Bust your butt and work them LEGS!

I've been noticing the various benefits that my body has been reaping in from a good leg work out. My lower back is feeling stronger than ever (still some aches and pains through the sciatics), my core and stability is more on point, my movements are more swift and quicker, my legs are able to carry me further when I go long distance running (managed a 15km run last night) and my whole body in general is feeling 'iron-like' - hahaha I am unstoppable!!

"'When you work your legs you're essentially working the entire body. When performing a set of a compund lower body exercise.Take the squat, leg press or deadlift exercises for example; just think of how many muscles you're contracting throughout your body, other than your legs. Even if they are only being isometrically contracted (i.e. flexed but not moving), these other muscle groups receive enough mucles fibre stimulation for enhanced size and strength development".  - Body Building

I have laid out some simple leg exercises that you can execute at home.

Back Squat

This multi-joint exercise is a great foundation exercise for building overall power and strength.

Compound exercise - it directly works the gluteals, quadriceps and hamstrings. Isometrically contracts all other parts of the body.


No No's:

• Do not round your back or lean forward.
• Don't allow your head to look down and your knees to turn in.

Barbel Front Squat

Similar to the back squat, however, as the 

weight is on the front of your shoulders it

demands a more upright body posture. This

places more emphasis on your quads and 

core.

No No's:

• Do not allow your heels to lift off the floor
• Do not drop your elbows or let them touch

your knees at the bottom of the lift.

• Never sacrifice good technique by overloading

with weights.

Bulgarian Dumbbell Split Squat

This exercise is valuable for hip mobility, balance and good shoulder posture as well as strength in your quads and gluts. By holding dumbbells it gives you a lower centre of gravity and improves stability.

Focus and concentrate on your gaze level and do not bend your back.

Overhead Barbell Lunge

Lateral Lunge

This movement works the whole body. It is excellent for developing strength and power.

Be gone!! inner wobbly things of DEATH!!!

When performed correctly you'll be able to feel that bitey/painful sensation when you push up through your heels. 

You can start without the weights and progress up to the desired weight

There are so many different leg workouts, but now that you have a general idea get on pumping!!!

Remember to keep that core activated...AT ALL TIMES!!!!

Launch the HULK!

OH~ how corny was that title..=S

But yes, I've officially begun BULK phase....(oh gosh)

If you've read my previous posts, I briefly explained how I was trying to get up to my maintenance calories

Maintenance calories - CHECKED!                  "CHEERING"

Now moving on, bulk phase will consist of - 

• Focus will be shifted from cardio to weight sessions. I will be doing 5 weight sessions with 2 cardio workouts. This will be a massive challenge as I am a cardio freak! Thinking about only doing 2 sessions a week is already burning me.
• Build more lean mass (47kgs is still a good amount that I have already but we'll see how much more I can build)
• Clean eating with 1 cheat meal/week
• Macro-nutrients will be: 

P - 170g

C - 150g

F - 50g

SF - 21g (atm the diet I've planned only consists of 10g, but lower the better for this)

Calories - 1700-1900

After speaking with a couple of people and recommendations from the results of my DEXA dietary requirements, I came to a decision that it'd be better for me to continue bulking for the next 4-6 weeks. The reasons behind this is because: 

1. More lean mass = more energy burn
2. So that my body is able to stabilise a bit longer on a higher calorie intake. If I was to reduce my calories already (only been about 4 weeks since I reached 1200cals and only 1 week since I reached 1600cals). I don't think it'll be much of a shock factor to my body...My measurements haven't gone up since increasing my cals which is a good sign, but I guess I'll have to experiment with this new phase. 

All this food is quite overwhelming, no joke! I am eating 24/7(I'm surprised no-one judges me at work LOL)

But i'm going to push through, KICK SOME BUTT and get this block over and done with!!! If this strategy fails and I gain a hideous amount of weight *shrieks* I'm going to go into hiding forever!! I kid I kid....All about trial and error and I guess if it does fail it's a 4 week loss out of whole life span! RIGHT?!?! =S

Anyway, I'm leaving here with a snapshot of a meal I had on saturday, post hill Sprint session (SESSION OF DEATH)

Grilled Snapper and Spinach salad drizzled with balsamic vinegar

Slight adjustments

After a couple of days on this new intense training schedule I feel like my body is ready for more food...oh WAIT!......it's screaming for more fuel!!! I thought my body wouldn't be able to handle 1400-1600cals (portion wise) yet but I definitely underestimated this idea (chucks paper out the window). 

Also, I've decided not to take the L-Carnitine and have removed the protein shakes. Couple of reasons why I removed the shake is because  -

1.  I was only using it temporarily because it was easier for me to drink a shake then down a piece of chicken every 3hrs (I'm getting better at this!! WOOT!!). 

2. It also made me feel bloated at times 

3. By having real food I'll get my digestive system working i.e. get that metabolism soaring. 

The body needs to work harder to digest food rather than a liquid.

So now my diet looks something like this:

1400-1600 cals

Macros:

P - 160g

C - 90-100g (increased the carbs because of the amount of cardio I am doing)

F - 35-40g

Post Workout - 6am

Apple

or

Natural yoghurt

Breakfast - 745am

Egg omelette (1 white + 1 yolk) + Chicken breast 50g with vegetables and 3/4cup brown rice

Snack - 1045am

Tuna and avocado salad

Lunch - 145pm

Chicken breast and veggies with 1/2cup brown rice

Snack - 445pm

15 raw almonds

Dinner - 745pm

Chicken breast and veggies

Training wise, I'm STRUGGLING to do the HIIT in the mornings so I've simply swapped them around. So I do weights in the mornings and do HIIT at night. SO MUCH BETTER!!! gaahhh do I hate mornings =[ Ah~ just got to get into routine and I'll be fine >.<

Testing it out...

I find it so strange that I find it extremely challenging to hit my calorie/macronutrient targets as many people who 'diet' struggle to eat within their maintenance calorie limits and find themselves overeating which leads to them being overweight.

For the last 3 years I have been consuming between 400-800 calories a day and one of the reasons for me being overweight is because and I am sure you are familiar with this concept, "starvation mode" YUP! my body is STORING everything and I mean EVERYTHING!!!!!!! arggghhhhh......(punch me now).

With a terrible combination of overexercising and under eating how could my body possibly want release anything! (geez how did I not know this? DUH!!)

I have been recommended to intake 1600 cals a day! HOLY GEEBNUTS!!! is this a TRUCKLOAD of food or what!!!! I found it really hard to transition from 800 cals to 1600 both mentally (this is still a battle for me) and physically to digest the large amounts of food.

After consulting with my PT we decided to take it slowly and increase it every couple of weeks.

We've been increasing it slowly since the beginning of Jan and I am currently sitting on about 1200 a day. Hopefully within a couple of weeks or so I'll be at 1600 to maximisie the extra fuel to build some lean mass and burn the FATTT!! AHOO!

This is an example of my eating and training schedule -
I weigh all my food (I'm freak like that, Judging?) to suit all my macro nutrients.

Diet - About 1200Cals
Macro's
P - 180g
C - 80g
F - 20g

Breakfast - 745am

4 egg white omelette +50g of chicken breast with spinach and broccoli with either 1/2 cup of cooked brown rice or 1 cup of cooked oats
2 x Fish Oil

Snack - 1045am

Whey Protein pancake with natural yoghurt

or

Small piece of fruit with nuts

Lunch - 145pm

Sweet potato spinach salad with protein(tuna, chicken, prawns etc)
1 x Fish Oil

Snack - 5pm

Whey Protein Shake with small handful of raw almonds
1 x L-Carnitine (Pre Workout)

Dinner - 730-8pm

Protein (chicken, red meat, shellfish etc) and Veggies

Note: At the moment I am incorporating protein powders because it is quick and easy and also because I struggle to eat all the portions. Once I get that all sorted I'll be off the shakes . If you are not a supplement kind of person you could easily substitute it with whole food protein based snacks.

I also only it organic natural foods and I most definitely have 1 cheat meal or 4 small snack cheats throughout the week

Training

Monday
445am - Cardio

530pm - Chest and Back

Tuesday

530pm - Legs (Back Physio)

Wednesday 
445am - Cardio

530pm - Shoulders and arms

Thursday 

530pm - Legs and back (Back Physio)

Friday

530pm - Chest, Shoulders and Triceps

Saturday

8am - Legs

Afternoon - Cardio

Sunday

I try and use this as a rest day but most of the time I get too restless so I workout, but it's only light.

It's been a week since I added in the morning workouts and I can tell yah now it takes alot of fudgin WILL power to get up!!! I think I snooze at least 5 times! But I'm ready to kick butt right, left, centre, all directions you can think of baby!!

I'll see how I go with this.....eeekkkk

Bored?---> Try out HIIT

Sick of running on the treadmill/elliptical for hours and hours or you simply need a quickie before you meet up with bunch of friends and you have no time to hit the gym??? TRY THIS OUT! Something I just mashed up. It'll seriously get your HEART RATE screaming for its dear life....


You can use the 'Tabata' method (20sec intense exercise followed by a 10sec rest) but I find that 20sec is just too short. So I set my interval timer on for 30 sec exercise 10 sec rest and then 1 minute rest between each set.
So this is what it looks like.


Do a quick 5-10 minute warm up: jog, jumping jack etc


30sec - Jump Rope (boxing style)
10sec rest
30 sec - Burpees
10sec rest
30 sec - Jump Rope
10 sec rest
30sec - Burpees
10sec rest
30sec - Jump Rope
10sec 
30sec - Burpee
1 minute rest.


So basically you're alternating between Jump Rope and whatever exercise you plan to perform(3 sets)  


Continuing on...


3 x 30sec - Chair Dips (alternating with the Jump Rope)
3 x 30sec - Jump Knee Tucks (alternating with the Jump Rope)
3 x 30sec - Elevated/Decline Push-ups (alternating with the Jump Rope)
3 x 30sec - Jumping Split Squats (alternating with the jump rope)
3 x 30sec - Dumbbell Lawnmowers  ("   ")
3 x 30sec - Squat kicks ("   ")
3 x 30sec - Dumbbell 2 arm Tricep Kickbacks ("   ")
3 x 30sec - Max Speed Turning Kicks ("   ")
3 x 30sec - Dumbbell French press ("   ")
3 x 30sec - Dumbell walking lunges ("   ")
3 x 30sec - Jumping Knee Tucks ("  ")
3 x 30sec - Sprint for your LIFE!!


These are some examples of what you could incorporate into your HIIT workout! You will probably need to adjust the workout times and rest times according to your fitness level. Just don't forget to push yourself to the point where you are pulling those horrid facial expressions and for some the big GRUNTS....you need to feel the burn buRN BURN baby!!




Benefits of HIIT

• Saves time
• Increase in Cardiovascular function
• Increase in Strength Power and Speed
• Significant reductions in body fat and insulin resistance
• Increase VO2 Max (Maximum amount of oxygen you can uptake during exercise)
• Prevents injuries
• Activation of the fast twitch muscle, resulting in more muscle mass. More muscle mass the higher your RMR

On another note I've mentioned all the benefits of HIIT training, however, endurance exercises are also beneficial for fitness and health. (it just takes longer). 

I sure do love my looooooonnnnggg runs. Yes, it takes longer but this sort of exercise helps me recover from all the tough weight and HIIT sessions whilst still burning that stubborn FAT.

I tend to rotate between HIIT 2 times a week, Long distance 2-3times a week and 5-6 weight sessions (detailed schedule to come).