Happy New Year!

Happy new 2013 year to everyone!

I must say that 2012 was a really changing year to my physical fitness. I had some major changes in my body in terms of bodyfat and VO2 capacity.

The boxing classes were a must to all these changes followed by some pumping iron classes that I do in my all entire life since  14 years old! Yes, I have been training with dumbbells since that age, not so much to be mister Olympia but to increase my muscle mass and performance in other sports.

Nowadays, I am very focused on the boxing classes, my technique as increased a lot since I started in February 2012. I also am doing some bodybuilding exercises (I told you already).

I have a new challenge for the 1st trimester: besides boxing and bodybuilding I added more training, I am focusing in being fit for the half marathon on 24th of March. I am doing specific training for the challenge. I started yesterday on the gym, 60 minutes of jogging with about 8,8 Km done. I still have a lot work to do to increase my perfomance. I would like to make the half marathon in 90 minutes and I know the odds are against me but who knows? I will be training for that goal.

I leave you guys with my specific training plan that I downloaded from the half marathon website. I missed the Tuesday workout (1st of January).

August Update

Overall, I have been pretty active, I measured my body fat last week, I have 18,4% body fat. It's a good value and I can decrease even more.

I have been regular at my boxing classes, they are twice a week. They are very intense in terms of VO2 effort, and they are also ver good in terms of learning the right techniques. I started in February and I have been improving at a very fast rate. Will keep up the good work at boxing.

In the bodybuilding area, I made a 10 days pause and made a comeback yesterday. I made a really good full body workout that the main goal is Strength and Power. The workout it's made of basic and compound movements that are very beneficial to the body (and mind). Here is the overall exercises workout, they are made of superseries between the two exercises listed below, 3 superseries in each item in the rep range of 8-12 (upperbody) and 10-16 (Legs).

1. Front Squat + Military Press
2. Deadlift + Shrugs
3. Bench Press + Upright Row
4. Pullups + Close Grip Bench Press
5. Dips + Reverse Bicep Curl.

Ended the workout with abdominal exercises.

Stay in shape!

2012 1st Semester Overall Fitness

One semester of 2012 has passed and I am very excited for the next one because I have made a significant progress on the last semester in increasing my overall shape and body condition. I discovered that two things work well: boxing and bodybuilding.

Boxing is one of the best aerobics activities to decrease body fat and is a great workout to increase your overall cardio condition. Since child I have always enjoyed combat sports and martial arts but I never tried boxing (besides being so popular). I found out that, (at my current age of 33), that I love boxing. In conversation with other people in the field, boxing is a fundamental activity to other complex combats sports nowadays like MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) or a more traditional one like  Kick-boxing.

The last but not the least important variable is nutrition, I improved the quality of my meals when I am not at home. At the present I work in one office in Lisbon (about 30km from my home), so I must lunch 5 days of week outside, I must be careful to not eat garbage food. In the future when I start my own business, I will have a much better control over my nutrition. By the way, I always (if not in a meeting),  have one meal in the middle of the morning and another one 2/3 hours after lunch.

I must say another crucial thing that is the most vulnerable variable and the one that I have less control: sleeping. Amazing! Sleeping is fundamental, you must find out your needs in terms of sleeping hours. My personal needs are 8 hours but most of the time I sleep 6 to 7 hours each night, I am going to try to improve this variable on the next semester.

1st Semester Overall Accomplished Goals:
- Body Condition Improved, in terms of cardio and muscular condition.
- Nutrition Improved.

2nd Semester Goals:
- 8 Hours of sleeping each night should be the norm not the exception.
- Keep improving on the body condition and mind strength (talk about this on another post.
- Keep disciplined about nutrition.

Stay in Shape!

The Boxing Trial

Hi, I have been working out more than ever. Went for a bodybuilding workout yesterday. I did the following basic routine:

Exercises	Sets	Repetitions per Set	Weight
Paralell Bar Dips	3	16 / 10/ 8	BW/+2Kg/+2Kg
Pullups	3	10 / 8/ 6	Body Weight
Dumbell Press	2	6 / 10/ 10	?
Bicep Curl	3	?	?
Squat	5	18  /15/ 12/ 10/ 12+12+18	30Kg/60Kg/80Kg/90KG/80+60+40

I had one major improvement on the Paralell Bar Dips: I started using additional weight besides my body weight I decided to do so, because I am making more than 15 repetitions on my first set with my body weight (witch is also an improvement!).

I am weak on Pullup and Bicep Curl, but I am more concerned about the Pullup exercise, because it is such a basic and awesome exercise for the upper body. I will start to make them a priority on the back exercises.

On the Squat I decided to not go to the 100Kg mark, instead I made a final giant set. That is, a 3 sets in one, where I made 12 repetitions with 80Kg and moved on to 12 Repetitions with 60 Kg and only stopped at 18 repetitions with 40Kg. My only rest time on this giant set was when I change the plates from the squat barbell to reduce the weight.

My main reason for the giant set was twofold: give some shocking workout to the legs and to excel on my squat technique. Technique is everything and it is the most important thing in bodybuilding, only after technique comes the weight.

I tried boxing last week, and I ended exhausted! It is a tremendous cardiovascular workout, I will go again this week.
Stay in shape!

Fitness Update

Hi, I am almost 100% recovered from my calf injury but I have a tendinitis on the right foot (the same leg). Anyway, I much better, yesterday went for a 20 minute jogging with some kick boxing activity on the forest at night.


Today I will go to the forest and make some jogging with some kick boxing activity. I am not yet prepared for the 10 km jogging this week due to my light tendinitis. Tomorrow morning I will go to the gym to make some bodybuilding.


On Thursday I broke my lifetime squat record: I just made 12 repetitions with 100Kg! I am very proud. If you ask me one month ago if this was possible, I would say of course it is but not this month! Anyway, when you love a bodybuilding exercise you may become the greatest on performing the exercise. 


I have some weak areas to work on, that are the bench press and the pullups exercises. I am also doing about 14 repetitions on the parallel bar dips, witch is becoming light for me, so I will start to add weight, besides my body weight.


According to my plan, I am still on the adaptation phase and making moderate repetitions. The next phase will be more heavy with less repetitions.


That's all for now, stay in shape!

Small Calf Injury

Hi, first the not so good news: I have suffered a small injury (nothing serious) on the right leg calf muscle. This is sort of bad warm up before the jogging, it was very cold outside and my right calf muscle started to give me some pain lately during the jogging.

The good news, I am working out regularly, I just made about 8Km jogging in 45 minutes during the last Saturday. Half of that was in pain with my calf muscle but I did not stooped the jogging.
The excellent news, I made 14 repetitions in the Squat exercise with 90 Kg! I think I am going to give a break this week and I will go to bodypump on Thursday.

Stay in Shape!

Workouts Going Better Than Ever

I have been working out twice a week, been doing bodybuilding (as I mentioned before) and doing some cardio conditioning training.

Today when I was running to the gym my calf muscle blow out, I felt an intense pain, stop the run and continue to walk to the gym. I think it was not warm enough to run, it was in the morning and it was cold outside and I was in shorts. It's night right now and I still feel the pain.

Anyway, besides that, I broke a Squat record today. I did 4 sets of full squat and on the last one I did 14 repetitions with 85Kg. Very proud to accomplish that milestone without any human or material support, just my blood, mind and guts. I ended up doing Dips, Seated Row, Press for shoulders and Triceps Bar.

Will keep my planned workouts, I hope you guys are working out just like me!
Now I have to care about my calf muscle, but I will pump my body on Wednesday or Thursday.