I woke up in the middle of the night after having an especially vivid and disturbing dream. Almost a nightmare, but not the kind of nightmare where somebody dies or I forgot to take an exam. For reasons not explained in the dream I was lounging around in a bar like room with my training partner - which is odd since I don’t drink - and an old friend from high school came in to measure my arms as he wanted to compare mine to his. We measured and though my arms seemed huge in the dream they were smaller than my friend’s (who also had big arms in the dream) by a wide margin no matter how hard I flexed. I even remember that mine measured at about 15.5" and his were 17.5".  I also remember having a hard time in the dream just pulling my short sleeve over my biceps to take the measurement. Now, if this dream wasn’t odd enough the friend from high school is someone I do see on rare occasion now - as we both live in the same community and run into each other at school events and we were both involved as Boy Scout leaders at about the same time - but I wouldn’t consider us close enough as friends, or rivals, to even be competitive at any level let alone as bodybuilders and the man is actually quite thin and always has been. I can only figure that this dream somehow points to my "obsession" of having big arms and my frustration that I haven’t gotten them to the size I want. Even though by most standards my arms are actually good sized, and compared to many of my peers are in very good shape.  I guess what’s odd to me is that this is the first time I can ever recall having a dream that involved my work out goals in any way shape or form, let alone a dream in such detail! Which makes me wonder if I’ve crossed some sort of mental barrier. Will the subconcious realization of my goals and frustration translate to concious overcoming of mental sticking points? Or by acknowledging the subconcious desire will my conciousness automatically negate it? Have I thoroughly lost and confused you yet?

In a related note, I think what actually woke me was that I was sleeping on my left arm in an odd way and it had also falling "asleep" and was tingling and stiff. So I had to get up to move it around and get the blood flowing again. This arm, by the way, was the arm being flexed and measured in the dream. I seem to be having a problem in the past couple weeks of laying funny on my arms when sleeping and have been waking up to stretch them out. This may be a side effect of the extra heavy lifting I’m doing with the curls - I don’t know. My left arm is, however, still a little sore from Thursday’s workout so I think the extra day of rest is still a good idea this week. Oh, and if you were curious, my arms still measured in at about 16.75" this morning (yes, I had to put the tape around them after that dream!).

I may blogged about this before but I was considering male body image while watching the classis movie "From Here to Eternity" last night. For those who don’t know, this is an excellent film that takes place in Hawaii just before the Pearl Harbor bombing and centers around the lives, loves, and trials, of a few soldiers and their wives, girlfriends, and lovers. It stars Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra, and many other now familiar faces such as Ernest Borgnine. Anyway, because of the story line several of the men appear shirtless and I was struck at how thin and small they all were compared to hollywood stars of today. Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift especially as I believe both would have been considered hunks of the time. Though both men were fit neither was muscular in terms of size and only Clift had actually visible abs. If you compare these two men to similar "hunks" of today, Brad Pitt for example, you’ll see that by today’s standards that they would be cast as the wimps and not the strong, "he-men" as they were in this movie. Then when you look at others in the cast, George Reeves of "Superman" fame for example, and compare him to his modern counterpart, Brandon Routh who was Superman in the ill conceived, at least in my opinion, "Superman Returns" you would find that Reeves would be considered fat - though no one in the fifties considered him to be so. I know I’m starting ramble on here, but my point is that our expectations for what makes a man good looking in terms of body have risen to a very high standard indeed. I think what we expect from Hollywood, and from ourselves, just to be considered strong or well-built, might have actually done well in bodybuilding contests back in the fifties and possibly into the sixties! Check out "Muscle Beach Party" - staring Frankie and Annette - if you don’t believe me.

And, on my final point for the day, I couldn’t resist and did another weigh in. Today my scale showed me up another two pounds over yesterday, but down another couple points in bodyfat. So if I compare my current weight to my lowest weight back in September of this year and look at the corresponding body fat percentages of the twenty pounds I’ve added only 4 pounds was fat! That’s better than when I compard myself in yesterday’s blog to my weight in October. I’d say that based on my scale I’m making phenomenal progress - so it might be time for a new scale! I’ll just enjoy the ride until my pants don’t fit, then I’ll know for sure that I’m gaining too much fat.

My thoughts are that the heavy benching and curling are having an effect, though my measurements make me wonder where the weight is going as I’m not seeing any major size increases anywhere. Except that the good news is that my left arm is over 16.75" cold flexed (actually somewhere between 16.75 and the full 17) so I expect to exceed my arm size goal by the end of the year!

I did step on the scale this morning just out of curiousity…doesn’t look good for the official weigh in tomorrow. I’ve posted the results in my charts for any who are interested.

Otherwise, Thanksgiving was good. Spent much needed time with family I don’t see often enough which is in my mind one of the reasons for the holiday in the first place!

Workouts this week have gone well, I feel good, energy is still up, strength is up, all in all I’m up!

I’ll be posting afterwards tonight to let everyone know how I did…wish me luck!

Also, since this routine works so well on bench, I’m following it for my bicep curls as well. It’s essentially a power lifting routine but I expect it to really help me get to my goal of the 150 max curl - oh, and pack on an inch or two to my arms in the process (hopefully two!).

I’ll keep blogging my progress with this routine here. Tune in if you’re interested. The next workout is on Thursday - twice a week should allow me plenty of time for recovery!