5foot18’s BodyBlog

I hardly noticed that I haven’t written a blog post in more than a month.  Time flies when you’re having fun, right?  As usual I’ve been really busy at work, at home, and in the gym.  I’ll share a bit about that last item.

After being sick a couple times in March, I’ve really come back with a vengeance though I’ve done it pretty responsibly.  Steady increases across the board in the past month have once again put me on the doorstep of my current PR’s.  I’ve also added some new elements to my program: tricep dips, stiff-legged deadlifts, upright rows, and power cleans.  In order to accommodate these newcomers, I’m doing four exercises per workout instead of three.  I’m also rotating planks into my post-lifting ab routine.  I switch that up each time to keep the ol’ gut guessing.

So things are going quite well and I really can’t complain.  I’m planning to start writing a Friday recap post on "my week in fitness".  We’ll see how that goes.

So I’ve been back in the gym with a vengeance this week and it’s going about like I expected.  I feel pretty good generally, but I’m about 20% off my previous PR’s.  That’s frustrating to say the least, though I’m sure I’ll exceed them all in the next few weeks.  Here’s a brief rundown of pre/post-illness levels for 4 sets of 6 reps:

• Bench press: 185 -> 155
• Squat: 285 -> 225
• Overhead press: 115 -> 95
• Front squat: 155 -> 145
• Deadlift: 265 -> ?

I haven’t tried deadlift yet, so I don’t know.  I’m also making some minor changes to my workout routine and adding a few assistance lifts, but I can talk about that in another post.

My cardio level has unexpectedly held steady during the past month.  I did 20 minutes of HIIT on the treadmill on Tuesday (60s @ 5.0mph to 60s at 8.0mph) and it was pretty routine.  I’ll step it up today and see what happens.

All in all it’s great to be back in the gym regularly.  The biggest challenge is to ramp up slowly so I don’t injure myself.  That reminds me of the importance of taking a long-term view of my fitness.  It is, after all, a lifelong commitment.

Our team has been very busy in the past month adding more new features to BodySpace.  Here’s a quick rundown:

• Profile news feed: This appears on everyone’s BodySpace profile and shows what they’ve been up to lately.
• Group news feed: This appears on every group profile and shows the activity of all group members.
• Fit status: A Twitter-like status update that appears on your BodySpace profile.
• Motivation level: A graphical slider control that lets you set your level from 1 to 10 and leave a comment.
• New feed items: Feeds now contain fit status, motivation level, and supplement reviews.
• Larger feeds: The feed size has been bumped from 100 to 250 items.

It’s been a whirlwind, but a lot of fun too.  I got to create the motivation level widget using a jQuery UI slider and CSS sprites.  That’s probably gobbledeegook to most people, but it was fun for geeky old me.  And our feed infrastructure is modeled after Facebook using many of the same queuing, processing, and caching strategies.  Impressive stuff all around.

In the near future, we’ll be adding feed items for group activities (creating, joining, leaving) and a few other small changes.  The main push, however, will be upgrading the BBcom forums from vBulletin 3.6 to 3.8 and overhauling the look and feel.  There’s a lot of work involved in that and many other related goals, but I’ll share more about that as we start working through the details.

Onward and upward!  There’s no end to what we’d like to do with this site, so we’ll just keep plugging away.  Please let me know if you have any requests, ideas, or other feedback.  I’m all ears…

The last couple weeks have been frustrating on the fitness front to say the least.  I caught a bug two weeks ago that kept me out of the gym for about five days.  When I was able to return, I had lost five pounds and felt quite a bit weaker.  The first workout felt awful and I nearly threw up, but the next one was somewhat better and I was getting back on track.  Then I got sick again a couple days ago and I’m not sure when I’ll be working out next.  I’d like to say tomorrow, but I don’t know if that will be possible (or advisable).

This is all doubly frustrating because I set a whole slew of lifting goals back in January for St. Patrick’s Day.  It was about eight weeks away at the time and it’s when I’ve always celebrated my birthday (actual b-day is 12/24), so it seemed like a nice choice for a goal date.  Two weeks ago I was easily on track to exceed every goal and now I’m not sure if I’ll hit any of them.  I also set some body measurement goals, but those were hopelessly out of reach even before my illnesses.  I’ve always valued strength over size anyway, but that’s a topic for another day.

It would be very easy as a result of this experience to get discouraged.  And I must admit that my motivation level has been waning.  However I’m doing my best to take a long-term view of my fitness.  Bumps along the way are inevitable and working out will periodically have to take a back seat to other things.  The key is to maintain an upward trend despite the bumps.  In six months I don’t think I’ll really care that I was sick a couple times around the end of February.  By that time, it’ll just be a brief down in a line of many ups and downs where the ups are overwhelmingly winning.

The Chumbawamba song whose title I used for this blog post came on the radio a couple days and really captured my resolve to keep pushing forward.  I get knocked down, but I get up again…

Every weekday around noon or so, I face the same question: lunch or lift?  There’s always somebody going out to lunch and I’m always invited to go along.  I’d certainly like to go to lunch, but three days a week I go to the gym and lift.  Some weeks I’ll also do cardio on the other two days.  It’s odd that I don’t really question my decision at all any more.  It took a while to develop the habit, but now I feel compelled to go to the gym and guilty if I don’t.  This is not unique and I read about it all the time on this site, but it’s an interesting realization to make personally.

I do eat lunch every day of course.  I get back from the gym, drink a protein shake, and eat leftovers from home at my desk.  Bon appetit.  I also go out to lunch every once in a while lest I become a serious pariah.

I haven’t posted to my blog for a couple weeks, but I have a pretty good excuse this time.  Our team has been hard at work on a few new BodySpace features that we’ll be releasing later today.  Here’s a brief summary:

• Fixes to news feed items for supplements and blog posts (more info in each)
• New profile news feed showing your activity on your BodySpace profile
• New login page for my.bodybuilding.com

We also have some really cool new features coming down the pipe in a couple weeks.  More details on that soon.  We’ve shifted from four-week development sprints to two-week sprints so the new stuff should be fast and furious for a while.  I’ll keep you in the loop right here.

The first time I tried front squats, it didn’t go so well.  I started with the hook grip, but it felt horribly wrong.  Too much of the weight was on my wrists and the bar was pressing directly on my throat.  It felt like I was going to sprain both wrists while strangling myself.  Not a good way to perform a lift.  So then I tried the crossed-arm approach, but that didn’t feel good either.  That was three weeks ago and today I finally decided to give them another go.

I discovered that it helps to point my upper arms directly at the wall with my forearms at an angle wider than my shoulders.  I also placed just three fingertips under the bar on each hand.  All of this took the weight off my wrists for the most part.  Then I moved my shoulders forward about an inch or so and got the bar away from my throat.  With the discomfort eliminated, I was able to concentrate on the lift itself.  It’s actually not a bad lift at all.  Much less posterior chain action than back squats due to the angle of the upper body, so it places more emphasis on the quads.  I’m planning to do it once a week and stick with back squats the other two days.

I also get some funny looks at the gym when doing front squats and that’s always amusing.  Of course I already get funny looks for most of what I do at the gym: back squats, barbell rows, deadlift, overhead press, pullups, Swiss ball V-ups, etc.   Nothing to see here, people.  Just go about your business and finish up those leg extensions and lat pulldowns…

Last week I got a call in the evening from Vanessa at Idaho Athletic Club asking if I’d be interested in a free fitness assessment.  My father-in-law is a car salesman so I can spot a sales pitch from a mile away, but I agreed out of politeness… and also curiosity.  I thought maybe I’d discover something useful as a result of this "assessment".

I just got back to work from my appointment with Vanessa and I definitely underestimated what was in store for me.  I usually do mostly heavy compound lifts three times a week and then wedge in some cardio here and there as I have time.  Vanessa put me through a nearly non-stop 15-minute crossfit-style routine that really kicked my ass: jumping jacks with a barbell, a few agility exercises, some crunches, and several other things thrown in for good measure.  Somehow I made it through the full 15 minutes and completed all the sets and reps of each exercise, but I was left wobbly and breathless with sweat dripping continuously onto the floor.  I also got what I consider to be high praise from a personal trainer:

“You’re in pretty good shape.”

Booya!!  Of course, that was quickly followed by "but you have some areas you could work on."  I definitely concur with that statement.  Anyway I’m probably going to beef up my cardio and start using foam rollers for soft tissue work (another recommendation).  And one of these days I may sign up for some personal training sessions.  We’re cutting our expenses as much as possible (isn’t everyone?), but we’ll see what happens in the future.  If I do decide to do it, I’ll definitely be calling Vanessa.

I also got my bodyfat calculated and most of my measurements taken.  They’re on my profile now.  No surprises there as far as I’m concerned, but definitely some room for improvement.  The phrase "gut-busting" comes to mind…

I bought a pair of low-top Chuck Taylor Converse All-Stars last week specifically for weight lifting purposes.  Yeah, I suppose they’re a great fashion statement too, but that’s just a fringe benefit.  On Friday I did squats for the first time with my Chucks and it felt great.  Then on Saturday I was sore in odd ways, but just because my feet were finally in the proper position.  After many months of squatting in running shoes, it may take a few workouts to adapt to flat soles, but it’s definitely worth it.  Highly recommended to anyone serious about lifting.

Out of idle curiosity, I took a couple minutes to visit an online body mass index (BMI) calculator last night.  I’ve traditionally been a rather skinny guy - painfully so as a teenager - though now in my 30’s I would say I’m in the normal range.

Imagine my surprise to discover that according to our government (keep in mind that they’re infallible), I am actually OVERWEIGHT.  Yes, at 6′6″ and 225 pounds, I have a BMI of 26.  Anything 25 or higher is considered overweight.  Greeted with a blizzard of links to various weight loss resources, I look down at my stubborn belly.  A solid year of methodical weightlifting and cardio has shrunk it somewhat, but apparently that’s not enough.  Now I’m supposed to lose ten pounds.  How did I ever go from skinny to fat?

A little while later, I notice a link about limitations of the BMI and find this little nugget:

“It may overestimate body fat in athletes and others who have a muscular build.”

Knowing that I’ve gained a non-trivial amount of strength and endurance recently, I breathe a sigh of relief and hang up the phone before the Jenny Craig people have a chance to answer.  Now safely back in the normal range, I resolve to proceed with my original plan to gain ten more pounds of muscle.  I just hope I can cancel my order for the Ultimate Richard Simmons Collection before it gets shipped.

DISCLAIMER:  I may have embellished this story just a wee bit.  OK, I completely fabricated the parts about Jenny Craig and Richard Simmons, but all the BMI calculations are real.  The moral of the story is to always dig deeper and continue asking questions about matters concerning your health.  Don’t take numbers at face value, but do write about them if they’re funny.