Cool Idiot's Quest to Get Ripped

[CoolIdiot]

Well, slight exaggeration, getting ripped would take years of dedicated working out, diet and conviction. I do not intend for this blog to last years! Although that would be nice!

As is important in such endeavours long term and short term goals are imperative. So here goes:

Long Term:

Increase body weight by one stone (6.5kg)
Create a 'defined' look
Greatly increase my CV

- 6.5kg some might say is not a lot but as my current body dimensions are 172cm tall (5"8) and 60kg heavy (9st) it is obvious to those that who know something about the human body that I do not have a lot of fat. With online body fat calculators (which I don't really trust) my bf is between 2%, 4% and.. 32% . Those are the results from three independant online body fat calculators.

-'defined look' vague I grant you but this really means that I want to be putting on lean muscle not just weight.

-My CV is quite average atm, I can run fairly well (mile time of ~ 4 minutes 30) and I am a fairly good cyclist but not as good as I could be or would like to be. Hopefully i may be able at sme point to join a cycling club.

Short Term:

Construct my home gym.
Gain the upperhand in the struggle with my diet

-Time is limited and past attempts at going to gyms have ended in failure just because of time. I love it at gyms but travelling and such is a real ball ache, add this to assignments and the gym is a no go.
-Atm my diet is all over the shop. I elected to live at home for my first year in university so that I could keep my well paid job so I am at the mercy of my mothers cooking which is very good but far too much junk food for my liking.


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So, there's my initial goals, this blog/ diary is more than open to others' input and I would greatly appreciate lots of comments in this thread.

First things first would be to get hold of some equipment which will enable me to further my goals. I think that I have decided on the following although this, as anything, is open for feedback.

-Olympic bar - (5 feet or 6) Not actually sure if I need a 6 foot one as anything to keep expenses down would be adviseable.
-Bench - should be able to rotate from flat to 90 degrees.
- Power rack - Probably the most important piece of equipment. This should ensure that I can safely workout on my own with exercises such as bench press and squats.
- Weight - i'll probably plump for 60kg (my body weight) possibly a bit more as I may have others using it.

Thanks for reading guys. Please reply.

[CoolIdiot]

Well guys, that's my equipment ordered. In the end I got an absolutely amazing deal on a full gym so I jumped at it. That's coming Tuesday so ive got five days to get myself ready to immediately start my challenge. There is also an exercise bike coming into the household which I may aswell make use of.

So, my diet. Half the battle. Recently I have gone to the effort of making sure that I find the time to eat breakfast.

Breakfast - Porridge

Mid morning - Yoghurt and banana

Dinner - Normally a sandwich of some sort. I will try to make this a chicken/ turkey/ tuna sandwich.

Tea - I said in my first post that takeaways and junk food usually rule tea. I can't tell you how much I have campaigned for meat and veg, pasta and chicken. This I really will change, even cooking meals for myself different to that of my family.

Supper - Here I will cut the crap, no excess sweets/chocolate/ crisps. If anyone has any ideas for a quick beneficial snack on a night then that's great.

[CoolIdiot]

OK, friday. This is the closest I have ever come to writing a diary so I might aswell make this into one of them aswell. Had a nice 3hr round trip to hand an assignment in today, short of time I grabbed some fast food at the train station Hopefully I made it up with my Porridge and a nice healthy tea. Lots of fruit needs eating so that's what i'll be having later.

Good news, excercise bike is coming tomorrow hopefully. A nice 30 minute burn on that, high resistance should be squeezed in, definately if I can get these bloody assignments finished tonight. I plan to do some bodyweight excercises as a bit of a test to see where i'm at in terms of strength. Ideas are welcome as always.

Right, I think that's all for today. Catch you tomorrow boys.

[CoolIdiot]

Three days until my gym gets here, in the end I got an absolutely fantastic deal on a multi-gym half price free delivery! I was also finding it hard to a) pick up weight at a decent price and b) get hold of a power rack which would enable me to work out alone and not have someone spot for me.

I have managed to out together some pointers as to my current strength after a 10hr shift probably isn't the best time to do this

comfortable - 25 pressups
bit of a struggle - 30/35 pressups
absolute maximum - ~40

comfortable - 30/40 Ab crunches
bit of a struggle - ~50/60 Ab crunches
absolute maximum -~80

I haven't been able to do pull ups for a while, I pulled the bar I used to do them off the wall
I was able to do around 10 of them though, I will of course be aiming to be able to do a lot more of these.


Not much to report today but 3 days to go!

Oh, and the blooming bike still isn't here!

[CoolIdiot]

The gym is here! Unfortunately it is flat packed, should be up by tonight. It came with a handy poster showing the different exercises, 30! And 100kg of weight. Very good for a multi gym. I can do a workout 3 days a week, should I do a full body workout 3 days a week or split my body into three parts?