Taking up the "Bigger Leaner Stronger" Year One Challenge

I first heard about Michael Matthews in August last year, when I found his audio book "Bigger Leaner Stronger" on Audible. Even though I had been going to the gym for a year already, I wasn't ready to try his 5-day-a-week program. I simply wasn't fit or strong enough.
In January 2015 I increased my workouts from one day a week to two days a week (Friday and Monday) instead of just a single day, and made some progress. I could now perform the Bench Press, Deadlift and Squat exercises (mostly) correctly, and lift approximately 50% of my body weight of 82kg. For me this was great progress, since I have always been of way below average strength. I'm 54. My personal trainer at the gym was hard pressed to figure out ways of teaching me these basic exercises from such a weak start. But we persisted and after 18 months I could start recording "personal best" weights that were approaching my body weight.
By then I had read "Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger" and used Mike's "minimum requirements" for that book as my goal to work towards:

• Squats 175%
• Deadlift 175%
• Bench Press 135%
• Seated Military Press 100% of body weight for 4-6 reps.

Ambitious goals for sure, but realistic ones that I can attain in a few years. When the Second Edition of "Bigger Leaner Stronger" came out, I ordered the print versions of both the BLS book and the companion workout diary, "The Year One Challenge for Men". They arrived at the end of April this year. During May and June I worked through all the new exercises with my personal trainer, and decided to aim to work out every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. That makes 4 days for a 5 day program, meaning that every Friday I would be able to do a different workout under the supervision of my personal trainer. I can't afford a trainer more than one day a week.
Next I realized that my normal note-taking procedure when working out wasn't going to be good enough for the BLS program. So I used my HiSense Android smart phone's software that can edit Excel files on DropBox, called WPS Office. I have created a spreadsheet for the first phase of the program. it lists each exercise for each day, and uses the weight and reps used to recommend what the next week's weight should be, based on the calculated one-rep max from the previous week.

Shown here is a screen shot from my phone for day 5. The sets in blue are warm-up sets, with the target weight in the third column, and the actual weight used in the 4th column. The actual reps are in the next column, next to the target reps. So while you are working out you only need to record the weight and reps performed. From that it will use the standard Epley Formula for a one-rep maximum to calculate the target weights for warm-ups and sets for the following week, based on Mike's recommendation of doing working sets in the 80-85% range. In this way you always make progress and know what your next target is.
The next challenge came when I actually tried to do the exercises. In spite of being used to doing much more than 3 sets on the "big 4" exercises, I found it difficult to jump by a full 5kg when doing Seated Military Press and some of the other exercises. The smallest weight in my gym is 2.5kg, so a barbell can only go from, say 30kg to 35kg. Not a problem for Squats and Deadlifts, but definitely a challenge for Seated Military Press. Without a spotter I just can't manage, and a spotter isn't always available at my gym.

The solution is simple. They are called "fractional weights" and I found a local supplier who could sell me four 1kg plates that fit on the Olympic size barbell I use at the gym. I already had two plates that weigh 0.5kg, so now I can choose any 1kg increment between 30 and 35 kg and not stress about whether I am about to injure myself with an increase that is "too big". If the target weight is 32kg, I have no excuse: I can either lift it or I can't, but I can't blame the gym for not having a 32kg barbell.
So far I have found the first phase of the One Year Challenge tough. Each individual day isn't too bad, but the cumulative effect is pretty hectic. On top of that I have been plagued by a bad cold (it is winter in SA) and an abscess that required 2 days in hospital. So I am only finishing week 2, even though I have done week 1 several times as I learn the exercises. I will be glad when all these interruptions can go away.
Update Friday 3rd July 2015: I have posted a more detailed explanation of the Year One Challenge on my Fact-Reviews website, which includes a download link to the Excel spreadsheet I use, and instructions on how to use it.
Update Tuesday 7th July 2015: Finally made it back to the gym, so we are on track again. I also discovered that the audiobook of Bigger Leaner Stronger has been updated to the second edition, which is now almost 11 hours of useful information.

My So-Called "Dual SIM" Hisense Phone

I have had a love-hate relationship with my Hisense HS-U970 phone. It's my first smartphone, and so I have enjoyed all the toys and goodies that come with Android. But it has also been a monumental disappointment in one crucial respect: it claims to be a "Dual Sim" phone. It isn't. It's a one-and-a-half sim phone.
If you look at the photo above, you can see it has slots for 2 sim cards, but only one of those slots is capable of 3G data. Nowhere on the Hisense product page or the press release or the Kalahari or Takealot pages does it say anything about this. Neither does the box:

The official Hisense product page claims under "Network" that the phone is "Dual SIM card, dual standby (HSPA/WCDMA/GSM)" and the press release waxes lyrical about how "Prime 1 has dual SIM capabilities, allowing users to simultaneously run two SIM cards from different accounts and networks off a single mobile device." But that's where the hype and the truth diverge. Badly. Sure, there are 2 sim card slots, and each of them can take a sim card, but only one of the slots has (HSPA/WCDMA/GSM) capability. The other slot is GSM only. That means it can do voice, sms messages, and EDGE internet data. EDGE can carry a bandwidth up to 236 kbit/s under ideal circumstances. In practice it's closer to 64k-128kbps.
HSPA provides peak data rates of up to 14 Mbit/s in the downlink and 5.76 Mbit/s in the uplink, twice that of WCDMA. So the difference between HSPA and EDGE is significant: HSPA is theoretically 60 times faster than EDGE. So its not the kind of detail that should be overlooked on a product description (see screen shot below). In my case the problem was even worse, because the phone was faulty and it would not accept my MTN sim card in slot 2 at all. A visit to the Hisense stand at Decorex convinced me that my phone was faulty, because their stand phone (the same model and software version) would accept each sim card in either slot. Not even a factory reset of my phone would fix the problem.

Here is a screen shot of my Telkom Mobile/8ta data connection speed when it is plugged in to slot 2 and only able to connect using EDGE. Not exactly awe inspiring. The same sim card in a USB modem gets excellent speed from the same location (my desk).
Hisense is a multinational company based in China, and the Chinese are notorious for poor quality control, so I knew there was a risk when I bought the phone. But still, I paid R2000 for the phone, so I expect the thing to work as advertised. Unfortunately Hisesnse are lying about the capabilities of the phone. They omit to mention to their prospective buyers that you can select between sim cards, but only one sim card will give you good internet speeds. The other one gives you v-e-r-y s-l-o-w internet speeds.
Note to Hisense PR department: lying by omission is still lying.The box says "HSPA High Speed Internet Acces", not "HSPA High Speed Internet Acces on slot 1 only". It should.
It's only when you open the box and insert two sim cards that you find out that one slot is GSM (good for voice and sms messages) and the other slot is good for voice, sms and data. If you are only going to use the internet for WhatsApp chatting and so on, then slot 2's internet will probably suffice. But don't expect your phone to work properly on the Internet.

The other problem I had with my phone was that whenever the signal strength went below 2 bars (as measured on my old Nokia phone) the Hisense phone lost connection completely. "No Service" it said. This happens in the gym change room (where other users on other phones could make and take calls), in Cresta shopping centre, and in my own office at home. In all these places I have not encountered any problems with the same sim card in my Nokia phone. I will wait and see what happens with the replacement phone.
Update Thuesday 4pm: The courier company has collected the faulty phone for return to Kalahari.com. Waybill no 600684278. In the meantime I am back to using my cranky 18 month old Nokia phone. At least it gets decent reception, even if it reboots at random.
Update Friday: I found a post on Google Plus for a Spanish retailer:

New Arrival @Select Mobiles
Hisense U970 Smartphone
------------------------------------
• Model: HS-U970
• Sim: Dual Sim card
• Display: 5.0 inches TFT Capacitive touch screen
• Platform: Android v4.2 Jelly Bean
• Processor: Quad Core 1.2GHz CPU MTK6589
• Ram: 1GB RAM,4GB internal & expandable up to 32GB
• Camera: 8.0MP autofocus LED flash rear & VGA front camera
• Network: GSM/EDGE 900/1800/1900; WCDMA/HSDPA/HSUPA 900/2100MHz GPS: GPS/AGPS
• Connectivity: USB:Micro USB
• Wifi:802.11b/g/n
• Bluetooth: Bluetooth 3.0 EDR
• Sensors: Proximity sensor,Ambient light sensor,G-sensor
• Audio: Headphone: 3.5mm headset connector
• Additional features: MMS,Email,Push Email,Wi-Fi hotspot
• Battery: 2000mAh
• Dimension: 142 x 73.2 x 9.4mm
• Weight: 144g

It seems to me that Hisense global is not being entirely honest about the capabilities of their phones. Deliberately ambiguous specifications are deliberately dishonest.
Update Friday 22nd August: A month after buying the (faulty) phone, I have been told that Kalahari will refund me the full price within 5-7 working days. This is getting ridiculous. On top of that the marketing geniuses at Hisense have asked me to remove my blog post. They really don't "get it", nor do they understand the outrage of a customer who was sold a device that doesn't work, and can't work as advertised.
Update Friday 29th August: The refund from Kalahari finally came through. That was not a good buying experience. Fortunately we have had better experiences with them in the past, so we will be buying books from them in the future. And they can't be blamed for the poor quality control at Hisense.
Update Friday 5th August: I've had the new phone for a week and it seems to be working correctly, except for the slow speed on the second SIM. I'll post a review in a few days.

How Bitcoin Got Me A "Free" Smartphone

I first heard about Bitcoin on the "Security Now!" podcast episode 287 in February 2011, and then in January 2013 episode 388 mentioned Litecoin. I installed the basic Litecoin QT software on my FRAGG computer and asked it to try "mining" Litecoins. I struck it lucky a few months later and earned LTC50, which is worth around R3600 in today's currency. In those days there wasn't much I could do with it, other than use the BTC-E.com exchange to buy Bitcoins. LTC10 buys around BTC0.11, so it isn't exactly a fortune. Litecoin is to Bitcoin what Silver is to Gold.
Later, when I bought my new SQL Server I was able to use the minerd program to do "mining" with a "mining pool", and thereby earn further LTC.

With 8 cores, the Intel Xeon processor was sitting around doing nothing much of the time, so now at least the server could do something useful when it wasn't being a server. I joined the CoinHuntr mining pool, and have been earning a small trickle of currency since April 2013. Unlike Bitcoin, where you need custom hardware to do "mining", Litecoin uses a "memory hard" algorithm that allows ordinary hardware to stand a chance of successfully mining coins.
More recently I heard that PayFast, the payment gateway for www.bookdealers.co.za (and thousands of other online stores), was able to accept payment in Bitcoin. While investigating this for Bookdealers, I discovered they use the bitx.co.za exchange. That was the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle, and finally allowed me to convert my LTC via BTC to ZAR, i.e. turn some of my Litecoins into local currency. Finally I had a means to splash out on a smartphone without spending grocery money.
Kalahari.com has been advertising their Gobii Android smartphones starting at R999, but when I wanted to actually buy one there wasn't any stock. So I looked at the Hisense HS-U970 "dual sim" smart phone instead, since it was only R1,999 and the Gobii 4.5" phone was R1,699. The Hisense phone is slightly bigger, with a faster processor and bigger battery, so it looked like a good deal.

Over the weekend of 20 July I sold some of my Bitcoin (0.5117BTC) on bitx.co.za, and was paid out on the Monday. I ordered my phone on 21st July 2014 from Kalahari.com. After some delay, I had the phone and its free cover by Friday 25th July 2104.
Update: The phone I got was faulty, and has been sent back to Kalahari. Also, Coinhuntr has closed its doors, so I am now mining with WeMineLTC. The degree of difficulty is much harder this year than last year, so I don't expect to earn more than 1 or 2 LiteCoins this year.
Update Friday 29 August: The refund came through from Kalahari, and I bought a replacement HS-U970 from the M-Web store in Cresta. This one seems to be working, and I'll post a review in a week or so. 

Update 9 December 2017: If I had kept my 0.5117BTC instead of using it on the phone, I could have paid for my car at today's outrageous exchange rate. 0.5117 Bitcoin equals R105,257.46. Hindsight is a cruel thing.