Tag: Fitness

I am actually quite excited

Firstly, I have not forgotten nor have I lost interest in making content again. In truth I am as excited about that as I am my training and my commitment to future training.

I just don’t have the technical expertise to do it so am trying to acquire that. As I said previously I want to learn how to edit video this year and am working on that…I essentially want to do it with what I have…that being my iMac, my Samsung S24 Ultra mobile, my Insta360 and if I can find it…my GoPro. Basically I have all the hardware I really ‘need’ I just need to learn how to use it…and I am working on that.

I haven’t formally coached anyone for a decade or more (how time flies) and yet I don’t think a day goes by that someone doesn’t talk to me about training and or ask me questions and or look for my opinion on training. If anything I enjoy those discussions more now that I don’t have to rely on it for my livelihood. As always, I have a lot to say and feel perfectly fine about saying it because my body of work while coaching and the practices and principles I put into work still stand up today and if anything looking back at it…it is still miles ahead of most of the garbage you see today…results speak for themselves and my results were not just seen in high performing individuals but across the board. So yes, I can’t wait to start making content so I can talk about how amazing I think I am.

Secondly, my training is going very well and my progression I think will be interesting to others. I want to discuss and analyse it as I essentially took a 10 year break from training and then have started training again like a professional athlete in a old, beaten up and out of shape body…still haven’t missed a day of training since November 24th (not that I think rest days are bad…it is just a mental thing for me…an expression of my commitment to myself and my disciple). During that time…my peak power has gone from 800W to 1300W and my FTP has gone from 199W to 270W. I have hung on to my lean muscle mass and have decreased my weight by 10kgs and my bodyfat by 6%. I have a short term plan in place and a long term plan and am executing both as per my grand plan and am very happy with that. So I want to talk about that as well because I think people will find it interesting and I think it will prompt a lot of questions.

Thirdly, I have decided I am going to start gravel racing. I am doing this from a standing start as well and I think people might find this interesting as well. I don’t have a clue what I am doing and I don’t even have a bike. I am going to find some races and I am going to enter them and start the timer that way…so I have to prepare physically, mentally, technically and logistically and I want to talk about that as well because I think that will be interesting.

Anyway, this is just an update to let anyone (the four of you) that reads it that I am more invested in this than I have been for a long long while so if you have any opinions, thoughts, ideas or questions I am all ears. I am prioritising getting something up on my YouTube page if only so people can laugh and shit on it to inspire me to improve it.

Maybe it is just the time of year

So, I thought I would do a little recap of where I am at and where I ‘think’ I am going.

Now, as far as I can gather there are only about 3-5 people globally still looking at this page…and I am totally OK with that…there is Gus, he has to look because if anything goes wrong with this page he knows I will be messaging him to fix it. Then there is Garret, Paddy, Sully and Gra who I know only check in out of morbid curiosity along with a couple of girlfriends that still check in in the hope that my life is worse without them (sorry girls).

You guys are primarily my ‘brains trust’ and I would be genuinely interested in your feedback and opinions on what comes next…not that I will action any of it…but I would be interested either way.

So, where are we now, how did we get here and where are we going. In short we are now back ‘fit and healthy’ enough to actually start training. Back in June I was too fat, too heavy, too unfit and too unhealthy. I was doing bits and pieces of exercise and activity here and there but it was completely unstructured, inconsistent and unfocussed. I was close to 130kg’s and 35% body fat. My bloods were a mess and my blood pressure was too high.

One of the things that I have always said to people, trainees, athletes and to anyone else that will listen is that discipline is more important than motivation in that motivation comes and goes but that if you are disciplined then motivation doesn’t matter. So it was then that I decided to train everyday for a month…and it didn’t happen. So then I tried again the next month and I think I missed a day here and there and then it was I think September that I made it work and everyday that month I did 10km on the Rogue Echo Bike (18-22 minutes) and I did it no matter what. Then in October I decided to not miss a days training and did 10km on the Echo bike every non-rostered work day and did a gym session every rostered day and I did that as well.

As my discipline improved my motivation increased and I transitioned from the Rogue Echo Bike over to a Wattbike Atom X and almost immediately thought I would give Zwift a go…and one of the first things I did was an FTP (functional threshold power) test which had me at a pretty miserable 199 Watts. I then enrolled in the ‘Build Me Up’ plan on Zwift which is a 12 week intermediate program of about 5hrs/week which in the beginning I did as prescribed with rest days here and there put from mid November transitioned into doing sessions every day and just managing my recovery by alternating the more intense sessions with the ones that were less so. Which brings me to today. I am just about to do the last ‘real’ session of the program. There is a pedalling technique session and priming session both of reasonably low intensity and only 30 mins in duration and both of which I will do tomorrow. On Monday I will redo the FTP test to see where I am at. (So, I started writing this on the 14th of December…it is now the 27th of January…my FTP in testing was 222W an increase of 23W …and this was on the 16th of December)

Next task on my agenda will be the Zwift ‘Baseline’ series which is a workout and test session looking at measuring 3 different capacities…sprinting, sustained high effort and endurance to get more of an idea of where I am at with regards my physical capabilities.

(Hello…this is the 27th of January talking again. I did the Zwift baseline series and enjoyed it…it looks at your sprint power, your sustained attacking power and your endurance and measures all those)

While all this has been going on…my weight has trended down. As I said, I was up close to 130kgs and now I am down hovering around 118-120kgs.
My body fat has trended down from 36% down to 30% all the while hanging on to my lean muscle mass…all only measured via FitBit Aria scales…so not necessarily accurate but reliable and I am happy with the trend data.

What I am also happy with is that over this past 6 months is that I have worked to improve my health by improving my diet and nutrition and also adhering to a pretty rudimentary supplement regime.

So why am I bothering with this post…well. I have a few goals for the next 6 months and this is not a New Years Resolution type thing…I just happened to have got to this stage in December and the next stage just happens to be followed by January and a new year. So be it. I have a few things I want to do simultaneously and I will list them here in no particular order.

  1. I am going to keep up my indoor cycling with a view to racing.
  2. This year I intend on transitioning in some way shape or form to transition from indoors to outdoors.

Update: It is now the future and an the present.

I wrote the above back in mid December and then never came back to finish/publish it…because it really is just me rambling BUT you’ll be happy or not happy to know that I have continued on. I have still not missed a day of training and my training has gone from strength to strength.

I am going to make myself a bit of a list here because I am going to do a training recap on YouTube because one of the things I want to do in 2025 in learn how to record and edit video. So I thought…I can make a list here and then I would have something to keep me on track when I record.

So, I will do a recap of what I have done since mid 2024. That is transition from doing a bit here and there on the Echo bike to now Zwift’ing in a structured way every day.

I am going to talk about Xert which is the AI coaching tool that I use to design my workouts that uploads them to Zwift and what a fantastic investment that has been.

I’ll obvious talk about Training Peaks, Strava and Xert that I use to analysis and track my training and my progress (I believe all my profiles are public so If you want to go have a look at what I have been doing go to Strava and or Training Peaks and you can see the sessions there).

I will quickly cover what I have learned and who I learned it from…credit where it is due.

Then talk about my plan for the future.

That plan is to hang onto my muscle mass and to lose 5kg of fat in February and then to stabilise at under 115kg for March and then lose another 5kg in April and stabilise there for a month at 110kg…and then reassess. I will see where I am at fat wise and performance wise then.

That is the plan for now.

I’ll call this the middle

So, where do I start…I will start now and do a bit of going forward and a bit of going back.

At the moment I am on leave. I’ve been on leave from the 1st of December and will be on leave up and until the 25th of December when I return to work on Christmas Day.

So for now…I am a full time athlete. I am Zwift’ing everyday. I am closer to the finish than I am to the start of the Zwift ‘Build Me Up’ program which runs 12 weeks in duration (I am doing it in around 8 weeks) and I am enjoying the hell out it. I am lucky to have a Wattbike Atom X that has seen little to no use this decade. So I am definitely putting it to use. I started with a session just getting it ‘set up’ as best I could and then did an FTP test (199W) and then started the program. Since starting I have done 968.5km, over 1 day, 18hrs and 19 mins climbing 8187m in the process having completed 33 of the 49 sessions in the program…there are 12 proper sessions to do…then a recovery session, a short primer session, a short technique session and then the FTP test again. We’ll get to see how much progress I have made them. I am going to plan it all and squeeze everything in with the objective of doing my FTP test on Christmas Eve before I head back to work on Christmas Day.

I am also integrating into my training schedule some easy calisthenics work…some push ups, KB rows, KB presses along with some bodyweight leg work and some core trunk work.

I have not really put any special thought into my diet or nutrition BUT I am drinking less and eating less garbage…the drinking and garbage eating tend to go hand in hand for me so no surprise there. My Aria Fitbit scales have me down just over 10kgs since I realised I was an absolute mess in June some time and started this ‘process’ that has seen me end up here. My Fitbit scales are also telling me that I have lost more than 1okgs of fat as my lean muscle mass is also up a bit…so I am happy with that. My blood pressure is down (it was high’ish) and back within the normal range. I have an appointment to see my GP next Monday and it will be time to get a full blood panel done as well so we’ll see where I am at with regards my blood markers and my health as well.

The plan now is to get this training program completed and then review based on my results and set a new goal…and that goal is going to involve racing regularly and I am going to plan a racing schedule around my days off. Also, when back at work from leave I am going to get back into my weights on rostered days along with some easy Zone 2/Recovery rides (30mins) and then Zwift’ing on non rostered days…training rides and racing…which in all likelihood could end up just being racing as I know that whatever category or race type I am in…I am going to get smashed and I am ok with that.

I will report back at the end of this training block with all my results.

Triggered

Just an observation really. Only a few sessions into the Build Me Up program on Zwift but I amazed on reflection how my brain works…or how it doesn’t work.

My last 2 rostered days off have been indoor cycling/Zwifting days and both days have done 90min plus and around 40km or so. There is NO FUCKING WAY I would have finished the sessions if I wasn’t doing a program that had a start and a finish. If I was just ‘free training’ there isn’t a chance in hell I would have ground out the workouts. The weren’t excruciating or tremendously difficult but the fact that I am following a program/direction/instruction just allows my brain to zone into it and just follow along. I like that.

I have a feeling I might get into this on a consistent basis because I am very much enjoying it so far and I am already getting excited about getting the program done and then racing. Entering whatever the lowest category I can find and then getting dropped instantaneously is what I am really hoping for…because that is what will trigger me competetively.

I have always been extrinsically motivated…in that I trained not for my health and fitness but so that I could compete. Once I stopped competing…I stopped training. So finding something I enjoy to compete in is an exciting prospect.

I am not doing it thinking or believing I’ll be ‘competitive’ as I am still going to be 186cm and 100kg but rather than be competitive what is important to me is competing.

The goal at the moment is to continue with my current routine…weights on work days and cycling on days off. The other goal is not missing a day…I know life might interfere with that but I am still going to try to train every day. The goal of this is actually to improve my fitness and health as well as leaning out and losing fat and holding on to what muscle mass I have.

I have also realised that I am going to need to fire up Chronometer and get back to tracking my energy expenditure and my nutritional intake because I don’t think I can keep up the training while just eating intuitively. It might work for a while but I see the wheels coming off before to long…so I need to put a nutritional strategy in place to make sure I look after myself and I will be putting some serious thought and work into that over the next few days.

That will be my next update.

If you Zwift…please find and add me.