Left home at 4am to drive up to Tampa, with enough time to get ready for the race, including setting up my GoPro camera. Temperature was around 42º by the time my race was about to start, which is not a big deal, but when you’re about to run and most probably jump in cold water, it becomes one of those “oh crap, this is going to be fun…. not” moments.

Overall, I thought the race was tougher than my Super race from last year, but I think two main factors that got me to this realization has to do with to very specific issues. The first one, right at the beginning of the race, during the second obstacle, while helping a lady jump over the wooden obstacle, the force she applied in order to reach the top wasn’t downwards but find of forward, literally throwing me to the floor and hitting my knee and wrist against the concrete floor. Although my knee hurt just at that moment, my wrist was the one with more damage, which became worse as I had to keep using my hand throughout the race. The pain became excruciating and there was nothing I could do about it… because I wasn’t going to quit and I wasn’t going to do 30 burpees just to skip each obstacle. The second issue was the amount of stairs we had to climb during 75 to 80 percent of the race. I’ve never in my life climbed so many stairs before in a single day.

I’ll be honest, while I enjoy helping others to overcome obstacles, that initial injury that cost me having to deal with so much pain and ending up not being able to use my hand for a week after the race, taught me that not always I can sacrifice myself for those around me, especially during a race. The worse that can happen during a Spartan race is, that if you can’t complete an obstacle, you’ll have to do 30 burpees, and even then you’re getting something physically positive out of it.

My goal now is to prepare and focus for next year’s Beast race, which most probably will be in Atlanta, and for once I will try to focus on timing other than recording videos with my GoPro. This along with a Tough Mudder race and smaller obstacle races will keep me busy for a while when it comes about outdoors physical activities.

ITBS is an overuse injury of tissues of the outer thigh and knee. The iliotibial band runs along the lateral or outside aspect of the thigh and is an important structure that stabilizes the outside of the knee as it flexes and extends. Inflammation of the IT band can occur as it crosses back and forth across the bony prominence of the femoral epicondyle as the knee flexes and extends causing pain on the outside part of the knee especially during running when the heel strikes the ground.

As I had mentioned before on my ITBFS or ITBS. What is Iliotibial Band Syndrome? I have been suffering from this for a while already. In fact, since my mid 20s I started experiencing pain on my knees, although it wasn’t until my 30s that I found out it was ITBS.

Many online articles have been written about what could be the cause, and different treatments. While in my opinion, the article I make reference too on my other post, has been one of the most complete in my personal opinion, I still didn’t find a way to get rid of my problem. After trying as many methods I could, I ended up giving up and not trying anymore.

My directed my focus towards working my legs from every possible angle, using heavy weights, trying to make them stronger and bigger. I mean, if I couldn’t run anymore, at least I wanted to have bigger lower extremities. What I didn’t know was, that by doing this I was already fighting ITBS and apparently making it go away.

Not until a couple of weeks ago, I decided to run again for warm up before my workout. Usually, with the knee straps I could get to two minutes of running before I started to get knee pain (without the straps it would be less than 2 minutes), but I noticed that somehow I ran 4 minutes and I didn’t feel any discomfort. This was without wearing the knee straps. I was surprised, but I didn’t want to push it and get to the point my knees would hurt. This stayed in my head, wondering what had happened that I didn’t get any pain. A few days after, I decided to try running 6 minutes, if possible, and see what the outcome would be. Once again, I felt no discomfort or pain at all. The excitement started to really wonder how far I could run before I would feel any pain, but my analytical mind kept me from doing something crazy and push my knees too far.

More recently I ran for 10 minutes and once again, my knees were perfectly ok with it. What is happening?, I thought. I haven’t really don’t any of the suggested therapy (stretching, foam roller, massages) but it seems my ITBS has somehow disappeared? Well, tonight I was committed to try not 15, but 20 minutes of running nonstop, which ended up being 2 miles even, and to my surprise, my kneed were absolutely fine.

I can’t tell you how excited and happy this makes me, knowing there was absolutely no discomfort during the time I was running for such a long time, at least for me. I began to realize, maybe the root of my problem was in fact weak hip abductors and glutes muscles, which I have constantly worked out since I decided to focus on my legs more than I did before. While I had done hip abductor exercises before, when trying different methods to treat the ITBS, it seems it wasn’t long enough to see any results. Now I’m basically doing 4 to 5 sets of 12 reps each using all the weight available on the machine, plus all the squats and other exercises I am doing, has been the solution to rid myself from this extremely frustrating condition.

While many treatments suggest to not stop running during the time ITBS is being treated, I eliminated running completely from my list, and it seems not running at all didn’t make a difference for me to get better. I will keep increasing the time and distance as I have an upcoming Sprint Spartan race. If it ITBS is officially gone completely, I finally see myself registering to run the Beast Spartan race in a near future.

During week three my body embraced the strength phase incredibly. During the first three days of the week, the reps goal was to stay between 2 and 5 reps per set, which allowed me to Military Shoulder Press 170 lbs, Squat 270 lbs and Deadlift 315 lbs. All of these I did without feeling out of energy after each set, but on the contrary, I was feeling super pumped to continue to the following set. My Cardio Acceleration sets didn’t affect my performance at all. In my opinion Week 3 was a major success.

Week 4, on the other hand, was kind of a disaster. The reason why is because of the drop on carbohydrates. Going from 1 gram of carbs per body weight pound to 0.5 gram makes a huge difference. The first two days were literally horrible. Deadlifting 275 lb and squatting 180 lbs felt almost impossible to do. My energy levels were super low during the whole day and my workouts weren’t as good as I wish they had been. In many occasions I had to skip the Cardio Acceleration sets because I just didn’t have the energy. By the end of the week my body was already adapting to this lack of carbs, and while I still don’t feel I have the energy I had during Week 3, at least I was able to do better than at the beginning of the week.

I’m positive I have lost certain amount of muscle mass, but for sure I have lost a lot of body fat, as you will see on the pictures below. Tomorrow, is the first day of Week 5, and the macronutrients adjustment wasn’t too big.

This is how my macros look, including how they were during Week 3

These are my current results

The following is a video of me deadlifting the 315 lbs and at the end of this post you can see my progress pictures, showing much better abdominal definition by the end of Week 4.

This week marked two main personal records which I have been looking forward to for a while already, one more than the other. Although squats have never been my favorite exercise, I had been stuck on 200 lbs for a while, and I finally was able to squat 230 lbs. My goal wasn’t about reaching that weight but at least getting over the 200 lbs. Now, my main goal was in regards to deadlifts. I have been wanting to reach the 300 lbs, not only I was able to deadlift 305 lbs for one set, but I also was able to do a second set with the same weight, not feeling out of breath, lightheaded or exhausted afterwards, as you can see on the video below.

For now, my nutrition plan virtually looks the same way, so I don’t need to make any big changes.

Results
This week the weight difference was not as much, but then again, my goal is not weight loss but fat loss.

Once again, this body fat percentage is very inaccurate, based on the cheap caliper I am using and the fact that I am measuring it myself. This is just for reference purposes.

And here is my photo comparison. Starting next week I will be using only the first set of pictures and the current ones after each week.

Before I continue to compare today’s measurements with last week’s, I will talk a little about my experience during this first week when it.

The Workout
For me it was completely new to include any form of cardiovascular exercise in between sets. Since most complains online were in regards to these cardio exercises affecting weight load and causing trouble keeping up with the same weight during the whole set of the same exercise, I came to the conclusion that either these people suffer of lack of conditioning, or my conditioning is way better than theirs. When using the BodySpace app to track my workouts, you have the option to include or exclude these extra sets of exercise. I personally included them, and at no time my weight load was affected during my lifting. Something I’m aware of is, starting today my weight load is supposed to increase each week, so what effect cardio acceleration will have on my workout is still a mystery. The only down side was that I was sweating way too much, and I wouldn’t even consider that a bad thing.

The Nutrition
As I mentioned before, my caloric intake was raised almost 1000 calories based on the amount of macros I had to eat during this first week. From my previous experience, I distributed my macros during the day as it has worked best for me. That made it easier to schedule my meals and not feel like I was force feeding myself, expect for the first and probably second day. Although I didn’t reach the fats target, I was able to be consistent with my protein and carbohydrates.

Based on my new weight and because I’m starting Phase 2, my macros have been adjusted as shown below.

The Results
As you can see below, I was able to lower my waist measurement and even dropped some weight. My goal at this moment is to lower my body fat, and as much as I would like to stay in the weight range of 182-185 lbs, I’m not really worried about losing some weight for now. Based on the pictures, my posing might have been a little different in some cases, and while my back seems to have lost some definition, my abs look like might have gained definition and probably my thighs did as well. For only one week of training, at least there was some significant change overall.

Yesterday morning, after I woke up I did what I always suggest everyone to do before starting a new workout program, and that is to take the “before” pictures. I learned this from P90X and it is totally worth it, because pictured don’t lie, while the scale usually does. I also weighted myself and weighted myself and used a cheap caliper to calculate my body fat. I do want to mention, I use this calculation as a reference, not as an accurate measurement. I am fully aware my body fat is higher than the number I got, but it is a good idea to use the same technique for reference purposes.

My current stats as of yesterday morning.

Weight: 184.2 lbs
Waist: 33.5″
Body Fat: 12.98%
Lean Body: 160.3 lb
Fat: 23.9 lb

The Workout

Day 1
The first workout was Chest and Triceps. While I do feel a little sore today, and during the exercises I left as heavy as I could possible go for, I had to take too many undesired breaks because most of the equipments were in use. One of the reasons why gyms annoy me at times. Other than that, I thought it was a pretty decent workout.

Day 2
Today’s workout was Shoulders and Legs. Now, today was a whole different story. I really felt the intensity today. Although the workout gives you the option to include super sets and an additional cardio exercise in between sets, or to chose from one or the other, I elected for including both. I already can tell tomorrow my calves will be sore. I was exhausted by the end of the workout. Yet, I haven’t experience one of the complains I read online by a few people, which is that due to the cardio in between sets they couldn’t lift as heavy as they usually could. Personally, I was able to lift as heavy as usual without any issue.

Conclusion
I know for many the workout might seem long and tedious, especially if the person doesn’t skip the super sets and cardio. I don’t mind working out for more than one hour. I have done it before and to me is not an issue. While this is completely different from what I have done in the past, if a workout makes me feel I didn’t waste my time at the gym, I am totally up for it, and that has been the case so far. It does take a lot of energy and commitment to do all the exercises suggested, but I find that to be part of the challenge.

After coming from doing different methods to get in shape and up to some level achieving great success, I realized there was one thing I was still unable to achieve, gaining mass without gaining body fat. Last year after I tore my rotator cuff and I had to stay away from the gym for 3 months, which during time, I put on some undesired weight. Emotionally it affected me that I was injured and unable to do any exercises without being in pain. This lead me to not pay much attention to what I was eating (comfort food) and ended with a higher body fat percentage. After I finally recovered to some extend and successfully finishing a Super Spartan Race, I decided to sign up for Anthony’s online coaching. I had been following his account for a while on Instagram and his clients had shown great results. I had nothing to lose but a lot to gain.

The process was pretty simple. We talked about my goals, he provided me with a customized plan to get it done. At the beginning I had some trouble as to how I needed to measure my meals. It wasn’t complicated, but I wasn’t used to his method. It took me a week and I was already familiar with it and didn’t have any issues following his program as instructed.

The plan had been designed to drop body fat and gain muscle mass. Considering I signed up for 12 weeks of training, which I’m aware is a very short time to achieve my personal goals, I didn’t really know what to expect to be honest. Yes, previously I had achieved a lot of 12 weeks, but I had never successfully gained as much muscle as I wish I had. So I followed the plan from beginning to end and soon realized changes were happening and this plan really works.

At one point, due to unknown reasons, I started having major headaches which after and ER visit, several tests and seeing different specialists, no one could figure out what it was and because of it the doctor prohibited me any form of exercises for 3 weeks. Right after I was able to continue the program, kept gain incredibly strength and improving my body in all possible ways. Even exercises I couldn’t do due to some discomfort from my rotator cuff, I am now able to do them with heavy weights.

Based on the picture below, you will see the amazing results I achieved with his plan. With only 2 lbs difference, the changes around my core are mind blowing. My arms are bigger and my back is more defined. I went from 540 lbs on legs press to 700 lbs. Deadlifts from 225 lbs to 285 lbs and soon to hit the 300 lbs. I’m even doing flat bench press with 90 lbs for 13 reps and sometimes even more, with no spotter.

The biggest surprise for me was when comparing this two sets of pictures from when I first started and the present, and realizing I wasn’t as in shape as I thought it was.  In my opinion the changes were drastic and I am beyond pleased with them. This has been a unique experience, a transforming one. Learned how to approach fitness from a angle, and for the first time I was able to not focus on body weight, but instead on losing body fat while gaining muscle mass.

Conclusion? I do recommend to reach out to Anthony if you really don’t want to waste your time figuring things out and instead just get help from someone who won’t will provide you with what you need to succeed.

There are probably more articles about calories and macronutrients than there are about any other trending topic online. I am sure the amount of information can be overwhelming and at times confusing, especially when most articles seem to contradict each other and everyone claim to be right while the rest are wrong. Because of that, those of us trying to understand the impact and importance calories and macronutrients have on our fitness goals, it only adds to frustration and mistakes that lead us to failed attempts to achieve our goals.

Because I understand the frustration, I want to share with all of you small article, which in my opinion describes very precisely what calories and macronutrients are, and how to properly calculate them.

The article was written by Emma Leigh and posted on BodyBuilding.com and it can be found in the following link.

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=156380183

From my personal point of view, any form of exercise will have an effect on the body, especially when combined with proper nutrition. While not every program will be ideal for every person, depending on the that person’s goals, exercising, for the most part will benefit your body and health. So after reading in the BodyBuilding forums a great debate whether this is a good program or a scam, I decided to give it a try myself and record my progress from beginning to end.

As unfortunately as it is, I really haven’t seen many, if any full review by people who has tried this program. Part of the negative comments towards this program in the forum points out people quit before finishing the program. It sounds very familiar to me, thinking how many negative comments are towards P90X and how many people have given up up half way through it.

For that reason, and because I do like both, challenging my body and challenging those who would bash fitness programs without even trying them, I will start it next Wednesday August, 27th. From that moment on, I will post weekly reviews of my progress and experience using this program, hoping by the end of week 6, to either prove this program does work or it doesn’t.

The one element that will be different when I do this plan is, I will NOT use any of the supplements suggested by Jim on his plan. The only supplements I will be using are the pre-workout ones I always use. Other than that, I will base my macros strictly on food intake, and maybe if needed a protein shake.

I will post a link to a MyFitnessPal account I will open specifically to track the macro nutrients for those of you who are interested in seeing what I will be eating on a daily basis.

Link:
Jim Stoppani’s Six-Week Shortcut To Shred

So for those who are not familiar with ITBS or if you suffer from it and want to read more about it, here is the article.

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