I survived Christmas!!!

In my last post I talked about how I was worried about going home to my parents place for Christmas and what was going to happen there in terms of sticking to my diet and training. I didn't want all my hard work to be undone!

Pictured: Hard work lol!

So the first thing I did was cook and prep all our kumara and brought all the ingredients I would need for three days worth of meals. I made sure I had everything including my teeny kitchen scales to be able to measure and cook all of the meals that we needed.

I was going down on a ferry at 2.30am in the morning for three hours, then driving for 2 hours so I made sure I had breakfast and my first two meals made and ready to go, so there was no need for me to buy snacks or junk.

Then I had all my meals ready so at home I could just cook the chicken and rice and heat everything up. Christmas day itself was easy, we just substituted some turkey breast for our usual chicken and a nice change.

When everyone else was eating dessert we were only on our second meal so  so we didn't really feel the need to join in.

While everyone was stuffed, we were only eating our normal amount of food. I guess I'm just used to eating ALL the time now!

I had some extra fruit in the afternoon and was able to ward off any cravings for chocolate and candy.

Even in the morning when my family were getting down with a big breakfast of bacon and eggs, I had some oatmeal with banana and berries.

One thing I'm a little disappointed in was how often I got to train. We got free passes for a gym on the way to my parents house and stopped down there on Christmas Eve and planned on stopping back on the way home Boxing Day. There's no gym where my parents live so I did a body weight workout in the house on Christmas Day and was gagging to get back in the gym.

Boxing Day we headed back to the gym at about 4pm only to find it closed at midday...I was so gutted. I was looking forward to a massive hit out and then it was taken away. We are really amped for the gym and needing to work out. Funny how things change when you've been working out every day and then you miss one!!

So tomorrow it will be back into it hard, I'm going to do legs for one training, back for another and then do some much needed cardio.

I'm pretty happy about my planning and self control through these Christmas holidays!! It's been a great three months so far and I'm pleased one weekend didn't spoil everything :D Also I got the additional bonus of hanging out with my family and getting some sun!!!

Month three results!

So I had my body composition test on Thursday 5 December. I just realised now that this post hadn't been put up!! So silly!!

And my results were great! Shame not to share them!!

I'm 54.6kgs and 17.2% body fat, down from 21%! We're getting there! My arms have shown the biggest improvement, which is great since I've been working so hard on them.

I've put on 1.29kgs of lean muscle and reduced my fat mass by 2.29kg.

My diet is staying the same so I don't have to worry about making any changes so far. 

Here's my progress pic from then :D

Pretty happy with the results so far, but know I have to keep working hard. 

Lifting lows

Sometimes, and only sometimes, I get days where I don't feel like I'm making all that much progress.

Whether I've just had a day where things haven't felt quite right lifting, or I haven't gone as heavy as I would like, it puts me in a bit of a bad mood.

Especially tonight, when I felt I just wasn't pushing as hard as I could weight wise, it definitely affected my confidence and undermined my self belief. On top of feeling like my body isn't progressing, it just made for a bad day all around.

It's hard to bounce back from those moments.

I know, once I've had a bit of a sleep, a bit of a think and look over how far I've come I won't feel so bad. It's hard to see how good things are when you feel you haven't lifted to your potential and what you see in the mirror doesn't match up to how you feel you should look in your head.

So, I'm going to take a step back for tonight, put today's workouts down as experience and get back into it hard tomorrow.

Updates on supps, training and progress so far!

Sorry I've been so slack posting recently! Between being busy at work, training and trying to get ready for Christmas, it's been difficult to stay on top of posting. Promise I will do better!

I've been thinking a lot recently about how much conflicting information you can receive on the same thing. Especially when people ask my about what my stack looks like and which supplements I prefer.

What I know is that the same supplement can get rave reviews from some people, while others think it is total rubbish.

One thing I'm learning as I go along is that not every way of training, technique and supplement is going to work for everyone. Something that will have an amazing effect on your body might not necessarily do the same thing for another person and vice versa. There are so many self professed experts out there who say they have a fool proof way to lose weight or gain muscle but the tips they say might work for them and few others.

My own view is I try different supplements and ways of training til I find what works best for me and tend to stick to it until something better for me comes along. I'm always open to advice and people's opinions and test everything out myself.

As far as my training is going in pretty happy. I am working on my shoulders and continue to see progress on my rear delts. I'm working on correcting my posture and getting that rear delt training in at the end of a shoulder session. It's feeling really good and having such focus is really helping improve how I train shoulders and think it's helping my overall look too. I have shoulder training today so that should be good.

I'm also doing more work on my hammies and dedicating a full session on a Sunday to them. I hit a 70kg PR on Romanian deadlifts last week which is funny because I hadn't realised I'd lifted so light on them before.

Being so quad dominant has it's advantages, and my quads are looking pretty good, but I'm really working to correct the imbalance and get some hamstring definition.



More and more people are starting to notice the change in my body now which has been both cool and interesting. I haven't had any negative comments yet (I know nice people I guess) but I am aware of how people view women with muscle and see it all the time on Facebook. I feel slightly more self conscious now training than I did before, but I know that I should expect that from here on in. Haters gonna hate I guess, and I have more than enough awesome people supporting me to help me keep on track!

The Christmas Grinch!

Training this past week has been good, and I'm’m getting back into things after my deload. I am switching between two and three a day trainings and trying to get 3-4 cardio sessions in a week. As it’s not my favourite thing it’s a little harder to make time but I'm’m definitely trying. Maybe I need a little bribery to help me along... if I do 5 times a week for 5 weeks I get a prize? I don't know, I'll think of something.

The 102.5kg (225lb) deadlift still eludes me, but I’m getting there.It’s hard wanting to lift really heavy when you’re not eating the diet for it. I swear if I ate like crazy all these lifts would be so easy!

I've been working hard on shoulders and also adding a lot more glute work into my training, I really want to be looking good in both those areas!

There is one looming thing that I’m determined is not going to derail my progress…

Christmas.

It’s started already. The chocolates in the supermarket. Christmas mince puddings. Images of delicious Christmas meals everywhere…

And I don’t really care! I’m happy with my progress so far, I don’t want to go back! So, I’m not going to risk everything I've’ve achieved for a tiny bit of indulgence, no matter how delicious.

It's my work christmas party tomorrow, we're going ten pin bowling, so I'm going to roll up with my wee bag of food and a supply of protein bars. I'm going to the gym in the morning so I don't stress about it while being out of the office for the day, and I'll train again between when we come back from bowling and dinner.

We’re heading down to my parents for Christmas. I plan to take enough premade meals, and protein bars with us that I won’t have to worry about eating while we’re down there. I know my family, I’m going to get teased mercilessly for missing out on the Christmas goodies, but I’m hoping it’s sunny enough while I'm’m there that getting into a bikini will show why I’m so strict on myself haha!

Speaking of which I’ve set up an instagram too (apparently the done thing!) so you can add me xoxajvxox and I’ll be posting a few more pics up there as I go along.

It’s body fat test day today again (it rolls around so fast!) so I’ll update when I find out how I'm’m going!

Core training - an update and my most recent core workout

A few months ago I changed the way I thought about core. Rather than my core being an afterthought in a bigger workout, or not training it at all, I decided to train my core as if it was any other part of my body. 

While there are varied schools of thought on this approach (some of which say I'm mad), this way of training my core has really worked for me and enabled me to get some pretty good results. I've never been afraid to show off my core (even when I was super lean with little musculature) but changing how I think about training my core has really allowed me to get some more muscle in this area (combined with a super solid diet of course)

So while my diet has had the most impact on how my core looks, I'm quite happy to share my core workout.

I do this twice a week, takes me about an hour for the whole workout so perfect for a lunchtime training. This is what I train and I've been doing this a while, so for anyone just starting out, drop the weights right down, lower the reps by half and work your way up to these. I started doing most of the weighted stuff here at just body weight and I've increased the reps steadily as I've found it getting too easy. I do everything in this order and I don't rest between sets, I just move on to the next exercise straight away. Also if something hurts (like actually hurts not just "ow my muscles hurt") I adjust the workout to suit. I always listen to what my body says. Like in my last core workout hanging knee raises hurt my bicep, so I left them out for the workout.

So remember if you're just starting out -halve the weight (or drop it altogether) and the reps for all of these!

AJ's Core Workout

Cable Crunch

70 lb x 15 reps

110 lb x 10 reps

90 lb x 12 reps

Dumbbell Side Bend

20 kg x 20 reps (3 sets each side)

Crunch

20 reps (3 sets)

Reverse Crunch

20 reps (3 sets)

Bicycle crunches

26 reps (3 sets)

Flat Straight Leg Raise

12 reps(3 sets)

Hanging Knee Raise

10 reps (3 sets)

Jack Knife Sit-Up

12 reps (3 sets)

Weighted Russian Twist

10kg x 20 reps (3 sets)

Reverse Crunch

20 reps(3 sets)

Crunch

30 reps (3 sets)

Weighted Russian Twist

10kg x 20 reps (3 sets)

Dumbbell Side Bend

20 kg x 20 reps (3 sets each side)

Crunch

30 reps (3 sets)

Bicycle crunches

30 reps (3 sets)

Reverse Crunch

20 reps(3 sets)

Dumbbell Side Bend

20 kg x 20 reps (3 sets each side)

Cable Crunch

60 lb x 15 reps

90 lb x 10 reps

50 lb x 20 reps

I adjust this as I find it gets easier, because I always want to be pushing and challenging my body.

Happy core training!!

Shoulders!

I need some. Unlike @vaz1x I am not blessed with boulder shoulders. I am anterior dominant, with quite big traps, but my rear delts are so flat I'm bony in my shoulders... so sad!

So I'm working on them, and last week I was lucky enough to go to a shoulder seminar run by Phily, Joe Ulberg IFBB Pro and Jason. These guys are an amazing team and between the lot of them train (and are!!) some amazing athletes. They showcased some great theoretical and practical knowledge and it was so awesome for them to share their tips with those of us who are training. 

Their seminar completely changed the way I view my shoulder training and what I want to achieve from it. I've restructured what my training looks like, dropped the weight substantially and refocused my goals. It really reminded me how important good form and good quality reps are for muscle development. It;s made my shoulders a focus for another part that needs improving before the competition and I've added a good couple of sessions into my workouts each week.

My shoulder work now includes:

-Warming up... who knew this was important, right?
- medial work (side lateral raises)
-compound work (presses)
- more medial work
-rear delt work

Even though rear delts need the most work, they come last because working them first will ruin the quality of your presses... You need to give them plenty of attention though so don't wait until you're super fatigued before training them. It was awesome to get even these small tips!

Getting back into it!

So it's the first couple of days after deload week and I am feeling pretty good. While it's taking a little while to get back up to where I was before I took it a bit easier, I'm looking forward to pushing through. I attempted pull ups again tonight and was able to do 15 sets. The max was 5 reps in a set, but at least I was able to keep going.

So to celebrate:

Totally gratuitous picture...Showing some more progress!

My friend who posts great black and white photos inspired me to give it a shot, with pretty surprising results.

I'm looking forward to seeing more results as I go along. My next fat test is on 1 December, so it would be nice if I could drop under 20% this time. To help me along I've really committed to doing an extra half an hour cardio session 4 times a week to hit my goals. I'm still not enjoying it but I know when it really needs to be done.

Looking forward to lifting this weekend. I've got chest tomorrow night (Friday), Shoulders on Saturday, Squats on Sunday and deadlifts Monday.

I'm doing a public session with The Boss and his training partner on Saturday. This should be really fun and I'm looking forward to it. I'm hoping there will be a few other ladies who lift there, and it's not just me and a bunch of guys!

My friend recommended doing leg curls before my squats and so I'm looking forward to trying this out on Sunday.

Importance of diet and the day I started lifting people...

Haha well as you know it's still deload week (last day tomorrow woohoo!) so I don't have much to report on the training front. It's been good to get some rest but I'm ready to hit it hard again. I will be updating my training schedule again this week and moving some things around, but I'll update this when I've had a chance to think about it a little more.

Had some fun on level 4 today, @vaz1x and I have seen pics of people squatting people, so between my quads and her core, we thought we could possibly manage this. So with a warm up piggy back ride we decided I could actually hold her up, so decided to aim for the squat. We figured out the method, so I hit the squat, no problems. We didn't have anyone to take a pic of us this time, but now we know how it works we'll get a pic or two to share :P

There were some pretty crazy workouts going on (hers and mine were tame compared to someone training flips!), it was definitely Sunday funday.

In other fun news, I've been looking back through some pics and thought I'd share some progress so far compared to when I started. Sometimes it's really hard to tell how far you've come when you see yourself every day.

Before I started this regime I genuinely thought I was in pretty good shape. While my diet was still rubbish, working out and lifting heavy had given me what I thought was some pretty good muscle tone. 

The first pic I took on 25 August 2013. I started this training program and proper diet on 16 September 2013. This most recent pic was taken on 12 November 2013. I apologise in advance for the poor photography, it's not one of my strengths....

...but I think it's pretty safe to say I've made some progress...

I was quite surprised when I saw this comparison to be honest. It seems like such a short time ago that I feel I couldn't have come quite so far, just from cleaning up my diet. 

So, diet = important. Who would have guessed, right?

Massive thanks has to go to The Boss for this. It took more than a little encouragement on his part, but now I can see why it's so important. I'm so glad I'm more aware of the fuel going into my body now and I'm proud of myself that I have worked so hard at sticking to it this far, and this has shown a little more clearly why it was a good idea. Sometimes temptation will come along, but I know I can resist it, especially when I get such a stark reminder of hard I'm going so far!

Guessing it's time for another post....

But I don't really feel I have anything to say. That's because I'm resting this week, and I'm hating it! I'm training 50-80% of my normal weight and rep ranges and generally taking it easy.

And yes, I know all the theory. I know that pushing my body as hard as I do for an infinite period of time is not going to be good for it. And that taking one little week off, only lifting light, is going to be good for it in the long run. I know that my muscle recovery will be better and I'll come back even stronger.

But I'm so. damn. bored.

I hate not pushing myself. I hate not being able to test every day what my limits are and be proud of myself for breaking them. I find training is not as much fun when I'm not giving 100% and I slack off a little. I haven't even managed to bother with extra cardio sessions this week (and we all know how much I love them :|) that's how uninspired I've been.

It's been a rough week for that. But next week is a whole new week and I'm looking forward to seeing some new PBs.

On the bright side though, I'm starting to see a bit more change in my body and a bit more leanness. It's really showing up what I need to work on *cough* shoulders *cough* but it is nice to see the hard work slowly paying off.

My next body fat test is 1 December and I'm really hoping to see it drop under 20% there. I need to make sure my eating is spot on and get that cardio done to hit that target!

I'm (hopefully!) going to watch my good friend compete in a powerlifting competition tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing what competing is like and I really, really hope he does well. He's been working really hard (in between helping me with my lifting!) so I have my fingers crossed for him.

Recent training, program stuff and resting

I've had a pretty good week.

I've felt strong, trained hard, and think I'm making solid progress. Like I've mentioned before I've hit a few PRs recently. 

One thing I've noticed is I seem to be recovering really, really fast. Considering how often I train I would expect to be suffering more DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) than I am at the moment. I am taking a protein, BCAAs, L-Glutamine, a thermogenic in the morning and I'll take a preworkout if I really need a lift before working out, but I find the amount of food I'm eating is giving me enough energy to fuel my workouts on its own. I'm getting plenty of sleep at the moment which could be helping, and getting a good amount of rest between each body part I train.

I have been asked a couple of times how I break my training up recently, and it changes all the time so I guess I should do an update of what training at the moment looks like.

My arms, especially my triceps, are a weak point at the moment, hence why they are getting a fair amount of treatment recently. I've also added a few more cardio sessions of 30 minutes in the crosstrainer (elliptical) into my workouts to help burn some fat. I also walk to work most mornings which is a 3 km walk.

When I train I do my compound lifting first and then accessory lifting, or split the sessions up like on the weekends I might do one compound session, one accessory session. Each lunchtime session is an hour long because it's in my lunch break. Each evening session is between an hour and one and a half hours long, depending on what I'm training and how late I get to the gym. I'm learning to take a little more time when lifting heavy and resting a bit more between sets which although dragging my training time out longer is helping my lifts.

Ok, so this is just a basic breakdown, I don't always follow this exact routine, especially if I feel a certain body part has been overworked or I feel like lifting something else that day. It really depends on my mood and what feels good that day.

Monday : 
Morning: cardio
Lunch - Arms
Evening - Deadlifts

Tuesday
Lunchtime - Core
Evening - Chest

Wednesday:
Morning - cardio
Lunch - Arms
Evening- Legs/ Squats

Thursday:
Lunch - Core
Evening - Pull ups/ lats

Friday:
Morning: cardio
Lunch: Arms
Evening: Chest

Saturday:
Morning: Cardio
Afternoon: Shoulders x 2

Sunday:
Morning: Cardio
Afternoon: Squats and legs x 2

I switched my deadlift day from Saturday to Monday because I like to squat on Sundays and I wanted to put my deadlifts after my squats, as I felt my squats were better when I hadn't lifted heavy the day before. Since I've PR'd on deadlifts since I did this, I think it's working for my deadlifts as well. My 5RM has increased to 80kgs (176lbs) as well.

 I'm on a roll and I would hate to stop my progress. But, I have been pushing hard recently, so after my deadlifts on Monday I'm thinking about taking a deload week and lifting a bit lighter weights and working on some volume. I'll see how I feel after Monday, but it could be a good idea just to take some rest.

Recent ab pics as of 10/11/13

Progress and Motivation

So, I can say I'm pretty happy with how training has been going recently, I feel stronger and stronger all the time. 

As well as my 100kg deadlift last Monday, I hit a 62.5kg bench press last Friday and equalled the 100kg deadlift in training on Monday this week. I also increased my 5 RM to 80kgs, which seemed impossible only a few weeks ago. 

I'm training my squats solidly, I'm still hitting 60kgs without a spotter even on lighter nights. Although it does feel my squat is lagging a little behind my other lifts at the moment. I am going to focus a little more in getting some power through my squat, might hit up some box jumps for a challenge.

On Saturday I had a massive shoulder training with D, he really pushed me through some ladders and made me work a lot harder and faster than I normally do. I can see why his shoulders are so big when he trains like that all the time, I'll be taking more notice of that in the future!

This capped a pretty massive week in terms of strength gains. I can see some slight change in my figure, I'm leaning up a bit on my side profile and through my core. My upper body is still well ahead of my lower in terms of definition but I think that will improve more once I've dropped more body fat.

In the lead up to my next body fat test I've added a few more cardio sessions into my routine to try to help that along. It's a pain getting up earlier and earlier but I found only sessions on the weekend was not enough. Although it's been a little taxing, I am feeling good about getting more cardio in, so on top of walking to work every day (3kms, 25-20 minutes) I'm doing 5 half hour sessions on the elliptical each week.

I went with my work on a trip out of town yesterday, complete with catered deliciousness... I took a cooler bag full of chicken rice, kumara and protein bars with me. While I felt like a total weirdo putting my lunch together and eating it with people outside of my work, I was proud that I stuck to my diet no matter what the situation was that I was in.

I have been reading Total Recall, the autobiography of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it has been really helpful for my training mentality recently. He has such a positive outlook to training and was such an influential figure in this sport, it's been great to learn more about him. 

Arnold has such a good way of describing the process of training and building muscle, you have to take a objectively critical (not hurtful!) look at how you are doing and decide what needs work - add a little here, take a little off there. He says he thinks of it as being an artist, which I quite like. While reading, I thought there was no negative self talk or putting himself down, he approached his work with an analytical mindset. If he didn't feel he looked his best at one show, his talk is about what he thinks went wrong and how he is going to improve next time. 

He has such a competitive edge, he will do so much to be the best. He had a very high work rate, although he compliments other bodybuilders on their ability to train more and harder than him.

It definitely helps to remember this when I'm struggling to get out of bed or I don't want to hit the last set because I'm tired and sore. It's always a reminder to me that if I'm not getting up or doing the last set, my competition will be, and they will beat me because I've done the work. 

Hitting the hundred!

Well I'm happy to say yesterday was a day of celebration for me! 

It was a public holiday here in New Zealand, so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to get some good, solid trainings in.

My morning session was cardio, did 40 minutes on the elliptical. I have been avoiding cardio like the plague this year, but now I've been doing it again for a few weeks it feels less like an absolute chore.

After getting out in the sun and getting a couple more meals in me, I hit the gym again for session number two. Normally I would train deadlifts on Saturdays and squats on Sundays, but because I was at an event all day Saturday I couldn't deadlift. So it was squats on Sunday, deadlift Monday. 

The order I train in really impacts on my training, so I was worried about changing things up. Squats help make my back feel better, so I went into this session feeling good, with no DOMS and no back pain.

I warmed up quickly, hitting 60, 70, 80 kgs all really easily. Then I slowed and went for 85, 90 and 95kgs with no problems. I haven't hit 95kgs (209lbs) in a while and at the time this was my personal best. I don't lift with a suit or belt, and only used the straps on my gloves at the last minute.

So, feeling good, I decided to go for the 100.

When I took the smaller plates off and replaced it with the other 20's I felt like I was crazy. and felt like everyone around me was looking at me like I was crazy... 4 plates... Attempting a 100kg (220lb) deadlift when I only weigh 55kg (122lb)...what was I thinking...

My ipod had died, so I sat with my phone and psyched myself up, before trying to tune out the horrible gym music. My friend Tim was there and helped with my straps, but left quickly and didn't stand and watch (although I'm guessing he was watching in the mirror he did turn around later haha!). I really appreciated that, if someone had been standing there I'm not sure it would have gone up.

When lifting I kind of have a "pre-flight" checklist in my head. I go through each thing making sure that all the steps are in place and my body, breathing and brain are where they should be before my lift. I don't know why, I just feel it really helps me connect my mind with my body... so once everything was in place... I lifted...

AND IT WENT UP!

100kg (220lb) DEADLIFT PR FOR ME!

I went bright red, I must have looked insane, but I did it! I was so ecstatic I couldn't help myself, I grinned the rest of my session! I have to admit I've told EVERYONE I had done it.

Now I can cross my New Year's resolutions off my list, my 5 pull ups in a set (heh pretty normal for me now) and 100kg deadlift. I've come a long way in a year, it feels so great to get here, and I'm going to celebrate a little before setting my next goals!

Results time!

Soooo... had my fat test on Thursday night... and the news was all good!

I've dropped from 24% body fat when I started, to 21% in 5 weeks :)

So in the spirit of celebrating this, I thought I should probably post a progress pic...

Photo update! Taken 27/10/2013

The Boss says I've dropped around 3kgs of fat and gained 3kgs of muscle, leaving me around the same weight as when I started. So when The Boss has done all the official numbers and sent them to me I'll put them up here as well!

That's left me feeling pretty good about the whole situation. While it was hard to tell purely from weight how I'm going, I was right in thinking that I was looking a little tighter than I was before, but I didn't want to get my hopes up!

Had a bit of a confidence boost yesterday when some older guys I don't know and don't know I'm training commented on the size of my biceps. They seemed suitably impressed to make me feel quite good about my progress so far!

 It's a little hard getting used to being a woman with noticeable muscles. Many people don't think women with muscles are particularly attractive, but I guess I'm still carrying enough body fat at this stage to counteract that, and I haven't had anything negative said about the way I look. I'm still very aware of people's opinions though, and realise it will be a little harder to avoid the more muscle and less body fat I have.

The next few weeks are going to be important, pushing myself even harder to gain a bit more before the next test. I am trying to do more cardio too to get the fat % down, but gains are a little more important at the moment.

I did squats today, got to 72.5kg (159lbs) for 2 so I'm pretty happy about that. Going to go back and do some more accessory lifting later today.

 I'm happy it's the long weekend and I can get more lifting in!

In 3, 2, 1....

The countdown is on…3 more sleeps until my first body composition and fat test since I started all this!! I have to admit this has been quite the nerve wracking build up… it’s so hard to see changes in yourself, and how I feel varies day by day in terms of what I think my body is doing. 

Judging by weight is no help, since it fluctuates all the time. I think my clothes are fitting looser but in some parts, that’s not the case, then I'm not sure if it’s a good or bad thing. Since I haven’t been doing this for that long, it’s still hard to say.

However there was a teeny bit of light in all of the dark and scary… I saw The Boss on Friday for the first time since I started the program, and to say he was enthusiastic about my progress was a little bit of an understatement! First, I got a hug, then a overall look at my progress, and I have to say he seemed pretty pleased with how I was doing. Warranted or not, his enthusiasm made this looming body composition and fat test not seem like something I was going to fail drastically, and that indeed I was making some progress. 

The Boss says we won’t know until much closer to the time (he says about 6 weeks out from comp!) what class I'll be aiming to compete in, but he seems to agree that figure will probably be the best fit for me :D After a group hug from him to finish, I left the gym feeling a lot more upbeat about the situation and can't wait to see my results on Thursday.

As far as my strength is concerned, while my back is still sore, my lifting overall has been much more solid and I'm making some gains in unexpected places. I definitely didn't expect to be able to do 14kg (30lb) dumbbell bicep curls, but I've managed to hit them which has been pretty cool.

I had an average deadlift day on Saturday, only went up to 90kgs (209lbs) (ONLY!!) but yesterday I had a really good day on squats. In terms of weight and volume it wasn't amazing, but I got some form tips from a friend and by the end I was getting some really good solid lifts with good depth. I look forward to practising a lot more of this and really trying to activate my glutes and hammies more when I squat.

So, on Thursday I'll be getting my fat test done… Then guess what?! It’s progress pic time! Hopefully I will have some comparisons to make! I know it won’t be drastic, but a tiny bit of change would be nice :)

Missing breakfast

It's funny how fast you can fall into habits and forget old ones if you really try. Today we ran out of oats, so I had to run out and get some. I got back too late to make them before I walked to work, so I grabbed some to take to work and make them there.

I got busy and forgot to make breakfast, and by the time I realised what had happened I was hungry, grumpy, and not much fun to deal with. Then I realised - Oops! Forgot breakfast!

Before I started this diet, missing breakfast wouldn't have bothered me and I would have continued on my day with no problems. Now my body has got used to being fuelled first thing, and wasn't afraid to let me know something was missing! I'm hoping that’s a good thing!

I’m a bit sore this morning, had a big day of training yesterday, but I'm glad I did it. I trained arms at lunchtime, the gym close to my work is getting all new machines and weights, so it’s a bit of a mess. Didn’t stop me though, went to try out the new dip station… I don’t use the assist, and it’s a standing one, so once I’d put the assist down it felt like it was an extremely long way to fall if I missed a rep haha! Oh the joys of being small and training on real person sized machines ;)

I worked hard on my triceps though and really pushed them right to the end of my workout. I think I've been slacking on biceps a little, I managed to curl 14kg dumbbells, the heaviest I've done so far! Might have to skip the 10’s and go straight for 12’s next time!

Evening was a leg session; I'm really working on my legs and glutes at the moment, trying to make up some ground on my upper body. I started with front squats and pushed hard back into my heels, I could definitely feel this helped with my back squats later.

I finished up with lots and lots of lunges, and some Romanian deadlifts for my hammies. I'm really enjoying these and hope to put a bit more definition through the backs of my legs as I drop some more body fat.

Heyhey it's leg day!

I love leg day!! I train legs twice a week on Wednesdays and Sundays, using a combination of squats, lunges, hip thrusts, leg extensions and leg curls.

Only deadlifts outshine my love for squats. 

Much attention has been paid to the female derriere in the media recently, with Miley Cyrus' unfortunate MTV performance costume making more than one meme, and making many more girls hit the squats!

I remember being so nervous when I first started squats, they seemed so scary... once I started though, it was a match made in heaven. I love hitting the rack, even just with light weight, but the deeper and heavier the better. I like pushing myself on both volume and weight, to see how far I can go.

So, here's where I am at the moment. I can definitely tell fixing up my diet has helped my muscular development, but really want to push a bit further. 

My quads are definitely leading the charge, but I think my glutes are keeping up. I'm adding more glute work, really trying to push through and engage them when I'm training squats and lunges.

My favourite style of squats are classic high bar barbell back squats. I pushed myself to a 1RM of 100kgs (220lbs) last year, but at the moment, without a spotter I'm working at around 70kgs (155lbs). There's nothing more satisfying than being able to put more than your body weight on your back and lift it... delicious.

I'm also trying a few other squat variations to mix it up and train different parts of my glutes and quads. I like barbell front squats, the difficulty of hanging onto the bar is outweighed by how well it pushes my weight onto the back of my heels. 

I gave goblet and dumbbell squats a try, but find that unless there is really no rack available, they aren't something I like to do so much.

I tried overhead squats on Wednesday... I first tried with be bar only, thinking this wouldn't be too much of a stretch... After my first attempt nearly faceplanting, I swapped to a wooden pole to practice the balance thing before I try any sort of weight! Challenge accepted!

In terms of accessory leg work, I'm trying to help get some more definition in my legs. I do know this will come with lower body fat, but I feel I should push a little harder.

Watching the Pros

Olympia weekend 2013 has come and gone, and for my first time watching the pros at work, I really picked a good year. It was an amazing chance to watch those who are really at the top of this sport and see what the different classes and poses look like on stage. 

Aside from all the fantastic physiques on show, I really enjoyed the showmanship and pageantry that went into making it enjoyable to watch. How the competitors were able to pose and perform so naturally was an absolute marvel, considering any attempt I make at even looking at myself in the mirror at home looks clumsy. 

The hours of training , eating and preparing were so clearly obvious in all the competitors, it was incredibly inspiring. 

And a little terrifying too though, I'm going to be up on stage (in my local comp obviously) next year no matter what, so I better be in some kind of shape for it!! Kicked my into gear a little more and have me something extra to remind myself to work hard.

I've stuck to my diet easily so far, even temptations of pizza, chocolate, cake, bagels and chips at work couldn't sway me. Meals are easy to prepare and my workmates seem to be used to my full meal at morning tea time! I am missing the red meat in my diet and have noticed I've been a bit tired recently (could be the extra training though!) so I might add an iron supplement to my stack to see if that helps.

I've been focusing hard on training while still minding my back, and including my half hour walk to work each morning I'm averaging 3 hours training a day, 2 and a half in the gym. I've also stuck to doing core two full hours a week, one hour Tuesday, one hour Thursday so I hope to get some reward from that. The yoga stretches for my back seem to be helping and I should be back up to 100% soon.

How are things going?

Well, it has been an interesting two weeks, I'm getting used to eating the same food over and over!

Meal prep has become much quicker, taking just over an hour to sort the food for the week. I went to the local farmers market on Sunday and picked up a whole lot of fresh vegetables. It was a lot cheaper than the supermarket so while it meant two trips it was worth it. It is more expensive to eat this way, but I am seeing changes in my body already!

I had an interesting experience with a supp I took on Saturday. While I’m fine now,  it did remind me to take care with my supplements and that everyone reacts differently to them. 20 minutes after taking this particular fatburner, my whole body went read from my head to my toes. It had caused my blood pressure to skyrocket. I watered it down with litres of cold water and my breakfast, had a cold shower and covered myself in cold towels, and about 30 minutes later the effects subsided. So, I won’t be taking that one again!

We’ve switched from Giant Delicious Protein to Myofusion this week (seems the boys at Gymeez Wellington have been busy because they were all sold out!) so we’ll see how that compares. I like the chocolate Giant Delicious because it tastes like chocolate mousse haha. Always the way to get a girl to drink her protein!

As for training, my back seems to be coming right and I’ve been able to get back into lifting a little heavier again. It felt good to get back into squats again and I hit 67.5kg for one rep on Sunday. Was nice to shake off some of the cobwebs. I tested out how lunges would go and I found my left side was quite a lot weaker than my right. Part of this could be psychosomatic though so I will keep working on it.

I have started doing a lot more stretching and incorporating a little yoga into my life at night before I go to bed. While I know it’s important to stretch, I don’t do it often, but the results I've had from doing some simple back stretches at night has been worth it. I just do a few simple poses I found online (I’ll put the link here when I get home) and found that even something so simple has greatly reduced the pressure in my lower back.  I'll definitely keep up with this.

Incorporating more bicep/tricep work into my training seems to be going well, I definitely feel stronger on exercises for both. I’m working hard on core as well, I’m hoping this will translate to some heavier lifts elsewhere (and some nice abs for summer ;).

I find core quite boring so decided to set myself a program today. Looking online I went to bodybuilding.com, grabbed like 5 of their core workouts and added them all together into one. There are some repeats, but I do them in order, and will go back and do more of. It looks a little something like this:

Cable Crunches: 3 sets of 8-12 reps (30-45 seconds of rest)

Weighted Oblique Crunches: 3 sets of 12 reps each side (30 seconds of rest)

Crunches: 3 sets of 20 reps (30 seconds of rest)

Reverse Crunches: 3 sets of 12-15 reps (45 seconds of rest)

Air Bike Crunches: 3 sets of 12 reps (30-45 seconds of rest)

Crunches: 3 sets of 25 reps (30 seconds of rest)

Lying Leg Raises: 3 sets of 8 reps (30 seconds of rest)

Frog Sit Ups: 3 sets of 12-15 reps (30 seconds of rest)

Jackknife Sit Ups: 3 sets of 12-15 reps (30 seconds of rest)

Weighted Oblique Crunches: 3 sets of 20 reps each side (30 seconds of rest)

Reverse Crunch: 3 sets of 12 reps (30 seconds of rest)

Weighted Russian Twist: 3 sets of 20 reps (30 seconds of rest)

Barbell Side Bends: 3 sets of 8 reps on each side (30 seconds of rest)

Crunch - Legs On Exercise Ball: 3 sets of 8-12 reps (30 seconds of rest)

Decline Crunch: 3 sets of 8-12 reps (30-45 seconds of rest)

Dumbbell Side Bends: 3 sets of 8 reps (30 seconds of rest)

Flat Bench Leg Pull-In: 3 sets of 12 reps (30 seconds of rest)

I'll be off to do this in my lunch break, takes about an hour :) Maybe next post I'll be brave enough to put some progress pics! In the meantime don’t forget you can find me on Fitocracy https://www.fitocracy.com/profile/xoxAJVxox/?feed

Music and Training - the case of the missing shuffle

Looking suitably excited for leg day!

Like most people, I've found that music (or lack of) has a profound effect on my training. I think of this today, as when I was leaving the house to walk to work (It's 3kms, takes about 25 minutes and I count this as my cardio of the day, low impact and just hard enough to get my heart rate up) and I couldn't find my beloved ipod shuffle. I checked my gym bag, my handbag and all the regular spots around my house. I know I had it last night! I checked my hoodies and pockets but still no luck :(

Now I know it's not the most superior of the ipod technologies, and my iphone is actually better, but I love my shuffle because it's small and clips to my clothes, so when I'm training I don't worry about it getting in the way, dropping it, or crushing it while training. It's my trusty companion, and I'm a little lost without it when I've forgotten it or its battery is flat. It really did get my day off to a bad start, compounded by me leaving my protein shaker on the roof of my car after I was looking for my ipod under my seat... see, it threw off my whole morning.

I use music not only to block out the Extreme gym music (some of which is pretty awful, but better than my old gym at least, it's hard to lift to jazz music or the Monkees) but to block other people out around me. As a lady who lifts, it can be a little intimidating hanging out on the floor with the big boys, so I prefer to be plugged in and allow myself to be absorbed in what I'm doing, rather than worried about whether anyone is watching. I usually train alone and don't really need to engage in conversation while working out (it's nice and if one of my friends is there I'll chat between sets) but while I'm lifting it's all about me.

For normal lifting, I don't really worry too much about what's playing, I usually don't recognise the songs as I go and have no particular favourites, as long as something is going on in my ear that's ok.

When I'm lifting heavy though, it needs to be a song that suits my mood, what I'm lifting, and has the right beat. I tend to lift on a particular crescendo or passage in each song, and I've found that talking to others they do the same thing. I'm not sure why, just seems to help me concentrate and get the setup for lift just right. It also helps me keep my breathing in sync for each rep and helps me time my rest so it's not too long and not to short. The shuffle is perfect and I can clip it to the side of my clothes and I don't have to worry about it falling out off my pocket.

For cardio, well something upbeat and poppy usually does the trick for this, I tend not to go too hard out on that at the moment, so can be something a little more gentle as well.

So after this in depth contemplation of how much I love my music and my shuffle while walking to work on my own, I made one last, desperate attempt to empty my gym bag before calling the gym and reporting it missing. there would have been posters on the wall of the gym and all....so you'll be glad to know I found it, wrapped in my gym towel, when I emptied my bag out at work. We both breathed a sigh of relief and we'll be training together at lunchtime! Hooray!

I may have been slack on posting, but definitely not slack on my diet!

Wow! What a week! Diet/Food plan officially started on Monday! 

Sunday we went grocery shopping, I swear there was more green in our trolley that day than I've ever seen! Next week I'm going to hit up the markets to see if I can get kumara (sweet potato) cheaper, we need so much of it that it's worth it to even get a few dollars savings. Otherwise it wasn't too far off what we'd normally buy, except all other protein sources swapped out for chicken...delicious!

Sunday night was spent chopping, cooking, and putting a weeks worth of food for two in containers. Not a small task by any stretch of the imagination, but now I think I've got the routine sorted it won't take me three hours next Sunday... well hopefully!

The food plan for me is basically:

• Oats and protein shake for breakfast
• chicken, kumara, rice and broccoli for meal one
• same for lunch (meal two)
• Apple and protein shake for afternoon tea
• Chicken and greek salad for dinner
• Protein shake after the gym

(I'll do another post about the supplements I'm on later)

The funny thing is, I'm actually enjoying the structure and regimentation of this plan and the sameness of the food doesn't even really bother me. I take my wee cooler bag of food with me to work and mix everything up as I need it.

There's something comforting about knowing what I am going to be eating that day, and already having set my portions out makes mealtimes a little less scary and chaotic. I like having scales and cups to measure out all my portions and making sure I'm eating enough at all times. To be honest I wish I had done this years ago, it would have saved myself a lot of time and energy!

Eating like this means I'm never full, but never hungry either, just a nice balance the whole day. It's been easier to resist the temptation of treats at work when I know what I have to eat (and I am actually eating a meal at morning tea rather than relying on a snack to keep me going!)

 I feel I have more energy and the lifts that I have tried to push hard on (hurt my back on Saturday cleaning the car, of all things, so I've been taking it a bit easier than normal) have been going well,18 kg dumbbell bench press seemed to go up easier than before. it looks like my delts are coming along well, and I can already see a bit more leanness through my stomach and back. I'm looking forward to being able to hit deadlifts and squats with real enthusiasm again, in the meantime look out accessory lifting, I'm coming for you!

The other change I've made (well, been told to make!) is adding cardio back into my workouts. It's low impact cardio where I'm aiming for a heart rate of between 105-140 BPM, so not a hard slog by any stretch of the imagination. It's given me the inspiration to start walking to work again, which isn't far, only about 3kms, but just long enough (and I leave the house late enough!) that I have to push myself a wee bit to get to work on time!

So in all everything seems to be going ok 4 days in :) I'm doing a lot of stretching and foam rolling for my back and I'll keep you up to date on when it feels good enough to try for some big numbers!