A.Wright

Well today after a very long car depletion was the day I started loading up on carbs. For the last 7 days I could wait until this day. My work week was very hectic due to training at my job and I had to work double shifts. This is not counting the fact that I still worked out at midnight.

Anyway, back to the results. Well, towards the end I really started to feel… confused. It was like my mind couldn’t focus. I also has this linguring tiredness. It’s hard to explain so I won’t even try. This morning I loaded up on pancakes, eggs and bacon. I also had a big bowl of fruit.  After that meal, my head was spinning. I have never felt a rush like that! I will get a picture up a little later of me before the carb load.

This picture was taken after 13 days of carb depletion.

This is after 2 days of carb loading (Saturday and Sunday). Next time I will get a better picture. Anyway, I “gained” a total of 8 pounds after my loading and I am bloated.

"The Anabolic Diet: More Muscles, More Strength, Less Fat", that is the tag line from http://stronglifts.com/anabolic-diet/. The Anabolic Diet is the brain child of Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale. According to Wikipedia the Dr. is world class power lifter champion. He has also written thousands of articles for the popular bodybuilding magazines like Muscle & Fitness. How does all this apply to me? Well from what I have read, this guy does know what he is talking about.

Over the last few months I have been carb cycling, while the results have been great. I found the carb up days during the week to be tiring. I found the massive influx of carbs slowing me down. This affected my workouts and cardio. With the Anabolic Diet, I "convert" my body to processing fat as fuel.  The carb loading weekends allow for the insulin spike, which in turn allows growth hormone secretion.

I started the Anabolic Diet yesterday and so far so good. It has been very weird waking up and eating bacon and eggs for breakfast. Now, the bad thing is that I have be on a 30g and below of carbs until NEXT Saturday, so we shall see how things go.

Body Building and working out in general is a great thing for the body. However, when you push yourself too hard you can hurt your body. Last Saturday, I was working out my chest and I was going some incline DB flyes. Well, I was feeling good and I decided to go up to 50 pound DB’s.

The next day BOTH of my arms were very sore, I mean very sore. My arms were very weak and the first thing I thought was "I messed my shoulders up!!" So, I started doing some research and I learned about the rotor cuff.

[img]http://www.holy-cross.com/Orthopaedics/images/image013.jpg[/img]

The rotator cuff (rotor cuff) is an anatomical term given to the group of muscles and their tendons that act to stabilize the shoulder. Along with the teres major and the deltoid, the four muscles of the rotator cuff make up the six scapulohumeral (those that connect to the humerus and scapula) muscles of the human body.

The rotator cuff can be injured….

[b]Rotator cuff tear[/b]

"This group of tendons can become torn, leading to pain and restricted movement of the arm. A torn rotator cuff can occur following a trauma to the shoulder or it can occur through "wear and tear" of the tendons (most commonly that of the supraspinatus) under the acromion. It is an injury frequently sustained by athletes whose duties involve making repetitive throws, such as baseball pitchers, American football quarterbacks, volleyball (due to their swinging motions), swimmers, boxers, kayaking, fast bowlers in cricket, and tennis players (due to their service motion). It is commonly associated with motions that require repeated overhead motions or forceful pulling motions."

Now, I have been working out for 7-8 months and I never even thought about working out the rotator cuff muscles.

"Strengthening the rotator cuff allows for increased loads in a variety of exercises. When weightlifters are unable to increase the weight they can lift on a pushing exercise (such as the bench press or military press) for an extended period of time, strengthening the rotator cuff can often allow them to begin making gains again. It also prevents future injuries to the glenohumeral joint, balancing the often-dominant internal rotators with stronger external rotators. Finally, exercising the rotator cuff can lead to improved posture, as without exercise to the external rotator, the internal rotators can see a shortening, leading to tightness. This often manifests itself as rounded shoulders in the population."

WOW! I see nothing but a benefit in doing this. Anyway, I just wanted to get this out and let everyone know, not to forget the rotator cuffs.