BuckSpin - A Year Of Change

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:

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:

Is it possible to relax and get fired up simultaneously? This does it for me. Many of you will recognize it as the main theme from "The Last of The Mohicans". I listen to this & a number of other instrumentals as part of a special mix for when I’m not in the mood for loud hard rock. For some reason this mood typically strikes on Wednesdays (aka "Legs/Back" aka "The Training Session From Hell") when the total weight moved goes WAY up.

Its also good to stretch pre-workout to in that it allows my muscles, tendons & ligaments to slowly wake up and loosen, but also gets my blood going at a slow, steady simmer. It kinda reminds me of the way I would get my "game face" on when I played football back in high school….a looooooooooong time ago! *sigh* Sometimes I’ve caught sight of "that look", that guy, that competitor, a silent assassin. Its nice to know that "he" is still in there, very much alive & enjoying this new life, this rebirth, a 2nd chance to come out and, um, "play", albeit just he vs. a lot of iron and my body’s fight or flight reflex that I can’t possibly do one more rep….then somehow do two.

He’s a bad @$$…I like him. *grin*

I’m posting two versions. One is from the original score with some imagery, the other just a haunting cover by Indiogenes.

The original from the movie soundtrack:

The Indiogenes cover performed live:

If you have read any of my previous Soul Fuel entries you know that, while I love a lot of contemporary hard rock, I blatantly & shamelessly listen to a lot of music from "back in the day", specifically my "days" in high school & college.

This is one of my standards. Its a great song, awesome beat and a very positive message. I listen to this often during training, especially when doing some cardio or my Hard Core workouts. It really helps to keep the energy flowing.

Make sure to listen to the refrain:

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:

I stumbled across this on YouTube one day, and it just lit…me…up. (disclaimer - played football for 7 years). Its a pregame speech by former NFL running back Derrick Moore, currently the Athletic Chaplain at Georgia Tech. At around the 1:20 mark he quotes his youth football coach’s mantra:

"You fight…
til’ you can’t fight no more.
You can’t fight no more…
you going to lie down and bleed a while.
We going to get up…
and fight some more"

When you are having trouble even lying down from that last set, and you have more sets to do, remember this.

This is perspective….

The next time you don’t want to work out, the next time you want to stop short & not squeeze out that last excruciating rep or not pick up the pace at the end of your cardio to as fast as you can, the next time you hit the SNOOZE button, the next time you feel sorry for yourself in any way, shape of form, let this amazing man & his equally amazing son keep things in perspective: