Warriors Only

I decided a couple weeks ago I was going to clean up my diet. A friend of mine who competes in figure always laughs at me cause of how I eat. You see, I’m one of those guys that was blessed with a very high metabolism and have always been naturally lean and cut up. Even before sports and working out (training).  As I child I was always the little kid with muscular looking arms and abs like a grown man. Since cuts were never my problem I’ve always been able to eat what I want or like my friend says, "like crap" and not have to worry about not looking lean. Well she always tells me that it will catch up with me by the time I hit my mid 30s so I should try to practice eating before now. She says I might look good now but if I keep up the way I eat I could have a gut by the time I’m 35. That doesn’t sound good at all. So this is what I’ve done. I’ve laid off the junk food during the week. Only treating myself on weekends.  Monday through Friday I won’t be eating any cookies, debbie cakes, bbq potatoe chips, etc. During the week I’ve only been eating real food and drinking water. With the exception of my skittles. I gotta have those purple bag and sour skittles. I just couldn’t give them up. LOL!  Since I committed to this change about 3 weeks ago I’ve dropped 5lbs down to 220.  Its funny though cause my muscles actually look bigger. Everything seems to be popping out more. I’m going to continue with this diet.  I plan on competing in 2010 and I’m going to do what I gotta to look my best out there.  Of course come prep time I guess I won’t be treating myself too much on weekends either.

I’m going to keep this one short. I reached a new squat on tuesday, 560. I don’t mean the half way just barely bend your knees squats either. I’m talking about parallel, 90degree, down to the chair squat. I was told that I made it look easy. I just smiled and said "Hell, thats all it did was look easy. It felt damn heavy". My next squat goal is 600 by the end of summer, beginning of fall. Wish me luck. Now I gotta get this 450 to lock out for me on the bench. I always get stuck right at that 90 degree point in the press. I’ve been trying to push that for too long now.  Time to hit that $hit! Peace.

This past week I decided to change my workout a little bit. For those that don’t know I normally hit everything twice a week, always doing heavy weight for low reps. Well I decided that I’m going to do something a little different. The schedule is still the same. I still hit everything twice a week. The only difference is instead of going so heavy all the time and doing low reps, I would go heavy for low reps the first half of the week and do moderate weight for higher reps the second half of the week. Here is a small example, my bench workout on heavy days is normally like this: 135×5, 225×5, 315×4, 350×3. 385×3, 405×1-2, 425×1, 225×25-30. My squat workout is normally like this: 135×5, 225×5, 315×4, 405×3, 455×3, 500×1-3, 525×1. Thats my normal style of training. This week I only went heavy like that on the first half of the week. Here is an example of how I did the 2nd half of the week. My bench workout for the 2nd week was like this: 135×10, 225×20, 275×15, 315×10, 335×8. My squat workout for the 2nd half was: 135×10, 225×20, 315×15, 365×10, 405×8. Those were just a couple of examples.  It was a different feeling for  me. I got a different kind of pump out of it. But I liked it. My legs burned out on me kind of quick but after they get used to all the reps it will be fine. I’m sure I’ll be revising my rep workouts a few times over the next few weeks and I look forward to seeing the results this will have on my muscle shape and size, and my strength. Thanks for stopping by. Be on the look out for lots of changes in my body and in my strength. Peace.

One of the powerlifters at the gym finally got me to wrap my knees on leg day this week. Honestly, it felt pretty good. Of course there was some discomfort at first and I didn’t really like it at all but after a few sets I was like "Hey, this is alright". I was one of those guys who really didn’t see the point and always thought that it would cause more problems than it would help me but it really help. The weight felt a lot lighter going up and I was able to sink the squats lower without feel so much pressure on my knee caps. Especially with the heavier sets, med 400s and low 500s. Now he says if you can just get me to throw my darn gloves away and start using chalk I’ll be good to go. LOL! I don’t know about that though. I gotta have some gloves on. LOL! But I will be placing an order for some knee wraps as soon as I finish this post, which is right about now. Peace!

Its the first day of the week. I’m sure most of you were at a superbowl party somewhere on sunday. Well, Steelers pulled it off. I’m a Ravens fan since I’m originally from Baltimore. Atleast I can say me guys lost to the champs lol. Anyway, I’m not going to talk too much. Just got in some supplements from the BB.com store that I ordered Friday. They’re are always so fast. I didn’t order anything major this time around. Just some Dymatize BCAA, some Dymatize Glutamine, MMUSA Creatine Serum ATP, and some Potassium pills. Hopefully the Potassium will help with the cramps I get. Anyways, the work day is almost over. About to lock everything down and head to the gym. Peace.

Ok I did it. I finally did it. I some of the gym at the gym have told me that with the kind of weight I use I was bound to brake something some day and during yesterday’s leg workout it happened. It was another one of the days where the rythm was great and everything was just on point. Squats were nice and low, calf raises were nice and high, and everything else was right on target. I got to the leg extensions machine and I was going hard. I don’t even know what kind of weight was on there I just know it was about 3 or 4 plates from being the whole stack. Next thing I knew, POP, CRASH! The chain had broke in the middle of my reps. The was a first for me. Have had some gym equipment brake on me before. It was cool though. All the old school powerlifters were patting me on the back. "You’re a man now" LOL! Those guys are crazy. You know those old school cats are hardcore though. Well I’m off to the gym. Hopefully I won’t tear something else up. LOL! Already got one machine out of order. LOL! Go hard everyone. Peace!

Mondays workout was pretty good. I had a good rythm and actually got it all done pretty fast. Gotta love those workouts right? When everything is on point and there are no distractions. Just you, you ipod or mp3, and the iron. That was the day I had.

Flat Bench Press: 135×5, 225×5, 315×4, 350×3, 385×3, 405×1, 225×30(burnout)

Cable Press Downs: 2 Sets of 20, 1 Set of 15, 180lbs

Wide Grip Pullups: 2 Sets of 20, 1 Set of 10

Dumb Bell Curls: 3 Sets of 20, 80lbs

Decline Bench Press: 135×5, 225×5, 315×5, 365×3, 405×1

Machine Flies: 170×20, 180×15, 190×10

Machine Preacher Curls: 1 set of 20, 1 set of 15, 1 set of 10, 150lbs

Machine Tricep Extensions: 3 Sets of 10, 140lbs

Incline Setups: 2 sets of 30

Hanging Knee Raises: 2 sets of 25

All the snow is gone. Everything is back to normal. I went to work on Friday had a regular work day. Friday is also one of my leg days so after my day at the job, I had to go train these quads. The workout went pretty well after I got myself motivated. It started kinda slow. Just one of those days where you don’t feel like doing anything. Yeah, we all have those. But once I got my mind right, it was on.

Squats: 225×5, 315×5, 405×4, 455×3, 500×2

Seated Calf Raises: 4 Sets of 25 with 4 45lb plates

Leg Press: 740×5, 920×5, 1100×5, 1280×4

Standing Calf Raises: 4 Sets of 25 with 5 45lb plates

Step Ups: 3 Sets of 10 on each leg with 40lb dumb bells

Leg Extensions: 200×15, 2 Sets of 225×15

Leg Curls: 100×15, 2 Sets of 130×10

Adduction: 100×15, 2 Sets of 150×10

Abduction: 100×15, 2 Sets of 150×10

Hanging Knee Raises: 3 Sets of 20

I glad its the weekend now. I treat weight training like a job. Off on weekends and holidays.

We got snow! Thats right it snowed in NC. We only get a good snow down here every couple years and  when it does the everything shuts down. I woke up looked out my window and my car was covered. Anyway that was tuesday. Wednesday was business as usual. I went to work, the day was short cause we were on a 2 hour delay. Then I went to the gym. Workout was pretty good. I went in fully energized and got busy.

Dips: 3 sets of 20

Front Dumb Bell Raises: 3 sets of 10

Side Dumb Bell Raises: 3 sets of 10

Standing Isolated Forearm Curls From Behind: 135×15, 185×10, 205×10, 225×5

Bar Bell Shrugs: 225×15, 315×10, 365×10, 405×8

Behind The Back Bar Bell Shrugs: 225×15, 315×10, 365×10, 405×5

Seated Cable Rows: 190×10, 200×8, 220×6, 240×4

Seated Lat Pullovers: 180×10, 200×10, 210×10, 220×6

Incline Sit Ups: 3 sets of 30

I’m out of town this weekend. I still had to find time to hit the gym and get in a quick workout. Especially since I missed Friday. I went to a 24 Hour Fitness Center and got busy. Didn’t do a whole lot. Didn’t really have much time. But I’m one of those guys who feels like he starts to shrink if I miss just one day. Here is a look at my quick out of town workout.

Flat Bench: 135×5, 225×5, 315×4, 350×3, 385×3, 405×2, 225×20pauses

Dumb Bell Curls: 80lbs 3 Sets of 20(10 each arm)

Incline Bench Press: 135×5, 225×5, 275×5, 300×3, 315×3

Cable Press Down with rope: 165lbs 4 Sets of 15

Wide Grip Pull Ups: 1 Set of 20, 2 Sets of 15, 1 Set of 10

Pretty quick workout huh? Well I didn’t have time to put in my normal 2.5 hours. I just did what I could with the time that I had. Peace!