It’s a rainy November Monday morning, i’m sat on the toilet following another weekend of excess eating and inactivity doing what the long haired General wants to do, rather than riding my bike. As I look downwards I notice my gut is folding into some unusual shapes and it dawns on me just how much weight I have put on.
I used to be fit, in 2006 I learned of my impending deployment to Iraq and knew I needed to improve my fitness. I was running twice a day and by Christmas that year I was in the best shape of my life. On my return to Blighty in May 2007 I was muscular and lean, I was no Adonis but I could out run and out lift the majority of my peer group. I completed my All Arms Physical Training Instructor Course and life was good, I was highly motivated towards training and passing my knowledge on to others, but it quickly went down hill when; playing football I twisted awkwardly and damaged a poxy little ligament in my lower back, like an idiot I thought it best just to rest it a few days and man up. My lack of appropriate action meant that it still, to this day, hasn’t healed properly and my back always feels weak and stiff. This massively limits what I can achieve in the gym and in the outdoor activities I love so much. Fast forward a few years following peaks and troughs of activity as my motivation and body allowed, and in 2013 I developed a ‘grumbling’ appendix that had to be removed, although it was done by keyhole surgery it set me back once again with time off training and outdoor activity. So in the nine and a bit years since pre Iraq training I have put on over 3 stone.
How I was back in 2007. Decent shape and build.
I am sure I am not alone, I expect the majority of my readers will struggle with the same despise of their own form, but lacking the real and significant motivation to do something about it. Well here I am, acutely aware of my situation and genuinely motivated to change myself for the better. To aid my motivation and potentially help you guys, my readers, i’m going to document the process I go through to get fit for the 2016 Enduro race season and hopefully it will encourage some of you to do the same. So, to that end, I have joined the local Leisure Centre gym, which has had a recent refurb with over a million pounds spent replacing the worn out equipment, extending the main gym hall and creating a new spinning suite. It looks stunning. My journey will begin on 9th November with it culminating on 29th February 2016 a few weeks before the first BES round, a total of 16 weeks or 112 days. I will need to continue throughout the season in order to stay on top of my game for a successful race season, but over the winter is really where the hard work lies.
My initial plan as it stands is to reform my eating habits, train hard on my bike(s) and train harder in the gym. So here goes, my starting stats make for grim reading;
Day 1 – 09.11.15
Weight: 219 lbs (15 st 9)
Body Fat: 20.7%
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I’ve got a proper ‘Dad Bod’ going on, except I don’t even have any kids! My goal is to get my body weight to under 190 lbs but increase my strength. So I will need to build and condition muscle whilst cutting excess fat down to around 15%. I’m not going to get too obsessed with the weight, as long as the body fat is being reduced my body weight doesn’t really matter. I easily build muscle and muscle is much more dense (and hence heavy) than fat.
My plan is to start off relatively slowly. Cutting the crap out of my diet, so no fast food or chocolate, crisps, etc. A couple of light gym sessions in the first week to get the DOMs (delay onset muscle soreness) out of the way and then ramp up to 3 or 4 gym sessions a week and a big outdoor Road or All Mountain ride at the weekend. I will cross train between cycling, running and rowing for cardiovascular exercise and body weight exercises and Olympic lifts for strength, mainly concentrating on legs, core and back. Only time will tell how the plan will come together and what will need amending as I progress forward. Although I have a lot of training knowledge already, i’m going to utilise the on site personal trainers and their up to date PT acumen.
So last night’s session was an induction, so the staff showed me around any unfamiliar equipment and then I set to getting myself set up on the spin bikes, finding a comfortable arrangement of seatpost height, stem length etc before conducting the FTW fitness test, which gives me some base setting for when I use the bike in future. Nothing too strenuous but gave me a 35 minute spin out to ease me into it, good job really as I need to be able to walk in the morning! Tomorrow will be a full body resistance session to get some muscle soreness going and out of the way. The first week back is always the worst!
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tyred n cranky 