Splattered Angst

Had an odd thing happen yesterday that has been on my mind since. There is a particular client [from the day job] of mine that I see in the gym off and on that has been obviously engaged in some workouts that have kept is mid to late 30s something frame looking better than most. Yesterday however I totally tripped when I walked by this guy, whom I had not bumped into in a couple of weeks and seen that - holy crap … he has totally shredded up! It was really odd how seeing a guy that I am acquainted with make that kind of progress makes the motivation swell, eh?

The workouts have been quite good this week to the point of thinking… gesh, I should consider backing off soon!

I have been popping into different gyms as I travel about here and there with the day job and forcing the workouts into different settings; using different equipment, etc. It has caused me to turn the focus away from some "favorites"in the routine … like one gym that I went to didn’t have a belt for doing weighted dips [???], so I did larger number of dips without weight and superset the remainer of that chest/bi workout and totally tore things up [in a good way]. Another gym I went to didn’t have a plain bar for doing pull ups [???] - they had some kind of funky ill placed set of assorted handles in its place [obviously the guy that designed this contraption had never done a chin up in his life!], so I used it and focused the intensity of the back workout elseware and I was pretty stoked at the changes I was channeled into. Leg day this week was fairly intense as well - to the point that I decided to actually skip squats when they came up - my knees where a tad wobbly after forcing a big set of walking lunges and some heaviness at the leg press sled …

It has been a good week … heading in for shoulders this morning. Nice~!

I joined the NSCA a couple of weeks back and ordered the study materials this afternoon to take the CSCS exam. Should be cool!

The last couple of months I have really been having some issues falling asleep at night and this past week I figured it out as I was sitting at my dining room table at about midnight [I actually laid down to go to bed before 9:00 and gave up after 2 hours - and no, caffeine is not the issue. I generally avoid beverages of that sort 4-5 hours before bed]: I have not been making myself tired enough in my workouts. It has been a bit of a vicious cycle that I have recently came to grips with. I have backed off the cardio quite a bit over the last couple of months in order to save muscle that I have been working to build, but it has become apparent to me that the 5 minute warm up before weight training and 5-10 minute cool down after weight training is not enough to make my now ramped up metabolism chill when it comes time for sleep. So the last week I have been making it a point to really do things that are going to run me down some. Jogging more and swimming [some laps - mostly sprints]. I am finding after adding this element back into my workout that fall asleep has really not been hard and I am waking without the alarm clock in the morning. Very cool - problem solved!