Running

Good advice.

Train hard and enjoy every moment!

All the best,

Harry

Velocity Diet Completed

Well...It´s done.
It´s my last day of the Velocity Diet...Tonight at 2400 I´m back to eating solid food.

To be honest, it´s about time.
It´s fun to drop weight, get some mindfuck going but still... :-D

There have been some physical changes as well, as you can see in the video below.
So objective number 3 has been accomplished as well as number 1 and 2.



I lost around 6-7kg, my strength levels are the same or higher, conditioning didn´t suffer either.
I even took a blood- sample yesterday and I will have the results in a few weeks...


To be honest, there is nothing more I can say right now...Maybe during the next few days some insights will occur to me which I can share with you.


If not... It´s always best to try it ourself anyway...


Train hard and enjoy every moment!
All the best,
Harry

Sick pig phase 3

OK, since the beginning of March I completed 2 phases, each 4 weeks long.

First I was eating like a pig and working the One lift a day program by Dan John.

After that I was a crazy pig starting the Velocity Diet.

I´m still doing that one, Sunday 2400 will be the finish- line.

Right now I´m looking forward to it, simply because I´m starting to feel I need quality food again.

I learned a lot so far, re-evaluated my idea of nutrition, discovered some things circling around in my head and lost some fat in the process.

The next phase is gonna be the consolidation: I´m gonna be pig all the way. I´ll train and eat like one.. ;-D

One success sets you up for the next one.

(Please, think about that one for a moment...It can make a huge difference in your life.)

Ok, why the comment above?

Because I lost some weight. I only consumed Protein- shakes for 4 weeks. I retained all of my strength and likely gained some conditioning because I´m lighter.

Still...My body is craving nutrients, fuel, energy which does not come from within.

So the next few weeks, 4-5 to name numbers, will be dedicated to strength work.

I was provided the possibility to train at a friends apartment, he has an awesome power rack, lots of weights, barbells and dumbbells... To sum it up: everything you need to become stronger.

Always going hand-in-hand with a decent strength protocol is a decent nutrition.

I´ll stick to one main indicator to know when to eat: hunger.

After reseting pretty much everything through the Velocity Diet I´ll simply trust myself to tell me when to eat.

I´ll consume 1-3 Protein- shakes per day, I´ll eat 1-3 meals per day, I´ll stick with protein, fat and veggies on my off-days and consume protein, veggies and carbs on training days.

About the training...

When we are talking about barbells and the basic exercises I know some things but had little practice so far.

So I pulled out my best reference towards strength training available in my literature: Purposeful Primitive by Marty Gallagher.

I like this book so much, I read it 3 times I think...

Finally I have the opportunity to practice some of the things I read about.

I chose to go with a 2 day/week training.

Marty describes it as somewhat crazy and... well... I like crazy. It´s OK, people tell me, ask me, whisper about me being crazy all the time so...yeah...it´s OK.

Each of the two days I´m gonna work up to one top set with 5 reps and add 3x8 back-off sets with roughly 75% of the top set.

This is done first for the Back squat, then for the Bench-press and then for the Dead-lift.

After this terrific amount of pushing and pulling little girl weights I´ll do one upper body pulling and one upper body pushing movement. Marty calls it Biceps- and Triceps work.

But I´ll stay away from triceps- push-downs as far as possible.

Instead I´ll stick with dips, heavy barbell curls and chinups. Which will be really funny after the basic- movements before. But hey, call me crazy... ;-D

2 times a week the body will be blasted, the rest of the week I do some easy cardio (I´ll talk about that in a further blog-post), maybe yoga and eat a lot which I hope will increase my strength- levels as well as my muscle mass.

We will see, as always I will keep you posted.

Train hard and enjoy every moment!

All the best,

Harry

Strongman- training

Some things just get you going, make you access reserves you never would or maybe even could tap into on your own...

Doing things you never do can be such a thing.

To me, training alone and mostly using Bodyweight exercises and Kettlebells, Strongman Training with tools and implements I have no access to is such a thing.

Training in a group is as well...

Last Saturday I was able to combine those two strangers when I was invited by a friend, Gregor ( http://www.strongbodyandmind.de/ ), to visit him near Munich and together with other well known crazy trainees we would hit a 6 hour monster training day.

We started light... ;-D

Several Rounds of Tire Flips using a 100+kg Tire and with each round adding Sandbags which added up to 120,140 and 160kg "supersetted " with hand-over-hand Sled- pulls with the Sled weighing 60kg, 80kg, 95kg and finally 110kg...

That was mini- workout number one...

The next part consisted of Strongman Log Clean & Pushpresses.

We didn´t discriminated between Jerks, pushpresses and all that stuff.

Pick it up and get it over your head. Period. Because that is how strength is built.

The workout itself consisted of 60sec with 60kg, rest for 60sec, 45sec with 45kg, rest 75sec and finish with 30sec with 30kg.

I showed some weakness with the heavier weights but was able to beat some of the guys simply because due to my Kettlebell- Training I have got some pretty good endurance and speed with the lighter weights.

But I have to take care of my strength- levels...

Still I hit a personal best when getting 75kg (my current bodyweight) overhead...

The fact that I managed that weight was interesting to me, because I still struggle with 2 32kg Kettlebells.

To me somehow Kettlebells are more difficult to handle than Dumbbells.

But in the end all that matters is getting stronger, getting more enduring, be it with any form of free weights...

The next workout consisted of a 3 round- superset- set- up with 2x 20m Sled Drags (95kg, 110kg and some guys even hit 125kg) and 2x20m Trapbar- Farmer Walk with 110kg.

That one was tough...

The next one was even tougher...

4 Times 2x 20m Trapbar- Framer walk up to 150kg (some guys even hit 180kg!!) and finish with 1 round of max. time Farmer walk with 130kg...

We finished the day with a evil medley designed by Gregor:

For time 7@ Clean and Overhead(Pushpress, Jerk, Powersnatch) with a Thick- bar Dumbbell weighing 32kg, 6x Sandbag Loading on a 122cm platform(I used a 40kg Bag, some even handled a 70kg Sandbag!!) and 5 Keg- Cleans with a 40kg (some went for 50kg)

I was surprised how well I handled myself since I´m still doing the Velocity Diet and am living on Protein- shakes only.

The day after our training was tough because my body was screaming for food to restore itself...Still, I didn´t waver and stuck with my Diet. I received enough protein to restore my muscles and everything else will only help to burn off fat.

All in all it was a great day, I hit several personal bests and I am looking forward to another session when I actually have eaten something. ;-D

Train hard and enjoy every moment!

All the best,

Harry

Motivational

Train HARD and enjoy EVERY MOMENT!

All the best,

Harry

Update Velocity Diet Week 3

Ok, so what´s new...?

Basically everything is going according to plan.

Well...almost...

Last week I had some problems with my protein-order... I placed it last minute, panicked, re-routed it to Graz because I was afraid of the possibility of a 2-day-fasting.

The consequences were some delay in shipping and while I was traveling north to Linz the package was driven down southward to Graz...

Tough luck.

Lesson learned: make a choice, live with it, trust your instinct and if you panic and make the wrong decision you 1)still did better than making no decision at all and 2)live with the consequences.

So From Monday to today my Protein- intake was a bit too low and I kinda felt it during my workouts and afterwards, my energy- levels were kinda low but now I got my full supply which will let me cruise through the last few days...

What else...

I feel more athletic. I did some hill sprinting today, not conditioning style but with ample rest between the sprints (I think between 2-3 minutes) so it was more like a explosive- strength workout...

Right now I do not see as much progress with the body composition as I did during the first 2 weeks but as long as I at least keep my athletic level and learn something about my mindset I´m ok with that.

To be honest I expected the decrease in body fat would increase this week because I cut the raw milk in my shakes and stuck with water.

Maybe it was the decreased amount of protein, maybe I just do not see it because I´m biased...I do not give a sh*t...

It is happening, I set a goal and my mind has already achieved it, now I just wait for the actual time to pass...

The Velocity Diet so far brought me back the body composition I had 2,5 years ago after eating carb- free for several months and doing gut- busting conditioning.

Not that I do not like both of the above but it´s always nice to have a shortcut. ;-)

One more thing:

My solid meal for the 3rd week will be moved from Saturday to tomorrow, Friday, because Saturday I will be on the road to Munich to attend a Strongman- training- day with some good training- buddies and I do not want to start cooking when I get home at 2300. ;-)

Going to a restaurant for my one meal of the week is out of the question for me.

Simply because this meal has to be treated with respect, meaning I will cook myself, enjoy preparing it as much as eating it.

I guess that´s it for today, folks.

I´ll post the new progression- video and photos on Sunday, so stay tuned.

Train hard and enjoy every moment.

All the best,

Harry

Velocity Diet week 2

Ok, here is the new video with...well, me. :-)

First before starting the VD:




Now the actual situation:



My posture is a bit off, because the day before I seem to have overstressed my right shoulder and it is completly cramped up at the time...


Train hard and enjoy every moment!
All the best,
Harry