My fitness progress was put on hold about a month ago when I sustained a rotator cuff injury after a day of shoulders followed by biceps/tricep workouts. Saw my chiropractor, had some adjustments, but he suggested rest as my best option. So, I did give it rest for a week and tried to get back into it, but I found it sore. And then I gave it another week, did the same thing and it still bothered me. Sounds like the definition of insanity..doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

So I relinquished myself to the "cardio" side of the gym since I couldn't be trusted in the weight room. I see my friends over there day after day, lifting weights and building muscle, and all I can do for now is run on the treadmill, eliptical machine, and do my spin classes. I started to sink into a bit of depression because I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to lift again.

Yesterday was my 47th birthday and I "retested" myself based on 4 physical fitness tests, and body measurements. The results are what they are:

On 6/4, I averaged a heart rate of 110 after performing 3 minutes of "step-ups" on a 12" riser.
On 7/18, the heart rate averaged 130. That's an increase in my heart rate of 18%, not what I had hoped for. Not sure why my heart rate is worse after 6 weeks of cardio.

On 6/4, I completed military style push-ups to failure of 29.
On 7/18, I performed 39. That's an increase of 34%.

On 6/4, I performed 50 situps in a 1 minute time frame.
On 7/18, I performed 60. That's an increase of 20%.

Sorry for the sabbatical, but my life's gotten busy. I have been keeping a weight training schedule of 2 days on and one day off, rotating to different body parts. I'm also working on my HIIT cardio 3-4 days a week, now building up from 20 minutes (last week) to 30 minutes (next week). Another thing I'm doing is tracking my workouts by adding a column to my workout printout showing me the last set of reps/weights for an exercise.

The biggest change I've made is in my diet/eating habits and I'm loving it. (yeah, yeah....I finally listened to your advice) I follow this basic eating plan and eat non-starchy vegetables at my last meal of the day. It's pretty easy to follow as I can prepare alot of my food ahead of time and just create a meal by grabbing containers. I was always afraid of carbs and focused strictly on getting my protein, but as you can see I'm focused on whole foods for 4 of my 6 meals and only supplementing with protein shakes before/after my workouts.

Well the battery replacement worked great. My heart monitor is now back on line. Had a great workout last night in my SPIN class (430 calories) and then my strength class (480 calories) for a total of 910 calories burned ! That's the most I've done in a 75 minute workout session. Better double check and make sure I put in the right battery!

Went to the gym this morning for a leg workout. No one was in the weight room, so I confiscated 4 machines and did a circuit of 3 rotations for 3 sets each of 10-15 reps on the seated calf machine, smith squats/lunges, standing calf machine, and hack squat. After finishing that rotation, I walked (or climbed) on the Stair Treadmill (the one where the steps are on a conveyer belt and appear at the top of the machine and disappear at the bottom) for 10 minutes (sometimes skipping 2 steps) and climbed 23 stories. Then I got my 100 raised leg crunches in (some straight, some oblique) and hit the shower!

Oh, no, its just my battery in my heart monitor that needs replacing. Jumped on the treadmill yesterday morning for a run and noticed my heart rate didn't go above 90. I thought, "Hey I'm getting fit" so I pushed the speed up on the machine and the rate dropped to 60. Something fishy here, I thought. So I readjusted it and it still didn't help. I've only had the monitor for 3 months, but who knows how long it sat on the shelf at the store with the battery already installed. Now my youngest son can figure out how to take it apart so we can replace the battery.

Only ran for 10 minutes on the treadmill as my left knee was bothering me. I was hoping it wouldn't as I ran 20 minutes on it while on vacation and walked quite a bit. So I moved over to the eliptical machine to finish my cardio workout and did that for another 30 minutes. 40 minutes of cardio was great.

Vacation was great. It rained so hard when we arrived that they shut down the removing of luggage from the airplane. After 30 minutes of waiting, I left my wife and son at the airport and retrieved the convertible ... a Ford Mustang (boy, did that go through the gas !)

By the end of the 2nd day, the rain had stopped and we dropped our son off with a friend in Estero, FL and returned to our condo in Orlando. Ate pretty good, but since I knew Julia would make me do push-ups for splurging, I figured Tiramasu for dessert would be my indulgence one night. It was a double serving so I'll do 50 on Tuesday.

This morning I had a great 35 minute leg workout: squats, leg press, dead lifts, leg extensions, leg curls, seated calf raises, and standing calf raises. Followed by 20 minutes of High Intensity Cardio, a quick 5 minute ab routine and 15 minutes in the dry sauna (oh....that felt good)

I've been simply doing my cardio at a pretty steady pace (around 75-80% of my MHR) for the past couple of weeks. Well I jumped back on the treadmill and did a High Intensity 20 minute walk / run.

What I do is walk at a slow pace (I started at 2mph) for 1 minute, then kick it up to 3mph for another minute, then 4mph for a minute, and 5mph for another minute, etc. When this 5 minute interval is done, I drop the speed back down to 2mph. But on the next interval, I jump immediately to 4mph (skipping the 3mph) and do that for 1 minute, then 5mph for a minute .... On the 3rd interval, I start at 2mph (always the starting point), and jump to 5mph for my next minute, then 6mph .... Below is a better diagram:

Went to my gym last night to get my body fat tested in the BodPod. If you'd like to check it out, go to www.bodpod.com. I had to wear my Speedo because they told me that wearing cotton screwed up the readings. I asked them if people have been known to spontaneously combust if they wore cotton underwear! LOL.

Anyway, the director I set the test up with forget I was coming in, so my "Turn/Burn" instructor did my test (she said she didn't minda as long as I wasn't shy in front of her in my Speedo :) The test was interesting as you have to weigh in (it said 181.3 but I contest that because I weighed 177 at home that morning and 176 at the gym scale after my morning workout), then they place this canister in the machine itself to calibrate it, then you jump in. They have a variety of tests they can do while in the machine and she chose one of them to do and ran it twice (I guess the machine averages the results).

The weekend for me had its ups and down...including our weather. It would rain (great for the gardens) and then it was nice, then it would rain some more. Hard to plan outdoor activities.

My workouts were great. Saturday I started with weight training: Legs, back, biceps, & traps, followed by 30 minutes of cardio. I wanted to quit at 20 minutes, but knew you guys would kick my butt if I did, so I pushed through.
The one thing I've noticed is my left elbow and knee have been bothering me so I have to protect them during my workouts (watch the lunges and squats and do cardio on the eliptical---at least for now)

What I like most about Fridays is the fact that I get to spend about 2 hours at my gym working out. It's my SPIN/Yoga morning so I have to get there early to sign up for a bike. I began the day doing a 30 minute workout on the weight machines working my chest and back trying to keep to 30 seconds of rest in between sets and completing 4 sets per machine. Then I spent 5 minutes stretching before SPIN class. I jumped on my bike 10 minutes early to "warm it up" and by the end of class my heart monitor read 530 calories burned. Whoo hoo!

Then my favorite part of the morning, Yoga. That's because my wife has committed to joining me every Friday morning (and some Tuesdays as well) for this class.

Went to my spin/core strengthening class last night (affectionately titled "TURN & BURN") where I spend 30 minutes spinning followed by a total body workout with weights for another 30 minutes. But the instructor did not show up (short of). Jill moved the class from Tues to Weds starting in June, but the gym published a new "summer" schedule starting after Memorial Day. There were 3 of us that showed up and I figured out how to turn on the music system but it was playing some "lame" CD. Hey at least it was music.

The 3 of us "made it up" as we went along, but I'll tell you, the workout is alot different when the instructor is there pushing you. Well Jill did show up about 25 minutes into our workout. She was next door in the another studio training a college student. She apologized for the mix up mentioning she held class on Tuesday but was willing to do a 40 minute "BURN" class with us.

Yesterday was a good day, even though I didn't make it to the gym for a workout. My wife purchased new bicycles for us to ride when we don't make it to the gym or if we seen enough "iron" for a while. We took them out and rode them for 20 minutes last night just to break them in. Fortunately, they're tearing up alot of streets right around our home so there was little traffic. I don't remember the last time I rode a bike outside of spin class.

Even though I didn't hit the gym, I followed my diet/calorie plan:

Target = 35g Fat / 210g Carbs / 210 g Protein
Actual = 42g Fat / 231g Carbs / 188 g Protein

Hello to my fellow fitness bloggers.

This is a new adventure for me as I embark into the world of blogging. I have been "working out" for the past 5-6 years and have recently dropped my weight from 225 down to 175.

I'm working hard to track my nutrition, take my supplements, and to get the the gym on a consistent basis so I can begin to see some "new" results.

I've been "stuck" at the 180'ish range for a while and really want to drop my body fat into the mid teens. When I measure myself at home, I'm right around 24% body fat, but I'm definitely no expert. I've noticed my gym has a "bod pod" which measures your body composition without dunking you into a tank of water or using a measuring caliper. So I need to check that out so I know where I'm at and get measured as I progress throughout the summer.