About damned time.

As I wrote in my last post, I felt average and exhausted when I got up this morning. This was probably a combination of two things - the tonsillitis and the antibiotics I'm on, and it's the first week of the keto diet in which my body has been getting used to no carbs. I've done keto before and know that the initial lethargy is something that just needs to be pushed through and I've been sick for long enough, so it was time to man up and my ass into the gym.

Gymwolf


I used tonight's session as an opportunity to test a workout logging application on my Nokia N8 called Gymwolf. It allows you to log your workouts by choosing which exercises you did and the sets/repetitions/weight. The app has quite a large amount of exercises to choose from but also allows you to add your own. It also has internet connectivity and uploads your exercises to your own account either through Facebook or through a separate account creation (I used Facebook). I haven't completely explored the website but you can view your workouts on the web page, create goals, workout plans (I'm not exactly sure how to utilise it yet, but it could be useful) and graph your lifts. I like the idea of graphing my lifts but at first glance it seems it graphs the total weight lifted (i.e. sets x reps x weight = X) between workouts which I guess could be useful, but I'd rather be able to see how my max lifts increase over time. That functionality may be there but I just haven't seen it yet so I won't be too quick to judge. One thing that I really disliked however, was the inability to put decimal amounts into the weight amounts of my lifts. So when I was doing bench press, I wanted to input 72.5kg but there was no way to put in a decimal. I asked the question on the feedback form on their website, hopefully they get back to me.
Overall though, the application us going to suit my needs perfectly. That is, I'll be able to track how much I lift in each workout and easily copy it here. That way I won't have to struggle to remember exactly weights which I'd do otherwise and surely bugger up.

I'm going to keep using it until I find something better but considering this app is free, it's pretty damn awesome.

The Workout


Unfortunately copy-pasting the workout details from the Gymwolf website kind of sucks and I'm going to need to transpose the workouts to Excel before I can copy them here. Since I'm too lazy to do that right now, I just entered the details into a BodyBuilding.com log which will work for now:

EXERCISE	Set #1	Set #2	Set #3	Set #4	Set #5
Squat	80kgx5	85kgx5	90kgx5	95kgx5	95kgx5
Bench press	70kgx5	70kgx5	70kgx5	72.5kgx5	72.5kgx5
Barbell Row	50kgx5	60kgx5	60kgx5	60kgx5	65kgx5
Seated Calf Raise	70kgx5	70kgx5	70kgx12	XX	XX
Incline Dumbbell Fly	7.5kgx5	10kgx12	10kgx12	XX	XX

 Actually, that turned out quite well.

Given it was 8 days since my last workout, I'm fairly with the lifts albeit slightly bummed at not being able to squat 100kg but that was offset by the two 72.5kg benches. I'm fairly sure I should be back to benching my weight again in a couple of weeks. Overall a good workout and I'm going to feel it tomorrow.

Supplements
Pre-workout: APS Nutrition Mesomorph (grape) - a crapload of stimulants and grape flavouring. I went to the gym at around 4:30 and normally I wouldn't have a stim-packed preworkout so late in the day but I was pretty exhausted by the end of the day so I needed the extra pick-me-up and it served its purpose. I'm feeling totally wrecked now however and I'm going to fall asleep pretty soon after finishing this post.
Intra-workout: Scivation Xtend (grape) - an amino acid supplement which is supposed to help with recovery. A lot of people swear by BCAAs and Xtend is regularly up there when different brands are compared. Effective or not, it tastes great during my workouts.
Protein:  Muscle FX Hydrobolic FX (vanilla) - whey protein isolate with extremely low fat/carb content (0.75g per serve of each) and a high protein amount (28g per serve). It tastes great and helps with the whole keto thing since a lot of protein powders contain carbs.

Music
The following albums got me through the workout tonight:
Lloyd Banks - The Hunger for More
The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die

Whew, I think I've written enough with these two posts and I can feel myself getting less and less eloquent and just wanting to finish (like oh-so-many uni assignments) so I'm going to stop now and go watch mindless tv.