damien12341’s BodyBlog

Form.  Form.  Form.  Good form is more important than heavy weight.  I saw this guy today using these devices called "Perfect Pushup"  They are handles with a round base which can rotate naturally as you push up and down.  Unfortunately the guy using them had his butt high in the air and was only going down halfway.  His body looked half-ass too!  Another guy was doing half-ass squats and used bad form on just about everything else.  What is the point of doing good exercises poorly?  Why sacrifice form for heavier weight?

I’m a bit indignant today.  I instinctively felt I was using poor form on one of my movements.  Before I went to the gym I spent 15 minutes looking up the exercise on the internet, watching videos, and looking over diagrams and illustrations.  Now my form is good.  I’m no stranger to the game but I refuse to become complacent.  I can always improve someway and somehow.

If you are unsure of an exercise or want to learn something new use the resources at hand.  This site and the Internet are great!  Don’t ruin a perfectly good exercise by doing it wrong.  Be humble and keep learning!

I increased the dosage to two scoops and today was glory muscle day, bi’s and tri’s.  I had a fantastic workout.  Again I’m not sure how much the product helped but I was lifting like a mad man today.  I actually surprised myself with some of the weight I was lifting.  My arms felt MUCH more pumped than usual and I will credit the product for that.  They were huge and the skin was tight.  I am very happy with the product.  The true test will come over the next several weeks.  Will that pump turn into mass and strength?  Only time will tell.  I’ll keep you updated.

BTW my clothes were not ripped off by my massive muscles however there was a moment of concern when my wife saw my arms all bulked up.  There will be some post-workout cardio tonight for sure!

I got my SuperPump 250 in the mail today.  I was completely stoked.  Since it was my first go at the stuff I used only 1 scoop and headed to the gym.  For some reason I was hoping in would turn green and my clothes would get torn off from a super huge pump… didn’t happen.  I had already committed to an extraordinary leg workout before I received the stuff in the mail and I just don’t feel like it helped much.  Tomorrow I’ll take two scoops and see what happens…. I’ll also bring a spare pair of clothes.

 On a positive note my legs were still shaking 30 minutes after the workout.  I was very apprehensive about walking up and down my stairs!  All is well.  Have a great evening folks!

I’m a small guy and I know I can’t lift much weight (but I am working on it!).  While I was lifting last week I realized just how far I have come.  When I first really started almost a year ago the weight on the bar was pretty sad.  Today, across the board, I warm up with what used to be my max weight.  I remember struggling to squat 95 lbs for 7 reps.  Now I warmup with 15 reps of 95 and it’s not even challenging… I could probably do 25-30.  DB bench presses used to be 35 lbs now I’m at 65 (per dumbell).  DB shoulder presses used to be 25 lbs now I’m at 45.  I used to need 70 lbs of help on my wide grip pullups.  Now I only need 20 and I can actually do about 4 pullups with no help at all!

Weights which used to be heavy are now a joke.  Hopefully after the next 12 months I’ll be saying the same thing about today’s lifts!

SSDD.  Today is my dad’s birthday and he was the only one not piling on. Let’s forget that I’ve already turned down the bean dip, guacamole mix, and beer.  Let’s forget I mentioned I had already eaten.  "You can make a plate for me if you want but I won’t eat it."  "Thank you for the plate but I’m not eating it."  After 10 minutes you still haven’t changed my mind and now I’m getting p!ssed.  I’ve had enough: "Why is there so much social pressure to eat crap?  It’s not rude to turn down food.  I’m not eating"  And that was the end of that.

For all of those food pushers out there here’s a word of advice: No means NO!

I heard this song a few weeks ago and again today.  I heard it at lunch and couldn’t wait to get it in my iPod and workout… I told you I like pop, please don’t think less of me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXMu14YlfXs 

I’ve been changing up my routine every week for the past couple of months.  The workouts are always new and exciting but it’s near impossible to figure out if I’m making progress.  It’s also harder to set goals.  I keep a workout journal with reps, weight, drop-sets, etc.  It includes my feelings about the workout, it tells me if I need to move up in weight or stay the same, it tells me where I need to work (like working my forearms more so I can hold more weight on deadlifts).  With the workout changing every week how do I know when I did Military Presses and how many reps and what weight did I use?  I suppose I could fumble through the pages and find the info but what a pain in the *ss!  So my new strategy is to stick with a workout for a minimum of 3 weeks or a maximum of 4.  This way I simply go back 5 pages and voila there is my last workout which is a roadmap for what I need to accomplish on the current workout.  It’s much more simple.

 I tried a new way but the cons outweigh the pros however I did learn that I will never stick to a workout for 3 months again!

Through no fault of my own last week didn’t turn out to well on the exercise front.  I was visciously attacked by some virus on Wednesday but by the weekend I had won the war.  Thank goodness too since it was my first chance to go hunting all year!  I managed to wrangle up 50 lb pig… there was a group of about 12 of them and she was the unlucky one.  No guns for me I’m a bow and arrow type of guy.

Anyway the camp food was not super clean.  My friend, who is also fit but not on my diet, decided to compromise on the clean eating thing.  His wife was the cook and they had their two little kids so instead of protesting I went with the flow.  The fare wasn’t as "dirty" as usual but it also wasn’t clean.  There is a lot of work to do while hunting so I burned a ton of calories and according to the scale I still lost BF over the weekend!

Now I’m relaxed and ready for a new week.

My dad’s girlfriend is one of those skinny fat people.  She’s got a great body that would be smokin hot if she just spent a few months in the gym toning those flabby muscles.  She also has sagging boobs.  They aren’t down to her stomach or anything but she would like to perk them up a bit.  Her solution is to have electrodes attached to her pecs and turn on the juice.  This treatment normally costs $1200 but she’s getting a deal through my wife’s best friend for only $500!

I did my best people.  I explained that the machine sends electricity through the pecs to force a muscular contraction.  This builds the muscle which causes the boobs to be lifted and become perky.  I mentioned she could do this at home for free;  put your feet on the couch your hands on the floor and do some push-ups that focus on the upper pec.  Heck do regular push ups.  Do that routine 2-3 times per week at 10 minutes totat and voila, perky boobs!

I was dissappointed to find out she went for her second treatment yesterday.  I couldn’t believe it! I asked my dad why he was paying for this.  "When the treatments stop the muscle will shrink and she’ll be right back where she was!".  His answer: Sometimes it’s the price you pay.

Of course the woman doing the treatment knows it’s complete BS.  She’s one of those people who was fat but did the work and lost 100 lbs…. but there is a market and she’s an entrepreneur. 

Amazing.

So last week I had a blog labeled "30 days of perfection" where I proclaimed how wonderful my diet will be for 30 days.  Almost immediately after writing it I realized the entire concept of 30 days is really missing the point.  Yes I know I will get significantly closer to my goals in 30 days but I’m just too far away to achieve them in that short amount of time so I started thinking about 60 days of perfection instead.  Of course that too also misses the point.  The very concept of doing something for 30-60-90-120 days is flawed.  Why?  Because it’s about achieving goals regardless of the amount of time it takes.  I am beyond the point of casual weight gain and fat loss.  My efforts must be focused consistently.  Sure, I’ll be able to relax a bit once I achieve them but without consistenty doing the right things everyday I will never get there…. Lord knows I’ve tried.

I have also realized just how deeply ingrained an unhealthy lifestyle is in my life as well as society as a whole.  I’ll end with this: 

If you want something others don’t have then you must do what others won’t do.