Tyrch’s BodyBlog

So last night at the gym I decided to work in with a bodybuilder and his lifting partner at the gym whom I have been getting to know for a little while now. Things started out normally on the bench as I always do on Monday. Things were actually getting interesting as I went along hitting a new PR for reps at 315 lbs (17 reps) and matching my best one rep max at 550 lbs which I haven’t done since I was 26. After that…it went all downhill. After I nailed 550 I promptly hit my burnout set knocking out 25 reps at 225 lbs using reverse grip. Then, the bodybuilder says, "Now lets do drop sets." Dear God NO! The drop set consisted of 50 reps on the bench at 185 lbs and then we followed that with 100 push-ups. At this point I wanted to cry, but then it got worse. Then we did 3 drop sets on the dumbbell bench. The 1st set consisted of 10 reps of 80 lbs on dumbbell press, followed by 20 reps at 25 lbs dumbbell flies and concluded with 30 more push-ups. The final two sets consisted or 10 reps of 100 lbs on the dumbbell press, followed by 20 reps at 35 lbs dumbbell flies and also concluded with 30 push-ups. Then, to end the workout, we hopped on the decline bench machine at knocked out 50 reps of 50 lbs while being forced into full extension with the use of "penalty reps". Because of these penalty reps I really did about 65 reps instead of the 50. I can honestly say, after all of that, I really don’t think I am ever going to ask to hop in with him again. It’s a day later and my chest is still burning and shaking. Take my advice…DON’T TRUST A BODYBUILDER IN A WEIGHT ROOM!

So I’m still pluggin’ away in the weight room and on the football field. Football, to this point, has been fun for a change. I’ve had an opportunity to play a host of different positions and seem to have excelled at all of them. I was told after our last game that I have been promoted to starting DT witch is pretty cool. The last time I was in this role was 2004 and I had two good knees. It’s nice feeling like I’m back to where I thought I should be.

Last night was an interesting one in the wight room. I had a hell of a night on the bench when I started cold at 225 lbs and went for 44 reps. I then ended the set by pushing 495 lbs for a rep. It’s been quite a while since I was able to go that high on the bench. Also, the 44 reps is now my new PR. My previous was 43 about three years ago, so I thought it was pretty shocking.

On that note…we’ll see what this weekend brings when we clash with the defending NAFL chamipions at our place. Apparently we beat them at their place when I wasn’t yet part of the team, so hopefully we can get the job done and head to the NAFL playoffs with a head of steam. Stay tuned…

Someone once said, "Every time I try to get out, they pull me back in." As you can guess…I managed to get back on the gridiron. I don’t know if it was all the Brett Favre talk or I just "got the itch", but something had to be done. This past weekend I joined up with the Wisconsin Wolfpack. They are a 1st year semi-pro team that competes in the North American Football League. They are currently ranked nationally and have dispatched last years national champions, the Kane County Eagles. I figured if I was going to go back I might as well play for someone who is decent. Also, there a group of coaches and players on this team that I have known for a while, so it’s not that big of a culture shock.

I’m not sure how long I’ll be hanging around on the team, but I’m just going to try to relax and enjoy the experience. That’s something I have never been able to do, so we’ll see how well it goes.

For some reason, over the past couple weeks I’ve been growing more and more motivated to work out. I don’t know if it’s because my body senses the football season is around the corner or if it was seeing Bill Kazmaire (former World Strongest Man) in person at Summer Fest. Anyways, I’ve gotten a few new supps added to the list in Universal GH Max and Universal BCAA 2000 (also for some reason I’ve turned into a Universal Nutrition fan boy.) I’ve also found myself drinking a lot of Monster and Mountain Dew’s AMP.

With all the new supps and the added caffeine I’ve been having a little fun in the gym. This past Saturday I found myself doing Close Grip Bench with 295 lbs for 8 reps, which is something that I would never do. For the 1st time in years my tri’s are still sore. I’m not sure how much I’m going to get done on the bench tonight, but that remains to be seen.

I’ve also changed my cardio around a bit. In stead of wasting 30 min chugging along on an Elliptical or Treadmill I’ve started Interval Training. I’ll go 20 min on a Treadmill bouncing from 3 mph to 6 mph every min. I’ll tell ya, I’m not as tired at the end of cardio, but I keep sweating for hours after than. It’s pretty cool. I just hope it actually burns off some body fat!

I’ll end with that for now. An update on my wife: She’s doing really well. The doctor said everything went as expected. She will get a cast tomorrow which she has to wear for 3 weeks and then on to the walking boot until the achilles is done healing in 6 months. Hopefully all will go well and she’ll be back to normal sooner than later.

So this past Friday I got a call from my wife at work stating that I needed to head to the E.R. because my wife tore her achilles tendon. Upon arriving at the hospital the nurse confirmed that our worst fears have been realized. She managed to completely tear the tendon. She’s having surgery today and we were told that the whole ordeal should take about 6 months from start to finish. While it really sucks that this happened to her and I hate that she is in so much pain, it’s still nice to know that the run on knees is finally over. We had quite the run with my left ACL reconstruction, her subsequent right knee scope and then my own scope of the same left knee after eight months of recovery time. I’m starting to wonder if there was some kind of recall on genes that we weren’t informed of.

I’m not sure what impact my wife’s injury will have on my training. Being that she’s going to be laid up for a while, I am going to have to spend more time at home instead of the gym. Hopefully, I will find a nice balance of both. We’ll have to wait and see.

Since my last post I decided to take some time off from lifting and working out in an attempt to let my body heal from all the excessive pounding of this past, partial indoor football season. I took a little over a month off and just started back up in the gym this past Monday. I must admit that starting over after a long layoff SUCKS! All of my strength numbers are down, obviously, and I have muscles that I didn’t even know I had that are sore. I know, for the most part, that my strength will come back quickly, but all the work that goes into getting to where I was just seems like a waste. Oh well, nose to the grind. If there was one amusing thing that came about all this it’s the fact that, for the first time since I had my ACL done, my knee cap didn’t pop while doing leg extensions. If that trend keeps up…things might get interesting around here.

It’s been nearly 4 weeks since I retired from playing football and my body is still falling apart. A couple weekends ago I decided to help a friend of mine move into his new apartment. Everything was going fine until we moved his damn TV. In the process of moving the TV from the original apartment to the truck I managed to tear a small muscle in my back. This has been one of the more annoying injuries I have ever suffered. There’s nothing quite like an intense burning, that never stop, to help you sleep at night.

Due to the fact that I keep getting hurt whenever I lift a finger I have decided to take a couple weeks off from training. Hopefully this will give everything a chance to heal and "reboot". This is the first considerable time off from lifting that I’ve had in about seven years. It should be interesting once I get back in the swing of things. I guess we’ll have to see how it turns out.

As of April 22, 2008 I retired from playing football. The injuries that have been mounting have finally become too much to deal with. The laundry list of injuries range from battling gout to having tendonitis in both elbows since last February. I felt it was high time I listened to what my body has been saying. For now I am just going to rest up and heal. As these injuries start to heal I’ll be getting back into the gym. Now that I’m not playing ball anymore…I can actually try and cut some serious weight. My goal…260lbs.

Well life after the old regime has been a bit hard. All of the BS and mind games are gone, but we were left to reconstruct the team after a majority of the guys decided to pack it in. The new coaches are good football guys and the new players are just there to play. A lot of the whining and playing favorites is gone. There has been a lot of turnover from last week’s game to this weeks game. I just hope we’ve got enough talent to get the job done.

Last week I only managed to play about a half before I sprained an ankle. It was one of those fluky things where I was trying to make a tackle on an interception and my foot got stuck on the turf. It has heeled a lot fast that originally thought, so I am going to be ready for a rematch with the Slaughter. I just hope the rest of the guys are ready to go for this one.