BigKatt’s BodyBlog

Man, it’s been too long since I was here last. Alot has happened during that time, mainly the birth of my son who is now a year old.  So, it’s safe to say that I got sidetracked from my training for awhile.  I also recently moved to a new house, so to make a long story short I haven’t worked out like I should for some time.

 Basically I haven’t worked out for about 3 months. I had a couple injuries that were nagging, so I am actually glad that I took "some" time off, but I still feel like I took too much time off.

 I was up to 208 before I got sidetracked, and right now I am 195lbs.  I hate what I see in the mirror, but I am glad to say that I haven’t lost "everything." But, the truth is, my chest is lacking and small compared to what it was at one time. Same with everything else. 

They say that we’re our own worst critic, but I have to be honest when I say that I am very disappointed in myself that I allowed myself to lose about half of what I had built up.  There’s always an excuse we could find, but in this case, all I can really say is that life got in the way and I got sidetracked.

 I am glad that bodyspace is here, because looking at progress pictures of others has motivated me to once again get back into the gym.

The cool part of it all is that I have some new equipment now, as in a treadmill and a new bench press and squat rack. That, and my gym now has more room in the garage because I sold my classic Jaguar when I moved here.

So, that means that I have three different stations set up in my "gym.’ I also have installed a couple of mirrors which is something I never had before in my gym.

So anyway, my goal is to find my motivation again.  I never made a conscious effort to quit working out, I just allowed myself to slide back into my old ways which always results in having todo more work to get back to where you were. 

I figure that since I am still in decent shape that I should still have some muscle memory and "should" be able to make some quality gains fairly quickly.

To tell the truth I am embarassed about posting new pics because it’s a visual reminder that I allowed myself to lose the muscle that I had gained. I’m also embarassed to post my measurements because I know the charts are all going to take a decline.  I guess seeing that will motivate me to get back to where I was.

Anyway…I’m back, my first workout back is tonight, and I am looking forward to it.  I have allowed myself a 2 week "light" workout period so my muscles and tendons can adapt to working out again, and then I plan to begin the 4 day split posted on my main page.

I’ll post some measurements this evening, if I can find my measuring tape. If not, I’ll buy one and post them at that time. Either way I’ll weigh myself and at least get that posted.

 If you read this and feel like it, I’d sure appreciate some words of encouragement, because like I said I’ve lost my motivation and consider you all as my inspiration and motivation to push myself that much harder.

Thanks for reading, Rob

Yep, my legs are sore so it’s safe to say that they got a good workout yesterday.  I’ve been trying to really hit them lately.  I want a bigger lower body so it can support a bigger upper body.

Anyway, I start my new split routine tomorrow and I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes.  I’m pretty proud of myself lately as far as the intensity of my workouts.  I’ve been going heavier and have been gaining strength. That’s a good thing! lol

Should be fun…

If you’ve been following my blog you know that I have recently switched to a split routine with leg days being Fridays.  Well, that didn’t happen this week. 

I had planned on hitting the legs hard Friday, but my wife called me and decided that she wanted to go look into getting a newer car. That meant that I had less time than I had planned to have in order to really concentrate on my legs.

So, I decided instead to use Friday for a good arm workout.  I knew that I would have time to complete that work out, so that’s what I did.  My workout was effective because today my biceps are sore. That is worth mentioning because my biceps are one of my weak areas and usually they don’t show any soreness etc after a good workout. 

But, the last three workouts they have been sore afterwards and that lets me know that my new split routine is allowing the biceps time to heal between sessions, thus allowing me to push myself a little bit harder every work out. So, I’m very happy about that.

What I decided to do was hit the legs today instead so that I could get a really good workout that isn’t rushed.  My train of thought yesterday was "Why half-ass my leg workout when I can just push it back one more day."  I didn’t like that idea, but sometimes in life we have to make adjustments to our schedules.

With that said, today I plan to do Squats, Leg Extensions and Dead Lifts.  I already hit the Hammies and Calves this week, so today it’s all about the quads and DLs.

My motto today is "If it aint heavy , it aint worth it."

Man, I’m glad tomorrow is an off day because my arms are sore from my workout yesterday. I’m still going to do some crunches, but other than that I plan to kick back and chill for the day.

Then, if the weather is permitting I’ll probably spend some time outside walking with my dogs. They love to look for rabbits and squirrels that live around the property.  The dogs never catch them, but they love to look.  I’ll probably snap a few pictures of them playing because another one of my hobbies is photography. I’m no pro, but I take some pretty good pictures sometimes.

After that I’ll probably play some Madden 06 on the XBOX.  I’ve been playing a career on there and have done pretty good so far. This is probably my favorite game aside from NFL2k5 which is pretty fun too.  I used to play online, but back then all people did was cheat to get wins. I was like "Why bother?" I hear that they got those types of things fixed since then, but I haven’t been that worried about playing online anyway.

But, anyway…..Rest is good.

I had a great work out today.  If I can move my arms tomorrow it’s gonna be a miracle.  I straight slaughtered my Biceps and Triceps, it felt great too!  Since I’ve been using the split routine my body seems to really respond well.

I’ve been doing my current split for 3 weeks now, and I’m planning to continue it for at least another week, maybe even two.  I’m kinda going along with the train of thought that, If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.  Right now it’s working so for the next week or so I’m going to stick with the current split, but I’m open minded and already have my next split decided on.

Lucky for me I have a buddy that’s a personal trainer.  He looked over my current split and made a couple tweaks to it, and suggested that I give it a try. Since I’m an open minded person I told him I’d check it out soon.  Another guy I know told me that he’s used this split and has been getting pretty good results from it.

This is the schedule I’ll be trying next:

Mon: Shoulders, Triceps, Forearms
 
Tue: Abs, Back, Calves

Wed: OFF or Cardio.

Thur: Abs, Chest,  Biceps, and Forearms

Fri: Legs, Calves, Hammies

Sat: OFF….Abs
Sun:OFF.

I’ve made a couple of tweaks to it and, we’ll see how it goes.

There are temptations everywhere! I just walked through the kitchen to grab a bottled water.  I try to make sure I get at least a gallon of water a day, and decided to get 1 more bottle before I go to sleep for the night. 

When I turned on the kitchen light I saw a cinnamon bun on a plate. It looked good too!  I just wanted to grab it and start chowing down, but I immediately reminded myself of my goals and talked myself out of it.  I mean, I do all of those crunches for a reason, yknow?

I decided on a few pickle slices for a quick snack while I was in the kitchen, grabbed my water and headed back to my office. But, before I made it to the doorway I noticed a huge pan of brownies my wife had made earlier today. I wish she wouldn’t do that but she’s pregnant and isn’t concerned with my fitness goals…lol  Man, they looked so good!  I sooo wanted to grab one and scarf it down. No one would even know! But, I refrained and kept walking.

The sacrifices are hard to make sometimes, but I know that if I give in and allow myself to cheat everytime I get the urge then I might as well give up on my goals. THAT won’t be happening though because I have put in a years work and dedication and I’ll be dammed if I’m going to throw it all out of the window just so I can give in to temptations.

Don’t get me wrong, I allow myself a treat from time to time.  But, eating sweets like that right before bed would totally contridict what I’m trying to accomplish.

It does feel good to know that I have control of my urges and that I can make the right choices in order to reach my goals…No matter what temptations come my way.  Tonight, I won!

Friday was leg day.  Since I have changed to the split work outs I feel like I’ve gotten alot better work outs and more concentration on that days particular body part.  For the last year I have been doing a combo of circuit training and super sets. 

This last week was the first week of my splits and I love it so far.  I think this is what my body needs in order to stimulate growth again.  So, like I said, Friday was leg day.  After some stretching and light cardio I decided to do Squats and Leg Extensions since I had already hit the Calves and Hammies on Tuesday. 

For the Squats I did 1×12, 1×10, 1×10, 1×8 with increasing weight each set.  I chose to alternate each set with the Leg Extensions.  For those I did 1×12, 1×10, 1×12, 1×10 and 1×8 each with increasing weight. 

At the time I felt like I didn’t do enough, but since I was pressed for time I just rolled with it.  Well, today I’m glad I did because my thighs are sore, sore, sore.  Not painful, but sore enough that I can tell that I got a good workout in.  It really seems like concentrating on one or two body parts per session is the key to results for me.  I haven’t seen any results yet as I’ve only been doing this type of workout for a week, but judging by the soreness I feel like it has been a good choice so far.

Welcome to my first bodyblog. I’m still working on setting my pages up etc, but wanted to get something posted on the blog.  

So, here is what’s new. I’ve decided to switch my work outs up and concentrate more on one or two muscle groups per work out  Yesterday I did 3×10 Incline Bench, 3×10 Decline Bench, 3×10 Flat Bench/ with increasing weight each set and 2×10 Flys for the chest. For the Triceps I did 4×10 Rope Tricep Extensions, 3×10 Tricep Press downs, 2×10 Reverse grip Tricep Pull downs and 2 sets of 12 Close grip Bench Presses. 

Today was basically an off day, but I did do 3×10 rear leg extensions, and then 4×20 calf raises. I wanted to hit the back of the legs and calves together. Thighs are later this week, either Thursday or Friday.  Anyway, here’s my first blog entry. If ya read it, thanks.