M90F (vs. P90X) - Day 14: extra make-up-for-weekend walk

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Series:  "M90F: Matt's 90-day Fitness"

Day: 14

Activities: LOWER BODY - Lunges, Walking, Standing-jumps.

The rollerblading yesterday was about a 5-6 mile / 50 minute part of my exercising.  I also did upper body, so it was over an hour.  The rollerblading for my 2nd time out in about 10 years went pretty well.  Old pair of used rollerblades worked just fine.  My stabilizer muscles 'inside' my hips got a lot of work, as well as my hip flexors (in the front, connecting your upper legs to your hip bones).  Rollerblading is a lot more aerobic than I had thought it would be; more like running for example; I got a little winded at times.

Did you know?  Rollerblading burns basically the same amount of calories as walking.

Today I did 2 sets of lunges.  Check out one of my sets; it started where the sidewalk meets the car driving by in the background (don't know if you can see that on this small of a picture).  Anyway, quite a few.

I also ended up going on 2 walks today.  I splurged a bit last night, had a couple glasses of wine and some 10 year cheddar and feta stuffed olives!  So I figured I'd make up for it with a walk this morning and another one this afternoon.  Ended up probably going about 8 miles total today.  I also did a few standing-jumps on the cement platforms I mentioned the other day.  Here's a video of it:

Beautiful weather here; mid 60s, but almost no wind and lots of sun, so it felt like high 70s.  While I have the benefit right now over people in say the midwest (ex: Wisconsin) because they can't walk in the snow very well, they'll have the advantage in a month when it's too hot here for me to get out any time between 5:30 a.m. and 9:00 p.m.

In a couple weeks I'm going to buy some of those 'toe shoes' for running, like Vibram brand.  My right knee got messed up a couple years ago when I was trying to prepare for a race, and I haven't been able to run since, even after physical therapy.  I heard that these shoes might change my gait so that my knee isn't affected.  I'm hopeful since I could double my mileage in the same amount of time and really burn through some calories.

I remembered an old favorite combination of foods I used to eat.  Applesauce with blended/whipped cottage cheese with a bit of vanilla extract in it (better than it sounds) on top, a little cinnamon, and some grape nuts.  Applesauce only has 50 calories per half cup (about 2 times as much as strawberries, but still pretty good).  Make sure to get the unsweetened applesauce.  Also you might put this all on top of a slice of whole wheat toast; it's seriously like a healthy apple crisp!  I'll post a picture on the blog following when I make it.

Hope your weekend didn't throw you off your exercise.  If it did just make it up with an extra bit each day this week.

M90F (vs. P90X) - Day 13: long day

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Series:  "M90F: Matt's 90-day Fitness"

Day: 13

Activities: UPPER BODY - Rollerblading, Push-ups, Shoulders & Forearms.

Long day today; woke up around 4:30, got up around 6:00.  Worked out, then worked at job from about 8:00 until 12:00.  Got back, ate at Sweet Tomatoes restaurant (ate a huge, great salad).  Took a nap, and by the time I woke up I think my salad was digested!  I'm going to eat some chicken tonight to get my protein today.  Going out to rollerblade right now, then need to go shopping to get groceries.  Finally, need to relax a bit on my Saturday night, so that's all for today.

Keep truckin' on your workouts.

M90F (vs. P90X) - Day 12: Holy Psoas!

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Series:  "M90F: Matt's 90-day Fitness"

Day: 12

Activities: LOWER BODY - Rollerblading, Plyo-lunges, Calves, Walking.

Got out the old, old roller blades; they worked just fine!  They can probably handle more rollerblading than I can at this point.  This brought to mind the issue that so many people have with exercising; they say to themselves "when I get (insert product here), then I will exercise."  The fact is, your body probably can't handle any equipment worth buying until you're in better shape.  It's like celebrities you have a $5 million dollar kitchen and stock their fridge with microwavable dinners because they can't cook.  You don't need fancy equipment; you just need to do it; make the time, and do it.  The idea that you need some product shows that you just don't want to work hard.  I've got news for ya: to get in shape, you have to work hard.

15 minutes was all I rollerbladed for today; 3 reasons:  #1) I felt like it wasn't as good of a workout as walking* (note on this in a sec), #2) I was a bit unstable and realized only after I stopped that I was mentally resisting the idea of being this unstable for an hour, and #3) I wanted to do lunges today because it's lower body day today for me.  *On the note about it not being as good of an exercise as walking: I think this is wrong; I think that rollerblading is a great exercise.  I had felt like all I was doing was coasting because I was too unstable to really push it hard, but when I took off the rollerblades and began my walk, I noticed how easy walking is!  For what I lack in ability to push it hard, I get exercise value in trying to not fall over.  Tomorrow I think I'll just rollerblade for an hour instead of walk (plus upper body exercises).

This brings up cross-training.  Even if you do a couple particular exercises as your core program because they're great exercises, you should cross train.  Any time you limit yourself to what exercises you do, you are further away from a real-life fitness (we used to say this in martial arts; the more rules, the less realistic).  You should also cross-train to prevent injury, both from overuse, and from slight repeated errors you make because your body isn't perfect (which can cause injury).  Let your body recover and throw in alternates once in a while (swimming is great if you have a pool; helps build lung capacity; I used to use this back in my running days).

Plyometric lunges today (think Neo in the Matrix trilogy before he takes off to fly) instead of longer sets.  Basically just go down into a lunge position, then jump as high as you can, switch feet in the air, and land; repeat with the other side.  I could only do sets of 8 (i.e. 8 with each leg, so 16 jumps) before I was barely jumping off the ground!

I also did standing jumps onto cement platforms we have surrounding the walking track; just jump straight up, put both feet onto some sort of bench/platform, then jump back down.  I was really surprised how much it works my lower abdomen!  There's always seemed to be a debate about if there really are "lower abs" or not.  Well, I think the muscles this exercise is working are the ones everyone is wondering about.  They're not part of your "6 pack" abs, but right below that.  Did you know?  They're called Psoas.  Check it out: http://tptherapy.com/unlock-your-body-ultimate-6-areas.php  I didn't even do more than about 1 main set of these since tomorrow is upper body day, but you can be sure they're on the menu now!

Happy Friday!  Get out there and work off some calories before you relax tonight!

M90F (vs. P90X) - Day 11: Plyometrics

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Series:  "M90F: Matt's 90-day Fitness"

Day: 11

Activities: UPPER BODY - Push-ups, Ab-wheel, Shoulders, Forearms, Pull-ups, Walking, Stretching.

How do you build muscle mass by only doing body-weight exercises?  Plyometrics.  As I said in a previous article, if you want to build mass, you want to make your muscles 'give out' between about 8 and 12 reps.  With body-weight-only exercises, you may be doing 30 push-ups right now; this is giving you endurance, and it is improving your muscles' fitness, but it's not building much mass.  Instead of doing 2 sets of 30, do as many sets of 10 as you can; during these shorter sets, push as hard as you can!  For example, doing push-ups, pretend you are trying to push yourself into a standing position.

The harder you push, the more tension you are putting on your muscles.  This is simulating heavier weights.  Not only will this make you stronger (i.e. more force; much more than doing high reps, ex. 30 push-ups in a set), but it will also give you POWER (i.e. force exerted quickly).  It's analogous to amps vs. volts (if that helps any!...).

Did you know?  If you want toned muscles but no mass, it's a myth that you should do high reps!  In reality, you want to build muscle tension; this is what gives muscles their firmness.  To do this, you should keep your reps to around 5-6 per set at full force, and maybe only do 3 sets or so.

In a previous link, it mentioned HIT training (High Intensity-Interval Training).  There are different takes on this, but essentially the component of HIT that makes it work is the full-force plyometrics you're doing.  It can build any/all of strength, power, and muscle mass.  It's often practiced in full-body exercises which help to coordinate and train your body for real-life strength (stay away from isolation exercises unless you're trying to sculpt a particular look for aesthetic purposes only).

As a last note: if you haven't tried the Ab-wheel (and stuck with it for a few weeks), I highly recommend it.  After only 6 ab sessions I'm seeing/feeling my abs turn to stone, and I'm not even half-way to where I used to be in college.

Ok, get moving!  Comment below to let us know how it's going.

M90F (vs. P90X) - Day 10: constant, variable

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Series:  "M90F: Matt's 90-day Fitness"

Day: 10

Activities: LOWER BODY - Lunges, Walking.

Short post tonight; dentist after work ate up the evening.  Still did my 1 hour though.

Bit of a philosophical/mathematical observation on my walk tonight.  When you commit to one particular activity (constant), and make that something that's nonnegotiable, everything else varies (variable) around your commitment.

Think about it maybe like your main constant commitment is a boat going through an otherwise stagnant (i.e. perhaps boring) pond.  The boat makes a new main groove through the water; it also happens to make smaller, variable waves around it.

The smaller waves are things you experience which you otherwise wouldn't; you get some variety, and 'variety is the spice of life.'  For example, I didn't let the late time prevent me from exercising tonight.  As a result, I went walking at a time of evening I rarely do.  As a result, I got to smell what people were cooking all around the neighborhood.  Even just seeing my neighborhood in the evening, when it's a bit colder/windier than in the afternoon, everything looks novel, almost a bit exotic.  It's sort of the feeling of walking in a rainstorm; a bit of excitement just because you don't always do it.

The other 'variables' are also forced to become less strict in order to accommodate your 'constant' because it's not possible to do everything in life every day.  This makes the other variables in your life even start to seem less important.  And so, if you make your 'constant' something you love, this helps to make your daily life more enjoyable.

Diet and exercise are, without intervention, naturally opposite ripples; if you exercise more to burn calories, you may very likely be tempted to eat more calories.  Or if you diet, your metabolism may slow down.  This is why diet and exercise should both be held somewhat constant if you want to achieve the maximum health effects in the minimum possible time.

That's it for tonight.  I'd be interested to hear any of your 'variables' you noticed from exercising regularly!  Comment below to share.

M90F (vs. P90X) - Day 9

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Series:  "M90F: Matt's 90-day Fitness"

Day: 9

Activities: UPPER BODY - Push-ups, Ab-wheel, Forearms, Shoulders, Pull-ups, Walking.

It's been shown that creative people cheat more on tests; it's not because they're bad people, it's because they don't think it's cheating.  Their brains find creative ways to rationalize what they're doing, convincing them it's not bad.

Don't rationalize why you can't exercise today!  Or tomorrow!  Or ever!  That being said, have a minimum of core, un-negotiable exercises you'll do, no matter what kind of day it's been.  Or as I like to do, a minimum amount of time (1 hour).  You can always do more when you're feeling pumped up, but never skip out on the minimum.  It could even just be a slow paced walk.  The most important thing is to do something every day.

You'll find that you start to in fact add things to your daily exercise routine, because you start to realize that once you do the minimum, it's not too hard to just do that little bit more to be hard-core.  Once you start doing that, then you start getting obsessed with outdoing yourself!  Pretty soon a crazy obsession starts to form.  You almost start turning into a bit of a masochist, punishing (in a good way) your body, and liking it.

O.k., before you think I'm nuts, think about things like this: http://www.ruggedmaniac.com/  or this: www.toughmudder.com/  (thanks to my sister for these!).  That's what's inside everyone at some level.  The great thing is, you don't have to even go do one of these events to bring out that obsessed person; just get hard-core mentally!  Enjoy the pain!

To build my forearms, I do 2 exercises with my make-shift weight set...

1)  Wrapping the cord around the front works out the top of the forearm; notice how my hand closest to the camera is up, rotating the bar counter-clockwise to lift the weight:

2)  Wrapping the cord around the back works out the under-side of the forearm; notice how my hand closest to the camera is down, rotating the bar clockwise to lift the weight:

Did you know?  Coffee and Quinoa are good for building muscle!

Check out this cool article on foods to help build muscle:  http://fitbie.msn.com/eat-right/tips/8-foods-help-build-muscle

Also this one on High Intensity Training (I'll be talking more about this in the coming blog posts): http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/health/fitness.aspx?cp-documentid=3184759



Lastly, to get motivation, pledge an amount of exercise HERE, then update at end-of-week!

M90F (vs. P90X) - Day 8

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Series:  "M90F: Matt's 90-day Fitness"

Day: 8

Activities: LOWER BODY - Lunges, Calf-raises, Walking.

4:40 a.m. the alarm clock goes off, 4:40 p.m. I leave to go on my walk.

You know how you are high-energy when you're at work sometimes towards the end of the day, pushing through until you get home, and then you crash?  Doing you exercise is part of your job; when you get home, don't sit down.  Maintain that high-energy and let it encompass your exercise hour.


Think about it:  it's harder to lose weight than it is to maintain a healthy weight.  It's like being in financial debt: you could be making progress but it doesn't feel like it because you're still on a zero surplus diet.  Alright, I'm not sure where the 2 analogies started/stopped, but you get the point.  If you're losing 1/5 pound per day but not eating anything 'fun' right now, just remember than once you've lost the weight, you can eat 1/5 pound of 'fun' food and be breaking even.


In a previous blog entry, I mentioned taking protein.  Then I read something about the possibility of soy protein growing breast tissue in men.  So if you have this question: "Does soy protein grow breast tissue?"   then read this article on soy protein:  http://sisterearthorganics.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/little-boys-developing-breasts-the-soy-controversy/    (it also has other interesting information in it as well)


For the first time in I don't even know how long, probably 2-3 years ago, I felt hungry tonight, hungry to the core.  Sometimes I've been more "starving" to eat than I was tonight, but I'm talking about the "I'm 9 years old and swam at the YMCA for 4 hours" type of hungry - I felt like my body actually requires food for energy.



O.k. that's it for tonight, I'm keeping it short.  If you haven't started your own 90-day push for summer, start now!  You're only 1 week behind me, and you can still be done by June 1st.

Let us know how your workouts are going!  Post a comment below this blog entry!