The Word with Rev. C. Bennett hoffman

Becoming Leonidas – Days 5 to 7

Workout #2

Let’s start right off with the numbers. Post-workout weigh-in put me at a solid 181.6 lbs. for a net gain of 1.8 lbs. over the first 5 days of the program. Here’s what I pulled off:

I improved modestly in most of the exercises, specifically below the belt. You know… leg muscles. Although I kept it in this time, I plan to drop barbell shrugs as I think the bent row covers the same bases. I had to drop the weight on the bent row because, although my arms and shoulders could handle the heft, I felt a lot of strain on my lower back.

This time around, I did standard dips with no weight. Also, after doing the situps, I realized that I hadn’t used the same cadence as with the rest of the routine but instead I pumped them out as fast as possible.

Cadence and Negative Movement

I’ve neglected to mention cadence until now. It’s simply the speed with which you perform a given exercise. For the past two workouts I’ve been using a 5-5 cadence, which means I lift for a count of five and then lower for a count of five during each repetition. Focusing on lowering the weight helps squeeze more work out of each rep. This lowering is called negative movement and is one of the key concepts in high intensity training.

Saturday

As mentioned previously, Saturday means I can eat what I like. I started off the day with a nice cold ice cream cone, had some spicy Cheetos’s, and finished the night at a bar. After an accident involving some tequila, I ended up crashing at a friend’s place  in the city. As a result, I missed night and morning of supplements. Oops.

Keeping up with the diet and supplement regimen has been the hardest part of the trial mainly because it’s extra overhead in my schedule that I’m not used to. Before the trial began, I had been going to the gym about 5 times per week. Since that’s dropped to only two hour-long sessions, I sometimes get antsy and want to workout or at least do a good set of push-ups. Normally, I’d just go for it, but I’m trying to stick to the plan.

Overall, I feel like I’m benefiting from it all, but I don’t think the end result will be nearly as impressive as that reported by Mr. Ferriss. While getting into shape for an awesome halloween costume is the stated goal of this 30 day program, I hope to establish a sustainable diet and exercise habit as a bonus. I hope to go into more detail on that point in the near future.

Author: Rev.

A man seeking to make himself in his own image.