In the Weightroom

A couple weeks back, I was going into the gym with a renewed enthusiasm, that had me on the crazy euphoric high. Everytime I went, I was hitting new highs, and I was often doing workouts based on heavy basic movements. This left my body feeling like I was continually beating beaten with a bat, an I soon found myself with a nasty cold. The cold held on for a week… crazy night sweats, hacking up a lung. This frustrated me to the ‘nth degree, as all I wanted to do, was get back in the gym for more punishing work. After getting over the cold, and going through another full cycle of my body, I found a lack of drive… what the f? I can’t workout for 4 intense days a week, and not become overtrained?

Well… this week, I decided I mix it up a little. I’m workout a little less like a "powerlifter" (not that I am one at all), and a little more like a "bodybuilder". I’ve been doing a lot more 45min workouts, using pre-exaustion, and supersets… walking outa the gym very shortly after I’ve felt I can’t get any more blood into the muscle. So far so good. My back actually reacted really well to it’s "blood flush" workout… I’ll try to stay on this program for a couple weeks, then switch by to my "power-phase" for a couple weeks. Time will tell.

Well, all but one week of January has been steady in the gym, and I’ve been rewarded with hitting a few all time bests. Today, I was able to deadlift 365lbs for three reps, then 385 for one rep. Last week, I was able to do 100lb dumbell press for 8 reps, followed by 110lbs for 3 reps. I’m really quite enthused at playing around with the new weight ranges, and am starting to feel a fair bit thicker through the back/chest.

My old goal of hitting 240lbs by then end of March is probably outa reach… but I’ll take these strength gains any day.

As of the 20th of Dec, I’ve been off work (forced construction holiday). During this time, I’ve had a bunch of stuff that I’ve had to do, like paint our entire appartment, and have relatives visiting, but I’ve made sure that I got back in the gym, in the time of the year when most slacken off. In less than 2 weeks, I’ve put in 6 intense workouts, and have gone through hitting the full body twice. I’ve also manage to bring my weight back up to almost the level it had been before my back problems.

I’m still not deadlifting or squatting heavy yet, and to tell the truth, I may just shy away from these two excercise (at least w/heavy weight), for a little while still. It feels so good be not having pain… I just don’t want to push too much too soon.

Also, since a few months, I decided to change my "goals". I think hitting 240 before March would just be too hard to pull off, so I’m aiming more at 230, but hopefully with a "tight" feeling (under 10% hopefully). In order to encourage "lean" gains, I’ve been making sure to do ~15min of cardio along with each training seasion. So far so good… I may start bumping up the cardio time slightly soon enough.

So after my last workout on Nov 5th, my back continued to give me problems, and when the gym gets in the way of my work (especially lately), then I got to back off from the gym unfortunately. I gave myself close to a month to try to recover (still lifting heavy AT work however), and found myself waking in the middle of night often with extreme pain and tightness in my back. It doesn’t help that I’m not a fan of Aspirin/Tylenol/Advil type medications, so I just tried to grin and live with the pain.

My wife started getting a little worried, so she scheduled us a couples massages, and I setup and appointment with an Osteopath. The massages were great for releaving some tension in the back, and I was able to sleep a little better, but still felt less than 100%.

Next came my visit to the Osteopath, and he found the problem. I had a slipped disc in my lower back. He was able to immediately place it back in place, but warned that I’d have to take preventative measures to avoid it poping back out of place. He said that my lower vertibres were far too flexible. They had INCHES of movement, (and that especially considering my height) that I had the potential to bend in a crooked position, and then lift, which leads to the slipped discs.

He suggested doing extra work on the swiss ball in the gym (shoulder presses, tri extentions etc). He said that it’d strengthen the stabilizing muscles a bunch, thus helping my back stay "tight". I asked about hyper extentions, but he said that it in itself wouldn’t help too much, as I already had a fair bit of development there.
Also, he suggested to STOP STRETCHING. I’d often do a fair bit to side twists in the past, even with significant weight. He said to stretch my shoulders/elbows as much as I wanted, but that my hips/core needed no more mobility.

Hopefully this week I’ll be able to get in the gym at least a couple times, and start working on getting back some of the strength that I KNOW I’ve lost.

It’s been about 1 week that I gave my body to recuperate. (My lower back had been felling less than stellar), so… before I get back into the grind of my regular splits, I felt I needed a little "wakeup" seasion. This consisted of 10 minutes of running to warmup, followed by supersets of: Chins/Seated Rope Rows, Weighted Dips/Flies, Seated Dumbell Press/Seated Side Laterals, Shrugs/Reverse Fly Machine, Skull Crushers/Z-Bar Curls. Even between bodyparts I kept the rest very low, and my heart pumped hard the whole way through. I then finnished off with 20 minutes of low intensity stationary bike. As is often the case for me… coming off a layoff workouts, are always great for "feeling" your workout. My mind was 100% focused on all my movements, and my energy levels didn’t dip at all, even though I had done a regulars days work just a few hours prior. This just adds even more belief to the statement: "less is more", at least for how MY body reacts.

Now next time I go workout… it’ll be a grueling Leg Day.

A couple weeks ago, I started finding myself in a situation which I’ve rarely had to deal with in the past. For years, I’d had a desk job, and made sure that I’d get in the gym in order to stay in shape, and over time it really grew on me, and is one of my favorite hobbies.

As of December 06 however, I started working at a job in the construction industry, working for a company that does "pile driving". My main function in the company is: picking up long metalic cylinders off the ground, and getting them upright on the stack before the machine "hammers" it down. I enjoy the change of work, but the job itself is almost a workout everyday. I’m dealing with metal pipes that range between 120-200lbs each, have a diametre of 3.5" to 5.5", length of 10′-14′, and each day normally deal with 50-200 of these.

Now here comes the issue… I’ve been training for the last 8 years, and over this time my "training" regime has ranged between a 1 day a week, to a 4 day a week. These training variations weren’t done for "periodization" purposes, but more situational (less time). So every time I go, I want to push HARD, because that way I’m sure I’m getting something out of being there, and who knows when the next time I’ll be in is.

Recently however, I’ve been trying to "gain" weight/strength, and tried to keep a regular effort in the gym. I’ve been aiming at putting in 3-4 days in the gym per week (No cardio). My bodies reaction to this after the first week or so has been quite unfavourable. Yes, I made good gains in size/strength, and I’m eating like a horse… but my muscles will ache for days and days. My "problem" areas, are really the back, and the legs, who will literally "hurt" for up to 5 days.

What I had been doing to try to overcome overtraing w/o modifying my training program: Take at least two shakes of Protein per day. Take at least 10 grams of glutamin post workout. Take ZMA before bed. This isn’t suffient however.

What I’m considering doing is the following: keeping my full body workouts over a 4 day split as I’d been doing, but, only plan on going to the gym 2x per week. This way, I’ll give my body more time to recover, and my leg/back workouts will be done on different weeks. Both of these workouts are more grueling than my chest/arms days. IF I do decided to make it into the gym for a 3rd time in the week, I’ll try to only do cardio/abs.

This is just my thoughts for now, as I’ve found very little information on specific training circumstances that seem to be written with the manuel labourer in mind… if anyone has any thoughts… please feel free to let me know.

Well… "so far, so good" I guess?! I should actually be really happy that I’ve put on 10lbs of weight, and am already 1/3 of the way to my "target" weight, but of course I get minor distractions, like I’m feeling a little puffy, and it breaks my motivation momentarily. I got to say though, with all the eating I’m doing (normally 4 hi calorie meals/day, along w/2 protein shakes), that my energy levels are going along well, and that I’ve been able to push certain muscle groups a little extra.

I’ve started considering "maybe" entering into a Natural competition this spring. My wife tells me that she thinks I have the mental determination to do it, but I’m really worried about, IF I can get big enough, prior to the 12 weeks I’ll need in order to lean-down… and even if I do… how would a 6′3" ~225-230lb bodybuilder generally score in a TESTED show? I guess I’ve got a little research to do.

So, after almost 8 years of weightlifting, I went out and bought a weighlifting belt for a 2nd time. (my first experiment with one, wasn’t that fruitfull, only used occassionally over 6 month timeframe, then stopped)

So why did I go out and get one? Well, I’d been of the belief, that I didn’t want to "weaken" my core, by relying on it too much. Recently however, my work has changed, and I’m not longer sitting in front of a computer all day. I’m actually moving arround pieces of metal pipe all day long. These pipes, normally weigh over 100lbs each, so I figure, my core is already getting a fair bit of "indirect" work.

Now to the point; I’ve been really wanting to focus more on my back development. I want to be able to deadlift heavy, and I had a minor injury in my first year deadlifting, so I don’t feel super comfortable going heavy without one. I really do want that full back development though, so… you got to go heavy.

Funny thing I found though. I bought myself a relatively standard leather lifting belt (6 inch I believe). Now, since I’m 6′3", I’ve got relatively long legs, and I’m used to wearing my jeans/pants relatively low. So by instinct, I’m trying to wear this lifting belt pretty close to the same area. I don’t know if any one else has run into this problem or not, but I gave myself so pretty nasty bruising on my hip bones. From now on, I guess I’ll be wearing it a little higher. I just hope the guys in the gym don’t think I’m walking arround wearing a bra.