Need to change my workout schedule

I'm breaking from my norm of posting my fitness updates on Mondays to write about my shoulder. After a tiring back, biceps, and shoulders (BBS) workout last night, I realized I may be overworking the shoulder during my so-called "rehab".

Reviewing my last few updates, the first thing you notice is that I am aiming for 3 BBS workouts and 3 CTA (chest, triceps, and abs) workouts per week. Guess which joint is used during all six workouts? Shoulder. In fact, during my rotator-cuff exercises, I still hear clicking on diagonal raises. During lying external rotations, I actually heard my right shoulder move; as in, I heard the ball of my humerus move in it's socket with each rep. Very scary.

So, after doing some quick research and thinking, I will be changing my workout schedule. To what exactly, I haven't yet determined, but I will be looking at 3-4 weight workouts a week instead of the 6 I'm doing now. I'm looking at an alternating one weight day, one off day program. With my plans of signing up for Planet Fitness again, this could be easily achieved with cardio on the off days. I just need to decide what schedule would work best for me. Here's the main two types I'm looking at:

Workout schedule A
Day 1: Chest/Back/Abs
Day 2: Cardio
Day 3: Shoulders/Arms/Abs
Day 4: Cardio
Day 5: Legs/Back/Abs
Day 6: Cardio
Day 7: Free day

Workout schedule B
Day 1: Chest/Triceps/Abs
Day 2: Cardio
Day 3: Back/Biceps/Shoulders/Abs
Day 4: Cardio
Day 5: Legs/Abs
Day 6: Cardio
Day 7: Free day

With both workouts, I hope to squeeze in a quick 15-20 minute cardio session at the end of weight days (with rowing for Legs days). But both schedules allow for quite some time of rest/recovery, and both only have one dedicated shoulders workout once a week. I think this is important, as my right shoulder is still recovering. In fact, I've read that the shoulders are a small muscle group and it's important that I don't overwork it. Especially since the shoulders are part of nearly every upper body workout. I've also read that I won't need super high weights to challenge the shoulder. High reps and good form should do the trick. So even 45-lb dumbbells for the shoulder press should be good (when I work up to that anyway).

Since I did BBS last night, I'll try for some type of cardio, then do CTA on Wednesday. I'll follow up with a cardio day and cap the work week with a Legs workout. Next week, I'll probably go for Workout schedule A. The scheduling is more in tune with P90x, so it should prep my body for that in May (my target for starting P90x). I might start taking some glucosamine sulfate for the shoulder too. We'll see.


Last weigh-in:
178.0 lb (See what I mean about doing better on the work week?)

Still on track!

Did pretty well again last week. But I realized my weekdays are the least of my worries. It's the weekends that kill me. Workout-wise I've managed to be pretty consistent with my mini-workouts and my weight regimen. Here's the breakdown:

Monday: Door jamb rows (25, 25, 25), squats (50), lunges (25), standing rows (15, 15, 15), BBS
Tuesday: Counter pushups (30, 30, 30), calf raises (90), chest isometric (60), triceps dips (15, 15, 15), CTA
Wednesday: Squats (50), door jamb rows (25, 25), lunges (25 each), BBS, lower ab work
Thursday: Counter pushups (30, 30, 30), calf raises (90), triceps dips (20, 20), CTA, chest isometric (60)
Friday: Squats (50), lunges (17 each, 15, each), BBS
Saturday: Standing rows (15, 15, 15), CTA
Sunday: None

I'm on week one of using 10-pounders, and as much as I am tempted to go up to 15lbs this week, I will stick to two week phases. I'm being very careful with my shoulder. I'm still using 5-pounders for my rotator-cuff exercises, as I was told to aim for high reps on those exercises rather than high weight. I'd like to hit 3 sets of 30 or 40 before increasing weights and dropping down to 20 reps. Right now I'm at 3 sets of 20 - 25 reps @ 5lbs. So not too bad.

As for cardio, I made it to the YMCA on Monday only to find out my friend's membership, which I was piggybacking on, expired. I suppose it works out, as I was thinking of heading back to Planet Fitness. PF is open 24-hours during the weekdays, making missing workouts harder. So, the plan this week is to stick with my mini-workouts and weight workouts while signing up at PF again.

The weekends are proving quite a challenge. I had pretty bad meals on Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday. That plus my inability to stick to my 80-100 oz daily water intake caused me to jump from 176.5lb during the week to 179.5lb by Sunday night. Craziness. I'm hoping to be better during the weekend. That plus the cardio I plan on doing should help with my diet. I'm looking forward to my dumbbell weight increase too. My shoulders and arms are getting a pretty good endurance workout, but my chest and back are hardly challenged. With my two-week phases, it appears I will be back up to 30-lb dumbbells by end of May. Hopefully by then I am doing pullups/chinups and full pushups too. It's a long road to recovery.

I'm also looking forward to the warmer weather. I'd like to fit in more biking and hiking. Bagging a couple of 4,000-footers is my summer goal. And I'd like to start rock-climbing/bouldering too.


Last weigh-in:
179.5 lb

Good progress with a slight setback

Well, up till Thursday night, I did okay last week. I was able to stick to pretty good eating habits and was able to squeeze in all my mini-workouts plus most of my weight workouts during the work week. Here's the breakdown:

Monday: Door jamb rows (20, 20), squats (50), lunges (25 each), BBS
Tuesday: Calf raises (90), counter pushups (25, 25, 25), chest isometric (60)
Wednesday: Squats (50), door jamb rows (20, 20, 20), lunges (25 each), BBS
Thursday: Counter pushups (25, 25, 25), calf raises (90), counter dips (10, 10, 10), chest isometric (60)
Friday: Squats (50), door jamb rows (20, 20, 20), lunges (25 each)
Saturday: manual labor
Sunday: CTA, counter pushups (25, 25)

Eating wise, I grabbed a mouthful of cereal and a vitamin to start each day. Then I had two cups of Cheerios with skim milk. I usually had some sort of snack before lunch (I keep either natural or unsalted roasted almonds, peanut butter, a serving of protein powder, and protein bars at my desk now). For lunch, I had the same thing the whole week. Sauteed chicken breast, lightly seasoned with blanched broccoli and baby carrots (I know...pretty bland, but as Jack LaLanne said, "if man made it, don't eat it", and "if it tastes good, spit it out."). I usually have another snack before I leave work. During work, I aim to drink at least 64 ounces of water. The only thing I would change about the meals now is to add a serving of carbs to my lunch. I noticed my energy levels were a bit low without the carbs. I would like to throw in a fruit in there too, although I wouldn't want too much. Don't want excess sugar.

With the new eating habits and my workouts, I was able drop down to 177.5 by Wednesday night. Half probably being water weight since my body now realizes it gets water all the time now. No need to retain water. But then my cousins arrived Thursday, and it was all about sleeping late and drinking. Tried to be really good with any meals that we grabbed, but it was tough.

Shoulder seems to be getting better. No complaints with the weight exercises with 5 pounders and 3 sets of 12. So bumping up to 10lb dumbbells with 3 sets of 8 and see how that goes. If it goes well, then I'll do sets of 10 or 12 for a week or two to let the shoulder get used to that. My chest is barely getting challenged with the low weight, but I don't want to rush it. Hopefully, I can bump up to 15 pounders in two weeks.

I didn't make it into the gym for some cardio, so I'm going to try this week. Weights are good, but with this "rehab" I'm doing and this body-fat loss challenge, I need the cardio.


Last weigh-in:
180.5 lb

Trying very hard to fit more in

With the new body fat loss challenge, I've been trying very hard to fit more workouts in. I have yet to go to the gym, but I'm trying to fit my upper body workouts in. It really isn't too hard since I'm using five pounders to give my injured shoulder some rest. I had on a heat pad a couple days to help improve blood flow. It feels a bit better, but still some instability. I really don't think it's a pulled muscle anymore as it doesn't hurt during exercises. It feels more like it's unstable. Diagonal raises causes clicking too. I'm thinking it's a minor tear in a ligament or a strained tendon. Wonderful...

Here's the breakdown:

Monday: none
Tuesday: Calf raises (90), CTA
Wednesday: Squats (40), lunges (20 each), BBS
Thursday: Calf raises (90), counter pushups (20, 20)
Friday: Chest isometric (60), squats (50), lunges (25 each), neutral grip pullups (1, 3), BBS
Saturday: Wall pushups (20), CTA, pushups on knees (20, 20), Dynaflex PowerBall (2x1min each)
Sunday: Ski, short 20 min run/walk

Eating was a challenge. I was able to keep to a 5-6 meal day on the weekdays. Weekends are tougher, with me barely able to keep eating when I'm hungry. I aim to plan for my calories instead of the multi-meals. I've been good on the hydration during the weekdays too, which intakes of 100+ ounces of water. Weekends again, are a bit of a challenge, but I take in more water than I normally did.

I fit in a ski day on Sunday. Again, my quads were not ready, and they were on fire by the end of the day. Squats help, but not enough. I really didn't follow through with the horse stance training. I did go for a short run when I got home. It was quite a challenge to run after a ski day, and I barely made it back up to my apartment afterwards. But it was great to feel all the different parts of the body ache during the run. Makes you realize there's a lot of work to do.

I'm hoping to hit the gym this week and add in more runs. Hopefully, in a couple of weeks, my shoulder is good enough for me to start increasing my weights. Talked to a guy on the ski trip who's going in for PT degree. He said rotator cuff exercises might help stabilize the joint. I gotta aim for high reps, low weights though, he said. So the 3 sets of 10's with 5 pounders are gonna cut it. Should drop to 3 pounders with sets of 20-30. We'll see how that goes.

Last weigh-in:
180.0 lb

Some progress with shoulder

I definitely gave my shoulder some rest, but it's not feeling that much better. A bit better, but not that great. I'm going to start the rehab again, but this time I won't do high reps. I'll still start with five pound dumbbells but with sets of 8-10. That should give it enough stimulus without going overboard with the exertion. Anyway, here's last week's breakdown:

Monday: none
Tuesday: calf raises w/10lb (90), chest isometric exercises (240 total)
Wednesday: none
Thursday: none
Friday: none
Saturday: none
Sunday: none

I was away for the weekend and spent some time with my cousins. My LI cousin suggested we do a friendly body fat reduction challenge. He's currently at 12.x% while I'm at 15.7%. To be fair, we would aim to lose 3% and 4%, respectively. We have till June 1st to do so. I've never focused on losing body fat before, so this is new to me. I'm researching eating habits and am seriously considering moving to a 6-7 meals/day diet.

The first thing I did so far is focusing on getting at least 64 ounces of water a day. Muscles are 70% water and your body tends to retain water when it's not getting enough. So getting at least 8 glasses a day will keep myself hydrated while preventing water retention. To help with that I replaced my 32 ounce Nalgene bottle with a 16 ounce sippy thermos (Keeps my water cold!). I use the thermos to bring skim milk with me to work for my whole-grain cereal, then aim to drink four thermos-ful of water. Another thing I did was to start reading all labels of food I buy. So laborious.

Last weigh-in:
180.5 lb at 15.7% body fat

Gonna take a break

It's been a rough week. The light weights didn't help much, and after seeing the doctor's for an unrelated issue, I decided to pretty much take this week off. Here's last week's breakdown:

Monday: Lunges (20 each), squats (40), BBS w/5lbs (20, 20), shoulder/back stretches

Tuesday: CTA (20, 20), calf raises (90), ab work, leg stretches/splits

Wednesday: Lunges (20 each), squats (45), BBS (20, 20)

Thursday: none

Friday: Lunges (20 each), squats (45), counter pushups (10), CTA (20, 20), ab work, leg stretches/splits
Saturday: Chest isometric exercises (60 total)
Sunday: rest

Last weigh-in:
179.5 lb

I hate the "It's my life, I'll do what I want" people

It's Wednesday again. I hate hump days. The past weekend is but a memory, but the coming weekend is still pretty far away. You know what else I hate? The people who think they don't have to wear a seat belt or a motorcycle helmet because it's their life and they'll do what they want. Their argument is usually that it doesn't affect anyone else. But you see, it does!

Take seat belts. Say you get in an accident. If you die, great. But say you survive, and your injuries are so severe you exceed your coverage on your insurance. Maybe you have enough personal money to pay your medical bills. But if not, you apply for Medicare. I now support your sorry butt, because you didn't wear a seat belt. Say you don't exceed your coverage. But you just added to number of claims that the insurance company pays out. Next year, insurance companies adjust premiums all across the board to cover their potential losses. I pay for your mistake. This is the same for motorcycle helmets, although if we're all lucky, your head explodes like a melon and no one needs to pay for your poor decision-making.

Another scenario in the seat belt issue is this: What if you get ejected from your car during an accident? What if I was just walking along the street when you smack me and kill me? Or what if you're sitting in the backseat and you fly over the seat and break the neck of the person sitting in front of you? Of if you were sitting in back of me? I don't want to die because the dumba** in back of me didn't put on a seat belt.

So stop complaining if the government passes another seat belt law or helmet law. Yeah, we might be infringing on your right to do as you please, but I don't want to be paying for your stupid mistakes. Wear your seat belts. And if you ride, wear a helmet. You don't want bugs in your teeth anyway.