Getting Fit? Planning is Everything!
Next week marks year 17 that I’ve been taking college courses. So far, it’s been a whole lot of work and discovery, done mostly at night and on weekends. Sometimes it has proven to be more of a pain in the ass than most pleasurable ventures, but there is a sense of faith that I have that it will all be worth it. Therefore, I keep going. There is an exam I have scheduled for this Wednesday, January 9th. It’s called a generals examination and my dissertation committee basically decides whether or not I have the mental marbles to continue on toward completion of a Ph.D. or not. I’m confident it’ll go well and I feel pretty positive that my committee members will find me competent and prepared to move forward. This sense of confidence stems not from a misguided and delusional thinking of myself as being better than I am, it comes from the knowledge that I’ve done what is necessary to reach this point. I’ve done it honestly, step-by-step, and as directed. Therefore, understanding that all well-laid plans have more potential for success that ill-conceived, haphazardly developed plans, I move forward with the expectation of success.
So what in the hell does this have to do with working out, eating right and getting physically fit? Honestly? Not much if you’re looking for a direct relationship between that little story and your physical fitness process. But, like all great instruments of education, we often make our point by use of parable or stories that while not directly addressing an issue, allow you to infer from the meaning of the story what is valuable and applicable to your life.
Well known author Alan Lakein once wrote, “failing to plan is planning to fail.”
Being a somewhat skeptical person, I must admit, that I cannot disagree with this particular statement. Why? Well, I cannot disagree with Mr. Lakein’s quote because we all are glaringly aware of the successes that well designed, well executed plans yield. Likewise, we’ve all seen the outcome of many a spontaneous, haphazard plan. Failure is usually the outcome. Of course this is an outcome we who are within in the realm of sanity hope to avoid whenever possible, therefore, when we wish to achieve excellent outcomes, we tend to think things through, weigh the options and prepare a plan that is designed for maximal success. You can almost always bet on the well designed, properly executed plan achieving a positive result. People who plan and execute well tend to be very successful. We all know people who are excellent planners and are known for following their plans until complete, and, we usually feel a sense of confidence in them. I shall explain! I’d like to make a prediction that will be determined in about 24 hours from the present time at which I am writing this blog article.
Alabama is going to crush Notre Dame! 
I say this with a relatively strong sense of confidence. Why? Well, that’s an easy answer for me. Because as a die-hard LSU and SEC (Southeastern Conference) fan, I have seen Nick Saban, head football coach at The University of Alabama, develop game plans for years and have, as you may well know, seen him absolutely dominate most of his opponents. Therefore, given his reputation of planning and execution, I will predict that The University of Alabama Crimson Tide rolls over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in glorious fashion. There you have it! My prediction for the National Championship.
Now back to you and I. You’re already physically fit or you want to be. If you are, then it’s likely you have a plan and stick to it relatively closely. And, I can guess that if you are not physically fit, you do not have a plan. And, if you do have one, you don’t stick to it. I’m not yet a brain surgeon, YET, but I can at least say this probably describes the vast majority of us.
So, the moral to this story my friend is that the most certain way to achieve a physically fit body and lifestyle is to develop a plan. If you can’t develop one for yourself, then get help from someone who can. Sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is to admit we need help and seek it out.
Your plan does not need to be complex or extremely formal. It can be very simple. In fact, my experience tells me that simpler plans tend to be more successful than complex ones. Your plan also needn’t be large and volumous. There are examples of large, very well designed plans out there and you nor I need to try and compete with those. We need to develop fitness plans that leave us enough time to focus on bigger plans as well. Just keep your fitness plan simple. If you want to pray that your fitness plan works well for you then I think that is probably a good thing. Praying is a good thing. Dead lifts are also good things. So are vegetables! Do good things my friend.
With all due respect to the text illustrated above, I recommend stealing other people’s plans whenever possible. I do it all the time. Ok, it’s not exactly stealing, it’s just using other people’s success to help you achieve yours. I like to call it mirroring. If you find a fitness person whose message you enjoy, then by all means copy what they do as a means of becoming fit yourself. Having lived a fit lifestyle since the age of about 9, I’ve been on some kind of plan pretty much all my life. Here I am 27 years later, still trying new things and seeing how they work. The important thing is that we are on a plan. Trying to navigate blindly is not an intelligent approach to living a fitness lifestyle. Get a plan and stick to it! If it works well for you, keep doing it. If you think something else will work better, finish your current plan and move on to another one.
Achieving physical fitness is not unlike the development of anything else that requires time and effort. I’m from the Blue Ridge mountains of southwestern Virginia and back in them hills there are few things that impress someone as much as a well made jar of moonshine. Having some working knowledge in this process I can tell you that good moonshine stills can be made out of just about anything. But one thing they all have in common is a quality design – a plan. Failure to plan your still’s design well could end in a big explosion and no one wants that. The illustrious moonshiner Popcorn Sutton, may he rest in peace, knew that a well designed still was the foundation to a great jar of moonshine – the product of flawless planning and execution. In all seriousness, I just wanted to talk about moonshine in a blog so I chose to use Popcorn Sutton as a modern day illustration of how quality planning yields successful outcomes.
To keep fitness fun, I try new plans all the time. Recently, just to see what I can do in 3 weeks, I decided to follow Dr. John Berardi’s published diet called the Get Shredded Diet. If you go to the site, don’t get caught up and buy the supplements, just read the article. It is described as extremely challenging, but I followed it in great detail for 30 days without a single issue. The carbs are extremely low (around 12%), the protein moderate (about 28%) and the fat percentage hovers around the 60% mark. It’s certainly a “different” approach to dieting to achieve an extremely lean look, but what the hell, I’ve never tried this approach and thought I’d give it a shot. Why? To be on a program is why. I didn’t really get a tremendous result, but I lost some weight, my body fat percentage dropped about 3% and I was never hungry. Even though people claim this diet is extremely difficult to follow, I found it to be quite manageable. If you’re looking for a fun little experiment and don’t have another plan to try, give something like this a shot. It’s fun and you’ll usually make positive gains simply because you’re following a plan instead of winging it.
On December 26, 2012 I began a new diet and exercise program. It looks like this.
Wake-up: Drink 1 liter of water and take my multi-vitamin.
Cook Meal 1, put it into a container and head to Sky.
Hop on some piece of cardiovascular equipment and go at a moderate pace for 30 minutes using small intervals in intensity.
Eat Meal #1: 2 whole eggs, 5 egg whites, 3/4 c. plain oatmeal (dry measure)
3 hours later eat Meal #2: 50g whey protein, 1 tbsp. peanut butter
3 hours later eat Meal #3: 8 oz. ground turkey, 1.5 c. brown rice, 3 c. romaine lettuce, 1 tbsp. olive oil, season the hell out of it to make it tasty, pepper, Tony’s and garlic powder work well.
I usually lift weights for about 50-60 min. at about this time of the day. Train hard, trying to get about 15-20 total sets in. I drink a 5g creatine, 10g Branched Chain Amino Acid drink during the workout and then again after working out.
3 hours later eat Meal #4: 50g whey protein, 1 tbsp. peanut butter
3 hours later eat Meal #5: 8 oz. filet (or grilled chicken), 1 c. brown rice, 3 c. green vegetables, 1 tbsp. olive oil, seasoned like meal #3.
3 hours later eat Meal #6: 8 egg whites, 1/4 c. walnuts
Drink 1 liter of water, with a “greens” supplement powder mixed in it.
Take 2 ZMA capsules.
By the end of the day, I should have consumed about 1.5+ gallons of water, probably closer to 2.
I schedule myself a whole day of eating whatever I wish every 20 days. My next refeed or bump day is Jan. 19th. I also allow myself 1 meal of my choosing just about every weekend. If I’m seeing great progress, I’ll usually skip this “bump” or “cheat” or “refeed” meal but never skip the scheduled refeed day. Stick to the plan!
That’s about it. Not very flashy, nothing too crazy or weird. Most of these foods I can find at a restaurant if I forget my food at home of something. I’ve never really had an issue finding these things in a pinch when time is tight if I happen to accidentally leave my food containers on the counter at home. My dogs (Dea and Sebastian) love this by the way! It’s like a buffet of awesome treats for them to explore and devour. It creates somewhat of a mess but I think it’s cute. And hey! If I don’t want the mess, don’t forget the food. Honestly, restaurant food and home prepared food is not the same, so try to make your foods at home whenever possible.
My weight-lifting workouts are pretty straight forward and look like this:
NOTE: I will do dead lifts, 20 meter bear crawls and 20 meter sprints throughout the week without keeping them on a set schedule. You should too!
Day 1: Legs, Traps & Corrective Exercise
Foam rolling lower body – 10 minutes
1/2 kneeling corrective exercises – 5 minutes
Thoracic spine corrective exercises – 5 minutes
Ankle mobility exercises – 5 minutes
Machine Squats cycle with Standing Calf Raise & Barbell Shrugs – 3 sets of 12 reps
Leg Extension cycle with Lying Leg Curl & Dumbbell Shrugs – 3 sets of 12 reps
Standing Leg Curl alternate with Seated Calf Raise- 3 sets of 12 reps
Walking Lunges – 3 sets of 12 reps
Day 2: Chest, Forearms & Corrective Exercise
Foam rolling upper body – 10 minutes
Shoulder mobility exercises – 5 minutes
Thoracic spine corrective exercises – 5 minutes
Incline Barbell Press alternate with Machine Close Grip Press – 4 sets of 8-15 reps
Cable Cross-over cycle with Low Incline Fly & Dumbbell Wrist Extension – 3 sets of 12 reps
Flat Dumbbell Chest Press & Barbell Wrist Curls (flexion) – 3 sets of 6-10 reps
Day 3: Arms, Abs & Corrective Exercise
Foam rolling lower body – 10 minutes
Hip mobility exercises – 5 minutes
Ankle mobility exercises – 5 minutes
Triceps Press Down alternate with Twisting Dumbbell Curl – 4 sets of 15-20 reps (rest-pause)
Lying Triceps Extension alternate with Preacher Curl – 3 sets of 12 reps (rest-pause)
Overhead Triceps Extension alternate with Concentration Curl – 3 sets of 12 reps (rest-pause)
Decline sit-up giant set with hanging leg raise & dynamic plank – 4 sets of 15 reps
Notice I prefer the rest-pause method of training over dropping weight (drop sets). Sometimes I have to drop weight as fatigue sets in, but I’ll usually opt to put the weight down, rest for 5-20 seconds and continue the set with the same weight if possible.
Day 4: Shoulders, Traps, Calves & Corrective Exercise
Foam rolling upper body – 10 minutes
Shoulder mobility exercises – 5 minutes
C & T-spine mobility exercises – 5 minutes
Dumbbell Laterals cycle with Reverse Grip Shoulder Press & Barbell Shrug – 4 sets of 15 reps (rest-pause)
Seated Barbell Front Raise cycle with Upright Row & Cable Face-pull – 3 sets of 12 reps (rest-pause)
Seated Calf Raise – 4 sets of 15-20 reps
Single-leg Standing Calf Raise – 2 sets of 10-15 reps
Day 5: Back & Corrective Exercise
Foam rolling upper body – 10 minutes
Shoulder mobility exercises – 5 minutes
C & T-spine mobility exercises – 5 minutes
Barbell Row alternate with Assisted Pull-up – 4 sets of 15 reps
Reverse Grip Pull-down alternate with Seated Cable Row – 3 sets of 15 reps)
Heavy Machine Row alternate with Weighted Hyperextension – 3 sets of 12 reps
When motivated, I do not plan a rest day (sometimes called off-day). My plan allows me to place a rest day in at most twice per week and never on consecutive days. My fitness plan allows me this because I can trust myself to rest when I feel my body needs it. Until you are disciplined enough to act in your own best interest without letting a rest day morph into a rest week, schedule rest days accordingly. As a general rule, I recommend the following cycle:
3 days on – 1 day off
2 days on, 1 day off
repeat cycle…
This plan will probably change in late February. I’m working on my next plan now and look forward to seeing how this current plan works for me. I’ve already lost a considerable amount of body fat and have come down from 221 pounds to 207, so things are moving in the right direction.
So let’s commit ourselves to doing the things we need to do to get moving in the right direction in 2013. Planning is key and having a plan that resonates with you and what you want to achieve is important as well. If you have serious bone, joint or physical limitation issues that need to be taken into consideration, I have one resource for you. He’s Canadian and as much as this should be held against him, his inappropriate love of dead lifts keeps me from holding a grudge. You’re in excellent hands. Dean Somerset is the name, save the page if you have medical exercise concerns. Dean was kind enough to fly in from Canada last fall to work with my training teams during one of our annual educational sessions and we benefited greatly from his insight and most sophisticated palate for quality beer.
So there you have it my friends! We all need planning, we all thrive on structure and we all know how far we come based on knowledge of where we’ve been. I challenge you to set a fitness plan and stick to it. If I can offer you one word of advice it is this. Make your fitness plans 20-30 days at a time. I struggle staying focused on things for longer than 30 days so I make my fitness programs to last about 20 days. Of course each consecutive plan must pick up where the last one left off or you’ll just end up going in circles. Be sure your plans lead you in a singular direction – the direction you determine as being successful for you. Fitness success is different for everyone. I encourage you to develop a plan that leads you toward the reality that you feel embodies fitness success.
Rock on!
