Bando’s BodyBlog

Had to take some time off being sick. Haven’t had the schedule I would like due to grad school. I envy the guys who can work out and sit around BS’ing about it forever in the gym. Through it all, "changes" at work, more obligations, less free time, I still need the time with the iron. In the course of my life, stress and obligations won’t extend my life, gym time will. I’ve made my choice.

Long life with the iron, work around that people.

For the second time in my 3 years with the iron, I got injured. I was doing my first set of shrugs with a trap bar (after a warmup on the rowing machine) and picking up the bar with only 130lbs or so I felt a fairly sharp pain in my bicep and forearm. I did the set and hoped the ache would go away. It didn’t, so I should have called it a day. Did a few more sets of those with high reps/low weight, still had pain but I was warmed up enough for it to be bearable. 3 sets into neck presses I had enough. Ran a mile on the treadmill with a compression sleeve on my elbow. Back at the office the arm got more swollen and painful by the hour. Went to the Doctor and have a sprain in my upper forearm. Sitting here with ace bandage and ice, typing with one hand - sucks. Doc said "as a weightlifter you’ll heal sooner than most" hope he’s right, my arm is in some serious discomfort.

hope I can go back to every day w/o’s next week. 3 days a week has done a lot for my strength, but for size not so much. Need to talk my Boss into hitting the gym with me or something.

So today I got formally accepted into Grad school, the body and brain will have to take turns growing for a few years. The 3 time a week workouts have been pretty good, not ideal but I’m getting stronger and bigger, wish it was faster, but I’ll take what I can get.

So I started grad school, and damn it’s hard. Been studying for the GRE as well - all this study has left me little time for bb’ing, much less time for writing about it. I’ve been doing a 3 day a week routine, chest, back, legs. I’ve seen growth in my arms and legs, staying the same with chest and horrible losses with my back. I let pullups go for awhile to build my traps, and they’re looking good, but it’s at the expense of my lats. So my B-day is coming up so I aked for an Iron Gym, hell I can do pullups anytime. I killed my back today with Tbar and have been getting back to pullups but need some more work.

I’m at 162 lbs and plan to run a 5k April 26, the training should get me around 158 which is ok but I hate the muscle loss that comes along with running. Sometines I wish I could devote all my time to training and building.

3 days a week. (I’m actually sneaking in 4 this week) The breakdown at this point pretty simple Monday chest & arms, wed. legs & abs, Friday back. Not very sexy but I’m seeing some nice size gains with the rest, but also some fat gains. and stress gains with the grad work….

Well I’m in grad school which has really killed my w/o time. I’m in the gym 3 days a week, but those days I’m really strong for the extra rest. The rest days also allows DOMS back into my life, we’ll see what it does for size. I know my weight is going up not burning the calories for those 2 days in class, or wait is my brain just getting heavier? Hmmm…

Started with Monday (national chest day) thinking I could still handle the 90’s, big mistake, sore elbow and wrist. But man oh man I’m muscle sore like a newb. Did legs yesterday and am in all types of leg pain today. Hit the gym today and even after warmup I was too sore to hit back the way I wanted, not a wasted w/o but not my best effort either. I guess the moral of the story is ease back into it after an extended break, wish I could go back to Monday and start this week over - ouch!

Only 4 days off, seemed like an eternity. Been eating a lot of crap, drinking alcohol, but haven’t thrown the diet out completely. I think I had 2 cookies and no gravy, but I just have haven’t been eating lean and often.

So I visited a gym today and was impressed with how cool everyone was, once I got decent swole on - it was obvious I was visiting and not a resoluitoinist. Had to pay to visit so I got my $$$ worth and I’ll be feeling it tomorrow. 21 days till grad school, then it’s likely gonna be a 3 day a week w/o for me, but I’m looking forward to the change, I’ve been working out almost every day for over a year.

Been running, great for stress relief. Guess that’s about all I’ve got.

I’ve been feeling fat with all the crap I’ve been eating at Holiday parties. I hit the gym today after a party with 1 & 1/2 slices of pizza, gym was pretty empty, snowstorm and friday etc.. As an aside, don’t eat pizza before a tough w/o it really wants to come back up. So I killed the steel and hit the locker room which was oddly empty, I stood in front of the mirror and did some flexes, first time I’ve done that with a pump in over a year. Damn!!! I felt like a BB’er for sure, my thinking was "if anyone comes in - screw ‘em, I look good." Arms looked big and round, shoulders were popping, flat (not ripelled for sure) abs, and a great overall wedge shape.

We had a snowstorm and I should have went home after our holiday party, but I kept thinking "how can I log onto bb.com tonight if I don’t hit the steel?" What a great end compared to what could have been a very bad eating day.

Man I just love those weights - all would have been well without the flex and surprising reflection in the mirror.