Welcome to the very last upper body day in the GGAB Fitness Training Regime. I honestly can’t believe I’ve made it. Sure it wasn’t too tricky, but the discipline and mentality that I have developed were more than any other time I tried to build it before.
First, go check out the Badminton Training Regime #2 – GGAB Fitness Training post if you haven’t already. That will help you understand this post much more if you just got onto this post today.
Once you have done that, we can get started with today’s post.
The Exercises
- Quick jog and stretch
- 10 sets of 20 pointing footwork
- 5 sets of 12 push-ups
- 3 sets of 1-minute plank
- 3 sets of 1-minute v sit
- 5 sets of 12 rotation v sit with weights
- 5 sets of 12 touch heels
- 5 sets of 12 touch knees
- 5 sets of 12 tricep pushdown
- 5 sets of 12 supermans
- 5 sets of 12 bicep curls
- 5 sets of 12 wrist curls
- Stretch
As you can tell, there are very minimal differences between today’s training and day 15 of the GGAB Fitness Training Regime. No exercise changes at all and only subtle changes in terms of intensity.
The differences you will see are my v sits going from 45-seconds to 1-minute reps and the wrist curls changing from 3 sets of 30 reps to 5 sets of 12 reps.
The reason I changed my v sits was to increase the intensity of the exercises, but it was also because I got a small kick of OCD as the planks were 1-minute each and the v sits weren’t. Not much of difference felt.
Wrist curls, however, were a significant change for us personally. I realize that we had been doing our wrist curls completely wrong. I was always wondering why Lin Dan grits his teeth together and was sweating like crazy when he was wrist curling.
I totally thought that it was because he was using 50-pound weights and that we could do more than 30 without breaking a sweat because we were only using 10 pounds. It turns out it was the technique.
Lin Dan was wrist curling with his forearm resting on his legs. We were wrist curling standing up with our arms straight down.
The moment we changed to resting our forearm on our legs, it was a completely different story. 30 wasn’t possible at all. It was so tiring just doing 12 reps. But that’s what we did instead.
Kind of a stupid mistake but I’m glad that we got to change it before the training regime ended. Hopefully, I didn’t mislead anyone actually to do 3 sets of 30 all the time.
Other than those changes, we did make an overall more considerable change that wasn’t listed down.
Learning from day 20 of the GGAB Fitness Training Regime and how we needed to pressure ourselves, I decreased the times we got to rest in between exercises and increased the speed we were doing each task at.
Before it was way too relaxing. Usually, we would lift the weights or do the push-ups and then wait until our bodies stopped burning, and then we would go again. It made our workouts significantly longer and less impactful.
So right now, we are slowly building in the mentality to push ourselves at faster speeds despite what our body tells us. It definitely felt better today, but it wasn’t enough.
And I know there isn’t an official next time, but for the future, strengthening my mental state to push myself harder will be a goal.
I have to admit that I should have added more exercises today too. Maybe increasing the number of sets I had to do for all the activities might have been much more productive for us.
Diet and Sleep
Diet and sleep continue to get better, especially sleep.
Sleep has become much more consistent. Last night, I slept at 11 PM and was able to wake up at 8 AM, and I’m loving the change. I get so much more done waking up at 8 AM, and it’s a great feeling.
I’m also able to more effectively test out the power napping strategy that I have been implementing into my daily plans to get more done. Tomorrow is leg day, but I’m also training at my club. This is the time that I really want to test out the power nap strategy.
Ideally, I will do my exercises in the morning and then power nap in the afternoon so that when I go 
training, I can play with more energy.
Now if I’m able to move my wake up time to 6 AM and add in some meditation, I’m all set to win it.
Diet has been pretty consistent too. Three meals a day. It’s just lacking some targeted and purposeful nutrition targets. I’m just eating whatever is in the house.
For today’s breakfast, I had an egg and a croissant. Then for lunch, I had noodles with beef and carrots. Finally, for dinner, I had rice with eggs and tofu. I should also mention that I have a few snacks in the form of peaches and been drinking a lot more liquids, specifically green tea.
If I create another training regime though, I think I will want to add in some real diet plans for myself to follow.
Thoughts and Feelings
Now for thoughts and feelings. I already talked a lot about how I need to build a mentality that allows me to train harder and really hit the high-intensity interval training that we get at our club.
And all I’m going to say is that it really helps, but you need to have the motivation to build the mindset.
If you’re building your own training regime right now, ask yourself, why am I doing this?
You need to have the explicit goal, the ideal world, and sometimes even the punishment should you fail in your head. Part of the reason I’ve been able to maintain and exercise so consistently was because of the many things that have happened to me in badminton.
I realized that I’ve been a loser my whole life. So every time I talked about wanting to be the best at badminton, people would laugh at me.
“You can’t even beat this kid, how are you going to become number one?”
“How was your tournament haha, nice win against (the guy I lost to).”
“You should quit badminton and focus on school. You’re just an ordinary kid.”
I hear these things way too much.
And I realize, of course, no one’s going to believe that I’ll win or even get close to winning. Would you bet your money on the guy who’s been losing all his life?
I have to take things into my own hands to win. So every time I feel like stopping, I hear a voice. “Kevin, how are you going to win if you can’t even push yourself to your limits?”
And I think about that voice.
I solidify my ambitions and goals, and I get back to it, pushing myself harder than before.
If you’re in the same situation as me, you need the same revitalizing light at the end of the tunnel. Find your motivation and training becomes so much easier. Your mental state grows stronger, and you will end up more successful in life.
Progress
So now for some progress. Here are the stats and pictures:
Person 1:
Weight: 148 lbs
Person 2:
Weight: 128 lbs
Conclusion
Very soon, I will be concluding the entire GGAB Fitness Training Regime. But for now, it’s the last upper body day! There has been considerable development in both our bodies and mental state, which I hope will only continue to get better.
For now, it’s time to go get some rest.
If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to leave them down below. As always, good luck in your games and have a great day!