Progress Report

Right. Here's the deal. It has been almost 4 weeks since I started training almost on a daily basis. My aim was to:

1. Improve my lifts (squat, deadlift, benchbress, overhead press)
2. Not detest running
3. Improve my pull up numbers

Improve my lifts

On this front, I'm pretty pleased with my progress. My squats have improved by 50%. Another way to look at it is I am squatting 89% of my bodyweight. With Kasey's help I hope to increase the numbers even further.

Deadlifts have improved by 29%. I am lifting 1.49% of my bodyweight.

Not so happy about my benchpress. Seems like it's not progressing as much as I'd like it to. We've been training more on dumbbell presses because the barbell is always being used everytime it's my benchpress day.

My dumbbell presses have only increased by 2.5kg. When previously I was pressing 10kg dumbbells, now I'm pressing 12.5kg dumbbells. Not too impressive. Will try to work on it more.

Overhead presses. Still doing about 22kg overhead presses. Kasey has not focused much on overhead presses yet. He was more concerned with my squats for this past month. Maybe in the next phase he'll focus more on upper body.

Not Detest Running

I don't hate running anymore. Don't love it either. More like I'm indifferent to it now. Running is just running.

According to Kasey I've been doing really well on this front. When previously I go about on a snail's pace, now I can actually run pretty quick.

Haa... the other day's routine was pretty brutal in my lowly standards. 4 rounds of running with 3 reps of pull ups and 3 reps of push ups right smack in between.

In other words... run until the halfway mark, rest 10 seconds then do 3 reps of pullups continued by 3 reps of push ups then continue running. Do that for four rounds.

Kasey finally made me cry. I've a feeling after this I'll be crying even more frequently.

Improve my Pull-ups

Pullups are the bane of my existence. I thought I could do 2 reps of pull ups previously. Turns out it was not the case. I wasn't in a deadhang position (for my starting position) so it doesn't count. I can't do even one friggin' pull-up. But we're getting there.

I can do chin-ups though.

Kasey says my arms are trailing behind i.e. they're not as strong as my other muscles. Hence strengthening my suspicion that the next phase will have more focus on upper body strength.

Other Updates

1. I have not weighed myself. I think I've gained weight because my clothes are tighter now. My friends also mentioned I look a bit bigger. Maybe I'll go visit my doc tomorrow at his clinic and ask if I can weigh myself there (I'm cheap, sue me).
2. The no supplements policy has not affected my performance. Maybe before this I was too reliant on supplements and forgot that I can get my nutrients the regular way: by stuffing my face. I won't lie and say it is easy to eat a lot. It is frigging hard. And there are many times I feel like puking. But just like anything else in fitness and life in general, there's an art and strategy to eating a lot. And I'm just starting to get the hang of it.
3. I just bought my bottle of multivitamins last night. Let's see if I can make it a habit to eat at least one tiny tablet each day.
4. Oh yes one more thing... I didn't actually gain fat. The other day I wrote that I gained fat. It was actually bloatedness. Didn't realize I was nearing the time of the month. My tummy's all slimmed down again now.

p/s I long for the day when I can actually say that I am athletic.