Zyaga Writing about whatever the hell I want, cuz it's the Interwebz!

Weekly Summary – August 5th, 2011

It’s been a little while since I did a weekly summary. Mostly because I’ve been busy as I was actually spending what time I had to do my Japanese. Took on a second position/role at work, which meant moving desks yet again, and getting caught up to speed on some of the new tasks I’m going to be helping out with. Then got a freaking ear infection. Let’s move on to the good bits of this past week..

Japanese

Kanji: ???

Ah, seems something in the world has changed! Whatever could it be!??!?! Oh yeah… That must be it… I FREAKING FINISHED RTK1 TODAY, WOOOHOHOOOOOO. Only reviews left, and now moving onto the fun stuff: Sentences!

As you may have read on my twitter, I’ve started with sentences a bit already. I’m actually going to do AJATT’s MFSP (My First Sentence Pack) first, then move onto the AJATT+ Moe pack, then simply start making my own from there on out.

Besides finally finishing RTK, all other important news you have already seen in my other posts, such as running Windows 7 completely in Japanese. Some other small notes:

• I’ve been going over Textfugu from scratch again, just completed Season 2 again.
• Doing Pimsleur lessons (half way through season/series 2).
• Taking a look at www.mangolanguages.com as something extra for fun.

Eventually I plan to do Japanese in Mangaland #2 & #3 (already did #1) and possibly check out ReadTheKanji at some point. Oh, and of course I’m still doing SilverSpoon! We’ll be doing MCD’s at some point!

Oh, and as a side note, my 誕生日 is tomorrow (Aug 6th), hence why I wanted to finish RTK by then. ^^;

Fitness

It’s been a while since I’ve reported in about my stats and what I’ve accomplished lately. Well, if you’re really interested, my instructor put up two new reviews of the past two 4 week workout programs we gave a shot : M&G Weighted Workout (that we created) and Spartan Warrior Workout. He wrote the two articles but, you’ll see I’ve added in my take as well, which is generally a consensus on both.

Weight: 158 lb

Yep, that’s correct! I’ve gained 13 lbs since about 2 months ago. A bit of fat, but mostly muscle. I’m trying to pack on size (muscle) until I reach 180 lbs. Once I hit 180 lbs, I’ll do a clean strip out of the extra bit of fat I’ll have gained, to roughly 170 lbs. Hoping to hit that goal by the end of this year, but may not have enough time to gain the weight. Losing the fat will only take me 4-8 weeks (to make sure I only lose fat, not the muscle I gained).

What added the weight though wasn’t the Spartan Warrior Workout, it was our 1 month M&G Weighted Workout. I made great gains in squat, deadlift, weighted pullup/chinup, etc. But the greatest gains I made of all was on my bench press. Now, I had never used weights prior to that past routine so when I first started (I was weighing roughly 148 lbs at that point), I was benching 105 lbs 5×5 (5 sets of 5 reps). By the time I was done with the 4 week program, well…. lets let the below results do the talking:

Weight: 154 lb

Bench (5×5): 205 lb

Bench (1 Rep Max): 240 lb

That’s 100 lbs added to my bench in 4 weeks. I know, I couldn’t believe it either. Insane. That’s basically exactly 1.55 times my bodyweight (the new bodyweight, of 155 lbs). 240 lb may not be impressive, but the fucking ratio is, you better believe it. After we do our next 4 week workout program, the Fighter Workout (coming soon), which we will be releasing videos for and having a few people join along from home (just reporting their stats, etc), then we will be moving onto another round of the M&G Weighted Workout, but with the exercises mixed up a bit. Aiming for 300 lb 1RM by the end of that routine!

PS: For those of you wondering about images of my results, one big image of smaller images showing my monthly progress will be released at the end of this year. Why wait that long? Because it’ll be much neater to see the huge transformation. Trust me, a lot has changed. And it’s only going to get better. Sorry for the wait though.