It kind of sucks that I have to start this log today. I know what I look like, haha, but I’ve been training on and off for years, and needed to get back on track for the past few months. And since I had the day off, I figured I could start today.
Instead of giving my story first and then describing the goals, I’ll just state my long term goals, since by doing that I’ll have to recount my story. This log will largely be me tracking my path to getting back into shape, and then eventually, getting into better shape than I’ve been in before.
My Goals:
Improving Body Composition: I started full time work in September after graduation this summer, and it’s taken a toll on my fitness. I never realized how good I had it when I was in school–I had loads of time to train. Nowadays on weekdays I have to get out of the house at 7:15ish AM for work and get home at 7:15ish PM. I ended up putting training to the side, ate a worse diet than I ever have, and now I’ve gained around 10 pounds, while losing muscle, and just generally looking a lot worse. I looked pretty fit starting my job, and now I look kind of fat more than anything. It all happened so quickly, too.
Improving Strength: For the same reasons as above, my strength has taken a big hit. However, the thing about strength is, I was never really strong to begin with. I want to get stronger on the major lifts–squat, deadlift, bench press, pull ups.
Fix My Hips: This one is more immediate. I get a lot of pain in my right hip when doing squatting or similar lower body motions, as well as cardio. Pretty much any strenuous lower body activity will leave my right hip in severe pain for at least 5 days afterword, but usually longer than a week.
I’m leaving the long term goals as general as possible, intentionally. I think having specific long-term goals really hurts me. They eventually turn into mental masturbation–an easy way to replace the real thing (actual accomplishment). I use specific long term goals to assuage my nagging urge to make something of myself: I let myself get away with unproductive days by telling myself that it’s okay since I have a great long term plan. Not sure how much sense that makes.
I WILL, however be coming up with short term goals, regularly–at the most a month in the future, but as short as a week. My first short term goal is to get to them gym consistently for the next week. That means AT LEAST 4 times. My work schedule is tough, but I will try to get to the gym in the mornings before work, at 5:00AM.
My split for now will be a simple bodybuilding split. This is it:
Monday: Chest, Abs
Tuesday: Back
Wednesday: Arms, Abs
Thursday: Legs
Friday: Shoulders, Abs
Saturday: OFF
Sunday: OFF
By next week I should have some aesthetic as well as athletic goals for the next few weeks.
