In the thick of it...

For the past few weeks, I've been doing a program for myself that would get me back in shape. It's a progressive cycle, doing exercises that match the number of reps in a set of the exercise to the number of the cycle. For instance, the first day was the first cycle, I did 10 push-ups, 10 squats, and 1 pull-up. The next day was the beginning of the second cycle, so I did 20 push-ups, 20 squats, and 2 pull-ups. I did that for two days and then for the third cycle I did 3 days of 30/30/3. I rested for a couple of days after that. And every day, I did 30 min of cardio and 100 reps of various ab exercises. I use a calendar to keep track of what I do compared to what I planned. I thought I only needed one rest day after the third cycle but that wasn't realistic, especially since I haven't worked out this hard in a long time.

I started the fourth cycle last week and I was beat! I realized I needed to keep stretching between the exercising and not just before and after, warm-up longer than I have been, take as many supplements as possible, and eat a lot of nutritious food. I had to rest for one day in the middle of the fourth cycle. Mainly it's because I keep targeting the same muscle groups every day. I started my fifth cycle on Labor Day and I had to rest the day after! That's when I decided to split it up: I would alternate days between upper body and lower body exercises. So tomorrow, my second day in the fifth cycle, I will only do upper body exercises: pull-ups, push-ups, punches, some lifting, and abs. The next day I'll do cardio along with lower body exercises like kicks and squats.

I hope that doing it this way will help me recover faster and make up for the two extra rest days I've taken so far. Also, I hope that this program of self-discipline will be what will get me back into fighting trim. My goal by November, 100 of each: push-ups, squats, reps of ab exercises, punches with resistance each arm, kicks each leg, along with 10 pull-ups and 30 min cardio.