Beyond Bounds Blog

As I mentioned in my last post, one of my main goals is to exercise daily and reach 100 push ups and 300 crunches within 30 days.  In this post I will detail the workout routine that I will be using. Here is a picture of my current shape:

I was almost not going to put my picture up, out of embarrassment as I used to be in really great shape, but also because it is very personal; however, I think making it personal is what gives me the extra drive to succeed.  If I don’t post a success story within 30 days and another picture of my new sexy body, I’ll be forever remembered like this!

I am fat.  To American standards I’m not that bad, but if you notice my midsection and take into account that I’m only 23 years old, you will notice that I’m right on my way to fat by all standards.   Comparing to my previous self, this is really hard to look at; what is fat is different to different people: in China, America’s “skinny” is fat.

What’s more important though is what this means for health.  I get winded walking up more than 3 flights of stairs, and I will pass out tired after an hour of 4on4 basketball.  This picture was taken while I was completely relaxed, meaning that I’m not using my abdominal muscles at all to pull in my stomach.  This will forever be a reminder to me of what happens when I forget about my health.

Goal: Trim all the extra belly fat and grow the pecs and arms.  This should also fix my posture.

Why: I want a healthy body.  Simple really.  I stopped focusing on exercising nearly 6 months ago when I became a vegan, but now I see that just eating Vegan isn’t enough (I don’t eat even junk food).  I want more energy.  I want confidence in my looks.  I want to break dance.  All of these things require getting into shape first.  So here we go.

How:

1)  Push-ups: I will be following the http://hundredpushups.com/ workout regimen.  It’s supposed to be for 6 weeks, but since I’m not an absolute beginner I’ll be starting at week 4, which should get me to 100 push-ups by the end of April.

The program takes 3 days a week, so I will be doing it on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Each week has between 5 to 9 sets of push-ups that will build the strength to eventually be able to do 100 consecutively.  The sets vary in how many repetitions you have to do.

This is what a good push-up should look like and is what I’m shooting for.

2)  Sit-ups:  I will be following the http://www.twohundredsitups.com/ workout regimen.  I’m did over 90 consecutive sit-ups on my test so I’m going to start from week 5.  After week 6 I will create my own extended version to get me to 300 sit-ups.

This is what a good sit-up should look like.

Additional work-out:

1) Cardio:  I’ll be running on Tuesday / Thursday / Weekends during my morning routine.

2) Simple Weight Lifting:  I have small weights that I will be using to do some simple weight training for my arms as well as upper back.

3) Oblique workout:  I have chosen 2 oblique workouts from http://www.sixpacknow.com/obliqueexercises.html.  I’ll be doing the side leg raise and the reverse trunk twist

Total Time: 30 minutes - 1 hour every morning.

I love all of the free resources on the internet.  A personal trainer right on your computer.  Print it out and go!

Join Me:

Feel free to join me and post your results, or you can email them to me and I will post yours along with mine on my next update!  Just go to the contact page and let me know if you’re interested.