Andy's Land of Adventure

The Results So Far

I thought you might like to see a picture of me now that I've been training for a while. What do you think?

Hey Fatty Bum Bum

This week's training has caused me to reach a certain level that I feel needs a mention. If I was to go to a doctors, told them my age, they measured how tall I was and then weighed me, I'd be classed as overweight. That's right, this week my BMI (Body Mass Index) has topped 25, the level that you're classed as overweight between the ages of 20 and 30. It's currently at 26.6, and if I hit 30, which is inevitable in the end, I'll be classed as obese. The funny thing about this is that I only have a body fat percentage now of 14.4% which is lovely and low and in the range of "very healthy". I actually want to get that down further, closer to the 8% mark in order to get that really lean-and-mean look that I'm going for.

Also, my weight has actually gone up by 4kg since I started training 12 weeks ago, but I've lost 5kg of fat, meaning I've put on 9kg of "fat free mass" - basically muscle. That's 19lb for you anti-metric people, or 1.4 stone for people who can only handle little numbers. Up until now I'd not actually calculated this, but seeing that I've put on 1.4 stone of muscle makes me happy. That's a lot. I can really see it working on myself now, and not only look better but feel better too, am more energetic, more fresh and awake and definitely a darn site more healthy.

There's another reason that this is important now, but you're going to have to wait until my next post for that (don't worry, it's coming momentarily)

The Marla To My Durden

When I'm training and am in 'the zone', there are very few things that can put me off. One thing that can though is seeing someone that I know who I didn't expect to be there, and last night that happened, and it couldn't have been a worse person. What could be worse than seeing an ex come into the gym where you train, the place where you call a home away from home where you've gotten to know the people there really well over the last few months. How about an ex that you had a very bad breakup with. How about an ex who you had a very bad breakup with and you had to physically throw out of your house. How about an ex who you had a very bad breakup with and you had to physically throw her out of your house as she'd attacked your house mate whilst drunk. How about an ex who you had a very bad breakup with and you had to physically throw her out of your house as she'd attacked your house mate whilst drunk because she was always drunk, being an alcoholic and a bit of a coke addict. Let me welcome Ellie.

She is the only person on the planet that I would move to a different train carriage just to avoid. There's just something evil in her eyes when she scours at me. I think it might be the fact that she always had that drunken haze plastered on her face, and that she was one of those 'angry drunks'. I met her in a bar in Herne Hill about eight months ago, and after meeting up a couple of times, we dated for a little bit, and it was only then that the cracks started to show. Well, less cracks; more gaping chasms. I realised her 'likes a little drink after work' was actually 'likes three bottles of wine every day after work' and that her amusing quirks were nothing more than the fact that she was always drunk. Even when we went to a party at her dads house she got so battered that she fell over the flower bed, broke a load of glass wear and pretty much passed out on the patio leaving me to carry her home. If I was Edward Norton's character in Fight Club, she would be Marla Singer. She's the rotting nerve on the back of my neck, the tumour at the base of my brain, the cramp in my strained calf.

Since breaking up with her over six months ago now, I've seen her from time to time, usually in Sainsburys and managed to just ignore her, but this morning I saw her on my train to Victoria, though she always used to work in Blackfriars. Obviously I'll try and take the high-road she's moved jobs to up here, but I really hope that she hasn't. She did head to the underground this morning when I saw her, so I'm hoping that the gym encounter was a one off. The thing that made it all worthwhile though was when she saw me at the gym as I'd been there on the hard weights for the last 45 minutes or so, so was pretty pumped up and she looked really shocked when she saw me!

A gym membership - £35 a month
Performance enchancing drugs - £30 a month
Seeing your ex's jaw drop when she sees the shape you're now getting in - Priceless

What 26.2 Does To The Body

As some people know, I'm going to be doing a sprint triathalon later in the year, around September to be precise and in the long run, I'd like to do Iron Man next year. That's the dog's danglies of triathlons with a 5km swim, 180km cycle and 46km run. The fact that you finish with a marathon has got to tell you how gruelling it is, but I'm sure I can get in good enough shape to do it; it's just a matter of being lucky enough to be one of the 600 people picked that can do it.

I was doing some research on the matter and I found some interesting facts about what your body goes through during a standard 26.2 mile (46km) marathon.

At 5 miles
The initial adrenalin kick (which can make you run too fast to start with) will have worn off by now. "The body's natural pain relievers, aka 'runner's high' kick in at about 5 miles" says Craig Sharp, professor of Sports Science at Brunel University. Enjoy it while it lasts.

At 10 miles
"You might start to experience slight cramping at any point from now" says Charlie Pediar, a physiotherapist at the English Institute of Sport. "We still don't fully understand why this occurs, but if it hits you, gentle stretching can help"

At 18 miles
"At 18 miles your glycogen stores run dry and your body's literally running on empty" says Sharp. "Your 'runner's high' is long gone and your body will be actively willing you to give up as starts to draw on 'survival energy'"

At 22 miles
"After 30-35-000 strides, most runner's begin feeling discomfort," says Sharp. "Not surprising as over the course of the marathon your joint absorb four million kg of force - the equivalent of 1000 African elephants," says Pedlar.

At 26.3 miles
"All that force on your body means that runners finish, on average, 2cm shorter than they started," says Pedlar. Luckily you aren't doomed to a live in panto, you'll be back to normal after a night's sleep.

2cm!?! Personally, I think that's amazing that your body shrinks like that. It's a bit like when Concorde stretched up to 20cm when it broke the sound barrier. Apparently it was possible to lose a book in the occurring 'folds' of the plane, but I question that. Maybe a pack of hubba bubba... but a book!?!

Easy Tiger

Yesterday was a good day. Well, the evening part was at least.Me and my new kit hot-footed it down to the gym and I had my most productive session to date. I hit the free-walkers to do my cardio and comfortably bashed out 20 minutes more than my usual trek, which in turn meant that I was bursting with energy when I hit the weights, so I increased all of my weight classes by one (so 32.5kg hammercurls became 37.5kg, 49kg lateral pulldowns became 56kg, 172kg foot press became 190kg... you get the idea) and I still managed three full sets of 15 reps. Maybe it was the extra cardio that did it, maybe my new kit is magic, maybe it was because I was swigging Lucozade Sport or maybe it was just one of those days, but it felt so good. I think I'll stick with the extra cardio and take all the weights up one more class next time so that I fail the third set.

After all that energy releasing, I went home and began on the masking taping of the tiger stripes on the bike. So far, after three hours of taping, I'm bloody chuffed with it, but when I finally gave up just after midnight I was only about half way through. Doing one side isn't too bad, but matching up the 'open' tops and bottoms of the stripes is a right mission I can tell you! I think it's going to look mean once it's done. Hopefully I'll be able to get it finished by tomorrow and sprayed on Sunday (weather permitting). If not, I have Monday off so I'll do it then. So, what do you think?

A New Found Respect

Oh My God, I totally forgot to tell you about Tuesday gym 'experience'. As usual, Tuesday is one of my personal trainer days, and as the gym was a little packed at 6:30pm on Tuesday afternoon, and subsequently most of the weights were in use we decided to do an boxing training session. Let me tell you this for nothing, I have a new found respect for boxers.

In the past, whenever I workout, I workout hard. None of this 'I can't be bothered' rubbish - I really push myself to breaking point; but even so, I've never had a workout like this before. After literally countless twisting medicine ball lunches, pad work on the floor, pad work standing on various unbalanced services, medicine ball rabbit hops, vertical lifts, sit-ups, exploding star-jumps and enough press-ups to give Rocky a sore head I was literally on my last legs. This was made especially hard as part way through my regime, after just completing 40 twisting press-ups up a wobble board, a couple of the staff women came around with hats and Oyster card holders and said to me that if I did 20 press-ups, I could have one of each. Now I'm not one to back down on a challenge - especially to pretty ladies, but my arms were close to falling off. Despite this, I got down again and started forcing them out. I was aching so badly around 15 but with pure determination I forced out the last five and got my prizes. I now use the Oyster card holder (though not the chavvy red cap) to remind myself that I'm capable of things that I might not initially think I can do - and I believe that's a powerful message to remember.

So workout over I went and showered, and was in so much pain I literally had to sit on the floor of the shower for 20 minutes until I could feel my legs again. I was so close be being sick it was untrue, but I just about held myself together. All of yesterday I ached like never before. Everything way sore -  my back, arms, groin, legs, head - hell, even the muscles in my toes were sore, but God did it feel like I'd achieved something. I'm back again today for a health check as I think my working heart-rate is a little high, and my legs and bum muscles are still sore so hopefully that won't effect it. Overall I think it was the hardest physical thing that I've ever had to do, so from now on, I'm doing it every Tuesday!

Mmmmm, Breakfasty

Breakfast for me this morning consisted of four eggs. Thats it until I got to work and had a smoothie with approximately 25 strawberries, 59 raspberries, one and half oranges, two apples and two bananas in it. Oh, and a regular banana too. The thing about the eggs is though is the way to eat them. Personally, I'm a big fan of eggs. They're God's little miracles. I can't think of one other food that can be prepared in so many tasty ways. Scrambled (my favourite), poached, fried, boiled, cooked on a pizza, frazzled in a toastie or whisked into a lovely meringue. But today, I had them natures way, the Rocky Balboa way, the "time to get into shape way", and that is raw! Four eggs, one glass. I have to admit, I've only ever had raw eggs once before, and I don't remember that being the best experience.

That was Christmas 2005 at my last job when we had our Christmas party. We all went to a town hall somewhere in south London and played a load of games for prizes, including games consoles, DVD players, all kinds. Me being me, opted to be one of the captains and after a few hours of fun, embarrassment and exhaustion the final game came around - the Captain's Challenge. So me and seven other captains sat facing our team on a chair in the middle of the room, and soon, a table was put in front of us with various covered items. We were told that we had to reveal them one by one and eat what was under the cloth before moving onto the next one. The first person to eat all of the items would be the winner.

Ready. Set. Go! And we were off. The first plate had a slice on lemon on it which I devoured pretty easily, though later on I discovered I was the only one to eat all of the rind too. The second plate had a garlic clove. Begrudgingly that munched that down and revelled in the fact that I'd have smelly garlic breath for the rest of the night - which I did. Third was the egg in a plastic mug. That slid down but made me gag a little bit. Next was a yam's cake. If anyone ever tells you do eat a yam's cake, don't. It's what I imagine eating human defecation would be like. Next was a lamb's testicle. The thought of this one slowed pretty much everyone down except for me and the guy sitting next to me as we fearlessly munched straight into it. If you could see our smiles it was because we discovered on biting it that it was really a lychii. The final cloth had under it a cracker with a tiny little brown dot in the very centre, and written on the plate was "Da Bomb". Not one to be put off by that I gulped down the cracker, only to have my mouth explode. It turns out Da Bomb is the hottest of hot sauces on the planet, and one droplet is supposed to be used to make four vindaloo curries. The bottle (which we were later shown) strongly advises against human consumption neat - and we'd just eaten it on a cracker. As the last gulp went down I cheered that I'd done it all, but I was beaten literally by under two seconds by the guy next to me. His prize - £2000. I was gutted!

Anyway, off the back of that, it made me realise that raw egg might make me feel like chucking again, so I didn't put all four in the glass - I did them one at a time. The first one made me gag a little bit, so on the second, I drank it rather than gulping it and it went down easily. The third and forth followed with no problem too, so maybe I'll try two at a time tomorrow until I work up to the four at once.

After my adventure in egg land, I went to the gym for about 6:45am and started on the training that Alex set out for me. I did the Wednesday routine, as I'm a day out this week, but will get it back on the 'proper' days next week. I might even repeat the session tonight before going and doing the radio show. But I've noticed one thing. Maybe it's the gym water in the shower, maybe it's the shampoo, or maybe it was the fact I used the blow-drier, but my hair is highly wild and fluffy today! Nice!

It Hurts, It Hurts

After looking into it all a bit more, having suggestions off multiple people (including one mate who's a ex-personal trainer) I now have a revised fitness regime, and to be honest, I'm much happier with it and think it will eventually lead to better results. It is as follows

Monday
30 minutes cardio - perhaps fartlek.
20 minutes weights (superset you do one set of bench (15 reps) then go straight onto lunges without a rest (15 reps) rest 30 secs, repeat 3 times then hit b) then c))
a) Bench Press
a) Lunges
b) Bent-Over Row
b) Squat
c) Crunches
c) Back raise

Wednesday
30 mins cardio - rowing
20 mins weights
a) Squat
a) Closed Grip Bench
b) Chin-up
b) Deadlifts
c) Crunches
c) Bicep Curl

Friday
30 mins Cardio - cycle/swim
20 mins weights
a) Front Squat
a) Shoulder Press
b) Seated row
b) Pec-Deck/Flyes
c) Crunches
c) Press-ups

Sunday
Jogging (optional)

Credit for this routine has to go to Alex Peppis, so thanks for that mate.

So, last night was my first session with the my trainer, and my God did he push me. I was quite good at jockeying me on to pushing out that extra rep, up until the point where there was no point wrecking a good technique by that much just to get a rep out. Despite this though I found him a little uninspiring. He didn't seem to care about anything too much and constantly looked a little distracted. I think I'm going to swap him for something else. It did get to the point though, that when I was getting in the shower, I was unable to lift my arms above my head to wash my hair! It's all part of the required effort though, so I don't mind too much! One thing I found amazing is the instant and seemingly uncontrollable need to impress attractive gym girls (more about them later). When I was on the bench, I didn't think I could squeeze out one more rep, and this girls came and stood by, watching over, and somehow I amassed the strength to do three more. If all personal trainers were hot girls (for the guys at least), I think everybody would see better results!

Anyway, after one day, I've already dissected the gym culture into a few specific groups. They are

Hot gym women
The look good and they know it. They enjoy most of the cardio equipment that allows them to jiggle their assets to the guys who are obviously looking on. Saying this though, there are Hot Gym Women that aren't there for the attention, they're there to exercise. These are the real cream of the gym crop.

The Showoff
The Showoff will usually group with one or two other Showoffs in order to see who can squat the heaviest amount. The have biceps like a normal person has thighs and you know when they walk past as they block out the sun. You can always spot a Showoff when you meet one, because the first thing they will say to you is "So what do you bench".

The I'm Here Because The Doctor Says I Should Be
There's large, extra large and "oh my God it's coming towards us". This kind of gym goer dwarfs the latter category. This massive person will usually span two running machine and lasts 48 seconds without collapsing in on themselves like a neutron star. I have a lot of respect for these people. In a gym, people can feel pressured to look really good compared to everyone else, so if they go and stick at it without feeling intimidated, that's respect worthy.

The Old Man
Every gym must have a mandatory old man who thinks he's still 25. He'll probably tell you that it's the only place he can get away from his wife. He'll probably die at his gym.

The Determined
They're there because they believe that they can make a change for themselves, that they can do something for themselves to make them both feel and look better as well as be healthier. They're the ones making ridiculous faces on the bench press as they use all the will and strength in their body to do one more rep. I think that I'm in this category.

The Slackers
They go to the gym because they signed up on a New Years Day whim and and now bound by the 6 month contract. They don't really want to go, but feel they should so make no effort when they're there. They should stay at home and leave the machines and the weights for the people who really wants to use them.

Then there's everyone else. They turn up, do some running, maybe lift a couple of weights, shower and go home whilst having no effect on anybody around them.

It's an expensive business though this "gym going". Not only did I fork out for the monthly membership, the registration fee and the personal trainer, but I also needed some gym kit, so I went down to Nike Town on Oxford Street and bought some snazzy gear in their sale including a cool yellow semi-sleeveless training top (not quite the one in the picture, but kind of similar) and some three-quarter length navy shorts with little yellow bits on them. I feel very co-ordinated! I got a new towel too in the House of Frasure sale. Only £7 and it's chocolate brown so won't show my blood sweat and tears.

I fear that it will become quite addictive though. Even now I can feel and tingling want to hit a treadmill. I like to run I guess, but I'll keep you posted in the future as to my progress - but you wouldn't expect anything else I suppose