300 - Background

So this is me on May 7, 2008 - just a little over a year ago. I weighed in at about 198 lbs at 5'8".











And from the side:
















And of course, here is me flexing:


When I took these pictures, I decided that I wanted to start working out more often than I had been to see where it got me.

Let's go back a bit further. When I was in middle school I was a soccer player - pretty good too. However, when I got to high school, I weighed in at about 125-130lbs. I was way too small to want to play against some of the people that were on the team at the time, so instead I got in to running track. I did that the first year of high school. The next year, I was at school after school one day and my track coach (who also coached cross-country) asked me why I wasn't out for the cross country team. I didn't have a reason - so the next day, I joined the team.

By the end of my high school career, I could run 1 mile in under 5 minutes (okay - so 4:59 was my fastest time), 800m (1/2 mile) in 2:04, and 400m (1/4 mile) in 52 seconds. Immediately after high school, I joined the Army Reserves. I was the only person in my platoon to pass our first PT test.

At the end of Basic Training I was in what was probably the best shape of my life. For those of you that don't know how the Army APFT works, here is the breakdown:

2 minutes for maximum push-ups
10 minute rest
2 minutes for maximum sit-ups
10 minute rest
2 mile run for time

Depending on you age, your raw score for each event is translated into an event score - for my current age, 75 Push-ups is MAX (100 points) with 40 being MIN for passing (60 points). Sit-ups is 80 MAX and 50 MIN. The run is 13:00 MAX and 16:36 MIN.

Sit-ups have always been my weak event - but by the last APFT in basic, I had managed to MAX it. My 2 mile time when I joined the Army was 11:17. However, since my running training was no longer as intense as it had been during track season, my final APFT was around 12:00. My push-up raw score was 78 PUs and I barely maxed the sit-ups with 78 (max at that age) for a total score on the extended scale of 309.

Since that PT test, my run had gotten progressively slower, along with my sit-ups. My push-ups also got pretty bad for a while. So it got to a point at one time that my 2 mile run was only about 2 minutes slower than my high-school 3 mile run time. I knew I had to do something.

Since then I have done biking, running and gone to the gym, like most people trying to get back in shape.

Here is what I have accomplished:

That's a picture of me the day I started this blog. No flexing.












Here's me flexing:


As of my last PT test, I completed 90 Push-ups (only utilized 1:10), 67 sit-ups and 14:06 for the 2 mile.

I'm doing much better - but I'm still not at the point where I would like to be. I want to be able to max my PT test again.

So I had heard of CrossFit and had heard a little bit about Kettle Bells. This year I was down at my 2 week AT - I was staying 2 miles from the gym with no transportation - so my daily routine consisted of running 2 miles there, working out and running back. At the gym, they had an upstairs which was a CrossFit area. I decided to check it out.

I spent about 1 hour doing mostly swings, mixed in with box jumps, medicine balls, rope climbs, dead-lifts, and pull-ups - included weighted pull-ups, hanging a 35 lb KB off each foot. I noticed that my heart rate stayed up much higher than it would during a regular gym workout - but I felt pretty good, so afterward I did captain's chairs along with resisted sit-ups.

When I went to run back to my lodging I started to notice that I could barely hold myself up at the waist. I only ran about 200 meters before I had to walk. I took turns walking/jogging the 2 miles back. The next day I was sore - but good enough to run 4 miles. However, the next day after that I couldn't bend at the waist. For 3 days, I couldn't bend over at the waist.

Now, I usually avoid lower back exercises, because when I was doing the whole Gym workout thing, I looked up dead-lifts online and stumbled across the straight-leg variation. Doing this, ended up needing to take about a week off, because I hurt my lower back doing these dead-lifts. I took about 1 week off completely, but was unable to do anything like squats, or anything that requires the lower back for close to a month. I was basically limited to isolation exercises.

Now, with the kettleball swings, I suffered no actual back injury, but I could tell by the feeling that I worked every muscle in my back harder than I ever had before.

I realized that CrossFit was the way to go. I still need to learn a lot of the basics, but I like the concepts - I read and learn a lot about fitness and the concepts are right in line with the most effective exercising methods. So I decided to try to see how I would fare against the 300 challenge - now here I am. I am willing to bet that by the time I am ready to complete the 300, I will be able to max the PT test - and it just so happens I will have a PT test within 3 weeks or so after my 3 months are up.

I started this blog at 183 lbs - so I want to see where I'm at toward the end.
Stick around to see!