40 Days + 10,000 Swings: A Journal

By Chad V. Holtkamp

Are you tired of fitness guides that skim over the details? Discover the steps you need to take with a behind-the-scenes look at one man’s healthy lifestyle.

Author Chad V. Holtkamp knows that no health routine is perfect. 40 Days + 10,000 Swings: A Journal shows you the nitty-gritty and the highs and lows of his year-long fitness program, reaching the best shape of his life. By paging through the author’s own daily journals and detailed accounts, you’ll see his food intake, his exercise routine, and even his state of mind. Through this over-the-shoulder look at how he dealt with personal trials, you’ll find your own roadmap for personal success.

In 40 Days + 10,000 Swings, you’ll discover:

-Daily journal entries for a real-world example of a fitness plan in motion

-The steps you can take to balance your professional, personal, and fitness challenges

-How Chad managed to stick to his plan despite daily life and his father’s lung cancer diagnosis

-A step-by-step exploration of the 40 Days + 10,000 Swings workout program

-How to stay in shape in the face of unexpected adversity, and much, much more!

This hands-on fitness memoir is a companion guide to Sink or Swing, the second volume of the Home Gym Strong series. If you like real stories of fitness struggles and success, practical advice, and life-changing workout programs, then you’ll love Chad V. Holtkamp’s candid exercise guide.

Buy 40 Days + 10,000 Swings to take the first step toward your ideal body today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Briefcase Media Group
• Release date: Nov 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9780996688581

Book preview

Family

Introduction

In January 2015, I spent a week writing the first draft of my first book. The working title was On Track, Off the Rails, which changed at the last minute before publication later that summer to Work Out Pig Out.

Still excited from the initial rush of writing that book, and stuck inside due to it being winter in Chicago, I wanted to dive right back in and create another. Not knowing what to write next, I kept a journal of my latest workout routine, which focused on doing one plan for the next 40 days. I thought if I wrote 500 words after each workout, there could be enough material for another book once I finished.

Little did I know how my life would play out over that time.

40 Days + 10,000 Swings: A Journal is a companion guide to my second book, Sink or Swing: Working Out When Life Isn’t Working Out.

Whereas Sink or Swing is an in-depth look at my life and workouts throughout 2015; 40 Days + 10,000 Swings is written in a daily journal format and focuses solely on the workouts themselves.

In spring 2014, I did Dan John’s 40-Day Workout program in which you do five lifts for 40 workouts. At the time I chose squat, bench, chin-up, deadlift, and loaded carry. When I was deciding on what one routine to use in early 2015, I read a post from Dan on Dave Draper’s site about adding in 10,000 swings broken up into 250 per session. It seemed like a great combination of gaining strength from the lifts with the cardio benefit of the swings. I’d found my plan.

If you haven’t read Sink or Swing yet, I’d recommend picking that one up first and then coming back later to read 40 Days + 10,000 Swings.

40 Days + 10,000 Swings - Take 1

Day 1 - 26 January 2015 - Monday

F&*k me.

If this workout doesn't get me in the best shape of my life, I don't know what will. It's absolutely brutal but somehow fun at the same time. I haven't pushed myself this hard in a long time.

I actually look forward to the sets of five on presses, chin-ups, and squats since those are the easy parts and where I get to rest up a bit.

Continuous swings with the 24 kg for sets of 15 and another set of 35 is the tough part. During the chin-ups, I broke the last set of 35 into 20 and 15 just because I needed the breather. Plus, doing sets of five on the chin-ups is too much right now so I might need to do 3, 3, three instead of 5, 5 — at least until I get stronger at chin-ups.

Potatoes and rice are my new best friends. I added them back into my diet as I can’t do this workout and keep going with a low-carb diet. I think I’m done with low-carb anyway, or at least the zero-carb mentality that I was following before. At this point, any diet will work, and it's just whatever one will keep me mentally sane and happy. I love sweet potatoes in butter. I haven't eaten a white potato in a while, and it was weird eating what tasted like a French fry. Maybe I’ll get used to it.

I started the morning off with some basic Maffetone cardio for an hour on the treadmill. It was easy enough and just a way to burn some extra calories and get some light recovery movement in play.

Work was crazy, too. I was so busy and worked from home for the first time on a Monday. We’re hiring so much that we needed to hire more people to hire more people and outgrew the new space we just moved into back in early December. So that means I get to work from home three days per week and just go into the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Scott Abel came out with a new book on hardgainers today. I don't think I'm one of those, but he had a section at the end with meal plans for various calorie intakes. My meals are pretty much planned this week so maybe I'll add those in next week.

The book is back to the bodybuilder mentality of eating six meals a day, though, and eating first thing in the morning and then right before bed doesn’t count. Spacing out four meals the rest of the day isn’t that different from what I’ve been doing. The problem is that what I’ve been doing hasn’t been working so I guess I need so switch it up.

My sleep sucked last night, and it was hard to fall asleep for some reason, which never happens. Once I got to sleep, I slept. Then my wife woke up early, so that woke me up for a bit, but I was able to get back to sleep. I’ll see how that plays out tonight. After the potatoes and 250 swings, I think I'll be tired.

I got a bit cranky towards the end of the day, but I managed to get my workout done by 6:00 P.M. Afterward, I pre-heated the oven for the potatoes and then went to the mailbox for some packages. Then I got back and had to wait for the potatoes to finish. They still weren't done after an hour so back into the oven they went, but even then they still weren't done. By that point, my patience was at an end. I still had to eat and shower and try to write. Now it's 8:45 P.M. and I’m going to eat a tablespoon of coconut oil and an apple and drink some water before bed.

I'm looking forward to keeping this up and see how well it works. My abs were SORE during the workout, so I took that as a good sign. I'm still feeling fat from Christmas, so I need to get back and stay on the wagon.

Day 2 - 28 January 2015 - Wednesday

So things aren't quite as bad with Day 2 in the books. My abs are sore and will be sore for the foreseeable future. It's only been since Friday that I jacked up the number of swings I do per day, but I'm starting to see some obliques working through the flab. My lower back was a little sore yesterday, so I worked to tighten up my swing form today. Nothing good will come from added swings if that sucks.

I planned on working out last night and going with a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday schedule, but work kept me in the office later than I planned. Even though I work from home most days, I have to go to my office near the Merchandise Mart on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Anyway, today's workout started with another hour on the treadmill at 6:00 in the morning. I took it at a slow pace around 120 bpm on my heart rate. Then I mixed up the lemon and apple cider vinegar concoction I make most mornings before cracking open my laptop and getting to work. Needless to say, my company is growing, and I'm busy with no letup in sight.

Once 5:00 P.M. hit, though, I was through with my work and headed down to the basement for my workout. Monday took 35 minutes, so I wanted to shave some time off that without killing myself. I managed to end at 32 minutes so that plan worked and I didn't kill myself. My average heart rate was 152 bpm, though, so plenty high. I didn't seem to need as much rest between sets as Monday. Or maybe I'm just embracing the pain and finding pleasure in that zone.

I still think the actual weight lifting is the easiest part and where I can get some rest, even though my heart rate is still in the 150s after a set. That was much lower than the 170s after a set of swings, though. Like I wrote on Monday, I can’t see how I’m not going to get in the best shape of my life with this workout. The key will be the consistency in doing it, and being smart when it comes to the weights. If I'm tired and the first set is too much, I'll back off the second set. I moved to 3 x 3 on chin-ups, too, and that worked much better.

I'm now looking at a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday schedule. That means a hellacious four days in a row each week, but at least I'll get some extra time between Sunday morning and Monday evening. And work really shouldn't screw that up too much since I work from home all those days.

The biggest question