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Bridgeman Fitness Home 2010 Fitness Goals Achieved
At the start of 2010 I made a decision that I had to take my training more seriously. I had to put into practice what I learn and what I preach. For too long I had put up with recurring back spasms (5 years worth), not planned my workouts in advance, not recorded what I had done within a training session, and basically spent all training sessions just doing conditioning. This wasn’t a bad thing, the conditioning I was doing was all very specific to Mixed Martial Arts which is what i do for fun 1-2 x week. However i was doing what I knew I was good at (cardiovascular training - a mix of aerobic and anaerobic random training circuits and bag work). I had reached a weight of 83kg, my diet was appalling, I was weak in the gym and knew I had to sort out my injury! I set myself a few goals to achieve throughout 2010: 1) No back pain 2) Deadlift my body weight 3) Squat my body weight 4) Press my body weight 5) 12 chin ups 6) Reduce body fat and maintain muscle So how did I get on? 1) No back pain I had been plagued with left side lower back spasms. Previous x-rays had revealed a scoliosis pulled towards the right (also visible slightly when standing). Due to the attachments to the lumbar vertebrae my right psoas had pulled my spine out of correct alignment. The right leg was my dominant kicking leg throughout many years of Tae Kwon Do, hence the tighter right Psoas. A physiotherapist I went to tried some healing hands quackery and told me to stretch my lumbar erectors - which were actually very flexible. I never went back to her and did not take her advice. I was also occasionally getting pain deep within my hip when walking when my leg was going into extension at the hip. I had a rough idea of what I needed to work on (Glutes) and decided to try a local sports therapist for assessment and sports massage. This was exactly what I needed, I can now use my glutes in my lifts, my erector spinae are not working overtime and I have not had the hip pain or back spasm at all in 2010. 2) Deadlift my body weight After several weeks corrective exercise, really sorting out my glutes and core strength and rehearsing the correct deadlift movement I started to notice some real gains. Instead of working up to 50kg, i was using 50kg as my warm up weight. Once i achieved the lift of my body weight I set myself another goal of 5 reps at this weight. This came some time later and I decided to spend the latter end of the year just seeing how far I could take my strength on this movement. My last deadlift session of the year I did 5 reps at 95kg! I far exceeded my body weight. 3) Squat my body weight This followed similar progress to the deadlift. However I did tend to miss a few squat sessions, sometimes for a few weeks. I was not that pleased with this. I also think I am overly cautious on this lift. I ended the year with 3 reps at 85kg. 4) Press my body weight I managed to work up to 2 reps at 85kg, although possibly still have a bit more in the tank. I found this to be the most difficult to make progress on. Like squatting, I did miss quite a few sessions I had previously planned for this exercise. I am confident that some time spent in 2011 building the strength of my external shoulder rotators/rotator cuff muscles should assist the bench press. 5) 12 chin ups I love this exercise. In fact out of my goals the chin up/pull up variations and deadlift variations were what I most enjoyed training with and had the most gains on. I can do 17 chin ups body weight, and 3 with 25kg additional weight. 6) Reduce body fat and maintain muscle I had every faith that shifting the emphasis of my training towards the strength aspects, experimenting with a few other strength/hypertrophy methods throughout the year, and still training 1-2 x week MMA would reduce my body fat. However I did have to make some small changes to my diet. From around April onwards I was eating more of a Paleo diet (minus the meat and seeds breakfast)- veg, fruit, meat, fish, nuts and seeds and nothing else apart from my morning porridge. I did deviate slightly, and had phases where i had a higher carb intake. I went from 83kg to 72.5kg. I then modified my training slightly and put a little bit more weight on finishing the year at 74kg. In true “body for life” style I have included before and after pictures. The before pictures show me at about 80kg before I put more fat weight on! In summary the shift in emphasis towards more strength related training sessions did not affect my cardiovascular fitness. I feel stronger, lighter, more robust, less prone to injury, faster and just in far better shape generally. I had structured training sessions, I knew what i was doing 4 weeks in advance, I recorded everything and learnt from the mistakes i made along the way. This has helped me to prepare my goals for 2011.
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