TeamJim’s BodySpace Blog

Going very well.

PB’s will go up this year!

 

Have found a really good gym now.

I’m detoxed and ready to BUILD!

As planned, training with my cousin at an independent gym now - great first session today (full-body, no huge weights apart from on the leg press, just getting used to the gym and focusing on technique): deadlifts, power cleans, The Bear, 45 degree leg press, leg curl, dips, chin-ups, BB bench press, BB incline bench, DB decline press, DB flyes, Arnold press, shrugs, DB curls, tricep pull-down). Next session we will focus on one-arm DB rows, BB bent-over rows, wide grip lat pull downs, squats, military press, upright rows. Going really well!

I got through the exams with ease - was just doing dumbbell training during the exam period - will be getting back to barbell training in the next couple of days.

Last time I posted I had just finished the first part of my exams. Next week I start the second part. 

As Arnold says, bodybuilding is a way of life and when you’re getting bigger and bigger, stronger and stronger, you soon believe you can do just about anything, because you can: there is no limit.

Life is about GROWTH and helping the people around you be the best they can be.

Happiness and health for all - that is my motto.

I’m training for functional strength - a constant state of feeling good in mind and body.

It’s going very nicely - I had exams every day last week from Monday to Saturday so I didn’t have any gym sessions; just trained with dumbbells in my room.

I’m psyching myself up to get past the plateau on my 1-rep maxes - I know that when I get past this I will go up a notch both in strength and size, and it really is a case of mnd over matter.

I’ve had a great vacation: quality training, powerful concentrics, super slow eccentrics - using the one and a half technique with lateral raises, no swinging, everything controlled, flexed - mind-to-muscle.
I really need to get someone to take some proper photos - can’t do a lot just with my webcam.

Training routine and latest stats coming soon! I’m already bigger than I was in the last pic - feel stronger and more massive all round.
Push yourself past the pain barrier and you get stronger. Simple

IRON

By Henry  Rollins

I believe that the definition of definition is reinvention.

To not be like your parents.

To not be like your friends.

To be yourself.

Completely.

When I was young I had no sense of myself.

All I was, was a product of all the fear and humiliation I suffered.

Fear of my parents. The humiliation of teachers calling me "garbage can" and

telling me I’d be mowing lawns for a living.

And the very real terror of my fellow students.

I was threatened and beaten up for the color of my skin and my size.

I was skinny and clumsy, and when others would tease me I didn’t run home

crying, wondering why.

I knew all too well.

I was there to be antagonized.

In sports I was laughed at.

A spaz. I was pretty good at boxing but only because the rage that filled my every

waking moment made me wild and unpredictable.

I fought with some strange fury.

The other boys thought I was crazy.

I hated myself all the time.

As stupid at it seems now, I wanted to talk like them, dress like them, carry

myself with the ease of knowing that I wasn’t going to get pounded in the hallway

between classes.

Years passed and I learned to keep it all inside.

I only talked to a few boys in my grade. Other losers.

Some of them are to this day the greatest people I have ever known.

Hang out with a guy who has had his head flushed down a toilet a few times, treat

him with respect, and you’ll find a faithful friend forever.

But even with friends, school sucked.

Teachers gave me hard time. I didn’t think much of them either.

Then came Mr. Pepperman, my advisor. He was a powerfully built Vietnam

veteran, and he was scary.

No one ever talked out of turn in his class.

Once one kid did and Mr. P. lifted him off the ground and pinned him to the

blackboard.

Mr. P. could see that I was in bad shape, and one Friday in October he asked me if

I had ever worked out with weights.

I told him no. He told me that I was going to take some of the money that I had

saved and buy a hundred-pound set of weights at Sears.

As I left his office, I started to think of things I would say to him on Monday when

he asked about the weights that I was not going to buy.

Still, it made me feel special.

My father never really got that close to caring.

On Saturday I bought the weights, but I couldn’t even drag them to my mom’s

car.

An attendant laughed at me as he put them on a dolly.

Monday came and I was called into Mr. P.’s office after school.

He said that he was going to show me how to work out.

He was going to put me on a program and start hitting me in the solar plexus in

the hallway when I wasn’t looking.

When I could take the punch we wouldknow that we were getting somewhere.

At no time was I to look at myself in the mirror or tell anyone at school what I

was doing.

In the gym he showed me ten basic exercises.

I paid more attention than I ever did in any of my classes.

I didn’t want to blow it.

I went home that night and started right in.

Weeks passed, and every once in a while Mr. P. would give me a shot and drop

me in the hallway, sending my books flying.

The other students didn’t know what to think.

More weeks passed, and I was steadily adding new weights to the bar.

I could sense the power inside my body growing.  I could feel it.

Right before Christmas break I was walking to class, and from out of nowhere Mr.

Pepperman appeared and gave me a shot in the chest.

I laughed and kept going. He said I could look at myself now. I got home and ran

to the bathroom and pulled off my shirt.

I saw a body, not just the shell that housed my stomach and my heart.

My biceps bulged.

My chest had definition.  I felt strong.

It was the first time I can remember having a sense of myself.

I had done something and no one could ever take it away.

You couldn’t say s**t to me.

It took me years to fully appreciate the value of the lessons I havelearned from

the Iron.

I used to think that it was my adversary, that I was trying to lift that which does

not want to be lifted.

I waswrong.

When the Iron doesn’t want to come off the mat, it’s the kindest thing it can do for

you.

If it flew up and went through the ceiling, it wouldn’t teach you anything.

That’s the way the Iron talks to you.

It tells you that the material you work with is that which you will come to

resemble.

That which you work against will always work against you.

It wasn’t until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I had given

myself a great gift.

I learned that nothing good comes without work and a certain amount of pain.

When I finish a set that leaves me shaking, I know more about myself.

When something gets bad, I know it can’t be as bad as that workout.

I used to fight the pain, but recently this became clear to me: pain is not my

enemy; it is my call to greatness.

But when dealing with the Iron, one must be careful to interpret the pain

correctly.

Most injuries involving the Iron come from ego.

I once spent a few weeks lifting weight that my body wasn’t ready for and spent a

few months not picking up anything heavier than a fork.

Try to lift what you’re not prepared to and the Iron will teach you a little lesson in

restraint and self-control.

I have never met a truly strong person who didn’t have self-respect.

I think a lot of inwardly and outwardly directed contempt passes itself off as self-

respect: the idea of raising yourself by stepping on someone’s shoulders instead

of doing it yourself. When I see guys working out for cosmetic reasons, I see

vanity exposing them in the worst way, as cartoon characters, billboards for

imbalance and insecurity.

Strength reveals itself through character.

It is the difference between bouncers who get off strong-arming people and

Mr.Pepperman.

Muscle mass does not always equal strength.

Strength is kindness and sensitivity.

Strength is understanding that your power is both physical and emotional.

That it comes from the body and the mind. And the heart.

Yukio Mishima said that he could not entertain the idea of romance if he was not

strong.

Romance is such a strong and overwhelming passion, a weakened body cannot

sustain it for long.

I have some of my most romantic thoughts when I am with the Iron.

Once I was in love with a woman.

I thought about her the most when the pain from a workout was racing through

my body.

Everything in me wanted her.

So much so that sex was only a fraction of my total desire.

It was the single most intense love I have ever felt, but she lived far away and I

didn’t see her very often.

Working out was a healthy way of dealing with the loneliness.

To this day, when I work out I usually listen to ballads.

I prefer to work out alone.

It enables me to concentrate on the lessons that the Iron has for me.

Learning about what you’re made of is always time well spent, and I have found

no better teacher.

The Iron had taught me how to live.

Life is capable of driving you out of your mind.

The way it all comes down these days, it’s some kind of miracle if you’re not

insane.

People have become separated from their bodies.

They are no longer whole. I see them move from their offices to their cars and on

to their suburban homes.

They stress out constantly, they lose sleep, they eat badly.

And they behave badly. Their egos run wild; they become motivated by that which

will eventually give them a massive stroke.

They need the Iron Mind.Through the years, I have combined meditation, action,

and the Iron into a single strength.

I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts.

Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind degenerate.

I wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind.

The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found.

There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength.

Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it’s

impossible to turn back.

The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get

told that you’re a god or a total bastard.

The Iron will always kick you the real deal.

The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver.

Always there like a beacon in the pitch black.

I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend.

It never freaks out on me, never runs.

Friends may come and go.

But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.

Maximising on rest: building up for some big weights d:p