Maestro Gaxiola - Maestro Muscle Marathon

Year Two

2011-03-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

Notice: If this is your first visit to Maestro’s Muscle Marathon please go to Year One for the history and philosophy behind the marathon. http://maestromusclemarathon.blogspot.com/2010/03/to-be-complete-artist-one-must-find.html

Year Two March 2, 2010 - March 1, 2011

When the human body gets old and sits idle for long periods of time the body’s muscle factory (where proteins and amino acids build muscle cells) begins to shut down thereby causing the muscles to deteriorate and the body to weaken. In order to reverse this process the body’s muscle factory must be rejuvenated before the body can begin building muscle again. Giving the body the necessary foods required to build muscle cells is the first step, then the muscles must be stimulated. While some muscles may be stimulated by walking or jogging, weight resistance training is the best way to stimulate the entire muscle infrastructure so that the body will begin rehabilitating the tools necessary to facilitate muscle restoration .

It is important to remember that muscle and strength building is done from the inside - not from the outside. All that can be done from the outside is to eat the proper muscle building foods and supply muscle stimulation. The inner body does all the real work by directing its muscle factory to produce more and more muscle tissue for bigger and stronger muscles.

In Year One I stimulated mostly the larger muscle groups. Halfway through Year Two I began to expand my workout routine to include more muscles. My thinking was that if I stimulated all my muscles rather than just a select few my body’s natural muscle building mechanisms would be more likely to respond. I thought that by subjecting all my muscles to strenuous resistance for a sustained period of time my body would once again activate those mechanisms that do the muscle repair and rebuilding.

Like an old factory that has been setting idle for years, in order to get it producing again, all the machinery within that factory has to be reactivated, not just a few selected parts.

Year Two Exercise Routine

The need to expand and vary my workout routine required I build some cable equipment for that purpose. This I did. It also required me to increased my free weights poundage, so I purchased more dumbbells. I now have dumbbells ranging from 10 lbs to 50 lbs. (I began using dumbbells for almost all my exercises because they are easier to control and therefore easier on my joints)

I started Year Two using my original workout routine, then about half way into it I added the extra exercises that engaged all muscle groups. I used that routine with good results until November. Then in November I got a little over confident and began pushing myself. I thought I could do even more. I worked out a routine whereby I would workout two groups of upper body muscles very hard two times a week rather than working all four muscle groups modestly three time a week. I would still work out six days a week but now I would be concentrating on chest/arms on Monday and Thursday, shoulders/back on Tuesday and Friday, legs/abs Wednesday and Saturday. This way I was able to really intensify my workouts. For example, I was doing 15 exercises for my chest and 22 exercises for my arms.

However, after a couple of weeks of this intense training I began to feel as though I had been in a car wreck. My body felt like it was beaten and battered all the time. Finally after five weeks of this new routine I had to give it up because I injured my left shoulder. It was so bad I had to stop working out my upper body entirely. It took two weeks before I could start training again. My body is just too old for two-hour-a-day intense training. Needless to say I went back to my previous workout routine having found my age limitations.

Here is my current workout routine:

Upper Body - Monday, Wednesday, Friday

Bench Press 3 sets 10 reps

Dumbbell Bench Press 3 sets 10 reps

Standing Dumbbell Curls 3 sets 10 reps

Dumbbell Preacher Curls 3 sets 12 reps

Seated Dumbbell Curls 3 sets 10 reps

Triceps Kickback 4 sets 12 reps

Triceps Pushdown 4 sets 12 reps

One arm Triceps Pushdown 4 sets 12 reps

Seated Lateral Raise 3 sets 4 reps

Bent over Lateral Raise 3 sets 4 reps

Lat Cable Pulls 4 sets 12 reps

Legs - Abs - Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday

Leg Extensions 4 sets 12 reps

Leg Curls 3 sets 12 reps

Dumbbell Squats 3 sets 10 reps

Calf Raises 3 sets 20 reps

Ab Crunches 5 sets 30 reps

New Equipment

I fashioned a system of cables for lat rows, triceps pushdown, and various other exercises. For under twenty bucks I made myself a perfectly good apparatus. As I said before, there is no need to spend a lot of money on equipment, just a little creativity and a trip to Home Depot will do the trick.

Injuries

In Year One I had problems with my hands, my wrists, my elbows and my shoulders. Arthritis in my hands would sometimes flair up to the point where I could almost not grip the weights. It turned out to be the pineapple in my diet. For years I had been eating a fresh fruit salad for lunch that included fresh pineapple. When I eliminated the pineapple the arthritis flair ups in my hands stopped.

I used wrist wraps on my wrists for most of the year and apparently my wrists have now strengthened themselves to the point where I no longer need them. The elbow pain has gone from my right arm and is almost completely gone from my left arm. I still use elbow wraps for my bench presses but otherwise I have no problem with my elbows. My shoulders are still the most venerable parts of my body. My left shoulder is still sensitive to some exercises. I have learned which exercises aggravate it and I now revamped my workout routine around those exercises. I have also had to reduce the amount of weight I use in order to keep these body parts from getting injured again.

Fortunately my knees have never given me any trouble so I have had two years of continuous pain free leg training. When I see some men my age using a cane, and in some cases even a walker, I think of how fortunate I am to have started working out my legs before that happened to me. My legs are now in pretty good condition due to two years of weight training. Your life can be very restricted if you are unable to walk without assistance. Your legs give you freedom to move about at will, and when you are old that is the real definition of freedom.

Overall Diet

As I mentioned last year I keep track of all the food I eat with photos and a daily calorie and protein consumption chart. Depending on weight, gender, height, age, a person needs between 1800 and 2500 calories a day. For most of Year Two my calorie count was between 2500 and 3000 calories per day. In December I decided to try to lose the remaining belly fat that I had. So for the past three months I have been on an 1600 -2000 calorie diet. I sometimes go above 2000 calories a day but for he most part I have succeeded in staying below it. Meanwhile I have increased my protein consumption from around 150 grams to around 170 grams per day or about 1 gram per pound of body weight. What I am experimenting with is the notion that I can starve my fat cells with the lower calorie count and feed my muscle cells by increasing my protein intake. I will carry this program on into Year Three.

In Year Two my body weight reached a high of 179 lbs and a low of 160.5. lbs. Today as I start Year Three my body weigh is 165.5 lbs.

Supplements

In addition to the protein I get with my meals I continue to take whey protein isolate. Over half of my daily protein comes from whey isolate protein. I have increased the amount from 75 grams to 100 grams per day. That boosts my daily protein from all sources to around 150- 170 grams a day depending on my dinner menu. I also take the supplements Glucosamine Sulfate, Creatine, and L-Glutamine. Glucosamaine Sulfate is for cartilage and joint support. It seems to have helped. Creatine and L-Glutamine are muscle building amino acids. They are normally found in the body, however, at my age, and because of the small amount of food I eat, I am not sure my body produces enough to properly utilize the amount of protein I ingest. So I take 10 grams of each per day to be sure my body has what it needs to build strong muscles. There is a good chance I am overdoing it but I would rather my body have more protein, Creatine and Glutamine than it needs to build muscle rather than not enough. At my age I can never be sure what my body can make on its own, so a little extra muscle building ingredients won’t do any harm, if there is excess it will just get passed through. I also take flax meal, a daily multi-vitamin, an anti-oxidant and a fish oil capsule.

It is important to note that at 74 years of age I take no prescription drugs - absolutely none!

Workouts Missed

Out of a possible 312 training days in Year Two I missed 42 days due to injuries, illness, or travel. In the coming years of my marathon if no trips are planned and I suffer no injuries or illness I may have to take some voluntary days off. As I age my body may need a few weeks off from time to time to heal itself properly. My ability to keep the current pace of training could be counterproductive to my overall health if I’m not careful. I will have to monitor and heed my body’s need for rest once in awhile to avoid overtraining.

Summary

When I started my Muscle Marathon two years ago I took the first step in trying to get my muscle factory operating again. It required a lot of hard work and proper diet but after nineteen months of rehabilitation I could see visual results. (see photos below) After years of neglect, my body’s muscle building machinery was up and running and producing muscle again. Instead of the normal loss of around a pound of muscle a year for a person my age, my muscles are now actually growing.

In Year Two I pushed myself to see just how much I could take, both physically and mentally. Physically I pushed myself to the limits and suffered injury setbacks as a result. Mentally I had to overcome the difficulties of a complete lifestyle change that consists of monitoring my food intake every day and scheduling domestic affairs around my workout schedule. It also meant that the food most people enjoy like ice cream, candy, sodas, pastries, chips, beer, wine, and a host of other treats, are now off limits to me. (I allow myself a small piece of birthday or anniversary cake upon occasion)

I did have doubts during Year Two about my ability to sustain such a difficult ordeal, particularly when I was injured. But because the rewards are so great I have been able to convince myself to overcome the doubt and pain and push on.

Looking Forward

Now that Jack Lalanne has passed away there is a need for someone else to carry the “fitness through strength training” torch forward. I hope I can, by example - through my muscle marathon, contribute something to the growing need in this country for physical fitness and good health. I look forward to year three with renewed faith that I will be able to see the marathon through to the end and in doing so inspire others to begin making the lifestyle changes necessary to improve their overall strength and good health. As we grow old we should strive to be an asset to our country and our children, not a burden. Our rallying cry should be, “A strong mind in a strong body till the day we die!” I believe it is possible for all of us to achieve this goal if we apply ourselves.

Check back next year on Marsh 1, 2012 to see how I’m doing after another year of the Maestro Muscle Marathon.

Who is Maestro Gaxiola: http://www.artist-link.blogspot.com/

2010-03-01T08:53:00.000-08:00

“To be a complete artist one must find a balance between physical strength and spiritual wisdom”

The Maestro Muscle Marathon

On March 2, 2009 I began a physical training regimen I call, the Maestro Muscle Marathon. It is a creative mind-body physical training program that stimulates muscle and spiritual growth. It is designed to promote good physical and spiritual health after age 50. It is also designed to minimize, and perhaps even prevent, some of the diseases and problems brought on by old age such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes, dementia, and muscle loss.

The Muscle Marathon consists of a sustained six-days-a-week weight-training program of twelve upper body exercises and five lower body exercises using barbells and dumbbells. It is a protracted regimen of concentrated lifting exercises that stimulates natural strength and natural muscle growth while encouraging spiritual awareness.

In order to complete the marathon these exercises must be done each week for a period of seven years. The dedication needed to complete this seven-year physical ordeal, and the discipline it requires, will stimulate the spirit and promote good physical health.

The principles upon which the Maestro Muscle Marathon is based are similar to the physical training programs practiced by Buddhists monks in Asia. It incorporates the physical discipline exemplified by the Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei, and the wisdom and spiritual teachings of marshal artists such as Morihei Ueshiba.

The Inspiration

The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei

The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei are a Tendei sect of Buddhists monks whose temple is loctated on Mount Hiei near Kyoto, Japan.

The Marathon Monks seek enlightenment through physical ordeals, which includes a spectacular feat of physical endurance called Kaihōgyō. The Kaihōgyō is a practice of walking long distances (up to 52 miles) in a single day every day continuously for 100 days. The 100-day marathon is done once a year for a period of seven years - that’s a total distance traveled of over 27,000 miles - a distance equal to the circumference of the globe.

The monks who attempt the Kaihōgyō are very few. The majority of the monks stay with the traditional method of spiritual enhancement; prayer, meditation, calligraphy, and general labor within the temple. Only six monks have completed the marathon since WWII. Those few that have managed to finish the seven-year marathon are considered living saints.

The Marathon Monks believe that a physical ordeal is the means to spiritual enlightenment. It coincides with the beliefs of other Buddhists monks, such as the Shaolin monks of China and the Shinto monks of Japan, who include marshal arts training as part of their overall spiritual growth.

Morihei Ueshiba

“Through the virtue of training, enlighten both body and spirit”

Morihei Ueshiba

Morihei Ueshiba was a wise and peaceful man and the founder of the Japanese marshal art discipline, Aikido. In his book, The Art Of Peace, John Stevens writes, “Morihei taught Aikido as a creative mind-body discipline, as a practical means of handling aggression, and as a way of life that fosters fearlessness, wisdom, love, and friendship.”

Morihei Ueshiba continued to train until his death at age 85. John Stevens goes on to say, “Even as an old man of eighty, Morihei could disarm any foe, down any number of attackers, and pin an opponent with a single finger.“ The fact that a man in his eighties could still have such physical strength and spiritual awareness is proof that physical training can improve both body and mind continuously even as one ages.

A Little History…

I chose to use a gravity opposing weightlifting program as opposed to a martial arts training program because I wanted a physical ordeal I could pursue alone at home in my studio. (Morihei Ueshiba walked across his yard to his Dojo each morning) I wanted a training program that was similar to martial arts training in its overall dedication and effort expended without the necessity of joining a Dojo and without the need of a training partner. Furthermore I am familiar with the weightlifting discipline. I was a bodybuilder for ten years and that experience helped me get started without having to learn a new discipline at my advanced age.

My first weightlifting experience came in1960. I started training to gain muscle weight because I was skinny. When I was 24 years old I only weighed around 150 lbs. at a height of 5’9.

I trained regularly for ten years building up muscle weight, and at one point I weighed a muscular 214 lbs. I also competed in weightlifting and bodybuilding competitions. I continued to body build for ten years. Then, in 1970, at age 34, I stopped weightlifting completely. At that time I weighed 193 lbs.

I never touched a weight again for forty years. I did no exercising of any kind. I turned away from the physical, the body, and turned inward toward the mind.

I lived my life as an artist, hanging out in cafés, smoking unfiltered French cigarettes and drinking lots and lots of espresso coffee, paying no attention at all to my physical self or to what the artist’s life was doing to my body and to my health. I ate very little and over a period of about ten years my weight dropped to 155lbs.

My body weight stayed below 160 lbs for most of the 1980’s then I started eating more and my weight began to go up in the 1990’s. After I hit 50 my metabolism changed and fat started to accumulate around my midsection. When I turned 65 I weighed around 175 lbs. My belly was bigger, my joints were aching and my knees were weak. I was losing strength little at a time every year as I got older. (Men lose around 20 to 30 percent of their strength each decade after turning 50). While my art spirit was ascending my body was in decline.

In the early eighties I had even started to drink wine, beer, and whisky, then, in 2000 I completely stopped drinking alcohol of any kind. I also stopped smoking and drinking espresso coffee, which improved my health, but my weight continued to go up, it went up to 187lbs. I was getting back up to my bodybuilding contest weight - but this time it was not muscle weight, this time it was fat weight. I started to cut down on the amount of food I was eating.

In 2006 when I turned 70 my weight was down to around 166 lbs. But it wouldn’t stay down, in 2009 it was up again to 172 lbs. I was physically weaker than ever and my brainpower was on the wane. At 72 years of age I knew time was running out so I decided to get serious about my health. I thought perhaps if I followed the example of Morihei Ueshiba, and the monks of Mount Hiei, I could embark on a similar protracted physical regimen and reap some rewards, both physical and mentally, even at my advanced age.

That’s when I devised the weight lifting program I call the Muscle Marathon. Its not weight training for the sake of the ego, it is a physical regimen designed to improve physical health while enhancing spiritual awareness.

So, with that in mind, in February 2009 I began to prepare for my physical marathon. I’m posting details about how I went about it on this blog in the event anyone else would like to start their own marathon.

Weights and Equipment

I got started by buying a workout bench along with about 300lbs of weights. My wife Alice found them on Craig’s List. I supplemented this with some dumbbells I bought from The Sports Authority and Wal-Mart. I found there was no need to buy a lot of expensive equipment; all this cost me was around $300. Craig’s List and E-Bay have lots of weightlifting equipment listed. Luckily I found a good solid workout bench with a leg extension/ leg curls attachment to work out my legs. That was an essential piece of equipment.

I had heard some fable about weights that are painted any color other than black seem lighter to lift…I don’t know if that is true but being an artist I couldn’t resist painting my weights and equipment to my tastes. I respect my weights and I don‘t throw them around like they were just old pieces of iron, I am gentle with them and treat them like works of art.

Diet

Protein

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that men get 56 grams of protein a day. I don’t eat enough food to get that much protein. So that requires I use a supplement in order to get enough protein. I use a whey supplement called whey-isolate that is processed to get the most muscle building protein out of each gram. I take 53 grams a day of this supplement to be sure I have plenty of protein to rebuild the muscles I tear down during my workouts.

In order to keep my strength up, as well as for health reasons, I eat a lot of grains, nuts, fresh fruit and vegetables for breakfast and lunch. Dinners vary but I try to eat turkey, which has 41 grams of protein per cup, beans, 15 grams per cup, or meat at about 9 grams per oz. Meat has always been the bodybuilder’s choice for protein. But I’m not convinced that our meat is all that safe to eat anymore so I limit myself to small pieces of roast beef or pork once in awhile for a little variety. Most foods have protein of some kind or another but if you are working out you need bodybuilding protein and most foods don’t have much of it, if any at all.

I take photos of most of my meals for reference. It is important as I progress to know what I ate and what the sizes of my portions were so I can regulate my weight. If I gain too much fat weight in a particular year I can look back to see what and how much I had been eating.

White Sugar

Jack Lalanne has been railing against white sugar for over sixty years. He says its poison. I never paid much attention to him even when I was bodybuilding, but now I have become a true believer. When I started to read the labels on food packages and I saw just how much sugar is added to manufactured food I threw out my candy stash and swore off anything with added sugar.

Take a teaspoon and measure out 10 teaspoons of sugar into a glass, that’s how much sugar you are putting into your body every time you have a soda. Even two small squares of dark chocolate contain a teaspoon of sugar. Just one Trader Joe’s Vegan Trail Mix Cookie contains over two teaspoons of sugar! Sugar is hiding out everywhere silently destroying people’s health!

I have purged sugar from my diet, and if you want to have a healthy body I suggest you do the same. Here is my “Dirty Dozen No, Nos” - a list of some of the main things to avoid:

1. No White Sugar (in coffee, in hot chocolate, on cereal, etc.)

2. No Candy

            3. No Cake
            4. No Ice Cream
            5. No Jams
            6. No Jellies
            7. No Cookies
            8. No Pastries
            9. No Pie
          10. No Soft Drinks
          11. No Sugar Cereals
          12. No Doughnuts

If you must have something sweet eat some raisins with walnuts or some other naturally sweetened fruit, pineapple, grapes, apples, things like that. Sugar is you enemy: protein is your friend.

Exercise Routine

“It’s not what you do that counts - what’s important, for both muscle and spirit, is how you do it.”

These are the lifting exercises for the marathon. These lifts are designed for free weights. Free weights help give your body balance while lifting which is important for older bodies. A lot of weight is not necessary, just enough to work the muscles but not so much as to injure the joints. A slow steady movement on each lift is what you strive for. You should be aware of your muscles as they push or pull on the weights.

Upper Body Routine (Mon, Wed, Fri) 1 Hour

1.. Bench Press ---------------------------------- 3 sets - 10 reps

2. Dumbbell Bench Flys ----------------------- 3 sets - 10 reps

3. Dumbbell Incline Bench Press ------------ 3 sets - 10 reps

4. Standing Dumbbell Arm Curls ------------ 3 sets - 10 reps

5. Incline Bench Dumbbell Arm Curls -------3 sets - 10 reps

6. Dumbbell Triceps Extension ---------------3 sets - 12 reps

7. Standing Barbell Triceps Extension -------3 sets - 12 reps

8. Overhead Press --------------------------------3 sets - 10 reps

9. Front Deltoid Press ----------------------------3 sets - 10 reps

10. Middle Deltoid Press -------------------------3 sets - 10 reps

11. Back Deltoid Press ---------------------------3 sets - 10 reps

12. Barbell Front Deltoid Pull-ups -------------3 sets - 10 reps

Leg and Ab Routine (Tue, Thur, Sat) ½ Hour

1. Leg Extensions ---------- 4 sets - 12 reps

2. Leg Curls ----------------- 4 sets - 12 reps

3. Squats -------------------- 4 sets - 10 reps

4. Set Ups ------------------- 5 sets - 20 reps

5. Pelvis Crunch ------------5 sets - 20 count

Getting Started

I started my marathon on March 2, 2009. I will complete my marathon on March 1, 2016.

Year One

March 2, 2009 - March 1, 2010

I decided to work only the chest, shoulders, arms, stomach, and legs muscles because those are the main lifting and pulling muscles. Since I am not bodybuilding to gain bulging muscles or to compete in bodybuilding contests there is no need to workout every muscle. I started out with fairly light weights because I wanted my body to get used to the various routines. Once I was familiar with the routines I began to push myself by adding more and more weights with each workout. That was my first mistake. I didn’t realize that my joints were old and worn and that putting extra pressure on them would be painful. Three weeks into my program I strained my elbows so badly doing barbell arm curls that I had to stop working my arms for three weeks.

That’s when I realized that I should only use enough weight to make ten reps doable without straining my joints. When I gained enough strength in a particular exercise to where I could do twelve reps I added some weight and went back to ten reps. I continued to ratchet up my weights to where I now have a workout where I am comfortable, just enough weight to make it difficult but not so much that it strains my joints.

The main joint trouble is in the elbows, shoulders, wrists and hands. I bought elastic elbow and wrist bands and some workout gloves. They helped but I still have some pain in those areas. One thing I found that really inflamed my hand joints was oranges. I started eating an orange every night and after a couple of weeks I could hardly hold a dumbbell. I stopped eating the oranges and the pain went away in two days.

I also ran into another problem in the beginning. A little over a month into my marathon I suddenly came down with a kidney infection. That laid me up in bed for a couple of weeks. The doctor I went to told me it was caused by an infection, but I am not so sure that it wasn’t caused but all the protein I was ingesting.

I started out with around 30 grams of whey protein a day but as my workout progressed and my muscles and joints began to ache more and more I increased my protein intake to over 100 grams a day. I thought more protein would heal everything. I was wrong. I will probably never know if my kidney infection was caused by protein overload or not but now I only take 53 grams of protein a day. Since I am now using whey protein isolate I believe that is enough to repair my muscles after each workout.

It is important to remember that you don’t gain muscle size and strength while you are working out. Working out is when you tear down your muscles, it is the resting between workouts that heals and strengthens the muscles. Therefore an older body needs plenty of rest and muscle building protein in order to help it build and heal those muscles damaged during workouts. While my body is resting is the time when I reflect, continue my philosophy studies and work on my art.

After a year of training I still have some belly fat. I started my marathon weighing in at 173.5 lbs. and I went up to 176 lbs. before I had my kidney infection. I then dropped down to 173 lbs. and stayed there for most of the year. I didn’t want to lose too much weight the first year because weight loss is strength loss. I thought I would start dropping pounds in my second year with a goal of weighing in at a solid 167lbs. at the end of my marathon.

I still ate sweets and candy for most of the year thinking I was burning off those extra calories by working out. It wasn’t until I purged myself of sugar in December, nine months after starting my marathon, that I started to lose fat weight off of my belly. At the end of my first year I weighed in at 166.5 lbs.

Year Two

March 2, 2010 - March 1, 2011

Please Click here for Year two
http://maestromusclemarathon.blogspot.com/

Who is Maestro Gaxiola: http://www.artist-link.blogspot.com/