Had my first sessions with Paul the P.T last week. I thought I was in rather good shape. I was wrong.

Paul has set quite a simple starter strength program. The strength training is good as it (obviously) increases my strength and core stability. But the low training limits lactate, and has less impact on the following days of footy training.

Before we went through the program I performed a balance test where I stood on one leg and slowly raised the opposite knee up and forward whilst keeping the rest of the body aligned in the original planes. I failed miserably. My hips shot out to the side and I would lean quite far to the left when raising the right leg. This showed that I had weak core stability. All those weighted crunches didn’t help then!

Balance test, I failed

My new strength program consists of 2 circuts of  4 exercises.

Circuit one:

1. Close (hammer) grip chin ups
2. Petersen step
3. Dips
4. Barbell step ups

Circuit two:

1. Squats
2. Close (hammer) grip dumbell bench press
3. Lying leg raises
4. Cable crunches

For the chin ups, dips, step ups, sqauts, and bench press I do 5 reps on the first set, then 4, 3, followed by two on the last set. The resistance for each exercise should be increased in future workouts to ensure progression. Also, each rep is completed with a 5 count on the initial movement, then hold for 2 seconds, followed by a 5 count on the returning movement. The Petersen step is constant with 8 reps per set, but also has the 5 count with 2 second hold.

Switching to the strength program has been a good change. I’ve noticed the exercises helping a lot during footy training (core stability especially). I’m not putting on size and muscle as I’d hoped. I think I’m even looking smaller already. But plenty of time to “stuff around” with that in the off season.

I’m enjoying switching progression from asthetics and muscle size, to more functional strength and stability.

Finally, a nice article on how powerlifting unexpectedly changed one man’s life.

A personal trainer at my gym mentioned that he needs some help with his website. In return he offered to look at my diet and sort me out a gym membership. I like to believe I’m a rather healthy individual, that works out a bit, has quite a good diet considering, and had recently implemented a new health plan. I had actually been thinking about getting a pet project to do after hours so I accepted. Even though I didn’t have a whole lot to gain from my end of the bargain.

Some background info: I have recently dieted down from around 97kg to 92kg in search of the holy grail (a ripped 6 pack). I was successful (enough). Then I suddenly realised that footy started in a couple of weeks, and since it’s near impossible to keep weight on during the season, I had a semi panic attack about putting weight back on. I resorted to my source of truth for all things health and fitness. Which brought to my attention that I wasn’t eating anywhere near as much as protein as required during training (around 1-1.5g of protein per pound of body weight, per day). So, I had my new plan: eat a ton of protein (which doesn’t leave much room for anything bad) and put on around a pound of weight a week (approx 1/2 pound of fat & 1/2 pound of muscle). Then when get too podgy, diet off the fat maintaining as much muscle as possible, rinse & repeat.

During the last 10 days I’ve put on 1kg, which is too much weight, so probably more fat than muscle. Oh well, training wheels.

Tonight I met with Paul the personal trainer. He took my body fat measurements with some rather meaty looking calipers. He then fed the measurements into his system - Poliqiun Biosignature by Charles Poliquin (I think), which then spat out some information about my health based on my body fat distribution. He started explaining the meaning of the results to me.

1. Top proirity – Lack of testosterone, and over production of estrogen.
   Now there’s something I wasn’t expecting! It rather stunned me to be honest. Paul mentioned it was usually due to a zinc deficiency. He then gave me a taste test to determine if I’m zinc deficient. I took a small capful of the foreign liquid, swirled it around in my mouth, and described the taste as requested. “It tastes like…. sugar water.. yea, sugar water.”. His reply was “That’s a fail, it should taste like an overwhelmingly bitter metallic taste. You’re zinc deficient.”
2. Priority #2 – Large presence of foreign toxins in my system. Paul’s first question was “Do you drink a lot of diet coke?” I conceded explaining that I drink a lot of artificial sweetener beverages. Which are now obviously out of the question. We also talked about other sources of toxins, eg: Alcohol, supplements, food quality, drinking water etc.
3. Priority #3 – Paul ran straight off the bat and bluntly stated “You have trouble sleeping.”. I didn’t know weather to slap him or hug him. Again, I conceded and told him I’m a friggen terrible sleeper. It was explained that a low level of magnesium is often correlated with zinc deficiency and effects quality of sleep.

The meeting continued on. It was great talking with someone who really knew their stuff. We’re meeting again tomorrow for a workout which I’m a little anxious about. I’m looking forward to giving him a kick ass website in return for really opening my eyes about my true health. This is gonna be great!