SpecFit Team Three

WEEK 10

MY ENERGY LEVEL IS SO HIGH

By Mark Clem

The 10 weeks are completed. I have lost 20 pounds or more of fat and gained some muscle. My waist is 4 inches smaller.

A great deal of time and effort was spent on my flexibility and it is quite evident in my shoulders and legs. 

My energy level is so high I am asking my wife for things to do which has her in amazement. She says I can’t talk about our sex life so I won’t.

The 10 weeks were as much a rehab project as an exercise program. When you have had 40 years of neglect and 10 weeks to perform a miracle, what can you expect.

I didn’t realize how bad my fitness level was. I thought running on a basketball court and tennis court were affording me some level of conditioning. Not true.

Most of the exercises I have done in the past 10 weeks, I have never seen or done before — much like the food I now eat and recognize in the store. You should try it. You might be as surprised as I am.

Being semi retired, I am able to set aside some time each day for structured exercise and for the final two weeks I have done just that.  Now one to two hours during the day are devoted to doing all the Witch Doctor (WD) exercises and some cardio work just to piss him off.

I will need to take the weekends off to have some pain free days each week. At 60+, I think that’s the only way to have pain-free days.

Week 10 has special significance for me. Ten years ago this week, I suffered three heart attacks.

The first one felt like indigestion but the second one, 24 hours later landed me in the cardiac care unit where, the next day, I went into ventricular fibrillation, which meant my heart started to seriously malfunction and I saw a bright light.

The hospital staff were quick with the paddles and got my heart back on track. I woke up with a lot of strange faces surrounding my bed. A few days later, following an angiogram (inject dye into arteries supplying blood to your heart to find blockages), I had a third heart attack.

The next week they did an angioplasty (clear the blockages with a small balloon) and implanted two stents (look like Chinese finger locks) that keep the coronary arteries open where the blockages were.

My eating habits got better after that — but not great as I now know.

I feared then and for a long time that intense exercise might trigger another heart attack. WD kept cardio to a minimum for his own peace of mind.

There wasn’t enough time and I may not have been able to do any of his exercises if there was also a cardio component. 

I have another 20 pounds to lose by August 10. 

Thank you all for following our blog. Thank you, Mark, for putting up with me; I’m sure it wasn’t easy.

And thanks to The Spectator for giving me this wonderful opportunity to get back something I didn’t realize how much I had lost.

MARK HAS FAR EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS

By Mark Young, Nutrex Solutions, nutrexsolutions.com/

As we enter Mark’s final week, I’m sure you’re all excited to see how he made out, but I’d like to preface this week’s update by saying thank you to the people who made this entire project possible.

First, I would like to thank Health editor Florence Sicoli and The Spec  for putting this whole thing together and organizing this project from start to finish.

I would also like to say a sincere thank you to Russ and Meghan Lane from Mind Body Connection Studios on Nebo Road for graciously allowing us to use their incredible facility for our training sessions. Their spacious facility is a great place to train.

Despite Mark’s lighthearted jabs about the pain inflicted by our friend Conor Collins (otherwise known as Thumbs) at the Foot Knee Back clinic in Ancaster, I can honestly say that he has done a tremendous job in dealing with Mark’s postural issues and joint pain.

Conor’s hard work and input has certainly resulted in a reduction in Mark’s pain and it has made my job a lot easier. Thank you for all of your efforts.

And last but not least, I would love to thank my beautiful wife Stacey, who is also a trainer, for being there to support me and to give suggestions and advice for Mark’s program. Something would definitely be amiss if I took credit for anything without mentioning her name alongside mine.

Now on to the results: As you might recall, Mark had set out a few very specific goals at the beginning of his 10-week journey. Let’s see how he made out.

Goal No. 1: To complete the final four miles of the Boston Marathon alongside his wife.

Mark pursued this goal with great enthusiasm and, despite his bad knees, managed to run and support his wife as she completed the final stretch up Heartbreak Hill. This is a huge achievement, and I’m so proud that Mark was able to accomplish this. 

Goal No. 2: To lose 20 pounds.

As of our final weigh in, Mark has officially lost 17.5 pounds over the course of 10 weeks. Although he’s probably not happy that he didn’t hit the 20-pound mark, I can sincerely say that I’m impressed with his average loss of 1.75 pounds per week. Given some of the early dietary deviations that took take place, I’m very happy with this result. 

Moreover, this rate of loss was attained with only two days per week at the gym, which is quite realistic to maintain as opposed to a more time-consuming plan. If Mark continues on the same course he’ll be able to hit his 35-pound weight loss goal by the end of the summer!

Goal No.3: To shrink his waist by four inches.

Mark nailed this one by losing an amazing 4.25 inches off his waist!  Now if only I could get him to buy some smaller shorts so they’ll stop falling down when he’s skipping in the gym. 

In all seriousness, though, Mark stated in his first blog post a long-term goal of reaching a 36-in waist, and I think that’s only months away if he keeps on doing what he’s been doing to this point.

Goal No. 4: To reduce his lower back pain.

Back pain is a tricky for a couple of reasons. First, when someone has back pain you need to sort that out because you can’t continue to train around it forever. However, in the meantime you need to try to provide a training stimulus that will result in weight loss without provoking pain. 

This is often a difficult task as the back can be fussy with certain exercises and pain-free with others.

Secondly, there is no single diagnostic tool or test to tell why you’re hurting. Granted, X-rays and MRIs are great, but when they come up negative you can often end up with a lack of diagnosis and ongoing back pain that nobody can seem to treat. People in this situation often end up with a cabinet full of pain medication and no real solutions.

I think that the greatest problem is that back pain has many causes and most people are so fixated on the notion of having a weak back (and trying to strengthen it) or a tight back (and trying to stretch it) that they fail to see the real problem.

In Mark’s case, his lower back pain had little to do with his back at all, but with the muscles surrounding his hips. Once we sorted that out, I’m proud to report that Mark’s lower back is now completely pain free!

The bonuses:

If you’ve ever watched an infomercial you know that there are often a number of free bonuses that come along with any great purchase. Exercise and nutritional changes aren’t without similar perks.

On Mark’s last training session with me he completed 3 sets of 10 repetitions of normal push ups on the floor! From his starting position on a high incline (which makes the exercise much easier) he has progressed week after week and has completely shattered my expectations. 

Mark’s wife and son were present to witness this event in history along with the loud grunts and moans that frequently accompany his workouts.

Although this might seem like a rudimentary task to some, when I first met Mark he was completely unable to get up from the floor without assistance from his hands on his knees or to climb steps carrying anything heavier than a feather.

Now he can get up from the floor with ease (both legs) and climb stairs with a few bags of groceries. For anyone who has felt the physical limitations of getting a little older, you’ll know what a huge feat this is — and now you know how quickly it can be improved.

Perhaps most importantly, Mark has reported a drastic decrease in his knee pain (having had nine past knee surgeries between both knees) and an equally dramatic drop in his shoulder pain. With pain comes immobility and with that comes weight gain. 

By taking care of these issues alongside our main targets, we’ve guaranteed that Mark can continue this lifestyle for a long time.

The wrap:

At this point I sincerely want to thank Mark for all of his hard work and dedication along the way. He has been a fun and exciting person to train and I will honestly miss our training sessions together. 

I know this plan can be difficult at times, and Mark has made tremendous strides in a short time to make it part of his lifestyle. I wish him all the luck in the future, although if he just keeps doing what he’s doing, I’m sure he won’t need it.

I also want to thank you, the reader, for following along as we documented Mark’s journey. I hope you’ve enjoyed following the process and, more importantly, perhaps it has inspired you to write the story of your own fitness makeover.

Thanks to all for reading.

WEEK 9

I LIMPED TO MY SESSION WITH THUMBS, BUT I WALKED OUT

By Mark Clem

One more week to go. The Witch Doctor (WD) brought in the blue (harder) roller this week. Oh the pain is everywhere again.

I was doing very well with my leg squats but WD can’t stand to watch me try to skip and he figures stepping on the box is better cardio. I started to do the step but felt some pain in my thigh muscle just above my knee. No stepping or skipping today!

WD told me to have Thumbs look at it the next day.

It was my last visit with Thumbs for a while because he is going away for a holiday. It will be a holiday for both of us. 

In the morning, when I told him about my strained thigh muscle, his eyes lit up like I was giving him a going away present. I limped in but walked out.

However, there were some words said that the receptionist heard at the other end of the clinic. Her face was quite red when I walked by on my way out. It was 8:30 in the morning and there were no other patients around. Thumbs books me early so I don’t scare off other clients.

I am starting to sweat and continuing to swear during each session. WD appears to have seen and heard it all before. Only five more pounds to go. WD was impressed.

No swimming or cycling this week, but I thought about it every day. WD has introduced more new exercises this week with unusual names that I will let him describe.

I found someone to put healthy food in front of me twice a week, this nice lady at Subway named Hilda. I just tell her “the usual, don’t supersize or make it a combo”.

Loren’s run on June 12 is a fundraiser for Wever Community Hub after-school programs. Maybe I should go in disguise and spy on him. See how fast he is and what race strategy he uses. Better yet, I could be the mystery runner in the race and find out what he’s got.

I am looking forward to the weekend — no WD,  no Thumbs and no pain until Tuesday.

MARK’S HARD WORK IS PAYING OFF

By Mark Young, Nutrex Solutions, nutrexsolutions.com/

Well, we’re in week 9 and Mark has lost 3.5 more pounds bringing his grand total weight loss to 14.5 pounds!

His weight is now 205 pounds which means he is officially at the high end of our 10 week goal of 200-205 pounds one week early. 

His hard work is really paying off!

Here’s a little breakdown of how Mark’s week went:

DAY 1

Lower Body Push – Box Squat
Today seemed like yet another normal day, but in the midst of Mark’s warm for this exercise he suddenly complained of a pain in the front of his right thigh. Some might make the decision to pack up and go home for the day. Others might choose to press on and deal with the pain later.

Instead, my solution was to drop this movement and work around the problem to maintain a training effect without further aggravating that particular muscle. While a lot of people tend to train through pain, it is important to remember the difference between pain associated with exercise and pain associated with injury. 

Injury pain is like the “service engine” light on your dashboard.  You can ignore it, but it is there to give you a warning. If you don’t pay attention to it, you’ll probably regret it later. Your best bet with a small strain like this is to go home and put ice (not heat) on it. More often than not, it will heal up on it’s own within a couple days.

Lower Body Pull – Hyperextensions
Since Mark’s muscle strain was in the quadriceps on the front of the thigh, we switched the focus on his workout to the hamstrings and glutes on the back of the leg instead. Since we had a little more time to work with, Mark had the benefit of being able to perform a couple extra sets of this exercise. Truth be told, people usually need more work on the back side than the front side anyway.

Unilateral Lower Body – Single Legged Romanian Deadlift From A Box
As I mentioned last week, I like to do single legged movements to prevent one side from becoming stronger than the other. Today we dropped the step up movement from last week as this would likely cause pain to Mark’s strained muscle.

Instead, Mark learned a tricky movement called a single legged Romanian deadlift from a box.  Done correctly, this movement requires very little weight and can tax the glutes and hamstrings beyond belief.

However, because it is difficult to learn and teach this movement often saps a lot of time from a workout. Fortunately, its effects are tremendous if you take the time to learn it properly.

We shortened Mark’s workout today to focus more on stretching at the end and to get him home quickly to get some ice on his leg.

DAY 2

When Mark arrived today he noted that his leg had much improved so hopefully he’ll be back to 100% for next week. Usually an unexpected muscle strain will clear up quickly if care is taken to rest it and apply ice.

Last week Mark paired a row and some incline push ups in an alternating fashion, but today I wanted to step up the intensity a little more as I felt he handled last week exceptionally well. 

Instead of alternating the exercises, we performed supersets where one exercise is immediately followed by another with no rest.

For example, Mark would perform one set of a horizontal pulling motion like a row followed immediately by a horizontal pushing motion like a push up. After that he would take his normal rest interval before repeating the whole superset again. 

I should note that Mark hit 10 repetitions on all three sets of his incline push ups and I’m excited to say that next week he should be able to perform at least a few regular pushups on the floor!

Last week we paired a dumbbell pullover and a dumbbell shoulder press as our vertical pull and push. But since there was still a little shoulder pain on the right side, I opted to remove the overhead pressing in favour of some side raises until we can sort that out.

As next week is our final week I’m anxious to see how Mark will make out, but I’m confident that every ounce of his hard work will pay off.

WEEK 8

EATING EVERY TWO HOURS IS HUGE ORGANIZATIONAL CHALLENGE

By Mark Clem

My skipping is so good now. Half the time I stop because I’m pooped and the other half is when the rope wraps around my neck.

All my talk about swimming and cycling on my days off didn’t happen. There weren’t any thunderstorms that prevented it, just a lack of motivation. So many other things get in the way of exercise that I need a lot of motivation to overcome them.

I did two sets of 7 push ups and one final set of 10 push ups this week. Granted I am not doing them flat on the floor but I’m not doing them leaning against a wall anymore either.

Chin ups aren’t happening yet, but I plan to do at least one before the 10 weeks are up. I love Sundays and Mondays, they are the only days of the week I don’t hurt all over from what the Witch Doctor and Thumbs have done to me. There’s another reason not to swim or cycle on my days off.

I read fellow cadet Loren’s blog, he is getting lots of cardio work and I’m not. He is running in a 5K race on June 12, just 10 days before our Father’s Day race. June and Geetha are also doing 5K runs next month.

I wonder how much beer Loren can drink and how many chicken wings he can eat. I hope Ray’s Place has volume pricing!

I wonder if I can swim 30 lengths between periods of the hockey game tonight.

Let’s not talk about the diet other than to say eating every 2 hours is a huge organizational challenge. I will eat whatever is put in front of me. The problem is there isn’t a line up of people putting food in front of me each and every day.

If I’m left to fend for my self, that’s when the 2 hour feeds go out the window and bad stuff ends up in front of me somehow.

Come September our youngest daughter is off to university, she will take all the bad food in the house with her, then what am I going to do?

STARTING A SPLIT ROUTINE

By Mark Young, Nutrex Solutions, nutrexsolutions.com/

Each week Mark’s weight training routine has consisted of several movement patterns that have been split up the following way.

DAY 1
Horizontal Pull – Rowing type movements
Horizontal Push – Push up type movements
Lower Body Push – Lunge or squat type movements

DAY 2
Vertical Pulling – Chin up or pull down type movements
Vertical Pushing - Lateral raise or shoulder press type movements
Lower Body Pull – Bending movements at the hips like pull throughs

You can see all these exercises at www.youtube.com/nutrexsolutions

This week I decided to introduce a split routine where Mark essentially trained one half of his body on one day and the other half on another day. 

Split routines offer some advantages over whole body type routines in that they really allow you to tax each part of the body and allow the other part to recover more fully from intense exercise on the previous week.

Granted, there are times when anyone can benefit from whole body training, but Mark needed a change so we could progress his intensity. This week I opted to put Mark on an upper/lower body split which allowed him to focus on his lower body on Tuesday and his upper body on Thursday.

Here are a few highlights of Mark’s resistance training sessions. Warm ups, core work and stretching were done, but are removed here for brevity.

DAY 1
Lower Body Push – Box Squat
As was mentioned last week, my goal for Mark was to gradually reduce the height of the box he used to squat to until he had a greater range of motion. 

From last week to this week alone Mark was able to increase the range in his squat depth by at least two inches.  It doesn’t sound like much, but that’s a huge accomplishment in one week!  Again, no knee pain.

Unilateral Lower Body – Step Ups
With the lower body, “unilateral” is just a fancy way of saying “one leg”.  While the squat pattern trains both legs together in a useful way (i.e., you have to squat in and out of a chair), I really like single leg movements because they help you do things like get up from the floor, climb stairs, and iron out side to side strength imbalances. As a bonus, movements like the split squat hit both the front and back of the legs as well as the glutes.

In Mark’s case, he had mentioned when he started with me that he has trouble climbing stairs while holding anything in his hands because his legs just aren’t strong enough. To rectify I had him perform step ups onto a high bench. 

The key with this movement is to not jump off the toes to assist you up onto the bench, but to use the planted leg to pull you up. I think Mark enjoyed this one, but I couldn’t tell with all the expletives that came out of his mouth.

Lower Body Pull – Hyperextensions
This exercise can be done for either the lower back or the glutes and hamstrings. Personally, I believe that the lower back rarely needs strengthening (it is usually tight or poorly controlled, but not weak), so we focused on the glutes and hamstrings. 

Performing this exercise by bending exclusively at the hips instead of at the lower back will maximize the contraction of the lower body and leave your muscles quivering.

DAY 2
On this day I had four specific exercises that I wanted to do, but instead of the conventional method of doing straight sets, we alternated one exercise with another.

For example, Mark would perform one set of a horizontal pulling motion like a row followed by a normal rest interval. Then he would perform a horizontal pushing motion like a push up. This is not to be confused with a superset where one exercise is done immediately after the previous with no rest.

What the alternating method does is keep the rest intervals short enough to allow the heart rate to stay up, but allows the specific muscle groups involved in the exercise a longer time to recover.

For example, training normally you might do a row and then wait 1 minute to perform it again which doesn’t allow a lot of time for that muscle to rest. With alternating sets, you perform your row, rest, perform another exercise, rest, and then come back to the row several minutes later. 

This allows the muscle to rest more fully and lift more weight while still keeping the body moving by doing something else in the interim.

Today we paired an incline dumbbell row and an incline push up for horizontal pulling and pushing. I should note that Mark hit 10 push ups on a very low incline today and I’m confident that he’ll actually do at least a couple on the floor by the end of 10 weeks.

We also paired a dumbbell pullover and a dumbbell shoulder press as our vertical pull and push today. While Mark still has some postural issues to work out, he appears to be able to do some overhead pressing with only slight pain in his right shoulder now. 

After a little work on his deltoid (i.e., percussing it lightly with the meaty part of the hand) the pain went away, but the arm still remained weak. This is obviously an area we still need to work on, but it didn’t go to badly for his first time doing overhead work.

All in all, I think Mark is making incredible progress and I can’t wait to see how this all winds up.

Thanks for following along!