An Outdoor Athlete's Journal.

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Baron Greenback

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Hi all,

I'm making a big change for 2009! ... I'm giving up booze and cigarettes and knuckling down to a serious training regime :D I don't smoke everyday but I do when I have a drink, and sadly that's been 3-4 times per week. :(

Anyway, I figured the best thing to do was quit both smoking and drinking. They're both pretty unhealthy! :violent2:

I'm hoping that posting my training and any lapses to a public forum are I good way to help me keep on track.

As the title suggests I'm quite interested in outdoor sports and my training is mostly sport specific. Here are my general goals, I don't want to bore everyone with very specific stuff.

General goals
  1. Improve cardiovascular endurance.
  2. Gain lean muscle mass.
  3. Don't drink alcohol (except for special occasions).
  4. Don't smoke (ever).

More specific goals
  1. Improve trad. rock climbing. Currently lead Mod (that's US 5.3) and 2nd higher.
  2. Improve winter climbing.
  3. Improve mountain biking technical skill.
  4. Improve canoeing. Currently can run grade II white water solo.
  5. Improve kayaking. Can't roll at present.

About me; I'm male, 30 years old and weight about 162 with b/f of approx. 15%, at present I'm training about 4 times/week (although, I'm not really an athlete like I said in the thread title, lol).

This is the approx. weekly schedule I'm looking at doing for the next couple of months.

  • 1x weights session (squats, deadlifts, shoulder presses, tricep ext., pull ups - i.e. big compound movements).
  • 2-3x bouldering or climbing sessions
  • 3-4x swimming sessions.
  • 5-6x yoga sessions.
  • 1-2x MTB rides.
  • 1x off-road run or long hike.

Yup, it's quite a lot to fit in! I'm going to need to get a lot of calories if I've any chance of gaining muscle mass and overtraining is going to be a risk but I'll just listen to my body and take days off as needed.

I'll keep y'all posted anyway and thanks for reading (if you got this far, lol.)

Neil.
 
Hey mate

I know where you are at, though you are training a lot harder than I did when I stopped.

I stopped smoking about 125 days ago. How did I do it? I went snowboarding, climbed the tallest mountain at the resort and bombed it, got so sore I was sick. When I was sick I stopped then kept stopping. Find some sort of catalyst. I don't encourage you to French kiss the next work colleague with a flu, but it might add 15 years to your life if you stop smoking afterwards. Easiest time to give up is after you are sick.

The trick with any addiction (IMO) is that you don't want to put too much pressure on yourself.

A few points for you from someone who has been there and is going through it (I still drink, but don't want to stop all together right now.)

1. Don't say " I quit smoking, I am never going to smoke again"
a) it puts too much pressure on you psychologically.
b) It creates tension
c) I don't think it works very well at all.

Instead, simply decide that you are currently not smoking.

If you manage one day, thats a good start, try three. Avoid booze for the first week to give you a kick start. (try to anyway).

The danger zone is drinking, we are at the pub, our mates all smoking, there is some smoking going on.

Stop! I was given this advice from a close family friend who used to coach pro footballers off cocaine.

1) each time you drink and don't smoke it gets easier. I repeat, IT GETS EASIER.

I wanted to kill somebody for a smoke after 4 pints. I tell ya, kill some one.

But now I can drink as much as I like (not a good thing I know, more on that later), and not smoke, how did I do it?
1) I was determined not to smoke
2) I trained bloody hard with a lot of cardio, interval stuff
3) I had the support of some really good friends. You will be surprised the way people respond, trust me.


It took me about 100 days before I really felt that my lungs no longer were under the influence of tobacco. clean, clear, functional.

Also, I rarely get hangovers now. seriously, the main cause is smoking, through increased dehydration.

Today I ran my first 10km (or there abouts) though mountains, forest and urban Australia.

In 100 days with your training, you will achieve all of you goals, you are already an athlete you just need to makes those additional sacrifices.

Good luck!

:car:
 
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