RangerUpbitch’s BodyBlog

Alright so on March 22 there’s a pose down here at our post gym.  I feel like i could probably win this thing.  I’m not the biggest guy, but i have a well balanced physique.  I’m decently cut, but i think my back and chest need some work.  It’s about 2 months out.  I’m wondering how i can win this thing, strategically that is.  There are some big guys around here but i haven’t seen too many of them cut up.  Most of them just heave a bunch of weight and get big but i never see them doing anything to cut themselves up.  So i pose(pun intended) a few questions.  Do you think i should bulk for the next 5 weeks and then cut for 3 weeks?  What would be a better interval?  As far as supplements, i’m on 6-oxo an estrogen blocker/antagonist or whatever, protein, and creatine, but i’ve been able to consistently put on 1-2 pounds of lean muscles a month.  Should i take longer to get a better cut?  When should i stop taking the creatine etc?  I won’t get rid of the Crossfit WOD’s that i do, but i can definitely add some long slow cardio to cut up in place of the strength/bulking workouts that i do afterward.  Any wisdom out there?

Anyway here was the workout of the day for my Crossfitted self:

9 rounds of superset of 5reps 115# thruster, 5reps 55# weight pullup, 5reps handstand-pushups, 25 gluteham-dev situps.  Time: 24:01.

I finished with the following bodybuilding strenth supplementation: 5 sets of 10 reps 65# laying skull crushers, and 5 sets of 8 reps 80# dumbells incline bench. 

3 rounds of 15reps 55# turkish get-up windmills, 15reps 55# dumbells lunges, 25 dips.  Time:  23:05

This workout seems like it shouldn’t take that long but the stupid get-up mills smoke the dog piss out of you.  I didn’t take too many breaks, and I was surprised to see my finishing time.  It didn’t seem like i was doing it for that long.  I felt good pushing through.  I wanted to take some breaks, but my workout partner is obsessed with trying to beat me and well i wasn’t about to let him.  I thought he was going to take a break here and there but he’d start his next getup almost immediately.  It’s crazy how a little competitiveness will make you do so much more.  I was rolling on the floor laughing at one point when he was in the standing part of the getup about to start the windmill and his arm kind of collapsed and the dumbell glanced off his face and hit the floor.  He was okay and laughing too so it’s all good. 

Bodybuilding work out for the day went as follows:

4 sets of superset of 10 reps 100# dumbells shrugs with 10 reps 65# preacher curls.

4 sets of superset of 10 reps 50# dumbells standing shoulder press and 20 reps 20 # dumbells lateral raises.

Finished with 3 sets of the triplet: 25 glute-ham-situps, 25 leglifts, 25 pushups.

Easy bodybuilding workout as usual.  I barely broke a sweat.  I still like doing the traditional bodybuilding workouts, but i definitely don’t get my biggest results from doing it.  I think doing the extra few pumps during the bodybuilding portion may help with my crossfit workouts.  Some of my times have gotten better since i started doing it.  Don’t get me wrong though…when i first started crossfit i wouldn’t dare do anything extra over the workout of the day, but it just doesn’t seem like i’m doing enough with just the WOD.  Crossfit is super demanding, and hard especially when you’re starting out.   

This is just a vent. 

Alright how many people go to the gym and smoke the dog piss out of themselves?  I’m sure anyone that’s worth a damn on this site does so.  I’m sure you get weird looks from other gym goers and you know what i’m talking about.  Well my big workouts are kind of equipment intensive.  A lot of times i use 2 oly bars and rarely i use 3 oly bars.  The only reason i do 3 rarely is because when i’m using 2, guys look at me like i’m an idiot.  Most often times it’s these fat mf’ers that give me these looks.  Or times when i’m using the pullup bar with one oly bar sitting in front of it i get these same looks.  I could understand getting these looks if i’m taking my time between the 2 bars talking and bs’ing or whatever but i’m almost always going back and forth constantly.  When they do take the bar when i’m all finished all they wanted to do was some bicep curls with an Oly bar instead of the 4 curl bars sitting in the rack.  WTF?

Along the same lines, my gym is kind of crappy because of the limited equipment but why in the f#$% would you use the only squat rack available to rack your weight for some bicep curls.  First of all you’re using an oly-bar to do curls and second of all you’re to f%#$ing lazy to stand up with the weight and do your curls.  Space and equipment is limited in understand, but why the f%$#  would you have no gym courtesy whatsoever.  Another rant, if you have a pot belly why the hell are you working on your biceps? 

Second rant on the squat rack-  why are you hogging the squat rack with 10 sets of half squats?  half squats don’t mean shyte.  These guys brag to each other saying man i squated 405.  WTF?  No you half squated 405.  I was reading InkCreeps blog about what are these guys calling parallel?  "Parallel to what? an imaginary 45 degree angle from the wall?"  WTF?  Idiots!

Random rant- Alright dude you can bench 500 pounds and you can only squat and deadlift half of that?  you’ve got a problem.  Discounting the guys that have knee problems etc.

If you have a potbelly you shouldn’t be doing forearm isolation exercises and tricep extensions.  haha!  Hit the treadmill!

And finally…man you’re huge, but you’re covered in fat.  It’s time for a cut.  bodybuilding doesn’t mean shyte if you can’t cut it out. 

A question for the guys with infinite wisdom out there.  How do you tactfully tell someone man you’re doing it all wrong as far as form.  Most of these guys do too much weight so they do whatever exercise it may be wrong.  I thought it was the basic knowledge that to see results etc form is the most important element to what we do.  It’s usually the same guys that are like, "man i go to the gym every day and i don’t see any results."  I really want to help some of these guys, but for the most part they aren’t receptive to correction or seem approachable.  Do you just say f^%$ it let them keep doing it wrong? 

And my favorite comment I’ve ever received at the gym.  "What are you doing?  The dance of death?"  HAHAHA!

7 sets of the following: 25reps 45# sumo-deadlift highpull, 15reps 135# Deadlift, and 9reps ring dips.

I finished in 17:34.

today i felt like getting some good metabolic conditioning on my hamstrings and legs so that’s the workout.  It’s a good smoker.  I broke most of the sdlhp up into a 15-10split for the total 25.   My forearms were getting smoked, thus my grip was failing. 

 Body building workout: 5 sets of 10reps 60# dumbells incline bench. 

I hit my triceps pretty heavy on the dips in the warmup and the first WOD so good for bb on chest and tri’s day. 

My second WOD of the day went like this:

4 Sets of 10reps 50# kettlebell windmills, 10 reps 50# kettlebell swings, 10 pushups and 25 laying leg lifts.  I didn’t time it, but i did it as fast as possible with few breaks.  Good for gettin my heart rate through the roof for at least 8-10 minutes and smokes my core stabilizer muscles. 

This is done everyday when I arrive at the gym to get blood going through all my muscles and to help stretch out.  All reps are done at a slow pace with the exception of the 10 pullups which are kipping pullups.  Obviously i do not kip my weighted pullups.  If i have any residual soreness i stretch for a few minutes on that specific body part.  I’m in ridiculously good shape, so soreness doesn’t happen very often.  Soreness is usually only manifested with a little muscle tightness in the beginning part of my workouts.  Crossfit workout are highly randomized, and workouts are not repeated often, but hitting legs back to back happens more often than not.  Anyway here it is:

3 rounds of the following:

10 back extensions, 10 situps, 10 pullups, 10 dips, 10 45# overhead squats, 10 seconds each leg samson stretch.

Samson stretch is basically the lunge position with arms above head and fingers interlocked.

I usually add 5 45# weighted pullups to each set of pullups unless the workout of the day has pullups involved.

So today i did a workout posted on crossfit santacruz.  it went like this:

5 rounds of 15reps 75# kettlebell or dumbell swing and 30 double unders(jump rope).  Time 12:01

The workout wasn’t too bad and it was enough to smoke me pretty good.  I broke 2 of the swing sets into 7 and 8.  i was able to push through most of them.  I was surprised how smoked i was as a result of the double unders.  Those were only broken when i would mess up the rythm but i would start right back up.  I took a short rest in between each set which could have probably been eliminated or shortened.  I imagine that i could probably do this workout a minute or two faster if i was having a really good day.  Other than that it was another good workout for my kit bag.

Bodybuilding supplement workout:  Off-day

well yesterday was the easy day….what’s that saying "the only easy day was yesterday."  I think that comes from somewhere in the special operations world.  Actually i think it’s the Navy Seals.  Anyway here’s yesterday’s breakdown

7 x 7 reps  205# bench with 10 rep 135# warmup

5 sets of Superset of 10 reps 65# laying skull crushers and 50# dumbell tricep extension

4 sets of Superset of 10 reps 50# kettlebell windmills, 10 reps 50# kettlebell swings, 25 glute-ham-dev situps.  I forgot to time it.

The hardest part of the workout was the last 4 sets.  I didn’t take any breaks and i almost puked when i was done.

Alright Today was a smoker but easy day overall and it went as follows:

Superset of reps 21-15-9 each of 225# backsquat and ring(gymnastic rings) dips.  Time 4:30 

5 sets of Superset of  8reps 55# dumbells standing shoulder press, 10 reps 90# dumbells shrug, and 20reps 20# dumbells lateral raise.

5 sets of 8reps 15# dumbells bentover fly’s.  I really was trying to isolate the rear-delts and i could only get proper form with the light weight.  I found these to be extremely difficult, probably because i’ve never isolated such a small muscle, but I pride myself on good form and technique. 

Finished with 5 sets of Superset 25 situps and 25 back extensions.  No breaks but i forgot to time it.  Man my back is all cramped up.

Good day workin’ out overall.  We practically did 2 Crossfit WOD’s today.  whew…the NOOB’s on the Crossfit website crash after one.  HAH!  USED TO BE ME!

a’right so as usual i worked out and it sucked too.  I didn’t feel like working out.  One of my soldiers died yesterday and i just found out this morning.  We sent him back to the states because of injuries sustained here.  I had to hit the gym to let some of the anger out. 

 20 minute interval of the following:  9 pullups, 15 195# deadlift, and 21 70# pushpress.  i finished 7 rounds with a couple seconds to spare.  I was suckin’ kinda bad through the whole workout.  I have a hard time putting these intervals in the workout tracker because of how many reps and sets that are normally accomplished.  it takes forever and the sets that i input are not accurate as it is usually less reps per set and almost always more sets than entered.  it just takes too long to load in everything correctly.  I usually use 85# for air squats and 75# for situps and my body weight for pullup weight entries.  I am really tracking my volume of work, and if there’s a misunderstanding i’d be glad to explain.  Just PM me.  I think the weight i use for the body control exercises are conservative, but i’m consistent, so i can still use this data empirically to calculate any progress of my metabolic conditioning. 

Well i was going to go on a patrol today, but i got hooked in to finishing up the inventory.  Good thing…the patrol i was going on ended up nearly getting smoked by a big IED.  The only thing that saved them was some good equipment that I can’t really talk about.  Luckily the IED detonated after they passed.  It hit an iraqi truck.  And completely smoked the two dudes inside.  All my men are okay, but a little shaken up since they were really close.  Close call. 

Anyway the workout was a 20 minute interval of 5 hand-stand push-ups, 10 Lsit pullups, and 15 lunges.  I did 14 intervals total before time expired. 

I finished with 7 sets of squats of 7 reps of 225, 275, 275, 295, 295, 315, 315.  I wrapped up with 7 sets of 7 reps of 135# incline bench. 

 I’m glad I didn’t die or none of my soldiers died today.

Although it was a light day we managed to turn it into a smoker.  We combined the 30 muscleups for time and 150 wallballs for time into a nasty 6 round interval of 5 muscleups and 25 wallballs.  We finished in about 15 minutes but i didn’t accurately time the workout because i knew i’d be helping the others with the muscleups.  My most devoted workout partner, one of my soldiers Mark, has the strength to do the muscleups but lacks the technique for getting the muscleups down.  We modified the muscleup for him by making him jump into the transition of the muscle up and performing two dips from that point.  Any questions on muscleups reference the crossfit exercise link on their main page, plus they have tons of videos of muscleups.  Even though we kind of took our time we were smoked when we were finished.  Then we went inside the gym and finished with the bodybuilding portion of today’s workout.

 BB Workout today included a superset(i love supersets if  you haven’t noticed).  5 rounds of the following superset.  10 preacher curls a with 65# curl bar, 20 reps 20# dumbell preacher curls(10 each arm), and 10 shrugs with 80# dumbells.  Our biceps were on fire and shoulders fatigued.  We of course finished with some abs…3 sets of 25 laying leg-raises.  We threw each others legs on the down stroke for a little added resistance.  Those seemed almost too easy, but all in all a good work out day.

 I’m not big on the bodybuilding part of the workout, because i don’t really want to over develop the muscles involved in the isolation of small muscle groups.  I recently added the bodybuilding workout afterwards because it works some muscles that never get hit if you will, during the highly functional crossfit workouts.  I do it mainly to tone the soft spots and since they are really small areas the added mass and muscle density isn’t really affecting my crossfitting.  Mainly i do it for the added aesthetic results.  I think it’s kind of impossible to get the huge bodybuilding physiques of today while doing HIIT like Crossfit.  I have decent size that i’m very pleased with, and I don’t desire to get "huge".  I do it to tone out my natural shape and get more results similar to bodybuilders of the past.  I suppose the 60’s and early 70’s is what I really desire.  Well i digress until later.  Ranger out!