Ten Feet Up

Day 40 – What Goes Up Must Come Down

tylercopple — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 03:22:06 +0000

This is what I’ve realized through this whole experiment. Every time I appear to making progress, in the areas of strength, discipline, and ability, something humbles me. Some of these reasons are the reason for the lack of updates. Hopefully, though not suredly that is changing. In no particular order.

1. After week number two of lifting I got sick. A nasty chest cold that left me wheezing and coughing any time my heart rate became elevated. Its started at the beginning of week 3 and lasted a little more than a week. My mother still thinks I’m coughing from it.

2. I moved. End of story, I was busy, tired, exhausted, and wanted very little to do with waking up at 6:00am all in the name of making it harder to walk a straight line during the day.

3. I work for the money. They’ve need more out of me recently and I’ve been too nice to say no.

4. I got lazy. Sleep is sleep and sometimes it just wins.

5. Most of my fellow co-workers have stopped going to the gym in favor of training for a half marathon……GROSS.

But all of those reasons are excuses and I’m not here to make excuses. I haven’t taken my measurements yet, hopefully this week, but my body weight is down a little, I know that for sure. My strength has increased as all of my excersizes are up five to ten lbs, even in the face of increased repetitions. What remains to be seen is exactly how high I’m jumping. I know that it’s higher, I cane feel it when I jump for the rim, if I had to guess it’d be an inch to an inch half.

The plan currently is to finish out the week and then spend the weekend devising a workout plan for the home strech. I know one thing, ISA GOTSA PICK IT UP!

Day 75 – Shaky

tylercopple — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 01:04:46 +0000

Shaky is the description of both my body and commitment this week. Not only was I weak all week because of physical exhaustion, but my commitment to the gym was also strained.

Things started well enough as Monday, my first day in a gym after years off, was both tiring and hopeful. Day two went equally well on Wednesday — a story about this later — and I was especially excited when I woke up nearly unable to walk on Thursday. However, there was no exercise on Friday, none on Saturday, and only a crossfit’esque workout called Insanity on Sunday evening. Basically it was forty minutes of jumping, squatting, and stretching. Difficult, yes, but not what I’m striving for.

The notable story from this week happened Wednesday night. After my heavier lifting session in the morning and sitting all day at work, I was scheduled to play volleyball with a company team that evening. Lets just say my kills, blocks, and overall lateral movement abilities weren’t what they normally are. At 24 I’m the youngest on the team but I’m sure I looked like the oldest, and I definitely felt rickety. It was enough of a hassle to convince me not to work out on Wednesdays, so I’m moving the second workout of every week to Tuesday.

So. Tomorrow is Tuesday, and I’m at the gym. Hopefully I’ll be coming back with videos of my current non-dunking ability.

Day 83 – In the Beginning

tylercopple — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:48:33 +0000

Every three weeks, I’ll measure my weight and vertical leap and update my workout schedule. This is the first of those installments.

Height: 6’1″
Weight: 160lbs
Standing Reach: 91″
Vertical Leap: 29″

Monday – Low Weight / Quick Rep

(20 Calf Raises followed by 10 No Arm Jumps) x3
(20 Leg Presses followed by 10 Tap Jumps) x3
(20 Leg Extensions followed by 10 Ankle Hops) x3
(20 Leg Curls followed by 10 Superman Jumps) x3
20 minutes on the stairs

Tuesday – Medium Weight / Medium Rep

(10 Leg Press followed by 10 Calf Raises) x3
(10 Weighted Lunges followed by 10 Step Ups) x3
(30 Clean & Jerks) xAsQuicklyPossible
Jump rope 3×100 followed by Single Foot Jump rope 1×100 (each foot)

Thursday – Agility

Squat Jumps
Square Jumps
Superman Jumps
Hurdle Jumps
Ankle Jumps

Life is a Story

tylercopple — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:20:54 +0000

A little more than a week ago a friend turned me on to an idea.

Life is a story. Not a checkmark.

So here’s what’s happening. On April 5th, 2010 I will dunk a basketball. In eighty three days, after twelve weeks of training, I will view the world from above the rim, not below it. The following is my story of how this is going to happen, from weight training and diet to technique and ridicule, it’s all going down on paper, digital paper that is.

So get ready. I can’t yet, but I’m going to.