The making of an action Hero pt25

Entry #24. Ok, it’s on. A couple months ago I searched for an exercise routine that I could do standing up, didn’t require a lot of equipment, and that had a fun edge. I settled on the Indian club workout after reading an article from the art of manliness. I got together with agent Corc and went through half of the first DVD to familiarize myself with the program. Like jinkies Scooby. I’m familiar with basic stretching and warm-up principals. You start by extending the areas you are going to work and follow with light exercise to warm your body up for the real effort. Doing this prevents you from spraining something and allows you to get the most out of your routine. So, I expected some variant on the stretches I’ve been doing since I was in elementary school. Man was I wrong. First, the guy in this DVD is a freak. Corc, who is in pretty good shape and flexible had issues figuring out most of the warm up movements. There is one maneuver at the end which requires you to roll your foot so you’re standing on the outside top surface with your toes turned in and pointing backwards. It requires joints made of rubber, as neither of our feet can bend that way. The major issue was that the guy in the video shows you how to do things, but doesn’t use language that’s indicative of the action he wants you to perform. He says back crunch when he means side crunch, things like that. After you figure out what he wants you to do the motions make perfect sense, but there’s a steep learning curve. The workout starts with a series of muscular relaxation techniques that start at the head and work down to the feet. Each of them is designed to stretch, but mainly focuses on individually energizing and isolating discrete muscle groups. It’s not like normal stretching; you aren’t extending your body. Instead, you’re moving joints like the shoulders, hips, and knees in circular motions while twisting the rest of the body to maximize the elasticity of the movements. The stretching by itself was a reasonable work out. Then we moved on to the clubs. Lifting weights, especially hand weights, starts with developing the required grip strength and endurance. I’m fairly strong, but my grip strength needs some work. The initial club exercises consist of six distinct motions designed to further prep the body for more strenuous effort. I’ve been doing them now for three days straight and they aren’t that bad really. I need to build up my joints and grip to the point where I can do them continuously, but that will happen. The exercise leaves me in some small pain, but the kind that tells you that you’ve done something energetic. I’m sticking with the warm-up stretches and two sets of ten of the club beginning movements for now. Agent Corc won’t be able to go over the rest of these till at least this weekend. At first I was unhappy about that—until I realized just how out of shape I am. Taking it slow and working my way into the program is probably a good idea even if I would much rather be working through the entire DVD. My starting weight today was 294.6 pounds. I didn’t lose much on the average last week, but the exercise and health shakes are helping. I need to lose three pounds this week to have a reasonable chance of hitting my stretch goal next week. The specific weight is less important than making up for the one bad week I had while I was sick. Intake for today: Breakfast=A health shake with banana, oatmeal, blueberries, spinach, and almond milk. Work meal=a lo sodium turkey pepper jack wrap and an apple. Dinner=a health shake with carrots, apple sauce, strawberries, and pineapple juice. I had a few pretzel sticks and two chocolate minis for snack/dessert.