Day 24 of The Asylum, “Strength”. Last week I was not sure I would make it here.
I upped my carbs to 20%, so I’m at 50% protein, 30% fat, and 20% carbs. I think my body likes that ratio. We’ll see.
I know there are people who get by without many carbs at all. I have a friend who is one of those guys. But, you know what? He’s is a really low energy person. Extra-low. That’s not me.
So, I’m at 20% carbs.
Yesterday I was talking about how worn out I feel. Now we can see what the numbers say about that.
I used the same weights as last time through:
- Warmup: 12.5-pound dumbbell
- Progressive Dumbbell Rotations: 15-pound dumbells
- Back Exercises: 12.5-pound dumbbells for Hip Flys, 15-pound dumbbells for Row-Pushups
- Chest Exercises: 20-pound dumbbells
Here are my reps:
CARDIO DUMBBELL ROTATIONS
- Progressive Dumbbell Rotations
- Level 1: 9 (+1 from last time)
- Level 2: 8 (+0)
- Level 3: 7 (+0)
- Shoulder Presses – 24 for each level (+0)
- Rotating Jump Squats
- Simple Jump Squat: 22 (+3)
- Curl Jump Squat: 13 (+2)
- Curl-and-Press Jump Squat: 9 (+2)
BACK EXERCISES
- Hip Fly: 12 for each level (+0)
- Jumping Pullup: 36 (+4)
- Fly-to-Pushup: 10+10 (+0)
- Alternating Low-Plank-to-Plank-Fly: 8 (+2)
CHEST EXERCISES
- Chest Press with Head Up and Legs In-Out: 30 (+3)
- Alternating Chest Press with Head Up and Alternating Leg In-Out: 20/20 (+6)
- Chest Press with Head Up and Legs Up: 40 (+9)
FINISHING EXERCISE
- Frog Jump with Single-Leg Plank Kickback: 6 (+0)
Holy crap! The numbers are up quite a bit. There was no improvement for many of the moves, but the moves that did improve were up 13% to 25% to, in the chest section, 30% and 40% for the last two moves!
This is very interesting to me, because I did not expect this kind of improvement, especially because, not needing to write down the move names this time, I was not pausing as often.
Is it coincidental that my improvement came with increased carb consumption? Hmmm….
Needless to say this motivates me. My body is apparently not as worn out as I thought it was. Maybe that worn-out feeling was more a carb depletion phenomenon.
I’m sure there are low-carb people who would say I just need to continue low-carb until my body gets used to burning fat instead of carbs for energy. Maybe they’re correct, but I just don’t have time to find out right now.
Anyway, even with the extra carbs, I am taking yet another day off tomorrow, partly because I’m sure I could use it, but mostly because I have to do an on-location video shoot all day. That will put a huge strain on me, so I’ll wait for Sunday to do “Game Day” and “Overtime” for the last time.