Here I am, proudly standing at the start of Week 5 of my program. I've now got less than two weeks before the May 14 weigh-in, the first of a series of six-week weigh-ins.

From the start at 4AM, I pressed. As soon as my alarm chimed, I went quick. As I've recounted before, I've trying to optimize my workout time and in that, I've had a problem to get me and everything else setup as it has dragged the start time anywhere from 4:12 to 4:20; I have to run down items, find LTE access in my gym, choose music, etc.—not to mention I have a password with many, oft-erred keystrokes I type into my Chromebook!

This morning, I began training at 4:04. My approach:

• Be quick.
• Create music themes for each workout day, e.g. Monday is 70's music—it fits a Back routine. Have playlists ready to go and preferably pre-downloaded when the LTE drops out.
• Set up the bluetooth receiver the night before.
• Switch from the Chromebook to the iPad. Have resources already pulled up, like Google Sheets with the worksheet set for offline usage.
• Stay tight to the schedule and maintain a stopwatch for the rests.
• Be cognizant of the next exercise in case equipment needs to be moved during rest at the end of the current routine.
• Finally, be quick.

Over the weekend, I made changes to my workouts that require me to really tighten things up. Feel free to check it out on my "My Training" section. I've created an overview to make it easier to understand and a page for everyday sans Sunday since its straightforward. I'm finally aligning my week to fit July's running schedule. I added more Taekwondo into my workouts through Tabata sets and forms; I removed bike on non-cardio days, though I will still use it to finish out to 6AM, like I did this morning for the last 4 minutes.

In order to concentrate my workout, I have to see each second as precious. I run a stopwatch so that not only do I maintain that 45 second between sets, I also enforced it between exercise routines—the biggest challenge is remaining mindful of it and the specifics of the next routine.

One of the benefits of the Tabata training on the bag is working in combinations. I created an opening combo that I like: C punch, hammerfist (with bottom fist), hook (with lead). It's not much in the way of defense until the hook, and that's why I think it's more of an opening move. It felt good to get its rhythm improved while picking up speed and strength along the way. It's not much in the way of a back workout compared to my elbow strike + backfist combo set; however, I want more explosive moments in my training and had the timeslot with Monday.

So there you have it, the kickoff with a great Monday, a solid 1:56:00 workout.