Speak it, believe it, achieve it!

heh :)

ABBA!

Remember them?

Marcelle S. Fischler wrote an article about Joan Jett which appeared in the New York Times on August 5, 2007. Read the full article (registering is required, but it’s free!) here.

WEARING a skimpy bikini top, low-slung black capri pants and high-top sneakers, Joan Jett could have passed for a teenager as she swaggered along the boardwalk near her oceanfront condominium here. On the cusp of 49, Ms. Jett, the gravelly-voiced singer and guitarist who blazed a path for female rockers with her 1982 chart-topper “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll,” wears bold eyeliner and has inky black hair, several tattoos, a creamy complexion and a taut physique.

A vegetarian who neither smokes nor drinks, she says, “most days I feel 25.”

Though she bicycles on the boardwalk and whips off 50 sit-ups during television commercials, she says her toned, sinewy arms and washboard abs are mostly a result of her grueling performance schedule — about 200 concerts in the past year and a half.

I just added a recent Joan Jett YouTube interview to my workout journal. Jett discusses her new album Sinner as well as other interesting items - Howard Dean, Cal Ripken, Aerosmith. A great interview worth ten minutes for any Joan Jett fan.

"Why can’t we stick to our gym workouts? Is it our fault? Or does the fault lie elsewhere?"

Questions asked by author Paul Scott in an article titled "Is Your Workout Wasting Your Time?"

See: http://health.msn.com/fitness/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100184336&page=1/

While I appreciate the author’s commentary regarding functional training and the review of typical roadblocks involved in health club membership, the answers are, of course:

a) You don’t stick to your gym workouts because, hey, there are more fun things to do (for most people). I love going to the gym, but still haven’t been working out non-stop since whenever I first touched a barbell. Other things get in the way. Jobs, relationships, sickness, TV, sports, other hobbies and interests.

b) Is it your fault? You betcha. Too bad, so sad, there’s no one else to blame.

c) Does the fault lie elsewhere? Noop. It’s all you. Unless you’re being held hostage.

Maybe.

Consistency is key. Stick with it!

Verily I say unto thee, BEHOLD! :D

Julia Kover = muscular and feminine!

Are you a fan of female bodybuilding?

Merry Christmas to my fellow BodySpacers!

Here’s the gift of good advice from Johnnie O. Jackson, bodybuilder and powerlifter:

“Never give up on yourself. You know what I mean? Like i said, whatever you put into whatever you want to do in life is totally up to you. And that’s what you gonna get out of it. So just stay focused and work hard. And that’s what I figure. You know, I turned pro and I was, like, I was scared and I was, like, I didn’t know what’s gonna happen cause these guys are awesome and stuff like that. But I figured if nothing else I’m gonna out-work ‘em. You know? I’m never gonna stop. I’m never gonna give up. And I lost my dad three years ago and as he was passing I promised him I would never give up and I would make him proud.”

Johnnie O. Jackson

I was just visiting cball30’s blog and saw his mention of resolutions for the new year.

Yes, to be a better person, co-worker, contributor to society, right. Check all that. Add ‘em to my list of resolutions, okay? Now, with those items out of the way…

My new year’s resolution is to bench 225 by the end of the year and squat ATTG 315. Right now I’m at 135 x 10 on the bench (Smith machine) and 205 x 9 in the squat, so I’ve got some work to do. And I’m NOT  listening to the Workout Tracker’s commentary that I can therefore bench 600 and squat 1800 based on a ten-rep effort. NO! :)

Almost.

I was blogging to my friend Big Al and was going to comment on how Gaspari’s SP250 seems to be a product that is really doing me some good. Anyway, I taped my pea shooter and I was thrilled to see that it measured 14 3/4″ after completing my shoulder workout!

I know I’m 45, but it was like the years peeled away and I was a teenager again. I actually have a number of dumbbells under my bed and so pulled out a pair of 20 pounders and started with the curls, triceps kickbacks and French presses. Both arms got within a hair of 15 inches, but neither met the mark on the tape measure. Regardless, I was thrilled to have the end of the tape get even an eighth of an inch away from the 15 mark. Actually, I’m going to call it a sixteenth of an inch away. Next arm day I’m going to get a 15″ pumped arm measurement.

When I was a kid there was a bodybuilding/weight training author named Bradley J. Steiner and, if I recall correctly, he’s the guy who wrote, something like, that if you get a biceps measurement that’s 10 inches over or more than your wrist size that you’re a Hercules and that nine and eight inches over aren’t too shabby either. My wrist is 6 1/2″ and so I’m far from his definition of Hercules, but a 15″ measurement would be 8 1/2″ over my wrist measurement which would just make me feel less like a stick man and more like someone who lifts weights as a hobby.

And, hey, if you looked around my apartment then you’d know it’s not exactly a hobby for me. What’s the word? Enthusiast? Okay, obsessed perhaps, but it’s (the sport of bodybuilding) a healthy obsession, in my opinion. I often joke that spending money on supplements, tickets to bodybuilding shows, and DVDs keeps me from spending it on a bottle of whiskey or a carton of cigarettes.

heh :) I’ve got an Arnold bobble head that I picked up from eBay to my right. I’ve got a collection of shaker bottles that numbers (counts), uh, A LOT, as well as a 64-ounce tub of Skippy, glutamine, BSN’s True-Mass, Quaker oats, cans of tuna, ON Whey, N.O.-Xplode, and other supplements from vitamin A to Zinc on a counter behind me.

Not to mention Gaspari’s Novedex XT, SizeOn, and SuperPump250! To my left is a video collection that includes Juliette Bergmann, Yaxeni Oriquen, Lenda Murray, Gustavo Baddell, Markus Ruhl, Mark Dugdale, and more. There’s also a Jay Cutler DVD courtesy of Netflix.

On the one shelf is a canister of Animal Max, Universal’s weight gainer which is sitting beside an 8×10 of Cathy LeFrancois. On the wall is a snapshot of me and former Ms. Olympia Yaxeni taken at the AC Pro competition this year.

So, yeah, although I’m a stick man with narrow shoulders, wide hips and no triceps, bodybuilding or the moving of Olympic weights during an exercise routine has been a hyooog part of my life since I was 15, some thirty years. Think a fifteen inch bicep is no big deal?

…

Goals are the glue that make your fitness fun stick together as far as I can tell. They give you a sense of purpose and tell you whether you’re making progress or not. Reaching goals can even move people to tears.

Don’t believe me, though. Follow this link and see for yourself!

Who says?!

Although it’s encouraging to see my name listed with impressive numbers I’m curious about the math of it all. Completing nine reps with 205 pounds does NOT automatically guarantee that I’ll be able to complete one rep at 260 pounds or more. No. Likewise the extensions and leg curls. Not happening. And who does a single rep in the lying leg curl anyway? NO!

Regardless, tracking progress is a wonderful and necessary tool and BodySpace certainly makes that all possible in great style!

Thank you, BodySpace!

The last time my biceps taped at 14 1/2 inches was when I was a teenager. Just 19 years old and soon after that I put my fist through two plate glass windows and a split second later a nice sized hole appeared in my right forearm. All I saw was a blurry red spot as I was beyond sloppy drunk. Friends drove me to the emergency room and the doc sewed me up without any kind of anesthesia as I was already quite pain-free.

That put the kibosh on my training for a little bit. Certainly not thirty years, but for whatever reason I never recovered what little size I had achieved to that point. Life, laziness, military service, college, work-a-day existence? All excuses and though I certainly lifted (off and on) during those years, I guess it wasn’t with the same intensity as I’m bringing to the gym now.

I’m lucky my Chuck Norris wannabe punch’s arc hit the broken glass edge at the meatiest part of my forearm (not meaty to begin with) rather than my wrist or inner elbow or I don’t know what I’d be typing with right now. Maybe it wouldn’t have been severe, but the cut was deep enough to need stitches in the muscle as well as the skin.

Anyway, all that to say this: My baby python is measuring the mighty (cough) 14 1/2 inches on both arms. Not just the big arm. heh (As if sub 15 is anything deserving of being called big.)

Dec. 16 (left), Dec. 22 (right) - ’bout the same

With an ever increasing bench press, I’m hoping I can finally tape at 15″. Perhaps by this summer? To be honest, I worked biceps and triceps about two hours or so prior to measuring my arms and taking the new snapshot. Regardless, I’m definitely growing. My chest finally measures (an expanded and flexed) 45″ and that’s a first ever     even at this advanced, where’s my walker, where’s my Geritol, “Nurse have you seen my slippers?” age of forty-five.