BuckSpin - A Year Of Change

Um, can someone tell me exactly how "vigorous" that HOUR of everyone’s favorite cardio workout had to be to burn less than 2 calories a MINUTE???

http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-burned-sexual-activity-active-a368

I’m pretty sure, using these stellar standards, that a hour of their MODERATE effort is not even humanly possible!

Typically, if a middle aged man’s shirt was riding up on them that would not be good, right? Images of 1/3 exposed beer bellies dancing "The DoneLap" in your head? Fuzzy navels (and not the orange kind) deep enough to echo distant conversations reverberating?

Well, today is a real first for me. My shirts have s-l-o-w-l-y been creeping up higher & higher on me, but I know from the loose 32" waist in my jeans it ain’t because of that area.

I weighed myself "empty" (do the math) when I woke up yesterday and about fell off the scale. I’ve GAINED over 2lbs ! I’m just over 199! And there is just no (expletive) way its fat. The mirror says so, plus I just could not have eaten 7000+ calories over maintenance….impossible. Unless I’m going thru a midlife growth spurt at age 42 and getting TALLER…something good is happening.

My shirt is riding up all the way above my beltline….in the BACK! In front its fine & hangs  normal…unless I reach above my head.

Maybe, just maybe, all this hard work and over 8 months of clean eating (not ONE stereotypical cheat/reward meal) is starting to pay off. My shoulders & traps are FINALLY starting to effect my wardrobe!

Of course its now mid-October and "wicked" brisk here in Maine, which makes for a most interesting "backdraft" on & up my lower back. I don’t have the R Value I used to….LOL!

This continues to be an amazing journey deep into my potential. And I’m just getting warmed up….

So, to my fellow In & Outers, what is the point value for LBM gained?

DISCLAIMER: Risque/"blue" in nature. Click at own risk of your funnybone:

:)

Before you think I wasn’t breathing correctly on that last set Wednesday, I know its Thursday. I’m going to be going non-stop tomorrow so I’m posting this tonight.

My day will start at 4am when I’ll get up to make breakfast, stretch, then train Shoulders & Bis.

Then I shift into dad mode & will get the boys up, some breakfast, dressed and drive them 20ish miles to school. Tomorrow is a field trip (apple picking, pumpkin patch, hay ride) and I’m tagging along as a chaperone. In the afternoon is Art Class (I’m volunteering 2x/week), THEN off to work just down the road for our monthly Wine Tasting! We’re featuring all Spanish wines, which are among my favorites.

I’ll probably get home by 8pm. A busy day.

As for now, I just finished up one of my "BlackJack" core/ab sessions, a rare PM one at that. Mrs. BuckSpin came thru earlier with some BADLY needed (and MUCH appreciated) back massage from yesterday. Combined with the reload from a great lunch of steelhead trout & avocado brown rice sushi I made, I was rarin’ to go! Back feels great! Abs & obliques ache!

In keeping with Friday’s "Bad Hair Daze", I’ve chosen a great closet 80s hair classic. Why this band never made it big I don’t know. Slick bluesy riffs, awesome beats, great frontman, they had it all. This is one of their best known songs, but I also admit its possibly the "Best Song In The Worst & Weirdest Video" ever made. The video is just…….

…….well, just enjoy the music from Baton Rouge:

Today’s theme song in response to yesterday’s training:

As a result of my shoulder issues (which are doing a LOT better) caused by the classic "noob" mistake of overtraining, I recently went back to a Mon-Wed-Fri training schedule. I start the week with Chest & Tris and end it with Shoulders & Bis. The logic is to place as much rest time between the sessions that really encorporate shoulder use. This leaves Wednesday for "The Workout From Hell" - Back & Leg Day - which by default utilizes very little shoulder work & acts as a defacto rest day for those.

But by no means is it a rest day for the rest of me. As a matter of fact it is by far the most work I do all week. My entire body is taxed & stressed. Its brutal. Many times the boys are awoken for school to the sound of their dad screaming (I train in the kid’s playroom), or gasping for air like a fish outta water as the total effort forces me out of anerobic and into aerobic.

I have a love & hate relationship with Back & Leg Day, if you can’t tell.

I do 3 drop sets of each. 1st set is at least 8 but not more than 12 reps, then drop and do at least 6 but not more than 8, then one last drop and go to failure. Once I can do at least 12 & 8 reps over the 1st two sets I add weight. Its basically a HIT routine & I love it.

Note: all I have for weight is a set of Bowflex SelectTech 1090 dummbells plus some odds & ends. All resistance band work is as many reps as I can do in 1 minute 1st set, then repeat for 45 seconds for 2nd set, then the 3rd set to failure.

My Day From Hell (in order):

• Straight Leg Deadlifts
• Static Lunges w/ DBs
• Rear Delt Standing Rows w/ resistance band
• Front ATG Squats
• Full Range Of Motion Lat Pulldown w/ resistance band
• Incline DB “T Bar” Rows (a variation I came up with)
• Tiptoe Calf Raises in Doorway w/ DB
• Bent Over DB Rows
• Incline DB Shrugs

It usually takes me just under an hour. But the pain echoes for days.

I love it.

Until next Wednesday morning…

I’ve read countless times how people trying to lose weight have difficulty avoiding the sweets, in particular chocolate. Its not uncommon knowledge that really good, high cocoa butter chocolate is good for you, but its also pretty high in fat & sugars.

There is an alternative.

A tasty alternative, a healthy alternative, an alternative that should rightfully go along any other supplement you take on a daily basis.

Its non-alkaline cocoa powder. Why? Not many people know the following:

1) This variety of processed chocolate is very high in cocoa solids, which gives it an ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) score that is literally off the charts. For example, gram for gram it has 10x more anti-oxidants than fresh blueberries! (Note - its important that it’s the non-alkaline processed form.)

2) Its amazingly waistline friendly! Per tablespoon (5g) the one I get at my local oragnic food co-op has:

• 15 calories
• .5g fat (0g sat or trans)
• .6g carbs (thats right, LESS than 1g!)
• 0g sugar
• 1g fiber
• 1g protein

3) Oh yeah….ITS CHOCOLATE! IT TASTES GREAT!!! Granted its not sweetened, but add a packet of whatever sweetener you like (I use stevia) and we are in business! Mix it in some fat free plain yogurt & freeze it and you have a great dessert that is actually GOOD for you!

For a chart showing how it stacks up:

http://www.rawdarkchocolate.com/xocai-antioxidant-orac-values.html

Excuse any typos, please. My dexterity isn’t firing on all cylinders at the moment. Didja ever notice how your fingers stop working when you are exhausted?

Very atypical Friday. No school for the boys so I got to sleep in. Ate my standard breakfast later than usual, then got ready for Shoulders & Bis. Usually by this time I’m long done training, so its nice to be able to train a lil’ later - more awake, joints looser, etc.

Anyway, not sure why but was in an antsy mood. Coulda been the extra sleep, maybe it was all those great carbs & fats in last night’s dinner? I made my own brown sushi rice and had an awesome roll with fresh steelhead trout (might as well have been salmon), avocado and some flax seeds. Add fresh wasabi paste *wooooooooo* and pickled ginger….hhmmmmmm.

Anyway, back to antsy. I’m practically bouncing around (sorry for the visual) and stretched to my favorite genre of music - 80s hair rock. NOW I’m really fired up.

I tore it up. Had a great workout. Moved a lot of weight during the bigger, full body lifts & ended up downshifting on the fly to some high intensity, no breaks muscletrophy sets for a number of late in the session bi lifts. Finished up the week & session with one of my favorites - Jackknife Push-Ups. These BLAST your shoulders & work the core. Great way to end any Shoulder day.

To use my "brospeak" I was "swole". Had a MASSIVE pump. Just sick. Love it…..

Prior to this workout I quickly assembled a playlist of 80’s hair tunes from my, um, "iCollection". It really pushed me thru. So, in honor of this I’m going to try to start a new feature on BuckSpin’s BodyBlog - "Bad Hair Daze". Every Friday I will try to post one hidden 80’s hair rock gem that you either haven’t heard or have heard in a LONG time.

This is, IMHO, one of the best covers no one has ever heard. Shame this band was deemed too "scary" to really promote. Great bluesy rock. Anyway, to start "Bad Hair Daze" enjoy this Motown standard covered by Little Caesar.

I often wonder…is it just a Y chromosome thing?

This type of music (and this one in particular) just GETS to me. It psyches me up, but not in a loud, frenzious way. No, its more of a slow boil. On the outside everything looks about the same. Maybe my body language is a little more synchronized, confident. I’m quieter, a lil’ edgy maybe. I’m sure the only physical manifestation is in my eyes. I’m really not seeing anything.

I’m not looking out, but looking IN. Deep inside. I’m sure many of you can relate & often see that look yourselves. Do you like what you see wayyyyyyy down in there? Does it scare you that you can’t see the bottom? That you just KNOW you are capable of SO much more than you think you are?

When I hear this I…just…want…to…go…hit…something. Its primal. Raw. The orchestral melodies of the horns & strings are the body physical, ever moving in an engineering masterpiece of perfect harmony. The thunderous percussion & tympani are the heart & blood, pumping harder and faster with each sweeping crescendo.

But is it just a guy thing? Do the pounding drums and soaring scores appeal & awaken some long dormant "warrior" aspect of the male species, long buried under contemporary society’s weight? Or is it a soul thing, stirring the embers of all those who fight, echoes of battles fought and fights to come again and again? Not necessarily battles against a physical opponent (although I first found that look while playing football) but nowadays primarily battles against one’s self and limitations?

I’d be curious as to what the women of BB have to say. In the interim, enjoy Hans Zimmer’s great composition:

I haven’t done any "real" cardio since I ran the Maine Lobster Festival 10K on August 3rd. I do get a great sweat & cardio workout doing my various Hard Core workouts and I lift intensely enough to get out of anaerobic and into aerobic, but I haven’t run in 2 months. It was mostly bad weather on my one day a week to run, then schedule conflicts, my shoulder injury, etc. Plus, I was making great gains physically and still leaning out.

But it was so nice today, a beautiful Autumn day in Maine. The leaves are about 1/3 turned, it was crisp & cool, low sunlight, just gorgeous. So, primarily to just relax my mind and chill for a while, I decided to run a 10K. So I grabbed my Sansa Clip and headed out.

If you’ve read my Blog I’ve written numerous times about the great road I live on and that a round trip to each end is about 6.5 miles, with lots of great hills, etc.

I did it. It was not my best time, but I didn’t loaf or walk any of it. I ran it fair n’ square.

Its pretty cool to just go out & be able to run a 10K. I didn’t even break a serious sweat or really have any major issues stress or cardio wise. I’m a little stiff in the knees, lower back & hips, but it was great. It really relaxed me emotionally, spiritually & mentally.

One down side. I easily racked up a 800 calorie deficit, which is fine. However, when I train I use my shakes during & after so I’m well nourished immediately post-workout. However, with today I was just eating maintenance like I always do.

Big mistake.

I….was….RAVENOUS. I swore I was going to get an elbow cramp from eating. My body was SCREAMING at me to feed it. Its not used to being significantly calorie deficient that fast. I basically needed to eat about 30% ABOVE maintenance to just break even!!! It was almost comical.

But all in all, its pretty neat to just know I can do that when I want.

A quick aside: when I hit the "Defribulator" hill this particular version of this song came on (randomly due to shuffling) and just pushed me up it. Thought it might give you a peak inside & plus that you might enjoy it: