My Bodybuilding Stories

Well I have been hitting the fight pretty hard. Getting a lot better on how I use my energy while on the mat. I don’t get as smoked as the first day I started. The only problem is that there are people there that are a lot better than me so most of the sparring is me trying to defend myself. Every once in awhile I see a chance and I go for it but they always counter and let’s just say it isn’t pretty. It is all a learning experience though so I am not complaining one bit. I did learn tonight that I need to keep my elbows tight into my body or I am going to have to use a lot of strength to get out of whatever submission it is that they try to put me in. That is one thing I have on my side. I really need to work on my flexibility a little more to. So of the moves are hard for me to accomplish due to that. Like tonight my whole body is worn out and very tight so trying to do anything was a very hard task. The objective still stands. Learn and apply and practice, practice, and more practice.

Well I have doing some BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) the past two weeks and might I say it is a total smoker. I get my ass whipped on a regular basis because the people I grapple have been going for while so they have their own style. What I really need to learn is to take my time when it comes to trying techniques in the match. I don’t know many techniques and my flexibility isn’t that great so it makes it hard to even begin to win a match. I also need to learn to control myself and try not to use brute force as that tends to make me more tired for the match and when that happens I can’t even try to counter and moves made by my opponent but with practice I will get it and then I will be doing the ass kicking. There are some people in the class that are on my level and maybe not even as good. I do have some techniques in my arsenal that I can use. I did choke out the last guy I rolled with 3 times in less than 3 minutes. I also felt sorry for him so I let him get the arm bar from the guard that we drilled for the class.

Well today was an awesome day. Leg day is always an awesome day for some reason. Even last week when I didn’t do so well it still was a good day. Well I started off with squats today. Did 3 sets at 315lbs. I did 4, 4 then 3. I couldn’t even push up the 4th rep in the last set. I completely failed. Good thing I put the spotter bars in the right each time. You never know when that will happen. Next was leg press with a big 630lbs. I did 2 sets with 5 and 4 reps. Not too shabby I think. I am even putting my knees into my chest when I do them so no one can say that I am cheating with partial reps. I have a video from shock week of me doing the leg press at 580lbs. I want to upload it but I have crappy ass internet. Oh well I will get one day. Next on the hit list was leg ext. This is the machine I love but the one thing I hate is that the weight is in Kg. So it is hard to actually see how I am progressing compared to other exercise. I like to try and keep a balance. Well I did 60kg for 2 sets with 5 reps each. Once again not to shabby. That is over 120lbs each leg. Rough math I know but I don’t want to figure out the actual weight in lbs. I know there 2.2lbs/kg since that is the formula I used when I had to do drug administrations as an EMT. Now we are on to hamstrings. I suck at the pull exercises. I don’t understand why but I do know when I start the new program they are going to be concentrated on the most. I need more gains in this area. It seems I haven’t moved any since I started this program with the pull muscles. Oh well I will fix that later. I did 170lbs for 3 sets with 6, 5, and 5 reps. This machine (the only leg curl machine on the camp) is not a very good one. There are too many ways too adjust it and I haven’t figured out the right adjustment yet. Next was stiff deads. I love this exercise as I think that it hits the hams very well as well as the glutes. I think I have very good form when I do them to but I have yet to video tape this exercise. I did 275lbs for 2 sets with 5 and 4 reps. Good job to me. Now it is time for the calf press. A whopping 720lbs for a total of 3 sets with 7 reps each. Now I am excited about that. I know that the last rep was a very full rep but the contraction felt intense. I love it.

Well that is all for legs and one more week off till I hit them once again for rep range week. LATER!!!

Well I started my last cycle of P/RR/S and it started off pretty well. The whole idea behind power week is heavy weight for low reps. I started the week off with chest. The first exercise was flat bench press. I ended up doing 245lbs for 3 sets and I got a total of 13 reps between the sets. That is 5 4 4.  Next exercise was decline. I didn’t do to good on this one and I haven’t been able to go to heavy on it for some reason. I did 225lbs for 2 sets with 6 reps and then 5. It seems every time I do this exercise my shoulder wants to give out on me. I don’t know if it is the movement or what but I tend to favor my right shoulder. When I am done with the cycle I am going to concentrate on on doing some rotator cuff exercises. The third exercise was incline dumbbell flyes. I started with 65lbs in each hand and did 2 reps and decided that was too light so I ended up switching to 70lbs which tended to be about right. I think I could have done 75lbs in each hand but oh well. I haven’t added the exercise into the cycle until now so I wasn’t sure of the weight I should be pushing with it. I know that I am not very good when it comes to incline especially with dumbbells so I thought I would take it easy with it. Now I know. Flat bench dumbbell flyes was next on the hit list. I ended up doing 65lbs in each hand for a total of 12 reps for 2 sets. Now that is 6 reps per set. To finish up the workout day I finished with cable crossovers. Keep in mind I am going for a rep scheme of 4-6 reps so that means go as heavy as possible. All in all this was a good day and I am very proud how I can see my strength increase on my chest. Wish that were so with other body parts but hey everyone has there own that they are good at.

Well shock week is over for my second cycle. This is by far the best week in the program. You get to add a lot of different things and you really get to destroy your muscles. Overall this was a good week. I had a few let downs and road forks but I still adapted and and overcame. I have seen a lot of strength gains in the past 2 cycles of this program but I haven’t seen very much muscle gain. Oh well I am sure that will come later. Time to start a new session of P/RR/S with this being my last cycle and then it is on to a normal weight lifting routine structured around losing the most fat I can possibly lose without sacrificing what little muscle I have in the shortest amount of time. I need to go home under 10% BF. Can I do it! Hell yeah I can do it!! JUST FREAKING WATCH ME!!!

The last workout of the week and it showed. I wasn’t fully recovered from any of the exercises this week and I was weak today. I started out with the military press to the front. I was going for the rest pause. My spotter conned me into trying 195lbs so I tried it and failed horribly. I ended up doing 175lbs and dropping the weight from there. I only did one set. Next was side raises. I used cable for this exercise. I didn’t do too bad on that one but I just felt real weak after the military press. I did 2 drop sets for 2 complete sets completing what I wanted to complete. The next was reverse cable flyes. This is my favorite shoulder exercise. I did drop sets as well with this doing 2 drop sets for 2 sets. Next was cable front raises with a straight bar. I did drop sets with this one also but I ran the stack all the way down 2 times. I think I did a total of 5 drop sets per set. This was pretty dang brutal. Now it is time to hit the traps. Upright rows were on the agenda. I only took the bar and did a half rep and a full rep for a total of one rep 8-10 times. For just using the normal bar for this exercise was tough. I did 2 sets like this. Next was DB shrugs. I did a drop for this exercise doing 2 drop sets for 2 sets all together. This wasn’t a bad day but I should have listened to myself and not my spotter and went with the weight I knew I could do. Oh well. Live and learn.

Well today was arms and it was a brutal day. First muscle group exercised was the biceps. Started off with standing bar curls. Did 2 sets with the rest pause technique. That is you take your one rep max and move the weight once. You shouldn’t be able to move it again or it isn’t your one rep max. You then take about a 10s pause then try to move it again. Now I wasn’t able to move it the second time after the pause but I had a spotter who helped. He said he didn’t help much at all so I did most of the work. I then set the weight down and dropped 5 lbs on it paused for 10s then moved the weight again. This went on for a total of 5 reps doing 2 sets like this. The next exercise was preacher. I decided that it was time for some negative training. I took my one rep max and added 20lbs to it. I started the movement at the top of the exercise and holding a 10s negative and then I tried with all my might to move the weight. Of course I couldn’t but my spotter was there to help me. I did a total of 5 negatives in this manner for a total of 2 sets. Next in line was bicep cable curl. We did 2 drop sets for a total of 2 sets. Not much to explain on that one. So now it is triceps time. First movement was the cable overhead ext. We did 2 drop sets for a total of 2 sets. We didn’t do that much with triceps as they are out strongest points in the arm world. So the next exercise was to superset triceps pushdowns with skull crushers. This was actually quite weird feeling today. I did the set of pushdowns and went straight into the skull crushers. I couldn’t feel my triceps working. They were completely numb. I know they were working because I had strict form but it was just weird feeling. Now in the next set I felt them and they were smoked. I couldn’t even complete the set amount of reps I needed to complete the exercise so I ended doing a bunch of forced reps and concentrating on the negatives. Now here comes the smoker. I decided to do a complete burnout. We did a superset of cable curls with triceps pushdown. We went low weight and very high reps. I was shooting for somewhere in between 20-30 reps for each exercise. Now I did a lot of cheating to get the reps out but that was the whole point was to completely burn them out so I wouldn’t be able to move them. I tried flexing my arms and I couldn’t even bring my forearms past the half way point. Awesome workout as almost every single workout I have is awesome. I have noticed a lot more viens protruding from my skin especially in my thighs. So I must be doing something right.

Well it is back day. I am not a real fan of back. It seems everytime I do back I don’t get anywhere with it and my biceps do all the work. I try to concentrate on the particular muscle during the movements but it seems the biceps are the workhorse. My back used to be equal to my chest but my chest as taken off. When I start my new cycle of the P/RR/S I am going to concentrate more on back by putting it first in the routine. I am also going to concentrate on mid back more than lats this time to. Well the routine today started off with lat pull downs with 2 drop sets doing 2 sets each. Then came straight arm pulls supersetted with underhand pull downs. T-bar rows were next and I tried the half rep with a full rep. I started off a little too heavy only completing 6 reps on the first set so I dropped it down 10lbs. and banged out 10 reps with half reps. I did seated cable rows next with 2 drop sets for a total of 2 sets. The last exercise of the day was partial deadlifts. I didn’t add any HIT style to this one because it is just brutal enough. I did 2 sets of these. Keep in mind that all sets are worked to failure. So now that back is done it is time to start on the smaller muscle groups like arms and shoulders. Total annilation of these body parts in the next few days are going to be fun. Can’t wait. This is my favorite week out of the whole program. I never leave the gym with my head held high as I have no energy left for it.

Well I went into the gym to do legs and I was ready to go. I decided I wanted to do 580lbs on the leg press first. That was a mistake. The way I was going to do the exercise was do a half rep then a full one for one total rep. Pretty damn brutal way of doing legs. Well I was supposed to get 8-10 to failure but I only got 5 reps. After that is was just downhill. I completed my 3 sets of leg presses then moved onto supersetting leg ext. with squats with the same rep scheme for 2 sets. I went low weight on the squats and ended up not doing enough weight on the leg ext. Oh well. Better luck next time. So after that was hamstring time. I ended up only doing one exercise for the hammies which was leg curls. I did ok on that but I completely exhausted them to the point where I couldn’t walk for a while. The rep scheme was the same but I did partials at the end. I did partials at the top of the exercise and then at the bottom of the exercise. I did 3 sets this way. Talk about brutal. Now here is the good part. I did 630lbs on the calf press. Is was hard to press the sled up so I could work the calves but I did and I knocked out about 12-13 reps per set of 3.

Starting my cardio routine along with ab work afterwards. Every week starting today I am going to increase the intensity and time slightly till I reach 45 minutes of cardio. Cardio will consist of running Mon, Wed, and Fri and maybe some sprints or the eliptical Tues, Thus, and Sat. I am still in the bulking process I just trying to get in the habit of cardio since that is my worst area of physical training. I also will redeploy back home sometime in December so I want to cut up as much as possible and plus be able to max or come close enough to max the pt test that we will have after a month of being home. I also want that elusive 6 pack I have yet to obtain. So that means a lot of concentration is going to have to be done n the ab work as well as having a better diet. Diet is going to be the biggest issue as I can only eat what is offered and sometimes the choices are just horrible. I might have to just skip the good ole lunch and just have a salad with tuna and oil and vinagear. Right now I am weighing at 200lbs. Just looking to lose somewhere in between 5-10lbs. More towards the 5 lbs. Well i keep my fingers crossed and train hard and hopefully things will work my way.