Getting In Shape

After running for the first time, I realized how long it had actually been since I had ran. The last time was in November shortly before my high school team was eliminated in the region finals. However, I realized that I had only lost about one minute on my two mile, which I didn't consider to be too bad. I had my first outdoor, and i quickly figured that just because my two mile hadn't quite lost its sting, my "soccer conditioning" was no where near where it should be. After only 30 minutes of scrimmaging, I found myslef clutching my kness, bent over, and gasping for breath. There is a significant difference betweem being in good distance shape and being in soccer shape. The game of soccer requires constant shifting back and forth between sprinting and jogging for two 45 minute halves. This requires a different kind of conditioning that is almost impossible to achieve unless you are actually playing games consistently. So, no matter what I do, I am fearful that I won't be in "game shape" until after getting several games under my belt. As far as my weight lifting was concerned, I was still slowly improving (gaining about 5 pounds on my bench MAX every 2-3 weeks). There is only one thing that was bothering me and that was there are too many days that I was not able to lift because of various situations. Some these were assemblys, snow days, and pointless surveys that required us to miss class. I feel like if there were not so many distractions that caused me to miss class, I could be consistently improving 5 pounds on my MAX every 2 weeks, instead of it sometimes taking 3 weeks. If this were the case, then I could actually surpass my goal by five pounds by the end of the semester. At the the rate I am going right now, I will prolly fall 5-10 pounds short of my 185 pound goal I set at the beginning of the semester. This means that I am going to have to work a little harder to make sure that I can acheive both my goals of being cardiovascularly and muscularly in shape...

New and Improved

My new technique was working. I started out the first week on my bench doing seven sets of five of 115 pounds. This was a little bit of struggle when it came time for the last two sets, but I could really feel my muscles tighten when I was performing my lifts. Then next day I was fairly sore, but my protein shake helped ease the pain, so I could again do incline bench after only a day of rest. Then Friday I used a toning workout, doing five sets of ten of 115 pounds. Yea, you read that right; I was doing the same weight except doing ten repetitions at a time. This new routine was already working its wonders. I took the weekend off from lifting, except for the occassional push ups, sit ups, and pull ups. However, my first soccer tournament was coming up in a close approaching four weeks, so I needed to also be getting some cardiovascular work. I went for a simple two mile run, which I realized about halfway through that I hadn't done since my soccer season ended in November. This meant that I was terribly out of shape, and it was a miserable run. I hadn't been this out of shape since sophmore year, when I was coming out of my fat, awkward stage. Now I had to jostle two battles, getting stronger before college and getting in good enough shape to where I could play a 90 minute soccer game. This was a tough task, but I was determined to acheive both goals. The next month is going to be exhausting, but I am excited to see the results of my hard work paying off.

Improving

After nearly two weeks of lifting, it was time to check our progress by maxing out on our bench press. I got on the bench, sweat dripping from my brow, and easily lifted my previous max weight (145). Then, I added 2.5 pounds on each side, bringing my total to 150. I seemed to struggle a little but managed to get up the bar. Next I tried something a little bit ambitious, lifting 155. I almost completed this lift, only to stall only three inches from locking out my elbows. I was devastated, but I should have been looking at the possitive side; I had improved my max by 5 pounds in just two weeks. At that rate, I would improve my max by nearly 40 pounds at the end of the semester. But I went to coach Hurley and asked for some advice, which I hoped would prove beneficial. He told me to modify my workouts from pyramids (which is benching by increasing weight doing sets 0f 7,5,3,2,2,1) to heavy weights doing seven sets of five with a heavy weight. This strategy made me very sore the next day, which was a good sign because it meant my muscles were tearing more, therefore, rebuilding getting stronger. Your muscles get stronger by tearing and rebuilding. When they rebuild, they are stronger than they were before. However, if you do the same workout every time, your muscles adapt and don't tear as easy, so you have to change it up and almost "keep you muscles guessing." I hoped this new technique would greatly improve my strength, and next time we max I was striving for 160 pounds.

Starting Out

It was now time for our first official week of lifting. My group consisted of me, Chris Morgan, and Kyle Johnson. Chris and Kyle had maxed out at 175 the previous day, compared to my puny 145 pounds. At first I was a little hesitant because they were quite a bit stronger than me, but I decided that this would be good for me because they would push me to lift more. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday were upper body days, and Tuesday and Thursday were lower body days. Your muscles must have a day of rest, so thats why we set the workout to rotate between the two major muscle groups, lower and upper body. Then inside these two groups are several sub groups. Upper body has biceps, triceps, latisimus doris (upper back), shoulders, and chest. Lower body consists of quadracepts, hamstrings, calfs, hip flexers, and abdominals. As you can tell, there are signifucantly more muscles in the upper body section of the workout, which is why we work upper body three days a week and lower body only two days; plus, everyone wants to have a strong upper body because it just looks good and is beneficical when it comes to picking up ladies on the beach. Now, the first day coach Hurley said would make us the sorest we would be the entire semester. I kind of took this statement lightly, until I woke up the next day. When I rolled over out of bed and tried to do my regular morning yawn and extend my arms above my head, I was sent into shock by the tearing sensation of my chest and arms. We had done a benching workout the day before that also included workouts such as curls, 1 armed rows, and many more. I found myself wondering if I was going to be this sore all the time, but I was determined not to give up. So, I took a shower, downed my protein, and headed off to school for first block once again, free weights.