Day 218 - 28 Years Old!

Well, today I turn 28 years old. All I can say is, wow, what a year my 28th year has been! My wife and I were thinking back on this past year and how busy it has been, so I figured I would do a quick synopsis of how much has happened, as well as how much I have accomplished in the past year.

November 2011

Last year, I decided to celebrate my birthday with my first ever Birthday Challenge. At that time, I figured it would be too cold to do anything outside, so I made a series of challenges for myself in the house. (Little did I know that a year later I would be competing in the World's Toughest Mudder!)

December 2011

My first-born son Evan arrived more than 3 weeks early on December 6th 2011. To say that our lives have changed since he has arrived would be the understatement of the century. I love the little guy more than anything else! He sure likes to keep things interesting, especially now that he is mobile. What an energetic little boy! I hope him and I can compete in some fitness challenges of our own as he grows.

December also saw me start P90X2. It arrived a few weeks before Christmas so I got started down that road on December 11th, less than a week after the birth of Evan.

January 2012

Still working away on P90X2, I received a video shout-out from Tony himself. I know, I know, it isn't really an accomplishment on my part, but I won this shout out by entering a P90X2 Facebook contest and think it's pretty cool regardless.

February 2012

I finished up with P90X2 in February. At this point, I wasn't necessarily looking for huge visual changes, but instead I wanted to see some physical improvements. After completing P90X2, I definitely had some compliments on how fast I had become on the ice playing hockey, so I would say the program worked!

After completing P90X2, I jumped right into my own Mass Phase at the end of February.

March 2012

My mass phase was progressing nicely. I was eating a ton and moving lots of weight. I also started to look ahead to the summer and what physical competitions I wanted to compete in, so I started designing my Warrior Dash Training.

April 2012

I added Tough Mudder to the list of things I wanted to do in 2012, so that meant that I had to alter my Warrior Training.

I also finished up with my Mass Phase with some pretty decent results.

April also saw the beginning of my pledge to blog every day for 365 days. I am still going by the way!

May 2012

My Warrior Training was fully under way at this point, progressing nicely. It felt good to get back to overall fitness and performance since coming off my Mass Phase.

June 2012

Still plugging away at my Warrior Training...

July 2012

I finished up with my Warrior Training, and then competed in my 2nd Warrior Dash.

August 2012

With a quick turnaround, it was time to bridge my training from Warrior Dash to Tough Mudder.

And then of course compete in my first-ever Tough Mudder...what a blast!

September 2012

A few weeks after finishing Tough Mudder Toronto, I found out that I qualified for the World's Toughest Mudder 2012! With support from my family, I decided to take the plunge and start preparing for it.

October 2012

October saw the official launch (or pre-launch) of the Beachbody Coaching opportunity in Canada. I signed up as soon as I possibly could and have been building my team ever since. In the (less than) 2 months I have been a Coach, I have been loving the opportunity. This shouldn't come as a surprise since I have been waiting for this opportunity for years!

From a training standpoint, the month of October was all about World's Toughest Mudder training and preparing for the big day.

November 2012

Then, of course, November brought the big day. I had a blast at the World's Toughest Mudder, but it certainly wouldn't have happened without the help of my wife, my family, other folks in my hometown, and my sponsor Kreator equipment so a special thanks goes out to all of you!

So what does the future hold? To be honest, I really had no intentions of having such a busy year, especially after the birth of my son, but some things just evolve the way they do.

My short-term goals include starting Beachbody's Body Beast on Saturday December 15th, just 2 days after moving into our new house. I am also registered and set to run Tough Mudder Toronto again in May, this time with my wife, so I will be looking forward to, and training for that. My 28th year has been amazing, here's to hoping for a happy, healthy, and active 29th year!

Quote of the day:
"Obstacles don't keep a champion down; they make them fight harder!"
~ Unknown


Check out my new Website: tylerrobbinsfitness.com

Day 142 - This Year's Birthday Challenge

Last year was my first time doing a Birthday Challenge. Inspired by Jack Lalanne, I have read about, and thought about doing a Birthday Challenge for a few years now, but finally got around to doing one last year.

I remember the day fondly. I had turned 27 on Friday, November 25th 2011, and decided to celebrate my birthday Saturday morning with a long, drawn-out workout hitting goals that I set out for myself with a '27' theme.

After a few hours' worth of work, I completed my last set up pullups and was astonished at how well I did. Some of my goals were relatively easy to reach, but I have to admit that the pullups/chinups were the one category that scared me the most.

In the end, however, I felt incredibly proud of what I had accomplished. For those out there looking for something to do to make your birthday memorable, I highly recommend doing a Birthday Challenge for yourself.

Choose something that will challenge you, and work hard to achieve it! Sure, it doesn't necessarily have to be something physical, you could watch 30 hours of tv in a row to celebrate your 30th, for example. I figured that a birthday challenge, for me at least, should be something that I do to challenge my mental grit and physical strength/stamina in a way to thank my body for getting me to this age.

You only have one mind and one body. Together, they get you to where you want to go, so why not 'thank' it by challenging both. You may find that you will end up with a pretty rewarding feeling in the end.

Which leads me to this year...

I remember finishing my challenge last year, immediately thinking, "How can I top this next year?" What are some other goals/aspirations I have in mind that I would like to do to challenge myself? I remember wanting to add some distance running to the mix, but figured it may be a bit too cold and/or snowy in November to add some outdoor endurance work. Well, bring on the World's Toughest Mudder!

Suddenly, I am looking at quite the event to challenge myself. Sure, it is a week early, but competing in the World's Toughest Mudder this year is most certainly going to be the way I celebrate another year on this planet!

I guess the only problem I will have after this event is trying to figure out what to do next year...

Quote of the day:
"Remember this: your body is your slave; it works for you."
~ Jack LaLanne

2011 My Year in Fitness

Well, 2011 has come and gone and many of you may be waking up this morning with a hangover. I never really understood why people would want to start a year off that way, but I guess that's the fun(?) of New Year's...

Now that we are starting a new year, it is sometimes nice to reflect back on the previous year to think of moments you were proud of and other times where you wish you maybe made better choices. The same can be done for health and fitness, and that is where I feel many people end up making their New Year's Resolutions.

2011 was a great year for me, I managed to complete many of my fitness goals that I set out for myself. On top of that, I spent a good part of 2011 studying for, and attaining, my Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) certification from the NSCA. If all of these aforementioned things weren't enough, my wife and I also welcomed our first-born child Evan into our family.

To quickly summarize all of my achievements from this year, I have listed my events and accomplishments below:

January

-Started my first-ever "Constant Confusion" hybrid consisting of mixing and matching workouts so that no 2 weeks were the same.

April

-Completed "Constant Confusion"

 -Started studying for my CSCS

May

-Started, and completed Insanity: the Asylum

June

-Plan and start "Constant Confusion 2.0"

July

-Compete in my first ever Warrior Dash

August/September

-Finish up "Constant Confusion 2.0" and start my Half-Marathon Training

October

-Complete my 2nd Half-Marathon (while fighting a pretty bad cold)
-Start training for my 1st-ever birthday Challenge

November

-Complete my first-ever Birthday Challenge

December

-Birth of my son Evan :)
-Receive my CSCS certification
-Start P90X2! 

My Birthday Challenge - The Details

Believe me or not, I was honestly planning on posting my Birthday Challenge details today, and now it just so happens that Steve Edwards (the guy whose blog inspired MY Birthday Challenge) also posted some Birthday Challenge details today. Keep in mind, Steve is more of an outdoorsy-type than me, but both challenges are based on the same principles; to physically push yourself and challenge yourself to make this birthday more memorable than the last! Or, as Steve writes in his blog today, "It's not a birthday pretty hard, it's a birthday challenge!"

Here is my layout and plan for my birthday challenge this year. I have committed myself to hitting my goals in all of these categories, even if it takes me all day to complete! A couple of things to note; first of all, I turn 27 years old on Friday November 25th 2011. Since work will get my way of reaching my goals, I have decided to do the birthday challenge on Saturday November 26th instead. Secondly, some of you out there may find some of these goals "easy", but that is all dependent on your current fitness level. For me, I tried to plan goals that are attainable, but challenging to me, while trying to maintain some sort of relation to this being my 27th birthday as I can. Yes, some of these goals will be easier than others, but overall, this should definitely fall into one of my most memorable birthdays yet!

Here are my goals based on taking ideas from many other birthday challenges I have read from others, keep in mind I am turning 27 years old (that is the binding pattern here):

270 Pushups - This one may be a bit easy for me as I am fairly good at cranking out pushups, but will still challenge me enough and make some of the other goals tough!

270 Pullups/Chinups - This will most definitely be my most difficult category. I will alternate between pullup sets and chinup sets, but all will include pulling up my own body weight to get my chin over that bar.

270 Jump Squats - Pretty self-explanatory here. I feel I have pretty resilient/strong legs so this one shouldn't be too bad, although combined with the next goal and things may get interesting towards the end.

270 Plyo Lunges - Again, I feel I have strong, resilient legs, but these combined with the jumping squats are going to have me walking funny the next day probably!

729 Crunches - 27*27=729 that is where I got this number. 270 crunches didn't seem like enough to me so I expanded my goal. Here I will alternate between a few different types of crunches that target the upper and lower abs as well as the obliques, but either way I will hit 729 total crunches.

2700 Jump Ropes - This one may get interesting towards the end and will definitely cause me to feel it in my calves the next day!

2700 lbs. Lifted - I will lift 2700 lbs. total in a few different ways such as shoulder presses, bicep curls and triceps kickbacks. An example of this would be 60lb shoulder press (30lb each hand) for 10 reps equals 600 pounds. I will be able to reach 2700 pretty quick and easy, but it will still effect other things such as pushups and pullups!

2.7L Beer - Assuming I am still awake later in the day, I will consume 2.7L of beer in honor of many other birthday challenges I have read about. This actually is quite a feat for me as I am not much of a drinker, so knocking back just under 8 cans of beer after a day full of exercise will certainly knock me out!

So there you have it. The way I have structured my day to meet all of my goals is by breaking down all of these goals into smaller sets to allow my body to recover a bit between sets. For example, my very first circuit I will do 30 pushups, 15 pullups, 70lb shoulder press x 10 reps (700lbs), 40 standard crunches, 15 chinups, 30 jump squats, 30 plyo lunges, 200 jump ropes. I will continue in this pattern somewhat, but as I go, I will hit my goals for certain categories first so that by the end I will pretty much be alternating between pullups/chinups, jump ropes and crunches. (I hope that makes sense)

For training, I will be spending 5-6 days a week training for what I will be doing. What I mean by this is that I will be doing pushups, pullups, core work, weight lifting, plyometrics, etc. I will record all of my birthday challenge and edit it down to a more concise video at that time for all of you to either use as motivation, or to just call me crazy! Stay tuned...

***EDIT*** You can view my Birthday Challenge video here

-Tyler Robbins
B.Sc. PTS

My Birthday Challenge

I have decided that I want to do a birthday challenge this year. Well, not exactly. I actually decided that I wanted to do a birthday challenge a few years ago, but never built up enough motivation/desire to do so. So what exactly is a birthday challenge you ask? Here is what birthdaychallenge.com has to say about it, and since they sum it up quite well, I figure there is no point re-phrasing what they have already phrased so well:

Inspired by Jack LaLanne, a birthday challenge is essentially a goal, generally in the form of physical achievement, to make your birthday more memorable than the last. Usually the number of your years lends itself to the base of your challenge. For example, on his 70th birthday Jack LaLanne towed 70 boats carrying 70 of his friends across Long Beach Harbor (about 3 miles), handcuffed and shackled.

On November 25th 2011, I will be turning the ripe old age of 27 years old. I can't actually believe I am nearing 30 so quickly. I guess that is part of my motivation to do this challenge, because I want to make this birthday more memorable than last year's, and hopefully I can continue this on as an annual tradition!

The other motivational tool for me here is the fact that my first born child (boy) is expected on December 28th of this year, and even though I have spent the last few years changing my lifestyle to be as fit and healthy as possible, I hope that this annual challenge can also motivate and inspire my son to lead a healthy lifestyle as well!

I am currently in the planning stage, trying to figure out some physical feats and accomplishments that I will be able to train for and accomplish, but that will still be a challenge for me as well considering it IS a birthday challenge after all!

Stay tuned to my blog for more details as I will keep you updated on my training progress, etc. Oh, and I also plan on video recording my training and the challenge itself so that I can hopefully inspire some of YOU out there as well!

-Tyler Robbins
B.Sc. PTS