Day 3: Raising the Bar

June 13, 2011

57 days - Blue Band Officer Week
64 days - Blue Band Marching Auditions/Band Camp Begins
82 days - Penn State vs. Indiana State

An equal passion to music in my life is fitness.  It's always been that way though, but I never spent a day in the gym in my entire life until spring semester of my freshman year at PSU.  I used to love cycling, 10-20 miles a day in the summertime, but once I wore the 60lb sousaphones on my 130lb frame, it took a toll after gameday, so after marching in the 5.5 mile Rose Parade, I had enough.  I started working out six days a week, and I haven't taken more than 5 days off ever since.  I've grown to have a fascination with the body, and how it changes and develops, how all the muscle areas are targeted, how nutrition plays a role in recovery.  It's grown from a hobby to a passion, which is why I plan on getting a degree in Kinesiology after I finish my music education degree, since, to be honest, there might not be any jobs in music education when I graduate...

Today I had one of the most intense workouts of my life, and I've learned that a great workout is all about the mentality that you have before you even leave the house.  Chalk it up to the Cellucor C4 (a new product I've been using that has really been pushing me further), but I definitely noticed a noticeable jump in strength today, which is a great feeling.  I've been on my training diet much more religiously, taking in about 3500-4000 calories a day, and 125g of protein.  I can definitely say that I'm in tremendously better shape than I was this time last year, which is a good sign for once the band season starts up in August.

I spent the sauna time with the Blue Band marching fundamentals booklet, starting to go over all the commands and how I plan on teaching them this season, trying to remember what worked and what didn't... I still have two months to prepare, but you can never start too soon.

Got called off from work tomorrow, so I'll continue to work on the drill for the show I'm writing for my high school's marching band and hope for nicer weather.  I'm caught up in the Bruins game right now, hopefully they can hold on and win game seven.

That's all for now.  Thanks for reading.