The End Of 2013

Gah I messed up this post when putting up my 2014 goals post!

With 2013 over I wanted to look back on my goals and see how I did.

I set out to:

Travel 2000 kilometres - I went 2228.6! 700+ by running and 1500+ on bike!

Do 50,000 push ups - I only managed slightly over 25,000, I admit I got bored with challenge and it dropped off for me about half way through the year.

Attempt a Try-a-Tri - I actually did a canoe, bike, run triathlon with my dad this year, So i blew away that goal.

Bench press 230 pounds - I did mark this as completed, but it was not with a full range of motion.  I can lift that much, but I'll have to set a newer more defined goal this year.

Complete a 1/2 marathon - This I did!  I didn't do it as part of someone else's event but as part of my own WCP race weekend.  I completed my half marathon distance in less than 2 hours even!

The Christmas Eating Contest Is Over

Right this moment I'm on my way home posting this from my phone as Amber drives.  We are returning from London, Ontario to our home.

In the last seven days I've had 3 Christmas turkey dinners and way too many snacks to even think about.  The only saving grace to all this is that I played hockey last Saturday and will again tonight and I was at the gym on Christmas eve working out and running.

I love getting together work my family and Amber's family, but the week long eating contest that is the Christmas holidays is a bit of a grind food wise and I'm actually glad that this segment of the holidays is over.

Starting tonight with hockey I plan to have 9 days in a row where I am at the gym,  working hard to undo all these calories I have consumed.  I do think that for the most part I did ok though really.  I only ever had one plate of food plus some extra turkey and veggies at each meal.  The killer I am sure are the desserts! So many desserts!

But in the big picture three or four days where I eat too many desserts is the reward for a year of working like a mad man to able to really enjoy that type of thing.  I never feel guilty about food,  I just get excited about the work I'll have to do to earn it again!

The Man Of Steel

I’ve completed one week in which I started the Man of Steel Workout.  I am not going at it with as much gusto as Henry Cavill did but only due to the fact that I do have a full time job apart from working out.

I was at the gym only three times this past week, partly due to commitments early in the week and partly due to the fact that I was puking my guts out Friday night and then asleep for about 80% of Saturday.

All that aside I would say that the workouts are amazing and going well.  It is the first time I have used a workout plan from someone other than Jodi and my body has been aching afterwards!  When I did the Upper body, Chest and Shoulders day I couldn’t even walk comfortably out of the gym.  I couldn’t walk normal out of the gym after ARMS day because my shoulders were so sore!  It was awesome!

The upper body, chest and shoulders day took about 1.5 hours, but was totally worth it.  I did legs day the following day and that took about an hour.  Given that the feature on Man Of Steel said his workouts were about 2.5 hours a day I have to think that either he did a pair of workouts each day, which is plausible or that these workouts lists online are only part of the whole thing, also plausible.

Leg day I found to be difficult but not that bad really and I wonder if it is because I already run and bike so much that my legs recover faster than my arms do.  that said two days later my lower body was killing me, this could have been from the workout of whatever illness ran through me from Friday night to this morning.

I’m very excited to be on this path again where I can feel that I am progressing toward something rather than maintaining or making small gains.  I know I’m not going to come out of this whole experience as pumped up as Cavill was/is but I certainly can already feel myself getting stronger!

Superman

If you haven’t seen Man Of Steel, you should.  Superman punches a lot of things and it’s amazing!  Also Henry Cavill is super buff and there was absolutely zero padding or CG on his actual Superman suit (though the cape is CG most of the time actually, which looks awesome too).

How did Cavill become Superman.  Work.  Unbelievably hard work!  I watched the extras on the Blu-ray and he worked with Mark Twight from Gym Jones and was working out about 2.5 hours a day six days a week.  As an example of how far he came during the process, during one of the interview segments Cavill States that he went from deadlifting 200 and some pounds at the start to nearly 500lbs!  It was awesome to see, him with 4 plates on each end of the bar, the bar itself bending as he lifted.  He filled out that costume well for a reason.

After seeing that feature it got me thinking about if I could be doing that type of thing at the gym.  I don’t have 2.5 hours every day to work out, but I do spend time at the gym often enough to do the same things just spread out a bit more.  So I searched around the internet and found the workouts along with interview bits.  I was a bit surprised to read some of the thing Cavill had to say at first.  Not because they were shocking, but because they mirrored the types of things I was saying when I lost those 80lbs and became more athletic.

For instance,

Cavill:

Mark has opened my eyes to seeing past what I thought was my limits. He understands what I’m going through physically. He understands me, what I go through physically. That’s what makes him such a good trainer.

The training has been a journey of discovery, just like Superman’s journey of discovery. Superman learned how to fly. I learned I could do all sorts of things in the gym, which I never thought was possible. It’s not just the physical things,but a psychological thing as well.

I hear or read that and I think, yeah!  I know what you mean!  It inspired me all over again to find out that a guy like that, who started off deadlifting more than I do now, started off already very strong and fit can go through the same type of self discovery I did getting shape.

I have found the details of the Superman workout and will be putting them to use, six days a week.  I might not have the 2.5 hour block of time in a day that Cavil had, but I have more time overall since I’m not on a movie making deadline.

I’m going to become my own Superman all over again.

Here’s a little snippet of the featurette, pretty cool stuff

Wicked!