Leg Day light work

Stormy and muggy day today in the great NW. Quite unusual for this time of year, but I will take the cooler weather given it was about 82* in my room this morning at 2 AM. 

Legs are hurting today from the workout yesterday. It’s crazy to me how much of a difference missing a leg session or two makes. A lot of people inquire about what I do for leg day at the gym so I figured I should probably start to keeping track of it (maybe there is value there I can eventually monetize).

Before I go into further detail let me explain three things: 

1) I've been doing this consistently for the past 7 years. I don't use a belt, pads, straps, braces etc... I started with proper form at lower weights and have worked my way up from there.
2) I use a box when squatting to help control how low I go. I tend to go more than parallel without the help of a box so using one helps keep me at 90*. When I increase weights I place a 35 LB plate on the top to give me an extra inch or two of leverage, which makes quite a difference. 
3) The only supplements I take are BCAA's or amino acids, because I typically lift on an empty stomach, and occasionally creatine, although not in a while. 

So here is what a typical leg day for me looks like:

Squats -

•  1x5 @ 135 

Box Squats - 

• 1x3 @225
• 1x3 @295
• 1x3 @ 315 
• 1x3 @ 365

Box Squats with 35lb plate -

• 1x3 @ 385 
• 1x3 @ 405 
• 1x2 @ 405 

Cool down - Box squats (no plate)

• 1x5 @ 315 
• 1x5 @ 225

 Hamstring Curls 

• 4x5 each leg @95 lbs 

Various Plyometrics (will explain these in more detail in the near future) 

So as you can see, it's nothing too complicated. Sometimes I feel like people make things like getting in shape to be so complex when in reality it’s not at all. I like to think that L.E.S. is more, and by LES I mean lift, eat, sleep, and repeat. If you have those things in check, it’s tough to oppress results. 

-CJ 

PS: Here is why people tend to ask me about what I do for leg day-

Back wearing the 45 like Jordan & leaving no risks on the table

Can't believe its been a year since I posted last...Hoping my next post comes a little sooner before then lol.

Its been an interesting year to say the least, including plenty of hi's and low's. I've learned a lot and that's a plus, but I definitely feel like I left a lot of 'risks' on the table. Some might see that as a positive, but in my shoes at this juncture in my life, I don't want to let that happen again.

I've come to realize that a lot my ideas/realizations, great or not, have just been those and nothing more. Meaning the execution on these revelations has been very poor to say the least. I'm tired of that. I don't want to spend the next 20 years of my life, wishing I would have actually applied all of the revelations I've had over that span. So I'm not.

After living in the great state of Oregon for the last 25 years, I am officially taking my talents, or lack thereof, to Southern California and San Diego this fall. I'm excited, nervous, and anxious, but the one thing I know I wont be? Regretful.

See you soon SD...

-CJ

L.E.S. is More

I’d like to set this up as a little intro into a 3-part series called “L.E.S is More”

L.E.S is a simple acronym for Lift, Eat, Sleep, or as I’d like to think, the bare essentials of getting into shape or living a healthy lifestyle. 

In today’s world we are able to access much more information than we were 10-20 years ago thanks to advances in online capabilities. Why this can be a good thing, it can also lead to information overload. How do we know what is healthy? What lifting method works the best? What supplement will help me do X & Y? With all the new information available, it seems we tend to forget the basic things that built the platform for those questions to even be asked. This is why I encourage people to step away from the overload and focus on the three most crucial elements to any successful body or lifestyle transformation.

Lift. Eat. Sleep. 

Each subsequent post will go into a little more detail of how LES can actually be more, and how to take advantage of each component to achieve maximal results.

Trust me; I used to be that guy on the other side, trying to find the latest supplement or latest and greatest routine. It wasn’t until I stepped away and really thought about what my goal was. I wasn’t training to be the next Ronnie Coleman or Bo Jackson; I just wanted to maximize what my body could do for my personal satisfaction. Subsequently I realized the differences between doing those special routines and taking those magic pills/powders are clearly immaterial & PFW (s/o to my fellow accountant’s lol). 

So please stay tuned and on the lookout for the next couple posts. Step away from the information overload, assess what your true goals are, and focus on the basics of: Lifting, Eating, and Sleeping. Give it some time and hopefully you will be achieving those goals like I am…

Act with Intention

It's been way too long since my last post and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't lightweight embarrassed writing this now, knowing damn well 2 months ago I set a goal to post weekly. I apologize for that. Hopefully the 3-4 people (maybe generous haha) that actually read this blog will understand and know that I let myself down at the same time.

I wanted to keep it short today and post a great TED talk that I watched the other day and really got the wheels in my mind turning about the future. Being a 20-something myself, its almost overwhelming to imagine all the possibilities and options life presents us with if we use our resources and act with intention. In my opinion the possibilities are endless, only by definition and genetic limitations. However, that has still got to leave us with at least a million possibilities, right? And that may be a conservative figure. Regardless, i'd much rather be overwhelmed by my options rather than underwhelmed.

To sum the video up, Meg stresses that we spend our 20's working towards something, acting with some intention and not just mindlessly drifting along and putting things off because of this illusion of how much time we have in the grand scheme of life. The choices we make now shape our future. We need to get rid of this notion that we can waste our time during our 20's and finally get serious once we turn 30's. I think she really hit it on the head when talking about the flight of an airplane and how such a slight change of course, upon takeoff can be the difference of landing in Hawaii or Alaska.

Let's forget age for a minute and live with some urgency to force ourselves into acting with intention in our everyday lives.

 “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.”

-Leonard Bernstein                                  

-Colin           

The little things that matter

First I’d like to apologize for how long it’s been since my last post. If anything I could tell you that I’ve been on the road for the past 2 weeks, busy with work and beginning to gear up for some serious CPA studying, but that shouldn’t matter, those aren’t good excuses and I will own that. 

From now on though, I will stick to at least one post per week, hopefully more, but I think one post is achievable for now. 

Lately though I’ve been noticing how much the small things in life can make a difference in someone’s day. 

I try to make it a point to say “Thank you, ____” whenever I interact with someone wearing a name tag, like at the grocery store or gym, etc… You would be surprised at how much positive reaction that can receive. 

Business wise I think there are many ways of adding a personal touch, one big one would be hand written thank you notes, but there are other ways that could be used more frequently. 

For example if you are trying to connect to someone on LinkedIn, don’t just use the pre-populated text within the greeting, but add a personal note instead. Give people something interesting to read or let them know that you took the time to write a nice message. 

It’s the little things like that, that takes so little effort on your part but can make such a large difference for someone else on the other end.

-Colin 

Live from Juneau, AK: "Don't sacrifice what you want most for what you want at the moment"

Glad to say I can officially cross Alaska off my list of states I've never been too. Granted, I'm in Juneau, not quite the bulk of the state but its still Alaska none the less. I wish it wasn’t so cloudy and rainy; seems as if It’d be a spectacular scene if the clouds ever decided to lift or burn off. 

Work has been busy the first 48 here and don't see it letting up as I am only here for a week and there is quite a bit of work to be done. I was able to get a solid workout in today after an 11 hour work day at the local gym, Alaska Club located here in Juneau. I thought it was a decent gym, but was appalled to find out a membership was close to $100 a month...

Anyways, lately with work being as crazy as it is, I've been thinking about how we as people tend to get so stuck in the moment that we lose sight of the bigger picture, or how small that relative blip of time is compared to our lifespan. It a natural reaction in times of duress, and I would admit that I have had my struggles over the past month or so with all the hours I've been working and other non-work related thoughts.

It wasn’t until I found a quote that really helped to ease my anxiety during this time:

"Don't sacrifice what you want most for what you want at the moment" 

Deep huh? I thought so. It immediately resonated with me the moment that I saw it. Considering the internal struggles that I had been going through, it was exactly what I needed to see. 

To me that quote isn’t about just looking at the big picture, but about having discipline and self control to know where you want to go and to not get distracted by the little things that might arise and get in the way of that. 

At 24, I have pretty good idea of how I want to live my life and the kind of people I want to enjoy it with. But the reality is, I can’t execute that at 24 for the most part. I have to put in the work now if I want to live like that later on. Knowing and reinforcing that is very empowering and motivating to me personally. I actually made some note cards with that quote, among other various quotes that I pull out first thing when I wake up, and about 10-12 times during day to keep my head in the grind and out of the clouds. I will say after a few weeks it has made a profound difference in how I approach my career and other various aspects of my life. It felt as if I stopped spinning my wheels and remembered what I was working towards, and what I needed to do to make that a reality. 

So my challenge to you would be to find what you want to have in your life on a big picture scale. It’s tough to have an exact idea, but at least have something general to strive for. If you want to avoid that feeling of spinning your wheels, you have to have an idea of where you are going or where you want to go. 

Without that direction we can easily be distracted by the things that pop up in the moment and essentially lose sight of what we want the most. 

So try it out. Have something to strive for, make some motivational note cards, and pull those out first thing when you wake up and right before you go to bed. Don’t let the small stuff get in the way of your big picture. 

-Colin