Tag: Exercise

Rip 60 – LIIFT4, Week 1 Summary

Howdy peoples of the workout persuasion!

Okay, so LIIFT4 is a four-days-a-week workout program. Those other three days should involve no strenuous muscle work, but they do not have to be inactive. I use those days for walking, jogging, yard work, swimming, maybe a bike ride, etc., but nothing too crazy.

This past weekend, Saturday I swam a quarter-mile and walked eight miles (I walked four, thinking my wife would get home late and not be interested, but then she was, so we walked four more!). Sunday, I was struck by the motivation to clean The Pain Cave (my workout space in the garage), so I jumped on it. This turned out to be kind of a workout, because it involved unracking all of my dumbbells, moving the racks, cleaning the garage, repositioning the rack, re-racking the weights, etc. So I actually moved a LOT of weight!!

Ended up the day with the usual four mile walk.

At today’s weigh-in, I hit 220.5, for a loss of four pounds since last week, and nine pounds overall. Body Fat percentage is kinda lagging, but I expect it will gradually start coming down, especially as I get further into these LIIFT4 workouts and more swimming as the weather gets hotter.

Okay, that’s it. Good week of work – ready to start Week 2 tonight, with Chest and Triceps Circuit!

Peace and blessings to everyone! Jim B.

Rip 60 – LIIFT4, Week 1, Day 5

Hello hello hello!! Greetings from workout land!

Tonight’s butt-kicking was LIIFT4 Legs 50/50, which is a lovely bunch of killer leg burners, followed by a HIIT component, followed by some Ab destruction!! It was a thrasher, for sure!! I had back surgery a few years ago, to repair a blown disc. By the time of the surgery, a certain level of nerve damage was already done. I am SUPER thankful that the surgery was successful, but since that time, my legs have never been quite as strong as before. So leg work is necessary, but brutal!!

Leg moves included front loaded squats, dumbbell dead lifts, sumo squats, step-back lunges, bridges, and calf-raises. The HIIT involved high knee runs, these little triple bear jumps (brutal), and squat jacks.

Followed up the workout with the standard four mile walk. Nutrition is still a work in progress, but I’m doing fairly well.

That’s it for LIIFT4 for the week – will still be exercising on the weekend though!

Peace and blessings, workout warriors! Jim B.

Rip 60 – LIIFT4 Week 1, Day 2

Howdy all!!

Tonight’s workout was LIIFT4 Back/Biceps circuit. It was hard, but I tend to enjoy back work and bicep work MUCH more than the chestal regions or triceps. Of course, that strongly suggests that I need to work on those areas and change my attitude!

Followed up the workout with the standard four mile walk. Nutrition was fine!

That’s it for today! Peace and blessings to you all. Jim B.

Rip 60 – LIIFT4, Day 1

Howdy peoples!

Started Phase 2 tonight with LIIFT4, Chest/Triceps 50/50. I used light-ish weights and made some modest modifications, but good work was done. I’m glad I already built a base, because starting this right out of the gate would have been even harder!

Followed up the workout with a four mile walk. Nutrition was good.

Here’s my half-baked attempt at “soccer run”. This will be a lot easier in a few weeks, LOL!

Okay, that’s it for today! Good start – looking forward to some big results in this eight weeks of Phase 2!!

Peace and blessings folks! Jim B.

Rip 60, Phase 1 Summary

Howdy peoples!

Well, the first four weeks kinda flew by for me – hard to believe that “Phase 1” is already over. I think that although I “could have” accomplished more, I actually did meet my primary goals: 1) build a fitness base upon which to start REAL workouts!!; 2) work on eliminating the simple sugar (Pepsi and lattes); 3) get in the habit of drinking enough water; and 4) improve nutrition by adding more veggies and fruit every day.

So it was mostly a success. Total weight loss was only five pounds, but body fat percentage went down a bit and my clothes started fitting more loosely here and there. I did 27 days of “some exercise”, with the minimum being a 4-mile walk, and including bodyweight exercises, cardio routines (P90 Sweat), weight routines (P90X, The 300, KB Squat presses, Total Gym), and yoga/stretching. Overall, it was a really good start.

I thought about it quite a bit – what to do next – and I decided on a 60-day Beachbody Program called LIIFT4. It’s four days a week, which I find very workable, even with the daily 4-mile walk and with lap-swimming season starting up.

So onwards and upwards – Rip 60, Phase 2, here we come!! Peace and blessings to you all! Coach Jimbo

RIP 60, Week 4, Day 2

Hey hey hey!

Well, the weigh-in yesterday showed another two pound drop and a small decrease in body fat percentage.

Tonight’s workout was a repeat of a previous workout. 12 Kettlebell squat presses and 6 pull-ups, six rounds. Still modifying most of the pull-ups – I’m a long way from my personal best of 17 straight, but hope to recapture that by the end of the year. Here’s a snippet of today’s workout.

Nutrition continues to be fine, and although my weight isn’t changing much, I’m feeling the old familiar “loose pants” feeling, so there IS progress!

That’s it for today! Peace and blessings to you all. Coach Jimbo

Rip 60, Week 3, Day 5

Howdy gang!

Today, for a change-up, I went to Youtube and grabbed a fun workout video (see below!). I modified it and did it in rounds, and only did four rounds, so instead of The 300, it was The 240!! But still, it was solid and gassed me pretty good, so I’m happy with it! Followed up with another 4-mile walk, as usual.

Nutrition has been under decent control. As I’ve mentioned, for this first month, I’m being fairly lenient with things like potato chips, other snacky foods, etc., with ditching sugar being the main goal for now (and drinking enough water). It’s a trade-off, because you can’t out-train (most people) a bad diet, but cold-turkey quitting everything at once tends to be a losing proposition.

That’s it for today peoples! Peace and blessings to you all! Coach Jimbo

Rip 60 Week 2, Day 6

Greetings, workout people!!

Today’s workout was a classic from the Beachbody Vault, and one of my 2-3 favorite BB workouts: P90X Shoulders and Arms! I just love this thing – the moves, the pace, everything about it. Here’s a little clip:

Nutrition continues to be good within the Week 2 parameters.

Other workouts this week included mainly yoga and walking, along with some body-weight work. Just working on consistently doing work, day in and day out, to build a base, a habit, and momentum.

That’s all for today! Peace and blessings folks! Jimbo

Rip 60, Week 2, Day 1

Hi everybody! Starting out Week 2 with good results from Week 1 – five pounds lost and body fat percentage went down. The bigger success was booting Pepsi to the curb, and that alone probably accounted for the 5 lbs!

For this week, I’m maintaining ZERO Pepsi (or any other soft drink), plenty of water, but adding in at least one piece of fruit per day, a health shake for a snack or a meal, and reducing coffee. I’ll also gradually up the quality of the workouts, though it may be slow, since I’m just coming off a broken ankle, and even walking still makes that a little bit sore. Don’t want to go backwards.

Tonight’s workout was a 400-yard swim and a 4 mile walk with a 20 lb weight vest. It’s amazing what a mere 20 lbs can do to make just walking more difficult! The swim was awesome – the water had just hit 80 degrees, which sounds great, but in reality is still “take your breath away” chilly!! One the laps started though, it was actually very refreshing.

Okay, that’s it from here. Peace and blessings, readers! Jim Blue

Rip 60

I gave the nutshell version of my fitness story in previous posts, so no need to go into that here. It’s time to start documenting my plans and process for the next six months – Rip 60!!

Yes, that’s right. I’m calling this six month program I’m doing “Rip 60”. I turned 60 on my last birthday, and I want to get “ripped” (depending upon what the heck we mean by “ripped”) before my next one, six months from not. So Rip 60 it is!! And it’s the opposite of R. I. P., by the way – I don’t sign the Grim Reaper’s checks, so I have no idea what’s in store for me in that department! I could kick off an hour from now – who knows? But what I do know is that while I’m here, I get to have a LOT of input on the quality of whatever time I have left! So that’s the plan – do what I can, the best I can, here and now, to create the best future possible.

I had some difficulty and delays in getting this whole website/blog started up – I am stubborn and want to be able to do things myself. So I did (in case you couldn’t tell by the professional quality, LOL)! Anyway, I’m already at the end of Week 1, so I’ll summarize that in the next post. It’s pretty tame anyway, so that’s okay. Then I’ll get into the business of daily posting, and hopefully will have some more interesting workouts to talk about!

Until then, Peace and Blessings to you all! Jim Blue