Home Workout Challenge

Everyone is trying out P90x for their home workouts. Well here's a home workout that can be done without a gym assuming you have dumbbells, exercise bands and an exercise ball. Most of these items can be purchased at a local sporting goods store. Most people already have these items collected in the house already. The weights in the workout are just a few recommendations. Adjust your weights accordingly to your fitness level.


- Dumbbell push up row combo (15 reps, 20 lb dumbbells)
- Heavy exercise band seated rows (20 reps)
- Lateral raises (15 reps)
- Dumbbell squats (15 reps, 35 lb dumbbells)
- Reverse step alternating lunges (30 reps total, 35 lb dumbbells)
- Ball crunches (25 reps)
- Floor leg raises (25 reps)
- Plank oblique crunched (30 reps total)

3 Rounds, let me know how it works out.

- Joel via iPhone

Metabolic Workout

Do each exercise consecutively, 4 rounds for time.

- 30 paces walking lunges with one 35 lb dumb bell in a 1 arm shoulder press and hold. Switch arms each round.
- 15 Purp-ee push ups
- 20 body-weight squats
- 10 pull ups or as many as you can do
- 15 incline sit-ups
- V-Sit Crunch rotations with 20 lb weight

Post times if you're up to it.

Full Body Workout

What's up everyone?? Had a pretty good workout yesterday with a friend that I thought I would share with you guys. This workout was designed to hit a majority of the large muscle groups as well as work up a good sweat. Here's the workout breakdown.

10 minute cardio warm up

Triple Set (2-1-2 tempo, 2-3 sets, 60 seconds rest between triple sets)
- Push ups (15 push ups)
- Dumb bell rows (15 reps per side)
- Should press (12-15 reps depending on weight)

Super Set (2-1-2 tempo, 2-3 sets, 60 seconds rest between super sets)
- One arm bicep curl with other arm doing isometric hold at a 90 degree angle (12-15 reps per side)
- Single leg bicycle crunch on bosu ball (finish one side and then switch, 12-15 reps)

Super Set (2-1-2 tempo, 2-3 sets, 60 seconds rest between super sets)
- Single leg lunge with back leg elevated on 12 box (finish one side then switch, 12-15 reps)
- Trunk rotation crunch on bosu ball (15 reps per side)

10 minute cardio cool down

This workout proved to be challenging and worked up a good sweat.

Until next time, get your sweat on and happy dieting.

- Joel

A Day of Celebration

Saturday the 12th, which was technically yesterday was a very good day. My girlfriend graduated with a Bachelor's of Science degree in Psychology. I'm so proud of her. All the hard work paid off. Congrats babe!!

So in celebration we had a graduation dinner celebration at Claim Jumpers.


This was my dinner. A nice rib eye steak with mashed potatoes and some veggies. I know that this meal alone is probably more calories than I should eat for my entire day but it was a time of celebration. I did spend a large majority of yesterday helping friends move so I burned my fair share of calories on top of working out with a friend earlier that day. Good job Terri by the way. Maybe next time you'll take my legs challenge.

Just thought I'd add a fee more pictures from the dinner.


















It was quite a large group of us so we had a variety of food on our table. And that was only the side of the table I was sitting on. And people wonder why America as a nation is over weight. Look at the portion size of these plates. Even the salad is giant. I've talked about before how important portion control is. So today being a special occation, portion control sort of got thrown out the window.

So I know this wasn't exactly a fitness related post but I just wanted to share a little about the good news that went down over the weekend. Hope all is well for everyone.

Until next time, get your sweat on and happy dieting.

- Joel via iPhone

Back on the Grind, Finally an update

What's up everybody? Well it's been quite a few months since I updated last. I'm finally getting my act back together and getting back to my weight loss goal. I weighed myself this morning and I'm back above the 200s. 204.6 to be exact. I'm not very happy about that but I can't say I'm surprised either. The past couple of months have been somewhat stressful to make a long story much shorter. But I think I've figured out at least part of so I feel a lot better about that.

So back to a life of calorie restriction and trips to the gym. I wish I had the discipline that my girlfriend has when it comes to calorie counting. She counts and measures everything she eats. It has become an exact science for her.

It's funny when you know you've been dieting for a while when you think of food as fuel rather than something delicious. Going to bed hungry just becomes a normal thing. The tough part is remaining disciplined enough not to get up in the middle of the night in search of a midnight snack. I really miss my salty snacks like chips and crackers. But when you realize how much more time will be needed in the gym to offset that bag of chips, they don't look as delicious. I ballpark my estimates but at least for me I can burn about 10 calories per minute on most standard pieces of cardio equipment. If the average bag of chips or can of soda is about 150 calories, that puts me at another 15 minutes of cardio just to break even for that snack. I don't know about the rest of you but I'd rather not work harder than I need to when it comes to cardio.

At some point in my life I'd like to b at a low enough body fat percentage that I could be lean enough to try to enter a body building competition. I still have a long way to go and that ultimately will come down to how on point my nutrition is. I'm not at that point where I feel comfortable restricting the specific amount of macro nutrients that I'm allowed to intake. Like most people I get irritable when I'm hungry and when I haven't had enough carbs I can get mean and snap at people. So for the sake of others around me, we'll save those low carb days for another time. Well it's getting late and I should probably wrap this up.

Until next time, get your sweat on and happy dieting.

- Joel via iPhone