Feb 17th-24th

I've been very busy lately, having been out of town for three days while working badminton provincial championships, then the day I returned I worked a Rugby Ontario training camp for the U18 and U17 teams. Both were fun and good experience, I hope to work more and more rugby and build a good reputation for it. Went to see my family and catch up with some friends the day after that, then had an away basketball game to work on the wednesday. Although I wasn't posting, I kept up with my workouts, even adding a couple interval treadmill running days (I have to start improving my cardio for the upcoming season). Ate pretty well the whole time (not going to post because I just don't have the time). Had a cheat meal with a friend at Boston Pizza and had a small pizza and a very large beer; but I also had a couple drinks and a piece of cake over the weekend with family and meeting my girlfriend's brother who lives out of province. But after a good workout I went and played squash without my brace on. This was a great test for whether or not my knee can handle intense agility work; and it went extremely well. No problems at all, even when my foot slipped while making a cut. Very happy about this and shows that I am progressing; still need to keep up the hard work though.

I'm writing this in the clinic of the college I work for while waiting to leave with the indoor soccer teams for a weekend trip to montreal. I will have my computer with me for this trip so I will do my best to keep up with the posts. The hotel has a large salt water pool so I'm hoping to get some laps in one morning before going to work. I don't swim as often as I would like to; it is a great cardio workout and easy on the knees. Made a bunch of food to lessen the amount of food I have to buy this weekend and to ensure the health and nutritional content of it. I'm also hoping to get at least one assignment done this weekend, as well as make a training program for my brother who had the same surgery as me but a year earlier and finally wants to get back to playing rugby. Wish he had told me more then two months before the start of the season but I'll do what I can, he's more of a beginner lifter so I'll have to keep it simple, and deal with some mobility issues he has. But since he is a beginner I'm expecting he has some quick strength gains as long as he sorts his diet out (it isn't the greatest... he hates vegetables and fruits; typical meat and potatoes guy). That's all for now; I'll do my best to post over the weekend.

Wed Feb 16

I was pretty damn stiff and sore today after yesterday's workout, Upper and lower back as well as my forearms were quite sore. Did some stretching and foam rolling to help which I believe it did. Spent the day finishing an assignment, in class, doing laundry, and preparing a bunch of food for this weekend. I'm travelling to London (Ontario) with the school I work for's badminton team for the provincial championships. The hotels usually have continental breakfast with lots of fruit, but I'm going to bring muesli as cereal choices tend to be high in sugar. I'm also bringing some healthy bean and pasta salads as I'm not sure whether I will have access to a microwave; also some chorizo sausage, homemade trail mix, protein powder, and a sandwich for the road. If their is one thing I've learned from travelling with sports teams is that preparation is everything if you want to continue eating healthy. Speaking of healthy eating:

7:30am Muesli with soy milk
10:45am Smoothie - Mixed berries, 2 bananas, soy milk, soy protein, flax meal, spinach; vitamins (multi,b,c,fish oil)
1:30pm Tofu with steamed carrots, broccoli, and red cabbage, and rice
4:30pm Spicy tuna salad, tomato, spinach on whole wheat
6pm Chorizo sausage, asparagus, sweet potato
9:30pm Spicy genoa ham, mozzarella, basil, tomato, olive oil on whole wheat
11pm Protein shake, apple, fish oil capsule

Ate well today, spent about 3 hours in the kitchen between preparing today's meals and ones for the weekend. My modified caprese salad sandwich that I came up with for my 9:30pm meal was really good. I'm going to have to make that again. That's all I have for today, off to bed so I can wake up early to hit the gym before early class.

Tues Feb 15

Deadlift day. It's been a while since I've deadlifted heavy, but I think it went well. I was more so concentrating on form but still put up some good weight for me so I'm very happy. Definitely going to be sore tomorrow; as my upper and lower back both felt fairly fatigued all day. Guess that is why most good trainers recommend only deadlifting heavy once in a while. Jason Ferruggia actually did a post on deadlifting on monday which was great timing for me. It has some great advice in there. It was a rather exhausting workout but I love a workout like that every once in a while. Just means I'll have to focus on recovery over the next few days. I decided to use the straight up pronated grip instead of the alternate grip that many people use; I just did that to try and increase grip strength. I think I'll keep doing that except on instances of doing things like 3-5 rep maxes. Did I mention I love deadlifting; along with squats, pull ups and glute ham raises they are my favorite exercises.

Food went like this:

7:30am Muesli with soy milk
11am Protein shake, apple, banana, vitamins (multi,b,c,fish oil)
12:30pm Leftover chickpea and spinach curry from last night
3pm Turkey, cheddar, spinach, tomato, dijon mustard on whole wheat
5:30pm Turkey, bacon, hummus, tabouleh, lettuce, tomato, cucumber on whole wheat wrap
9:30pm Smoothie - Mixed berries, 2 bananas, soy milk, soy protein, spinach, flax meal; fish oil capsule
11:30pm almonds, cashews, raisins, dried cranberries

Ate a lot today once again. Been getting hungry quite often which hopefully means I'm growing. I've seen small gains in muscle but very large gains in strength so far. It's only been about five weeks so I'm not expecting to see any size changes yet. Overall I'm very happy; it's more important for me to be strong than to be big as my goal is to be able to play rugby. Any size gains are just an added bonus of having some extra weight to throw around.

Mon Feb 14

Happy Valentines Day; a great day of turning down free candy. Which I did on several occasions, and people thought I was weird for doing so. Oh well, it doesn't really matter what they think, its much more important to me that I know I won't compromise for my goals. Spent the day in class, doing an assignment, working, and spending time with my girlfriend. Even made her dinner, a nice healthy dinner... I'm oh so romantic. Today was a rest day, so just some stretching and foam rolling and treating other people's injuries. Here is what I ate today:

7:30am Muesli with skim milk
10am Turkey, cheddar, lettuce on whole wheat
1pm Smoothie - Mixed berries, banana, dates, soy milk, soy protein, flax meal, Olive oil
4:30pm Almond butter and organic honey on whole wheat
7:30pm Greek pasta salad, quinoa salad
10:30pm Stuffed mushroom caps

I had stayed over at my parents house over night which is why the muesli was with skim and not soy milk, and why the sandwich lacked spinach and tomato. I made the mushroom caps; some as stuffed with a chickpea, spinach curry, others had a tomato sauce, mozzarella, basil and chorizo sausage. The latter was the better of the two but I made a lot of the curry stuffing which will make a nice lunch for tuesday. Speaking of tuesday, it will be a deadlift day. I haven't done a heavy deadlift in a while so I'm excited about that. Talk to you after that.

Sat/Sun Feb 12/13

I've been pretty busy so combined the two posts. Had a game to cover on saturday which I was really busy at because the other team didn't have a therapist and a couple of my players have some nagging injuries that need a fair amount of attention in order for them to play. It's actually really fun to be that busy and kind of running around at times and having to think quickly. I was sore from the day before and the leg workout so I did a bunch of foam rolling, stretching and had an ice bath. This is what I ate:

Sat:
9am 2eggs, 2pcs bacon, 2 slices whole wheat toast
12:30pm Protein shake, banana, vitamins (muli,b,c,fish oil)
4pm Craft Spicy Organic Burger, fries (Cheat Meal)
7pm Smoothie - mixed berries, 2 bananas, soy milk, soy protein, flax meal, spinach
10pm Pecans, peanuts, dates, raisins

Sun:
8:30am Muesli with soy milk
12:30pm Smoothie - mixed berries, banana, dates, soy milk, soy protein, flax meal, spinach
3pm Whole wheat penne, onion, tomato, walnuts, basil pesto
6pm Chicken breast, roasted potatoes, broccoli
8:30pm Homemade Chilli
11pm Protein shake with OJ, apple, banana, fish oil capsule

I'm happy with how I've been eating. I've always found it fairly easy to stay disciplined in regards to nutrition but having a goal in mind of returning to play rugby certainly helps keep me doing everything I can to stay healthy and help see my goals fulfilled. I also had a workout on Sunday in a nice and quiet gym. Session went really well, did more agility work and increased the difficulty a little bit. Just like how in order to get stronger you have to increase weight (progressive overload), in order for my knee to be able to handle the stresses of contact and high speed changes of direction in rugby I need to progress and constantly challenge myself. Going to workout tuesday and thursday as well because I'll be away working badminton provincials and don't know the kind of time or access I'll have to workout. Anyways, that's all.

Fri Feb 11

Had a very good workout today. It included some squats which I started off pretty light for today but I will move the weight up a fair bit next time. Just had to get used to squatting again and make sure my form was good. I'm definitely a lot weaker at the squat then I was before the surgery but I know that even after a few weeks I'll be putting up fairly good numbers for me. Also did some Glute ham raises. My gym doesn't have a glute ham bench so I had to macgyver one up by hooking my feet under the foot pads of a bench and put my knees on a dome side up bosu. It worked fairly well, I just used pushing myself up off the floor for assistance when needed to get to different rep ranges. As for food:

7:30am Muesli with soy milk, coconut water
10:30pm Protein shake, apple, vitamins (multi,b,c, fish oil)
12:30pm Spicy Genoa Ham, egg, red pepper, onion, spinach, tomato on whole wheat
2:15pm Pecans, cashews, peanuts, raisins, dates
4:30pm Steak, baked potato, asparagus, mushrooms, broccoli
7:15pm Brown rice, spinach, sundried tomato, chickpeas, mushrooms, red pepper, walnuts, balsamic vinegar on whole wheat wrap
11pm Smoothie - Mixed berries, 2 bananas, soy milk, soy protein, flax meal, spinach; fish oil capsule

Ate a fair bit again today; made myself a nice steak dinner. Unfortunately I don't have a bbq here at school so I had to pan fry it but it was still pretty good. Also tried coconut water for the first time today; I've heard/read some good things about it's hydration abilities; to be honest I didn't really notice anything but I may try it again during rugby season after a game to see if it helps then. I like experimenting with things like this, only way to find out what works right. That's all for today, just looking forward to tomorrow and the muscle soreness that it brings.

Thurs Feb 10

Had to post this on Friday because of some internet issues thursday night. It was a bit of a crazy day. Got up early to work on an assignment, went to class, finished assignment but had the power go out for about 30 minutes while I was trying to finish (thank god for laptop batteries); it was kinda dark so hard to read but got it done. Went to print it in my program's study office but no ink, so I went to the school's computer commons where I had to borrow a friend's login info because setting mine up would have taken half an hour; only to find out just before I print it that all the printers are down for at least another 20 minutes or so because of the power outage. Still got it handed in but it almost made me late for work. Then when I got home, the internet wasn't working as I said earlier. Oh well, no use in getting stressed over it, shit happens. Still had a good day of eating despite it being a hectic day:

7am Muesli with soy milk

8:30am Protein shake, apple, vitamins (multi,b,c,fish oil)

12pm Tofu, steamed carrots, broccoli, purple cabbage, zucchini, rice

3pm Apple, banana

5:30pm Brown rice, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, edemame, chicken, tomato, bean sprouts, red onion, red pepper, spicy peanut sauce

10pm Smoothie - Mixed berries, 2 bananas, soy milk, spinach, flax meal, soy protein; fish oil capsule

Excited about Fridays working, I have a feeling it will leave my legs sore for a couple days after but I am a bit of a masochist so muscle soreness here we come.