This morning I started a 12 week intensive fitness program. I’ve been lifting for several months now with my mate Casey, but decided to up the intensity a bit. Last week I had a fancy test done at our gym, which calculated my Body Composition and broke it down into exact numbers.

Thus, I now have some hard numbers to drive my goals, which makes them a bit more concrete. I currently have 23.6% body fat, which is high for a male in my age group, and why I have a lovely buddha belly. My goal is to reach 18% in 12 weeks, which translates to about 10 pounds of body fat. Now to be clear my goal isn’t actually weight loss, and I won’t be dieting. I’ll have a strict eating routine, but one that nourishes my muscles and leaves me feeling fulfilled. So in 12 weeks the goal is to see the amount of muscle mass go up, and amount of fat go down, which may lead to me actually gaining weight as muscle weighs more than fat.

So, join me on this crazy adventure, I’ll be doing a mini training update each day talking about how the experience is going.

This morning was Chest/Triceps with Casey & Rollie. I’m coming off a nasty illness that had me bed ridden last week, so I wasn’t quite 100% just yet. Despite that it felt great to get back in and hit the weights; chest is a particularly weak area for me and one I’m actually still in the process of learning to exercise. I often cheat and bring in my triceps more than I should when doing our various bench press exercises (normal, incline, decline). Learning to feel what my chest muscles are, and how to lift with them is a great exercise in awareness that I’m enjoying more and more each week.

more updates to come tomorrow when I attempt my first 30 minute H.I.I.T. running session, which should be a hoot.

Popularity: 10% [?]