Week 4 Progress

Well I am starting week 5 this week and I am at the point of struggling. It isn't easy that is for sure. Last week was the first week of the circuit training. I do a total of 8 different exercises for 45 seconds straight with a 15 second break in between. I do that for 3 rounds. It is extremely hard and I have found myself getting to the point of wanting to puke and feeling very dizzy. It does go away after about 5 minutes, but it does make the workout extremely difficult to get through.

Last week wasn't the greatest week for my workout either I missed a day of working out and a day of aerobic exercise. Otherwise things went well minus what I mentioned above. I must say that the fact I am blogging about the exercises is really helping me stay motivated. I hope that this week will be a better week for me and I plan on really focusing this week and getting all the exercises done. The only downside this week is going to be Halloween, sometimes it is just to hard resist that wonderful chocolate candy. There were slight changes from last week in my stats so it is awesome to see that.

My Stats:
Body Fat % = 25
Bicep (in.) = 14.25
Forearm (in.) = 12
Waist (in.) = 39.5
Chest (in.) = 44
Weight (lbs.) = 202
BMI = 25.2

Ollie Video

This is my first ollie video. It is from days 2 & 3 of learning how to ollie. I added in slow-mo after each ollie to see where I can improve. I really hope to be able to ollie more consistently and higher by the end of the 1st month. I feel like I have gotten a lot better since the first day, I am getting a lot more comfortable with the rolling ollie, but still have some work to do.


Beginning Ollie from Josh Metts on Vimeo.

Week 3 Progress

Another week down and I feel good. I am starting to see a small amount of change in the photos which is always good. My weight is down, and I am headed in the right direction. I definitely fell stronger than before and can feel a difference when I go to exercise. I did really well eating this week, minus yesterday when I had a "bad" meal hamburger and fries. But every once in a while I think you need to eat something like that to keep yourself sane.

It has been fun doing different exercises each week and I am looking forward to the new ones this week. I did miss a day of jogging/running, but did skateboard on those days. It is a lot more tiring than I thought it would be. (Skateboarding) Last weeks workout was a little easier than previous weeks, but still hard since there was an extra superset. (4 instead of 3) On to week 4.

My Stats:
Body Fat % = 25
Bicep (in.) = 13.75
Forearm (in.) = 12
Waist (in.) = 39.75
Chest (in.) = 44
Weight (lbs.) = 202.5
BMI = 25.3

From Workout Progress

From Workout Progress

From Workout Progress

Straighten That Ollie

I have been extremely frustrated the past few days because I could actually ollie (not very high), but my board would always turn to the right causing me to land crooked which wouldn't be good for obvious reasons. Me being the technical person that I am I broke down everything that my body is doing and do a lot of research to figure out what is wrong, did just that. I discovered that the placement of my feet were off by just millimeters. I needed to use the balls of my feet to go straight up and down which in turn keeps the board in a straight line allowing me to land them much cleaner.

This is a huge relief for me cause now I can start focusing on getting more height along with ollieing at different speeds. I am even more excited about progressing even more. Hope to take some video soon.

The Ollie

No that is not me.

As you know I have a new skateboard and I have been riding it the past couple of days minus yesterday because it was raining all day long. It has been a blast and I am having a lot of fun along with a lot of frustration. I am finally over the waveboard feeling when I am riding the board so that makes me feel good. I feel comfortable cruising around on it carving and such.

Right now I am attempting to learn the ollie, the basis for just about every trick on a skateboard. I can ollie decently high standing still, but when I start rolling it is another story. I even struggle when I am standing still with turning slightly in the air. I haven't quite figured out the reason for this turn just yet, but feel I am getting close. I have landed a few rolling ollies successfully and rode away, they weren't very high, but got to start somewhere right. I have read that it can take a long time to learn, but I don't like hearing that. One thing I do like is the challenge to get good at it, it is something that I can continue to practice and I know I will eventually get the hang of it, but I wish I could just pick it up fast.

I might start video taping myself so that I can watch and see what I am doing wrong or right. I will post them online once I start so that you can get a laugh out of it at least, but it will help me to see myself doing them. It will also be nice to be able to look back and see how I have progressed over time. Hopefully I will get better, LOL!!

I didn't realize how tiring it is to just skate around and attempting to ollie. It has also been a great workout for me too, but I am having a blast doing it, unlike some exercises. Although I don't like to look at it like exercise I do realize that it is very good for me and I am really working up a sweat.

New Skateboard

My new skateboard arrived yesterday. I got it put together when it arrived and got a chance to take it outside and skate around on it. It is very, very nice. It is going to be a long road ahead for me to learn tricks, but I greatly look forward to it. One of the hardest things for me to do it get the waveboard feeling out of my head. They are two completely different riding styles, with the waveboard I can turn on a dime, but with the skateboard it is very different. I am very excited about it, only downside is that it is raining today. Enjoy!

Zero Skateboard

Who do you match up with?

While I am not a big political person and don't pay attention to politics at all, I saw this on tv and decided to take the quiz to see which candidate best matched me. Just fun to see how my opinions match up with the candidates. It was only 11 questions.

	Duncan Hunter Score: 40	Agree Taxes Stem-Cell Research Abortion Social Security Line-Item Veto Energy Marriage Death Penalty	Disagree Iraq Immigration Health Care
-- Take the Quiz! --

Week 2 Progress

This last week was pretty hard, but I didn't mind doing any of the exercises. They were tough that is for sure. I get to the last superset and am dying, to the point of feeling faint, but it does go away after a minute or two. The hardest part for me by far is the pull ups, At this point I can only do about 3 without assistance. I do feel like I am getting stronger, because the pushups aren't as hard as they were the 1st week, so I do feel progress there. On interval days when I go for a jog/run I can see a lot of progress in terms of stamina. I can just about jog/run 1.6 miles, when I first started I was dead at a mile and that was just with a steady jog. Where as now I actually jog for 4 minutes, then run, for a minute then back to a jog for 2 minutes, then run for 1 etc... It really feels good to be working out and I can feel myself getting into better shape. It is only after week 2 and I feel a lot better than 2 weeks ago.

Looking forward to starting Week 3 today.

Unfortunately I lost my tape measure so I had to use a string and measure the string, this actually may be more accurate, but it could have thrown off some measurements from before, not sure.

Week 2:
Body Fat %= 26
Bicep (in.)= 13.75
Forearm (in.)= 12
Waist (in.)= 40.5
Chest (in.)= 43.75
Weight (lbs.)= 204.5
BMI= 25.6

From Workout Progress

From Workout Progress

From Workout Progress

Base Jumping Wingsuit (Must See!!)

I just saw this base jumping video on digg.com. These guys are wearing winged suits that allow them to fly, not fall, fly. They fly close to the mountain walls with complete control. Man would this be a rush, would love to get the opportunity to do this sometime!!

Look Forward to Skateboarding

Last night at about midnight I place my order for a new skateboard. As some know I am addicted to board sports and enjoy any sport that uses a board. I have a waveboard which is an absolute blast to carve on it gives me that feeling of being on a snowboard only on concrete. (The only disappointment is the speed at which I go through wheels, and I have used some of the hardest wheels available.) What is lacking on the waveboard is the ability to do tricks. I know that their are plenty of people out there that can do tricks on a waveboard, but it just isn't the same.

I use to skate when I in the 5th and 6th grade loved doing it, but never had a very good board. This was back before they had to lips on them. I had a trashed Santa Cruz board that I found in a parking lot and trust me there was a reason it was left there, but as a 5th grader it didn't matter much to me. My brother and I built some of the sketchiest ramps you would ever see and loved jumping off of them with our skateboards and bikes. I really loved skateboarding back then and look forward to skating again with the "new" stuff.

I decided to give skateboarding another whirl for 2 reasons, 1 I love board sports, 2 I bought the game skate. I love and have played tons of Tony Hawk games, but not a single one of his games ever made me want to get out and skate. The game skate has done that for me, I guess the realism of the game really inspires me and makes me want to learn to skate. I guarantee I am not the only one who bought the game who has had this same thought go thought their head, "I would like to do that." I have decided to act on those feelings and thoughts. What really attracts me to it is the fact that I can skate year round (minus a few extremely cold days), I don't need to go to the mountain, the lake, ocean or have a boat. Will skateboarding beat out my love for snowboarding, I highly doubt it only time will tell. Snowboarding is the best by far, without a doubt, but I have room to include skateboarding.

I did tons of research about different equipment and different parts to find out what the best stuff was. I did pick what I thought was going to be the best equipment for me without breaking the bank. There were some bearings that were $120, blew my mind. (I didn't get those, lol) I did however get a very nice setup in my opinion for $160.


What I got:

• Deck: Zero Thomas Life & Death Deck (I like the graphic and zero brand.)
• Trucks: Tensor Response 5.0 (read really good things about tensor trucks.)
• Wheels: Spitfire Black BigHead Black 52mm (read good things about spitfire and love the logo.)
• Bearings: Bones Swiss 608 6 ball bearings (read Bones are the best and thought the 6 balls was cool compared to the typical 7)
• Grip: Jessup Griptape (read that this and Black Magic were the best, but saw more favoring of Jessup.)
• Hardware: Zero hardware (went with it because of board.)
• Risers: Zero 1/8 inch riser (just in case I decide to put them on.)

I purchased the whole setup using the board builder on www.blackholeboards.com
I have recieved an email saying it shipped today, which is incredibly impressive I guess we will see how long it takes to get here. It was an easy and fun shopping experience.

Oh and I bought Fallen skate shoes which I already got last week. They are awesome and really comfortable and I can't wait to skate with them.

Rodney Mullens Video

Awesome Mountain Board Video

Hilarious Photo!

This photo just cracks me up, very funny!

Week 1 Workout Progress

I was doing great last week till we went to Wichita on Thursday, both eating and exercise. Fortunately I kept up with the exercises and completed Week 1 exercises, but missed one day of aerobic exercise. (Which doesn't make me happy.) Where I completely failed was eating, I at nothing but a whole lot of junk this weekend, a whole lot of pizza and some fried Chinese, along with an a couple of cookies. Needless to say this past weekend can't happen often because it is only going to work against me in the long run.

I can only hope for a better week this week as I start Week 2 exercises today.

While I don't expect changes from week to week I am still going to post my stats and photos:

Week 1:
Body Fat %= 24
BMI= 26
Weight (lbs.)= 208
Waist (in.)= 39.5
Chest (in.)= 42
Bicep (in.)= 13.5
Forearm (in.)= 11.5

Day After

Just a quick little update about how the old body feels. I am extremely sore, all over. I have worked out before by lifting free weights working out upper and lower body, but I don't ever remember me being this sore after the first days workout. Don't get me wrong, I have been sore before from getting back into working out, but never all over at once. Usually when I lifted before my biceps, triceps and chest would be sore, but this is different. My entire core is very sore along with my arm muscles, chest, back, and leg muscles minus my calves. While I don't like being sore, I do know that the soreness means my muscles have been worked over and are broken down and repairing themselves and I am excited about that. I have been so sore that I thought I would put up a quick post to tell that my workout yesterday is without a doubt working.

No Pain, No Gain, Right?

Quick Stats Week 0

Thought I would also post my stats that I am recording each week to track the progress.
(Although I am not sure how accurate they really are posting my Body Fat % & BMI based off the calculators he provides on the website.) Waist is taken from around belly button not where I wear my pants.

• Body Fat % = 24
• BMI = 25.9
• Weight (lbs.) = 207.5
• Waist (in.) = 39
• Chest (in.) = 43
• Bicep (in.) = 13
• Forearm (in.) = 11.5
  

In All My Glory

As humiliating as this is it will help keep me motivated. As I said before I will be posting weekly photos.

Exercise Routine

As I mentioned in a previous post I was going to start exercising to better my health. While jogging and walking are great and all, I want to really optimize my getting into better shape. I think that adding a workout and eating healther are the 2 keys to help speed up the process and really find that healthier lifestyle.

We have a bench, dumbbells and bar bells down stairs, but I have done all those before and I tend to get a little bored with the exercises. After seeing the movie 300 I had a seen their workout routine on youtube. I decided to look further into it and see if it wasn't something that I could implement into my own workout. One thing I liked about what the 300 trainer said was that he changed their exercises one day to the next because the body tends to get use to the one way of doing things and you can hit a plateau not to mention in my case the boredom.

Clicking through all the 300 workout related videos I came across a very appealing video that this trainer had put together of himself. He made a deal saying that he was going to get a six pack in 16 weeks. He had the before and after shots along with video of his routine that he went through and also had a web address to visit to "find out more". First off I know he was a trainer before, but from the before photo to the after photo there was a "huge" difference. Do I believe I can get that same six pack after 16 weeks by following his eating and exercise routine? Probably not, but I do know that it will get me in better shape and help me get leaner which is what I am after.

Honestly I was very skeptical about going to his website, because there is always money involved and some gimmick. I decided to check it out anyways. (mensworkoutguide.com) I read through the site and he said that he was setting this up and you could join to get the workouts that he used, but again stated that there was no catch. I went ahead and joined to check it out. So far I see no gimmicks, no spam, but just a lot of good information to help people get in better shape. The only thing he wants is for us to invite our friends. Obviously there are ads on the pages, but what site doesn't have ads now a days. I got to the routine page and didn't find the 16 week program that I saw on youtube, looked further into it and it is at a different site, but maintained by the same guy. I guess after looking into it further you should start on the 16 week program to get the six pack and then go to the 12 week program to get that Brad Pitt Fight Club body. (iwantsixpackabs.com)

This has got to be the best workout/ exercise website that I have come across in a long time. He provides videos of him demonstrating all the workouts with explanations of them all, how many to do and how often a week. He does it 3X a week MWF kind of thing with Cardio on the off days. I just love how I can see how to do the exercise along with an explanation. He does everything in SuperSets which is faster working out, but extremely tiring, not much rest, helps build that endurance. One thing that really drew me to trying it out was that every week it a different workout, not the same old routine week in and week out. He also uses a 300 style approach to working out, doesn't use a whole lot of weights which cuts down on cost big time. He uses resistance bands, exercise ball and pull up bar mostly. Meaning you don't have to pay for that expensive gym membership can do them all at home.

There is also a very active user group at Google groups. I have been very impressed reading through the material today and am excited to start this routine and see what happens. I already did day 1 of week one and am blown away at how hard it was. I couldn't complete the last Superset, because I was absolutely dead and couldn't hold myself up. (Shows how out of shape I am!) I know I am going to be extremely sore tomorrow. I am going to take photos on a weekly basis to track the change in my body and I have also set up a spreadsheet to track my body size changes. As humiliating as it may be I am going to post the photos on the blog to show the changes. (plus not that many people read it anyways, right) I will post them once I get them taken today. It will also be a way to hold myself accountable, which I definitely need.

Here is the first video that I saw that got me interested, if you get bored with exercise and want to see the before and after they are at the end at about the 2:20 mark. I only hope I can do that whole routine by week 7, OUCH!

Added Search Box

Just wanted to put up a quick post to let everyone know that I have added a search box powered by google as you can see on the right. I was looking around the other day for a way to integrate a search into my blogger blog and came across something called blogger draft. It seems to be a way for bloggers to test out new features that will soon be added to blogger. Anyways it is built into the layout portion of the blogger dashboard and is a module or widget that you just add to the page. I think it is awesome, I love the way that it displays your search directly in the page without taking you to another page. Very, very slick! I can't describe it well enough, but just type in a search about a post that I have made such as xbox 360. It will bring up all the post that I talked about the 360 right in the center of my main blog page. Just check it out very impressive.