120m (€145m) for the Welsh Lionel Messi

I've kept fairly tight lipped over the stories coming out in the media during the last week.

The Real Madrid propaganda-machine has been in full war-mode, saying Bale want to go to the Bernebau and Levy has rejected a world record offer of in excess of £85m.  Yes, thats right, EIGHTY-FIVE MILLIONS POUNDS.  That is absolutely insane.  The Spanish economy is on its knees and one of the Prima Liga clubs is looking at spending the equivalent of 2 years budget of a small to medium-sized acute A&E hospital on a single footballer, one who is far from the finished article, only has a year on Champions League experience and still tends to drift in and out of games and doesnt take them by the scruff of the neck on a regular basis.  My opinion of course but even so, £85m is an insane amount of money.  If the ITK is to be believed, the official offer on the table is £90m + Madrid's left back Fábio Coentrão.  Some of the more reputable ITKers suggest that no such offer exists and Bale will be staying for at least one more season.

Spurs have remained quiet.  Classy.  Something Real Madrid could never in a million years understand. However, the silence coming out of WHL is deafening.  You only have to read the message boards to see that the Spurs fans are waivering in their support for Levy.

I think Oliver Holt's article in the Daily Mirror sums the situation up best.  Read it here.

At the end of the day, the way I see it, Spurs are in a win-win situation.  If Bale stays, we've got a great chance of doing something memorable this season.  If Levy decides to sell, all of a sudden AVB gets a huge war chest and the possibility of bringing in 2-3 world class players into an already talent-laden squad promises big things. With the return of Kaboul and Sandro into the squad, the squad is looking much healthier.

In the last 24 hours, there has also been significant transfer dealings going on behind the scenes.  Firstly, a surprise one, Stephen Caulker has been sold to newly promoted Cardiff City for around £8m.  Seemed to have come out of the blue this transfer but it appears that Caulker wasnt going to be first choice so he decided to move for regular first team football at this stage of his career and you cant deny him that.

The biggest news, however, is Spurs have finally formally announced the signing of Valencia hitman Roberto Soldado for a club record £25.8m, after Levy met his release clause.  Well thats what Valencia want everyone to believe but I'm led to believe the fee is around £22m.

Soldado:  11caps for Spain, 6 goals...

Hugely exciting times ahead.  Levy (with the help of Baldini) has finally brought a 20-30 goal-a-season man to Tottenham for the first time since the days of Clive Allen, Gary Lineker and Jurgen Klinsmann.

Welcome to THFC, Roberto.  All you need to do is smash a 5 min hat-trick against the Gooners in the Cameldome and you'll become a hero forever more.  Not much to ask.

Best wishes to Stephen Caulker too.  Always gave his all for Spurs in the few games he had.

Now we patiently await formal word from Levy and Spurs re: Bale.  I've got a feeling this one will run and run until the end of the transfer window.