Euro4Ever’s BodyBlog

So, just finished week #5, and have been very true to the program. Have lifted weights 5 days a week for the last 5 weeks, without skipping any. Have failed at each set, as intended. Have pushed myself very hard, and have seen decent progress when it comes to the numbers I can LIFT..

But visibly.. no progress at all. I’m the exact same weight I was when I started, I have NO muscle showing anywhere, etc.

BUT I get to see that my husband has managed to make crazy visible gains doing EXACTLY the same thing I am! His delts are popping out, his biceps are much more noticable, and holy crap, when he’s actually lifting, he looks great.

On the other hand, in a moment of sheer frustration, I asked if my triceps even show when I was lifting for them yesterday. Even with skull crushers - NOPE.

Ugh.

Holy shit.

Just got back from the gym. Here’s how it went:

- Stretched a bit while Porter got ready

- Leg pressed 8 reps with at 200 lbs to warm up

- Leg pressed 2 reps at 700 lbs

- Spent 20 mins stretching and stuff while hubby did his race

- Added 50 lbs, leg pressed another 2 reps at 750

- Added 50 lbs, wasn’t able to push it back up, had to flip out sideways when it went all the way down, LOL

- Got the crazy idea to bump the weight to 1000 lbs and see if I could press it just beyond the safety range (about 3") to the end of my range (completely straight legs, but not locked knee)

- Managed the 1000 lbs for ~3" NO PROBLEM. Got the crazy idea to remove the safety when hubby wasn’t looking and see if I could bring it down further.. did about 4 reps varying between 6-8" range of motion!!!!!

MUAHAHA!!

Of course the 1000 lbs is in no way legit till I bring it down further, but I’m already at about 120 degrees, not that much further to bring it under 90 degrees!

The most I’ve ever tried to do before, so far as I can recall, is probably about 600, back in my teens.

K, before I confess how horrible leg day went, Here’s the announcement: I got my husband to sign up on bodyspace finally! His profile is at http://bodyspace.bodybuilding.com/oceanofapathy/  .. so feel free to add him and give him some encouragement!

Ok, so about an hour before hitting the gym, caved in, and had a slice of lemon poppyseed bread. Problem being, of course, that I’m allergic to wheat I felt like crap when I got to the gym. Brain fog, really tired, and just generally crappy.

So of course, I made next to no gains this week.

Worse yet, I maxed out so bad on the first rep of my 3rd set of leg press, that I almost had to quit at that point. Talked to the gym owner for a few mins - he tried to make me feel better, said I was posting great numbers, blah blah..  but in the end, I was too mad about it to leave the gym, and made myself bang out the last set. I haven’t had to skip ANY sets yet, I really didn’t like the idea of starting now.

So, here’s the results:

Leg Extensions:

First week: 70/85/100/115
Second week: 85/100/115/130
Third week: 100/115/130/145

Hamstring Curls:

First week: 80/95/110/125
Second week: 105/120/125/140
Third week: 115/130/140/140

Leg Press:

First week: 230/280/330/380
Second week: 280/330/380/430
Third week: 360/410/450(1 rep, failed, took a break), 270 for 9 reps/370

Ya know, as I type this out, maybe it’s not as bad as I thought. I just really felt like crap, and I really wanted to move more weight than I did. I was really upset by it

I’ll apologize in advance - wrote this for a group I’m on this morning, there’s a bit of redundancy with my last post:

Man I hope I’m not boring everyone, the list is so quiet!

At the time I posted my Day 1, I still had to do abs after work (Ugh!). So here’s how that went… I’m still shocked.

Monday

Crunches (reps):
1st Week: 12/10/8/6
2nd Week: 12/10/8/6
3rd Week: 30/15/20/10

Leg Lifts (reps):
1st Week: 12/10/8/6
2nd Week: 12/10/8/6
3rd Week: 20/20/20/10

Side Bends (Weight in each hand, 12/10/8/6 reps):
1st Week: 25/25/25/25
2nd Week: 25/25/25/25
3rd Week: 25/25/25/25

Tuesday

Lat Pulldown:
1st Week: 50/60/70/80
2nd Week: 60/70/80/90
3rd Week: 70/80/90/100

Deadlifts:
1st Week: 40/50/55/60
2nd Week: 45/55/65/75
3rd Week: 60/75/100/120

Row:
1st Week: 50/60/70/85
2nd Week: 60/70/85/100
3rd Week: 70/85/100/130

Weighted Calf Raises:
1st Week: N/A  (Didn’t start till week 2)
2nd Week: 100/110/120/140
3rd Week: 130/140/150/160

What’s fun about the weighted calf raises is this: I can totally look at it like "doing full-range calf raises with a person on my shoulders". Muahaha!

Overall, I’m pretty happy with progress. Specifically:

Crunches: These 3 weeks, I have ABSOLUTELY done more crunches than I have in the rest of my life, put together.  The first 2 weeks, it was really a struggle to even do the reps we’re doing for everything else. I have NO idea what happened in the 3rd week, but WOW! Really exciting!

Lat Pulldown: The most I’ve ever done any kind of reps with before this has been 80. Getting up to 100 in a 4th set feels good.

Deadlift: OOOH YAAAA!!! I forgot to do them yesterday, so did it first thing this morning. HELL YA, doubled my fatigue point on the last set in 2 weeks!! Unfortunately, I’m now 20 lbs away from hitting the max weights we actually own, so more $$$. Also, I need to buy lifting straps ASAP - my hands/wrists were NOT handling 120 well at all.

Tonight is LEG DAY! I love leg day! I look forward to it all week, and have a new goal. Starting this week, every weekend I’m going to do a mini leg day - just gonna pile an insane amount of weight on, and see what my max is for like 2 reps… the eventual goal being to be able to leg press 1000 lbs before the new year. Hey, if an actor (Hugh Jackman) can do it, a badass former figure/speedskater should be able to, right?

Adding this mini leg day halfway through the week gives me plenty of time to recover from my actual leg day - I don’t want to do it on the same day, because I don’t want it to affect the program I’m doing negatively, and doing it *after* I do all my leg day sets wouldn’t be an accurate representation of what I can actually lift. The whole "reaching failure 4 times thing" and all.

Counting the truck, I’m actually leg pressing 530ish lbs for 6 reps on my 4th set now, so I don’t think it’s too outta line to aim for 750 for a couple reps. If it’s too much, I’ll dial it down a bit.. if I can handle 2, I’ll add some. Cross your fingers!

I’ll confess, I’ve NEVER been one to do crunches, sit ups, or anything of the like. If I’ve done 50 total, ever, all added up in my whole life prior to this week, I’d be surprised.

Last night I did 75! ACK! LOL.

I was so worried that I’d be completely immobile today - for about an hour afterwards,I was in a ton of pain. Then it just went away.  I was actually sort of worried that maybe I didn’t push it hard enough, but I did as many as I can - right to COMPLETE failure - 4 times.  Probably doesn’t sound like much to many of you out there, but it was a HUGE victory for me.

No abdominal soreness at all today either.. but holy crap, my upper arms are killing me!!  I think I pushed it too hard on the pec deck yesterday AM, that’s all I can think that would cause this. Ugh.

Tonight is back day.. hope the arm pain doesn’t kibosh any progress there.. then Wednesday is LEGS DAY! WOO!

Legs day, I think, is what really keeps me going. I’m so far below average on everything else, it’s nice to be able to push a ton of weight *one* day of the week. It helps heal the ego damage that chest day and my measly 20 lb bench press causes

I would love to be able to leg press 1000 lbs by next NYE. Possible? Dunno.. but I’m gonna try my hardest.

With today as the last chest day of the first 3 week set, I went extra hard to start. Am happy to have seen some definite improvement. Chest is my WORST part to work, I never really hit it before (EVER), so it’s been the quickest to improve.

I am really loving this program. I’m very distractable, and very goal oriented/competitive, so constantly adding weights has really kept my attention/ambition.

Chest/Abs.

Incline Dumbell Press:
1st Week: 40/45/50/55
2nd Week: 45/50/55/60
3rd Week: 50/60/70/75

Bench Press:
1st Week: Bar Only/5/10/15
2nd Week: 5/10/15/20
3rd Week: 15/25/30/25 (30 on 1st rep, wussed out for last 5)

Pec Fly:
1st Week: 40/50/60/60 (first 2 sets were as cable crossovers)
2nd Week: 30/45/60/75
3rd Week: 45/75/90/90

Cardio: 5 mins on elliptical, my hip wasn’t holding up well at all Went and got a good stretch in, though - am definitely seeing gains in range there.

(Side note, because I probably haven’t mentioned it here. I ****ed my hip up pretty bad probably a month or so before I started this routine. It’s been fairly slow to heal, but has been much better the past couple weeks. )

So we’ve made some slight changes to the program as we’ve gone, but now at the end of the second week, I think we have it all set.

1. We started out with cable crossovers at the beginning of week 1. We changed this to pec flys halfway through week 1.

2. We got rid of all of the "hell stairs", in favor of weighted calf raises on leg day. Much more benefit from this.

3. Hubby added the butt blaster (??) machine to his legs day for the second week. I am considering adding it to mine, but I dunno. I think my butt is big enough.

4. Today we decided to add cardio 3 times per week - Monday mornings after "chest day", Wednesday mornings (with legs day in the evening), then Saturday afternoons.

I’d given updates to the end of Wednesday, here are my Thursday/Friday reports:

Thursday PM: Shoulders. Met failure at each target # of reps (12/10/8/6)
Lateral Raises (each side): 5/10/10/10 (Last week: 5/5/10/10)
Bent lateral Raises (Each Side): 5/10/10/10 (Last Week: 5/5/10/10)
Military Press (each side): 10/17/17/20 (Last week: 5/5/10/10)

Friday: Biceps/Triceps

Dumbbell Curls (Each side): 10/15/17/20 (Last week: 10/15/17/20)
Barbell Curls: 20/25/20/25 (Last week: 20/20/20/20)
Single Tricep Extension: 10/15/17/20(Last week: 10/15/17/20)
Skull crushers: 20/25/25/25 (Last week: 15/20/25/25)

Shoulders and Biceps/Triceps seem to be progressing MUCH slower than everything else, which is pissing me off and making me feel like a big wimp!!!

This coming week is the last week before the change in tempo. I’m dreading the change. Not so much dreading doing it, I’m dreading the numbers I’ll have to post. My numbers are so low as it is, and you really have to decrease them to pull off the slow count, 4 up, 4 down. Ugh. Yay, more feeling like a big wuss!

So, I’m feeling pressure to just pile on as much weight as I can this week and hope for the best! Still looking forward to week 10 - going back and redoing week 1, just to compare for progress.

I am a HUGE (in more ways than one, LOL) fan of the X-Men movies, particularly the Wolverine character. Never read the comic books, but I’ve had May 1st on my calendar for 6months +. He appeals to me in a unique way - I can *relate* to the character, lol. I’ve always healed ridiculously fast, and healed from things I wasn’t supposed to. The fact that it’s been almost 11 years since I’ve been told I’d never walk properly again (major car accident, "permanent" back injury).. and probably 7 since I healed completely without even a sign of the slab of scar tissue that took over my back.. yah.

So of course, when deciding that it’s time to get my shit together and get back to my pre-accident shape (that hypothyroid piled 100 lbs on in the 3 months aftr the accident!).. I did some google research on Hugh Jackman’s routine. Then BB.com came out with a story on it, and I’ve been following a slightly tweaked version for the last week. My husband is also doing it, and that really helps - egging each other on in the gym has been wonderful!

The basics: We’re doing 9 weeks of each set of exercises, broken down into 3 weeks each of 3 different tempos/style of lifting. The first 3 week set is regular tempo, next 3 weeks is 4 count up, 4 count down, last set of 3 weeks is "explosive power", heavy weights.  4 sets each exercise, aim to failure on each set (at 12/10/8/6 reps, respectively), adding weights each set. 5 Days of lifting (Mon-Fri), aiming to do some sort of fun activity on the weekend.

First off.. holy crap. If you look at the chart, it seems like a really easy workout… but it beat the shit out of both of us BIG TIME last week!

I’ve made sure to get every rep I’m supposed to, so I’ll just be posting the weights for each set.

Here’s what my week looked like:

Monday: We were busy, and didn’t feel like doing our workout. Both agreed to get
up early and do Monday’s workout (chest) early Tuesday morning.

Tuesday AM: Chest/Abs.

Incline Dumbell Press: 40/45/50/55 (This week: 45/50/55/60)
Bench Press: Bar Only/5/10/15 (This Week: 5/10/15/20)(I SO seriously hate benchpress!)
Pec Fly: 40/50/60/60 (This Week: 30/45/60/75)
Cruches (reps only,unweighted): 12/10/8/6 (This Week: 12/10/8/6)
Leg lifts (reps only, unweighted):12/10/8/6 (This Week: 12/10/8/6)
Side Bends (25lb weights each hand): 12/10/8/6 (This Week: 12/10/8/6)

Tuesday PM: Back / Calves.

Lat Pulldown: 50/60/70/80 (This week: 60/70/80/90)
Deadlifts: 40/50/55/60 (This Week: 40/55/65/75)
Rows: 50/60/70/85 (This Week: 60/70/85/100)
Calves: Did 4 sets of "hell stairs". Decided to change this to weighted calf raises for all future weeks. (This week: 100/110/120/140)

Wednesday PM: Legs.

Leg Extensions: 70/85/100/115 (This Week: 85/100/115/130)
Leg Curls: 80/95/110/125 (This Week: 105/120/125/140)
Leg Press: 230/280/330/380 (This Week: 280/330/380/430)

Thursday PM: Shoulders. (We were SO sore from Tues, we felt like total wimps with the small amount we could pull off!)

Lateral Raises (each side): 5/5/10/10
Bent lateral Raises (Each Side): 5/5/10/10
Military Press (each side):5/5/10/10

Friday: Biceps/Triceps

Dumbbell Curls (Each side): 10/15/17/20
Barbell Curls: 20/20/20/20
Single Tricep Extension: 10/15/17/20
Skull crushers: 15/20/25/25

So,overall… I’m proud of the fact that we stuck it out for the week and a half, especially given how sore we were all week last week. Even when tired, we’ve been really good about egging each other on, I’m loving this arrangement. When I don’t want to do the work, I still force myself to, partially because I don’t want to let my husband down. We’re very codependant in the gym,LOL.

So far this week, each day has been much easier than last week, and we haven’t been anywhere near as sore afterwards. Monday and Tuesday this week, I couldn’t even "feel" the workout that evening/next morning!

I’m also happy that I’ve managed to pretty consistently stack on the weight, and that everything this week has been an improvement over last. Oh, and I’m kicking ass on the leg press. I’m almost certain that the "add weight after each set" wasn’t talking about adding 50 each set, or starting 50 lbs higher this week. LOL.

I feel pretty good!

Next week is the last week of this 3 week stretch, then we change to lighter weights and slow tempo. I cannot WAIT till the 9 weeks are up, and we’ll go back to week 1 and see what kind of a difference we’ve managed to come up with!