Hardness23’s BodyBlog

I am interviewing in Alaska right now, and I don’t know if anyone else does this, but one of the first things I did when I got to Anchorage was see what the gym’s are like.  Wow do I appreciate Arizona!  They don’t have much competition here.  There’s a huge chain called the Alaska Fitness Club and I guess it’s around $80.00 a month minimum for a membership!  Crazy!  Then this other place called PowerHouse Fitness was so awesome.  I was blown away when I walked in and immidiately saw two of the most ripped female bodies I’ve ever seen.  I’m not kidding, one of the women I found out was a professional bodybuilder, and the other I don’t know but she has the most chizzeled abs I’ve ever seen.  I mean I’ve been in 3 competitions and nobody compared to her when it comes to abs.  Then looking around more I see several bodybuilder looking men.  We can tell the difference right away guys, and I can tell by looking at the legs.  A guy with a big chest and arms, ok he works out.  But when a guy has that and muscular legs, calves, and good strict form than I think he must be a bodybuilder.  And there were a few.  I scope out a gym to see if I fit in there, if it’s trendy or people who are serious about weightlifting.  I look for females or people that could give me good advice and who are friendly.  I don’t look to be socializing in my gym all the time, but moving to a new area is difficult and to get a grasp of what the locals are like I go to the gym.  Basically I was surprised that in Alaska I saw more fit people in this gym than in my gym in Tucson.  You would think people here would just get fat and not care how they look since they’re always covered up.  That’s what I get for judging I guess!

I am doing a BB show May 20th, and I need to learn the BB poses.  I usually do figure, but I’m crossing over.  If anyone knows a good female trainer/bodybuilder in Tucson who can help me out, please let me know. 

I am frustrated because I have been lifting religiously for almost two years now and my shoulders still won’t grow.  Everything else looks significantly better, all of my muscle groups are bigger and shapelier except my shoulders.  I have not abandoned them in my workouts but put them first priority.  I train them once a week and they have a day all to themselves.  Another day I may do triceps and chest together, but shoulders are always alone so I can focus on them completely.  I do barbell, dumbell, cable raises and military presses.  For awhile I was going heavy but found I get more of a pump when I go light, so I’ve been sticking with high reps and low(er) weights the past few months.  I get a nice pump in the gym, but a few days later they just go back to normal.  I want capped shoulders and until I get them I cannot stand a chance at winning a competition.  This is the only body part that is truly lagging and I don’t understand why!!   I’ll keep up the hard work and make sure I’m eating enough.  Hopefully over time they will come.

Last night was the most fun I’ve had in a long time, playing poker with old friends.  I had one of those energy alcoholic drinks, and with 10% alcohol and a ton of sugar, I was off the wall hyper and buzzed since I never drink.  I’m proud of myself for just having that and cutting myself off.  I remember when I was younger I used to drink non-stop and not know when to quit.  I was feeling so good but still decided to start drinking water.  I wanted to snack all night so while they were pigging out on chips and queso I raided the fridge and found turkey breast slices and dipped them in salsa.  Then everyone was laughing at me because I pulled random shelled walnuts out of my purse and made a mess with trying to crack them open.

For thanksgiving I’m going to two parties and want to eat mashed potatoes, so I decided this morning to go on a badass run at this park in Tucson that I hear is beautiful but I’ve never been there.  My lungs were burning out of my chest but I enjoy putting myself through pain I guess.  My legs are sore too and I don’t run anymore so it was quite painful, but exhilarating. I’m attaching a picture of the park.

Hey girls!  Guess what?
I’ve decided to switch from competing in figure to competing in bodybuilding.  Everyone including my boyfriend says- but why?  You’re too pretty!  Why do you want to look like that?
Because I CAN!  Let me be who I want to be!
It’s getting to be way too crowded in all the figure classes and I don’t agree with the judging anymore.
I want to be judged on my hard work in building muscle and having a strong shapely body, and I never want to have to do a T-Walk again!
I would rather flex, and have fun with the audience with whatever routine I have.  I feel I’ll be able to throw my hair up, forget about my makeup, and be myself in front of the audience.  And of course the best part- no hooker heels!  I will still feel beautiful, but just more comfortable.  And since there are way fewer girls who compete in bodybuilding now at the amateur level, I know I’ll have a good chance at winning.
I have a good start because my muscle has been packing on like crazy and I’m going to keep adding it until I feel like I have enough to compete.  I’m interested if anyone agrees or disagrees with me on these things or can relate.  I want to be a feminine but strong capable woman and represent a new era of women bodybuilding, maybe get us some media coverage and bring us back in the picture.

For some reason whenever I train shoulders I find the only way to get a pump is through the assisted shoulder press.  When I go unassisted whether it is light weight or heavy, I feel like I cannot get a good pump in my shoulders.

I wonder why this is since supposedly going free weight is supposed to recruit more fibers and produce more growth.  When I push up on the assisted shoulder press it burns and my muscles are much more sore the next day than when I go free bar.

It’s 5 am and still not asleep.  I think my lack of sleep in setting me back in training, not sure how much.  I’m really going to try to sleep in today but can’t ever sleep in past 9am and I need sleep because my body is drained.

The Cardio in the mornings is still going strong, as you can see from my new profile picture I am staying pretty lean, around 13% bodyfat which is good for me right now.

Training legs is exciting again, since I have changed the method to my madness.  I used to do a legs day with all kinds of exercises, but I’ve made it "KISS" and now I am only doing 7 sets of squats, 6 sets of reverse lunges and 6 sets of leg extention (toes out) superset with calf raises.  On squats I’m practicing strict form which means less weight, more stretch, more reps, less injuries and strain on the knees, more depth and more growth!  I only rest 45 seconds, add 10’s to each side, and go again.  I get up to 4 10’s on each side and start taking them off one by one until I get down to only one 10 lb on each side.  It causes a massive pump and I think it will do me much better than going heavy for only three sets.  I also split it up and do hamstrings with back on a separate day because I like good mornings and deadlifts.  Since I feel I’m at a more advanced level of physique, I need to bring up my weaknesses right now as I already have a good foundation of muscle.   My weaknesses are my outer thighs and glutes.  I want to add a lot of shape to my hips and quad sweep which is why I’m doing so many lunges and squats.

I’m also actually eating a lot the night before a leg workout.  I don’t carb up but I do eat a big dinner with protein and fat (olive oil, olives or almonds), and then before bed I’ll eat cottage cheese with cinnamon and splenda, and a protein shake with peanut butter.  Then the next day I feel so good for my workout because I am well fed.  Even though temporarily yeah, for that night I probably put on weight, but I need to keep in mind to look at the big picture and that the amount of energy I’m putting into my workout the next day will suffice for the extra eating.  When I am on a calorie deficit or don’t eat enough the day before, I have tried to load up on carbs right before my leg workout but still feel weak.  I think it takes a day for your body to full restore the glycogen and become in the "fed" state for a good workout the next day.  Then after the leg workout I make sure I get my protein, but I do take it easy on the carbs for the rest of the day.  Even though they say to "carb-up" after a workout, this doesn’t really work for me.  I feel I still put it on as weight (fat), which is why I just prefer to only eat my carbs before my big workouts.  I think that as long as I’m getting enough protein in afterwards I still will build quality muscle.

So the past few months I’ve been a little lazy when it comes to doing fasted morning cardio, mostly because quite frankly I like to get up and eat right away.  And also I’m not doing a figure competition in the near future and feel pretty lean so why bother?  But I’ve also been feeling kind of in the dumps lately for some reason, just blah and not my normal enthusiastic self.  Since my leg soreness has prevented me from doing cardio for the past 4 days, this morning when I woke up I went to the gym and busted out a mean cardio session.  I immediately felt better, more energized and myself again.  Cardio has such positive effects on the mood and it lasts throughout the whole day!  I’m going to try to get up and do it every morning that way I don’t have to after my lifting in the evenings if I don’t want to.

My leg workout was so intense on Thursday that it is Tuesday and I am finally able to do cardio.  I tried the elliptical last night and it was just burning so bad I had to stop.  My legs get really big and bulked out 3-4 days after a good leg workout and when I can’t do cardio for that amount of time I put on weight!  But I can’t build nice legs without doing good leg workouts!  So I guess I’ll just do as much cardio as I can when my legs are not sore.  So for the next 4 days before my next leg workout I’m going to step up the cardio to twice a day, once in the a.m. and just 20 min or so after my lifting.  I am trying to lean down for my bikini divas competition for the ABA/INBA on Sep. 6th, but it’s hard when I can’t do cardio!  As a matter of fact, maybe I should hold off on the leg workouts until then and just do HIIT, sprints and bike sprints.  If I wasn’t so cheap I’d hire a trainer again.