PenteKing’s BodyBlog

I’d like to pose a question to the community. Do you gravitate toward blogs in which the author has posted his picture, or are you drawn to those fellow bodybuilders who capture your attention with intriguing blog titles? Or do you simply seek out those bloggers with whom you’ve become familiar - reading only those whom you’ve come to know and love?

Personally, I look for interesting blog titles. If the title grabs my attention, then I’m hooked. I very rarely peruse someone’s blog simply because of their photo. I also tend to check out the men’s blogs more than the women’s. It’s not because I don’t think the women aren’t interesting or anything like that. It’s simply that I’ve found that men’s interests are more in line with my own. I do have my favorite bloggers, though. There are folks on here who have an interesting and unique perspective not only on bodybuilding, but on life in general.

Let me know what your preference is. I’m curious to know.

I’ve posted eighty-four blogs so far, and the response from the community has been less than resounding. This leads me to believe one of two things - either I am the single most boring blogger on the face of the planet, or these blogs are going into a black hole inhabited by aliens who only understand basic binary communication. My ego, of course, tends to lean toward option number two, but my rational mind keeps harking back to option number one.

Are my blogs boring, mundane, uninteresting, peurile, and without merit? Or do they vanish so quickly from the stage that the community barely has time to notice, much less read them? I have my favorite posters on this web site that I read assidiously (hello, Ms. Fitness, Maddi and Body Auditor), although I often do not post comments to their posts. I hope this is the case with me. I hope that I have an audience (of at least one) who reads my deathless prose each and every day, but who doesn’t bother to comment on what I have to say. I hope this is so. If not, I may as well give this up and go back to writing unpublished stories and novels.

If there is ANYONE out there reading my stuff, let me know. It would be a sorely needed stroke to my ego. Thoughts and comments are not only welcomed, but encouraged.

For some reason, the tank is empty today. I mean, tapped out; bottom o’ the barrel; nothing left to give. Why? That’s the curious part. I’ve done nothing extra special strenuous or taxing. Just my usual routine. Today, though, it was as though someone had siphoned off all the energy in my body. I was nodding off at work, for Pete’s sake. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to fall asleep while composing an email? Yikes!

Came home; laid down; tried to sleep. Phone rang; woke me up. It was a friend of mine that I haven’t heard from since the San Diego wildfires, so it was good to catch up. Tried to lay down again. This time, the commuter train, blowing its horn like it has something to be proud of. Got up, logged on here, and read some of the members’ blogs. We have some amazing people in this community. I’m glad I found this place.

But I’m still tired.

Coach yelled at me today. The occasion was my complaint that I wasn’t dropping weight as quickly as I’d like. I have this (unrealistic) goal of reaching 180 pounds of solid muscle between now and year’s end. So far, I’m stuck at the 195 - 200 pound plateau. I’m doing all the right things (eating high protein, moderate carbs, low fat; exercising regularly; etc.), but the scale won’t budge. I was down in the mouth this morning and that came across when talking to Coach.

She basically ripped me up one side and down the other. She told me that bodybuilding was about losing weight. Instead, it was reshaping one’s body to achieve one’s goals. She asked why I was focused on the 180 pound number. When I told her that it was I weighed when I was twenty-five, she damn near laughed her head off. When she finished chuckling, she told me that my target was unrealistic for several reasons. One - she thought that 190 was a better weight for me, considering my frame. Two - people’s bodies change over the years. It is the rare person, she said, that could maintain the same weight from young adulthood into middle and old age. It could be done, but it meant a level of commitment that I had basically neglected for years. Three - she told me that focusing on the number was overlooking the increase in lean body mass and the corresponding rise in strength and overall fitness.

Coach’s message? "Snap out of it!"

Did her message get through to me? Somewhat. I acknowledge the gains I’ve made. I know I look and feel better than I did five short months ago. My clothes fit better, and I’ve stopped wheezing when I walk up a flight of stairs. I can bench press my body weight for 10 reps over 3 sets, and I can make it through an entire spinning class without throwing up in my mouth. I’m making good progress.

Still, I wish that scale would go down just a little.

I stopped into Starbucks this morning and found (to my chagrin) a fully decorated Christmas tree. Everywhere I looked, Christmas pharphanelia abounded. The barristers were busy hawking peppermint mocha and egg nog lattes.

Is it me? Am I the only one who thinks it’s TOO DAMN EARLY FOR CHRISTMAS???? For Pete’s sake, we’ve barely gotten past Halloween and haven’t even crept up on Thanksgiving yet. This is as bad as the movie studios putting films out on May 4th and claiming the receipts as part of the summer blockbuster season. IT’S STILL SPRING, *******!!!

I know that I’m a lone voice crying in the wilderness, and that my anger and annoyance will not stop the corporate juggernaught. I know that, but it still angers me that they can treat us with such utter disdain. They think that if they tell us it’s Christmas, we’ll believe them. The sad thing is that there are people out there who have bought into this madness, and are even now, as we speak, flocking to the stores to empty their wallets.

People of the world, I beg you - STOP! Don’t buy anything Christmas related until AFTER Thanksgiving. For the sake of Pilgrims everywhere, stop and celebrate one of the the only two truly American holidays we have. To everything, there is a season. This is not yet the season for Christmas. Let’s all just slow down a bit. 

You’ve heard it said a hundred times before - if you want to get huge, you’ve got to do squats. In my opinion, I don’t believe you have to go super heavy, but you must use strict form and it’s critical that you isolate the muscle group you’re trying to stimulate into growth. I asked Coach to put together a routine to increase my quads by four inches (4"); no small task when you consider it in percentage terms. I’m tasking her with coming up with a routine that will increase my leg size by eighty-four percent (84%)! Some people say that’s nuts; other people say it can’t be done. I say that whatever can be imagined by the mind of man can be accomplished. If it hasn’t been already, it’s simply because man hasn’t yet figured out the solution. But they will. Trust me on this. They will. Anyway, here’s the routine:

Power jumps (3 sets from floor onto BOSU and back again)

Ball squats (lower until in sitting position, hold for 30 - 45 seconds. During the last five seconds, pump the quads)

3-way leg presses (toes straight, pointing out, pointing in)

Squats (the mother of all lower body exercises)

Walking lunges (the entire length of my gym and back, which, with my stride, covers 25 steps in one direction)

Leg Extensions (extend up on a count of four, hold for a count of four, lower to a count of four)

Straight leg deadlifts

In two months, I’ll update you all on my progress. Wish me success.

Today is the 232nd birthday of the United States Marine Corps, the best military unit on the face of the planet. Unlike other branches of the service (Army, Navy, Air Force) the Marines have never been disbanded or re-organized in their entire history, making them older than the United States itself. They have been at the forefront of every campaign this country has seen, and in many cases, have been the last ones to leave. They are the creme de la creme, and on this occasion of their birthday, I would like to thank each and every Marine for every moment spent in uniform. It doesn’t matter if you are a lowly private in a supply depot in Southern Georgia or a full bird colonel on the front lines in Iraq. You are all brother in arms. You are Marines. You are the best.

When the Army and Navy look on Heaven’s scene, they will find the streets are guarded by the United States Marines.

Which is a direct quote from one of the most brilliant novels ever written: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. It’s a strange sort of expression, but one that captures the essence of how I’m feeling at the moment. I am tired in body, mind and spirit. Work is piling up faster than I can handle, my emotions are in a spin over seeing my estranged son, and I fear that I’m training too fast and too hard. Intellectually, I know that my gains should come at a slow and steady pace, but my mind is impatient. I have this vision of how I should look, and I’m frustrated because I haven’t reached my goal.

It’s only been five months since getting back into the bodybuilding lifestyle, but in many ways, it feels as though I’ve been doing this forever. At times, I have trouble remembering how I used to abuse my body - how I used to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes and eat fatty foods. I look at pictures of myself back then, and I’m amazed that I didn’t see the damage I was doing to myself. How could I have been so blind? A friend of mine made the off-hand comment that I was probably unhappy, and was subconsciously trying to injure myself. At first, I pooh-poohed his comment, but after thinking about it, there is more than a little truth in what he said. I was unhappy. My marriage was falling apart; I’d reached a dead end at my former job; and I hated the environment in which I was living. It was the ultimate triple threat. Finding the opportunity that took me to Canada was the first step toward rehabilitation (although I didn’t realize it at the time). It wasn’t that going to Canada was a life-saver for me. In fact, it was just the opposite. In Canada, I hit rock bottom. I was out of control, and did things that I shudder to think about today. Landing in the hospital was the clarion call to reality that I needed. Without it, I would have continued my self-destructive ways. Although I didn’t change my lifestyle immediately, it put my mind right. It made me think about what I was doing to myself, and when a second catastrophe occurred, it was the catalyst that made me change my ways.

I’m happier now than I was back then, so I can’t genuinely complain. I have a tendency to be both impatient and obsessive. There are times when the latter quality serves me well. This is not one of the those times, but after surviving everything that life has thrown at me, I suppose I can survive this temporary malaise. Tomorrow, in the immortal words of Scarlett O’Hara, is another day.

Vegas was a blur. I arrived via Southwest (having been bumped from US Airways. Their reliability rating is in the toilet! I wonder how they stay in business. But that is a topic for another day), and went straight to the hotel where I barely had time to check in before running off to meet my son.

It’s a strange and wonderful thing to meet and talk to someone whom you haven’t seen in such a long time. There is so much (and so little) to say. You are at once both familiar and strange to one another. You sit there, mouthing platitudes, wondering how much you can safely reveal; wondering how much of your heart you can expose without having it ripped from your chest and crushed underfoot. The experience is not something that can be easily explained in a blog. It requires a novel’s breadth and depth and shading of character and scene. The nuances alone would require fifty pages alone. How can I convey in this space what it has taken me years to realize? How can I encapsulate my feelings (happiness, sorrow, anger, regret, remorse) within the confines of this blog? I can’t. I need more time and space. Perhaps I will write this all down someday, but for now, this is all I can choke out.

I’m heading off to Vegas this afternoon to attend a conference. As an added sidenote, I’m scheduled to meet up with my son, whom I haven’t seen in more than fifteen years. I’m excited, apprehensive, and more than a little nervous. What do you say to someone who’s related to you, but who you do not know? I suppose I’ll find that out today.

Wish me luck. I’m going to need it.