Matt MacLeod's Blog

Push-Up Challenge

mattmac — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:00:49 +0000

Having recently read Training For Warriors by Martin Rooney and also most of Al Kavadlo’s blog I’ve been turned on to the value of simple bodyweight exercises done properly.

Following Rooney’s habit of setting “challenges” for his athletes and fighters I decided to set myself one – to do 100 push-ups as quickly as possible.

I haven’t done more than sets of 20 push-ups for quite some time (years?) so as straightforward as this might seem, it was much tougher than I imagined. The first 40 came pretty quickly but then I hit a wall that took the best part of 8 minutes 30 to climb over.

The most surprising thing was the number of times – especially once I’d got up into the 80s – that my triceps just decided to give out and a couple of face plants were very narrowly avoided. My final time was a remarkably pathetic 9.46 (despite having hit the 40 mark inside the first minute). I’ll repeat the challenge every couple of days and I expect that time to drop considerably, although I suspect it’ll take a while before I’m at this level:

Lose that gut, take 48262829.

mattmac — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 14:58:35 +0000

After starting and falling off a gazillion attempts at completing a workout programme, I’ve started another one and this time I’m definitely going to stick the course!

I had my first set of assessments for my personal trainer qualification last week and whilst the assessor congratulated me on my tests, she also mentioned I was carrying a bit of extra timber. A comment along the lines of “If you’re going to be a trainer you need to look the part” closely followed. Fuck!

Embarrassing as all hell but she was quite right. So I’m embarking on an all-guns-a-blazin’ workout marathon a la Biggest Loser and will be lean and trim in no time.

Well, not quite. I could jump right in with both feet and pick up tonnes of heavy shit in loads of weird and wonderful ways but I’d no doubt

injure myself
injure the dog
fail to complete the workouts
stay fat

We don’t want that. So I’m starting with a set of regular (twice daily) routines, mostly weights followed by some “metabolic conditioning” (usually kettlebell swings) to build up a core of strength and also to get myself into the habit of working out. I’m aiming for sets of 15 reps which keeps me nicely working towards fat loss and consequently I’m having to suck it up and drop those numbers. Yes, I thought I could curl 20kgs for 15. Turns out I can’t.

I’ll log some “before” photos and some measurements in the next few days.

Why you should eat breakfast

mattmac — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 15:30:24 +0000

There’s a lot of truth in the saying “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day”. It seems that almost every dietary research study points to breakfast being of significant importance in anyone’s diet. It can kickstart the metabolism, aid fat loss, and prevent cravings later in the day amongst other things. And talking of other things, in this article strength coach Charles Poliquin tells you why breakfast will make you happier and make you less dead!