BigJax21’s BodyBlog

Wow, so its been a long time since I last wrote a blog.  For anyone who has read my other blogs I got caught up in the end of school and trying to get an internship for the summer.  I’ve been busting my ass and have lost a lot of weight due to lack of food because of lack of money.  It hurts being someone who truly cares about their diet and knowing you can only afford Top Raemen noodles for every meal.

Although I have been busy I have still found the time for the weightroom.  Even though I am in there I would consider my efforts lackluster to be kind.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel though.  I am finally out of school for the summer and dont have to think about my double major in engineering again until the fall.  I have time to work now so my paychecks are increasing and I just made a move to another department in best buy that we all know so well.  Picture this, a big guy who lifts all the time, people call him nicknames like superman, rambo, and G.I.  This guy goes from working in the warehouse and moving televisions to working at Geek Squad and working on peoples computers.  Ha now thats a transition.

Back to the weights though, I decided I need to really dedicate myself again, I never miss a day, but what I mean is get myself motivated.  I went through and revamped my lifting music.  I got my protein shakes in order.  And I started tanning so when i looked at myself in the mirror I wouldnt go blind.

I hit the weightroom last night around 11pm and had one of the better back workouts of my life.  The motivation for a great body is always there.  Even when you have achieved a good look you can never be satisfied.  I am always hungry, always craving, and always left wanting.  I am the omega, with emphasis on mega.

I write this to let you guys know not to give in when you have lost that spark.  Cuz believe me, when you lift 5 times a week for about 8 years, your going to have the spark dimm a little bit.  Its going to flicker.  Your going to think you just need to go in there and maintain what you have. You can’t though, because if your like me there is something inside.  Something yearning for a better you, something that fights to preserve the very thing you love and hate… pain.  You will feel yourself throwing gas on the fire and lighting up a whole new flame.  Now get your ass in there and train, quit ****in around with all this "maintaining and i like where im at" bullshit and make something of yourself.  Cuz if your not trying to become something more.  you are something less.

So im inbetween classes right now, another busy day as usual.  It’s been a while since my last post just because the constant pressures of work and school and bills and the weightroom.

 I have recently found an amazing group of guys to work with.  I have always been skeptical of groups in the weightroom, having too many people can slow you down, kill the intensity, really dull down and kill the whole experience.  Not these guys though.

 It started with just me and my original workout partner, we have pretty intense sessions but sometimes we slow down or get distracted.  The usual things that can happen after you come to the weightroom 5 days out of the week. 

Working out in a university gym there are a lot of different people you see, and we met this guy who makes me look like an infant.  He was working out by himself a lot and i eventually asked if he needed a partner or two.  He came on board and we started all three going at the same time and just blowing the workouts out of the water.

Three people in a rotation can slow down sometimes but it usually stays pretty nonstop and painful.  Sure enough someone saw us busting our asses and pushing each other and he jumped into the equation.

4 people?  How can we possibly have a good workout, thats just too many.  Well what happened is we split up, but workout together.  So we will superset in groups of two, but still be doing the same exercises.  We get in, have an amazing hour long workout, then get out.  It works in a synergistic way, because we all push each other, its not just one voice, not just one person telling you that your here for a reason.  There are always two people to yell at you, and another person to compete with.  It’s amazing, and I was completely surprised. 

 We are actually thinking about starting up a club where I am a big part of the contacting and organization, and me and another dude share responsibility for the actually workout.  It would be hard work, but I love to see others in there bending steel, and not just sitting back in there lifes and letting there bodies go.

I mean hey, what does everybody in the world want anyways?  To stick out, to become something, to do something with themselves and make a difference, and for me, well thats to defy gravity.

So Ive come to that part of the day where i slow down, relieve stress, and reflect what has happened to me recently.

For those of you who have never followed any of my blogs I am a very busy college student, but a very serious weight room addict. I work on average 35 hours a week in a warehouse, and am a full-time student at NC State university studying a double major in Electrical and computer engineering.  Needless to say, i’m a busy guy.

I take every day at the gym, actually not just the gym, but every day, as a journey towards a better me.  This journey does not involve side trips, or stops along the way, I never get lost, and I never stray my path.  I am focused and determined, but sometimes the weather is bad on this road.

You have to understand that when I am at the weightroom, I am not your average joe, just kinda going through the motions, doing his workouts and leaving.  I have come to a realization that this is my time, my time to take full advantage of all that is before me.  My energy level is out the roof, I am excited, yet focused, crazed, yet still sane.  Today should have been no different, when I got to the weightroom though an air of strange tiredness had come over me.  I had been working my body full tilt, staying up very late to finish projects after getting off of work at 1 am.  Waking up early to go to class then back to work afterwards, my body wasnt agreeing with my mental state.

Today was chest, nothing gets me more excited than pounding out some well deserved reps, but my rep count dropped dramatically.  Instead of 5×5 with 5 pounds more then I did last week, I could only complete the first set, then I got no more.  I was confused, irritated, mad.  When I realized I was dozing off in the weightroom thats when I realized I was in for a hard day.

Times like these, help define us, make us who we are.  I could only think of one thing, and that was my old wrestling coach, yelling at me, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!  YOUR WASTING EVERYONES F#$%ing TIME!".  Yeah, he was a great guy, ha.  I strode on with my partner and we finished the workout, he tried to help pump me, but it was too late.  I let my mental drop down to the state of my physical.  I pushed myself in front of the bus and begged it to hit me.  I had done the workout, I completed the day, but I might as well have not come and rested, It was a very shocking day.

I refuse to not learn from every day, and today I learned a hard lesson.  I am not invincible, the weight room pealed back a layer of invincibility and showed that I was just another person, not a God, not a robot, not a machine.  I cannot go in just expecting the world to kneel before me.  I have to make time for rest, I have to give my body a chance to fight back.  I may not be invincible, but the hell if Im not going to fight until I am.

Hey guys, its been awhile since my last post, but ive just been working my ass off, my bad.

So Id like to talk about something that keeps coming up in my life.  At work, not the gym, I have a manager, a middle aged man, probably about 40 or so who is just getting back into weightlifting and a healthy lifestyle.   His physique is nothing to look at, probably pushing a good 230 at about 6 foot 3.  Arms if I had to guess 13-14, decent belly, no muscle in his build at all.  Now this is nothing, I dont care how big you are or your build, if you are concerned about your health and you are doing something about it, my hat comes off to you, you have my respect.

The thing about this guys is every time he comes up to me at work (while im lifting some televisions or moving fridges) he wants to talk about what to do in the weightroom.  This is annoying, he comes to me telling me I should be taking this vitamin, or lifting with this regiment.  He had the balls to tell me as I was leaving the store late "Your one of those guys in the weightroom who clanks the weights and moves it without control".  This almost made me cuss my manager out, he has never seen me lift, he has no idea what I do in the weightroom, he has no right to assume anything about the way I handle myself in there.  If my routine was to everyday carry a small chicken to the top of a hill and hit it with a bat, and thats how I got how big I am, then the hell if thats not right, because im big, because im strong and cut when im not bulking, he is small, and weak, he might struggle lifting paper.  I hate people that think they know the secret to weightlifting, this just pisses me off.  Every person has there own routine that works for them, because every body is different.

The truth of the matter is, there is no flashy amazing secret to getting big, or becoming strong.  No one likes to hear this, but the truth of the matter is that the only secret to becoming big, is hard work, hard work, and hard work.  Working through pain, and just doing it, not having a special machine on t.v. that chuck norris uses so he can roundkick people.  Dont ever tell someone how they should lift, I dont care what they are doing, if they have a physique that makes you look like a ragdoll, they must know something, they must be working there ass off.  Let them be, and get your ass in the weightroom and quit talking about it.

Jax

So this semester is starting to wind down, which means the exact opposite when you really think about it.  Teachers are starting to move faster through material, and tests are coming every week.  Assignments, Programs, Exams, Projects, Reports, everything and anything that you could possibly imagine is starting to be due.  Every student knows it, and a lot of students stress out about it.  What can I do?  How can I get through this?  This is impossible!  You might feel like this from time to time, I know I do.  Especially working a job on the side to pay for tuition and bills, life can became, well for lack of a better word, complicated.  Tonight I am studying for an exam I have in the morning, I decided to take a break to make it back to the blog cuz I havent made it on here in a while.  For those of you who follow along you might find a common theme, yeah, busy.  The point of all this isnt to just vent, but also to let other know that they arent the only ones out there stressed by a busy schedule.  Even though I am amazingly busy I still find a way to get into the weightroom and get a good workout in.  My weightroom partner is a student also, he sometimes can not make it at the same time as me, but we still go, do the same workout, then meet when we can to get back on track.  You can not let stress get you down, and beat you up.  I mean this is why we lift, we lift because we like a challenge, stress is trying to stop you.  We lift because we like the pain, the feeling of being alive, the feeling of being human, I get up in the morning and I look at my roomates and I know that what they are is not equal to me, they are lazy, I am a machine, school cannot cage this animal, work cannot contain this beast, stress cannot tame this lion.  I work hard, I earn what I am, I am no God, but I am no human, I am more then most, and less then no one.  Huge ego?  No, huge heart, while some sleep, we throw our bodies into a torture chamber, we are all that is true, we are all that is right, we work hard, We fight hard.

Stress?  Ha, What stress?

So here it is, 4:22 am.  My day has finally slowed down, and im done for monday, even though its tuesday.  Sometimes i think they bog us college students down with too much to do in a few days.  I bust my ass in school, yet I had to stay on campus till 4 am today just to finish the homework due tomorow.  I have a full day tomorow starting at 830am.  Back to back classes till 2:05.  Work from 4:30 - 10:30pm unloading a semi full of all the stuff you see in bestbuy, including big televisions.  I have an exam on wednesday that Im not ready for but need to study for and thats what I will be doing the rest of the night.  When am i going to get to weightlift? I can get up in an hour and half and go to the gym, or I can skip tuesday.  Wow, what a great set of options, haha.

Some of you might be wondering why i write some blogs like this, Its not to complain, or just to vent, although i need to sometimes.  I just want others to know that a lot of us go through the same thing, and if you want it bad enough, you will make it work.  Thats what seperates the great from the lazy.

So its a lazy sunday for me, the first one in a long time.  This is the first time since probably about april that I have not had to work on a saturday or a sunday.  Pretty amazing, got to watch all the football games, the red sox beat cleveland, ect…  While sitting around though I started to feel just plain bad, I need some kind of physical activity.  So we were gonna practice tonight with the flag football team, but the fields were closed.

Wow, what a waste of a day i was thinking.  I ended up reading a lot of articles and buying a few things online.  Just in time I was able to justify being lazy today.  Not only is it sunday, a day of rest supposively, but without proper rest the body never truly gets a chance to recover from a demolishing workout .  I feel better, I can sleep tonight with no regrets, and after being rested go to the weightroom tomorow and tear it up.

Wow, so its almost 12, and I finally have a chance to wind down.  I was up early for an exam in my electrical engineering class, had classes till about 2, weightroom right after, then work from 5 till 10, by the time I took a shower, ate, and cleaned up my place a lil bit, its 12am.  It is very tough to stay motivated in these times, I am not sure sometimes how I get up in the morning and go again.  It is more then just getting up though, it is knowing you are about to face another day, to better yourself, to take a few steps today towards your goal that you have had your mind on.  This is a notion that keeps me going, I have a lot going on in my life right now, but these are all things I use to take steps in the right direction.  I know that God is watching over me and there is no reason for me to give in and give up.  Today I sat down for about 30 min before going to the weightroom and the though crossed my mind "man, it sure feels good to just sit down like my roomate gets to do all the time, just sit here and watch some T.V. (Willy wonka and the chocolate factory, classic) maybe I don’t need to go to the weightroom today, i mean I am going to work today, thats a workout right?" After the haze had settled I realized what i was thinking, I immediately grew sick to my stomach, how could I?  How could I possibly put lazieness ahead of progress?  I jumped up, grabbed my things, and did the damn thing.  An you know what?  looking back now at the end of my day, as i reflect on what happened and what I need to do tomorrow, I am glad I went.  Cuz its in those darkest of times, the times where we doubt ourselves, where we feel like we can not go on, where we want to give up, where a couch and being fat sounds better then the weight room, it is those times, that our true character shines through, and who we really are can be seen.  I am proud of who I am, are you?

Jax

So many of you are probably accomplished bodybuilders/weightlifters ect…Coming into my gym can sometimes be more of a red carpet affair then a hard training session.  Being that I go to school with a lot of the people i run into the weightroom people constantly recognize me.  Although this is cool outside the gym, when I am in the weightroom I am trying to maintain a focus that will bring me to working out the best I can.  I usually go to the gym with headphones and an Ipod just so people know I am not necessarily just headed to the gym for a social chat and some tea, but even then people will come tap me on the shoulder and want to ask me questions about my workout or talk about the football game (which we lost).  It becomes hard to let them know im trying to workout without coming off as a complete ass after it continually happens.  A lot of people come into the weight room and casually do there sets while engaging in conversation and laughing with other, and that’s all well and good, but you just hafta leave me out of it.  When I come to the weightroom I come for a reason, I have a goal, I am not coming to make friends, this is my time, my small window to a better me, my greatest moment in the day.  This is where I get to forget whats going on around me, the stress of the outside world, school, roomates, girls, all of it, i wash it away and I get to work.  So if your one of those people please, I am not mean just lemme do my thing and get at me afterwards, and if your in my shoes, lets just let people know, I don’t care what you do in the weight room, just dont involve me in your nonsense.

Jax

So here I am.  Right now I am inbetween courses and have a 20 min. break.  It’s hard to stay on a healthy diet and motivated to work out when all I do is school work and work for best buy.  Today I will have about an hour inbetween classes and work where I am going to have to rush to the weightroom in hopes of staying on track.  Unfortunately this is not going to be half the workout I would like it to be, but it will be very intense.  My buddies ask me why I still go to the weightroom when I clearly do not have any time in the day for just relaxing.  What can I say, it is a big part of my life and I would rather hit the weights then be caught sitting around the apartment relaxing for an hour inbetween classes or work.