StressMonkey’s BodyBlog

I had tears in my eyes after watching this for some reason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVjzd320gew

Today I was minding my own business walking towards a station when I heard someone yell out to me “Hey, what are you doing here so late??”  I recognized the voice (or so I thought) and I turned around.  I could see part of the person who spoke but his face was blocked by the machine that was between us.  “Me, what the heck are you doing here so late?” I yelled back.

Then he stepped out from behind the machine.  We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity.  I was thinking “Oh hell.  I don’t know this guy.”  He was thinking “I wasn’t talking to you jackass!”

“I was talking to him bro.”

“Oh.  Sorry.  You sound like someone I know.”

UGH!

Like everyone else I see things at the gym that annoy me sometimes, but every once in a while you see something really cool.

I was using a benching station and this guy next to me loaded up a good amount of weight.  He asked a random person to spot him and he completed a set.  Then he racked the weight, thanked random spotter guy, and then laid down again, grabbed the bar and proceeded to lock his legs together.  This is kind of hard to explain but he then lifted his legs high in the air, almost as if he was pointing at something on the ceiling with his toes.  Part of this torso was off the bench.  I absolutely could not believe how long he was able to hold himself in that position.

After a very brief rest period he did the whole process again.  I was really curious and asked him if the whole legs in the air routine was an ab workout.  "Yeah dude, and it’s freaking hard.  It’s a killer."

I’m still deciding if I want to try it or not. 

Edit:  Ok, someone pointed out to me what these are called (Dragon’s Flag).  The guy’s feet were higher, but this is basically it.  He held that position without moving.

Edit 2: I said "screw it" and tried to do these at the gym today. Ho-lee-cow these are so freaking hard. I couldn’t hold the position for long at all.

I was flipping through a Brookstone catalog and I just couldn’t believe the items that were in the fitness section.

This one looks like a dinosaur fossil that was dug up in the desert.

Look at me!  I’m hanging upside down!

I’m through with high gas prices.   Next stop, 2025.

I have no comment on this one. 

1. Do you regret not starting 20 years ago?  Yes

2. Are you at least happy that you did eventually start?   Yes

3. Is it harder than you thought it would be?  Yes

4. Is it WAY harder than you thought it would be? Yes

5. Is it the hardest thing you’ve ever done?  No

6. Is all the time/pain/hassle it worth it?  Yes

7. Do you usually love it?  Yes

8. Do you ever hate it?  No

9. Do you ever get annoyed by it or ever have days where you don’t feel like going to the gym? Yes

10. Do you ever skip workouts because of that?  No

11. Do you usually feel great afterwards (especially when you didn’t want to go)?  Yes

12. Do you hate working legs?  Yes

13. Do you really hate working legs?   Yes

14. Are you doing things now that would have been unthinkable to you a year ago?  Yes

15. Are you doing things now that would have been unthinkable to you six months ago?  Yes

16. Are you happy with how you look?   Yes

17. Are you satisfied with how you look?  No

18. Did you use to feel anxiety when at the gym?  Yes

19. Is that still a problem?  No

20. Do you see yourself doing this for the rest of your life?  Yes

I’ve found that I can find motivation for lifting in the strangest places.  Some of these are so silly, but they put an ear to ear grin on my face.

• I’ve been noticing that some of the shirts that I wore last spring are really snug on me now.  One or two of them don’t even fit at all anymore.  You would think that I would be annoyed that my wardrobe might be shrinking, but every time I put on a shirt and find that it’s now snug it makes me so happy.  I tried on a small t-shirt at a store about a week ago and I could barely get the thing off of me.  I was afraid I was going to rip it Hulkamania style.  LOL
• Whenever I step onto a scale that you have to manually adjust I put the lower section on 100 and then adjust the top section.  I’ve been doing this since the 80’s and it’s pretty much an automatic behavior at this point.  The problem is that that doesn’t work for me anymore now that I’m over 150 pounds.  Every time that happens a part of me still can’t believe I’m over 150.
• I went out with my all of my coworkers recently for a department luncheon.  There’s one guy who I’m just a casual acquaintance with.  Pretty much a “Hey, how are?” in the hallway is the most we ever say to each other because we work on separate projects in separate areas.  At the lunch out of nowhere he leans back in his chair and yells down the table, “Hey, how much are weighing these days?” I told him and asked him what he had thought I was.  His answer?  165 pounds.  I swear I floated out of the restaurant.  You’ve got to understand that for 98% of my life when people mentioned my weight it was to comment on how skinny/anemic/unhealthy I looked.
• I started buying a plate of 28 large water bottles at the local warehouse club when I started working out.  It’s a lot cheaper to buy them there than pay a buck at the gym.  I can distinctly remember picking one of them up the first time and thinking “Ugh, this is heavy.”  I went and bought one today and it wasn’t until I was going to check out that I realized that I had picked it up from the shelf without even thinking about it.  Functional strength gains are cool!
• Last week someone came up to me and mentioned that they had seen my testimonial hanging on the wall and they wanted to congratulate me.  He seemed a little bummed out because he had started working out with my trainer and said he felt like he was as weak as a kitten.  It felt great giving this guy a pep talk.  I told him I felt the same way at first and almost puked a few times early on in the process.  If it was easy everyone would it!

It’s pretty amusing to me that a lot of what I assumed to be true about weightlifting was completely wrong, not to mention the things I didn’t know at all.

• I assumed everyone would be focused on what the gym newbie was doing.  I was surprised to find out that no one cares what you are doing.  Let me repeat that.  No one cares what you are doing.  I put off joining a gym for years because I thought it was only a place for jocks.  Then when I finally joined a gym I was really self conscious at first about how much I was lifting.  I was embarrassed because I was using weight that was so much lighter than what some of the monsters around me were using.  I slowly realized that NO ONE CARES WHAT YOU ARE DOING. That person over there?  They’re just trying to finish up their set so they can get home and watch Lost.  That person over yonder?  They’re so busy staring at themselves in the mirror that they wouldn’t notice if Attila the Hun rode through the gym on an elephant.  The only times I can recall anyone caring what I was doing concerned gym regulars.  If the gym regulars see you coming back week after week they’ll know you’re serious and respect you.  I’ve gotten some pats on the back for improving.  Everyone who is big started out small.

• I assumed that going to the gym would be miserable but it was just something I had to put up with to look like I wanted look.  For the first month or so this is generally true.  Everything is new and awkward.  Then there’s the soreness.  Oh my goodness.  You’re going to ache in places you never knew you could ache.  I was so sore after my first leg day that I could barely walk up a flight of stairs two days later.  It’s a whole different story after you get past this hazing period. It was pretty amazing to me that one day going to the gym flipped from being ’something I HAVE to do’ to ’something I WANT to do’.  Sure it feels great, builds character, relieves stress, blah blah.  What really lit a fire under me was seeing results.  You start to see results and think “holy ****, maybe I really CAN do this.”  I recently switched to working out to four times a week instead of three.  I wasn’t unhappy with the progress I was making, I just freaking enjoy it.

• I worried that I was too old to start lifting.  I am so embarrassed by this but it is true.  I really thought that the mass train might have left the station without me.  I was 35 when I started.  I’m really glad I found BodySpace.  I was completely amazed when I saw some of the profiles on here.  Of course it’s impressive to see people around your age who are in shape, but what really motivated me were the people who also started “later” in life and made amazing progress.

• I had no idea diet was so important and is ten gazillion times harder than lifting.  It’s not a problem for me to make myself hit the gym.  To make myself take in all the calories I need? Not so easy.  I remember being completely stunned when my personal trainer told me he wanted me to eat five or six times a day.  Although I do struggle with diet I have found that I feel so much better now that I eat cleanly (and eat so much more than I used to).

• I had no idea “the pump” feels so good.  I mean “OMG, I can’t believe this feels so good - good!” Before I joined a gym I was a pushup junkie and that gave me a little taste of what a pump was like, but nothing like what you get from blasting your muscles for an hour at the gym.  When your muscles are pumped up you look great and you feel like a million bucks.  I just want to shake all of my friends that don’t lift and scream “Why would you not want to feel this way???”

• I had no idea most people who start drop out.  The statistics I’ve read have varied, but all of them say over half (some say WAY over half) don’t make it past eight weeks.  That’s really a shame because that’s when I really started noticing changes.  I was really lucky in that I found a trainer that pushed me hard but at the same time made working out fun.  Quitting was never an option.

For someone who supposedly doesn’t care about strength gains I sure do write a lot of excited blog entries about strength gains!

Today was international chest day and I was working with dumbbells.  I did flat bench again with the 70 pounders.  I’ve still got mental barriers to overcome when I bench with dumbbells.  I start psyching myself out sometimes but when I actually start the reps I’ll think “This isn’t so bad!”  The benching with the 70s went really well.  I would have actually made an attempt with the 75s if I had a spotter, but alas, I am not a GS yet.

I also did incline dumbbell presses with the 60s for the first time today.  That just amazes me.  It really wasn’t that long ago that I couldn’t do two reps on flat bench with the 60s.

It’s so exciting seeing progress being made.

I sound like a broken record.

This would be me if I tried joining Mike the GS on the Day of the Deads (or squats).

I’ve mentioned that I don’t care how strong I am and that’s still true, but man I am so stoked over some strength increases I’m seeing.  One of the things I worried about when I ditched the personal trainer was that I would get complacent and not push myself to keep trying harder things.  This week I did the following things (all of which I’ve never done before):

• Lunges with 50 lb dumbbells

• Shoulder presses with 60 lb dumbbells (only got 6 reps and they weren’t pretty but I did them)

• Flat bench with 70 lb dumbbells

When I started out my grip strength was so pathetic I couldn’t even do shrugs with the 70 lb dumbbells.  And to top it off when I stepped on the scale today I was 154.4, which is also a new record for me.  Woo hoo!