For several reasons this month from injury to simply being too busy to go to the gym on a few occasions, it has been difficult to get any kind of training rhythm together and therefore attempting to fit in the Triathlon specific training methods has been a rather slow and ineffective process with regards to improving the intensity and sustainability of my work-rate. As detailed in Train Like a Pro 2016- Quarter Three Preview I aimed to increase the distances run/cycled over the course of the month to those of an Olympic Triathlon length. However as I mentioned above this was hampered with injuries namely to my knees and hip adductors which towards the end of my regular resistance training workouts caused pain when walking and this therefore placed more stress on my hamstrings, quadriceps and calves in attempt to compensate the the weakness. This caused a great deal of discomfort and unbalance, especially when using the treadmill as my full weight was on my legs. Along with this an infection of some part of my chest had caused pain from breathing in general, leading to doctors fearing an Intercostal Muscle injury therefore requiring me to rest for the first week or so of the month.
Despite all of these set backs there have been some noticeable and sizeable improvements over the course of July with a noticed increase in muscular endurance, particularly within my biceps and triceps as I found that my absolute limit on the weights I had been using had increased from 3 sets to around 5/6 sets varying day to day. At this point of my regular resistance workout cycle I have been carrying out the same activity for the past 10 weeks or so (with weight gradually increasing) it is expected that I would have plateaued and begun to stop making improvement. However the opposite has been the case, with me putting on 2 pounds over the past month to reach 147 pounds while losing body fat and physically appearing to have larger forearms, biceps, triceps, deltoids and pectoral muscles than ever before. This may be attributed to me finally having a full month of having a protein shake after each workout with double the described serving of powder as drinking only 200ml of liquid barely quenches any thirst, therefore I would have been consuming 40g of Whey Protein following each workout. This is going to sound like a shameless plug however anybody reading in the UK I would recommend trying the X-Tone Whey Protein Powders available in Home Bargains for around £10 ($13) which as far as I’m aware is only in Vanilla. Despite the lack of flavours it has the highest amount of protein per 25 grams of any other “Protein Powder” in my area, making it a higher quality product than those you would see for those over three times the price in more established branded shops such as Holland and Barrett.
cragbanna 