Lemming’s BodyBlog

Well, work is killing me and have had no time to post anything, but I have been working out religiously.  I have made it to 126 lbs, and am doing standard deadlifts again.  My back seems pretty good.  Knees still have problems.  Same overtraining problem as always.  Tried cutting back to three workouts per week, but impossible psychologically.  I get so much pleasure and relaxation from it…so I will cut back my volume.  That I can do, especially on deadlifting days.  Just have to accept that with age (and stress) comes the need for more rest/less volume.  I did manage to take a break from working out for 6 days…of course, I only planned for 5 days, but we had a production unit fire at my chemical plant.  And, I only scheduled the days off after I nearly killed myself starting my Friday workout with deadlifts…those things are very addictive.  Fortunately, I enjoy a certain level of pain, so my intensity is good.  Better, of course, with short workouts.

Hiked a trail designated "very strenuous" and found they were not kidding.  About 2.5 miles of rollercoaster scrabbling, and then straight down for about 2.5 more.  I did about one mile of the straight down, because I was afraid I would not make it back alive through the rollercoaster part after the climb back up.  Man it was a fantastic cardio workout.  I mean 5 hours of hard, continuous cardio.  And what a workout for your legs.  All the little stablizer muscles are getting the workout of their life, and of course your quads and calves are dying.  The perfect way to do cardio, because you are so concentrated on not killing yourself, looking at all the beautiful scenery, and curious about how the trail looks up ahead that you are distracted from the pain, and of course, you will do all of it because otherwise you will be spending the evening on the side of the trail.  NC is a beautiful state!

Okay, so I’ve noticed funny little lines in the muscles below my clavicles (pects of some kind)…I have been reflecting on the strange things that you notice as you slowly, slowly add mass.  I noticed funny indentations below my rib cage leading into my abs.  I’m like, what is that?  These things just, like, appear out of no where.  (oops, I guess you can tell I’m actually from CA). 

Bodybuilding is a very interesting experience.  You literally transform yourself.  But your perception of the changes is so dichotomous…it seems so damn slow, and yet sometimes you look at yourself and almost feel like another person.  Mentally, it’s kind of a weird experience. 

I just cannot believe that I have reached the point where working my biceps is so hard!!!  I would rather work quads…the only thing that can compare with bicep work would be calf work, which is just plain painful.  It takes so much effort to get a good workout, and all the standing movements make you feel like you are being suffocated.  You have to lock down your core to be stable, and your chest and abs crimp down on your breathing, and you are exerting so much effort…just not a pleasant combination.  I’m amazed at this revelation…arms always seemed to my mind to be an "easy" body part to work, since they’re so small, and don’t involve whole body work like squatting.  But anything that makes you lock down your core for stability and takes a lot of intensity is going to be a chore.  I could say without reservation that working biceps is the hardest thing for me…and that strikes me as absolutely hilarious, because if you had told me I would say that three months ago, I would have told you you were crazy!

When I started on this program of 6 day split (quads, back, chest, ham+calf, shld, arms), I could only do three days’ worth before I felt run over by a truck.  But in just a few weeks, I am already able to make it all the way through.  And I am doing lots of cardio too.  I guess this just illustrates the point of adaptation.  You have to keep changing things up or you end up plateaued by your own success.  You can almost hear your body saying, "well, alright, I’ll make the change if you insist."  And then it actually makes the change to get you through your workout, and then…you have to come up with something else to shock it into changing some more.  Your body does not do anything it doesn’t have to do, that’s for sure.  You are dealing with an uncooperative teenager in these matters!!

Did you know that the area of your brain responsible for feeling satisfied from eating is closely related to the part responsible for feeling sexually satisfied?  So perhaps this is why when you fall in love (i.e. lust) you automatically lose 5 pounds. 

Weighed myself this morning and came in at 121.4.  That’s 3.2 pounds lost.  It’s not an official weigh in, but I think it’s mostly fat that I lost.  It’s good to lose fat, but I realize that I have not gained any where near as much muscle mass as I thought I had.  I gained only about 2 pounds of mass.  Oh well, I know I gained some because I can see it in my legs.   

Well, I’ll just look at the situation like this:  I can see it in my abs and my legs, so that means that even a small mass gain on me will be evident.  That’s kind of motivating. 

I joined a gym to use on the weekends.  I did shoulders and ham/calf there.  Shoulders makes no difference, because I only use DB and EZ Curl with them (I have that at home), but it was nice to have the actual machine for ham curls and seated calf raise.  Also did hanging leg raise, which I used to love to do.  I was able to do 7 straight leg, toes all the way up to my hands.  The last time I attempted to do that I got about 2 knocked out. 

I was surprised about my calf workout.  I have never done seated calf raises, and I did three sets and I feel fine.  I really expected to be suffering today.  I still may end up sore, but it’s not going to be too bad. 

I really like this program I’m on.  I can work the target muscles hard enough to feel it, and I recover enough before the next round to really feel good.  I also can see my gains going up much faster.  I was stagnating there for awhile, not going up at all.

Below is an excerpt of my training log.  I think it’s a neat way to follow your training.  The numbers for weights are from another spreadsheet where you multiply your weights * your reps, and add them all together.  So the 7000 points in the blue column is chest day on 2 Apr.  Then the aerobics is minutes * HR * factor based on effort, and then I give myself points for stretching.  The red and green columns are negative so when I graph them, they show up separately from the weights.  The last column is the total, and so you can see if your total effort is going up, down, or staying the same.

I was reading ChickenTuna’s post on dieting, and all the replies to it yesterday…

"you’re so lucky you can eat anything you want"

you’re so lucky you like that healthy stuff" 

"you’re so lucky you’re naturally skinny"

"just eat some, it won’t hurt you"

Let me add one of my favorites:

"you’re not going to do that until you look like Arnold, are you?"  (as if I could!)

This is hard work.  And not the kind of hard work you finish up at 5 pm and leave until the next day.  This is hard work that follows you home, follows you in your car, follows you at work, follows you shopping…it’s with you all the time.  You don’t just work out, you don’t just do the cardio, you don’t just work on your flexibility, you don’t just turn down that delicious slice of chocolate cake your coworkers wife made at home from scratch…you monitor your development to see what’s lagging and plan various workouts to deal with it, you plan your daily calorie intake and cook all the food you are going to eat, portion it out, wash all your plastic bowls, go to the store constantly because you need to buy fresh vegetables, you force yourself to drink your protein before bed no matter how tired you are, it just goes on and on.  And then people have the odacity to minimize what you have to do, make light of all your sacrifices.  Of course we would like to be eating that f***ing chocolate cake!  I would love to shove that thing into my mouth until I could not eat another bite!  Yes I would eat my piece, your piece, and several more beside!  And I wouldn’t care who didn’t get any!

But I have a goal, and I am going to get to it, and I accept the reality of the situation.  You can’t have it both ways.  Someone said in the comments section on ChickenTuna’s post that people say stuff like this because that way they don’t have to be responsible for their terrible health–you can do it because it’s easy for you, but I can’t because it’s hard for me.  I think he’s right.  That’s exactly what it means.  Plus, I think people don’t like to see it.  You are a reminder to them that regular people can be fit.  After all, they saw you and knew you when you were just like them.  So now what’s their excuse?

Spray 9 x 13 baking pan with olive oil.  Put bag of pre-cut broccoli into pan, tearing up the big pieces by hand.  Sprinkle a little toasted sesame oil and some soy sauce over top (soy sauce steams the broccoli, so use about 1/4 cup).  Sprinkle Mrs. Dash table blend on top.  Spray the top with some more olive oil (toasts the top of the broccoli).  Bake at 375 deg F for 20 minutes.  This is really tasty by itself, but super good with lean pork loin (I cook mine in the slow cooker).