Bunit2’s BodyBlog

Why is it that I have spent all of this time training and getting in the best shape of my life only to keep getting reminders that I am aging at a rate that is quicker than I care to count?  I’ll tell you why I get those reminders.  It’s usually from my Airmen at work.

The other day I was telling an Airman about how I was thinking about buying the game "Punchout" for the Nintendo Wii.  This dude asked me "what’s that?"  I just assumed he knew about the old punchout series games so I was like "well, I think it’s supposed to be like the old punchout games, ya know?"  Still he was totally confused.

So I continue to drop useless clues. "Ya know…PUNCHout?"

"Uh uh" he replies.

"MIKE TYSON’S Punchout?"

"Nope."

That’s when I realized this dude is only 20 years old.  Now I have to explain that Punchout was a game on the original Nintendo.  I have downloaded a copy of it to my Wii so I tell him I have to let him see it one day.

Ironically, enough that isn’t the first time this has happened to me at work.  For Christmas last year I got the first season of "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe."  I was like the guys at work might like to watch this during some downtime.  Much to my surprise a couple of dudes didn’t even know who He-Man was.  One guy walks in while we are watching and is like "What the fk is this?"  I mean I’m looking at this kid like he’s crazy and "What do you mean what the fk is this,"  almost laughing "what does it look like?" 

"I don’t know," he replies "some cheesy 80’s cartoon."

"It’s He-Man dude."

"He…Man…?"

"Yeah mother ****er it’s He-Man, you know with Skeletor and all those guys."

Didn’t ring any bells.  And this guy was about 23-24.

LMAO one last story.  My 2-year-old son and a co-worker’s 8-year-old son are sitting in the living room playing Wii and I’m all like "hey guys, wanna see what I played when I was your age?"

"Sure" the 8-year-old says.

I start up a game of Tecmo Bowl and once again I start up Punchout not to shortly there after.  Both of these kids kind of look at me while I’m playing this game as to say "Fk that these games suck."  Shortly thereafter both of these kids went outside to play.  LOL who goes outside to play anymore these days.  My "old school" gaming had turned them off so bad they decided to go outside. 

It amazes me how the 80s was an amazing era to us who lived through it.  We try to share our past with kids and young adults today and they are surprised we lived through that.  I mean sure we didn’t have our first cell phone at eight years old but cartoons and games were awesome.  We still played outside.  I would do it all again if I could.  Wow what a difference a decade or two makes lol.

Now I know a lot of times I might have a rant or something small that pisses me off but this inspirational member feature they added this week is some total BS.  I was reading stevep78’s blog today and it really opened my eyes.  There are some people up here who I really respect on this site.  People who know a lot about training and actually get out there and practice what they preach.  I’m not saying that I have anything against overweight people.  Hell, the purpose of this site is for all of us to help each other with our fitness goals.  I wouldn’t be trying to work on my personal trainer certification if I didn’t want to help people get fit.

What I’m pissed about is there was forum started as a joke to promote a certain individual as "inspirational."  I’m not going to name drop but I’m pretty sure if you look at the most inpirational members, one of them is not like the others.  How did this happen?  Some doofus decided to promote this guy as a joke.  If you don’t believe me one of our fellow bodybuilders provided this link:

 http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=116963241

I have a problem any time guys like SuperMaine can’t make the top list because damn near 400 people voted for some dude who obviously doesn’t give a fk about his own personal fitness.  I’m sorry, that’s not inpsiring to me at all.  How do I know this dude doesnt’ give a fk you ask?  Well considering the fact that this guy has been on the site since 2006 and has only lost 4 lbs. is a good clue.  It doesn’t exactly look like he put weight on in muscle. 

So here’s what I’m going to do.  I am going to actually going to start looking at profiles, reading people’s stories and voting them as inspirational.  I was against the whole system at first but if this is the way it’s gonna be more than one person can play this game.  I have a very small following but I encourage you to do the same thing.

-For the first time I made it to week 3 of my Hi/Lo workout.  This week it added a few new exercises and a few extra sets to the routine.  I am really liking it so far.

-If you read my blog yesterday (titled "Life Saver") you know how I kept the guy from choking him self with a 225 lb. bench press the other day.  Well today I’m on base going to the pharmacy and one of the dudes from the gym was walking out with another guy and yells out loud "oh s**t, it’s him.  It’s the Life Saver."  This s**t was funny as hell to me because he proceeded to tell the story but he was so excited and animated.  Hilarious.

-An opportunity to deploy came up today.  Is it wierd that I was all excited and volunteered.  I haven’t been deployed in 2 years and the assignment they want to send me over there for is so cake.  I hope I get it, but I’m kind of valuable to the shop so I think they are going to send an Airman.  They want to send someone to Qatar for a desk job.  That would just be too cool.

-I was having a perfectly good day in the gym today because it wasn’t very crowded and I was enjoying a good, solid workout.  All of the sudden the place started getting crowded.  Like I’ve mentioned before, my gym is small and everyone decided to invade my man space.  I had a guy that kept bending over right next to my face to change out DB’s every 2 seconds.  No big deal.  I actually had a pretty cute girl start doing curls right next to my head while I was doing incline curls.  Really not to big a problem there (she had nice legs lol).  The hugest violation of man space occured when I went back to the gym a second time (didn’t get to work triceps as planned earlier).  I was doing cable overhead tricep extension and another guy was doing supersets of  different back exercises on the other side.  He got onto the lat pulldown machine when some other dude takes over the machine.  The superset guy says "hey man I’ve got 2 sets left."   The other guy proceeds to take adjust the guys settings on the cable and change the bar.  Then he says "I can work in with you.  Now mind you, I’m on the other side sitting on a bench with my legs spread.  What the gayest thing this dude could do?  He starts doing cable ab crunches like maybe a foot away from my junk!  This is the single gayest incident I have every witnessed in the gym.  I mean I’m in mid-set and in comes this dude just bobbing for glory!  People where staring.  I mean I don’t really care but luckily I was almost done because I damn sure was trying to keep from laughing.  I couldn’t believe this s**t.  The superset dude was looking at the situation and was like "fk that s**t you can have the machine" and walks away.  I’m done blogging for tonight nothing can top that.

Yesterday I was going through the forums and reading some of things that annoy people at the gym.  It was really hilarious.  It ranged from people getting mad about equipment hogs to people frowning on gym attire.  Some of it was really stupid but I think we can all agree that there is some really annoying S**t that happens at the gym sometimes.  Just for fun I have composed a list of things that get on my nerves at the gym.

#10-The Excessive Grunter

Now everyone let’s out a good grunt every now and then.  No big deal.  There are some people that find a way to do it as loud as they can and do it on every rep of every set.  No one is really lifting that heavy.  Usually there is a workout partner yelling equally as loud.  Most often these are the buffest dudes at the gym and they want to make sure you know it.  Not really a big deal but it gets a little distracting when right in the middle of your bench press you hear a huge RAWWWWRRRRR!!!!! Then you hear a bunch of "mini-rawrs" afterwards.  It’s kinda funny to hear weightlifters sounding like dogs at Michael Vick’s house.

#9-The Weight Slammer

Generally, the same guys as #10.  Even more distracting because you never really expect it so you wonder WTF is going on (especially if you can’t see where the noise is coming from).  To make it worse, these guys find ways to slam weights you didn’t think possible (how in the hell did this guy find a way to slam the tricep extension machine).  They go out of their way to slam weights for the attention.  I saw a dude one day doing machine shoulder presses and he actually pulled on the bars after the last rep so he could slame the weights.  Really?

#8-The Ab Machine Hog

I know the gym equipment is first come first serve but damn.  Some days I have the ab machine as part of my workout and it’s hard as hell to get on that machine.  The reason why is often times (no offense to any ladies in here) there are a bunch of women who come to the gym and do nothing but work on the ab machine.  I know a lot of ladies have a stigma attached to lifting weights.  They think they will get big and manly looking.  Every so often you will see ladies who only do legs, cardio, and abs.  I can even live with that.  What I can’t live with is working out for like 1.5-2 hours and never getting on the machine because the same person is on it.  Then that person finally gets off so I hurry up to wipe of the equipment I’m using and another person lines up to use the machine for like an hour–and that’s the only exercise I have left.  To make it worse, the whole time I use the machine you get these nasty glares from women who are waiting to get on the machine.  My fault if my 5-10 minute routine has violated you in some way.

#7-The Guy Who Doesn’t Use a Locker

This S.O.B has half of his personal items sprawled all over the gym.  The gym I workout at is small already so when you see a piece of equip you have to jump on it.  I can’t stand to see guys put their gym bag on a bench they are not using.  I’m not talking about leaving your bag on a bench so you can do supersets with another exercise.  I mean never use the machine or bench at all!  One day I had a guy leave a gym bag on one bench and a Blackberry on the one next to it.  Then he was using the third bench.  Now he’s occupying 3 benches.  How do I approach this guy?  "Excuse me, is it cool if I wor a set in with your cell phone?"

#6-The Equipment Hog

This is different from #7 and #8.  This guy goes from one piece of equipment to the next, often leaving some item behind to mark his territory.  This makes it come back to use the equip again.  Like I said before, it’s one thing to do supersets it’s another to string together 5-6 different exercises from totally different muscle groups while only doing like 3 reps on each.  Even if they don’t leave anything behind to mark their spot, they always find a way to get in front of you before every exercise.  Can’t you stay in one spot for two seconds.

#5-The Talker

Every now and again it’s cool to stop and talk to a dude who you might not have talked to in a while.  Hell some people might actually have something to say important.  What’s not cool is spending 30 minutes out of someone’s workout time to talk about B.S.  What you did last weekend.  What you are doing next weekend.  What happened at work today.  This is especially true when I tell you I have to be to work in a few minutes.  Worst case scenario:  This same guy is still talking when you hit the showers.

#4-The Rhythm Breaker

This dude always finds a way to come way too close to you while you are working out.  If you are doing curls walks past you from like two inches away, cutting off your range of motion in the process.  My favorite is the guy that stand right in front of you when you are using a mirror to check form.  What makes it worse is there is a s**t load of room around for him to go around you.  Seriously?

#3-The Naked Man

Every single time, without fail, thier is always one old, wrinkly, naked man that finds a nice cozy spot next to you in the locker room.  He may or may not talk but if you are on the bench tying you shoes he always appears from the shadows and always finds a way to strike a Captain Morgan pose right in front of your face.  Ever heard of man space?

#2-The Rester

Ever get finished with your next to last exercise and a person beats you to your last piece of equipment?  Have you ever decided to wait for that equipment and the guy does like 6 easy reps and then rests for 10 minutes?  Then he does like 5 sets?  I guess this is just as much my fault because I could ask to jump in but that’s pretty inconvenient for both of us.

#1-The Way Too Close Guy

This guy is similar to the rhythm breaker but he doesn’t actually cut off your range of motion.  He just always finds a way to invade your man space.  While you do DB bench press he is standing right over your head doing curls.  He finds a way for his nuts to be in your face no matter what (how in the hell did this dude get his nuts up to the pull-up bar).

Should have made the list-The casual weightlifter

Now I’m all about people getting fit, but I get tired of the guy that shows up like once a week (or less) just to work chest and bi’s.  He beats you to every machine and he’s using terrible form.  He’s a combination of the rester and the talker because he is in there shooting the breeze with his homies.  This guy and his four freinds take forever on the bench press because they each have to get their set in and then talk about work in between sets.  To make it worse, half of my base sends people to the gym to workout for PT instead of training outside somewhere as a group.  As a result, the gym is packed with casual lifters all afternoon. 

Overall, the people at the gym are pretty cool.  This is just my list of things that kinda get on my nerves when they do happen.  Oh well, what can you do?

So I’m working on my last set for the day.  A hi/lo set of DB shoulder shrugs when all of the sudden the gym goes quiet…except for a couple of dudes on the other side of the gym repeatly saying "oh $**t!"  Just as I’m switching out weights I have this feeling that something just really isn’t right.  I drop my weights only to find a fellow weightlifter trapped underneath 225 lbs. of bench press weight.  Now all of us have probably been in this situation or seen someone else in this situation but this time it was different.  Out of like 20 people in the gym, everyone froze except for me.  I ran over to help the guy and this was worst than any gym accident I had ever seen.  The bar had landed on the guys throat!  I had my back turned to him when I went to go help and I’m pretty sure I was the last guy to notice what was going on everyone else was just kind of staring.

When I got over there I noticed the weight on this guys neck and his eyes had already started rolling to the back of his head.  I had straddled the bench to pick the weight up.  I could only get it up about an inch (just enough to take it off of his neck).  All of the weight was leaning to the guy’s left, making it difficult for either of us to control.  Thinking on the fly, I change my position so that I could one-arm row the weight off of this guy.  I’m standing there with the weight sitting straight up in the air as this guy hops up off the bench.  I sat the weight on the floor and this guy starts taking his weight off.  At first I walked away, but then I turned around to make sure he was okay and helped him take his weight off.

A couple of things went wrong here:

1) First, why do people get in an "oh s**t" moment and become so shocked that they can’t react.  I’ve been in so many situations like that when people get paralyzed with shock.  I’m not mad, just disappointed because we are all in the military and should be able to react to an "oh s**t" moment without any notice.

2) I think I heard a few chuckles and everything stopped for at least 20 seconds.  Anyone who’s ever been in that situation knows it’s not laughing matter.  That part DID piss me off.

3) People need to know their limitations.  I can tell who knows what they are doing in the gym and who does not.  Often you see the same faces on the regular basis.  Every now and again you see a recreation weightlifter in the building.  I’m not saying that’s a bad thing.  After all, I am considering being a personal trainer and I encourage any type of physical activity.  I’m just saying know your limits.  If you are a noob then workout with someone.  If not then ask someone for a spot.  I push myself as hard as anyone but I know before hand if I am going to fail on a rep about 90% of the time.  If you have to workout alone PLEASE take it upon yourself to cut your reps short.  If you just barely got 9 don’t go for 10 by yourself.  I am prepared for failure  because I always workout alone.  I have put a bench press bar on the lower rack before.  In a REALLY extreme case I have rolled the bar to my lap and sat picked the bar up.  Better a little embarassment there than to have it land on my neck.

I’m just saying there are plenty of dangers associated with every type exercise.  Know what you are getting into.  More importantly, know how to get out of what you are getting into. 

I ran my first 5K today.  My results were:

-11th Overall

-9th Overall male

-1st male age 20-29

Yep I got a first place finish for my age group in my first race.  I was in 3rd overall for over half of the race but I couldn’t maintain my pace.  I couldn’t see the first place guy during the entire race and I was right behind the 2nd place guy trying to keep pace with him.  It was kind of wild because the trail was in the woods so I had really know way of telling how far I had gone.  Next time I will wear a watch.  I was about 3-4 minutes ahead of my training pace.  I finished the race with a 24:36.  It was kind of weird because I dusted all of the young guys.  The older guys are the ones who really were blowing smoke.  I was surprised at a few of them.

The course was pretty tough.  It was uphill in some spots and downhill on others.  Some places had grass and others had mud.  It has been raining here for like 2 days straight.  Anyway, I finally was able to kick it up a notch once I heard crowd noise as I got outside of the stadium we started in.  I was able to hit a pretty decent sprint for about a quarter mile.  I was surprised because my quads were absolutely dead for like the last mile or so.  I could have kept pace if I had more endurance there.  It shouldn’t come as a shock to me though because I am doing endurance training in the weight room and I’m always struggling with my quads.  I have plenty of strength there but not the kind of endurance I need to perform well at these events.

A lot of the guys walked up to me after the race and gave me praises on the pace I had set early on.  After the 2nd place guy got away from me, all they could see was me and they had a lot of ground to make up because I was just barely within viewing range.  Anyway, it was a good run.  The overall winner ran like a 19:16 or somewhere in that range.  I got off to a good start I feel like for a beginniner.  I can’t wait to do one again.

I really kicked butt this week as far as training goes.  I notice my ab development was starting to fade (as I talked about in my last couple of blogs) so I got refocused on my diet, cardio, and ab training.  Had ab training on Wednesday and by yesterday morning I looked like I actually hit the gym somtimes lol.  I could actually see my abs without flexing.  I was up to 220 this week and set a goal of 200.  I already lost the first 3 lbs.  I figure if my comfort zone is 210 I’ll lose 10 extra pounds so I don’t trip when I start using a creatine again.  I have like a month worth in my gym bag but I haven’t been using it because I don’t want the water weight.

I made every workout this week and haven’t skipped since Saturday when I went out of town for the day.   Got a day off coming up on Monday so that should be nice.  Almost half way through with my 4 week program.  I will be starting a new program at the end of the month.  As brutal as this program is, I’m starting to get used to it.

I experimented with HIIT yesterday.  I had never done it before so I wanted to get a feel for where my target ranges should be on the treadmill.  It kind of sucks because the treadmill I chose didn’t have an operational heart rate monitor.  The good news is I know I didn’t push myself hard enough.  I ran for 11 minutes.  One minute between 8.5 and 8.6 and then 30 seconds at 7.0.  That put me at about 1.5 miles.  The plan I’m using in a few months has me doing HIIT for 3 session during my workout.  The longest sessions are 11 minutes so that’s why I wanted to test it out.  I now know that I need to push myself harder because I coasted through that workout session.  I might need to go up to about 9.0 because I definitely wasn’t at 90% whether I had a heart rate monitor or not.  I am kind of glad about my the distance I got in such a short period of time.  The last time I took the PT test I ran in the low 11:00 range.  If I still had some juice in the tank after yesterday, I should be back in the 10’s when I test again.

When I woke up yesterday I had a lot of positive comments on my bodyspace about my progress.  That always helps because I’m so hard on myself sometimes I miss any positive progress I make.  I have been getting a lot of compliments from fellow gym rats also.  One guy hadn’t seen me since I dropped the 40-50 lbs. and was damn near speechless when he approached me about it.  Another friend I work with saw me in the gym for the first time in a while (he’s been away from the shop for a few months and we work different hours).  He immidiately commented on how I was "getting ready for the beach" lol.

To make things even better, my boss (who I don’t always get along with) is putting me up for a quarterly award.  This shows me not only that he is fair, but that he doesn’t hold grudges.  I will have to get some info together that shows how much I contribute in the community and in the workplace.

The best part of this week is…it’s over.  I have been in a training class so I am on dayshift right now working Monday through Friday.   I am actually going to be off this weekend!  Happy Friday everyone

Earlier I said I wasn’t too mad that I gained some of my weight back.  Well, I might have lied…I’m furious!  I didn’t hit me until I went to upload some progress pictures.  While I developed in most areas my abs were beginning to flatten out.  I haven’t been getting any fatter so it’s just a lack of training.  I have been slacking on cardio and ab training but I’m fixing it.  A few weeks ago I was slacking on training period.  I would go for a jog a few times a week but I wasn’t hitting the weights and I was eating garbage.  Well, now I know what I have to do.  I’m glad I took those pics because they got through to me.  Just because I met my goal of being 210 lbs doesn’t mean I can just bs around and slack off.  Now is the time to get even more intense!  So now I’m setting a goal of being 200 lbs.  This time I have 18 lbs to go.  If I’m lucky I will be done with it by the end of the summer.  In any event, I have my workout schedule planned for the next 2 1/2 months.  I know when I’m changing my workout plans and everything.  I should be looking pretty ripped when I’m done.  Wish me luck.

-I have the most awesome day planner.  This thing tells me how to convert measurements, it has a time zone map, and a calorie counter.  It list the calorie content of the most common foods.  Almost everything I eat is in there!

-I found a desert that is pretty low in calories.  Strawberry shortcake!  The angel food sponge cakes have about 80 calories a piece.  2 tablespoons of Cool Whip has 25 calories and strawberries have 55 calories per cup.  Since I don’t plan on using a a cup of strawberries (or two tbsp of Cool Whip) that’s a pretty good snack if you feel like you absolutely have to have desert.

-I’m impressed with the progess I’ve made in my chest.  I’ve been gaining strength but more importantly I’ve been getting some endurance.  I’ve already been able to do more push ups.  I’m most impressed with the fact that my chest looks damn near the same flexed and unflexed now.

-Like I said in my last blog, I need to pay more attention to abs and cardio.  I thought I was getting fat again but it turns out my abs have just started flattening out.  Looks more washboard than ripped now.

-I went to a water park with my family this weekend and I decided to wear a pair of swimming trunks I couldn’t fit last year.  Apparently, I can’t fit them this year either.  Now they are too damn big!  I was dangerously flirting with plumber’s crack and had to wear a t-shirt.  I did buy a bunch of trunks from Old Navy.  It felt pretty good because even the size large shorts were too big for my waist.  I had to get a medium.  They are a little more snug around the thigh than I would like but they are still a good fit.  i guess I will be wearing those from now on.

So a month and a half after meeting my goal of 210 I shot right back up to 220.  I’m not too mad about it because I already know what went wrong and how to correct it.  I met my goal and got complacent.  I started skipping workouts like right after I met my goal.  I got completely off of my routine and most importantly I never allowed my metabolism to adjust to being 210. 

I’m back in my grind now and am halfway through week 2 of a four week program.  It’s pretty intense because one set of this workout is actually about 12 small sets with a 2-3 minute break in between.  You also do 3 sets of warm up exercises before the start of each muscle group.  I end up pretty worn out after these workouts but I really like it because of the results.  I was doing this workout for a while and then stopped at the beginning of week 3 so I’m going to finish this out strong and then I have two new workout plans for July and August.  I really can’t wait until August because that plan starts my HIIT program.  I am going to start incorporating some HIIT into my regular cardio routine just to get a feel for where I need to be when I start doing it on the regular basis.  It should benefit me more than the 3-6 mile jogs I have been going on.

Speaking of cardio, I’ve been cheating myself out of time I would normally spend working on abs and cardio.  I’ve been doing good this time around but the last time I tried this program I kind of just let those areas fall to the way side.  How come every workout program from the magazines always neglects abs?  They always have one exercise that you do a couple of times a week and that’s it.  I know that you have to at least target your obliques and lower abs at some point.

Overall, I’m good.  I’ve been getting back into my nutrition so the weight should start coming off in a little bit.  I’m trying to decide how much more weight I want to lose because I am thinking about getting on creatine again and I know that I will be pissed if I put on like 10 lbs. right now from water retention.  I’ll have to drop down to at least 200 before I can feel comfortable with that.  Maybe that should be my new goal.  That’s another problem I’ve been having lately.  I haven’t had any measurable goals.  I said I want to start doing 5K’s but after I enter one then what?  I have to remind myself to keep setting goals.