Don’t Have a Keg…

Yeah, I’m late posting this weekly entry concerning my weight and bf% - but since the power outage I experienced Thursday, which lasted until Saturday, and fried my computer despite the surge protector, I’ve been borrowing computers and sneaking in a few messages on the computer at work. So I’m now using a laptop (on loan for a few days) to catch up on all my online activities!

I did weigh in on Saturday as usual, but later in the day than usual. About noon as opposed to just waking up, which might explain my excellent results! My bodyfat was only 19.3% - fat by the standards of many here on Bodyspace but low by my standards. Bodyweight was still in the usual range - hopefully a sign of growing leanness and increasing massiveness.

Workouts have been going pretty well this week - a t-shirt I haven’t worn in a little while felt tight in the sleeves tonight and I think I’m noticing some new shape to my upper arms. My pecs feel more solid as well to me. And no, I don’t go around feeling myself up all day - okay, maybe once in a while. I think all you guys "holding" on to your biceps during business meetings know what I’m talking about!

I’ll be out of town on Saturday morning - going to spend a couple days with my brother and visit Kings Island to ride their new coaster (Diamondback). Not a bad way to spend a long holiday weekend in my opinion.

Onward! 

Okay, the power has been out at my house since about 7:00 last night, so I’m borrowing a computer because I’m a little stoked and had to jot down my thoughts.

I went to buy a new sport jacket last night - I haven’t been wearing them at work lately because I don’t have a good summer weight one and tried on a few of the 46R jackets - my usual size. But found they were tight. A quick consult with the sales man and sure enough, I need a 48 now to get around my chest and shoulders. Hmmm, interesting as I thought I’d been slacking some on my workouts…couldn’t be fat gain because I’ve had to literally tighten my belt. Didn’t think to much about it. Went to work out with my brother-in-law after returning home. 

 I was lifting with my brother-in-law last night and putting up some good weights, focusing some on shoulders because I decided that they are lacking and I need some better shoulders before I audition in late August (see a couple of blogs ago). Added 20 pounds to the light benching we’ve been doing since I’m tired of little weights and wanted to get into bigger weights again. Put up 205 for four sets…not bad…not my old lifts, but not bad and will probably go up again next week.  While lifting though I couldn’t help but notice how tight the sleeves on my bro-in-laws shirt seemed to be. I looked at my arms…thought back to the suit incident and wondered…could it be?

So, took the old tape out and before too much of a pump set in checked out the old pipes. I’ll be darned, I’m over 17 inches - not much but over and moving close to 17.5 (but I put down 17.25 to account for any pump). Chest is clearly at 48 and maybe I should have bought a larger coat…I got a feeling I’ll be outgrowing this one pretty quickly. Not bad - checked the stats from our last measurements in November. "Hey, I’m as big as my brother-in-law, training partner, rival was then…have I finally caught up?" I ask myself. Unfortunately for me…no. My training partner has also beefed up and his arms are now at the 18.5 mark - biggest he’s ever been!

So, I guess the light weight high-rep is proving to be good for really adding some size to the frame. Now I just got to keep pumping up while slimming down. So far it’s been a great summer!

Keep lifting everyone!

I didn’t have a chance to weigh in yesterday morning (had to leave the house early) so I figured I better do it this morning. I was a little surprised at the increase in raw poundage this week - but not too much so. I was a conference most of the week where my diet was not under my complete control and maybe I over indulged a little at the hospitality suite, a couple dinners, etc. But my bf% is virtually unchanged and there’s more good news. This week I’ve had to tighten my belt literally. I’m now using the last “notch” in the belt (or first depending on how you look at it) so I’m confident my waist is shrinking! I’ll have to get some new full body measurements soon and maybe even a progress picture or two.

I also had something of an epiphany this morning in terms of my training and goals. I’m going to be trying out for the part of Lennie in “Of Mice and Men” with my theatre group in late August. For those who may not be familiar with this show (based on Stienbeck’s brilliant novel) Lennie is a mentally challenged brute of a man who should be physically imposing in both height and overall size. Well, I can’t do anything about my height - though the good news is that the man who is hoping to play George opposite me is about half a foot shorter than I am - but it dawned on me that what I need to do to look massive quickly is to really focus on my shoulders and upper pecs. This came after a little personal observation of noticing that guys who look (are?) big are very thick across the upper torso. So it’s not about bulging biceps and triceps which are often covered up by sleeves after all, it’s about width and thickness of the torso. Yeah, this is something I should have figured out about 20 years ago. But hopefully, it’s not too late. And hey, even if I don’t get the part I’m sure I can take consolation in having some actual broad shoulders!

Happy first day of summer everyone - it promises to be a scorcher for us in my neck of the woods!

This morning I participated in a fun "run" - I put "run" in quotes because for me it was more like a walk, stroll, waddle, anything but run. This is something that the conference hosts each year and there are no prizes just time to get out for some early morning exercise with other people from the conference looking to do the same.

We had a little different experience today though as about 3/4s of the way through the course the heavens opened up and a rain like the one Noah witnessed came down. You know the kind, rain drops the size of marbles falling fast and hard. Then when the wind came - well…

Fortunately, we made it to shelter before we got completely soaked (though we were wet). So if you think you need a hot shower to wake up in the morning I can now tell you from experience that a cold shower provided by Mother Nature is even more eye-opening. But it’s the lightning that really gets the adrenaline flowing!

I’m at another conference so my workout will be somewhat interuppted. But the good news is that the resort we are at has an excellent gym at no extra fee. The dumbells go up to 85 lbs, plenty of cardio equipment and an actual squat rack! I’ll certainly be taking advantage of the facilities before I leave.

Oh, and for those interested, a little loss in bf and weight this week. Slow and steady…slow and steady.

Okay, I would never encourage anyone to visit any other site but Bodybuilding.com, in fact I think that more people should have Bodyspace profiles here and often try to "recruit" others to join. But I have a suspicion that some of us visit other bodybuilding sites as well -so I want to know, how many of you check out other sites dedicated to bodybuilding? And more importantly, why? I’d hope a few of you would share some of the sites you frequent, too.

And no - Facebook and Myspace don’t count!

Okay, I just discovered the new "members who inspire me" option and I think this is a great feature. But, unfortunately, you can only add 10 members who inspire at a time. So, I’ve added 10 but I may decide to rotate folks through because there are so many others who inspire. In fact, most everyone on my friend list inspires me in one way or another and, let’s be frank, depending on my mood or attitude for a given day I could pick anyone of them and a few others.

So to Carla Hampshire, Metal_Corps, Noriods4me, Pete.Vanhowe, Shreddedone, Trixter747, Uncreativeskater, Unclevername, xStevenx and so many others -  my apologies…I just hit my limit before I got to you.

Okay, I forgot how tiring working in the yard can be. I had a variety of shrubs and hedges which were way overdue for trimming and being pollution concious I started out with the old fashioned muscle powered clippers. Boy, I can feel that burn already! I resorted to borrowing my brother-in-laws electric clippers. But, I didn’t get completely done today so I’ve at least another evening of trimming this week.  

Oh, and my environmental conciousness doesn’t extend to the lawn…yeah, I’m another one of those guys who says one thing and then does another. But I don’t hold a public office I swear!

No surprises in weight this week, though bodyfat is up which isn’t much of a surprise given what I ate last night and is probably still in my gut this morning (pepperoni pizza - so much for the weekly cheat I usually have on Sunday evening). I didn’t get the new batteries though as I mentioned last week for my scale and still have to see if that makes a difference.

Pleasant surprise last night though. I’ve been thinking that my arms looked small for some time now so I took a tape to them and found that they have actually grown since I last measured several months ago! I’m back in the 17 inch club and hope to be in the 18 inch club before too long. I’m not sure why I’ve been thinking they shrank - though my suspicion is because I’ve been comparing myself to my training partner again…he may be well over 18 now and I may just have to ask him to check. It’s also possible that it’s my own self-image getting in the way. In any event, definition is starting to show up as well.

The new workouts are going well. We did 7 sets of 10 on bench last night. I’m experimenting with grip widths - I seem to be stronger on the narrow grip than I thought and doing better with the wide as well. Though we are still going relatively light we upped the weight by 20 lbs last night to 155 lbs. Not the big boy weights but over multiple sets enough for now. I was a little tighter this morning than I anticipated so I know we worked last night!

Off to a day of watching my niece play in her regional softball game. With luck, and more than a little skill, she and her team will be heading to the state quarter finals next week! Several university coaches will be coming to watch her play today so I’m hoping she has a good game.

Take care everyone!

At least it seems that way in terms of comments and "chat" here at Bodyspace. It’s certainly not a slow time with my workout. Moving to a higher volume for chest is still feeling pretty good. My workout partner and I went for quite a while Tuesday until I finally asked "how many of these bench presses are we going to do?" and he said, "I don’t know, I was just trying to keep up with you!" We ended up doing about 10 sets of 10 (yay - the century mark!) but only at 135 lbs (heck, I can almost curl that now - almost). Still feel good 2 days later and tomorrow we hit chest again.

Once again, I’m going to up the cardio. A longtime bodyspace "friend" (heya "Beefy") says he is doing cardio twice a day for 45 minutes - and now for the first time he has abs. Well, I’m not sure I’ll get to abs but I know I can at least get back to flat. But 90 minutes of cardio a day? That will take a little working up to - but hey, it’s only time well spent, right?

I felt very energized today, I’m sleeping well, and all in all pretty pleased with myself. I hope those of you who read this are feeling good too! Both of ya!