Muscle Mania Matt’s BodyBlog

After some sleep and a light leg workout last night, i am feeling much better. i let myself sleep an extra two hours this morning, and will do my regularly scheduled workout tonight. I was performing very high rep ranges for about half my workouts for the first month of this program, but i am off that now. tomorrow i will be doing an update video and pictures that will be posted on the site, so i will talk about the details then.

I have been doing pretty well, even through the holidays. Starting out at 228 a month ago, i was a hair below 220 on Christmas. I have been sick all weekend though, and even though i wasn’t eating much, i ballooned up to 230 as of this morning. I expect i will drop any of this access fluid, but it leaves me a little put off. This week, my target is supposed to be 217 on Friday, and i have no idea where i will come in. I am feeling somewhat better, but still extremely tired and groggy, with some cold symptoms. I trained yesterday, despite feeling sick, and i was very weak. I was supposed to actually train legs yesterday, but did shoulders and triceps instead. I will attempt the leg workout tonight, so i hope it goes well.

I am taking off from the office a little early today. My wife has the day off as well, so we aren’t going to work out until this after noon. That’s great for me, because i will be awake and fueled for a heavy back workout. i’m psyched! Tomorrow is Christmas of course, and for the first time in years i won’t be working out, as thursday happens to be a scheduled rest day. Today its around 20 degrees and we have a snow storm headed our way. That means today is perfect for a BBcom barbecue! Jackson and I have prepped about 15 pounds of meat, vegetables, and whatnot and we are going to be grilling up food for customer service! Me man, me make fire; cook meat!

I started my cardio last night, on the elliptical in the living room. it just wasn’t doing it for me, and it isn’t hard anymore. i looked outside at the heavy snow coming down in the dark, and thought that it looked rather inviting. So off i went on a 30 minute run in the snow. I haven’t lived in that town very long, and i ran through the back end of the neighborhood, so i wasn’t completely sure even where i was sometimes. The snow made running much more interesting, so i decided i will keep it up, and as long as there is snow on the ground, that will be my cardio session.

I was doing a heavy leg session yesterday and some dude i didn’t know came over and introduced himself (Chris). He said he was a trainer for 10 years and did fitness something or other for the military, and he just wanted to tell me that my squat form was the best that he had ever seen, especially considering the weight i was moving (405 at that moment). He also gave me props for my depth. Normally these types of people annoy me, but he actually knew what he was talking about. He identified the tight musculature around my hips, my anterior tilt, and a couple other things. That was a good opportunity, because without video, it is hard to take a good look at your own movement. So i demonstrated overhead squats and front squats for him as well so he could check out foot positioning. That was a pretty solid workout, and Chris gave it a further boost. Lately, it seems the only workout i can get excited about is legs. I have tried switching gyms, workout times, and a few other things to make it exciting. i think i just need a training partner.

I have a training class this week, with seven new hires for CS. Yesterday we had a conference call with Universal, going over their product line. They have always been one of my favorite companies. Right now, i am running animal omega, m-stak, pump, test, Intra-aid, Torrent, betaala9, and EAA Nitro. and that’s just what i have from them. They are a very supportive, informative, and intense group of people who believe in what they do. I have always appreciated how straightforward (but not necessarily simple) their products, and product labels have always been.

I had a great leg workout this weekend. Firstly, i have to give a shoutout to Animal Pump. I just started back on this one yesterday. Sunday morning i woke up and was zombie-like. By the time i reached the gym i was spinning on all gears. Even though i am dieting, i actually got some decent numbers on my lifts. I started doing my back squats with a wide stance, but i still got 365 for 5, which i was happy with. That was after 3 sets of overhead squats. Then i took 5 sets of front squats, finishing up with 275 for a rock bottom triple. That made me feel pretty good! I did some adductors, calves and hammies before finishing the workout, and then i had a nice sit in the hot tub. It was fabulous.

I was organizing my pantry, and realized i have a bit of a surplus of protein. I counted up about 35 lbs protein. I have three tubs of elite whey. I have some isopure, 2 jugs of optimum, and one i think from twinlab, and i think i still have some muscle milk in there too. I’m pretty big on food storage and that sort of thing, in case of another great flood or whatever. At least i know I can remain anti-catabolic in case disaster strikes! What I find amusing is that despite the surplus, i doubt it will cause me to slow down the rate at which i obtain it.

Tonight i have a heavy duty leg workout. I’m gonna travel across town again to get to the empty gym with the nice racks and platforms. This time, i will not allow any distractions that would be caused by the staff members approaching me. We have shirts that say "shut the F*** up and train". i need to pick one of those up.

Like most people, I’m not quite all the way there when i wake up in the morning. as part of my a.m./pre workout regimen, i include animal pump. I used to toss down shock therapy or similar, but i find i don’t even finish drinking those before i get into the gym. The switch to Animal Pump, which is pill form, and besides all of the other goodies it contains, that energy blend gets my flyin’ by the time i reach the gym, so this works out nicely. Universal is one of my favorite companies, so this is a nice addition. I also recieved a few new products from MuscleTech. I have the Vitakic, which looks pretty solid. I also have Cryotest and the new cookies and creme Nitrotech Hardcore, which i have yet to try.

I don’t know where my brain has been! Yesterday i was out all day long. I packed all my food and supps like i usually do, and i got all the way across town and realized i forgot it all. oops. This morning almost went the same way, but i had a close save, meaning i had actually packed my food/supps into my truck, but forgot i had done so. Is this what old age feels like? Maybe my carbs are too low. I usually get pretty stupid when i diet, so that may be the case. This week (friday a.m. ) i am supposed to be at 222 flat. this last friday i was already at 221, but i may have come in extra light that morning, so we will see where i am on friday.