I'm Such A Loser

Well after a few days of deciding, I guess I've decided to stay with Blogger platform. Losing all your comments is a little too much.

Besides, since I have decided to stay with blogger, I'm still looking out for a nice template to redo this blog, but in the meantime, there's really nothing much to write simply because:

1. I'm still the same weight
2. the home-made versa-stick is still being used
3. I still need to get more black bands for more "weight"
   

Each black band is US$13.00.... makes me reconsider ordering 3 more black bands since the price would be like almost US$40.00, not including shipping. Not too sure if it's going to be worth it, or to get another full bodylastics kit.

Truth to tell, I HAVE been slacking slightly in my routines. I don't workout as much as I did before, 2 days a week compared to 3 to 4 previously. I need to get back into the swing of things!

Ah well I'll decide on the black bands later.

Labels: Bodylastics, personal

In a followup to my earlier post on the Versa Stick, I mentioned that I thought it was a good idea, and that I'd jury-rig up my own "Versa Stick" alternative to my Bodylastics kit, and see how it works out.

Well, before I go into more details, here's a pic of my jury-rigging:



Yeah I found a metal bar in my home, leftover from a renovation I did a long time back. I never remembered why I kept it around, but I'm glad I did. It's made from solid aluminium or steel, or something, and it's super-light. The black straps you see in the picture are the ankle straps from the Bodylastics kit.

I did a few pull-downs (to work the back) and it felt almost like the gym machine. Almost. As you can see, I already had every band available hooked up, and it still felt "light". I calculated, that with all the bands up, I only had roughly 65 pounds of resistance. In the gym, I was pulling 90 pounds or so.

Now if you don't have a metal bar like mine at home, and you do have a chin-up bar (many people do), unhook it from your doorframe and use it as the "stick" like so:



Personally I preferred my own metal bar over the chin-up bar. As for how it feels, it feels alot better than just pulling on the 2 handles. The only problem now is that I can't seem to find a suitable "replacement" for the bench-press using the stick, to work the chest. Hooking the bands at chest height and standing a few feet away with your back turned still doesn't quite match the feeling since the bands tend to pull you towards the door when you're trying to push the stick away from your chest. There's nothing on your back to stop you from being pulled back towards the door.

So I guess, bench-press replication is still not possible (maybe it is, I just haven't figured it out) even with a stick on the Bodylastics kit.

For now, this jury-rigged stick is used solely for my pull-downs workout. All other workouts are still done as per the instruction booklet provided by Bodylastics.

Labels: Bodylastics, Versa Stick, workout

As usual, while out blog-surfing, I came across this article  about a new (to me at least) home-gym alternative called Versa Stick.

I happen to think this is a neat idea.

Why? Because since I have finally been to a real gym for once, I can see how Bodylastics replicates gym workouts. In some cases, Bodylastics has to do it in a totally different manner to achieve the same targetted areas of the body, simply because it's missing a metal/high strength bar. Like for pull downs, chest-press etc.

Versa Stick apparently closes this gap (from what I could glean from the website). It also boasts of over 100 different workouts that could be done with it, just like Bodylastics.

To me, of course, the best of all would be a combination of both Bodylastics AND Versa Stick. From what I could see from the Versa Stick site, the bands provided comes nowhere close to Bodylastics'.

Now after seeing this (and the price of US$79.95, eeks!), I thought I might as well rig up my own "stick" and see if I can hook it up to Bodylastics. In the past I have ordered a few dud home gyms. A couple come with some sort of a metal bar with rubberized grips. I could conceivably turn one of them into a "versa stick" knock-off by hooking Bodylastic ankle-straps to the bar and using it like a Versa Stick.

Or in a worst-case scenario - turn my Steel Bow into the "metal bar" :) There's enough places on the Steel Bow to tie the ankle-straps to, to ensure non-slippage.

I'll write more after I've given this idea a whirl for awhile.

Labels: Bodylastics, Steel Bow, Versa Stick, workout

I had been thinking, and planning my workouts lately.

While it is a good idea to split the workouts into small bits, ie work a couple of parts each time, I was thinking it would be a better idea to dedicate Sat and Sun to full body workouts - ie Upper Body on Saturday, Lower Body on Sunday.

Then, I rest 1 week. Weekdays, I just do the circuit-training thing on the video. I figure since the circuit training is more for burning fat than building muscles, I can easily hook a "lighter" band in and follow along, and thus won't overtrain my muscles.

I went on this new workout plan last weekend. Saturday was upper body, Sunday was lower body. Now my whole body aches slightly. No, not the "Oh Gawd I can't move, I can't sneeze, I can laugh" type of ache.. but the nice dull ache that lets you know you've actually hit the targetted muscles and worked them to failure to spark off muscle growth.

In fact, I actually used both the Steel Bow and the Bodylastics in my workouts on the weekend. As I said before, Steel Bow feels more "targetted", so for those parts which I can't seem to "get" with Bodylastics, I used the Steel Bow to work those parts to failure.

Labels: Bodylastics, Steel Bow, workout

Last night my back stopped aching. Lats, shoulders etc all were fine. So I thought I'd get back on Bodylastics and get more workouts in.

Lately I've been surfing bodybuilding sites. No, I don't want to look like Arnold Shwarzenegger. I just need to find the right info for building muscles. In the past, I understood that muscles need to rest after working out, and the period of rest is 48 hours.

However, it seems that info might have been incorrect. The websites I saw a couple of days back advocate 5 to 7 days of rest, and it's not just coming from 1 website. So I guess there must be some truth in it.

They said, although you exercise each body part "once a week" for maximal effect, it doesn't mean you workout once a week. You can still workout 3 or 4 times a week but each time you do one or 2 body parts. That way, you will complete a "full body" workout once a week, and each part rests 5 to 7 days.

Also, they advocate the HIT philosophy - High Intensity Training. In simple terms, work your muscles to failure, that's how you force them to grow. Don't need to spend hours too, as long as you achieve muscle fatigue on your workouts, you have achieved "HIT". So with this newfound information, I worked on the triceps and biceps, and a little on the legs.

I plan to do full leg workouts on Friday (now that I'm not drinking regularly anymore on Fridays). So, I pull out the Bodylastics kit, hooked the black and blue bands on (for a total of 42 pounds weight, or roughly 18.5kg) and did bicep curls.

I had planned to do 3 sets of 8.

I never completed my 3rd set.

Man, I have never reached failure that quick before. I love it! On my 4th or 5th rep in my 3rd set, I just couldn't pull anymore.

You can't really compare Isometric workouts (on the Steel Bow) to Bodylastics, since Isometrics are "push and hold" workouts. There's no "failure" to be reached. You just pull or push on the device, hold it, then release slowly and repeat for the required number of reps or sets. Well technically you can reach "failure" on the Steel Bow, if you continue to push (or pull) until you tremble. However the Steel Bow guides advises to use only 70% of your maximum strength, and hold only for 10 seconds. You can actually complete a full body workout on the Steel Bow in under 20 mins, trust me. I once completed a full body workout just watching Maggi And Me on TV with about 5 to 10 mins to spare, and it's a half-hour show!

And, as previous entries have testified, Steel Bow (and Isometrics) work. I couldn't do a single push-up before, now I can do over 20, and this was even before I got my Bodylastics kit. I had gone from 82kgs to 75kgs using just the Steel Bow and its workout chart. As of December 2007, I had completely stopped all the "mindless cardio" workouts too.

What I'm going to do now, is to run another experiment. For the next month, ie Feb 2008, I'm only going to use Bodylastics and its workout plans. No cardio. Let's see how much weight I lose, or whether I gain muscle mass. Hence tonight I will have to do some benchmarking, like doing pushups till I fail. In March or so I'll check and see if I had progressed.

Labels: Bodylastics, Steel Bow, workout

For those who are new, I just had my first "full" workout with Bodylastics yesterday.

Today, my lats are aching. Good sign.

Well, seeing as I haven't actually worked out in like 3 weeks, I'm amazed that I am not aching everywhere. Just slight tiredness in chest and arms, but shoulders, back and lats are aching. That tells me 2 things:

1. I have a weak back compared to the rest of my upper torso parts
2. I didn't "get" the back and lats correctly when working out with the Steel Bow.

So, I guess Bodylastics, in this case, is "better". However, Steel Bow is primarily an isometrics device, so the types of exercises are definitely different. When you actually sit down and think about it, Bodylastics can also be used as an isometric device - just pull, and hold.

Do I think I've wasted my money on the Steel Bow? No. It got me in shape. It is also more "convenient" in that everything is in one neat package. You don't need to look for doors or windows to anchor it for your workouts. All the anchor points are your own body. I can use the Steel Bow slouched in front of the TV or the PC. I can't do the same with Bodylastics.

The drawback is of course, the lack of supporting material for it. You only get a wallchart, and hardly any videos available on the net to see exactly how each exercise is supposed to be performed. I tried to do the exercises that were supposed to target the lats but it seemed I failed. It's either the exercises were wrong, or more likely, I did 'em incorrectly.

Right now I have dull aches at my lats and my shoulders. Arms and chest are fine, just tired.

Labels: Bodylastics, personal, workout

This morning I woke up unusually early. Well unusual for me, I normally sleep past noon on Sundays.

Since I had time, I decided to finally get the Bodylastics kit out and start working on the chest, back and shoulders, ie upper body workout today. Going through the manual, I pick the few exercises I would like to try today. Some of them involves sticking the "door jam" thing into the door at various heights to work on the different parts of the body.

However, Singaporeans are a little bit more fortunate. I don't have to go hunting for doors. I just looped the "door jam" thing around our plentiful WINDOW GRILLES. Yup, works just the same as if you had to go look for a door and jam it behind the door. Plus, you don't have to worry about slamming the door on your fingers trying to keep the "door jam" at "chest height" for example. In fact, if you're super lazy, forget the door jam. Just loop the bands around the window grilles and pull. If the window grilles ever come loose, complain to the RC! They'll fix it :)

So what's the verdict?

Great! I had originally intended to run through just a few exercises, to work on my lats especially (which the Steel Bow can't really seem to target properly, or was it me not doing it correctly on the Steel Bow?). I just did 3 different exercises for the lats, which to me means 3 sets of 10. That means I do 1 exercise for 10 reps, and change to a new one, so to me that's 3 sets of 10. After this, I was going to plunk myself down in front of the TV and work out on the Steel Bow while watching TV.

In any case, the feeling after coming away from the exercises, was very very nice. I spent like 45 mins doing nothing but muscle building exercises, zero "mindless cardio". My heart rate was right up there as if I had been doing cardio. Arms and back were tingling, like as if I had done full workouts.

I guess now I don't need to do the workouts on the Steel Bow like I had intended. I can just slouch all day in front of the TV now.

Guess tomorrow will be a rest day and then I'll probably start on Steel Bow first on Tuesday before moving on to the Bodylastics for my lower body.

Labels: Bodylastics, home gym, workout

Exactly 33 days ago, I placed an order online for the Bodylastics Home Gym. It actually arrived yesterday, but because nobody was home to receive the package, it got sent back all the way to Paya Lebar, the HQ of Singpost.

So I had to make phone calls just to make sure that it's there and told them to hold it there and I'll go pick it up myself. Since I won't be home, it's going to get sent back there again if they try to deliver it today.

If you think Singaporeans are kiasu, wait till you see the packing.


They actually put a box inside another box! There's even packing material in the bigger box! Think about this for a moment will you? What is Bodylastics? In very simple terms, they're just rubber bands. The handles and other "accessories" are basically cloth straps. There's NOTHING to break! Americans win, ok?


Anyway, excitedly I began to unpack the items:


Nice! The whole thing fitted completely into 2 plastic bags. So I tore open the bag and found....


... the handles, ankle straps, and door jam inside the bodylastics travel bag!

The accompanying "manual" which you can see on the left in the pictures, is pretty thick and fully illustrated with many different exercises for different muscle groups. They have even created catergories of exercises for specific sports like golf, baseball etc!

The bands themselves, however, looked and felt "flimsy". I know they're made from the best quality rubber they can find, but the feeling of "flimsiness" is still there. Partly because I expected the bands themselves to be heavier in weight, but they were all surprisingly light. The bands are colour-coded for their "weight" in terms of resistance if you used them. The second cue they gave you was that the "heavier weights" were actually thicker!

As a quick test, I loaded up with a black band (23 pounds) and a blue band (19 pounds) and did just 3 or 4 reps of bicep curls. Somehow still didn't feel "heavy" enough, so I stopped. I sat down at the computer and started to chat with people on MSN. It was THEN, that the nice feeling of having worked out hit the arms. Nice! Not a "tired" feeling but a tingling.

Just 3 or 4 reps! Not even a full set!

I ordered the "Max Tension" version of the kit, so it included everything, even the DVD. I ran through the DVD quickly (dragging the slider) just to look at the "follow-along" workout. Looks pretty good actually. It's a circuit-training kind of thing, and circuit-trainings usually help to burn alot of calories. Very useful if you're losing weight.

In my personal opinion, the Steel Bow is more "targetted" in their exercises. For example if you're working the arms, you feel most of the strain on the arms. With Bodylastics, not only do the arms feel the strain, but the "supporting muscles" around the target area get worked on too! It truly is a mini-home gym in a nice neat little bag.

I won't be "throwing aside" the Steel Bow though. It's great for those workouts when you're sitting down watching TV and want to get some workout in. I'll use Bodylastics when I have time to commit to a more complete workout.

Originally, my aim was to lose weight and stop having my gut patted by giggling women asking me "so when is it due?". That tummy has dramatically been reduced now. Now my aim is to get fit and build muscles. No, I'm not going for the Arnold Schwarzenegger look. I'm just going for the "lean mean fighting machine" look, like those guys you see in the movie "300".

I know I probably won't be anywhere near them but it sure will be a far cry from what I was back in Sept 2007.

Labels: Bodylastics, home gym

Depressed right now. Not working out. Need time to sort stuff out in my head.

Lost another 2kg though (approximately 5 pounds). Yay?

Oh, Bodylastics kit not here yet, and it's been a month. Was told that Singapore customs stopped it for "a series of inspections". What the hell do you expect to find among a bunch of rubber bands?!

Labels: Bodylastics, rant

Yeah I finally managed to make an order for the Bodylastics Home Gym, on 20th Dec 2007. The reason why it took so long to get around to it was:

1. Bodylastics themselves do not ship overseas.
2. Their international reseller had no stocks.
3. When I waited till November, when the International Reseller had indicated when new stocks would arrive, he's no longer the authorised International Reseller.

So, I had to go back to Bodylastics and write them an email asking how to purchase their product if they do not ship overseas. To their credit, they got back to me pretty quick and advised me on a new reseller. So I went and ordered the kit.

I ordered the "Max Tension" set with DVD. I figured, might as well get everything since I'm only going to order it once.

Will post again when the kit arrives (it hasn't yet). I was kinda hoping that it would be my X'mas present but I guess not. It probably will arrive in the coming week or the next though, given the X'mas rush at the postal services.

As this is probably the last post for the year 2007, I'd like to wish one and all, a HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008!

Labels: Bodylastics, home gym

In my current craze for fitness (which I hope will last for the rest of my lifetime, however little of it is left), I have been looking at other systems. My primary criteria is of course, that is must be COMPACT, small, easily put away, out of sight, et cetera.

Putting aside Google (gasp! horror!) I used Yahoo search instead, because Yahoo has human-edited search results, which should be slightly more accurate I think. I went and searched for other home gyms.

I came across BodyLastics, a pilates-like kind of home gym. It's a bunch of bungee-cords with handles, and you place them in various positions to work different parts of the body. I have a friend who ordered one of these a few years ago. He says they work really well, especially in a HDB environment we have here in Singapore.

So, I broke out my credit card, and wanted to place an order. However, I was stalled by a message - they are all out of stocks and won't get new stocks till November. Ah well, ok I guess I will have to wait a while longer.

In the meantime, I'm still actively using my Steel Bow. I'm just looking for more systems to complement the workout routine I'm putting myself through. If BodyLastics can do the job, all the better!

Labels: Bodylastics, home gym, Steel Bow

Well I must say one thing... I did improve my strength using the Steel Bow. I can now fully compress the Steel Bow while doing the workouts. However, I'm disappointed that my physique changed very little, if at all, during this time :(

As suggested in the instructions, I changed the spring in the Steel Bow to the Level 2 one. I then tried to do just a couple of the workouts. Man! What a change! With the level 2 spring in the Steel Bow, I could only push it to about the "40" mark (out of 120). This is what I need, I think.

After going through a couple more exercises, I could feel the arms getting slightly numb again, like I did in the past. I'm feeling good about this.

I was talking to my buddy yesterday about working out. He's a proponent of free-weights, and doesn't believe in anything except good old fashioned weights, and maybe the elastic bands thing for working out. He pointed me to a website, Bodylastics. I might see about getting that too to complement my Steel Bow workout...

Labels: Bodylastics, exercise, Steel Bow, workout