Mahler’s Monday Morning Motivator # 197 – The Report Card

[Mahler]

Mahler’s Monday Morning Motivator # 197 – The Report Card


The Report Card


This is traditionally the time of year when many of us are somehow assessing what we did in the last twelve months. A number of you younger members have finished a semester or trimester at school and have gotten or will be getting those final grades soon. With this report card you will then know if your parents have decided to disown you or keep you for another year.

Those of us in the working world may have gotten or are currently awaiting our annual appraisals. These corporate report cards are a good indicator as to whether or not you have been viewed as a valuable worker, if you will get a bonus, or simply that the boss doesn’t have you in the cross-hairs as he adjusts the sights of his “downsize” machine.

In some way or another, and throughout our lives, we are always getting report cards. They may not be called by that name, but they are a report card just the same, be they credit reports, medical reports, budgets, you name it. They are all designed to indicate how we are doing in a particular area of our lives based on what we have done in the period leading up to the particular report.

I thought it might be interesting for this motivator to give you my fitness report card for the year 2007 and challenge you to do a report card of your own and post it here. This may be just what an uninitiated newbie or one of those now wavering new year’s resolutionists needs to see. Fitness does not happen over night, but over time. So, for your consideration I offer my personal report card.

REPORT CARD
Statistics:
Name: Mahler (John)

Age: 59 (58 for the period of the report)

Weight:
Annual average = 180.1
Highest weight = 189.2
Lowest weight = 173.8

Body Fat:
Average 11% (measured monthly)

Programs completed:
Deadlift Improvement by Alwyn Cosgrove
New Rules of Lifting – Hypertrophy II by Lou Schuler & Alwyn Cosgrove
Chin-Up Improvement by Alwyn Cosgrove
New Rules of Lifting – Hypertropy III by Lou Schuler & Alwyn Cosgrove
Chin-Up Improvement (repeated) – by Alwyn Cosgrove
Total Body Training by Chad Waterbury
Big Boy Basics by Chad Waterbury
New Rules of Lifting – Strength I by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove
New Rules of Lifting – Strength II by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove
New Rules of Lifting – Strength III by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove

Notable Moments & Personal Records:
Deadlift – 10 x 3 x 335
Deadlift – 2 x 405
Snatch Grip Deadlifts – 6 x 3 x 315
Chin-Ups – 104 in 17 sets (most in one set = 15)
Chin-Up – single with 75 lbs. added
Back-Extensions - 2 x 10 x B+50
Barbell Bent-over Row – 210
Deadlifts – high rep 12 x 295
Deadlifts – Snatch-grip off box – 6 x 280
Static Lunge – 3 x 10 x 120
Pull-Ups – Wide Grip – 12 with 7.5 lbs. Added.
Pull-Up – single with 65 pounds added
Squat – 350
Bench Press – 225

Other:
Attended by 6^th JP Fitness Summit
Finally joined the 2, 3, 4 club.
Wrote 50 new Monday Morning Motivators
Made a lot of new friends.

I invite you all to assess what you have done to achieve your goals throughout 2007. This can be a powerful motivation.

So often, looking back at what you have done can tell you, not only where you are, but where you need to be going.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Have a Great Week!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

[Dolly Dagger]

Wow! That's quite some set of accomplishments.

I like the idea of taking an assessment at the end of the year. We often don't really know how much we've accomplished, only that we haven't gotten to where we want to be.

[Bill2380]

Looks like a 4.0 to me.

[ninja]

[liftintexas]

yeah, someone is the overachiever! kidding, great report. I need to do the same.

[Jimbo]

Wow John. I'm in awe man. How the HELL do you stay injury free?!! Wow

Props to you.

My list of accomplishments..I did not go entirely insane last year. Well..not entirely.

[RacerBill]

Nice one, John. I hope more people take your suggestion and add some report cards of their own.

I'd have to do some research to do as extensive a report card as you have here, but I can add a few:

April 2007: identified a lot of mobility/stability issues. Couldn't accomplish a DL without breaking form. January 2008: set a new DL PR.

Completed programs: Danny's plan (lots of mobility and unilateral work), break-in, part 1 and part 2.

The Summit was certainly a highlight, but I've also had the privilege this year of meeting some of you folks in person who haven't been to a Summit yet.

[LoriAnne]

My jaw is on the floor, and the best thing I can come up with is. . . WOW!

What a marvelous year for you, and how fantastic that in 2008 you have all new acheivements to look forward to!

Thank you for sharing your personal successes with us all.

[GG300]

I thought this was going to be motivational, now I just feel like a slug in camparison.

Great Year John.

[hard_rox]

Nice motivator, John. I'm sure 2008 will be equally productive.

[duff beer]

Mahler has some impressive numbers and it probably scared a few people away. Here's a far more modest report card.


Statistics:
Name: Ken
Age: 45
Weight: 175
Annual average = ??
Highest weight = 186
Lowest weight = 169
Body Fat: guessing 20-22%
Average: 20%

Programs completed:
5x5, 8x3, 6x10 and assorted variations for 85% of my training
62 one hour swims (goal 100)

Notable Moments & Personal Records:
Deadlift – 280
Chin-ups – 27 consecutive
Chin-ups – 5x5 with 55 pounds
Chin-ups - 300 in 1 hour (5 per minute)
Squat – 220 for 5x6, no max attempt
Bench press - 240
Bench press - 210 for 5x5
swam 5000 meters without stopping

Other:
- learned how to play 10 songs well enough on guitar so that I could to switch from bass to guitar in our band
- built a deck and then had people offering me money to build one just like it at their house
- won "closest to the pin" in a golf tournament (17")

[Mahler]

RacerBill & duff beer.
Thanks for taking up the challenge.
My personal report card was not meant to scare people away. I do that quite well with my appearance.

I am hoping to spur more guys and gals to post their report cards.
If you don't have an idea of what you did last year, how can you know if you are making progress? More importantly, how do you know what to do in the coming year?

[RobLL]

At the beginning of the year, and my second session with retinopathy, and against the recommendation of my Internist I started blood glucose, BG, metering. I discovered I was getting readings as high as 165. This despite having started eating low, almost very low, carbs three years earlier. I switched to very low - less than 50.

So with links I learned from THIS SITE, I started researching diabetes. Jenny, Regina, Adam Campbell, Brad Pilon, Leigh, and others. What I learned was that despite American Diabetes Assc. guidelines and my Internist the readings I was getting meant that I was diabetic, and that the retinopathy was most likely the result of high blood sugars. My eye doctor egged me on in this research, encouraging me to get those BGs as close to normal as possible.

I then had a great time at the Summit, including talking with Mahler. I had been doing NROL for almost a year, and wanted to do something different. Escalating Density Training was what seemed most fascinating. And I could not do chinups or pull ups. Even when I was young and about the strongest person in my age group. I also found out that I needed some sort of deep massage for my lower arms, and a chiropractor/body builder at the conference suggested The Stick, if massage was not in my budget. So I did it. Results

I did EDT with chinups/pushups with leg on bench. I started out with sets of 1 rep. Only Charles ever suggested such a thing. The pushups were easy, and over about a month I went from less than 1 chinup a session of 15 minutes, and several more tries, to the last session (thirty minutes) when I did FIFTY chinups, all top form. After a rest of a week or so, I then did the same with Pull Ups, although I never did a final session. Chinups and Pullups no longer daunt me. I know I can do what ever I intend to try.

Along with all of this my monitoring of my BGs showed steady deterioration. My Internist grudgingly put me on Metformin, the one oral drug my web sites thought does the most good. It didn't do much, so I got over the counter insulin and syringes and starting at very low doses discovered I needed 20 units of insulin a day to control my "you don't have diabetes". I also started looking for a new doctor. Very difficult. And my Internist, a very by the book guy, is otherwise excellent. I found someone, who would reluctantly Rx Insulin, and I am now on a long acting one shot a day regimen.

2008 Preview
I went in for my eye check, and voila, he says eyes are great, no more 3 or 6 month checkups, but just every year. I am now doing Brad Pilon's Eat Stop Eat (Intermittent Fasting) and seeing BGs NORMAL, and even a little less insulin!

[jj]

John, those are some great stats and great accomplishments for the year. I'll have to see if I can rake something together, but it will be nothing like that. Great job!

[kingkop182]

John, I started to compile one but then realised it was littered with 'almosts' nothing concrete enough.

My goal now is to list 'mens challenge winner' to next years.

[gregl515]

Mahler, once again you make us all stop and take stock. Rob and Duff both great years. I'm giving myself an incomplete because the year was largely on hold. This year I can do better. I've been jealously looking through my fitness books and magazines and watching you guys logs. I'm making a plan and when I get the leg healed, I am gonna work the plan.