[Evermont]

Well, it's a "bootcamp like" exercise class I guess. It's 5:30am to 6:30am M-F thru May 5 to May 30. I don't think I'll need a haircut for this.

I've plateaued on my weight loss (though I do see some muscle popping out here and there...) so I figured this would be a fun way to kick things into high gear!

Let's see now, I'm paying some guy $5/hr to yell at me while I do calisthenics at 5:30 in the morning.
Hmmm...

[Penny]

I will do it for $4 an hour Keith....I will call evervy morning at 6:30 and yell at you, OK? I hope this helps you, it is frustrating to reach those weight loss plateaus.

[fgummett]

Good for you! Sounds like a great idea... especially getting family involved too

[Keezheekoni]

Congrats on the willingness to be yelled at for an hour a day! I don't know many men who will put up with that, unless they are getting paid for it!

Good on your daughter for doing it too.

[Evermont]

Actually, it's my daughter who twisted my arm. She signed up for the class first. She's a personal trainer at the same gym that "bootcamp Brian" works out of. I think he's the head trainer or something. I've been hearing about him for months and looking forward to meeting him. Might as well get a workout too.

LOL Penny, PM me your resume and I'll consider your kind offer.

[fgummett]

Having been married (and divorced) twice, I'm tempted to say, "I thought being yelled at for an hour was just par for the course as a man"... Of course I fully realise that it is all my fault... whatever it is

[Scratch]

Originally Posted by Evermont

Well, it's a "bootcamp like" exercise class I guess. It's 5:30am to 6:30am M-F thru May 5 to May 30. I don't think I'll need a haircut for this.

I've plateaued on my weight loss (though I do see some muscle popping out here and there...) so I figured this would be a fun way to kick things into high gear!

Let's see now, I'm paying some guy $5/hr to yell at me while I do calisthenics at 5:30 in the morning.
Hmmm...

If there's something I've noticed it seems like there are often plateau type of periods. And changing things up a bit can be helpful to breaking the plateaus.

Unlike you though, my focus this year has been to put on some weight, hello squats and deadlifts, but of primary importance along with the choice of exercise is the diet. There's really no way to get around the diet, but something I observed with incorportating squats and deadlifts into my routine is it made it easier for me to want to adapt my diet -- I got hungrier especially for protein.

So perhaps if you put some time and focus in on metabolic conditioning type of exercising such as calesthentics, you'll find that your diet and wants for diet will adapt some to help bring your weight down some more.

[davef]

Keith,

Fair play to you, that's called dedication. $5/hour seems like a fairly good deal for personal attention. Bet it will really kick start your metabolism again. It's great you have the type of relatonship with your daugther that you can do something like this with her. My 11 year old daughter has been nagging me to go horse riding since I started losing weight, reckon I have another 15lbs to go before I could do it without getting in trouble with animal welfare people for cruelty to a horse!

Go for it, well done,

[Alice]

I loved my "four days" of bootcamp. Unfortunately I sustained a stress fracture from running on pavement...so don't push yourself more than you feel...I felt so great...I am not an early morning riser...so the 7 a.m. start time was bootcamp enough for me! (I can't even believe the 5:30 a.m. class had more attendees!)

These bootcamps are fun and seem to attract those of us who need a push...unfortunately for me...it was too much of a push. I'm going back to my situps, weights and walking at my own pace...but I did love bootcamp. Darn, I didn't even get the fun tee-shirt...

[owlyn]

Hey, I'll call you for free and yell at you!

[Evermont]

This is what bootcamp did for me last time I did it.

It's gonna take more than a month of early morning push-ups and crunches to get those abs back, but that's my goal for 2008.

I was 19 or so in this pic. Tanned from exploring some of the 365 beaches on Antigua and spending time in other tropical places. I have a different latitude about tanning these days more Vermont farmer style now. I was probably 170 lbs. there, I'm aiming for the same BF but with more muscle - 185 lbs. My pecs, lats quads and calves are already slightly bigger than this '83 version of me, gains from the past 6 months atop a flabby 44 year old physique with hidden potential.

[Scratch]

Here's a calisthentic workout to work your way towards, it's taken from Crossfit and it's called Murphy --

1. one mile run
2. 100 pull ups, 200 push ups, 300 air squats (just you squatting up and down).
3. again, a one mile run

You can break up the pull ups, push ups and squats into whatever order you want. When I did it last weekend, I did sets of 5-10-15 20x and that worked well for me.

I'd say that anyone who can get Murphy done is in reasonably decent shape, certainly in much better shape than the average population.

[Evermont]

Originally Posted by Scratch

Here's a calisthentic workout to work your way towards, it's taken from Crossfit and it's called Murphy --

1. one mile run
2. 100 pull ups, 200 push ups, 300 air squats (just you squatting up and down).
3. again, a one mile run

You can break up the pull ups, push ups and squats into whatever order you want. When I did it last weekend, I did sets of 5-10-15 20x and that worked well for me.

I'd say that anyone who can get Murphy done is in reasonably decent shape, certainly in much better shape than the average population.

Wow, yeah - that's a real workout there! I could certainly do it if I paced myself and made a day of it, but if I tried to hit all that in say 1 hour, I might need medical intervention (j/k). How much time should it take to complete this?

I like a good benchmark, I think I'll try this 2-3 days before bootcamp, then again after and see how long it takes and how it feels. Before and after photos and vital stats too.

Originally Posted by Scratch

...So perhaps if you put some time and focus in on metabolic conditioning type of exercising such as calesthentics, you'll find that your diet and wants for diet will adapt some to help bring your weight down some more.

I like some of the ideas in your earlier post too, thx Scratch.

[Scratch]

Originally Posted by Evermont

Wow, yeah - that's a real workout there! I could certainly do it if I paced myself and made a day of it, but if I tried to hit all that in say 1 hour, I might need medical intervention (j/k). How much time should it take to complete this?

I like a good benchmark, I think I'll try this 2-3 days before bootcamp, then again after and see how long it takes and how it feels. Before and after photos and vital stats too.



I like some of the ideas in your earlier post too, thx Scratch.

When I did it last weekend, it took me 58:31 to complete it. But I've been working pretty hard for a while to get ready to do something like it and I've had a lot of days in the past 3 months where I would end up doing triple digit numbers of pull ups and push ups. So I already knew I had the work capacity for it although I was a bit nervous that trying to do all of it at once I was potentially going to find myself tanking as it went on.

Probably a good way for you to get a measure on how ready you might be for it would to be do some death-by-exercise name sets. It's a pretty decent way to get an idea of things are going.

You need some sort of timer that'll go every minute.

If you're doing pull ups, at the start and minute 1, do 1 pull up. When the timer goes off and minute 2 starts, do 2 pull ups. At 3, do 3 pull ups. Keep going up until you reach a number that you can't do that number inside of the minute. So it just keeps building up and you lose recovery time as the minutes go by.

On 4-7, when I did death by pull ups, I was able to go 10 rounds + 8 pull ups, which is a total of 63 pull ups. For push ups, I got 13 rounds + 10 which was a total of 101 push ups.

And of course, always remember the idea of scaling, you know? While right now I may wish I could do squat workouts with 200 lbs or more on the bar, it wouldn't do me much good. So you might find it useful to scale Murph down to a half-Murph.

For me and where I am now, it was brutal. I didn't do any workouts the 2 days following Murphy, but I loved doing it. In some of the later rounds it began to feel like if I tried to do the squats too fast I was going to puke.

I don't really know where you're at for conditioning, so obviously I'm going to caution you a bit. Seriously try do a death-by-pull ups and push ups first to get a rough gauge on your work capacity. That can at least give you some idea of whether you have a decent chance to complete it in under an hour and I'd seriously suggest that if it looks like it would take you more than 60 minutes, scale it down to a level where you'd be able to finish inside of 60 minutes.

[Evermont]

I did my strength training in the garage yesterday as usual and then off on my walk. My walking shoes wore out long ago and I finally replaced them Saturday so my feet were pretty happy. Even with Riley on my back I reached the far point in my 4 mile loop but decided to keep going. Riley didn't seem to mind (he was asleep) so I did the 8 mile trek all the way to the town line!

The black flies and "no-see-ums" were starting to gather whenever the wind let up. Boy, that takes all the fun out of it. But we made it back with Riley taking only a couple minor dings - he got a little too much sun and somehow his ankle rubbed on something enough to cause a little sore. I was plenty tired, that was the first time I did that 8 miles walk with the extra 25 pounds on my back.

So I get home and my daughter tells me that boot camp starts in the morning, not next week like I thought?!?!? I wanted to do some fitness testing before and after - too late! I was up at 4:30 this morning getting ready. I got to the gym right at 5:30 and before I knew which was what I was doing 1950's style calisthenics in a basketball court with 26 women including my daughter, and two guys including our "drill sergeant" Brian.

It was nearly flat out for the entire hour - dozens of varied exercises more or less familiar. I kept up pretty well bat gladly coasted through a couple sets. I'll be up to speed in a week or so I guess and he says it will get progressively more challenging.

Daughter and I paired up for something called 'partner rows' where you take turns giving each other resistance while facing each other pulling a pole in a rowing motion. She's so light I was launching her off the ground so Brian teamed up with her and gave me a challenge. He didn't really yell at all, just skillfully talked the group through the hour calling out the count and giving instructions and advice. He demonstrated all the exercises and performed them with the class showing incredible fitness and stamina for an older guy (maybe in his mid 50's). I worked up a real good sweat - even my daughter who's in great shape herself was all red, sweaty and puffing for air.

I have access to a private shower at work. Ahh, life is good!