Monday, November 27, 2017
New Cycle and Tools
I would like to dedicate this post to all of you who have been supportive because I'm working to reverse my diabetes without medications, and to those of you who have been supportive about my getting in shape in general, and to those of you who are supportive about my getting stronger. THANK YOU!
Did my High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) workout with the resistance on the bike set at 18 for the 20 second sprints.
I've been in touch my trainer, Lee Sillas of The Power Plant, and I think this is what I will be going for between now and mid-February. I'll start tomorrow with 3 sets of 6 and one set of 6 or more. If that seems easy I'll do sets of 8 on Thursday. I'll go up 5 pounds a week or more often if I can get to sets of 12 during the week.
Starting weight for next 10 week program:
Deadlifts 200
Squats 165
Incline Bench 125
The following accessory work will be for sets of 10-12:
Assisted Pull-Ups, I'll start with -40 pounds
Overhead Press 60 with barbell
Curls 50 with barbell
My hope is that by the end of April I'll be able to squat 245, bench 230, and deadlift 295. Since I'm somewhere between a beginner and intermediate I may go up more. Hopefully the strength training after mid-February will get me there. The challenge will be to see if I can do this and end up weighing in around 145. I weighed about 158 today, up 5 pounds over the long weekend.
Well, enough about all of that below are some tools. If there are things you want to know about that I'm not mentioning please let me know.
TOOLS:
Symmetric Strength has lots of tools for understanding where you are compared to averages of your weight and gender. Also has some info relating to age. Has things like "ideal" weight projections based on sport and more.
Body Fat Calculator - this one seems easy and for me appears to have some accuracy.
Fat Free Mass Index - another measure that is helpful because someone lifting regularly can't count on body mass index (BMI) since that only takes absolute weight and not body fat.
Maximum Muscular Bodyweight - a guesstimate on maximum muscle mass potential.
KEEP GRINDING!
ABOUT THE BLOG: This blog started years ago to talk about self-care and weightlifting. It stopped for a few years. It was been restarted when I was told that I was diabetic. I had an A1C of 9.3. A1C is an estimate of your blood sugar level over the last 3 months and 6.5 is pre-diabetic, and usually over 7 is considered diabetic. In March I was re-tested and my A1C was 5.0! That's below pre-diabetic (so, essentially non-diabetic). It was nice to have my doctor say, "you used to be diabetic." I'm still working on improving my insulin sensitivity and not thinking I'm out of the woods yet. My September retest came back with and A1C of 4.9. It is exciting
The results were from diet and exercise. Here is a quick summary of how I responded to being diagnosed as diabetic. I'm going to post this review every so often. Mostly when I post the blog to Twitter or Facebook.
Did my High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) workout with the resistance on the bike set at 18 for the 20 second sprints.
I've been in touch my trainer, Lee Sillas of The Power Plant, and I think this is what I will be going for between now and mid-February. I'll start tomorrow with 3 sets of 6 and one set of 6 or more. If that seems easy I'll do sets of 8 on Thursday. I'll go up 5 pounds a week or more often if I can get to sets of 12 during the week.
Starting weight for next 10 week program:
Deadlifts 200
Squats 165
Incline Bench 125
The following accessory work will be for sets of 10-12:
Assisted Pull-Ups, I'll start with -40 pounds
Overhead Press 60 with barbell
Curls 50 with barbell
My hope is that by the end of April I'll be able to squat 245, bench 230, and deadlift 295. Since I'm somewhere between a beginner and intermediate I may go up more. Hopefully the strength training after mid-February will get me there. The challenge will be to see if I can do this and end up weighing in around 145. I weighed about 158 today, up 5 pounds over the long weekend.
Well, enough about all of that below are some tools. If there are things you want to know about that I'm not mentioning please let me know.
TOOLS:
Symmetric Strength has lots of tools for understanding where you are compared to averages of your weight and gender. Also has some info relating to age. Has things like "ideal" weight projections based on sport and more.
Body Fat Calculator - this one seems easy and for me appears to have some accuracy.
Fat Free Mass Index - another measure that is helpful because someone lifting regularly can't count on body mass index (BMI) since that only takes absolute weight and not body fat.
Maximum Muscular Bodyweight - a guesstimate on maximum muscle mass potential.
KEEP GRINDING!
ABOUT THE BLOG: This blog started years ago to talk about self-care and weightlifting. It stopped for a few years. It was been restarted when I was told that I was diabetic. I had an A1C of 9.3. A1C is an estimate of your blood sugar level over the last 3 months and 6.5 is pre-diabetic, and usually over 7 is considered diabetic. In March I was re-tested and my A1C was 5.0! That's below pre-diabetic (so, essentially non-diabetic). It was nice to have my doctor say, "you used to be diabetic." I'm still working on improving my insulin sensitivity and not thinking I'm out of the woods yet. My September retest came back with and A1C of 4.9. It is exciting
The results were from diet and exercise. Here is a quick summary of how I responded to being diagnosed as diabetic. I'm going to post this review every so often. Mostly when I post the blog to Twitter or Facebook.
My lifting approach was to gain muscle to help with insulin sensitivity so I focused on compound exercises mostly (deadlift, bench, squat, overhead press) with some other things to round out such as pull-ups and bicep curls. I'm currently still doing full body workouts.
Between now and mid-February I will be trying to gain muscle with 70% of my 1 rep max weight and 4 sets of 8 or more. Then from there until the end of April I will change to sets of 5 or less with higher weight. I may go up to 4 "sprints" at some point. I'm hoping for an A1C of 4.8 on the next test. I did 1 rep max testing with Lee from the Power Plant and here is what I pulled on 11/22/17
Squat 235
Bench 220
Deadlift 285
Between now and mid-February I will be trying to gain muscle with 70% of my 1 rep max weight and 4 sets of 8 or more. Then from there until the end of April I will change to sets of 5 or less with higher weight. I may go up to 4 "sprints" at some point. I'm hoping for an A1C of 4.8 on the next test. I did 1 rep max testing with Lee from the Power Plant and here is what I pulled on 11/22/17
Squat 235
Bench 220
Deadlift 285
