Order

So, everyone should a goal. It could be to strength and tone your arms, get abs (or a flat stomach), or the ability yo run a 5k, 10k or even a marathon.

Anyway, what ever you want to work on most, you should do that first. Like lets say you wanted to build some bicep muscle. You'd concentrate on your biceps. So after your warmup you might start off with bicep curls, move on to something else, then do some pull-ups, do some other exercise(s) and maybe do some more bicep curls.

One of the harder muscle groups to work (in my opinion) are the pectorals. Also known as the chest. So let's say you're at a gym you want to work that first, so you'd do something like bench press. Why? Because if you did other arm parts first like triceps and biceps, then your arms would barely be able to do the bench press movement, because they're so tired. If your arms are too tired to so many bench press reps, then you wouldn't get a good chest workout, and you might strain your triceps a bit.

Another thing some people want to do is to get abs or get a flat stomach. This requires fat loss. So you should concentrate on cardio work. You should warmup, do your cardio, and then add in other exercises after your cardio. If you don't feel that tired, maybe finish with more cardio and a cool down. There are a few reasons you should do your cardio first: you'll be even more warmed up (unless you run outside in the winter). Second: if you did leg exercises before your cardio you may not be able to run or bike as far because your legs are just too tired. Third: whatever you work on first usually gets the best workout. Forth: doing ab exercise before hand can cause cramping during your run/bike. Lastly..: is that if you suddenly become busy, you can end your workout with your most important part finished.

So you can see the order of your workout can matter. For another example this morning I worked out at Planet Fitness. In the morning if I work my body physically hard, I get a stomach ache. So I need to to have my priorities down so invade I get a stomach ache, I already did the good stuff. Like my plan today was to do legs and core. Core is probably less important for me right now, so I did legs first. Guess what? I got a stomach ache near the end of my leg workout. I did some core yesterday, so I'm fine with today's workout!

A Few Goals Reached

One of my short term goals was to reach 160 pounds, yet keeping defined muscles including the abs. I've reached that goal! My long term goal is to reach 175 pounds. So I still have a while to go! But it's always nice to reach a goal, even if it's a small one.

Another short term goal I reached was to bench press 150pounds in 3 sets, each set being 8-12 reps (150x8-12x3). This goal was nice to reach, but the bench press at Planet Fitness is on a machine, so in actuality it probably would have been more like 150x6-10x3 if I had to stabilize it as well.

I did some dumbbell bench presses to try and use some stabilizers afterwards. It was a bit tricky...

I reached another small goal as well. I shoulder pressed 40x10x3. I might use lighter weights for a bit though. My shoulder has been hurting a little from the way I sleep on it. After my shoulder is repaired some, I want to do some heavy weight lifting (4-8 reps) so I can gain some mass, then I'll tone it and gain some endurance in a month or two.

Abbey is Home!

Abbey has returned from college! She will be staying here for a few weeks! I'm pretty pumped!

Also, today I'm going Christmas shopping. I haven't gone shopping yet. I only did some online shopping, so it should be interesting going now, with the Christmas rush going on! I'm not a big fan of shopping, and shopping with a big mob is worse. Oh well, at least it'll make hiding the gifts I get for siblings pretty easy!

Grand Weekend!

This past Friday I had a usual day of school, chores, then worked out that evening after the girls went off being girls. After working out went out to eat a with Mom and Dad, and ended my day with watching Pirates of the Caribbean: 4... so I thought. Shannon came home near the end of the movie with the three oldest Donahue girls. So we all hung out and talked. The girls were all overtired, I wasn't so it was pretty hilarious watch their reactions to everything. If you said some thing slightly funny, they'd laugh for about 3 minutes, and I'd laugh at them! So them being over tired, Shannon decided to invite Casey to come over. That's normal, usually... but it was almost midnight. By the time they convinced Casey to get out of bed (via text) and come over it was about 11:55pm. So we all talked and laughed for about another hour... Casey was overtired too so it's was pretty entertaining!

Around 1:20am we finally went to bed, but Jessi Donahue had to leave because she had work the next day. I reviewed my lines and went to sleep, the girls on the other hand could have stayed up making fun if one another for awhile.

Later that morning (about 7:45am), I got up and I was very hungry. So I showered and started to make pancakes and waffles. Jolie was the first girl up (besides my mom of course). She looked/sounded a little like a zombie, and then she said something along the lines about how when I get up I really get up, and walked off. When I finished breakfast, Jolie was the only girl up. So I went to wake the rest of them up. I got plenty of glares and a few growls, but they finally did get up.

That day we pretty much just hung out all day, played games and various fun(ny) thing. Jolie left for a bit because she had to do something, but I can't remember what.

That evening (Jolie was back by then) we all headed over to the Estes! Colleen being gone we could bring everybody in one car. We picked up Calvin on the way, so we rode with 8 people in our 7 person van. At the Estes we had a superb meal. Good everyone, for some of us guys all it needed was a little hot sauce and it was perfect!

After supper we talked for a bit, and then I convinced Nick, Joel and Kenan to play 4 way chess. It was a long game... even for chess. I'd say Nick and I played 'most logically', but Joel has easy access to Kenan. Kenan being the least experienced played gave Joel the chance to destroy Kenan's army. Joel then checkmated Kenan, but in this game you need to kill the king to beat someone. So Joel did. Another cool rule in 4 way chess is: if you capture someone king, you get their remaining army. That gave Joel the upper hand, so Nick and I stopped trying to kill one another. Nick almost had Joel in a checkmate, and Joel almost have Nick in a checkmate. I was the middle man. I could choose who I wanted to fight. I'd say they were about the same skill level, so it was a tough choice. I noticed that if I gave Joel Nick's army, they would lose a few queens so they would have one queen instead if three. That sounded like a good deal to me, and I had more offense on Joel then Nick anyway. So after Joel had his huge army, I attacked him. I had the upper hand in position, but he nearly tripled my size. I had his king I'm the corner and he held me off until us Clarkes, Donahues and Casey had to leave. We called it a stalemate, but I think he would have eventually over powered me with sheer numbers.

I realized on the way out from the Estes house that I could have checkmated him 4 moves earlier, but that's part of speed part of chess!

When we arrived at home that night, the Donshues and Casey left. After saying our goodbyes, I went to bed. I wasn't that tired, but I figured I needed more sleep for the up coming week!

Sunday morning we all got up (Calvin was still over), and ate breakfast and then headed off to church. We had another good Advent service, and then a church in Florida gave all the kids 16 and under gifts! I was quite surprised! So when our pastor announced it. I kind of laughed (as did a few other people around my age), and then he pointed me out and said "Yes, even you Billy!" that made the congregation laugh ending our great service!

That afternoon Calvin and Shannon watched Pirates of the Caribbean: 4. I uploaded the sermon and watched the later half of the movie with them. When we finished we had a small supper and headed over to our pastor's family open house! Calvin and I being young growing men, ate a ton. I rounded my plate a few times and then snacked until the end of open house.

At the open house were the Kidds, they were (and are) always fun to hang out with! But then the Hollens showed up! The Hollens are some old (but still great) friends of us Clarkes! So we hung out with them almost the whole time. It was pretty awesome to hang out with with for a few hours and catch up on life!

We were one of the last families to leave, so it as kind if late. We came home and talked for awhile. Mom and Dad went to bed, but Shannon, Calvin and I stayed up to about 11:30pm having a good talk.

Now to today! Today Colleen and ABBEY are coming home!!! Colleen had been gone ever since Friday, but I haven't seem Abbey since her short Thanksgiving break! I can't wait!

Tonight was going to be our last Spartan game, but just a few minutes ago we received an email notifying us that the game is cancelled due to not having enough players. On the bright side my ankles will probably heal faster!

Negatives

I'm not a huge fan of negatives, but that's probably because I've pretty much gone past them in my fitness level. So what is a negative? A negative is the reverse motion of an exercise. For example: the down motion of a pushup is a negative, so is the down motion of a pull-up.

To actually start a negative pull-up, you have to jump and catch yourself, then go down.

A negative in exercise isn't just the opposite motion of an exercise, because that would be too easy. You have to go down as slow as you can. This way you're building the muscles to do a pushup or a pull-up. In my opinion, once you can do a pull-up, you shouldn't do negatives. Maybe after you complete a pull-up you could, but if you're capable of doing a pull-up, you shouldn't just do negatives because they are easier. On the other hand if you can do a pushup, then you should do a pushup, then go on your knees or do incline pushups if you can't complete any more.

This can apply to most arm exercises. Try it out if you can't do a complete arm exercise!

Full Range of Motion

When you're working out, whether it's weights or body weight, I strongly recommend full range of motion. If you can hyperextend any joints, don't. That's bad for your joints.

Now what exactly is full range of motion? It's pretty much just using all your range of motion... like, in a Bicep curl, you want to start with your arm at 180 degrees, and then your curl it to as far as you can go: Your forearm should touch your bicep.

So what does this do? It works all the muscles in that motion. A pushup is a good example. If you didn't go all the way down, you're using so much less muscle than if you went all the way. I prefer going past 90 degrees on my pushups, because that way I get even more range of motion in there.

Now, I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think that if you don't use full range of motion, you'll probably lose some flexibility in that area. Your muscles would get used to doing work in the motion, and then it you try to use full range of motion later, it may strain your muscle.

Another benefit of full range of motion is that it's much more challenging than doing half range of motion. Challenging=muscle growth=good.

In some exercises you just can't do full range of motion. Like a wide pushup, or a wide bench press. So if you're doing some of those, make sure you're also doing some other exercises with full range of motion.

There are a few exercise you probably don't want to do full range of motion with. One is dumbbell flys. If you're on a workout bench (so your arms can go below your body), you don't want to do full range of motion if your can bend your arms much past your core. I usually stop when the weights in my hands are at or just below my core, or even with the bench. Depending how you think about it. Going much farther could strain or pull some muscles. If you're using a weight that is kind of light for you, then you could go a little farther and hold for a second if you want a good stretch. Which some people like after or before bench pressing.

So usually full range of motion is better for your joints, builds more muscle, and helps a little in flexibility! So why not do it?

I Like a Mixture...

I've noticed that pull-ups and pushups work a bunch of muscles. Which is great for getting fit, but isn't that great for isolation and building up muscle. When I do pushups, I want to build up my chest and shoulders. A problem with push-ups is that they seem to make my arms tired before my chest is really that tired. So the pushup is great workout, but has it's limitations. Another problem (kind of) is that I can do so many reps that it's more toning and building endurance than building up muscle.

I have the same issue with pull-ups. I don't mind the fact that pull-ups build shoulder strength almost more than bicep strength. Biceps aren't very good if you can't use them to their full potential if your shoulders are too weak. The problem I have with then is that I can do a lot of reps. The weighed vest helps, but sometimes the vest pinches or strains my neck muscles when I do pull-ups. A minor issue is that some times I want to isolate my shoulders or my biceps, but I can't with a pull-up.

You know what's very good for isolation? Weights. You can isolate almost any muscle at a gym. You can also use heavy weights. Instead of doing pushups (which is like pushing 50-70% of your body weight) you can use a bench press, which you can lift less than that weight, or more than that weight.

To isolate the back of your shoulders, you can do rows. These are great for pull-ups and pushups. The back of your shoulders are also the counter muscles for your chest. So mixing rows with bench press is a great shoulder and chest workout.

You can also do bicep curls which isolates your biceps, obviously. Mix all of those workouts and it should improve your pushup and pull-up capability.

Now, do NOT quit doing pushups and pull-ups! These don't only work the muscles I listed above, and they also work them all at the same time. I've seen very 'buff' guys on my track team. I was on the stronger end, but still they were much stronger than me. I could do 22 pull-ups then. Most of them couldn't do more than 12. That's probably because they lifted a lot of weights, but didn't do much body weight workouts. It was kind of the same result with pushups. Two of the guys came quite close to my amount of reps though.

So I'd say having a mixture of body weight workouts and weight lifting workouts is a good thing. You can mix them up all in one day, but if you only have a few days at the gym, you may want to do only weights then, and then body weight workouts on your home days.

I'd say over all weight lifting builds certain muscle groups faster, while body weight workouts make you more fit, while strengthening several muscle groups.