D.Alan’s BodyBlog

Don’t know what I did, but something has my right shoulder hurting with flat or decline flyes and bench presses, so much that I can’t lift much weight,   It started last week, but was just sore for a day or two afterward and seemed to be better, but this week when I tried the flat bench and flyes it really started hurting.  I am not too happy, of course.  I can do incline flyes and presses OK, so it must be just one specific muscle or something.

Things seem to be OK in the BF% area.  Pinch measurement over the weekend was down from the week before, and I have been noticing some "veinage" lately here & there which would indicate the BF is down some more.  My forearms are showing some more veins than usual, and I noticed the other night that I had just a little showing in my calves.  That really psyched me.  Of course I still have the rubber around the middle so there is still a ways to go yet, but every little step over time means a big step closer to the goal.  Though, I got looking at my records and see that my BF% pinch total is down only 5 mm from last year at this time.  I thought I had made better progress than that.

Summer seems to have finally found my part of the world and it’s good to get outside in the sleeveless shirts and get some sun on the arms.  Cottage season is coming very quickly so I am very much looking forward to more sun and some swimming.

But until then I need to keep liftin’.

Wow, been a  few weeks since I posted an entry in the blog.  Just been busy with work and liftin’, I guess, and throw in a three-day weekend trip last weekend and there isn’t much extra time to go bloggin’.

The efforts of my year-and-a-holf of lifting were worth it this week.  I was at a retirement gathering for a colleague and there were a number of now retired colleagues at the party that I hadn’t seen in some time, for some of whom it’s been several years.  Boy, did I get a lot of compliments on my appearance.  One asked me if I was "bringing sexy back" which was about the best comment I received the entire time.  I guess this lifting stuff is working!

Then yesterday I get a phone call from a friend who’s passing through the area, can we grab a bit to eat together?  Sure.  I hadn’t seen this friend in a number of years also and he was quite complimentary about the way I now look, and was asking detailed questions on what I am doing for a routine.  He’s been trying to eat right and work out but has a very erratic work schedule so the gains he makes when he sticks to the routine are lost when he has to hit the road or things get too busy.  He at least has a guy advising him in a personal trainer sort of role.

Anyway, all these enounters this week sure energized me.  With the trip last weekend with no lifting for about five days and not eating exactly right, I was down a bit when I got home to find the scale being up a bit and the BF% pinch total the week before was up a little and so on.  I was feeling like I was sliding back, so I was very glad to get the face-to-face compliments.

The BF% pinches this week were down little so I am back to where I was about two weeks ago, so the progress continues, albeit slowly.  Three steps forward, two back.  Summer is here and I still can’t see my abs, which was originally a goal of mine, but I will keep at it.  The only problem is during the summer the lifting schedule gets crazy because I start alternating back and forth bewteen the house and the cottage, and the weeks I am at the cottage there’s no lifting, though there is swimming.  So, the summer lifting schedule is essentially a week on and a week off.  It works, I just don’t make a lot of progress.

I have a couple of weeks yet before the cottage trips start. so for now I’ll keep liftin’.