Vee
Cathlete
This is going to be another of my long posts. I feel wordy.
I wish Cathe had not announced STS-Gym. I hope she says she will make a completely different workout for her first gym MP3 production. I wish she would change STS Gym from split body to total body, or from linear periodization to non-linear periodization. I wish she would make an announcement something, anything really, that makes STS-Gym different from STS. I don’t really mean that. That is my inner spoilt child talking.
When STS was announced a few VFers got together to do a rotation. We called ourselves the STS-like Mesopsychos.
a. Some decided to do the rotation by working with Cathe's existing DVDs that most closely match each mesocycle. (See Renee's post of how she did this in the STS forum)
b. Some decided to use Cathe or other DVDs and modify rep speed, number of reps, weight used so they could match the STS blog descriptions most closely.
c. Some decided we would design our own workouts using the blog descriptions and pictures for inspiration.
I picked category c.
The planning:
Planning for STS-like was like writing a thesis. I dusted out copies of weight training books and studied them. Google was my best friend. I read Cathe's blog like I was studying for an exam. I found an online 1 rep max calculator. I studied what Cathe meant when she spoke about working different heads of a muscle and learnt how to combine exercises into each session so that instead of doing a random 3 to 4 exercises per body part, I was picking exercises intelligently. I was also determined to NOT do the same exercises for every session so I would have an experience like the 37 DVDs would provide. It would take me deep into the night to put together word documents of notes and design an xl sheet to generate 1 rep max and pundage to be used for each mesocycle. I did not manage to complete planning every workout despite working on it for a week. So I decided I would plan each day's session the previous day "on the go". That way, as Cathe released more exercise pics and more info, my workouts would be more matched to STS.
The background:
I weight train mostly at a gym now. I started weight training at home with Cathe DVDs but switched a few years ago. I still carry Cathe workouts on my iPod to the gym and workout with her but I may modify. For instance I may use a pec dec machine when she does chest flys and I may use a cable curl when she does barbell curls. So if Cathe makes a gum workout, I HAVE to get it. Sitting it out is unthinkable.
My experience as a Mesopsycho:
1 rep max testing:
My yoga teacher and friend, Venkat, joined me in this rotation. The 1 rep max calculation day turned out to be a total body workout in itself not just for us, but for all mesopsychos who reported in the check in. Venkat and I did a brief warm up on the treadmill, some stretches and some light resistance exercises to get the blood flowing to the muscles like pushups and unweighted squats, as a webiste had suggested to do before 1-rep max testing. We then cycled through exercises picking a weight that we thought we would fail with, between the 6 to 10 rep range. We would pick an exercise for legs - say squats - do the test - wait for a bit to recover - then do an upper body test - say chest press - by then legs would have recovered - so we would do the next leg exercise - and so on. I made notes of how many reps we managed for each exercise and at what weight. Sometimes we under or over predicted and would have to repeat a test.
Meso 1:
I would spend about an hour at Cathe's blog the night prior to each workout, putting together the workout. I'd generate and print an XL sheet of the poundage my yoga teacher and I would need to lift for each exercise based on 60% to 70% of the 1 rep max.
Meso 1 kicked my booty. Also his. He called me a maniac during the workouts - especially on leg day (with the bonus drill we did just like Cathe said happens after the main workout). 15 minutes into weight training, 30 second rests seemed like 5. Heart rate hardly recovered and the muscle burn began earlier and earlier into the next set. I asked him why he was working out with a maniac and he said "I must be one too, I cant resist. So please ignore me when I scold." I told him I wanted to scold too, so we should both scold Cathe. He agreed. I showed him a pic of Cathe. He said "Her? She is making this? WOW! I am NOT scolding her!" We had to adjust a bit from what the XL calculations based on 1 rep max, but SNM had posted on the STS blog that that may happen, so I anticipated it. By and large the weight was right. The same weight would feel reaaaaalllly heavy by the end of the workout. Here are some pics. As you can see my production quality is a tad behind NFL’s.
Venkat doing a supine pull up (he can do real ones too):
Me doing a supine pullup - I took the bar higher because it makes it easier, but now I have grown strong enough to do it from a bit lower:
Ouch! Paper plate slide lunges. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
One leg elevated lunge:
No high step at my gym:
Barbell 21s:
Decline angle pushups:
We did some exercises with gym equip that my imagination said Cathe may throw into STS-Gym:
Overhead Extensions and matching smiles:
We cycled through exercises for each body part while training, using the same body split, like the Meso 1 descriptions say:
[/URL]
After each workout, we would both be completely wiped out. I never understood why the one week break was necessary but after experiencing Meso 1, I did. I was eating like a horse. The workouts made me ravenous. I tried to pick healthier food choices.
My results: I lost slightly less than 2 kg. But everyone asked me if I had lost a lot of weight. My clothes fit a lot better and I looked like I had lost twice that. I have a tendency to get poochy and I hate ab exercises. I did hardly an ab exercises during Meso 1. Yet everyone commented on the remarkable improvement in my abs. Under clothing they looked near-flat by the end of Meso 1. I looked better than I had in a long time.
Meso 2:
I needed to pick heavier weight for most exercises than I had ever used before as per the 1 rep max tests. SNM is right that people usually under-lift without a 1 rep max at least as far as I am concerned. I am not scared of lifting heavy, yet I was lifting less before as I was not aware of what my body would do. This meso was a revelation for me. I read about wave loading and back off sets at the blog and googled to learn more. I thought - Naaaah, cant be, muscles cant be tricked like that! They can. They can! It worked in my very first workout.
I was beginning to tire of planning so I was not changing the routine from session to session as much. That was taking too long to design. The PC hard disk crashed and I lost the 1 rep max worksheet that predicted how much we should lift. I missed the upcoming Cathe website features. It had taken so much effort to build that XL sheet of 1 rep max from the test results that also predicted the weight we should use for each workout. The website would have made it so easy. I had no energy to do it again nor did I want to repeat the 1 rep max test again. So we started to wing it on weight mid way through.
I could never do low pulley curls before unless I used just the default resistance setting. I subbed them in Meso 2 for incline flys, found I could use real resistance, and felt like superwoman:
Eating during meso 2 was back to normal. I no longer felt ravenous.
Triceps rotating French Press:
Reverse Fly:
Results: Nothing visible in terms of body weight, shape or size, but I got significantly stronger over the course of this Meso. People's eyes would pop at how much I was lifting for back and legs (I dont lift much at all compared to the queens I see at this forum, but in my country, women attempting heavyish weight is not a common sight). I could squat a bit more than my body weight in a Smith machine for the first time in my life. My appetite returned to normal.
Meso 3:
Picture a balloon full of hot air. Pffffffft. That was me. I was sure of myself during Meso 1 and to a lesser extent during Meso 2. Meso 3 should be easy enough you would think. You pick a heavier weight and lift it fewer times. You rest 3 minutes between sets of a body part to recover. You use push-pull combo. I had experience of how to design Meso 1 and Meso 2 from doing Cathe's previous workouts. I had NO IDEA how to put together a Meso 3 workout. It felt all wrong while working out. I did not feel worked out, even if I was lifting heavier. I gave up after week 1. I was tiring of all that planning too.
I cant imagine doing anything like this again without Cathe's STS or STS-Gym. Too much work to design and without Cathe guiding, very difficult to push through.
I am now stronger than the weights I have at home and I havent bought more because I work out at a gym. Getting STS and fitting myself out at home when STS Gym is a wait away seems too self indulgent. I always do a DVD at home once before I take an iPod rip to the gym so I can learn the form well first. So my inner adult says - "Wait. If Cathe does not announce STS Gym soon enough, you can then buy STS at full price."
I envy those going to the RT. I would have loved to come. Especially as it is STS time. Meeting Cathe and Cathe-ites sounds so special. Perhaps some day it will happen.
I outdid myself on wordiness.
~* Vrinda *~
I wish Cathe had not announced STS-Gym. I hope she says she will make a completely different workout for her first gym MP3 production. I wish she would change STS Gym from split body to total body, or from linear periodization to non-linear periodization. I wish she would make an announcement something, anything really, that makes STS-Gym different from STS. I don’t really mean that. That is my inner spoilt child talking.
When STS was announced a few VFers got together to do a rotation. We called ourselves the STS-like Mesopsychos.
a. Some decided to do the rotation by working with Cathe's existing DVDs that most closely match each mesocycle. (See Renee's post of how she did this in the STS forum)
b. Some decided to use Cathe or other DVDs and modify rep speed, number of reps, weight used so they could match the STS blog descriptions most closely.
c. Some decided we would design our own workouts using the blog descriptions and pictures for inspiration.
I picked category c.
The planning:
Planning for STS-like was like writing a thesis. I dusted out copies of weight training books and studied them. Google was my best friend. I read Cathe's blog like I was studying for an exam. I found an online 1 rep max calculator. I studied what Cathe meant when she spoke about working different heads of a muscle and learnt how to combine exercises into each session so that instead of doing a random 3 to 4 exercises per body part, I was picking exercises intelligently. I was also determined to NOT do the same exercises for every session so I would have an experience like the 37 DVDs would provide. It would take me deep into the night to put together word documents of notes and design an xl sheet to generate 1 rep max and pundage to be used for each mesocycle. I did not manage to complete planning every workout despite working on it for a week. So I decided I would plan each day's session the previous day "on the go". That way, as Cathe released more exercise pics and more info, my workouts would be more matched to STS.
The background:
I weight train mostly at a gym now. I started weight training at home with Cathe DVDs but switched a few years ago. I still carry Cathe workouts on my iPod to the gym and workout with her but I may modify. For instance I may use a pec dec machine when she does chest flys and I may use a cable curl when she does barbell curls. So if Cathe makes a gum workout, I HAVE to get it. Sitting it out is unthinkable.
My experience as a Mesopsycho:
1 rep max testing:
My yoga teacher and friend, Venkat, joined me in this rotation. The 1 rep max calculation day turned out to be a total body workout in itself not just for us, but for all mesopsychos who reported in the check in. Venkat and I did a brief warm up on the treadmill, some stretches and some light resistance exercises to get the blood flowing to the muscles like pushups and unweighted squats, as a webiste had suggested to do before 1-rep max testing. We then cycled through exercises picking a weight that we thought we would fail with, between the 6 to 10 rep range. We would pick an exercise for legs - say squats - do the test - wait for a bit to recover - then do an upper body test - say chest press - by then legs would have recovered - so we would do the next leg exercise - and so on. I made notes of how many reps we managed for each exercise and at what weight. Sometimes we under or over predicted and would have to repeat a test.
Meso 1:
I would spend about an hour at Cathe's blog the night prior to each workout, putting together the workout. I'd generate and print an XL sheet of the poundage my yoga teacher and I would need to lift for each exercise based on 60% to 70% of the 1 rep max.
Meso 1 kicked my booty. Also his. He called me a maniac during the workouts - especially on leg day (with the bonus drill we did just like Cathe said happens after the main workout). 15 minutes into weight training, 30 second rests seemed like 5. Heart rate hardly recovered and the muscle burn began earlier and earlier into the next set. I asked him why he was working out with a maniac and he said "I must be one too, I cant resist. So please ignore me when I scold." I told him I wanted to scold too, so we should both scold Cathe. He agreed. I showed him a pic of Cathe. He said "Her? She is making this? WOW! I am NOT scolding her!" We had to adjust a bit from what the XL calculations based on 1 rep max, but SNM had posted on the STS blog that that may happen, so I anticipated it. By and large the weight was right. The same weight would feel reaaaaalllly heavy by the end of the workout. Here are some pics. As you can see my production quality is a tad behind NFL’s.
Venkat doing a supine pull up (he can do real ones too):
Me doing a supine pullup - I took the bar higher because it makes it easier, but now I have grown strong enough to do it from a bit lower:
Ouch! Paper plate slide lunges. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
One leg elevated lunge:
No high step at my gym:
Barbell 21s:
Decline angle pushups:
We did some exercises with gym equip that my imagination said Cathe may throw into STS-Gym:
Overhead Extensions and matching smiles:
We cycled through exercises for each body part while training, using the same body split, like the Meso 1 descriptions say:
After each workout, we would both be completely wiped out. I never understood why the one week break was necessary but after experiencing Meso 1, I did. I was eating like a horse. The workouts made me ravenous. I tried to pick healthier food choices.
My results: I lost slightly less than 2 kg. But everyone asked me if I had lost a lot of weight. My clothes fit a lot better and I looked like I had lost twice that. I have a tendency to get poochy and I hate ab exercises. I did hardly an ab exercises during Meso 1. Yet everyone commented on the remarkable improvement in my abs. Under clothing they looked near-flat by the end of Meso 1. I looked better than I had in a long time.
Meso 2:
I needed to pick heavier weight for most exercises than I had ever used before as per the 1 rep max tests. SNM is right that people usually under-lift without a 1 rep max at least as far as I am concerned. I am not scared of lifting heavy, yet I was lifting less before as I was not aware of what my body would do. This meso was a revelation for me. I read about wave loading and back off sets at the blog and googled to learn more. I thought - Naaaah, cant be, muscles cant be tricked like that! They can. They can! It worked in my very first workout.
I was beginning to tire of planning so I was not changing the routine from session to session as much. That was taking too long to design. The PC hard disk crashed and I lost the 1 rep max worksheet that predicted how much we should lift. I missed the upcoming Cathe website features. It had taken so much effort to build that XL sheet of 1 rep max from the test results that also predicted the weight we should use for each workout. The website would have made it so easy. I had no energy to do it again nor did I want to repeat the 1 rep max test again. So we started to wing it on weight mid way through.
I could never do low pulley curls before unless I used just the default resistance setting. I subbed them in Meso 2 for incline flys, found I could use real resistance, and felt like superwoman:
Eating during meso 2 was back to normal. I no longer felt ravenous.
Triceps rotating French Press:
Reverse Fly:
Results: Nothing visible in terms of body weight, shape or size, but I got significantly stronger over the course of this Meso. People's eyes would pop at how much I was lifting for back and legs (I dont lift much at all compared to the queens I see at this forum, but in my country, women attempting heavyish weight is not a common sight). I could squat a bit more than my body weight in a Smith machine for the first time in my life. My appetite returned to normal.
Meso 3:
Picture a balloon full of hot air. Pffffffft. That was me. I was sure of myself during Meso 1 and to a lesser extent during Meso 2. Meso 3 should be easy enough you would think. You pick a heavier weight and lift it fewer times. You rest 3 minutes between sets of a body part to recover. You use push-pull combo. I had experience of how to design Meso 1 and Meso 2 from doing Cathe's previous workouts. I had NO IDEA how to put together a Meso 3 workout. It felt all wrong while working out. I did not feel worked out, even if I was lifting heavier. I gave up after week 1. I was tiring of all that planning too.
I cant imagine doing anything like this again without Cathe's STS or STS-Gym. Too much work to design and without Cathe guiding, very difficult to push through.
I am now stronger than the weights I have at home and I havent bought more because I work out at a gym. Getting STS and fitting myself out at home when STS Gym is a wait away seems too self indulgent. I always do a DVD at home once before I take an iPod rip to the gym so I can learn the form well first. So my inner adult says - "Wait. If Cathe does not announce STS Gym soon enough, you can then buy STS at full price."
I envy those going to the RT. I would have loved to come. Especially as it is STS time. Meeting Cathe and Cathe-ites sounds so special. Perhaps some day it will happen.
I outdid myself on wordiness.
~* Vrinda *~
).
