BuckSpin - A Year Of Change

This is sort of my unofficial "theme song" for a variety of reasons, many of which aren’t really appropriate for this webspace, but a great many are.

So….
For everyone who has been ridiculed for eating healthy…
For everyone who gets up before the birds start singing…
For everyone who finds the time to do what they need to do…
For everyone who stands there, muscles shaking, tears in the corner of your eyes, knowing deep inside you do have one more rep buried in what is left of your body but its going to be excruciatingly painful….and then somehow does 2 more…
For everyone who knows the feeling of having great difficulty just lying on the floor from total exhaustion…
For everyone who, every day, picks up one more rock and moves it, eventually over time moving a whole mountain…
For everyone who, one step at a time, covers tens of thousands of miles, all starting with that one first step..

This is for you:

Had a great week training. After taking some time off the previous week for the first time in almost 4 months (can you say "overtraining?") I hit my training harder & smarter. The 3 day splits (Mon Chest/Tris, Wed Back/Legs, Fri Shoulders/Bis) divided up by core sessions on Tue & Thur worked well. Still some tenderness in the shoulders but nothing like it was. The Back/Legs session was INTENSE! It felt great to really tax my entire system like that again!

I’ve made a number of changes to various lifts, stopped doing some & replaced them with others. All in all it was great to get back at it. I feel like "me" again.

Now here is the funny part that I’m still trying to grasp. My appetite came back with a vengeance this week. It seems like I’m always eating. My new found passion is sushi, specifically a salmon & avocado roll in brown sticky rice. I’m eating this a lot, and I know as a result my carbs & EFAs are way up.

The end result?

I awoke this AM, "felt" kinda lean, so I weighed myself. Apparently I’ve LOST around 2.5 - 3 lbs eating like this the past week!! I have NO idea how/who/why. I know I didn’t gain any weight during the time off (weighed myself to verify), so this is all since Monday.

I’m lifting less (1 whole session/week). I’m eating more slow carbs & good fats. I’m resting more. The guy in the mirror looks better. Go figure….

If anyone can explain this I’d appreciate it.

Since I made the switch to this (based on reading the book "Nutrient Timing") I have noticed immediate results as far as my ability to recover faster PWO and have also made some nice gains physically! Plus, its just tasty!

I will have one of these about 20-30 minutes pre WO & another immediately upon finishing: 

Sweet Potato Pie Smoothie PWO Shake
8-12oz sweet potato puree (IE one half of an overbaked sweet potato scooped out)
1 tsp non-akaline cocoa powder
1 cup water
1/2 cup skim milk
5g creatine monohydrate (*On Leg or Back Days I will add an additional 2g of glutamine)
1 scoop NO vanilla ice cream whey protein
dash of cinnamon, pinch of nutmeg & clove
splash of vanilla extract
1 stevia packet
1 whole tray of ice cubes

Combine everything in blender & liquify. Just about fills an empty 32oz yogurt container.

After my first break in almost 4 months my shoulders really responded well to the 5 days off. So this AM I was back at it. As much as I hate to admit it, at this point my body just cannot handle the split cycle schedule I had of lifting on Mon, Tue, Thur & Fri (with Fri being a repeat of the Mon split) and doing core on Wed & Sat. I made good gains, but to be honest my quality of life started to suffer seriously with the shoulder issues. I’m not doing this to look good & be miserable. I want to enhance my abilities, not hinder them. So, with a lot of pride being swallowed I am going back to the classic Mon-Wed-Fri spilt, do core on Tue & Thur and take the weekend off completely.

Some other changes:
- Placing Back/Legs on Wed to allow the shoulders & elbows 3 & 2 day windows of rest between Chest/Tris & Shoulders/Bis
- Altering some of the exercises I do to be more "joint friendly", like replacing overhand grips with hammer grips for presses.
- Possibly eliminating some exercises in lei of more joint friendly ones.

I guess this is all part of the learning/maturation process. I made the classic "noob" mistake of doing too much too soon. I’m learning. I’m working less but harder, focusing harder on control & form as opposed to weight, etc.

Time will tell if I can develop/strengthen my tendons & ligaments to the point of returning to the 4 day/week cycle, but for now I’m just going to focus hard on doing as much as I can as hard as I can without causing more harm then good.

I like sushi. No, I LOVE sushi. I’m eating more & more of it. Typically I get a simple roll of tuna (or salmon, but usually tuna) & avacado in brown rice. Add a little grated ginger & some wasabi and its a great, lean, healthy meal.

Plus I eat my fair share of canned tuna as well. Its a great, cheap, lo fat source very high in protein. Its been a bodybuilding staple for decades.

However, there seems to be a LOT of misinformation about the mercury levels in tuna, and that people should not only limit consumption of it but actualy AVOID eating it.

Please, let me shed a little light on this.

Aside from being a great source of lean proteins & just screamin’ with Omega-3 fats, tuna (and salmon) are also very high in selenium…REALLY high in selenium. Why is that important? Well, it turns out that selenium acts as a "mercury magnet", if you will. It attaches itself to the mercury compounds & creates a new compound that is far more difficult to be absorbed by those animals (us) that eat tuna & salmon and makes it easier & much more likely that you will, um, "pass" the mercury, if you will.

Ironically, it seems that mercury seeks out selenium instead of the other way around, which can present problems if you have a diet low in selenium. So, you can do one of two things if you are concerned:

1) Start taking selenium as a supplement
2) Eat foods high in selenium, which, ironically, are TUNA & SALMON!!!

Also, when choosing seafood, choose those that are naturally highest in selenium. The greater the selenium to mercury ratio, the safer (and better/healthier) option the fish is. Again, two of the highest are various tunas & salmons.

Here is a great link if you want to learn a little more. Bookmark it & share it with your BB friends who are concerned or just misinformed:

MercuryFacts.org - Selenium

Finally, this graph shows the ratios of selenium to mercury in a number of fish species. The further on the right, the greater the selenium value. Notice which fishes are highest?

So go ahead & enjoy that nigiri or roll or canned tuna. Its OK.

It was a painful decision based in pain.

I’ve been going non-stop without any breaks for over 15 weeks. While my heart, soul, spirit & mind have been taxed to the breaking point over that period they are fine. However, my 42 year old joints are a different story.

I’ve known deep inside I’ve needed to take a break for a while, but was just too proud to admit that even as far as I’ve come that there are physical limits. My shoulders are just raw. Its nothing major or severe, just the sad realization that while I listen to all kinds of 80’s hair bands when I lift that the body straining to reach its full potential is not the same one when those songs were new.

I can’t sleep. My training sessions are being impacted. Other muscles are being affected. I have to punt on certain full body lifts. Its infuriating to my spirit, but I’d be an idiot to not listen to what my shoulders & elbows are screaming to me.

So, I am listening to my own blogged inspiration and I’m going to "..lay down, bleed a while, then fight some more" and let my body rest & heal.

I hate admiting defeat, and this feels like age and time have won a battle, but by retreating a little I have every intention to win the war. So I’m viewing this as a "reward meal" of sorts for almost 4 months of 24/7 focus.

I’m gonna sleep. I’m gonna rest. I’m gonna get some serious shiatsu. I’m gonna eat a lil’ brown rice sushi. I’m gonna spend time on other aspects of my life. I’m gonna read a little. I’m gonna do some stuff around the house. I’m gonna go to Pemaquid Point and re-connect. I’m going to re-invent BuckSpin for the long haul. I’m gonna re-evaluate my split cycles so I can do this until I’m 94.

And I’m gonna come back like a (expletive) raging bull. I feel soooooooo sorry for those dumbbells.

Plans are to see how I feel on 9/15 and go from there.

I’m at peace now.

I love 80’s hair bands. My iTunes is littered with tons of great songs from all kinds of bands of that era. I freely admit I crank these songs whenever & wherever. They seriously populate my background music while training, training to ironically get back the build I had when they ruled the airwaves & were the darlings of that new MTV thing.

Without question the quintessential hair band of all time has to be Poison. They epitomized everything the genre was. One of my favorite songs of theirs was (and is) "Fallen Angel". So, here are 2 versions - the orginal and one from their 2003 VH1 reunion. I found it amazing that after all that time, Aqua Net, break ups & vodka under the bridge that they sound as good now as they did then.

They still got it. I can relate to that!

The original:

The reunion version: