Why Lifting Weights is Good

1. Improves your cognitive function:  it stimulates your brain.  Several studies have been done that show marked improvements in various mental activities: coordinating multiple activities, focus, and long term planning with both anaerobic and aerobic training. (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Exercise%2C+Brain+and+Cognition+Across+the+Lifespan&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C11&as_ylo=&as_vis=1)
2. Increases your metabolism. Stressing the muscles causes them to grow, causing a larger percentage of your body weight to be muscle, which increases your metabolism and thereby decreases fat.  This is in contrast to low intensity exercise or endurance exercise where muscles do not grow much larger, so while calories are burned during aerobic exercise, the number of calories your body burns during normal operation is smaller than in a strength trained individual who has more muscle mass and therefore more resting energy requirements.  (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=resistance+training+resting+energy+requirements&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C11&as_ylo=&as_vis=0)
3. Increases bone density.  Stressing the bones causes them to grow thicker and denser. Again, while aerobic exercise can help in this area, high intensity exercise helps increase bone density more. (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=resistance+training+increases+bone+density&hl=en&btnG=Search&as_sdt=1%2C11&as_sdtp=on)
4. Decreases the risk of injury.  If you are stronger, you're less likely to get injured during competition, or in every day life. (http://www.mendeley.com/research/effect-neuromuscular-training-incidence-knee-injury-female-athletes-prospective-study/ , http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=strength+training+injury+prevention&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C11&as_ylo=&as_vis=0)

All of these things are good for guys and girls.  Actually I think a lot of girls shy away from strength training because of the fear of appearing big.  This is unlikely to happen.  Most guys have to put in a lot of effort in order to gain size working out.  Its way harder for girls, because females lack the testosterone that guys do so their muscles don't develop nearly as much.  If anything any fat you have will be replaced with muscle, and you'll look trimmer even though you are heavier.  Losing weight does not necessarily equal looking thinner.

Running postgreSQL on Windows XP Embedded

After attempting to run the installer and messing with permissions a lot, it ended up that the issue has to do with the DEV NULL driver not being available.  See http://forums.enterprisedb.com/posts/list/2179.page.

Squats and Sprints

Since training for the Peachtree and then getting a deadleg playing lacrosse a week later, I have not worked out much.

But I'm going to start what I am going to call Squats and Sprints, a new workout program.

It's designed to be simple.  But effectively for each workout you pick a squat exercise, a sprint exercise, and then anything else that you want to work on that day.  The squats and sprints are mandatory, the other stuff is optional.  The desire is to get to be doing heavy front or back squats and high intensity short to middle distance sprints at every workout, which ideally would be twice daily, every day of the week.  But most people aren't going to have the time to get to that point.  Even hitting heavy back squats and a high intensity sprint session twice per week will be adequate to get most people in great shape.

A typical workout would include:

Squats:  warmup, 5x5
Weighted Pullups: warmup, 5x5
Sprints: 3x12x25yds full speed (goal is to complete each set of 12 in less than 1 minute, with 3 minutes rest)

The Will's Workout

My training schedule for the next few months is getting full.  I'll be getting stronger with Bonn, Jumping higher with Curtis, and getting faster long distance by myself (with Bonn's helpful training eye).

My goals remain the same: twice body weight squat, sub 1 minute 400, sub 6 minute mile, sub 20 minute 3-mile, dunk, one armed pullup, with the additional goal of hitting a sub 45' 10k in July.

Bonn and I will be lifting heavy in the morning (6am, Monday-Thursday, when I don't have lacrosse practice), and doing various cross-training type activities.  That will be where I work on squat, some explosive training, and the one armed pullup, as well as balancing out all the rest of the training with a solid amount of posterior chain and flexibility work.

Curtis and I will be doing high intensity explosiveness training in the evenings about twice a week.  That will have to be scheduled on a week to week basis, but it will likely fall on Mondays and Wednesdays, at around 6-6:30pm.

My run training will take place when possible after work or later in the evening.

For lifting, I think we're going to move back to a more organized split workout, as presented by Kelly Baggett of Higher Faster Sports.  We won't incorporate too many more explosive training exercises since I'll be getting those with Curtis, but I may try to work in some explosive lifts, including jump squats, and upper body plyometrics like medicine ball throws, and drop pushups / jump pushups, wood chops, etc.

The split will look something like the following:

Workout 1 - squat, hamstring
Workout 2 - chest, pullups
Workout 3 - deadlift, squat
Workout 4 - shoulders, rows

and adding any of the following supplemental workouts: abs, hips, forearms, calves, arms.

Additionally, each workout will have a warmup consisting of running or rowing or dynamic warmup (high knees, toe touch, butt kick, karaoke, backpedal, etc...), and each workout will finish with stretching.

Typically I'll be able to work out Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, with a possible additional Tuesday Thursday workout in there.  Ideally I'd like to be squatting twice a week, which will happen If I get at least three workouts in per week.

So without further ado, here's my proposed workouts for the next week (starting April 5, 2012):

Thursday: dynamic warmup, squat (5x5), med ball hamstring curls (3x12), glute ham raise (3x10), dumbell calf raise (3x20), stretch

Saturday: row 10 min, incline bench press (5x5), weighted wide grip pullup (5x5), skull crushers (3x8), close grip weighted pullup (3x8), stretch

Monday: dynamic warmup, deadlift (6x3), jump squat (30% max, 10 reps/set, repeat sets until performance decreases), dumbell step up (3x8 each leg), weighted leg raise (3x10), stretch

Wednesday: row 10 min, overhead press (5x5), bent over barbell row (or machine seated row, 5x5), close grip bench press (3x8), medicine ball throws (overhead, sides, behind the back, 3x10 each), stretch

2012 workout intro / first workout

2012. Going to start working out in the mornings. Not necessarily a new years resolution type thing, but sort of, an "I'm a little tired of going to other people's houses and skipping workouts because there's too much going on in the evenings" thing.

I'm going to post my work out schedule here, just so others can reference what I'm doing if they're interested.

First, some references/influences: Riptoe Starting Strength. Higher Faster Sports. Stronglifts. Average Broz.

Second, some goals. Overall goal: increase athleticism, look good, feel good. Specific goals: twice body weight squat, sub 1 minute 400, sub 6 minute mile, sub 20 minute 3-mile, dunk, one armed pullup.

So it will be mostly functional training exercises that I'll do: lifting, running, jumping.

What I like to think about when making a workout schedule is location and available equipment / space. One workout shouldn't involve multiple locations or they will take too long. So I pick weight room / field / track / road for each work out. Timing is also important obviously. Ideally workouts would be fairly evenly spaced throughout the week with some built in recovery periods initially.

To meet the specific goals I have in mind, I need leg power, high aerobic conditioning level, and arm strength.

I'm going to break workups out by upper body, lower body, and conditioning / speed workouts.  I will be focusing on getting high volume on effective exercises.  I may add in some additional work on smaller muscle groups but for the most part I am targeting hip / leg strength, shoulder / back strength and aerobic conditioning.  I believe more is better in training as long as you allow your body to adapt to increases in volume.

To start, I'm going to focus on rehabing my lower back (it has been messed up for a while).  That's going to involve increasing hamstring flexibility, hip strength, and stabilization of the core.  This week:

Monday (Weight Room): 5x5 Squats LIGHT weight, 4x12 straight leg deadlift, 4x16 weighted stepups, 5x12 weighted hanging leg raise, 15 mins stretching / yoga

Tuesday: off (work)

Wednesday (WR): 5x5 overhead press, 5x5 weighted pullup, 4x6 LIGHT dumbell row, 4x10 superset shoulders (lat raise, front raise, rear raise, trap raise), abs/obliques

Wednesday Evening (Road): 2 miles, 30 seconds on, 1:00 off, 15 mins stretching / yoga

Thursday: off (breakfast)

Friday (WR): repeat monday

Saturday (WR): repeat wednesday

Sunday (Field): pre-ultimate sprint workout, 4x12x25yds full speed, 10x40yds full speed, 15 mins stretching / yoga