DIY Equipment Update

Since I am committed to saving money as much as I am to getting fit I decided to make as much crossfit equipment as I could. It all started with the original chin up bar in my basement. It was for P90X when I first started out and was just a cheap metal round bar drilled through the door jamb.

The Original
The Original

It did the job but the door wasn’t ever really wide enough but the convenience couldn’t be beat. When the weather got warmer I decided I may do some of the workouts in the garage so I made a chin up bar out there too. It was made of the same type of metal bar, strung to the rafters high enough so that the garage door would open. That also meant it was high enough that I have to jump to get to it and can’t cheat at all!

As I completed the deck, I managed to work 2 chin up bars into the upper deck meaning the walkout from the basement where my gym is now had 2 built in bars. One was made from a plumbing fixture from Rona, the other was made from a fence railing which is bigger than ideal but means I get a great grip workout at the same time.

Fast forward to the late summer when I started to get into the Crossfit stuff and did some searching online for other DIY equipment. I found a great article on how to build a dip station and rather than build a single unit I built 2 separate stands that I can also use to jump over and do other movements with. In retrospect, they are slightly too tall and wobble a little too much but it’s also my weight that is the issue. Still, dip bars that can handle a 280lb man are pretty good!

2 outdoor chin up bars
2 outdoor chin up bars

Forward again to the latest development and I eventually grew tired of reading WODs with wallball so I decided to get hold of a basketball ($9 from walmart) and a bag of sand ($3 open bag special at Rona) and after fighting with a funnel for an hour ended up with a 26lb wallball. My plan is to buy some gymnastics rings to round out the collection and I should be good to go. Then a second olympic bar for the garage and I should be all set.

The last thing is a whiteboard. I do document everything I do but in the middle of a workout the last thing I want to do is thumb through papers to find what I need.

As a quick update (Dec 2011) I also have another rafter mounted chin up bar again mounted on the deck to the left in the picture. The benefit is that it is more solid, doesn’t move at all and has 3 hand positions so I can do all the hand switching I want without fear.

9 feet high
9 feet high
Holds 300+lbs
Holds 300+lbs
26lb wall ball
26lb wall ball
Essential whiteboard
Essential whiteboard

R4 D41 – Chelsea and iPhone Timers

I realized last night that Cindy and Chelsea are basically the same. I didn’t notice when I was writing up the list of WODs I have done but last night I elected to do my WOD in the garage with the chinup bar I mounted last year. That meant chin ups and push ups and squats. In other words, Cindy or Chelsea. Regardless of which I did, I still got to 21 and couldn’t continue. Doing the one a minute Chelsea version you would think it would be easier but the rest quickly drops from 30 seconds to 5 seconds after about 15 rounds. Eking out those last couple is pure hell. This time was especially difficult since the chin up bar in the garage is about 9 feet off the ground which means I have to jump to get on it, that also means no way I can reach the ground to assist. So full range pullups are the order. That said, I managed 20 rounds which is not great but not bad, especially considering it was about 5 degrees in the garage!

Chelsea:
Each minute on the minute for 30 minutes

5 pullups
10 pushups
15 squats

Result: 20 rounds.

I also downloaded an app for my iPhone to time my intervals. It is called RoundTimer and is pretty much useless for more than 5 rounds. Let’s be honest (although it is the free version) most Crossfit workouts have more than 5 rounds so this timer is useless. I will try to find another and report it’s usefulness. The point is that I need a timer, most things I do require a timed interval plus a rest period so it is critical.

..later…

I downloaded a very good iPhone App for $2 its called WOD Timer and it does indeed do everything I need. I will report more on the useability once I have used it a couple of times but it has all the features I was looking for.

Round 4 Day 40 – Gym Shoulders and Traps (More DIY Equipment)

Last week I made myself a heavy ball.

If I had chosen to buy one I could have spent $120, yeah, not kidding but since I am committed to making as much of my own equipment as I can I thought I would give it a shot.

Basketball from Walmart – $9.96
Sand from Rona (open bag sale) – $3
Duct tape – $0

There you have it. A basketball full of sand weighing in at 26lbs. I cut out the valve and inserted a funnel and after about an hour I was done. If I had super dry California sand I am sure it would have been a few minutes but since it was slightly wet Canadian sand it was stoutly uncooperative. Still, lots of money saved and a wall ball to use.

Today was shoulders and traps so I made up the following:

With 25lb dumbbells 5 rounds for time with a 2 minute rest
Side raise x 10
Front raise x 10
High Pull (Upright Row) x 10
Wall ball (26lb) x 10

Plus 50 shrugs with a 135lb barbell without putting the bar down.

It was enough, but not really that difficult. Maybe 8-10 rounds would have been better.

Round 4 Day 39 – Cardio, Power and Resistance

Today was a piece of cake. It was supposed to be Pure Cardio but since I did that last time I thought I would change it up and do CPR instead. This is a pretty easy workout as far as insanity goes, I am not sure why. Maybe because some of it is bodyweight work and I can do that all day. Anyway, I felt good, it went by in a flash and that is always good news. Of course, I wore my VFF’s and even though my big toenail is sore it didn’t feel sore in the shoes.

My FitDay process is also still going strong but I seem to really lack behind in my calorie count. I am down 15lbs in about 4 weeks though so I guess that is why. My strength isn’t down, neither is my cardio so I guess everything is still OK. I do have a lot to burn still, being 265 isn’t exactly borderline supermodel so I am not going to start worrying just yet.

Round 4 Day 37 – Gym Back and Biceps

All I had was a chin up bar and a pair of 35lb dumbbells but I still managed to wear myself out. 30 min of pullups double biceps pullups concentration curls.

No frills, just pullups outside in the dark and dumbbells in the basement. Still, it’s better than spending $70 a month for a gym membership.

Keeping up with the plan, the next workouts are:

39 Pure Cardio
40 GYM Shoulders Traps and Ab Ripper X
41 WOD with Pullups
42 OFF
43 P90X Chest & Triceps, Ab Ripper X
44 Pure Cardio
45 P90X Back & Biceps, Ab Ripper X
46 WOD with Pullups
47 GYM Shoulders Traps and Ab Ripper X
48 Max Interval Plyo

Then rest week #2

Round 4 Day 36 – Barbara

Barbara

Five rounds, each for time of:
20 Pull-ups
30 Push-ups
40 Sit-ups
50 Squats

I only managed 4 rounds after which I was incapable of doing another pull up. My round times were:

4:45
4:30
3:15
4:40

Pretty sad, actually. It also brought into glaring clarity the need for me to add some abs to my workouts since I gave up Ab Ripper long ago. My core is strong, but not strong enough to endure lengthy isolated movements. The push ups and squats were no problem. Hopefully as the weight continues to fall, the pullups will rise…

WOD’s I Have Done

Here is a list which will be expanded as I do more. In addition, there is a great list of the descriptions of the “Nasty Girls” workouts here:

Nasty Girls

(Thanks to Colin McNulty for the hard work)

Fran:
21 Thrusters 95lbs
21 Pull Ups
15 Thrusters 95lbs
15 Pull Ups
9 Thrusters 95lbs
9 Pull Ups

Chelsea:
Each minute on the minute for 30 minutes

5 pullups
10 pushups
15 squats

Cindy:
AMRAP in 20 minutes:

5 pull-ups
10 Push Ups
15 Squats (Air Squats)

Fight Gone Bad:

  • Wall ball: 20 pound ball, 10 foot target. Each rep is scored as 1 point.
  • Sumo deadlift high pull: 75 pounds. Each rep is scored as 1 point.
  • Box Jump: 20″ box. Each rep is scored as 1 point.
  • Barbell push-press: 75 pounds. Each rep is scored as 1 point.
  • Row: Your butt off. Each calorie burned (according to the monitor) is scored as 1 point.

Barbara:
Five rounds, each for time of:
20 Pull-ups
30 Push-ups
40 Sit-ups
50 Squats

Elizabeth
21 – 15 – 9 Reps
135lb Clean
Ring Dips

Elizabeth:
21 – 15 – 9 Reps
135lb Clean
Ring Dips

Sally:

For time, x 5, 2 minute rest between sets
30 wide push ups + 10 wide pull ups
30 regular push ups + 10 reverse pull ups
30 military push ups + 10 narrow pull ups

Round 4 Day 35 – Chest and Tri, no rest. FitDay and the Protein Issue.

How much is enough?

So my weight this morning was a low 266.8. That makes 15.2 lbs lost on the Paleo diet and thanks to FitDay I know why. I am having a hard time keeping up with the amount of calories I need to keep my fat ass fat. Yesterday I was short almost 1500 calories but still over the 2000 calorie minimum that I feel is necessary. I seriously can’t stuff any more fruit and veg down my throat in a day. I am going to have to start increasing my protein which led me to calculate my protein needs…

I used to calculate my protein requirements when I was into the heavy weightlifting since to a “bodybuilder” protein is like air, without it you will wither and die. According to THIS I need 360g of protein a day, even using just my lean mass by subtracting my fat% I am still rated at 300g a day. Fit day claims that my 106g of protein that I ate yesterday was already 190% of my requirement meaning they estimate my protein requirement at a minuscule 56g! So why the discrepancy? Well, the obvious thing is my frame size and musculature, but even healthcalculators.org taking into account a LARGE frame says I need 115g. Interesting… Fitday is obviously not geared towards the athletes among us. Using the lean mass approach, the people at criticalbench claim you require 1.14g per lb of lean mass, which for me would equate to 228g of protein. That is sounding better. However I am disturbed, nay, astonished at the vast difference in calculations here. It does show however what I have believed for a long time, you can’t rely on a single source of information to get your requirements. Being exposed to the bodybuilding world for so long made me very aware of my protein requirements but what about all those people out there who are working out, using programs like Fit Day to calculate their requirements and leaving themselves woefully short on protein? You could say that someone who is serious about their workouts wouldn’t rely on FitDay and I hope they wouldn’t but I would be naive to think that is the case. Apparently the RDA for protein is .75g per lb of lean mass. Even using that calculation, I should be at 150g, not the 56 that FitDay claimed. So what is the issue with FitDay and their protein? It seems as if there is nobody out there who has noticed this problem. People are using FitDay to track their nutrients but nobody seems to have noticed how low the protein intake is. maybe it’s just me, but the extra calories I am missing will be in the form of protein from here. My goal is set to around 200g of protein a day given that I am pretty active and need to maintain my muscle mass. I didn’t go through years of torture building muscle so I could let it go to waste. The other side of the equation is what your body is doing to create or use the amino acids required to build protein. I mean protein doesn’t have to come from protein, as long as your body has the right amino acids it will make the protein. Is it possible then that ingesting low amounts of protein would be fine as long as you are getting enough amino acids (specifically essential amino acids) to build muscle. There is a ton of information out there about protein but seemingly little about how the body actually uses amino acids (and from where) to build the muscle tissue. Before this turns into a protein rant, I think I need to do some more reading. If my protein level is to remain low, thereby allowing me to keep my fat levels low also then where else do I need to get the amino acids from to provide the appropriate level of building blocks for the muscle. I am not even talking about ADDING more muscle, just having enough to repair the damage done by the workouts I am doing. It appears that although the meat protein contains all 8 essential amino acids (Isoleucine, Leucine, Lysine, Methionine, Phenylalanine, Threonine, Tryptophan, Valine) in spades, you can in fact get all 8 from other foods (something which the vegetarians out there will no doubt think is common knowledge).

This does not answer my question though. How much food and which food do you need to provide the essential amino acids that you would get from meat protein? If you are eating enough vegetable based amino acids does that then reduce the amount of “protein” that you need in a day. I would say yes that is exactly the case, but if so, by how much? This is getting complicated…

Yesterday I did a chest and tricep workout, just flat bench for chest and for triceps a mixture of narrow grip bench and free dips. It wasn’t a crazy hard workout, 35 min long but I did get to complete failure on the dips. I am only going up to bodyweight for bench (275) and mostly will stay around 255 for my working max. Mostly because I can’t be bothered changing the plates all the time since I have a limited selection but also because I don’t want to stress my shoulders since they are getting a heavy workload as it is.

FitDay is still bothering me… What else could be out of whack?

Round 4 Day 34 – Pure Cardio, Pure Hell

That's 300 calories...

Yesterday I started using Fitday as I noted and was amazed at how little calories I ate. Most likely due to the fact I am eating Paleo which basically just means real food. I am staggered at how much fruit and vegetables it takes to reach even 2500 calories, never mind 4000! So I knew I was undernourished (a little) and I think it messed with my head during my workout. Now I do have a bery sick wife and a sick baby at home so it is entirely possible that I am coming down with something however, I think I faked myself into thinking I was tired due to the fact I only managed 1500 calories before my workout. You would think, given my copious amounts of stored “energy” that I would be fine on the fuel front… apparently not so. And for those people who are claiming that I am on a high protein, low carb diet, check out my stats on Fit Day and tell me that 48% of calories from carbs is low carb…

Anyway, I am trying to eat more today before my workout to try and up my energy level but also to prevent having to scarf down 2500 calories late in the day. I am at almost 1100 and it is 1:30pm.

So I didn’t feel good at all yesterday during the workout. I didn’t skip it however, and I didn’t even duck out early, I gave it what I could and saw it through to the end. Thankfully I am doing such a varied mix of workouts right now because I don’t know if I could face another Insanity workout today. Instead, before I go to coaching I have to do a gym workout of chest and triceps regardless of the fact I am listed as having a day off. This is due to the fact that I inadvertently had to take off Saturday since we didn’t get back from dinner with friends at 6 like Nicole said but rather at around 11! I had taken Thursday off also which left me short on workouts and long on laziness. So I think I will try to make it to Friday this week and take that as my rest day.

Which brings me to planning for my WOD tomorrow. Since I have back and biceps the following day I don’t want to go crazy with pullups so I think I will be looking for something more squat and jump or shoulders and abs…

I am also on the brink of bringing in the chin up bar from the deck and installing it in the garage. However, I know once I do this I will be restricted to doing my chin ups upstairs rather than out on the deck. I did consider not moving the bar at all and sticking with the outdoors all winter but I can’t see myself doing chin ups in sweats, a wooly hat and gloves! It’s just the timing I am worried about. That and maybe taking the plunge and doing the whole workout in the garage while the bar is in there. But I don’t have an insulated garage and it is often -10 or colder in there during the winter months. Hopefully we will get a mild winter and I will be able to withstand the cold. Ugh, I hate the thought of having my well established routine messed with…