Liift More is an 8-week program on BODi. The workouts are designed to be 5 days a week with 2 days off for rest. It's broken into 2 phases of 4 weeks each. I love the second phase. I feel like the first phase is a building phase and the second phase pushes you with hiit and abs exercises.
It actually took me about 11 weeks to finish the program because I went through the holidays and found myself traveling and working late nights which led to skipping some workouts. When I skipped a day, I didn't skip a day in the program. I picked up the program from where I left off.
I will say after completing the program that I feel stronger and my abs are more visible! The biggest difference I see after this round is my shoulders have more pop to them. I believe my form on shoulder exercises was never really good. I made that a focus at the beginning of this program and pushed my weights a little heavier. That made a difference! Other wins: I reached bicep curling 30 pounds for three rounds for all 12 reps. I also hit the 80-pound dumbbell for hanging and sumo squats!
So what's next?
I'm looking at the next few months ahead. I'm running a 10K in two weeks and then I'm running a 5K the following week. I will most likely run a half-marathon in late April or early May. Can I push myself to complete my run training on top of a weightlifting program? If I ran 2-3 times a week and completed Liift More or Liift 4, I would certainly be cut after 8 weeks. I've thought about moving to Body Beast and really leaning into weight training while running a few times a week. I'm afraid Body Beast will wear me out too much on top of my running training.
So what's my goal?
My goal right now is to complete a 10K under an hour and complete the half-marathon under 2 hours 15 minutes. Both of those are possible this year. My other goal is to get rid of this fat ring above my waist. Tony Horton calls thiis "tightening the cage." This goal is going to force me to focus more on my diet than on my exercise.
Let's talk through that. If my goal is to build lean muscle and cut my body fat from 14% to 11%, I would need to move at least 30 minutes a day and pay close attention to my diet. If I wanted to go all in on a body transformation, P90X, P90X3, or Body Beast would give my body the biggest transformation. However, on top of running training, I believe I can complete Liift More again and not risk injury or overtraining. Liift More is a softer approach (less impact) than the other two. Body Beast is 45 minutes of straight weight training, which is great, but leaves my muscles sore for a few days. In order to run, I can't have my quads and calves on fire for 6 miles.
So what's the decision?
I'm going to run it back with Liift More and complete 3 runs a week. Tuesday will be for timed or recovery runs. Thursday will be for fartleks and sprint training. On the weekends I'll be completing a distance run.
In this past program, I focused on eliminating fast food and pop from my diet. Now, the holidays didn't help my goal to lower my sugar and sodium intake. This time around, I need to focus more on meal prep so I can eliminate fried foods and frozen foods. I'm trying to eat more simple foods that don't contain any extra dyes, chemicals, preservatives, etc.
I have a plan! Now let's go crush those goals!
I hope this blog post gave you some insight into my thought process for selecting exercise and training programs according to my goals. If you are looking to start a training program, start at BODI.com and use promo code JONATHANBBODI15 for 15% off any product or program. Also, feel free to reach out to me at jon@leaderinharmony.com and tell me your goals. I'll be more than happy to assist!
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