So, despite the progress I wrote about in other posts in this blog, a couple of months ago I found myself in the same boat as a lot of people starting a new weight lifting or exercise program: out of shape and dreading the effort to get back in shape.

Get In Shape Lifting Weights?

It worked a year ago, so as I approach… ugh… 49, I thought I should prove the point again that it is entirely possible… If it works for me, it can work for you. Now that it’s June, I’m going to be 49 this month… Where has the time gone? Well, rather than becoming one with my couch or comfy chair, and rationalizing an eventual 40 extra pounds hanging over my belt sometime in the future, I decided to prove a point… To whom, I’m not quite sure. At least to me.

I started lifting weights again in early to mid-April, using very light weights and starting with only one super-set of this free weightlifting routine Vince DelMonte emailed once. It took me until the last Friday in May to have the capacity to get through three super-sets. I did not increase weights on any exercise since I started, looking only to build the stamina and work capacity in my muscles without hurting myself.

Getting Back in Shape

Consistency is key. Lift weights that are too heavy, and you wind up too sore to even move for a week, let alone work out. Been there. Done that. I had to temper my enthusiasm for getting back in shape with realistic expectations of muscle recovery time.

Workout Schedule

I rationalized using the much lighter weights by absolutely sticking to Monday, Wednesday, Friday workouts. To begin, one super-set only requires 15 to 20 minutes. Surely, I can squeeze that in at some point each day…

One Super-Set still kicked my butt

I managed to stick with the schedule… The light weight, limiting my early workouts to one set of each exercise, all contributed to avoiding the feeling that there was no way I could muster the energy to do a workout. More than once I started a workout at 9PM, after putting my two little guys to bed. But, I knew I’d be done in 15 minutes… it was completely do-able. No, I don’t recommend working out at 9PM, but during this ramp-up, it was essential I stuck to the schedule.

Increasing Workout Intensity

With each workout, however “light,” I tried to ratchet the intensity up a notch. The first couple left me dragging the next day. I was sore, not too sore to move, just lacked energy and felt pretty tired.
When I noticed that I felt better going in to the next workout, knowing I was sticking with one set, I forced myself to minimize the time between exercises.

I felt like I was getting back in shape fairly quickly, so I added the second set gradually. How did I do that? To be honest, I dreaded the second set of squats especially… So to ease my apprehension, I again rationalized with myself that I wouldn’t push too, too hard and only did five reps for the second set instead of 15. I did that twice, for two workouts, and then dove into full second sets.

With each workout, I tried increasing the intensity just a little.

I did two sets for two weeks, and then added the third. I was going to continue the gradual ramp up, and only do 5 reps, but absent-mindedly did 15 deadlifts to start the third set… The gauntlet was thrown! So I gave it a shot, and surprised myself by finishing. yes, I felt pretty tired for a couple of days, but had done that on a Friday, and had two days off…

Can you build muscle with light weights?

Yes! Next question? lol
It’s all in the intensity. If there’s one thing I learned from all the Vince DelMonte material, it’s that our bodies respond to intense workouts by releasing growth hormone… I haven’t been building muscle as fast as I was last July, but intend to get there once again. Intensity is a function of the stress our bodies are used to, and the new stresses our bodies experience…

I’ve had to extend the time I’m taking to “ramp up” to high intensity. That is, I’m gradually increasing the stress I routinely experience. Even though it’s slower than I’d like, I am making progress every workout.

So, now I’m in the same boat as a lot of guys and girls in their mid and late forties: demanding family life, jobs that require hours sitting at a computer or in a conference room chair, and an hour or more each day driving to and from the sedentary job…. with no regular exercise.

I do have an advantage, though…. I know that I eased back in to weightlifting with bodybuilding intensity only a year ago, and in a relatively short time, got some fantastic results.

I’m only three workouts into it. I’m a little jealous of guys who’ve been hitting the gym consistently all winter…
My endurance is way off. My left shoulder bugs me when I’m doing dumbbell presses. As lame as it sounds, I think I irritated my rotator cuff throwing snowballs with my boys. So, just like all of my readers who are wondering how to get back in shape without hurting themselves, I intend to be very careful rebuilding my work capacity.

How Many Sets? How Many Reps?

Based on my experience with the free routine Vince DelMonte either emailed or posted on his blog, I am going to build up to three sets of 15 reps using lighter weights before I increase weight and boost my workout intensity.

“Three sets of fifteen reps? That’ll kill me!”
-That makes two of us. When I said I was three workouts into my road back to high intensity exercise, it’s because one time through the routine with super light weights made walking and living really tough for at least three days after. I worked out one day two weeks ago, then recovered for a week. Last week, same deal but to a slightly lesser degree. I worked out today… and will report later this week how I fared. I do hope to be able to do the same workout Wednesday evening.

Isolate Muscles or Compound Exercise?

I am a huge fan of the full body compound exercise workout. It is extremely efficient. I need efficient.
It is also very difficult. This is not a “get fit without even breaking a sweat” nonsense routine. The premise behind the routine is this: place a brief (45 to 90 minutes), intense demand on your body, and it will react and adapt in preparation for the next similar demand.

How?

Your body responds to the “shock” by building muscle. It does this by producing its own all-natural growth hormone. Do your glands secrete growth hormone if you do isolation exercises like bicep curls? It must. However, don’t you think your body would have a proportional response to the amount of strain it experiences? If every muscle in your body has been exercised and fatigued, it makes sense that in a proportional response, your body would make and secrete more growth hormone. I am going to have to research this assumption… It’s just that it worked so well for me last year…

Compound exercises are great because you have to use many muscles to stabilize or contribute to the motion you are executing. Take rows, for example. On a row machine at a gym, your back, abdominal, and leg muscles rest comfortably while you pull handles and your chest presses against a pad. With a bent-over row, your leg, back and abdominal muscles work very hard to keep you standing and in proper form while you raise and lower the weight. It’s a much more intense experience from your body’s perspective.

Same deal for squats vs. a leg press machine… All the minor muscles in your legs work very hard to maintain their position, and your arms hold the bar in place, and your back and abs work to keep your position so you don’t fall over… which would suck. On a leg press machine, you wouldn’t get nearly the same involvement outside your quads.

How Do I Start a New Weight Routine?

This is for all of you who haven’t worked out in ages:
First, make sure you are healthy enough to exercise… Ask your doctor. I’m trying to inspire you to get in shape, not kill yourself.
Be patient! This routine will work like magic if you get to the point you can start ratcheting up the intensity. You will have to build up your endurance in every muscle in your body.

Can you stand in a doorway and, holding on to the wall with both hands, do 15 squats? 15 push ups?
If not, don’t get down on yourself! You’re trying to figure out how to get back in shape… that is an amazing first step! Congratulate yourself and read on:

Here’s the basic routine:
In rapid succession, with as little rest between each exercise as possible:
Deadlift
Bench press or push up
Squat
Bent over row
the Clean
overhead press
Chopper
Pull down
dip
bent leg raises

If you’ve not exercised in 10 years, your barbell should be a broomstick at most. Your push up can be done off a set of stairs, so you’re not flat. To start doing squats, hang on a doorway to stabilize yourself for the squats. Your goal should be ramping up your repetitions using good form until you can do 15 of each.

Bent leg raises deserve special note: You are notgoing to raise your legs from the floor. Start lying on your back with your feet in the air, knees slightly bent. Slowly push your lower back into the floor to lift your hips. Maybe you can do this on the floor in front of a heavy couch or your bed, so you can hold on to it reaching backward, or you can put your hands under your butt or to your side. Drive your feet towards the ceiling, and slowly lower your hips to your starting point. As you get stronger, you can lower your feet a little, rotating your hips slightly to increase range of motion. Never lower them enough to force your back to arch.

The wood chopper: as you get stronger, it will be a barbell plate. To start, use a textbook. Check out the video of Vince DelMonte doing them with the plate. To build up for dips, sit on stairs, with your feet flat on the floor, legs bent, and put your hands on the stair higher than the one you’re sitting on. Press up to straight arms, lower yourself as far as you can as long as you can press yourself back up to straight arms.

For deadlifts and overhead presses: use dumbbells. If you don’t have dumbbells, use two plastic milk jugs filled with water. Get creative.

If it’s been that long: Do one repetition of every exercise. Get the motion down.

Do one of these “sets” Monday, again on Weds, and finally on Friday. Build up to 15 squats with a broomstick, 15 full pushups, etc. Remember, going from exercise to exercise to exercise doing a “superset” completely changes the nature of this workout! It amplifies the intensity by orders of magnitude. The goal should not be to be able to do 15 pushups and 5 dips. 15 of every exercise…

When you can do a full superset of 15 of each exercise in rapid succession, the next goal will be two supersets on each of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Then three. Once you have three, you can add weight. Can you see how this routine can kick your butt?

And here’s something else to ponder: Growth hormone is the best-known metabolic agent that causes you to burn body fat. So, not only will you be building muscle, which burns more energy than fat, you will be introducing your own completely safe and natural growth hormone which causes your body to burn fat for energy.

To summarize:
Yes you can get in shape lifting weights! Supersets will fast-track your results.
Ramp up to three supersets. Once you’re at three supersets, you’ll be able to make a big difference in your body in six weeks if you’re willing to work at it.
Any questions?

In my 30s, I lifted weights regularly, but apparently wasted a lot of time.  I did full body routines, and although I got some benefit, I can’t help but think, “what if I knew then what I know now?”  But I won’t dwell on that.  It’s not productive.  What I take away from that experience is that there’s a lot of new or recent research that doesn’t get a whole lot of coverage in most of the muscle magazines.  (Actually, I stopped reading them a looooonngg time ago, except while burning time in an airport newsstand waiting for a flight.)  Fortunately there are some guys who studied kinesiology and as a result, know the new material and are selling courses on the Internet.  It is from these courses I re-learned how the human body responds to physical demands placed on it.  Really.

I can vouch for the general theories because I tested them on myself.  I am somewhat surprised, honestly, that I am making the gains I am.   And, I have to admit, I regularly stack the deck against myself by not getting enough sleep, not eating six small, well planned meals a day at regular times, and not maintaining a regular enough workout schedule.   If I want to see how far I can take this, I have to work my schedule and commitments to address these “enemies” of progress.  But that’s more a “bodybuilding” goal than a commitment to being in shape.

Today, after writing the most recent bodybuilding over 40 post, I got to work out, starting at 6:30PM.   It was perhaps the latest start since I began this “experiment” in late May.  It was the second workout with weights that are perhaps too heavy for me for the five by five workout routine of compound exercises.  I had increased my weights in a fit of frustration of not sticking to a good schedule.  Since I had done a full workout with these weights, I didn’t want to “go backwards.”  Being late in the day, the weights all felt heavier than they were upon the initial lift.  I was hungry.  I was somewhat tired.  I didn’t want to wait until Monday for the next workout.  I’ve broken that tendency and habit, and don’t feel like going back there.

But, despite it all, I finished in under 90 minutes.  Not that I’m patting myself on the back, but it occurred to me that I am doing supersets of compound exercises now using weights that are very close to my old one set maximum weights.  However, I might be pushing too close to the edge of failure.  I’ll stick with these weights until I can complete this in 60 minutes.  I don’t want to hurt myself and wreck progress.  I do have the tendency of getting muscle knots in my right shoulder and trapezius, a leftover from breaking my collarbone umpteen years ago.  That, coupled with near failure on the last set, can lead to bad form, jerky motions, and torn cartilage.  No thanks. I might rethink the military press weight, though, as I reflect on that.

Since it’s mid-August, and I started about mid-May, I’ve been on this path for three months.  I did not have 20 or 40 or more pounds to lose when I started.  I had been living a somewhat sedentary lifestyle, though.  Getting my “wind” back was tough, but it came back.  I looked for any sign I was “packing on 40 pounds of lean muscle” on my scale, but have stayed in the 185 pound range.  Now I wish I had done a body mass analysis and learned what percentage fat I had.   The reason?  My post-workout pump today surprised me again.  Again, I looked larger than I’ve ever been.  I jumped on the scale…. about 185.  You’re kidding, right?  No.  So my percentage fat has to be dropping as I’ve obviously built muscle.

On one hand, it’s taken me perhaps two months to “get back in shape,” whatever that means.  At three months, I’m still going, improving my fitness level.   And, instead of just getting skinny, I’m getting stronger and more muscular.  One more oddity: after a year, my alopecia (big bald spots that “forced” me to shave my head) is fading.  The biggest bald spot had remained unchanged since two different dermatologists blasted it full of some steroid or another a little over a year ago.  My hair was thinning, and I’ll keep it short, but the biggest bald spot is easily less than half as large as it was before I started lifting weights.  Could this be a benefit of forcing my body to release its own growth hormone?  It very well could.

I know I can carry my three year old around without thinking twice about it.  That’s my motivation.  I can carry my five year old, or toss him in the air as he howls with laughter.  That’s my motivation, too.  I can undertake any repair, construction, or landscaping project without worrying about hurting myself because I haven’t lifted anything heavier than my laptop in years.  I don’t fear a heart attack from shoveling snow.  My commercial lawnmower weighs almost 500 pounds.  You get the point.

What does “back in shape” mean to each of us?  At 25 years old, it might have meant having a great body to attract and meet someone special.  At 35 or 45 it might mean just being able to walk the dog without getting winded.  It might just mean a healthy blood pressure.  One aspect of it has to include the strength of our heart muscles and avoiding diabetes.  If you could get into the best shape of your life now, no matter what age, why wouldn’t you?  Could it be fear of failure?  It would require effort….  Is that it?  It can’t be a fear of the time commitment.  I’m proving it doesn’t take much time for the basic mechanisms to work.  True, I didn’t start with an extra 40 pounds of fat to burn, but I am 48.  The biological mechanisms work.

I have read great workout routines that take even less time and still get you to hit the right intensity to build muscle and burn fat.  I signed up to a bazillion mailing lists and have been getting information from several other authors and trainers besides Vince DelMonte.  They all have been saying similar things about muscle building being far better than low-intensity “typical” cardio exercises like running for getting in shape, and most have degrees in kinesiology.  There are some interesting exercises and routines.  I’ll gather some routines for bodyweight routines for muscle gain and fat loss, and post them in the not-too distant future.

All I know is that this week marked the transition into five sets of five reps of each exercise.

We went away for the Fourth of July holiday weekend, and stayed with family right near Cape Cod. Let’s just let it suffice to say I did not eat or sleep all that well… but I had a heck of a lot of sorely needed fun.

We were all a bit wiped out on Monday, and made the call that this week would be a Tues-Thurs-Sat workout week. It turned out that my wife’s schedule changed, so we haven’t worked out together yet this week. Tuesday’s workout had a huge break after the first set. I can’t remember exactly, but I know it had something to do with the boys. So, as I re-started the routine on set two, my perspective on weights was a little off. I increased weight on a couple of exercises I may not have if I’d never had that break.

Today I finished the five sets of five reps in one hour and 15 to 20 minutes. I had increased weight on a few of the exercises, pushing hard. I read the free “Insane Muscle Gain” report from Vince DelMonte and was inspired to up my intensity. Mind you, I only had about 4 hours of sleep…

In trying to figure out how many reps for the body weight exercises like dips I should do, I figured that I should probably try to do just a little more than last week’s 4 sets of 10 reps, so I settled on 5 sets of 9 for dips. 45 dips on the day… and I pulled it off, without compromised form.

In fact, the reduction in reps to five helped a lot for all the exercises. I tried pushing up the weights I use for every other exercise… Success!

The intensity of the superset workout can not be understated. I have read more and more about intense resistance training having more cardio benefit than hours on a treadmill or bike. The clincher I read today: If you can actually watch television (at a gym) while you’re “working out,” you’re not working anywhere remotely near the intensity you should be for any benefit. I can’t argue with that one bit.

Maybe I worked too close to “failure” over the last couple of weeks doing ten reps, but with the five reps, it seemed easier to just get five out and get on to the next exercise. It felt like a different kind of intensity doing the more rapid transition from muscle group to muscle group. I quickly began to sweat profusely… There’s a psychological benefit to “I only have to do five?” which I find encourages me to push harder through reps with the extra weight.

Tonight I’ll definitely get more sleep, and tomorrow I’ll finish my first week of 5 x 5. Today is the 10th of July… so seven or so weeks into it since May 18… and I’m using weights nearly double what I started this program with on most exercises. I have to admit that when I started, I didn’t think I had this kind of reserve left in me, nor did I think I’d progress as fast as I have. I’m enjoying progress!

What I had forgotten was the number of reps/set, rest, and number of supersets per week.

I think my inability to get through more than one superset during that first week threw me for a loop. My old habits included doing a set, and then waiting until I was good and ready to do another set.. of the same exercise. Blasting from one exercise to another with only 60 seconds rest was just something I hadn’t done. Ever. And, make no mistake, when you try it with compound exercises for the first time, you’ll find it’s tough too.

It took me about four weeks to catch on that the routine required changing the number of reps/exercise and supersets done every two weeks. I think there was also a promo around that time that consisted of a 12 week, transform-your-body-contest open to anyone purchasing the program. Since I thought this free video workout was a 12 week program at three supersets of 15 reps per exercise, I’d say I mixed them all up.

So, here’s what it’s supposed to be:
3 sets of 15 reps/exercise for two weeks
4 sets of 10 reps/exercise for two weeks
5 sets of 5 reps/exercise for two weeks

For the exercises… a couple of caveats first:
I work out in my basement, and I’m tall enough that I can not do a standing military press without hitting the ceiling. I also own a Hoist home gym that has a weight stack for pulldowns. I otherwise don’t have a good place for pullups/chinups.

Deadlift
Flat barbell bench press
Squat
Bent over row
Clean
Seated dumbbell military press
Plate Chopper
Pull downs
Dips
Reverse Incline Leg Raises

And this, dear readers, is a killer weight lifting routine.

At the end of the routine, I have more often than not added oblique crunches, two or three sets per side. I’ve also added one pass through a shoulder superset with really light weight a few times. My shoulders have always been a weak spot in my mind.

Check out proper form, and review the rest/repetition info in these free workout routine videos.

Again, if you’re just getting back in shape, be careful! Even with very light weights, you will be shocked at how hard you work to do a superset if you’ve never done one. Don’t give up if it takes a few weeks to get do three supersets of 15 reps per exercise. This workout routine will rapidly transform your body.

For those getting back in shape: I’d suggest getting to the point or fitness level where you can do three sets…. THEN consider yourself “starting” this workout routine, doing two weeks of sets of 15 reps, then going to 4 sets of 10, then 5 of 5.

Let me know how you do!

I did feel a bit self-conscious when I used the term “bodybuilding” to describe my efforts. After all, I don’t own a speedo and I’m not going to shave my chest or my legs… but I am working hard on building muscle. I’m not just toning. I’m lifting. I’m not just doing a few sets of bench presses and squats to maintain my current muscle mass. I’m going through a routine, increasing weight and intensity, to grow.

I guess it was a bit of a sanity check that led me out into the big, bad world of relentless nonsense on bodybuilding. One blog post written by some pro bodybuilder talked about weights to use if you are over 40 and going to start training again… I could swear I read “for the bench, pick a light weight, about 225lbs, to re-introduce yourself to training.”

I can’t even imagine trying lifting my old maximum workout weights… especially doing supersets of compound exercises. But I started light, and built up some endurance, and strength, and am making great progress. It’s not about “benching 200″ which was a high school taunt… (I can’t remember what my old max bench weight ever was, because I was doing inclines for the years I tried the Mentzer routine.) It’s not about the weight, or the reps, it’s about building muscle. If I can do it with a 10 pound dumbbell, doing the crazy shoulder superset at the end of my workout, that’s what it is.

If you’re thinking about getting back in shape yourself, go for it! Start with really light weights… maybe even “just the bar” so you can get your form down and ease into it so you don’t hurt yourself. There’d be not much worse than getting all psyched up to start building muscle again and have to stop because you hurt your shoulder, for example.

I’ve been healthy, not gaining much weight, no hypertension, etc, so it was a lot easier for me to get back in to a routine. Still, it took me four weeks to get to three times through DelMonte’s superset routine. So if you’ve not done any exercise lately, make sure your doctor clears you, and start fast walking or biking to get your heart used to beating hard. Then, I’d do the routine I started with, and go once through it. When you change your old training method from “waiting around until I recover as much as possible to do the next set of the same exercise” model to the superset model, your body will change quickly.

Tomorrow, if I don’t actually get the sore throat bug going through my family, I’ll start the second week of 4 by 10. Need some sleep too, so with that, I’m off for tonight.

All things equal, for whatever reason, my elbows have been aching a little, so something had to give.  I wanted to sub another compound exercise  for the clean, and settled on the upright row.

I’ve read all about “muscle confusion” and “turbulence training” and even DelMonte talks about switching up routines.  I didn’t figure I’d change the routine until I finished with the 12-week-transform-your-body-routine…  You know, try to power through to measure “before” and “after” results of that one routine…  but I couldn’t figure out what kicked my butt so badly.  Today was one of the days I dreaded when I used to think about getting back in shape… sore, achy everywhere, tired.  We had a bug run through the rest of the family this past week, so I thought I might be getting sick.  For all I know I am, but my shoulders really ached with soreness today.

Then it dawned on me… besides being the end of the first week of doing 4 sets of 10 reps for each exercise of the super set, I wanted something different to work obliques… side crunches didn’t seem to be doing it for me.  so I had added twisting cable pulls.  I had forgotten.  I had seen the exercise in one of DelMonte’s promotional videos.

I had gotten a false sense of security with compound exercises, and added another for obliques.  It might have been a bit much.

I did two sets for each side, since it was the end of a very tough workout.  That explains a lot of soreness.

I don’t think I mentioned this yet, but when I went back to look through the original videos, I realized I had been missing a couple of important details about doing the routine.  Off the top of my head, I think I was supposed to do three sets of 15 for only two weeks, or maybe three, then go to 4 sets of 10 for two weeks, then to 5 sets of 5.  It took me and my wife three full weeks to get to the point we could even finish the superset routine 3 times.  So we’re a little “behind schedule.” No big deal, though, progress is still huge.  Yesterday I got two sets of ten dips followed by two sets of 9.  Never would I have believed you if you told me I’d be able to do 38 dips in one day.  So, there is progress.

One more week of 4 sets with 10 reps each exercise… Still don’t have the diet thing down, but still making progress.

We only managed to work out Tuesday and Saturday.  Both days we got through three sets of the routine.  Both days I got more unassisted dips done than ever before.  That felt good.  Building endurance through weight training is a route I really never would have considered before signing on to Vince DelMontes’ program.   I would have hopped on my bike.  I should do that, and will, but have given priority to trying to get my garage and workshop in order.  Lame, but it really is out of control.

I’m still making great gains.  It’s still just under a month, and I’m still increasing weights on exercises even though I’ve struggled to complete three sets in under an hour.  Maybe tomorrow, or later today I should say, I’ll keep all the weights the same as my workout yesterday.   This time, I definitely recovered better, again reminding me that I’m making progress.  Last week at this time I was in dire shape with muscle knots and far more tired.   If I can get through the routine in an hour or less, I’d be convinced I’m improving my endurance tremendously.

I’m 6′ 2+” and started working out weighing just over 180 pounds.  I was only able to do a couple of body weight dips when we started working out, especially since they are near the end of the routine.  I’ll “weigh in” again tomorrow, but I think I was a leaner 185 this morning.

If the kids sleep, and I wrap this up soon, I’ll be getting about 6 hours of sleep, which unfortunately, is a lot for me.

Enough for today’s update.   I need sleep to push myself tomorrow.

I had started writing the first post last Wednesday, and edited it yesterday, shortly after finishing that workout.  I cleaned up a few typos and posted it this morning.  I”m going to try to make this one quick…

As I mentioned in the first post, Friday was the first I got through three sets of the compound exercise workout.  I’ve had a hard time balancing DelMonte’s instruction to “create an oxygen debt,” and determining how much weight to use for each exercise.  For me, there’s a little trial and error involved… I hadn’t been working out regularly before starting this up, and my old habits included training to failure each set.  I knew I had to lower the weight I’d normally do, but I didn’t know how much.

Since I am 47, soon to be 48, and am aware I’m not yet in great shape, I only did one set of the “circuit” for the first three, maybe four workouts.  Yes, I want to get in shape fast, but I don’t want to kill myself in the process.  The instructions include allowing the least rest possible between exercises, which is new for me.  I used to rest until I was good and ready to put everything I had into the next set.  Starting a set already out of breath really decreased my capacity for that set.  But, I recognize, as I’m trying to suck all the oxygen out of the atmosphere, that the “least rest possible” between sets REALLY amplifies the cardio effect and benefit of the routine.

I struggled the couple of times I tried to do two sets.  I felt super tired halfway through the second pass through the routine, and took more time and recovered a little before starting the next exercise.

This past Wednesday, June 3, actually, I did two sets, and had even increased the weight on a couple of exercises. I felt it the next day.

My wife and I agreed our goal Friday would be doing all three sets, so I reduced the weights I used, reverting back to what I started to use when I began. Even with this, I hit a MAJOR cardio wall.  Since I had decreased my weights, I forced myself to finish all three.  I took longer and longer between exercises on the third pass through the routine, but I was determined.

I said it was tough in the first post.  My lungs were burning I was breathing so hard.  But, in line with the thought that our bodies will try to adapt to new requirements we impose, I felt good that I was really in new territory.  I did catch myself getting a little sloppy in my form on a couple of reps, though. So if you’re thinking about starting this up, remember that good form will prevent injuries.

Ok, so it’s Saturday, and I’m sore, and feel a little tired, but it’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  My forearms are the most sore, and that’s ok.  I want to get some strength and endurance in them because my next order of business is to get playing my guitar again.  My wife said she felt a little tired, but not too sore… yet.  She started off in much better cardio shape than me, and that advantage may be showing.  One thing I do have to say, though, is that my muscles were more pumped than perhaps they’d ever been. Maybe I’m just not remembering my old workout days all that well, but I felt huge. My inner 16 year-old self dug that!

Since I’m not a crumpled heap on my couch, I’ve got a lingering renovation project I’m going to try to finish. I might have to change the oil in our cars, though… and replace the belt on the lawnmower. It never stops.

It’s only been three weeks… and I know I’m getting in shape.  I’ve lost a good deal of my admittedly not-too-large love handles, I’m standing up straighter, and have more energy.  I am digging this routine…  DelMonte Fitness

Of course, it’s easy for me to say now, since three weeks ago I somehow wound up following “bodybuilding” instructions and a course I found online.  Happily married and turning 48 this month, every once in a while I ask myself… “why?”  There’s no secret ‘mid-life crisis’ here, but there are a lot of reasons that all added up to a “geez, I’d better start something serious.”  Maybe you can relate.

Getting in shape always sounds a lot easier than it always turns out to be.  My career has had me sitting at a desk typing away on a computer for the last several years, much like a lot of people, I suppose.  Although I eat a lot, I never gained much weight.  That lulled me into a false sense of security.  Each of the last few years I’ve ridden my bike fairly regularly once spring and summer rolled around, but each year it seemed harder to get to the point my usual five-mile ride felt like good exercise and not so much effort that it wiped me out for a couple of days afterwards.  In early May, we had warm weather for a week, so I took the bike out, loaded the kids into the bike trailer, and took my first ride of the year.  I nearly tossed a lung way before the halfway point of my usual ride.  Considering a steep hill I’d have to climb at the end of the “course,” I decided I had to turn around and take the more gentle hill back to our house.  That was a disappointing “first.”

I always have a couple of constant, nagging thoughts and reminders that I really need to get back in shape and maintain a good level of physical fitness.  In 1996 I had my left ankle rebuilt… complete ligament reconstruction.  For the first time recently, I began feeling a pull in my heel bone, where the “replacement” ligament was stapled.  (“Crissman-Snook” ligament reconstruction procedure.)  That freaked me out.  I spent over a year in physical therapy after that operation, and absolutely refuse to get to the point I jeopardize all that work because my leg muscles, tendons and ligaments have adapted to a desk chair in which I sit 10 hours a day.  If you sit with your legs bent so long every day, your hamstrings and their tendons shorten if you don’t actively stretch.  Another lingering side effect of the repair is that my legs tighten unevenly if I don’t stretch, which I obviously hadn’t been doing.

A couple of years ago I neglected to maintain good enough tone and flexibility and managed to suffer a repetitive motion injury. I tore cartilage in my left knee.  I had 20% of my left meniscus removed in August of 2007.  Recently, doing another house renovation project, I felt a pull under my right kneecap.

So about eight weeks ago I began feeling I had to do something, and that it was “now or never.”  I have two young boys at home, whom I’ve nicknamed Captain and Kid Chaos.  You can imagine what it takes to keep up with them.  I also really started thinking about what it would take to be able to remain active, playing with, and coaching them in various sports for the next 20 years.  They are not going to have a couch potato for a father.  It took me long enough to get to this point in my life, and I’m not going to screw this up.

I used to lift weights and work out fairly regularly.  Thinking about it, though, it now must be ten years ago that I did it consistently.  I wasn’t necessarily a bodybuilder, actually far from it.  I could keep some muscle mass on my body if I worked at it, but I always tended to be skinny.  I was all set to resume the “same old” workout routine I crafted after reading a course I bought a long time ago by Mike Mentzer.  He was a pro bodybuilder in the 70s and maybe the 80s. I had gotten decent results following his course, although it took me a lot to recover from those workouts once I go going.

I was looking for extra motivation to start lifting again.  I really just wanted to get in shape and get into a maintenance routine.  Maybe I’d get a little more muscular in the process and that would have been fine.  When I went looking for any new bodybuilding writings from Mentzer (his fanaticism for the work of the narcissist Ayn Rand really got in the way sometimes), possibly an update to his course, especially an updated guide on how to ease back into a training routine, I learned he was dead.  His brother, another champion bodybuilder he trained, had died too, both of some kind of organ failure.  They all tried steroids in the 70s and 80s, it seems, and that always catches up to you. (Complete guess on my part, but the “coincidence” is kinda strong.)

As usual, I resorted to “the Google” for my quest.   To make a VERY long story shorter,  I checked out a couple of things I found, and really liked what I read on Vince Delmonte’s sales web site above all the others.  It seemed to build upon what I had come to know from Mentzer.  By all means, check out Vince DelMonte’s site here.  (But please come back!)

I knew there were conflicts of interest in all the muscle magazines, but I didn’t realize all the supplement companies were owned by all the “fitness” or muscle magazine companies.  The other thing that broke down my skepticism was how he explained how ridiculous it was to try to follow a pro bodybuilder’s routine if you have normal genetics and don’t use illegal steroids.  I read a few of those routines in that “google quest,” and they were ridiculous.  I know 15 sets of anything, for example, would absolutely KILL me.   He made sense.

I went back to his site and submitted my email address to subscribe to his email newsletter.

I got a few videos and a few emails over the first two weeks, and he wrote a few things that put me over the edge and got me exercising using a few of his principles.

First: I didn’t know that growth hormone is one of the best triggers of our fat-burning mechanisms. I didn’t know that at all, and I harbored some suspicion about the truth of that claim.  But, DelMonte’s explanation as to how pro bodybuilders get so ripped with little enough cardio so as to not lose muscle mass made sense… growth hormone.  So, he continued, OUR choices are to either risk everything in our lives and inject it like professional “bodybuilders,”  or train to a point our bodies release it naturally.  In other words, TRAIN REALLY HARD. I recongized this thinking from my old reference point.  Mentzer had advocated training to failure. In other words, push so hard on each set that you would be unable to finish the last rep.  At that point, he argued, our bodies would learn that they were inadequate to complete what we had to do, and would adapt by growing muscle.  He made a weaker case about bodies working hard to grow muscle, resulting in some fat burning phenomenon, but no direct correlation.  In the 20 or more years since Mentzer’s book, there’s obviously been a lot of controversy and research into hormones.

Secondly, in another email, DelMonte linked a free video of himself demonstrating a full body workout of all “compound” exercises.  In other words, exercises that worked more than one specific muscle.  He made a great case for compound exercises.  He laid out how fast to do them, how many sets and how many reps for maximum benefit.  My mind had been fairly rigidly set on the traditional muscle isolation exercises, and my old Mentzer course, but he made a great case.  It looked like a routine I could do without killing myself.  There were fewer exercises than in my old routine, and I thought I’d be able to handle it no problem.

I figured I’d give it a shot.

My wife had been listening to me talk endlessly about all I had learned, and she wanted to get going on a program too.  She had followed a routine I had laid out for her many years ago, liked what it did for her, and wanted me to write up a new one.  She agreed to try out this free routine in DelMonte’s video.  We started three weeks ago, and the quick response of our bodies has been pretty amazing.  It’s been really helpful to have a workout partner remind me to get over the feelings of being “not really up for” lifting.  Invaluable, actually.

Which brings me to this blog…

Why blog about it?  This is yet another element in my motivation arsenal.  This is going to keep me honest.  I’ll even post “before” pictures of myself.  Soon.  You may be able to imagine my reluctance about this.

But bodybuilding over 40? Or, in my case, at 48?  Why?  Why not?  A little naturally-occurring growth hormone in my system might help me feel like the 25 year old I think of myself as.  Honestly, I’m a little concerned about my ability to recover as I kick up the intensity of my workouts. I don’t know if I’ll get enough sleep to recover, or be able to move after an intense workout.  Actually, I’m concerned about my ability to move two days after an intense workout.  I suppose these fears kept me from re-starting my old Mentzer routine.  The compound exercise workout seemed like a good place to start.  I’m interested in testing the growth-hormone-as-the-best-fat-burning-agent theory.  My wife’s interested in testing that one too.  We both want more energy so we’re better parents, and getting in shape is the best way we can think of to boost our energy levels without extreme amounts of coffee.  We’d both been in a lot better shape 10 years ago, and we both would like to get back to that level of fitness at a minimum.  This bodybuilding course seems like a great path to our goals.

On my next post I’ll talk more about the workout.  Today was the first day I actually was able to do three passes through the routine.  It. Was. Tough.  It was also only the 7th workout since May 18th.  We’re both already seeing progress.  It’s kinda fun.  However, since this is the first time I did three sets of everything, I am concerned about being able to move tomorrow…  I’ll let you know.

In case you missed the link above, you can get to DelMonte’s site here.