This Week So Far

Hey all,
Haven't been on, but I have still been training. Been doing Down and Up Mass by Jim Stoppani because I wanted to get some more volume in. Here are the logs from the last 3 workouts. I will be hitting the gym tonight to get legs in.

Tuesday - This was a great workout. I don't remember this being as hard the first time I went through it. I was sore that day which is not a norm for me. The volume felt great and each set was a rest-pause drop set. This is why it looks like 2 full sets and 2 partial sets.

 

Wednesday - Killed back this day. Hit it from so many angles that every time I had to pull myself up at work my back cramped up pretty good.

 

 Thursday - Shoulder Day. I was concerned about going to heavy with my one shoulder having some pain when pressing above my head but it went pretty well. Also, I didn't use the smith machine for my Barbell Shoulder Press.

 

I am really enjoying the extra volume so I am going to keep going at this. I have legs tonight and then starting on Sunday I will be using pre-exhaustion techniques instead of the rest-pause drop sets. As always feel free to contact me with questions and to find this program and many more go to www.jimstoppani.com 14 day free trial and free membership to military members who sign up with a .mil email address.

God Bless and Get Big

Travis

June 20 & 22, 2014 Training Logs

Hey all,
Here is the training logs for this past Friday and This morning. Great challenging workouts.

Friday was a heavy squat day. It felt good pushing heavier weight. I had set out to keep all rest periods to 60 seconds but due to allergy congestion it happened to be around 90 seconds on most sets. This workout includes me doing 8 reps with 315 lbs. The last two reps were grinders made me work for every inch. The last set of lunges I went until I couldn't continue and then dropped the weight to finish the set. Then the last set was supposed to be doing 50 reps with 135 lbs without racking the bar. I only made 45 reps and it took all that I had to make it there. Afterwards, I kicked myself because I missed it by 5 reps. This is something I will continue to try and improve on. I warmed up with squats and the bar and doing five 10 second pauses in the hole to stretch out. Followed by 135 lbs with two 5 second pauses and then repping out 8 reps. I went up quarter/plate until 225 lbs then I went up to 315 lbs for the start of my working sets.

This morning I got to the gym and decided that I wanted to do a higher volume overall than what I had been doing  so I modified what I was supposed to do by adding in 2 extra shoulder exercises, 1 extra biceps exercise, 1 extra triceps exercise. I warmed up with some bar weight shoulder presses and stretching. All rest periods were 60 seconds. The only thing not in my logs is at the end of the bench dips I dropped the weight and repped out with body weight until failure.

So after today's workout I have decided to stop the program I am on due to the fact that I don't feel like I am getting enough overall volume. I am still going for a power lifting goal of increasing my Bench, Squat, and Deadlift but I am going to use the program that I started the year off with and that is Down and Up Mass by Jim Stoppani. I saw great growth in my legs and overall strength during this program. Remember, feel free to ask me questions and let me know if you like the picture logs or when I type them out.

God Bless and Get Swole

Travis

Have fun with it!

Hey all,
Can't believe it has been this long since I posted. I guess that is what happens you're having fun. Real been busy this year with the kids Taekwondo. I started off the year after my powerlifting meet with a new program from Jim Stoppani called Down and Up Mass. I really enjoyed this program and saw great gains especially in my legs. I followed that program up with another one from Jim called 6 Weeks to Sick Arms which focuses on the arms. I saw great muscle definition increase as well as some thinning out of the fat in my arms. I then did the first 3 weeks of Jim's Superman program. This program focuses on supersets to decrease workout length and keeping similarly volumes per muscle group. This program I saw an increase on upper pec development.

This week I started my own thing and decided that I am going to do what feels like needs to be done for me in my body and my fitness goals. I enjoy following the programs that Jim puts out but I am having so much fun in the gym right now. This week I have been working on going heavy in the 3 main moves and then following it up with Bodybuilding accessory exercises. I am also adding what is called feeder exercises to each day for a specific body part. This week it is arms. This is just to get a pump and get that blood flow into the muscle. Light weight for 20-50 reps. The following is what I have done this week.

Tuesday
Biceps and Triceps
Don't remember exact workout
Wednesday
Chest
Bench Press
Warmup
2 sets 135 lbs X 20reps
1 set 225 lbs X 8 reps
6 sets 245 lbs X 4 reps
2 sets 155 lbs X 8 pause reps
2 sets 135 lbs X 10 reps super wide grips

Incline Dumbbell Bench Press
5 sets 65lbs X 8 reps

Cable Biceps Curls
Superset
Cable Incline Triceps Extension
3 sets of 30 reps

Today
2" deficit Deadlift
Warmup
2 sets 135lbs X 8 reps
1 set 225 X 8 reps
1 set 315 X 6 reps
6 Sets 355 X 4 reps

T-Bar Rows
1 set 45 X 15 reps
1 set 90 X 11 reps
3 sets 115 X 11 reps
1 set 140 X 8 reps

Wide grip Lat Pulldowns
3 sets 200lbs X 10 reps
1 set 200lbs X 8 reps

Barbell Curls
Superset
Standing barbell Triceps extentions
3 sets 40 lbs 20 curl and 30 ext reps

So that is it for this week so far.  Tomorrow will be Squats and Legs. I haven't decided exactly what I am doing yet but plan on keeping a log of my workouts.

I also have started Taekwondo with the kids and now have moved into the adult classes. So I am doing it 3 nights a week which is really good because it makes me stretch which is something that has been lacking in my training.

If you all have any questions feel free to ask.

God bless
Travis

Happy Thanksgiving

Hi all,
Just wanted to take the time to say thank you for all your support. That on this day set aside to be thankful, I am thankful for all my family and friends. Remember this day isn't just about all the wonderful food. It is about reflecting on all aspects of our lives and giving thanks for everything whether it is a straight up blessing or it is a trial that forces you to be stronger in your life. Be thankful for it all.

A few things I am thankful for:
1. God - I am thankful for Jesus Christ being my Lord and my Savior. His grace and mercy are wonderful.
2. Wife - My beautiful and wonderful wife who supports me through it all. She is an awesome woman who bring sweet joy to my life.
3. Kids - My 3 wonderful kids who constantly bring me joy and challenge me daily.
4. Family - All my family who reminds that I have been loved for 36 years.
5. Friends - Friends bring laughter and inspiration, help and care, and many more things.
6. Leaders - My leaders in church and at work who are there to help me in my endeavors.
7. US Military - These men and women who selflessly sacrifice for a greater purpose. This includes their families who also give up so much.
8. The Iron - These items of various weights are always true to who they are...200 lbs is always 200 lbs.
9. Role Models - These are those people who have achieved what I am looking to achieve and they provide so many of us great information.
10. Thanksgiving food - Yes this is something I am thankful for....I call this Epic Cheat Meal Day.

God Bless.....remember to be thankful

Travis Miller

P.S. Oh Yea, Second week of my power lifting journey went well.....Tomorrow is deadlift Friday...getting together with friends and hitting the gym.....gonna be a blast.

Update

So in the last post I had said that I was going to update you on my current stats and what kind of progress I have been making. I didn't do that as you know if you are a regular here. I did take the measurements and I am quite pleased with the results and a I had expected at that time I have actually started losing weight although it hasn't been a lot I am down 7 pounds. Other progress results that I am pleased with is that I am currently wearing a shirt that I haven't worn in about 1 1/2 years.

That is about all I am going to give you for updates on my progress for now because in 8 days I will be 6 weeks in to my 12 week challenge which means it is time for progress pictures and time to switch the exercise routine up. I have the routine I am going to do next already figured out. I need to finish doing some weight calculations for this program but I am doing that on Monday, which happens to be my rest day. So one final progress stat for today and then I am going to sign off until next weekend when I will re-post my before pictures along side my progress pictures. That stat is for the month of January I lost 1.5 inches off my waist and I am sure I have lost about another inch since then but we will find out next week at my half way update.

Stay Tuned

God bless
Travis

Bizzy Diet Day 14

Hi All,
This has been a pretty great week for me. I discovered something that I was missing from my life. Heavy weight training. I was really enjoying the results and the workouts from the Bizzy Diet but I was not feeling the rush of the weight training like I wanted to. So here is where I stand. I am not going to continue with the bizzy diet because I am only 4lbs away from my 21 day goal and it is only day 14. I did some research and I consulted with a trainer from BodyBuilding.com and he suggested trying his Rock Hard Challenge. I took his advice and gave workouts 1 and 2 a try on Friday and Saturday. I love them and I am feeling the affects.

So I didn't just randomly pick a trainer off the web to seek information from, I did my research and I found out that he is the Chief Science Editor for Muscle and Fitness magazine. He has a PHD in exercise physiology. I also started following him on twitter to see what information he was passing out and what other people were saying about him and his workout routines. I would have to say that I am impressed with the results that I am hearing about from his programs. Who is this guy? His name is Jim Stoppani and he is one of the video trainers on bodybuilding.com with his Shortcut to Size program. This is the program I was originally interested in but I wanted to drop weight before going into it. So this is what I did, I tweeted Jim and told him that I am still 50lbs overweight and I was wondering if Shortcut to Size would help me cut weight while building muscle or would the HIIT and Weight circuit training (ie bizzy diet) that I was currently doing best for me. His response to me was that I should look up the Rock Hard Challenge.

I looked into the RHC and found that is sounded like something I would be interested in. This program is an 8 week program designed to transform your body. It has listed the workouts, the recommended nutrition, and the recommended supplementation which of course is the official challenge sponsors. I am going to try and stick close to the nutrition and the supplementation with the exception that I will be using Muscle Pharm as my supplementation brand of choice.

So on Friday, I went to the gym to do workout 1 to judge overall gym time and to figure out where I am going to be starting on the weight ranges. A brief overview of work out 1 is as follows a chest shoulder and triceps workout where you are doing 2 sets of 10 reps and 1 set of 12-15 reps per workout or 2 sets of 12-15 and 1 set of 10, which seems pretty normal with 2 mins rest between sets. Here is the kicker, before you get to your 2 minutes of rest you do 1 minute of cardio, ie treadmill, stair climber, or calisthenics after each set before the rest period. This makes all the difference in the world when it comes to kicking your butt. I came out of the workout feeling great and ready to come back and do some more.

Saturday shows up and I decide to give workout number 2 a try. This is legs, calves and abs with the same workout schedule as workout 1 to include the cardio between sets. I can tell you now why I know they use the term "you been stoppani'd" on the twitter microblog when talking about Jim Stoppani's workout routines. Today I went to the gym to do slow steady cardio to loosen up the legs a little but I am still wincing in that wonderful pain of muscle growth as I sit up and down through out the day.

So here is where I stand currently I am down 16 lbs overall and down 2.5 inches around my waist. I am seeing slimming across my entire body and increased definition around muscles as the fat is burned away. Tomorrow, I am starting the RHC with workout 1 and I look forward to the amazing results that are going to come of this program and my dedicated hard work. I want to transform my body into a lean healthy machine.

My new favorite term Swoldier thanks to Steve Cook from bodybuilding.com for that one.

Also, keep an eye on FromTrialstoTriumphs as it is under construction but should be up soon. But to give you a sneek peek go there now and see what happens when you tell a conqueror that they will never walk again.

God Bless all,

Travis