I'M BAAAAACK!!!

Happy Friday Eve pals!!! Remember me?!?!? The Griz LOL?!?

So, after my awesome trip to Panama City Beach, FL with my sweetie Suz I returned for a couple days of fairly normal life then headed up North, back home, to visit my oldest son & his new baby boy, my first grandchild, for Memorial Day weekend which thanks to construction meant roughly 12 hours on the road Friday & 13 hours coming back Tuesday so my workouts have been very impacted, although while up there I did take regular advantage of my hometown’s greenway walking network logging 14.4 miles walked on the greenways alone!!!

As for compliance…well…meals were admittedly social events most of the weekend while visiting family & old friends. Although remaining conscious of choices made there were multiple meals at places we’ve missed since moving away in 2007 that admittedly don’t even offer truly compliant options but were either childhood favorites or places the boys grew up enjoying, the youngest made the trip with me. We’ll see what the scale & tape measure has to say about the last 2 weeks this upcoming Sunday!

Due to all the travels & craziness Suz & I decided to cover FiCX week 3 partly last week & finish it this week so we’ll be tearing into week 4 with a vengeance come Monday!!! We’re already planning our next adventure & it’s going to take place around her stomping grounds in just a few weeks, halfway from now to her birthday, so we’ll work on keeping up with our workouts & compliance when I’m back up there!

My knee that gave me some fits while in PCB stood up to the greenway walking pretty well & wasn’t even TOO whiney this AM but I decided that since I can’t get into an orthopedic surgeon to check it out until June 8th I adapted today’s leg day a bit so as not to end up armchair quarterbacking! Pulled off 4 supersets of seated calf press, abductor & adductor for a tidy total of 30,000LBs along with HIIT sessions of upright biking mixed throughout. I kept alternating the HIIT between the 1 of 3 minutes hot format & the 20 seconds per minute hot format which always yielded slightly higher calories burnt count according to the bike gizmo LOL! Sitting here now almost 4 hours post grind the legs are roasted & quivering well!

Hope you’re all having a GREAT week & for all my American pals…happy belated Memorial Day!!! Let’s never forget to whom we owe our freedoms to!

Rock on pals!!! To roll through the rest of week 3’s work, tomorrow will be a righteous UBWO thrashing & Saturday will be industrial core & long haul cardio!

BtW, just thought I’d introduce y’all to the 3rd generation Griz! Little rascal’s already got a pretty good grip LMBO!

PCB2 & MORE!!!

WHEW! What an awesome past few days it’s been!!! Suz flew down from Detroit to Nashville last Friday AM where I picked her up & we headed south for Panama City Beach, FL! We only had a little construction & 1 short detour to feed the rental mobile & grab a bite of lunch heading down. We arrived in PCB mid-evening, got settled into our beach facing suite on the top floor of the Seahaven Beach Resort in time to soak in the tail end of a beautiful sunset then walked next door to Sharky’s for a yummy, fairly healthy, dinner while a decent cover band cranked it up. After dinner we took a walk on the beach behind Sharky’s still listening to the band while gazing at the stars & listening to the waves crashing on the beach…JUST AWESOME!

Saturday morning we arose & headed down the road a few blocks stopping at an old fashioned stainless steel diner for a great breakfast then walked next door to a beach attire shop to get Suz a hat to block a little surplus sun then cruised across town so I could get a quick haircut after which we spent a good long while WAY out on the county pier & walking around the beach before grabbing some lunch. In the afternoon we went walking around the open air Panama City Pier Mall doing a little surprise shopping for a special Suz souvenir, pictured below! After walking the mall for a while we headed back to the Seahaven to chill for a bit until wedding time for Myl & Marine. Attended their really sweet beach sunset wedding service then journeyed over to the reception where we hung out a while then came back to Sharky’s to round out a set of PCB souvenir mugs for Suz’s kids & some more beach time. Sunday came along & we headed west along the coast a few burbs over until it seemed “town” was getting scarce & we stopped at a little mom & pop joint for some brunch. I’d never ever heard of a grilled shrimp omelet but it was fantastic! We then spent a good while beachcombing & walking up & down the gulf’s white sands. Ended up walking the Pier Mall again Sunday evening a while then spent Monday back in the saddle getting Suz to her flight even a few minutes early after stopping at a really cool H-D bike shop around lunchtime along the way.

Another thing that was neat was a benefit through my day job insurance, to track some of my fitness efforts, they’d given me a cool little “digital accelerometer” aka a schnazy pedometer that talks to my computer uploading my steps each day. Looking at the weekend numbers they made pretty good sense except Saturday looked way short compared to Sunday even though our walking  was about the same then I remembered that Saturday I wore my sandals a good deal of the day without the gizmo attached. Anyhow the results showed we walked just shy of 9.5 miles not counting a good half of Saturday so even though I missed a couple days of FiCX’s week 2 I felt pretty good about staying active while in PCB!

Got back Monday night & realized all my FiCX info was on my laptop that I’d dropped off at the office heading home so I wasn’t sure what Week 3 days 1 or 2 was even supposed to be SOOO, knowing I’m heading north to visit the grandbaby Memorial Day weekend I just blasted a beastly core & cardio morning then today being Week 3, Day 3 was leg day you KNOW I burnt it down!

I’ve been having increasing problems with my right knee since starting the squats & lunges in FiCXs lineup & while in PCB I really managed to piss it off, walking in the shifting white powder I think, so even though I had my leg day sheet this AM I was forced to adapt to what I could do, sticking with seated calf presses, abductor/ adductor & a slow & gingerly ground out set of glute back kicks, setting a new PR for seated calf press along the way! I’m now acquiring a list of English speaking knee docs who are “in network” on my insurance to get it checked out. About 13 years ago I slid down a creek bank while deer hunting, having my left leg slide out in front while my right foot caught & folded back. I ended up slamming full force down, folding my right leg shut TIGHT, sitting my hiney down on the bottom of my right boot with a solid thud followed by a loud grinding crunching ker-pop! Being a bull headed guy I limped & gimped for about a month until it seemed to get better enough not to garner attention but either squatting or lunging seems to have reaggravated it to a point of severe discomfort hence the doc’s list. I’m hopeful it can be tweaked back into happy without much fuss but time will tell meanwhile I’ll keep after it best I can.

Rock on pals!!! Kicking FiCX off right before PCB2 with a visit back to the hometown immediately following wasn’t the best of planning on my part but as I always said while in Body for Life…life will always happen so there’s no time like the present!

@ZZ KICKING HAPPY FRIDAY!!!

FiCX; Week 1, Day 5, awesome & intense upper body workout!!! Legs were still good tight & whiney this AM so the warm up was upright biking. I had planned on hitting that WICKED Cybex Arc Trainer for all of my warm ups, trying to build up to where I can tackle that mean beast come full on cardio days, BUT the legs just weren’t quite back ready to handle it from Wednesday’s BEAT DOWN & yesterday’s cardio so this AM, biking it was!

I LOVE the upright bikes as WAY back when, in high school (pictured below immediately after my favorite 100 miler, note the left ankle pant leg chain protector LOL) I pedaled all over north central Indiana, covering 1,200 miles during my summer vacation between 10^th & 11^th grade for example.

I also love biking since it’s basically zero impact on the knees but so is the Arc Trainer so that excuse no longer washes LOL! The evil ellipticals are also zero impact but are @ZZ kickers as their short little stride just makes me crazy but I’m slowly adapting as I know variety is critical in not burning out!!!

Speaking of burning out, this AM’s UBWO was an INTENSE burn!!! Tried sneaking up a notch on all the weights & managed a couple new PRs & brought a real BURN! I swear, my fingernails were even throbbing & I was honestly STILL sweating over an hour after my post grind shower!!! Absolutely loving the program & can’t wait to tear into week two, right after day 6’S long haul cardio of course!!!

Normally I put in a good chunk of hours at the side job on the weekend so prolly won’t be chiming in much again until Monday so here’s wishing y’all an INTENSELY awesome weekend! Rock on pals & keep it grinding!!!

Hump Day Philosophizing & Iron Grinding!!!

So, for those of you who don’t know the Griz all that well, one thing you will find is that I’m a self-professed music nut! I’m primarily rooted in classic rock with ballads from hard rock bands being some of my very favorite songs as these showcase their true talents as they stretch past their usual comfort zone, just as intense diet & fitness efforts show themselves best in us when we stretch beyond what we had previously called normal! There are also many pop country songs that I really enjoy as well since they tend to touch on more emotions than rock but please! You can keep the older “country & western” beer drinkin’ twangy whiny, “my coon dog done run off with my best girl” kinda stuff! Not my gig!

ANYHOW, often as I’m working out in the gym, while my 400ish songs scroll across the iPod adding hump & hustle to the early AM workouts, certain lyrics strike me. Sometimes they fit a recent conversation, sometimes they fit the mood, sometimes they just fit what’s going on in life & often these feel like an epiphany! What really strikes me is how you can hear a song for like the bazillionth time & suddenly something either in your heart or head just clicks!

So, today for example, while warming up to 5 minutes of random hills LifeFitness upright biking, leading into today’s @ZZ kicking leg day, Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven fired off. Now I’ve blogged about this song for friends facing tough spots in the road many times before as the overall concept always leads me to the same conclusion; even if you have a perfect stairway directly to heaven it won’t do you ANY good unless you get stepping! It’ll be a long hard climb so once you begin it’s just one foot in front of the other, always envisioning or visualizing the goal of taking that final step onto your cloud but that’ll NEVER happen if you FIRST don’t get started OR if you EVER give up along the way! But today there were also a couple specific verses that caught my soul relating to this fitness LIFE journey I have chosen to adopt;

“And a new day will dawn for those who STAND LONG & the forests will echo with laughter.”

This is not going to be a short road or ANY KIND of quick fix! It took 20+ years to get this far gone so STANDING LONG to be able to enjoy life’s laughter down the road is paramount & worth it!

The other verse, “Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run there's still time to change the road you're on.” Being near, if not past, life’s midpoint it’s critical to NEVER let myself even entertain the thought that it’s too late to make good decisions, regardless of the past!!! As long as I’m “on the road” undertaking this journey it’s NEVER too late to choose the BEST path & make the RIGHT decisions like grinding those last 3 reps…yeah they might really burn but THAT’S the point!!! Deciding that stopping for that creamy Starbucks on the way to work or having that big greasy cheeseburger for lunch that you’ve always loved SOOO much just is NOT worth the quality of life you’re trading for them!

So, enough philosophizing!!! I’ve got my FIcX affirmations figured out, my visualization is solid & my gratitude log, admittedly still a mental exercise rather than a physical one, grows daily.

NOW, let’s get down to the work! LEG DAYS ROCK!!! Being a manufacturing engineer for MANY years, too many sometimes it seems, I am also a self-professed numbers nut & leg days just RACK UP the volume! Let’s face it; I’ve got a fairly beefy set of sticks from hauling this carcass all over a fourth of the planet all these years! As I’d mentioned in an earlier blog, I’ve acquired a few injuries over the years, that my additional heft doesn’t help any with, so I have to kind work around those but that’s okay, the work still gets done, trust me!!! As I’ve explained in an earlier blog, part of the Griz nickname comes from my funky way of growling at the iron rather than grunting or swearing as so many do & given a good hard leg day…MMM!!! The growls just feel SOOO good! When I mentioned joining Planet Fitness on my Facebook page recently one of my longtime fitness pals out in Oregon warned me of PFs “Lunk Alarm” as apparently she or someone she knows has actually been kicked out of one for grunting & she’s repeatedly warned me that my growling may get me in trouble there, as it did at the workplace gym which is more like a country club rehab center than a gym LOL!

Anyhow, today was the first time I’d gotten comfortable enough there or deep enough into it to get a good growl on but luckily none of the folks around me seemed to mind LOL! One lady & her workout gal pal even stopped me & asked where I’d gotten my workout schedule she’d seen me carrying around on my clipboard! Of course I gave her the FIcX web addy & she was tickled! Anyhow PF has an awesome seated calf press station that allows me to load up the weight without loading my grouchy herniated lumbar disc so the final 3 reps of set 4 at 240 pounds got their fair share of deep belly Grizzly growls!

I also had a minor hunting accident back in the ‘90s, slipping down a muddy creek bank & folding up my right leg under me hard which has left some long lasting fussiness in my right knee that is also impacting my ability to really squat deep or lunge long & low but squatting as deep as it would tolerate with only 120 LBs on the bar worked pretty well (in addition to my own torso tonnage) & lunging as long & low as I can with 30 pound dumbbells in each hand, added to my already substantial body load, definitely sunk the burn deep! Calves, hammies, quads & even my glutes are ON FIRE today & I can honestly say that this is the first time my glutes have ever lit up, WOW!!!

I’m slowly getting a better handle on the nutritional side of FIcX but it still seems daunting to get 3K calories in daily without expecting to need a bigger car to commute in LOL although I DO get the logic! Feed the muscles all they need to grow efficiently & lure my metabolism out of hibernation! Makes perfect sense…just gotta get used to it!

Rock on pals & happy hump day!!!

FIcX; Week 0, Day 5 & ONLY 14 days to PCB2!!!

Okay so this week I have begun following FicX, a new program that Suz showed me that we have decided is a great course of action we can tear into together! Per the program, this week I have ground my way through defining my personal reasons why, I have worked on the affirmations, visualizations & am working my way into the daily gratitude logging although I must admit all the psychological content is nearly as different for me as the dietary part is difficult LOL!

I say Week 0 as Suzette, my inspiration & awesome soul mate, was traveling out of state early this week & we are tearing into FIcX together so I have spent this week working up my baselines in the gym while working through my program email check in homework assignments!

I have been working out in the gym religiously for the last 2 years & fairly religiously the 2 years prior but my results have been hit & miss at best. I lost 30 LBs across a 6 month stretch mid 2010 then really got my head, heart & attitude in the game & lost another 30 the following 3 months then had a personal / relationship derailment that took me psychologically CLEAR outta the game & although I worked out HARD 4-6 days a week all through 2011 I put back on nearly half of that hard fought 60 LBs then I met Suz!

Her story & mine held many similarities except that she has managed to shed 90 LBs through her troubled waters & has kept it off! With her light in my life I have managed to shake off the darkness, have refocused on getting back in the game & have begun turning this train wreck around & as Suz pointed out before we even got into the FIcX way of thinking, we have renamed my train wreck the Griz Express LOL!

So the workouts this week have been great although have required substantial adjustment on my part! A few months back I herniated a lumbar disk so I have been working to find ways to work out that do not leave me folded up & cranky by days end. Recently Suz had introduced me to the pyramid style of weights / reps / sets beginning at a weight that just barely allows 16-20 reps then adding weight so you fizzle at 8-12 then max it out where 4-6 are all there is left then work your way clear back down to properly toast'em good! Having adjusted to that new methodology finding weights that work for the 12s 4X through has been tough! I find myself being a little over greedy setting baselines that make the last 3-4 reps on that 4th set impossible without a few seconds breather thrown in but HEY! At least I'm setting some stretch goals to grow into!!! Another thing that has tested my metal is having a cardio day immediately following leg day, WTH LOL?!? Planet Fitness, my new gym, has a cardio rig I had never tried, although I have seen others blog about how tough & awesome it is. It’s called an Arc Trainer from Cybex International & it reminds me of a cross between a Nordic Track skier, an evil elliptical & a stair climber all in one sadistic package! Somehow it manages to hit calves, quads, hammies & even a bit up into the glutes all with fairly vicious efficiency & trying this beast out for the very first time 23 hours post a kick @ZZ leg day proved purely masochistic!!! Today being yet another full day later my thighs are still SCREAMING FOR VENGENCE!!! Today was a repeat of Mondays UBWO & I managed an even tidy 30,000 LBs amidst intervals of cardio warm up & cool down.

Recovery & rest is the other uphill battle this old bear still has issues with! Thanks to "life" I find myself working 2 jobs; flying a desk in an engineering role 40 hours weekly then getting back to my machinist / tool & die roots making high precision parts night & weekends another 20-40 hours weekly so sleep usually idles around 5ish hours nightly but with proper detail to attention hopefully we can tweak on that too, with proper Focus, Intensity, compliance & eXcellence...RIGHT LOL?!?!?

Rock on pals!!!