The Rage Cage

Nice to be back in the land of the free. been over seas for 360 and i have never been happier to mow my lawn, i even did the two lawns next to me just so i can smell the fresh cut grass. sometimes one can lose sight of the simple things in life. a great gym to go to is one of them…

back to the rage cage tomorrow!!

It kinda dawned on me last night, i had just did my first serious set on dumbells and had it on tape. i was pretty happy with it. i figured i can go at least 20 more lbs withing 3 weeks. i felt pretty invincible. other than a dodgy back i can do whatever the hell i want in the gym and get away with it. the plus’s of youth.

 so what happens when i get old, i mean i’ll be 30 in a few months and from all accounts thats when people start to fall apart, i mean real people not the ones held together by a chemist and an army of supplement lobbyists. whats going to happen to my psyche when i cant reach down and pull up a 135lb dumbell like it was nothing..when i start to struggle with getting out of bed cause of my back, my elbows hurt all the time, my wrists kill with the rain comes, my knees lock up…

do i want to be the old guy in the gym with the porno stache, chest hair puffing out like a tropical bird trying to attract a mate and with teh cotton shorts way to high above the knee. i see em in my Golds back home, still trying to live the dream, some are nice enough to get in a quiet work out and leave, but then there are the ones who have their 2nd and 3rd wind who still are 25 or 28 in their minds, i applaud the heart and courage, but i wonder if they do it cause they are scared. i mean i would be i guess, i’ve been stronger than most of my peoples all my life, my friends, family have a quiet admiration, my dad is my biggest supporter. If i stop they’ll wonder why or what happend. I guess the only way to go out is to have some super star injury that’ll give me the pass to being normal and enjoy my golden years, ill still have the build but not the beast.

im shades away from 30 and am in better shape then i was in my college days…im better at the sport i love and never want to get old.

Eating right=better workouts.

So what the heck was I doing before? I mean I thought I was eating well with my low carbs/moderate fats/high protein. i was gaining weight too. thought i was starting to look aight.

oh yea, thats if i wanted to live out this body building fantasy. NOPE. not gonna happen. I have to be able to run at least 6 miles over 80 mins. Oh and those 6 miles will include sprints to decimate a scrumhalf/flyhalf/centers/wingers, snot inducing tackles, poaching the ball and then breaking away after stiff arming a wingers jaw to the back of his neck for the try. And then be able to drink from 4pm to 6 am if the drink up goes well and there is a sober guy/girl to take the boys to the bars for looting and pillaging. Yes, im a rugger. This is the life of a rugby player.

 So all this time i was starving myself to try and lose the fat/gain muscle and then try to play rugby. HAAAAA. I must have been drugged, i need that fat, ever been at the bottom of a pile of 180-200lbs dudes with metal studs?! muscle hurts in those instances, i need some fat fat to cover up the kidneys or im p*ssing ketchup the next week.

 ok so im still gonna try to get down to 7.5BF while staying at 198-200. i think this will give me the right athletic build and still look good. i wont look like some of the more admired dudes on this website, but i bet if they are on the field defend the try line all 3 of them wouldn’t have a chance at stopping me unless they got a gun or are driving a duece and half.

ha. cocky. yup yup starting to feel better about the workouts and myself. my boy Maverick (rugby nickname) had a really good blog that summed up the things i felt. so this was my version of things.

we have functional strenght, we can run, hit, take a hit, tackle, get demolished in a tackle get up and still have the strength to give some lucky lady the night of her life later on. Im a Rugby player.

Wow. So in this month i’ve been having a schit ton of ephiphnies…the biggest one hit me yesterday after about 4 miles worth of sprints/stairs/suicides throughout the day and that is; you cant think like a body builder and train for a sport like rugby at the same time. IT PHUCKING HURTS!

 ok so here is the breakdown. I’ve been in a mode where i wanted to get shredded while in the desert and and get back home looking like a marvel comic character, im thinking a brown captain america minus the super soldier serum. (comic book heads will get that one) ALSO i wanted to be close to 200lbs as possible with LOW bf. i was gettin there…i got to around 196 with 8.2 life was gettin sweet…then i started the kick to cardio for rugby. LORD HAVE MERRCY! Son, the 45mins on the stair way to heaven was bad, but the suicides on the basketball court DOMINATED ME! i was gassed after the 2nd one…and i wanted to do 10. yea i settled for 5 good ones and crawled back to my OA (occupational area)

so later on i hooked up w my girl shan who was gonna help me with the 8 pack of my dreams. i did a good back workout and then did the abs with her, she must have learned her **** in the Matrix cause i needed to practice the movements even before i could get the first few sets in, and that was the ‘warm up.’ this dude was in serious trouble we had 10 exercises to go thru, i tapped out like i was in the camel clutch after the 8th. not cause i dint want to, mostly cause my stomach and lower back just wouldnt move, i kinda rolled over and then got onto my hands an knees to get up. if i keep this routine up w her, im gonna walk around NY with mid riffs not giving a PHUCK what dudes think lol.

 so it doesnt end there, she wants to do 15 mins of stairs, but they are intervals, you start at level 70 for a min then got to 100 for 2 mins…for 15 mins. so after complete quad failure around min 3; this is where i almost got shot down the stairs like DJ jazzy jeff out the fresh princes house, i sat my ass down and collected my thoughts.

 i realized i cramped up cause i had NO salt in my diet, well the salt i had was in puddles around the gym in the form of my sweat…and that i pretty much only consume around 120 carbs a day. IDIOT!!!!!! i used to take in 3200 cals a day during rugby season. i dont think i get more than 1200 a day here. but the kicker was that i still gained weight simply cause of the protein intake…right? i dunno man. but i know this much. TODAY i had a kashi go lean for breakfast, (with water cause i cant stand milk) and at work i felt like a phuckin energizer bunny. i was hyped. i had about 4 sliced of wheat bread with my tuna today and then when i did my rock pile hill runs i felt great. gassed a bit but no cramps! i had energy!

 so moral of the story. dont be an idiot and try to low carb and run like a rugger. eat right,  drink water, and take your CLA.

i will be 200lbs and i will be at 7% during season. which kicks off the first saturday when i get back state side.

They dont. My new rule: If you are below 160lbs you should not be able to post ab shot on this thing. its straight up demoralizing for the beef houses who are in somewhat decent shape who are tryna get an Ab to pop.

 Aight so you all know my last rant bout photo shop body builders, this hate session is about the feather weights with the 8 packs that dont even look right; i mean they got cuts, divets and all kinds of **** going on in their absominal region that it looks like the artists at Marvel just said F*ck it, make em mutant like. I appreciate the hard work, dont get me wrong, but id have to feel that if i went on a starvtion diet to get down to the 160’s from my current; i might have somthing to flaunt under the shirt, but bet your sweet ass i’ll be hungy, grouchy and probably looking malnourished with flies stuck to my face. I wonder sometimes what they’d look like with 10-15 xtra lbs…i’ll bet those abs will be no more. they will cease to be abs, they will be de-ab’d.

 so wheres the happy medium for big guys, can we be accepted with shadow abs? can i stand next to a fly weight and proudly flaunt without being told to put my shirt back on. Oh yea so shadow abs, if you need a definition; those are the ones you see on my AVI at the moment. they are there, i see em. but i know i wont get to em pop unless i drop to the lower 180s or even 170 and damn it all, thats not acceptable. i cant afford yet another wardrobe overhaul just cause i went down 3 pant sizes again. i cant imagine being 170-thats like high school weight, i’ve since got my grown man on. when your in the 170’s you need to bow up to walk into a strong wind.

 I guess its all about the diet huh. I mean i wake up at 5am for my 50grams of protein with 3 grams of carbs plus a scoop of superpump, hit up abs and pulls up with 30 mins of stairs. ( the rotating thingy with the stairs on it) then again at 8 i have two chicken breasts with a cup of cheerios and water. NO MILK! yes water. like in Friday when Craigs mom said to use the water stead of milk, it works. the day continues like that, 3 hours later, tuna which amounts to around 32 grams of protein, a plum and another cup to cheerios. so all in all i might have 100-120 grams of carbs a day, way over my 200grams of protien.

 soo maybe its the cardio huh. an hour isnt good?! i guess ill see when i start kicking it in for rugby, all those plyometrics will prob be good. but then i need to start taking in 3000 calories a day. GAME OVER!

 i’ll never get abs. Shadow for life.

today I had the best laugh i’ve had in a long time, and considering my back situation that was even dangerous.

 So my monkey ass has been been going from a 220lb rugby player (before body space) to 198 and still kinda flabby starting for my virgin body building comp.i got down to around 193-197 depending if i have a solid food that day or not.

I’d fallen prey to the magazine thing; i see the abs, i wanted em. life was tough man. i did all the freaking workouts, i was following it to the ’T’ and i was even adding weights and ropes and rubber hands, hanging from all freaking angles, sittin on core things, balloon taking **** from GNC to **** from the ‘market’ you name it. oh yea, there was abs all right, but covered under a layer of water.

I dint realize what i had till i completely dehydated the days up to my on stage apperance, and even then i wasnt as conditioned as i should have been that id see somthing finally. HOLY ****! ABS! SO THIS is whats its like. i even had two vein up the side!

 of course the day after the comp i put on 21lbs and game was over. BUT i knew how to get back to it. im back to lower 193s and i see em and i know they are there and i can even tease em out. now once i start running for rugby i know they’ll pop. and they’ll be there w out the dehydration.

 So heres where i start making sense, i was looking at all these dudes with Abs up to their eyeballs and my rookie ass was all impressed and ****. (newbie to bodyspace) i thought that everyone just had taken pics taken themselves or their GFs or lifting buddies did, the shading was amazing, tone, color i mean for being amateur dudes ina gym they were pro’s at snapping shots. cause my damn pics never looked like that. then i saw "Bigger stronger faster" wow. this **** was redic. i mean i knew a ton about the subculture and i was ok with that, but then i saw the bit about the photoshop?! WOW it wasnt just somthing fat chicks on myspace did to fool ya. 150 lb dudes we taken good abs into somthing that look like Abs carved by michealangelo during the renaissance. (look at the art galleries if you want to see em)

 then the whole world started to collapse in my little house of cards, things i thought were the truth were no longer true. someone i admired from afar, slipped up and posted a pic of them as they were and i laughed, i laughed so hard that my boss and my senior military leadership came down to my office to see what the hell was up. I showed em and they were stunned.

 you my friend have NO idea how much you motivated me. you were the hottest **** out there, then you posted that wack ass pic. you are old news my friend. and you’ll never know how much you affected someone who admired you. empowering is the word.

 I always lived but the rule "never meet your hero’s" and for good reason, most of em are ass-h*oles. but another one should be, never leave the house without your photoshopped **** in tow.

 you know who motivates me now? a one legged dude. True story!

then there are the regular guys and girls  who aren’t oiled, tanned and arnt adding so many fans that you could easily start their own townships.

give yourselves a hand. you deserve it. you deserve real people.

So its been a week since I pulled my back. I think its more like a slipped disk…or just some random muscle spasms. I’ve been doing real well with my deadifts and I was hoping to break 550 for a single. So bout 5 days ago I woke for leg days and realized my back was alittle tweaked thanks to the ****ty beds provided by the AF. I worked all day and thought it was just general tightness that could be worked out. So I got to the gym and did some static stretching before hitting the Deadlift pad. I warmed up with 135 2 sets of 15, 225 2 sets of 12. it was ok, but somthing still didnt feel right. i dismissed it as a little fatigue. I got the 315 up on there and heaved up a quick 12 and at the last one i thought i felt a twinge but AGAIN i figured it was just the weight.

 what i didnt realized was that USUALLY i hit up leg press and or squats BEFORE i dead lift…i have NO idea why i completely forgot this detail. im guessing this would have loosened up my hammies sufficiently and maybe even helped me prepare better for the deads.

 anyway i clapped on another set of 45’s for bring up the 405 and got into focus. The first 4 were good lifts, strict form no, back arch, initial pull with the legs before the pull with the back up at the top. around the 5th rep the right right just lit up. i completed the rep and dropped the barbell, i had to take knee cause the rght side of my back (lower back, sacroiliac region) was tight, i can feel the whole damn muscle tighten up. i tried to stretch it out and i knew i was going to pay, little did i know the next day my hands (pinkys) would be numb for 2 days after.

 i managed to ice it and stretch for about 30mins before bed and when i woke up to ease it. i found that doing some hanging leg raises helped and now im back to square one with a little tweak in the back…

 damn it all….

So this is the latest submission from the Rage Cage. Rage cage is my little term for the Gym here in the desert. Currently im logging some serious time in there thanks to my girl of 3 years leaving my ass 2 months before I get home. No worries this isnt going to get sappy ****ers, so dont judge me. Anyway I was getting in some serious shape around Mid june; as I had mentioned earlier i’m going on tour Down Under with the Presidents XV for a few weeks. So i HAVE to get in rugby shape. basically i need to be able to run for 80mins with a mix of sprints and a serious mix of directional changes. Not to mention i need to be able to beast dudes on the field whether it be a tackle that makes the snot come out their nose, or when i get the ball running over, around or a mix of both. **** hit the fan and i lost around 10lbs. couldnt eat worth a damn, i loved off 200grams of isopure a day with one packet of regular oatmeal. talk about absolute rock bottom.

 anyway-thanks so a great support system here and back home i made it out and started to get back to feeling myself again.

 SO::this is why i cant have nice things. I keep losing freaking workout partners. these guys are briefed THOROUGHLY on the rules on engagement while in the Cage, and there is only one rule; DONT TRY TO DO WHAT I DO ON THE FIRST DAY! so my first partner, cool guy, but in no sense of the word a true beast, but he tries, which i appreciate. First day we burned legs and arms. So leg days started off with deadlifts, i usually warm up with a few sets of 135 to get the form down then i go to 225 as a midlevel set. most of the times warm ups go from 2 sets of 12. (feller with me assumed these were already sets 1 and 2, dint figure it was a warm up) his form was decent. I told him NOT to go above 225, i capped the weights out for him at 205. he was going well until i started to ratchet up the beast levels, my 3rd set went to 315 for 12, 4th went for 415 for 7 and 515 for 1. by the end of it he pulled on the 225 and ****ing heaved up the absolute WORST deadlift ever, all back. not only all back, his **** was arched like a scared cat. I winced cause i knew how tomorrow was going to be for this dude. we went thru the rest of the legs well enough, i just figured **** it, if he wants to get froggy and keep up in not going to stop him. he got froggy and boy did he pay.

But wait, it didn’t end there folks. Arms were alot more fun. Biceps werent bad mostly cause there was NO way he could hurt himself unless he dropped a bumbell on his foot; so this was a good thing. It got scary for me around triceps. I like to start off with dips then start to add weight. So warm up was around 15-20, good form (not leaning forward much) then got the dip belt and started with a 45 ( lil feller look on and was skeptical, but when i jammed out a quick 15, he got the juice to do it as well) first and 2nd set was nice an easy. he popped on there an did somthing, im not sure what it was, but where i come from it wasnt a daggon dip, it looked like he was…shrugging..there was no dip involved at all. i was sick. this dude was making a mockery out of the workout, he still had the nerve to ask me about his form. he’s a nice guy so i told him he actually had to bend his elbow to make this work, "oh" was his response. like i said, nice guy so i cant get mad. i went up to 2 plates of 45, knocked out 2×15. then went to the 3 plates 2×10. and i swear on my ATP straps with the nudie girl on it he pulled on 2 plates and climbed up to the dip bars to attempt some reps. all i could see was his elbows giving out, his shoulders being dislocated to the 3rd degree and me having to explain to his commander why he cant work anymore. I got up and stopped him as he struggled up the mount-no way i was letting this **** happen.

 so to make a long story short, next morning i get a call from dude and i could barely hear him, he sounded like he was winded. his back had been locked up so bad he bad to roll outa bed to crawl to the phone to get at me so i can take him to flight medicine. i didnt make it there in time but i did see him at the sick hall. Doc had to give him some kinda injection to relax him so he could sleep, my boy ended up getting valium and some other sweet ass relaxers so he could try to work. this is how bad his back was, he couldnt even hold up a camera (his job is to record events here). i felt so bad.

 whats to be done huh. 2nd workout partner?! make a long story even shorter, i was doing straight leg legs, (i do them standing on a bench with the barbell balanced on the middle) went from 135, 225, 315. boy locked out at 225 and was cooked. another man down.

 now im rolling dolo out this bitch. ill post some video so you guys can see the beasting.

well…first day back in the gym was pretty exciting…till i walked in and it was international chest and bicep day. ****! All i wanted to do was squat and there were dingles doing CURLS on the SQUAT rack, not like doing work with 135, no they were using the 45 bar with some tens on it; even then the ‘crew’ looked like they were bout to shit a brick, i hate international chest and bicep day.

 so i had to settle for the hammer strenght V squat machine, it wasnt bad, you really get a great stretch and burn using this thing. i had 500 on there and knocked out 3 sets of 12, the last few reps were pretty hard, i was straining like i was trying to push a bowling ball out of my ass. then i knocked it down to 300 and hit 2 sets of 20. then it was straight to the leg press. put on 400 for 3 sets of 20, my boy big chris tyler always said this will give me the size. well not to see if it works. then it was hammer strenght leg extensions, single legs of course, 4 sets of 15 with 75 per leg. after ever set i did donkey raises with the toes pointed in, out and middle for sets of 25. (this gets the sweat going a little)

then on to the hammie curls, 90lbs for 4 sets 15reps. this got tougher at the end, i could feel the strain and a charley horse coming up. after i finished i put one 45 plate on for 25 reps. then back to the leg press to do calves. 500 for reps of 15-20. i tried to hold form, 3 secs up 4 secs down all the way. feels like my arches are about to give, i need to work on the form a little more i guess.

 anyhoo-at the end i hit the treadmill for 30mins with the incline up to 15 and the speed around 1.3-.5 so i can power walk to fire up the calves alittle more.

 i dont feel too bad this morning, i had some met-rx shake for dinner with aminos and ZMA before bed. i wonder how tomorrow will be.

DO WORK!

well fresh off my first competition, im going back to class today with a whole new bag of tips. of course first day back in the gym means leg day. My boy KidTampa told me somthing i’ve heard alot, squad till you puke. well i guess thats pretty much the intensity i’ll have to push it to. the kids got some freaky quads so i’ll take his word.

so im gonna hit up deep squats 4 sets, first 225 for 12, then its 315 for 8 to 10. then its to the leg press 500s for 15 for 4 sets. quad extensions on the hammer 4 sets of 20, same with the hammie curls. kill it at the end with calves, 4 sets of 25 with 500 with the in, out and heel reps in there.

 then the 30mins of walking with the incline on 15 to fatality the calves.

lets see how this feels in 2 days