Training in the Caribbean
By Jamie Hale
My wife and I recently visited Puerto Adventuras, Mexico. The place was beautiful. It was truly a tropical paradise. I had decided before the trip I was going to have a four-day overfeed and try some activities I hadn’t tried before. All the food was already paid for so I was going to eat as much as possible. After all, I really hadn’t had over a three-day period of overfeeding in about three years. It was time for a diet lay off.
Before I tell you about my visit to Mexico I would like to mention my experience in the Atlanta Airport. I was sitting outside of a shop waiting on my wife when a monster of a man caught my attention as he walked by. This monster was Bill Kazmaier. My wife came out of the shop and I pointed out Kaz and told her he was one the strongest men to ever live. She wanted to get a better look at his face to see if she recognized him. I didn’t want to impose so I didn’t bother the Kaz as he walked away. Next, we visited a bookstore as we were killing time before our next flight heading to Cancun. I was looking at the magazines and Kaz walked in and stood beside me. He began looking at the magazine rack. No option now I had to talk to him. I looked at him and said you might likely be on one of these magazine covers. He smiled and replied “not anymore“. We begin speaking and we talked about a variety of subjects including Barry Bonds, Kaz’s current diet (said he is looking at getting under three hundred lbs), Pudianawski, a protein supplement he is involved with and his trip to China where he was hosting World Strongman. In fact that is what he was doing at the airport; catching a plane to China. Bill was very talkative and friendly. He also agreed to do an interview for my site. I hope to have that up in the near future. Looking like e a great trip I told myself. Things were starting off good.
Day 1
When we arrived at Sunscape Resort we took our bags to the room and then visited the beach. We walked around the beach for a while then we went to look at the restaurants and all the other nearby shops surrounding Sunscape. We came back to the room and ordered room service. Brooke (my wife) ordered three taquitos and a cheeseburger for her and myself. When they brought the food to the room there was three taquitos dinners and a cheeseburger dinner. They mistakenly thought she ordered three dinners when she really meant three taquitos. Now, the question was should I eat all three dinners. I ate all three taquito dinners with the exception of two taquitos. In total I at 10 taquitos some black beans, lettuce, sour cream and tortillas. I noticed the food was not as spicy as the Mexican food I was accustomed to. Not complaining I enjoyed the food very much. We watched TV a couple of hours and went to bed.
Day 2
We got up to a beautiful sunny day. The first stop was World Café. The Café had a huge buffet with all the foods I was used to seeing for breakfast as well as some unfamiliar breakfast items including black beans, Red chicken, tortilla pork sour cream wrap as well as a few other things. I think I tried everything on the buffet and was very happy with the service at the restaurant. I am not used to eating a huge breakfast so I was stuffed after eating this huge meal.
Next, we headed to the beach. We laid on the beach for about 3o minutes and I started getting bored. I decided it was time to swim out to the ocean rock-climbing wall. The wall was about 10-12 ft and had three different sides for climbing and one side for sliding. I climbed the wall and then jumped of the top. This wasn’t a good idea because the water was only about 5-½ ft deep that surrounded the wall. Each time I climbed the wall from that point on I used the slide to come down. The first time I climbed the wall it was slightly difficult, but with each additional climb it became easier. It was actually very fun. The wall was anchored but it did move as you climbed. Next stop was the ocean trampoline. Which was located approximately 30 yds from the rock-climbing wall. The trampoline was surprisingly difficult to stand on. It was easier to maintain balance while bouncing. After about 10-15 minutes I got pretty good on the trampoline. I liked both the wall and trampoline, but I probably enjoyed the wall a little more.
I was taking a temporary break from my ocean workout and I walked back to the room to get my wife a bottle of water. On the way back from the room I decided to check out the resort’s gym. Even though I had already told myself I was going to stay away from the gym (I was trying to take a break, after all I live in a gym). It was a small gym, but nicely equipped (for a resort gym). The equipment included dumbbells, swiss balls, bikes, elliptical machines, lat pulldown, chest press, leg press and tricep pushdown.
My workout
Incline db bench
Lat pulldown
Db swings
Db snatches
Wtted crunches
Db push press
Db power jerk
Db speed shrugs
I performed 2 sets on each movement. Repetitions ranged from 6-15 reps.
At the end I Thai shadowboxed (no one in gym at that time) for a few rounds. Should have seen the looks I got when I was doing Db snatches. I forgot what it felt like to be in a regular commercialized facility. I am used to training in my personal facility or a facility similar where things such as Db snatches are common practice.
I finally made it back to the beach with my wife’s water. As I returned she had gotten up from her chair and was coming to look for me. I apologized as I told her I got a little side tracked. We went to eat lunch at a grill on the beach. The meal was awesome. I will not go into details about what I ate, but let’s just say it was a bunch of food and the service was great. While on the subject of meals I will summarize my food experience right now and will not mention food any more throughout the article.
Food summary
I ate approximately 7000-8000 calories per day (I generally eat 2700-3000 cals per day)
I ate whatever I felt like while making sure my fiber, and protein intake was adequate (not much of a problem considering my massive consumption of calories) I ate the best fruit I had ever eaten, big bowl of fruit with every meal
Foods I tried for the first time included: red chicken, calamari (Mexican style), various deserts, homemade coconut ice cream, steak marinating sauce, and a few other things
After each workout I had two ice cream cones (ice cream machine on the beach, could get ice cream anytime you liked)
Ordered room service at least once per day
Ate a buffet at least once per day
Seemed to never get full no matter how much I ate
Drank a bunch of espresso (really shot up my energy levels)
After we ate lunch we laid on the beach some more. Then, we went back to the room to get out the sun for a while. I went back to the gym for my second workout of the day as my wife rested.
My second workout
Looked basically like my first workout of the day (although I reduced the volume). I spoke to a couple from Britain about training. I began discussing my regular philosophies about training and nutrition. I figured after a few minutes they had really lost interest so I stopped bothering them. I finished my workout and retired to my room.
Day 3
It was another beautiful day. Basically followed a similar routine as the day before. I conducted two training sessions in the gym (similar to day 1 with a few different exercises, low volume full body). I would like to mention it didn’t take me as long as normal to get warmed up. I had just come from the beach where it was 95 degrees. I was able to jump into my work sets with a very low volume of warm-up sets preceding. I almost made it out of the gym without going off on one of my preaching episodes. I really couldn’t help it as I had noticed a large male using the elliptical. He had been on this thing for over an hour. I knew this because I had seen him earlier that day when I was visiting the spa (checking on services for my wife). I began speaking to him and he began to tell me why it was important to do cardio. How it enhanced fat burning and it was a must for bbers trying to get lean. Without going into detail about our conversation I basically informed him of how wrong he was (in a nice manner). I think my explanation was a waste of time as he nodded and agreed with most of what I said, but he still came to the conclusion that bodybuilders need long duration aerobic activity to get lean. Obviously he did not grasp what I was saying or he would not have agreed then turned around and contradicted what he just said.
My highlight of the day was the snorkeling adventure. I had always been anti-snorkeling up until that day. I seen all these people snorkeling and thought if they can do I am sure I can. Brooke and I snorkeled for about and hour. We saw all kinds of fish and different plants. Never thought I would snorkel, but I was glad I did. As the day went on we ate some more, watched a show from our balcony and ate some tasty food.
Day 4
On day 4 we were blessed with another beautiful day. I stayed away from the gym on this day. My workout included a rock carrying session and kayaking. The rock carrying was exhausting. I called the workout 100 Stone Carry. I moved 100 stones into a pre-determined pile. The stones weighed any where from 20-120 lbs. They came in all shapes and forms. The heat was blazing (over 100 degrees). I noticed as I started the workout I had drawn a small audience. Three girls sat and watched my entire workout. They were speaking to each other in a language I didn’t understand so I had no idea what they were saying. Probably thought I was a little nuts as everyone else in the area was relaxing while I was putting myself through this grueling work. I was barefooted when I was carrying the stones so I had to walk fast (ground and rocks were hot) and be very careful, as I didn’t want to lose a toe. After I finished the workout I was tired. I laid on the beach for about an hour and then went kayaking. I enjoyed the kayaking; especially when we started moving fast. I always thought it might be easy to turn over in a kayak, but from my new experience it would probably be rather hard to actually turn over. We kayaked for about 35 minutes and then retired to the beach for more relaxation time. That night we watched a very unique show from our balcony that featured exotic dancing, flame throwing, and entertaining stunt work.
Day 5
We had to leave on day 5. I was already missing the place before we even departed. We took one last walk on the beach, took some photos, jumped on the shuttle bus and headed back to the airport. I will say I was anxious to get home and see my son Reece. I couldn’t wait to tell him all the things we done and show him what I had bought him while in Mexico (sombrero, skateboard magazine, shells and rocks from the ocean, pesos).
As far as training went I felt very strong and energetic while in Mexico. It might have had something to do with the high calorie intake and my positive mental state (nothing to worry about, no time schedules and being there with Brooke). Although I was fatigued the next couple of days after the 100 Stone Carry. The travel also probably contributed to the fatigue.
Visit Jamie Hale's site at www.maxcondition.com
Training in the Caribbean
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