Gunrock’s BodyBlog

Our kids our fat.  Not mine specifically, but the kids in America as a whole.  They don’t exercise and they eat ridiculous amounts of food.

 So I was pretty pleased when my 9 year old wanted to workout w/ me.  My policy is to let them workout if they want to and not push them too much.  Of course before we started I told him he’s only going to get out of it what he puts into it.  He’s seen his older brother workout and get decent results from it and he’s seen what happened when that same brother stopped working out and started overeating.  Now my 10 year old is a born again exerciser and he’s apparently motivated the 9 year old to follow in his footsteps. 

The 9 year old had his first workout this week and I was very pleased.  He posted his first pr getting 3 x 10 @ 5 lbs in the flat bench.  I’m going to increase the weight in 2.5 lb increments making sure he can do @ least 10 reps before increasing the weight at all.  His goal is to be able to do pullups on next year’s Presidential physical fitness test.

I think he’ll do it. I’m proud of both of my junior Arnolds.

Had only one month to prepare.  I normally walk on the treadmill for cardio then start running to prepare for the annual PFT.  This time we were running an inventory PFT just so everyone could see where they stacked up so I decided not to run just continue walking and not to train crunches and pullups in high reps just to continue training them both w/ weights.

We did the PFT Friday 15 June at 7 am which is around the time I start work and 2.5 hours after my normal cardio time.  Anyway I was pleasantly surprised by how well I did.  I did 20 chinups like I normally do w/o any strain despite having not gone over 10 reps in about 6 months.  I was able to do 100 crunches in 2 minutes the only difference being I get done in 1 minute when I’ve trained crunches w/ high reps and this time I got done w/ only 30 seconds to spare.

The big shocker was my 3 mile run time.  I normally come in at about 23 minutes and despite having not run since the last PFT in November, I ran 24:03.  That’s w/ only walking on the treadmill at a 3 to 3.5mph pace!  I’ve decided to never run again since running hurts my knees and walking doesn’t and I appear to get almost the same results.  I think I’d have done even better if my bodyfat was lower so we’ll keep it up until the real PFT in November of this year.

Oh they measured my height and I’m 5′10 again.  Depending on who does it my height is always between 5′9.5 and 5′10.  I’m going to stick w/ 5′10 since they get that result when they’re being more careful about it.

My weight has gone up by 2 pounds.

Keep training hard everyone. Thanks for reading.

Strange things will get you motivated sometimes. I was in Wal Mart shopping w/ my wife yesterday and I saw a guy w/ a sleeveless t shirt on.  He was close to my size so I just had to know who’s arms were bigger. 

 I walked up to him and told him, "Sorry man I’m just checking to see if your arms are bigger than mine." They were bigger so I told him, "Looks like you got me, I’m going back to train. I’ll see you here in this same aisle in a couple of months."

He and I both laughed and I walked away but when I turned back around I could see he was doing the same thing cause he was looking at himself and at me.  I let him see that my back was wider and he and I laughed again.

 This is a great lifestyle b/c even though I’ll probably never see that guy again, we had something in common that you don’t see in a lot of other hobbies/sports etc.  I mean you don’t see people having spontaneous pickup basketball games in Wal Mart, you don’t see people spontaneously doing MMA at the gas station but you can alway spot another serious lifter and you automatically click.  Most of the times I’ve spoken to another weight trainer we’ve complimented and encouraged each other to stick w/ it. 

That’s what makes this all worthwhile.  My calves growing 2.5 inches since I started my bodyspace didn’t hurt either though

Just got this in the mail. Ordered it Monday and got it today, I’m very impressed w/ the service. 

Vid is inspiring in the sense that I was just amazed at the size of this guy. Frank McGrath is big. Very big. But still appeared symmetrical.

Very little music on this video and no talking so if you like all that, just save your money.  OTOH, if you want to watch someone who is intensely focused workout, get it now. (I guess you could put on your favorite workout music and watch the video and not have to worry about missing any dialogue) I felt like a slacker b/c I’m not that focused when I workout.  Also he’s got good form on the forearm work and it was good to see that his closegrip bench press hand placement was in a spot that won’t endanger the wrists.  I tried it in tonight’s workout and still got good tricep activation w/o having my fists right next to each other.

 I liked the video but it’s probably not for everyone.

Ok, I was so tired at the end of my reserve weekend that I forgot my running shoes at the drill center.  That’s a 172 mile round trip so they’re going to stay up there until my day off on Friday.  But…I committed to cardio everyday so I’m doing the treadmill barefoot this week.

It’s not as bad as I thought it would be, only problem is after about 20 minutes the bottom of my feet start to get hot spots.  Oh well, everybody send me a straw and I’ll suck it up. 

later

I’ve completed my first week of cardio.  It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.  My commitment is to do 45 minutes of cardio every single day.  The highlight was my reserve weekend. Saturday I taught a Marine Corps Martial Arts class after we ran 1.5 miles and today(Sunday) we did a 3 mile motivation run.  Lots of fun.
Arnold Classic is February 29, March 1-2.
Just 44 weeks left in my journey.

After checking out the articles on how to pose and how to properly measure your bodyparts I’ve decided to make some changes.  I measured my arms according to the new guidelines and put that up as my measurement. I plan to do all of my measurements today and post them.

One thing I’ve added is daily cardio. Trying to do it 3xs per week was too hard b/c things would always come up. Now I’ve committed to doing 45 min of cardio every single day.  That way it becomes a habit faster and eventually I can cut back on frequency. 

I want to go to the next Arnold Classic and have somebody ask me for an autography b/c they mistake me for a fitness pro.  Obviously I wouldn’t be mistaken for a pro bodybuilder, but I want people to be able to tell I work out in a dedicated fashion.

I’ve also changed my workout routine so I hope somebody will check it out and give me some feedback.  It’s been pretty up and down here with a lot of changes to my workout.  We’ll soon see if it was worth it.

Keep Lifting.

Being capable.  Remember in Pumping Iron when Franco moved the car?  He moved it when it was wedged between two others and the owner couldn’t drive it out.

According to Dave Draper.com IronOnline, when Draper and Reg Park had a flat tire but didn’t have a jack, they were able to solve the problem in a way non lifters couldn’t.

According to Draper, “Reg grabbed the bumper and gave it a few warm-up tugs as he set his footing aright. You need to realize we had worked out very early that morning, 6:00 a.m., and heavy bench pressing was the subject. Our timing of “the spot” was impeccable. Ready? One, Two, Lift. The car went up, the wheel came off and was swept under the chassis as a support and down came the car. A dash of light renewed our viewpoint and positions. This time on the count of three I lifted the left rear engine-bearing corner of Frenchy as Big Reg jammed the good wheel on and fed it the lugs. He tightened them as I put the trunk in order. He insisted I drive and off we went, be smudged but no worse for the effort”. 

These two incidents remind me of the first reason I began to lift. To be prepared for physical challenges.  As a Marine Reservist and an Apprentice in the Power Line industry, I have two very physically demanding trades. It always amazes me that everyone in my two professions doesn’t take advantage of the benefits of weight training.  Especially since I’m in Marine Artillery and the bulk of what we do involves repetitive heavy lifting. The rounds alone are from 95 to 115 pounds!  Power Line work involves working w/ heavy tools and sometimes we have to carry cut up pieces of power poles.  Yet I’m told time and time again that I’m wasting my time by lifting weights and when I nonchalantly pick up something b/c I KNOW I can lift it, I’m always warned that I’m going to get a hernia.

I don’t let it stop me, I just congratulate myself on having the foresight to prepare to not just get by, but to excel.

I congratulate all of you for the same foresight. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for reading.

My legs are ON FIRE!!

Going lower was much, much harder than I thought.  I had to change technique as well as drop weight.

Here’s a short list of changes:

1) The bar has to go high across my traps, just below or at the base of my neck (my fellow lifters this would be a good time to have developed rhomboids)

2) My feet are now positioned closer together and pointed as straight ahead as possible. I used to squat w/ the inside of my feet lined up w/ the outside of my shoulders. That works great when you’re going to parallel and I recommend it if you need to build up your inner thigh (vastus medialis). To go lower I need to have myfeet positioned about where they would be if I were standing up normally w/ my weight evenly balanced. I don’t do anything special btw to get in that position. I p/u the weight and step back.

3) Back has to remain more erect. Almost the same as doing a front squat.  It’s ok to lean fwd a little when you’re doing low bar squats like a powerlifter. Not ok w/ high bar squats. You’re all adults so you can do what you want, but I bet you’ll only lean fwd on a high bar squat once and never again. Unless you got a neck thicker than Goldberg.

Anyway that’s it. No major knee pain, which is important b/c I’ve got a bad right knee due to being one of Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children.

For a poundage difference I could do 315 for 5 reps to parallel. Yesterday I did an ATG high bar squat drop set of 3 sets of 205 x 5; 185 x 5 and felt that was plenty good.  Once I get used to the different mechanics, I’m thinking of doing a few weeks of 20 rep squats to get my pain tolerance and working weight back up to a more respectable level.

One final item, I’m going to redo my measurements b/c the ones on here now were taken while flexing and as I learned from the how to take correct measurements vid, that is wrong. I should have known that b/c I’ve read John McCallum’s Keys to Progress but again the ego got in the way.

Quick! Everybody find something heavy and lift it over and over to celebrate being different from "normal people".