StrongerGeek’s BodyBlog

Today I went to the gym twice.  At lunch I did abs work and some cardio.  Nothing exciting…

My wife informed me that getting to the gym tomorrow was going to be a dicey proposition given all the stuff we have going on… So I went back tonight and did an upper body workout.  I went medium heavy on my left (the good) side and I ramped up the weights a little on the right.  For example, I did DB presses with 60 lbs on the left and 22.5 lbs on the right.  I feel all lopsided.  I could actually see a major difference in arm size today.  My left arm was totally pumped while my right arm was fairly normal.  Sigh.  Everything I did felt okay on the right side, except the bench press at 22.5 lbs still had a small twinge of pain at the lowest point in the motion.  The real question is how will it feel tomorrow?  My previous experience is that the real pain comes the day after I work that shoulder…

I measured my body fat again today.  Honestly, I don’t know how much I trust these electo-impedence devices, but according to this one, I’ve decreased my percentage to 13.9% BF.  This first time I measure body fat, I had already been training for quite some time, so I don’t exactly know where I started.  I estimate I had around 20% body fat back in January of 2007.  I wonder what % I need to really have my abs show.  I’ve sort of got this 2-pack thing going right now.  It certainly looks better than anything I’ve ever had in my adult life, but I really want those ripped looking abs you see of many of the men on this site.  I can justify alot of my weight-lifting and obsessive diet with lots of talk of strength, aging well, general health, etc.  The abs however are pure vanity on my part.  I want people to look at my abs and go Wow, look at that!

A solid leg day.  I worked out this evening instead of my normal time because I met my wife to have lunch.
I’m still stuck at 225 lbs x 8 on the squats, but I did a second set at the same weight and did another 5.   Not bad. I’ve got some plans on how to shake up the squats next week.  Stay tuned.  I lightened up on the leg-extension today to give my knees a bit of a break.  Sometimes less is more.  I got a hell of a pump on them.  I PRed on the leg-curl at 95 lbs x 13.  I haven’t been doing leg-presses lately, but I had a little extra time tonight and was in the mood for more after my normal workout, so I did 200 lbs x 10, 290 lbs x 10, 380 lbs x 10, 470 lbs x 6.  That’s the highest weight I’ve ever pressed.  I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again.  Thank god for leg-day.  It keeps me sane and motivated.
My PT appointment is next Wednesday and of course Murphy’s law is kicking in… My shoulder is feeling a lot better than it has been lately.  My wife says it’s psychosomatic and I need a lobotomy…  (The voices don’t like it when she says that…)

So I went to my GP.  I hate going to the doctor.  Fortunately, I happen to love my GP.  He always makes me feel comfortable in what has always been for me, since childhood, an awful thing.  The sad thing is he told me his is retiring in May.  Ugh.

Anyway, he looked at my shoulder and made me move it in all sorts of different ways.  At the end he said, "Look, the PT guys are the real doctors for stuff like this and I’m giving you a prescription now so you can go see one.  But, that being said, I’m fairly confident this is minor and will go away in another month or so."  So that was a relief, but he was pretty insistent on the PT, so I will schedule an appointment with them tomorrow.

I asked him about continuing to work out.  Again he wanted me to consult the PT, but he said in general I should let the pain be the guide on this.  If it hurts, don’t do it.  If it doesn’t hurt, it’s ok.  He was fairly clear that not moving it would be a bad idea.  I had sort of learned this myself.  It got all stiff if I babied it too much.

So over all the message was good I think.  I’m cautiously optimistic.

The best part of the doctors visit was when I got my blood pressure and pulse taken.  My BP was 130/60.  This is the first time I’ve had my BP taken since starting my health kick over a year ago.  Before I started it was about 140/80.  60!  I can’t remember ever having a diastolic that low ever in my adult life.  And my pulse was 60.  That’s really low for me too.  I’ve been in the 70 bpm range for ever.  My shoulder might be falling apart, but damn it my heart’s getting better.  All that healthy eating is paying off!

I missed my workout at lunch today because I knew I was missing the afternoon for today’s doctor vist, so I went tonight after dinner instead.  It was supposed to be a leg day, but I just wasn’t up for it.  So I did tomorrow’s cardio and abs workout instead.  I’ll do legs tomorrow when I (hopefully) have more umph.

So I did it.  I made an appointment with my GP for tomorrow to have him look at my shoulder.  I did a lot of research last night on the web, and the two choices are (I think) I have small tear in my rotator cuff, or I have a mild (Grade I probably) AC joint separation.  I think it is highly likely to be the latter of these two, give my symptoms and how the incident happened.  This makes he hopeful actually, because a low grade AC separation will eventually heal with rest (4-6 weeks) while a rotator cuff tear might not.  Now, I think I need to stop playing doctor myself and let the professionals take over…

I will lift upper body today on my left side only.  I’m going to ask his opinion on that too…

Saturday was another lopsided upper body day.  Instead of not doing anything on my right side at all, I did everything with super-light weights.  For example, I would do DB rows with 60 lbs on the left side, and 10 lbs on the right.  I think I got more than one strange look…  The shoulder feels pretty good today, even better I think that if I hadn’t done anything.  Motion helps it.  Next time I will notch up the weight again a small amount and see how I do.  I actually am much more upbeat about it these days.  I suspect going to take a month or two to get back to where I was before the injury, but I will get there… And maybe be the wiser for it.  (God someone kill me, I sound all optimistic and happy…)
Today was a pretty good leg workout.  Nothing spectacular, but not bad at all.  I seem to be stuck at squatting 225 lbs.  Mind you, a month ago I would have been ecstatic to be at 225 at all, so it’s hard to complain too much.  My squat form is improving though.  I’ve been working hard at getting deeper.  I was off my PRs in squats and leg-extensions.  I did PR on the leg-curl at 95 lbs x 11.  I dead-lifted 5 x 5 x 105 lbs.  I’m only increasing the weight there 5 lbs a week as I work on my form.  No sense in screwing my back up.

I’ve been doing a lot of hip mobility exercises and they have really been doing wonders for me.  Last summer, when I started squatting heavier weights (more than 135 lbs, say) I found my sacral-illiac joint was really giving me trouble.  It has been a problem area for me even before starting weight-training, but it really hurt after squats.  In fact, when I reached my 2007 goal of 205 lbs x 10, I really cut back my squat weight because I was worried about it.  I concentrated on my form for a while at lower weight, and also found some article on the web about hip mobility.  I started a regimin they recommended, and sure enough, I’m squatting 225 x 8 reps now and my hip feels totally fine.  What did people do before the Internet came along?

Yesterday was a strange workout.  I got sucked into watching the inauguration at lunch, so I went to the gym after work.  It was absolutely packed.  Wow.  I hate going after work.  Second, I only worked-out my left side.  That was odd.  I did mostly dumbbell work.  DB Bench Press, Overhead Press, Curls, Triceps, Rows.  I did some cable work too on triceps and rotator cuffs.  The only exercise I did on my right side was some forearm stuff, where my shoulder has no involvement at all.  I’m doing some mobility work on that side and it seems to help some.
Today is day four of resting my shoulder.  I last worked out with it on this past Saturday.  I am hopeful this rest will make things better.  I guess I win either way in a half-glass full sort of mind-set.  If it gets better, great.  If it doesn’t, there is something pretty wrong, and I shouldn’t be pushing it anyway.  Of course, I’m not naturally a half-glass full kind of guy, but I’m going with it anyway.  I’m not exactly sure how much time to give it.  I was thinking two weeks, but my reading has me leaning more towards 3 or 4 weeks.  It’s going to be hard to be that patient.
Today was a good leg workout.  Thank god for legs.  Funny how much I look forward to these workouts now.  I used to absolutely hate leg days.  My wife told me yesterday than my legs were totally huge.  She finally noticed!  All right!  I’m actually worried I’m going to be all out of proportion.  Sort of the opposite of the classic ‘chicken legs’ phenomenon.  I’m going to have great legs and a ‘chicken torso’.

Today I squatted 225 lbs x 8 which is a one-rep-more record for me at that weight.  For kicks I tried to do one rep at 275 lbs.  I gently lowered the bar down… and it kept going down until it hit the rails.  I just couldn’t do it.  I watched a guy next to me squat 315 with no pins on the rack.  I think that’s just crazy.  The only other lift of note was a PRed just barely on the leg-curl at 90lbs x 13.

Thank god for leg day.  It keeps me motivated through my depressing upper body days…

Ugh.   I have a cold.  And my shoulder is hurting again.  Damnit.

Saturday I worked out and it was fine, but my shoulder is sore again.  It had been getting a lot better.  But today it is achy.  It doesn’t really hurt, it’s just really achy and tight.  I’m not sure I can explain the difference.  Sunday I had a lousy leg workout.  First, I was just whipped because of the cold.  I ended up bailing on rep 5 of 225 lbs squats.  (And not a purposeful bail, Tony…)  Thank God for squatting rack pins.  Second the gym was so crowded that I couldn’t even get on the leg-extension machine.  Blah.

I think I need to get this shoulder looked at.  The first thing any doctor worth his salt will ask me is have I tried laying of it completely for a couple of weeks.  And I can’t honestly say yes.  I took 5 days off right after the incident that caused it (which was just about 3 weeks ago now) but then I’ve been trying to lift around it ever since.  So before calling the doctor, I am going to completely take two weeks and not do anything but mobility stuff on the right side of my upper body.  If that doesn’t make things feel better, I’m going to the doctor.  It’s not bad pain, but I also know that I’m not doing myself any favors by irritating it twice a week at the gym.
Now here’s where my obsessive personality is a problem.  I’m so all or nothing.  I have this growing feeling I should just give this whole stupid diet and fitness thing up.  But of course that’s stupid.  Tomorrow is an upper body day.  I should just work my left side and do what I can do.  I can still do my lower body.  I can still do cardio.  And sit ups.  I can still have a clean, good diet.  The temptation is to go next door to where I work and get an ice-cream sundae.  I can not let myself fall into this trap.

I took yesterday off.  It was hard to do, but yesterday I had a lunch-time rendez-vous with my wife so I didn’t get to the gym.  I was planning on going last night, but I have a bit of a head-cold, so I was too fried by the time I got home from work.  It wasn’t a lifting day, so I missed a cardio session.  Today was an abs and cardio day, which was uneventful…

I don’t know about you, but I find it psychologically difficult to take a day off.  I feel worthless, like I’m losing all the hard work I’ve put in.  As if a single missed day could undo a year of work.  Crazy.

Today was a quick-and-dirty leg day.  I was rushed and had to get my workout done in 45 minutes.  I squatted, as is my wont these days, and here’s what I did:

• 45 lbs x 20
• 95 lbs x 20
• 135 lbs x 15
• 185 lbs x 12
• 225 lbs x 7
• 250 lbs x 1

225 lbs x 7 is the most reps I’ve done at that weight.  I was shooting for 8, but I ran out of gas.  After that, I just wanted to try 250 lbs for some reason today.  That’s the heaviest weight I’ve ever squatted.  I couldn’t go for 2 reps though.  My body was rebelling at that point.  I’m considering cutting down on the reps of my early light sets, but I’m loathe to do it since it really helps me to slowly warm up with them.  I feel all tight if I don’t.  One of my fellow lunch-time lifters watched my form for me on the 250 lbs and said I was just a hair over parallel.  I’ve read the taller you are the harder it is to get deep, so I don’t feel too bad about this.  But nevertheless I may work on some light weight box squats to make sure I’m at least hitting parallel.  Interestingly, I find the heavier the weight, the easier it is.
Everything else today isn’t worthy of note.  No PRs, but no major disappointments either.  I didn’t have time to leg-press today.  In fact, I think since I’m squatting twice a week, the leg presses may be left by the wayside for a while.  I’m okay with that.  They aren’t my favorite.

Today was an interesting upper body workout.  I went heavier than before (although still not 100%) and I did feel it a little in the shoulder. It didn’t hurt, really.  It just felt tight.  I did some light dumbell presses for lots of reps as warmup (30 lbs x 20, 45 lbs x 15, x 12, x 10).  I then did 3 sets of heavier cable-crossovers followed by two sets on the pec-deck.  I had a great pumped feeling my chest after this.  I’m am now officially sold on cable-crossovers!  Not only do they work my chest, they don’t hurt my shoulder at all.
The gym was crowded today and I was in a bit of a rush, so I did things way out of order today.  Pullups were almost last, and I barely cranked out 6.  My biceps and lats were already fried from other exercises, so I’m not feeling too bad about it this time.  The only PR set today was a one-rep-extra on the DB overhead press where I cranked out 40 lbs x 14.

Today’s workout was nothing earth-shattering.  Just a good workout.  I got in and out fast and had a good pumped feeling when I walked out the gym.  I am eager for tomorrow’s workout to come.  I cannot believe I look forward to squatting now.  I must have gone completely mental.  I want 225 lbs x 8 tomorrow.