Welp, on to Month 2! For those who didn't read my blog post about my Month 1 Program, it was a custom program designed by Roman Fitness Systems. Month 2 is an extension of that program, but is significantly different in a few ways.
From an exercise perspective, this will likely be the toughest month of my life, and will be much tougher than before. All aspects of the training are tweaked to be more difficult than before. Is it wrong that I'm excited about it? I hope not.
The biggest change is that I will be incorporating something called "Density Training" into the majority of my weight training sessions. Here's a pretty detailed article over at T-Nation about it: Density Training for Fat Loss.
In short, it involves going multiple sets of circuit-type exercises, while increasing the difficulty (usually in the form of more weight), the second time through. I have done density training in the past, and they have been by FAR the toughest workouts I've done. I am both looking forward to it and dreading it.
I will be doing both an Upper Body, and Lower Body Density-style workout each week, as well as a more "Traditional" Full Body weight workout. I've looked them over and they are going to be ROUGH!
In addition, my weekly bodyweight circuit is more difficult, with more overall volume and some more intense exercises. I did my first one today and it was brutal. Finally, my pure Cardio routines are ramped up a bit, with pure Sprinting routines replacing my bike sessions, and additional Jump Rope work.
Like Month 1, I am a bit worried my body will begin to break down at some point, but Month 1 went very smooth so I'm hopeful Month 2 goes as smoothly. In particular, my knee has always had trouble with lots of running (or sprinting), and some of the density sessions will put more strain on my lower back than I had in Month 1. Here's to hoping for the best, hopefully I wont have to adjust things.
From a dietary perspective, the major change as I mentioned previously is that my diet now includes Cheat Days (Yay!) and Fasting Days (Boo! Well, not really). Having a Cheat Day is nice for multiple reasons, for instance seeing $2.99 specials on Tombstone pizza and not being able to take advantage was very painful last month :). It'll be nice to get to schedule some meals out with friends and such on my cheat day.
The science behind cheat days is very interesting, and there is some debate about them, but I am more than happy to put my faith in the program especially when that involves me shoveling a quesadilla in my mouth for the first time in a Month.
In addition to the Cheat Day, I will be following it with a Fasted Day, where I eat literally nothing for the entire day. In fact, I am doing that right now (currently about 22 hours fasted). I will be fasting until tomorrow afternoon and will break my fast before training. This sounds extreme, but is really not that big of a deal. Fortunately, it is something I have experimented with in the past, so it isn't much of a shock to me this time around. For those of you who haven't experimented with fasting, it is amazing how good you can feel while training in a fasted state.
Otherwise, I am still following a 16/8 Intermittent Fasting low-ish carbs strategy, with a bit of an increase in Carbs from Month 1 (which should help with the increased training volume and help build muscle). It'll also add some nice flexibility to my diet, as I'm mostly vegetarian so eating high protein and very low carb like Month 1 leads to some monotonous dieting (as you can see from my Month 1 updates :).
So, in summation, the diet should be a bit easier and more fun, the exercise should be much more difficult, but hopefully more fun as well :). I am looking forward to it and would be surprised if I didn't see some serious gains in my fitness this month.
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