Week 3...and Back Tips

I'm realizing that there really isn't much change in my appearance from week 1 to week 3. That may be that case until I start working specifically to burn the fat late next January and all of February. I'm working on increasing my strength, but I don't want to bulk up too much for a couple of reasons: I don't want to put on too much fat since it'll be harder to burn it off, and quite frankly my wardrobe is limited and I want to be able to fit into my jeans! I think I'm adding just a bit of muscle (I only measure my waist), but it's probably not noticeable.

Here are this week's photos:

I also want to talk about back training. A lot of people who do casual weight training prefer to work on the showy muscles — biceps and pecs — and neglect their backs. Not only is this a bad idea from an aesthetic point of view, but it's terrible for posture. If your anterior delts and pectorals are overly developed and your back is underdeveloped, you'll end up having a hard time not slouching and rolling your shoulders forward. A strong and developed back helps to keep your upper body posture balanced. Our backs also tend to be weak links (lower back, in particular) and are easy to injure if they're neglected. Personally, I enjoy training my back more than any other body parts. I keep it simple. Deadlifts, bent rows and pull ups cover all three “planes” of movement (pulling up, pulling in, pulling down, respectively). For the first two, I wear a weightlifting belt for safety. Since I haven't posted a back photo yet, here's a recent shot of my still-a-work-in-progress back:

That's it for now. I'm REALLY itching to start doing some cardio...