2008 Transformation Contest

Posting these pictures and videos takes a lot out of me.  Not only am I faced with my own shortcomings but I then share them for all to see.  But, as Isaac’s post below points out, you got to start where you are.  Wish though I might I will not magically knock out the push-ups without the pain and struggle that comes before.  So I offer you these videos so that everyone sees that it doesn’t kill you to not look like a stud as long as you do the things to make you a stud, or studette.  These will also be great to look at next January when most of the weight is gone and then I will laugh.   Right now though….

My shoulder is really messed up.  Back in my younger days I tore up my shoulders in a freak ….um…drinking accident.  I fell down a stairwell from the fourth floor tearing a nerve in my shoulder while trying to hang on for dear life…..gravity is a ….     Anyway, as I let myself get more and more out of shape I never really did recover.  Later this month I will be looking into ARTS therapy to see if I can loosen it up a bit.

Without further ado:

Right now my arms are big and flabby.  They won’t be for long.  Underneath this layer of fat is actually quite a bit of muscle.  It’s my intention to continue to build and shape that muscle while getting rid of the layer of fat that hides it.  When I am done, my arms will be strong, tone, and sexy.  That mountain that Arnold visualizes when he does a bicep workout, will be popping out when I flex.

One of the routines I like to use is the dreaded bicep triangle.  That’s what I call this little bicep workout.  It may not be the technical name for it.  By the time your done, you end up pumping out 110 reps with the only rest being the time it takes your partner to do his set.  I started this set with 40 pounds and dropped to 30 part way through.  I like to keep good form but towards the end it gets difficult.  My son Cody, age 9, was video taping and had a little trouble. I ended up doing 50 reps before we finally captured the whole routine.  I wrapped the routine up with a couple sets of concentration and hammer curls.   My biceps are complaining very loudly today.  LOL

Maybe next week I will tape the tricep torture.  I am playing around with Microsoft Movie Maker.  If all goes well, my workout videos will be a little more entertaining next week.  

Workout Video #3

I finally managed to get a cameraperson in the gym with me, which is lucky since the weekly workout videos are due each Tuesday. It wasn’t a scheduled arms day but I just felt the need to put some arm work since I’ve showed a lot of back and some legs. Next week I think I’ll focus on shoulders.

High Reps + Strict Form = My biceps are really starting to cut up.

p.s. The song in the video is a special dedication to my competitors.. I love ya.

My joy has been made complete.  I just received my package of Gaspari Plasma Jet & "Size On" in the mail!  I also received a call today from Mr. Muscle Tech, letting me know that my Gakic will be in no later than tomorrow.  

If you think my little girlie muscles are looking pumped up and defined this week…just wait until next week! For the first time since I began weight training, I am living on a high quality protein diet, (think Intra-Pro), and a daily regimine of the best bodybuilding products on the planet. Also at my fingertips lays 24 hour advice from the best of the best in the industry.  I am in great hands.

Now the rest of it is up to me.

And I say….you ain’t seen NOTHIN’ yet! 

I hate dead lifts.  They make me want to puke every time I do them.  The bodyauditor is convinced that these are by far one of the best exercises out there.  I know he is right but it doesn’t mean I have to like them.  The only dead lift I like performing is the stiff legged ones.  

Here is week four (technically starts tomorrow) workout video.

This is the second half of the workout I posted last week.  No excuses here but I was feeling a bit under the weather here.

No one likes a fat stomach.  I think that may be the number one area that people want to change.  We just dont like walking around looking like we are pregnent or that our busch mountains had a landslide.  

Now I know that diet plays a huge part in getting this area back into shape.  So I have cleaned it up.  I also make sure I hit abs at a minimum of three times a week at all angles.  To hit the lower abs I usually incorporate the hanging leg raise.  Now I do my with bent knee just because I seem to swing to much with straight legged.  Here is a week 3 video hanging leg raises.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xECapK5TMo

She was 15.  Her name was Sheri Lyn Hamilton.  And she died.  Brain dead from jumping out of her boyfriend’s still moving truck from a typical teenage lover’s spat.  I believe she was making her way to see me at my boyfriend’s (now husband’s) apartment.  I remember hearing the helicopter fly by, not knowing at the time that it was carrying away my friend.

Sheri had the looks of a model and a great sense of humour.  She loved life.  She also loved boys.  She was a tremendous flirt and full of joy.  A rebellious teenager, a bit precocious, a beauty.  

Visiting Sheri’s grave this year, I noticed a sad fact.  Beside her grave laid the grave of her brother, who was only 10 when his big sister died.  He died at the age of 23 and I know not how.   Beside them both is the grave of their mother who passed away when Sheri was 5, her brother only a baby.  Tragedy befalls certain families hard.

Sheri’s death changed my life.  I took it quite hard at the time and used to visit her grave often.  Sometimes breaking into the cemetery at night, throwing myself upon her grave.  I remember being so apalled and horrifed at the indecency of it all.  Young budding life, cut short, unlived.  It was tragic.  Some things are hard to make sense of.

Something just as tragic to me as the young and budding life cut short, is a long life spent unlived.  As far as we know, we only have one life to make our own.  Most of us spend alot of that time doing what is expected of us, instead of what we really want to do.  We live the lives planned out for us in advance, instead of creating our own story.

Weight training gave me my life back.  

It is not for everyone.  We all have different passions.  It is never too late to find your passion.  It is never too late to start again.

Bodybuilding is my passion.  I follow my passion daily.  

My advice to everyone?  Find what it is that makes you truly happy.  Then do the same.  

Bodybuilding is my joy.  It is my voice.  This is my way of saying,

"I choose life.  And I will make it mine."

Better late than never….

Short video of some bicep work that I do in my spare time at home, usually just whenever I feel the need to during the day.

Going the distance!

It has been a crazy week in the life of SCT! I continue to make progress both in the gym and on the scale. I am also nearing the end of my career change process. This morning I’ll be taking a VERY difficult test which once passed will give me the legal ability to do my new job. Oh man I can’t wait to share what it is, because the schedule is PERFECT for working out.

This week my cameraperson at the gym has been very scarce, and the one time I did get my wife out there to record it was poor quality. I’ve procured a few different people to help with recording from now on, so look forward to an amazing video next week.

I, like Daretosoar, spent a while on the phone yesterday with Dean from Muscletech and boy did we geek out about their products. It is very nice being able to have a phone conversation about the efficacy of supplements. Somehow a phone call seems so much more ‘meatier’ than a forum post.

Without further adieu, my video for the week:

Robert Frost (1874–1963).  Mountain Interval.  1920.

1. The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;         

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,       

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.         

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The quality of the image will be improved tomorrow.

The Walk Part 1

The Walk Part 2