Category Archives: Going Strong

How My Crazy Toddler Might Help My Strength Gaining Goal

07/01/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my strength gaining goal and the issues I face with sticking to it. In sum, training is not the problem, it’s my lack of a caloric surplus.

After that post, I had a couple people reach out to me offering their help and support. One of those people is Tony Huynh, a personal trainer and owner of the site Good Guy Health. Tony has been extremely helpful by creating a solid nutrition plan and training routine. I urge you check out his site and reach out to him about your own fitness goals.

I did make changes to his original strength routine, but mainly because I have Avery in the garage with me and felt it might take too long for her patience to hold. That, and it gets hot fast in there, like our own personal sauna. Too bad we can’t control the heat, I literally have my shirt and shorts (even my socks) drenched in sweat after just 30 minutes!

Here’s my current routine:

Saturday and Sunday are rest days, but I always include some conditioning by running, swimming, or rowing. Nothing too extreme, but enough to get my fitness “fix”. I’m currently on the 85% week and will take it down a notch next week before increasing my RM (rep max) and going through the cycle again.

This, along with following the macro breakdown Tony setup for me, is yielding results. Nothing big (yet), but mainly b/c I’m still struggling with eating more than I’m used to and being less active than before.

For eating more, I’ve reduced the over-abundant amount of raw veggies I usually eat with more calorie dense foods like nuts, seeds, and dried fruit. Extra spoonfuls of NuttZo with Greek yogurt and cherries do the trick too, and I’ve been enjoying them daily!

I just have to be sneaky or Avery will go crazy and demand it all to herself!

I know what you have....GIVE IT! — I know what you have….GIVE IT!

Which leads me to why her crazy toddler temperament as of late just might help me with my strength/weight gaining goals. You see, I’m one to constantly keep pushing myself when working out despite what my mind and body is trying to tell me. This results in overdoing it most of the time, and therefore, burning those precious calories my body needs to use to grow.

Since Avery’s early onset of the terrible twos only seems to grow in intensity each day, her mood can change in an instant. And patience? Fogettaboutit!

Long gone are the days of quite little Avery hardly aware of her surroundings….

I love that picture. But her patience level has dropped dramatically in the past 2 weeks which means I need to get my lifts in and be done with it. No more messing around trying to think of some elaborate “finisher” to get that burning pump and sweat pool going on. As much as her fussiness has been driving me up the wall, I find the silver lining is possibly helping me on my journey to strength.

Time will tell, and then I’ll tell you, but hopefully I can look back and thank our crazy little girl for being, um….crazy.

Can you find the silver lining in your kid’s craziness?

Do you get a “free” sauna in your garage during the summer too?

Going Healthy, Going Strong, Life, Parenting

New Shoes for My Wife on Father’s Day and A Workout

06/21/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Happy Father’s Day to all dads out there! Without us, there would be no kids to be father to. Then again, same could be said for all mothers. But we already celebrated them last month, so YAY us!

Fine, to avoid getting hit (too much), YAY all Moms too! I love and appreciate all my wife does, that’s for sure. 🙂

Speaking of Moms, I was so kind as to get Going Mom some new shoes even though it is Father’s Day. Yep, four of them to be exact, and they were not cheap! I’m not one for fashion, but when it comes to performance and reliability, I’m all about it. Which is why her new shoes are all identical and look like this….

Be honest, how many of you already knew I was talking about tires? Her car was overdue for a new set and as a car enthusiast and someone who used to work on them every day, I happily researched and settled on these beauties. Nothing extreme, but better than OEM. So thanks to Tire Rack for shipping to a local tire shop to have them installed.

I hated not being able to do it myself since I used to do it all the time, but that requires a special machine I obviously don’t have access to anymore. Plus, I was able to make good use of the 90+ minute wait time by heading to a place nearby with an outdoor fitness area. The only bad thing was that I had to walk across hell’s parking lot.

Luckily, I survived and made it to my destination. It wasn’t much, but had all I needed for what I planned on doing.

After a brief warm-up, I did slightly altered version of the Crossfit benchmark WOD “Cindy“. Instead of pull-ups, I opted for chin-ups and did as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:

5 chin-ups

10 push-ups

15 body weight squats

I love this routine as you can do it almost anywhere, and as long as you go hard for that 20 minutes, you’ll feel it! I’m not great at chin-ups, so that always slows me down, but practice makes ~~perfect~~ slightly better than before. I usually have a pen and paper to mark each round I complete, but since I didn’t have that, the wood chips had to do.

Yeah, 16 rounds. Not my best, but I was going off of only black coffee at the time in my defense. Now that I’m another year older, I have a little thing I must do every day. Last year, for 30, I did 31 1-legged squats/leg + 31 push-ups almost every day. If I didn’t do that, I did 31 burpees + 31 push-ups. It’s always one more than my age.

This year, I’m sticking with 32 split squats/leg + 32 push-ups. The split squats really let you feel it the next day and I’m happy I chose them to do every day! You should try too. Find a move you could safely do every day and do reps of that move for how many years old you are. It’s great to say you did something, and might motivate you keep going.

For instance, after the WOD, and my 32 squats/push-ups, I went ahead and finished off my legs with 100 walking lunges/leg. Then walked around another 30 minutes until the tires were finally ready. Yep, I have no legs now….

No clue what’s in store for today, but if Kelley really knows me, it’s a whole lot of not much at all. And a Ferrari. 🙂

Hope everyone is having a happy Father’s Day or just an awesome day if you’re not celebrating!

Do you ever find ways to keep active instead of sitting in a waiting room?

If you said no, are you going to try next time your car is in the shop or something else?

Going Healthy, Going Strong, Life, Parenting

Commitment Issue and What I’m Doing About It

06/02/2015 R.C. Liley 8 Comments

Don’t we all have at least one commitment issue? Whether they’re something big like getting married, or small like using the exact same bowl for dinner each day, I’m sure you’ve got’em.

Luckily, marriage was never an issue for me, and I have no doubt about my sacred bond to be with my wife till death do us part. But, using the same bowl and spoon is one thing I actually struggle with. I’m just so partial to the dimensions and don’t know how to eat with anything else.

But that’s not the issue I’m writing about today. No, this is something I’ve been annoying Going Mom with for years. It’s my goal to gain strength/weight.

The goal sounds simple enough, but is actually quite complex in my mind. All the into part of my high school life, I was a heavy boy and hated how I looked. I was never obese or anything, but if I continued on the path I was on, that’s how I’d end up. Over the years I educated myself on what’s healthy and got into running. Eventually, I was a full blown long distance runner who could easily go out and run 12 miles without giving it a second thought.

Running was cool, and took a lot of dedication in training and nutrition, but after several years of marathons and running for distance, my strength was lacking. I’ve told this story many times before, so I’ll keep it short…..er.

I want to be a strong dad for Avery and for my own well-being. There will always be a place in my heart for long distance running, but for now I have to try and focus on building mass, which means lay off the running! Not completely, I’ll still run a little to get my “fix”, but mostly sprints and maybe one longer run on the weekends.

Getting stronger means lifting heavy and eating more to provide fuel for muscles to grow. Without a surplus of nutrient-dense calories, your body has nothing to work with to grow. I’ve been lifting for a few years now and know the moves, but not eating enough is what keeps me from attaining my said goal; gain strength/weight.

I could go on forever getting more and more in depth on the subject, but the bottom line is find a strength training program, stick with it, and eat. That doesn’t mean scarfing down pizza and burgers, I’ll still make my own meals, just means I need to eat a lot more of it. Nutrient dense foods like peanut butter, or even better, NuttZo, will be a big help here. And then, for my purposes, I need to ease up on how active I am each day. Something most of the world actually needs to do more of, I should do a little less.

If you want to talk with me more on this topic, please comment below or e-mail me at RCrown2@aol.com and we’ll talk. For now, I am putting it out there that one of my goals, starting this June, is to gain weight in the form of mostly muscle over the next year and reassess from there. I’m currently 5’10 and 160 lbs; my goal is to get to 175 lbs, so we’ll see how well I do.

Why June? Well, I don’t think anyone should wait for the New Year to start any of their goals, for one, but it’s because I am turning 31 on the 8th and I want to be a stronger, happier husband/father by 32. Sorry to my wife, who’s heard me say this since before I was even 30, but hopefully by writing it out on my blog, I’ll have something else to hold me accountable.

I never had a problem with discipline or motivation to work out, but when it comes to eating more than I’m used to, and when it’s mostly whole foods, it’s not easy. I fear just gaining pure fat, I’ll admit it, even though I know the basic science behind how our bodies work, and that wouldn’t happen as long as I train smart.

By the end of June, I hope to share my weekly training schedule with the thought that it will keep me from being sidetracked. I’m lucky to have such a wonderful daughter who is usually happy to train with me in the garage, so I should have no excuses.

Stay tuned for what else is happening this month and why you should care. Hint: it’s for a good cause and I’m going to ask for generous donations! 🙂

Do you struggle with certain commitments?

Do you have a current training plan to gain or lose weight? Despite my own issues, I am actually full of advice I’m happy to share if you ask.