Ben does Afterburn Training

[BjsAust]

I've been away for a fair while, my body reflects it. I'm almost at my heaviest (92.5kg - 204 lbs) weight ever and theres not a lot of muscle to excuse it.

Atm my priority is to lose some weight. Muscle gain is fine, and I'd like it, but I'll worry more about strength and size when this spare tire around my waist is gone (or at least a lot smaller).

I'm trying to work on my posture and general health type stuff. I'll be doing some dynamic flexibility stuff from MM and Inside Out prior to workouts, and some static stretching of an evening, but the basics of this push is buying Alwyns Afterburn Training product and following it.

The first stage has me doing 3 workouts per week, alternating two different workouts. They are high rep sets with 2 exercises supersetted at a time (with breaks between exercises). I also need to do 'afterburn' training 3 times per week atm. Afterburn is basically HIIT training. My plan is to do weights workout Mon-Wed-Fri mornings, and do afterburn Mon-Wed at midday (when I work from home) and the third on Saturdays. I'll see how it all goes as I go along and adjust if need be. At the moment I go into the office Tues & Fri and have a decent homegym setup.

Not great timing, I know I have a fishing trip coming up in 3 weeks, and X-Mas falling in the middle of my 16 week course, but I guess theres never a perfect time, and I'll just have to try to minimise the harm I do at those times.


I started yesterday, I hadnt worked out for about 3 weeks beforehand, and not regularly for a long time. Some comments:

20 deadlifts per set, I dropped about 20-30 kg off my normal weight for 5 rep sets, seemed light but by the end of the 2nd and 3rd sets my forearms were struggling. Will switch to mixed grip from the word go next time and up weight a bit and see how I go.

Bulgarian split squats hurt. A lot. I only got 2 sets of these out, need to toughen up and do my 3rd set.

Felt sick in my stomach after doing pullovers each set, maybe due to not being used to working out on an empty stomach, will see how this goes into the future.

My core sucks, it all hurt and I could only do 15 secs at a time at prone cobra. Still, I know this is a weak point of mine, so with the workouts concentrating on that area a fair bit should help that.


I did my afterburn training about 6 hrs later. I used an exercise bike (I plan to alternate exercise bike, treadmill and outdoor running as we move into nice weather). With the initial sessions only being 5 mins workout and 3 sprints with 5 mins cool down, it wasnt too hard. Secret will be pushing as hard as I can for a minute at a time. I think I did fairly well, but can always do better.


Diet I plan to follow the afterburn guidelines. For simplicities sake I've designed an actual weeks diet I'll follow for the first 4 weeks, rather than risk myself doing it adhoc. Using recipes from Gourmet Nutrition, and still fitting in some healtier snacks we'd gotten used to (I'm loving greek style yogurt atm). This is one thing I want to be really strict on.

So I havnt done bodyfat % measurements, nor even taken a photo (may do that soon). Basically I'll be measuring success on weight loss and appearance changes. My main unit of measurement will be pinching my waist and how big it is.

My goal is to lose 10kg (22 lbs) in 16 weeks.

[Mahler]

Great to see you posting. Don't worry about the timing. There is no time like the present.

[Steve-O-68]

22lbs in 16 weeks is definately doable! Now that you've started a log, you gotta stick to it!!

[BjsAust]

I intend to Steve .

Whew, 4 days in and I feel about how you'd expect someone out of condition to feel after 4 days of doing an Alwyn Cosgrove workout. Actually technically right now I dont feel too bad, since its about 2 hrs after I did an afterburn session on the treadmill, and I always tend to feel less sore after a solid 'cardio' session. This morning though I could barely move.

I play basketball for an hour or so on Tuesdays at work, so after my initial sessions on Monday I played BB on Tues and then did my 2nd workout on Wed. It was a lunchtime workout since I had real trouble sleeping the night before. Not due to the exercise I dont think, just moving into warmer weather here and couldnt get comfy in bed. Put off the afterburn session until today. Could barely walk by the time I finished my workout.

Some notes:

Squats werent as bad as I feared. He has me doing a narrower stance than usual, and I went the same weight as I did for my deads on day 1. I think I can comfortably put the weight up next time.

Stepups hurt. I dont really have a normal sized bench, so I do them at a higher height than I would in a normal gym. My legs are burning up by the time I'm done 20 each leg. I nearly didnt do 3 sets of these, but pulled myself off the floor and forced myself through the last lot. Really need to have my mental toughness in place for these workouts.

SHELCs are weird. They look like they'll work the core (and do) but I was surprised just how much they worked my hamstrings and calves. I actually started cramping in my hammies when I tried to stand up after my first set. They'll be fun moving foward.

I felt really good after the workout though. Sore and tired, but a really nice feeling also.

Nutrional plan is going well. A couple of times I've had to go 'off-diet' because of missing ingredients or such, but I've kept to the cals and nutrient splits I intended, and will work out better shopping lists as I go.

Tomorrow morning might be rough, its my first really early morning workout (need to getup at 4:45 to get it done instead of 6). Had trouble getting to sleep the last couple of nights, hope thats not the case tonight.

Will be interested to see how I weigh in on Sunday. Often I tend to put a bit of weight on when I start stuff like this, so wont be too concerned if I do, but sure would like to see a nice dropoff right away.

[BjsAust]

1 week down and all is good so far. Lost 1.5kg (almost 3 1/2 lbs) last week. Thrilled with that. Really stuck at it well, so nice to see a good result.

Having worked out this morning, I've now done each workout twice. 2nd time still hurt a lot, but in retrospect I did it a lot easier. Put weight up slightly on both DL and Squats with no issues. Got through 3 sets of desired reps on every exercise. Things like Bulgarian split squats and step-ups still hurt a lot, but definately got through them better the second time around. Focusing on pushing through the heal really helped on both of them.

I got past the 'wow, this diet has lots of food in it' stage that healthy eating starts off with, and now my body has adjusted and is starting to look for more. Been sticking to it well though. Yesterday was a bit messed up foodwise, but I think I managed to not go over cal reqs too much, although I think the macro split was well off. Ahh well, back onto the 'strict' plan again.

Thoughts so far?

The workouts hurt. Theres a different pain to these high rep workouts, than the low rep ones I'm used to. It lasts longer each time, and requires a different kind of toughness to keep working through them. Mornings arnt my best times for 'mental toughness', however unless I get to the stage where I think I can realistically do my afterburn training straight after my workout, I'm just going to have to suck it up and stick to it. If nothing else I should actually build up some fitness from these workouts themselves, and my body does feel great afterwards.

The nutrional plan is pretty easy to stick to. Being higher on the carb side than a lot of the ones we see around here, makes it easy to put in 'normal' foods in some spots. I've got stuff like yogurt, muesli bars, cheese and bickies, thrown in along with the salads, chicken breasts, nuts, etc you'd expect to see. As per normal, preparation is the key, having everything available, and pre-cooking some things, really makes it easier to stick to.

Heres hoping for similar results from next week. The sooner I drop below 90kg the better .

[gregl515]

Good progress.

[BjsAust]

Thanks Greg.

Man, just got in from my last workout. Took yesterday off, my body is just buggered the day after basketball. Unfortunatly that means making up for it today, my birthday. I guess I've given myself the present of bulgarian split squats and hip-thigh extensions to celebrate with. My eating slipped yesterday, my first real off day. Sausages on toast for brecky. Back on track by the afternoon, but some damage was done.

Ahh well, its done now, just have to make sure I dont compound the mistake by making more. Gotta be right on for the rest of the week.

[Victoria]

Happy Birthday, Ben!!!!

[BjsAust]

Thanks Victoria .

[BjsAust]

Weighed in yesterday. Only down 1/2 a kg (about a lb). Still means I'm on track (or ahead), but had really hoped for a solid kg this week, as I figure things are likely to slow down a bit as I go. I didnt do great on the nutrition as mentioned, but really, didnt do too bad. Ahh well, I'll try to do better this week and see if it helps.

Havnt mentioned much about the afterburn (HIIT) training yet. 5 mins warmup, 3 rounds of 1 min sprint 2 min recovery, and 5 mins cooldown. 19 minutes all up. I've tended to either do my afterburn about 3-4 hrs after my workouts, or the next day. As we go further into the program I work up to doing afterburn training 5 times per week, so I really need to get used to doing it on the same day as my weights, especially as I leave Tuesdays just for basketball. So far I've enjoyed the afterburn training and it seems to be going well. One issue is that I think I've about topped out my treadmill. Normally I'd be happy to do my afterburn running outside instead, but our house is on a hill with some fairly steep bits, and 1 minute of uphill running really doesnt appeal to me :p. I guess I'm just gonna have to suck it up and do it. I've also been doing it on my exercise bike. Its a spin type bike rather than the normal ones, which makes it better to ride I find, but no speedo on it to check speeds to see how I'm going between rides. Given the weights hit my quads fairly hard, the bike sprints normally hurt, but I get my minute done.

I tried something a bit different on Saturdays workout. Some of the bodyweight stuff I've done successfully a couple times now (all reps/sets), so I decided I'd really work to stick to the tempo Alywn gives. Mainly this means the pauses at the bottom of stuff. For instance normally my squats I just go down and up. Alwyn prescribes a 2-2-1 tempo, which means I should be pausing for 2 seconds at the bottom of each squat. That REALLY hurts, and is bloody hard work. Its paired with T-pushups, which also have a 2 second pause at the bottom, and those things just ruined me. I have to admit I only got 2 sets of each done (I foolishly put weights up on squats at the same time). I did manage to get 3 sets of all the rest of the exercises out. 2 days later and my glutes are still sore and exhausted.

I slept in a bit this morning, so todays workout will have to wait until lunch time, and do my HIIT later in the afternoon. Some of these exercises should get harder with the right tempo also. Deadlifts should be done much the same though, so I'll put the weight up on those, but not anything else I dont think.

So down 2kg so far. This is still fairly overweight for me (90.5kg). My usual 'out of shape' weight is around 87, and my good 'in shape' weight is around 82. Thats still around 13% bf in the past though. Its the weight where everyone else thinks I'm in great shape, but topless in front of the mirror I know theres more to go . I'd really like to be down around that 87 mark around x-mas, and 82 by the time I'm done this program (late feb I think). I'll reassess then where to go next (really, I probably shouldnt be thinking too far ahead).

Already though I'm looking better. Posture improving, more definition and size (in the right places) in the mirror. Just plain feel really good too. The workouts really hurt, but the rest of the time I feel great .

The coming weekend is my first 'danger' weekend. I'm in town Friday night for a show and going out for dinner with friends, and then leave Saturday night to head to the river for a nights camping and fishing with 'the boys'. This generally involves plenty of beer and whilst the meals actually probably arent bad, theres usually plenty of snacking of the chip and similar variety. I want to enjoy myself still, but minimise the harm I do. Hopefully if I just dont drink too much, and avoid snacking it wont set me back too far.

[BjsAust]

Hmm, bit of a dissappointment this morning. Since I'm away for a few days I figured I'd weigh in early (Friday morning) and then again on Monday morning so I could what might be from my weeks work and what changes over the weekend. Unfortunately I weighed in today at 1/2 a kg (1 lb) heavier.

This surprised me, my wife had just commented on how much better I was looking, and I felt the same way myself. Sure some of it may be recomposition (and I suspsect so), but even so to go up in weight I must have taken in more cals than I expended.

My diet wasnt perfect this week, but I thought it was pretty good. In retrospect though, almost every day included a meal which wasnt to plan but "wasnt too bad". I think to be sure of things I need to go back to being stricter, and I think I need to start recording my eating each day. I'm not a fan of the online fitday system, so I might buy an offline copy for my laptop (I used to have one on a PC but cant find it). Obviously near enough is NOT good enough.

Man, I hope I dont weigh in much heavier on Monday. Even if I dont change from today, this puts me back to only 1.5kg over 3 weeks, which has me behind schedule already .

[BjsAust]

Bleh. Another 1kg back on after the weekend. Didnt expect it to be so bad. Yeah there was one afternoon night of drinking (about 8 cans of beer a glass of red and a glass of port), but eating wasnt too bad. Well, it could have been worse anyway.

Ahh well. So here I am, 3 1/2 weeks in and only 1/2 kg (1 lb) lighter.

On a positive note though my work capacity is already greatly improved, and I've been upping weights and sticking to tempo/rest periods fairly well. I bought a home copy of fitday yesterday and will begin tracking my cals daily to see how I'm going on target, and just work like hell to get back on track. I definately think I've had some muscle gains as well, so there has been some fatloss, but I really want to see the scale move down.

Worked out yesterday, it was a good one. Upped weight on deads, shoulder presses and pullovers. Did well on the BSS's and core work. Stuck to the rest periods really well (often I've needed a bigger break before starting my 3rd sets). Eating wasnt great as I hadnt had a chance to shop over the weekend so the house was fairly empty. Did a big shop last night though, so back on track there.

[BjsAust]

Ok, first the good news. Weighed in on Sunday after the first 4 weeks of the program (its split into 4x4 week sections) and I was down two kg for the week, giving me a 4 week reduction of 2.5kg. Nice result after the whoopsie of putting on weight last week, and makes me back on track to meet my goal of 10kg over the 16 weeks. In fact with 2.5 weeks to christmas I even have a shot at hitting my interim goal of 87 by then with a current weight of 90.

Last week went well. My work capacity was much improved, workouts were still hard, but my rest periods were almost always on time, my tempo was good for almost all exercises, and the weight kept going up on most exercises, especially deadlifts/military press and pullovers. I missed my last HIIT session. I did a weights workout in the morning then spent most of the day shovelling sand around the backyard building a couple of tank bases, I was just wrecked by the end of the day. Eating back on track now I'm tracking cals on Fitday.

So how about a 4 week summary:

Summary - weeks 1-4

A tough start to the program. 20 rep sets for most exercises brings a special kind of pain, if you're not in shape, this will really kick things along. My work capacity improved immensely over this period. Not only that, but I seemed to get some really nice muscle growth as well. High reps like this are normally seen more as muscle endurance, but I guess a combination of not having lifted much lately, and just flat out hard work made a difference. I dont think I've ever pushed so hard in the gym before.

The program is super balanced, especially for a guy like me whos had a few niggles along the way. My body just feels great. My posture is just naturally good now, requiring few conscious corrections.

The HIIT is balanced nicely to begin with. Only 3 1 minute sprints per session and only 3 sessions per week allows you to work into it a bit. Its still hard, but basically it gets tough then you stop. I usually did my HIIT sessions a few hours after my weights sessions, allowing me a day off between each one (even my basketball I would do on the first day of a 2 day break). This helped me get through the whole thing with frequent rests.

Nutrition wise I think the advice and targets work a treat, I just allowed myself to go off them which set back my progress. If you're not going to setup a specific diet to follow, I really think you need to at least track your calories to stay on track. It can be very easy to go over when you dont have some kind of system to keep you in check.

Overall it was a tough four weeks, or at least the first three. I was so exchausted early on, but by now I'm finding myself bursting with energy. I really just feel great. My weights down about 6lbs which is a healthy 1.5 lbs per week, but I think I've lost more fat than that and put on some muscle. My bodies starting to look better already, and I'm enjoying myself . So far I couldnt be happier with the program, just wish I'd stuck to the nutrition side a bit better. I missed one weight workout and 2 HIIT sessions for the 4 weeks, which at this time of the year isnt too bad, but I'd like to improve on that for the next 4 weeks.

[BjsAust]

Ok, start of weeks 5-8 workouts yesterday.

Went well, a bit too easy to be honest. It prescribes 3-4 sets of mainly 12 reps in 2 tri-sets (three exercises with no break then rest before doing all 3 again). I cant really do seated row atm, so put in 1 arm DB rows, that made the workout less exhausting I think. Co-con lunges werent as exhausting as I expected, but by the end of the 2nd leg my first was on fire. I think I need more weight on my RDLs, but I'd never really done them before and need to sort out my form better. Surprisingly my bench press was easier than expected. I dropped a bit from my normal 5 rep range, however I got through all 3 sets of 12 really easily. I'll give this a good bump up. Maybe the work I did in the last 4 weeks has given me a better bench .

Still, I've had issues in the past where I've pushed too hard with a new routine and injured myself, so I'll keep things a bit easy for day 2 routine as well (some more stuff I havnt done before), and then work at pushing harder as I go.

HIIT required 4 sprints this time. I only waited about 3 hrs after I did my workout, but nailed them no worries. Felt REALLY good.

Loving this program so far .

Unfortunately I messed up my nutrition. Thought I'd tracked everything. Went with a dinner that would put me 100 cals over my goal but figured that wasnt too bad (didnt have much in house), but then before heading to bed I realised I'd forgotten to include my workout drink. There was another 280 cals I missed recording. Crap, about 400 cals over plan. Thats about maintenance. Will cut a bit extra today and then get back on track.

[BjsAust]

Hmm, been longer since I updated than I thought. Most of the way through the 2nd phase (weeks 5-8) now. I didnt quit over all this time, but its been fairly interupted. Weeks 6 and 7 I think I only did 3 or 4 workouts and very little afterburn training. Eating wasnt terrible, but...well it was Christmas, I did what I could without going overboard, and probably drank more than I should on a diet.

Didnt turn out too bad though. I did hit 89 before x-mas, but in those two weeks I crept back up to 90.5. Not too bad considering how little effort I put in, and the fact that the week before x-mas I was away for work for 4 days (always struggled with that). That was on Tuesday I think I weighed in (New Years day so I'd been drinking and snacking the night before). I should be fine to drop at least to 90 by my end of week 8 weigh in on Sunday as long as I get right back into my workouts and eating right (have been so far). Then I should be able to focus on the last 8 weeks with very few distractions and see how I go.