Jesse12345’s BodyBlog

Oh, glorious day.  This morning was my official weigh in for my fight in the Bronze Gloves in a week and a few days.  After four and a half months of cutting, I managed to get myself down to a lean 141.6lbs.  I am fighting in the light-middleweight division, which is a max weight of 142 pounds.  Now that I have my weight recorded as within the limit and signed by an MD, I’m free to start bulking again!  Today I started loading up on creatine and did a solid arm workout.  I’m really exited to be eating more and doing less cardio.

This will be my second time bulking since I started weight lifting.  Although I first picked up a dumbbell almost four years ago, I feel that my first three and a half years or so lifting were not very effective.  I managed to put on some mass during that time, but I have made almost as much progress in the past eight months that I had made in the first three and a half years combined.  Even though I am now bulking and cutting more effectively, I’m aware that there is still so much I don’t know.  Everything I do know though, is credited to the members and staff of BodyBuilding.com.  If anybody actually reads this, I’d just like to say thank you for teaching me .

That being said, I plan on bulking better this time.  I put on some muscle last bulk that I am very happy with, but I also put on a lot of fat.  In order to slow down the fat gain this time, I plan on cleaning up my diet.  No junk food or meals with lots of cheese or creamy sauces.  I also am planning on doing a bit of cardio, as I train for boxing twice a week.  Last summer the closest thing I got to cardio was walking around at work!

I’m currently sitting at about 6.5% fat right now.  I will continue to bulk until I can only see my top row of abs, which I estimate is about 11%. 

The other day I was sitting in class sipping on my well-loved Bodybuilding.com water bottle.  I drank close to a quart of water in two hours.  During a break from the class, a large girl sitting in the row next to me asked, "How much water do you drink?" I told her that I aim to drink at least a gallon every day.  She was horrified.  She reacted as if I was actively commiting suicide by water intoxication.  She rambled on about how I’m flushing out essential nutrients and that I’m placing enourmous amounts of stress on my kidneys.  I didn’t really care enough to argue with her, so I neglected to tell her that anyone who has taken a beginers nutrition course knows that water is the most essential of the 6 nutrients required in the human diet, and that athletes require higher levels of nutrition than other people.  Ironically, while this obese young lady was lecturing me on how I will most certainly die if I drink another drop, on her desk sat an enourmous Starbucks cup.  I wonder if she thinks that 20 ounces of cream, expresso and syrup is a healthier alternative to water.

I’m probably guilty of a few of these characteristics .  Sorry in advance to all the douchebags I offend.

• Propper douchebag workout attire includes a wifebeater or Under Armour, regardless of how skinny or pathetic your body is.  Also, wear a hat with the brim rotated 45 degrees to either side and designer “boardshorts”.
• Always lift excessive amounts of weight by performing half, or even quarter reps (only lift or pull a few inches).  This will surely impress everyone in the gym.
• Call all other men in the gym “bro”, even if you’ve never met or seen them before.  Call all the women “girl” (eg. “Hey bro, do you need a spot?” or “What’s up, girl?”)
• Walk around as if you were carrying a pair of invisible basketballs under your arms.  Everyone will think you are huge if you do this.
• Hit on all the women in the gym who don’t appear to be there with their boyfriends or husbands.  This is your number one prority at the gym (your number two priority is working out).
• Grunt and scream at the top of the lungs with every rep so everyone will pay attention to you and see how tough you are.
• Be prepared with a list of excuses to use everytime you are only able to complete a few reps. Eg. “Usully I can do 12 reps, but I hurt my shoulder last night drinking brewskis with my bros.”
• Everytime you catch a glimpse of an attractive woman in the mirror, mention how hot she is to person working out next to you.
• Tell everybody you are training to be a cage fighter.
• Let all your friends know that you “used to be huge”, but you “got tired of being so big”.
• After every set, pose in the mirror and admire how pumped you are.
• Don’t worry about putting your weights away.  Leave the plates on the bar so the next person who uses it can admire how much you can lift.
• When working in with someone, always lift more than them.  Remember your list of excuses if you can’t. Eg: “I normally go heavier, but I’m just doing a light day today”.
• In the change room, spend as much time as possible walking around with your shirt off. 

These days, as several professional athletes have pointed out, anybody with a remarkable physique is always accused of taking steroids.  Even athletes who have consistantly proven clean in drug tests are still labeled as steroid users; critics always believe that they have somehow "cheated" the test.  A popular subject of ancient Grecian artwork is the muscular male body.  In order to create these sculptures, artists must have had people to model for them.  I don’t know a lot about the history of steroids, but I’m fairly certain that ancient Grecians did not know about steroids or intermuscular injections.  In fact, they did not have multivitamins, protein shakes, creatine monohydrate, argenine supplements or test boosters, either.  Yet if the men who modeled for these sculptures thousands of years ago were alive today, they would be constantly accused of "being on the juice".  Thats just one more reason why I would never use steroids: Just to prove the critics wrong.  You dont need steroids to look good.

Today was a great day.  I have no classes on Wednesdays, so I was able to get all the sleep I needed.  In the morning I had the best run I’ve had sinse starting my cut.  I ran the same distance as usual, but didn’t stop as frequently.  Then I had a back/biceps/abs workout in the afternoon and improved my lifting stats quite significantly.  I’ve also been eating well all day.  All in all, today was a very beneficial day for my body.

Earlier this afternoon I went out for a run, I think the farthest distance I’ve ran since starting my cut.  I went to the gym a few hours later and my max bench press stat took a bit of a hit, probably because I was already drained from the run earlier.  It did’t take too much of a fall, only three pounds.  I also increased the weight and did less reps, which probably had an adverse affect.  We’ll see how my stat changes next week. 

My one rep max for squats took an enourmous blow today.  I recently noticed that my stat seemed abnormally high, and decided that I wasnt getting as low as I probably should.  So today I decreased the weight by 110lbs and squatted as low as physically possible.  My quads were twitching witch exhaustion after five sets! I’m looking forward to building my stat back up.

I almost wasn’t going to do it, but I managed to get myself out the door and do a bit of cardio.  It snowed overnight and made the sidewalks very slippery; I fell on my hip as soon as I got out of the front yard (seriously).  It hurt a bit, but I managed to run it off.  After that, I decided not to take my usual approach to cardio, which is to run randomly around the neighborhood for 15 - 20 minutes, and instead just do a few laps around the park near my house, where I figured there might be less ice. 

Today was a pretty different workout.  I tried a few new exercises for my back/bicep/abdominal routine: Reverse curls with elastic tubing, pullup kneeraises, and jump rope for cardio.  I never used that elastic tubing stuff before because I assumed it would be too easy, but after a few sets of chinups and barbell curls, I could only do seven reps of reverse curls with it!  The pullup kneeraises were a nice change from the hanging leg raises that I usually do, too.  Jumping rope was a little more difficult than I anticipated, I could only do about 20-30 skips at a time before the rope would hit my ankles and I’d have to start over.  I’m sure I’ll develop better skipping skill with time.  My workout today was much shorter than usual, but pretty effective I think, as I’m quite exhausted. 

I just got back from a cardio session.  I’m quite tired.  It’s very windy outside today, so that probably made my run even more difficult (which is a good thing).  I kind of got lost jogging around the neighborhood but eventually found my way home, i have no idea what the distance was.  I plan to do cardio at this intensity three days a week, while continuing to take ephedra and hot rox.