KTG's Log

[brmc72]

Excellent job! Level 6 is right around the corner

[maddog]

Ah, you caught me on D1! Congrats!

[KTG]

So this is my one year anniversary on Simplefit. My first workout, L2D3 was April 24, 2011, and took me exactly 5 minutes. I would say that the most noticeable change has been the shift from really dreading every pull-up, to just seeing them as another exercise to work through. Over the course of 1 year I have gone from struggling mightily at 44 L3D1 pull-ups/chin-ups to banging out 78 L5D1 pull-ups/chin-ups.

I spent 7 weeks on level 3 and 16 weeks on level 4. I have now been on level 5 for 22 weeks. That adds up to 46 weeks, which means I have missed 6 weeks over the past year: One week off for a bad cold in Feb, 1 week off for a medical issue in August, and 4 weeks off for travels in July. I'm pretty satisfied with that level of consistency. The next year should look about the same since I have about 4 weeks of enforced rest coming up in June.

So, anniversary week results:

L5D1 - 25 rounds. (-1 PR).
L5D2 - 5:19. All pull-ups. strict 90 second rests between rounds. -11 seconds from last week. New PR with the 90 sec rests.
L5D3 - 5:47. New PR, -12 from last week. Very happy with that progress.

I was feeling a little off and unmotivated on D1, so really focused on slow and steady with good form and trying to move quickly from exercise to exercise. Ended up feeling pretty good. Much less fade in the pull-ups at the end, which bodes well for further progress. There is clearly some room for improvement on the D3 push-ups (18-17-16).

As Maddog notes, getting down to that last minute for L5D3 is very motivating. 47 seconds to go.

[sampi]

Great job! Your perseverance is an encouragement for me!

[KTG]

Thanks! Once you've been at it for long enough, habit and guilt can keep you going. It also helps knowing that people are paying attention so I have to have something to write down.

So, here's this week's results:

L5D1 - 26 rounds. Same as previous PR, but feeling stronger and in better form all the way through. Less fade on the pull-ups at the end.
L5D2 - 5:14. 5 seconds faster than last week. Still doing all pull-ups and strict 90 second breaks. I need to speed up the push-ups.
L5D3 - 5:49. 2 seconds slower. Felt pretty good. Here too I can see the need to strengthen the push-ups.

I've started in on a challenge with Fitocracy (www.fitocracy.com) to do 1500 pull-ups/chin-ups in May. That's about 50 per day. I think my arms are kinda feeling that, but I expect it to pay-off in really strengthening my pull-ups for the move to level 6. Next I'll need a similar effort for the push-ups.

L5D3 Chin-ups/pull-ups alternated 7-5-4-3-4-3. Push-ups in 18-17-16. Squats straight through.

[KTG]

Big progress week. PR's all the way through.

L5D1 - 27 Rounds. This is +1 from last week and new PR. Felt strong with a consistent pace all the way through.
L5D2 - 5:08. New PR for strict 90 second breaks between rounds. All pull-ups
L5D3 - 5:24. Woohoo. 25 seconds faster than last week. Just 24 seconds to go.

A very good week. The fitocracy pull-up challenge (1500 pull-ups in May), has really been paying off in strengthening my pull-ups and chin-ups. For the first time I'm starting to feel really ready to move up a level.

Same breakdown for reps as last week.

[KTG]

A small hiccup this week.

L5D1 - 29 Rounds. +2 from last week(!!). Felt strong, but a little chest tightness during push-ups.

This turned into a quite sore right pectoral muscle, which I assume I strained. This I attribute not to Simplefit, which has kept me injury free for a year, but to the insanity of taking on the Fitocracy challenge of doing 1500 pull-ups in May. I was up to about 100 per day (with some rest days), which combined with the 89 for L5D1 was probably just too much. Interestingly, though, the discomfort was much greater on the push-ups than the pulls. Anyway, I took a full week off and then resumed with L5D2:

L5D2 - 6:00. Felt fine, but 42 seconds slower. About 1:11 per round instead of 1:02. Still strict 90 second breaks and all pull-ups
L5D3 - 6:37 Felt OK, but didn't push it. This shows in my time, which is 1:13 slower than last week (puts me back about 6 weeks)

Lessons this week: Staying injury free is critical to forward progress. Taking even one week off (for an injury, at least) can be pretty costly. The1500 challenge is, I think, pretty significantly improving my pull-ups/chin-ups. The next push will have to be some focused work on the push-ups.

Onward and (pull-)upward.

[ricoman]

100 pull-ups a day? Wow! I agree, even without trying, it was insane.
Maybe I'm having my rest a little early but I'm afraid as hell of getting injured so I try not to force my progress in any way.

[KTG]

Being very careful about injuries is, I think, the right approach, especially for those of us who are a little older. The costs of having to take a few weeks off are severe.

My own view is that the important thing is being able to keep at it for many years. Being patient about the slow and steady progress that comes from just working through it week after week is key.

Once you get to level 3 or level 4 you are already doing this at a level of fitness that most people would find incomprehensible. If one could hold onto that into, say, your 70's that would be a pretty impressive life accomplishment.

Now I just need to learn to follow my own advice. I promise I will once I get through this May 1500 thing (1160 down, 340 to go in 5 more days)

[brmc72]

Geez, 1500 pull-ups this month? How are you breaking that up each day? Do you do anything different on Simplefit days or do you just count your Simplefit pull-ups as part of that day's total?

I just signed up for an account on Fitocracy...not 100% sure how it works, but I like the general idea. Do you find yourself using it quite a bit?

[maddog]

@brmc72, I'm gonna jump in and rep Fitocracy. I joined a while ago, not really sure whether I'd like the site, but I've come to find it very useful. The most helpful part for me is being able to look at my progress over a time period and precisely track my workouts. If you haven't already discovered it, fitocracy lets you look at a specific exercise over time, so you can visualize how quickly you improve or set PRs.

I don't really use the social side of the site, but a lot of people find the community aspect fun/motivating, I guess.

[KTG]

Re the May 1500 challenge -- I just count my simplefit workouts toward the total. In addition to the simplefit work, I mostly have just been doing sets of 10 or 12 (half pull-ups half chin-ups) several times each day. I was doing enough to break it up with a couple of rest days each week, but then I seem to have overdone it. I took 8 days off for recovery and now am trying to catch back up. That means about 70/day between now and the end of the month. It looks doable, but I'm not going to push it if I feel anything awry. I did my L5D1 today and felt good all the way through. Indeed, I think my pull-ups have dramatically improved over the month.

I do use Fitocracy quite a bit. Unlike Maddog, I use it less for the specific tracking than for the community and for the interesting general tracking of all activities. It gives you a way to keep track of all of your activities in a way that is comparable--i.e. a common metric of points. This is hardly perfect. There is a pretty widespread sentiment that body weight exercises are undervalued relative to weight lifting. And it can't account for the role of the clock. So 3 pull-ups is worth the same number of points whether it is an isolated single effort or comes at the end of 20 minutes of grinding through a L5D1 workout. As for the community, there aren't very many places where it is appropriate to talk about how many pull-ups you are doing in polite company. It's nice to have the support and see the kinds of workouts other people are doing.

[brmc72]

Yeah,I kind of like the idea of the social aspect of Fitocracy (as well as the community here at Simplefit). Makes it a little more bearable knowing that there are other people doing it that you can talk to and bounce ideas off of.

So, I see that you're at 28 rounds for level 5 this week...think you might be looking at level 6 for next week?

[KTG]

I do feel pretty ready for level 6. I suspect, thought, that this Friday's test performance will be degraded by my coming off the big pull-up effort. We'll see. Maybe next week.

[KTG]

Level 5 - Week 26

L5D1 - 28 Rounds. -1 from PR. Felt very solid.
L5D2 - 5:23. - 15 seconds from PR. All pull-ups and strict 90 second rests.
L5D3 - 5:34. -10 seconds from PR.

So this week wrapped up the 1500 pull-ups in one month adventure. It was a big effort, but I think has really strengthened my pull-ups. Right now my arms are still a little whacked, so we'll really see next week after I take this weekend off.

All of the Simplefit efforts this week felt strong, but all were a little off from PRs. Right now I'll blame this on the pull-up effort. So, next week will be the real test.

June will be dedicated to strengthening the push-ups. It should also be the month for finishing up L5 and starting L6.