Days 61 - 65: Busy days, staying active

By Dale L Roberts (One Jacked Monkey, LLC)

January 11, 2015

Woo!  It's been a long time since I last posted and it was not my intentions to get this far off track.  I will cover each day very briefly.

Day 61 - This was an off day and I focused just on a little extra cardio (30 minutes on treadmill, elliptical & bike) and 2 stretch sessions.  A tool that I have reintroduced to my arsenal is something called a denneroll (that I never knew how to spell until now).  My chiropractor turned me onto this tool that is used for traction at home.  I find when I am diligent with using it everyday, I feel better and have less tension in my neck.  Long story short - my spine is all kinds of jacked up and I have to exercise, stretch and take corrective measures to keep my quality of life at it's best.  

     If you want more info on the denneroll, click on the link below the picture.

Link to the info

     Essentially, I place the (gray) denneroll just below my shoulders on the spine and I lay on my back.  Slowly, my head tilts back and my neck begins to relax.  It is super awkward, but man, does it feel good after I have finished.  With all that said, if I reference the denneroll, now you know.

Day 62 - This was my secondary priority training day and I usually record my video right after my workouts, but this time I just didn't have it in me.  I did 100 pull ups straight on the assisted pull up machine at -85 pounds on the wide grips.  Whew!  Once again, it was not too bad till I got past 50 repetitions.  Then, my forearms and back were screaming to stop.  But I pushed through!  

      Right after, I got into a great leg workout.  After I was complete, I was a glutton for punishment and hit the assisted pull up machine and cranked out an additional 100 pull ups on the assisted pull up machine at -100 pounds on the narrow grips.  I was dead tired after that and headed home for a quick protein shake then sleep.

Day 63 & 64 - Literally, all I did on these 2 days was 30 minutes of cardio/15 minutes of stretch/5 minutes of denneroll each.  My neck was doing everything in it's power to slow me down.  I was going to tough it out and squeeze in my normal Saturday priority training routine, but I wanted to test out a morning routine for a change and pushed it to Sunday morning.  More about that below.

Day 65 - Priority training day - I got up, ate 1.5 cups of oats, threw back some BCAAs and Spark and read for 30 minutes before I headed into the gym.  My wife came along to capture the footage that I have posted on YouTube.  I didn't time myself this workout, because I just forgot in the process of getting someone to video the workout.  My first attempt only saw 25 pull ups straight on the inner grips.  Not a good start to me.  That's a bit of a back step from last week, so my theory of early morning workout did not payoff today and I'm okay with this development.  My body certainly needed the rest.  The subsequent attempts ranged from 10-15 repetitions.  I would rest for exactly 2 minutes between each attempt.

     I love videoing the process, because now I can evaluate form and see what I need to work on next.  As of this post, I haven't edited the video yet, so I'm not sure how it turned out.  The video should be up by late afternoon on Monday, January 12th.  I will not have another post again until next Saturday's routine as I will be knee deep in finishing up the upcoming books I will be releasing by spring 2015.  

     Thanks for tuning in.  Would love to hear from you, so please feel free to comment, subscribe and share this blog post.