Freewheel’s Ramble

Finaly have a few minutes to sit down & write about the show I attended last week. Went to the Natural Iowa & Central Midwest Bodybuilding Championships held in Des Moines. It was a fantastic show. I attended a few years back and there was no comparison to what it has now become. It was held at the old Hoyt Sherman Theater (very cool old place) and there were over 80 contestants. It ran very smooth with only a few glitches here and there.

What I wanted to mention is how impressed I am with all of the people who have the guts to compete in any contest like this. I am one of those people who hates being the center of attention and it just amazes me that people have the dedication and determination to get up on a stage and be judged on how well they have developed their bodies. My hats off to every single one of you who can step out on stage and thanks for putting on a great show..

This was an all natural drug free show so there were no "Mass Freaks" there but if you want to see what the future of bodybuilding should look like check out Jessie Godderz. This guy has an amazing build and is a true embassadore of the sport. Judging being subjective as it is, Jessie won the Natural Mr. Iowa but did not win the Central Midwest Championship on this night but he owned the stage and I think his future is bright in this sport. John Barnhill won the Central Midwest Championship. I guess the judges thought his huge stature was just too much to overcome by the other athletes.

Life has returned to normal and everything is good. I was both happy and disapointed with my performance at the Iowa championships but it sure was a fun day all around. I want to start with a big thanks and great job to Jason Harris. He helped with hand offs to me on the bench and had a great day of lifting. Setting PRs and hitting his goal of a 1275 total. My day did not go quite as smooth. Started off hitting my squat opener easy at 407. I jumped to 430 for a new PR and got red lighted for depth. This was a first for me as I normaly hit my squats with plenty of depth. I do have to say though that the judging was very tough. Not complaining, just stating fact. If there was any question at all you were not going to get the lift. Very tough but consistent. My third attempt I called for 430 again and was sure to sink it  deep enough but lost balance out of the hole and tilted forward, ended up doing a 430 good morning. I got the lift by majority but have been paying the price with a sore back ever since.

 I called a 252 opener for bench to be safe because my bench training had been so iffy the last few weeks. My shoulder was not bothering me at all and I hoped I could still pull out at least a 280 bench. 252 was easy so called for a 276 second attempt and got absolutly burried! The judge I drew for my flight was requiring a very long pause. much longer than I had been practicing. I stayed at 276 for my last attempt and had the same result. It just as well had been a 400 attempt. At least I was smart enough to start with a low opener so I was still in it.

Opened with a 430 deadlift that felt very easy even with a tweeked back. Second attempt was 462 for a new PR. Smoked it! So now I am thinking wow, I know I won’t get my 1200 total because of the failed bench but I just may be able to pull off a 500 deadlift to cross off that goal. OK, so I call for a 501 third lift. Of course Jason is egging me on to do it! LOL…. I set up, saw it in my mind, stayed tight, and FAILED!!! I am not sure I even broke it off the floor, if I did it was only by a few inches.

Oh well, I ended the day with a PR in squat, deadlift and total of 1149. I know I have to concentrate on fixing my bench. I got first in Masters 2 at 181. Like I said, all in all it was a good day. So back to the gym.. I am planning on spending most of my effort the next few weeks working on bench and then doing the bench contest at the Iowa Games. Hope to have a much better showing then. The other thing I need to work on is keeping my weight down. I had to cut pretty hard the last few days before this comp to make 181 and I know that hurts my lifts a lot. I am going to try to maintain around 185 while training & see how that goes…..

WOW!, What a day. I was up at 4:00 am and the moon was shining bright, it was warm (relative, 50ish) and I was ready to go find me a turkey! I got to the woods just before it started getting light and started the hike in to my favorite spot. It is nearly a mile hike through some rough terrain. When I got to the top of the ridge overlooking the valley it had started to get light, so I stopped to rest and listen for any love sick Toms calling to their hens. It was quiet with only a couple of gobbles way off in the distance. I made it to the base of a giant burr oak that I have spent countless hours sitting under over the years. From this spot I have gotten no less than 7 turkeys over the years. I spent the next hour calling and listening but to no avail. I finaly decided to move over to the next ridge and look down into that valley to see if there was any activity there. Just as I got to the top of the ridge, from about 200 yards in front of me came a thunderous gobble! I quickly set up next to a fallen tree and started calling back. To my surprise and delight came not one response but two. I love it when two Toms think they are competing for a lonely hen. For quite some time it was a standoff, I would call and they would gobble back but were not getting any closer. Finaly I tried a trick that has worked before, I started calling softer and softer each time, trying to give the impression that I was no longer interested and was moving away. That did it, within minutes I spotted the first bird moving through the forest towards me. I then spotted the second…and then the third! I had stopped calling and all three were stretching their necks looking for the hen they knew had to be close. They would look, then puff up and start strutting, spin a couple of times and then stretch up to look again. This is why I love turkey hunting…to be honest, and I know I will catch a load of crap over this, they remind me of bodybuilders in a posedown. Each trying to outdo the other.

So needless to say, I now have a turkey in the freezer and I am looking forward to a wonderful meal and enjoying the memories of a great hunt…

I did make it to the gym today. This will be my last deadlift workout before next saturday. I did some easy warmups and then worked up to my opening weight of 425. It felt good but for some reason my back and hips were very tight and hurt a little between sets. I think it is from all the hiking I have been doing. I will need to spend the rest of the week stretching and just doing some body weight stuff like squats and pushups. My weight was 185 this morning so that is right on track. I should have no trouble making the 181 weigh in by friday.

Well I finished my last heavy work out Friday. Did bench and actualy felt pretty good. The shoulder is feeling much better. I think I finaly figured out what was causing the problem. I have been working hard at retracting my shoulder blades hard when I set up. After talking to one of the guys at the gym I believe what I was doing was pulling my shoulder blades together and UP, activating more traps than lats. Today I pulled down and tried to get more lats involved. Felt very strong with more tri involvement. It is much easier to keep the elbows in and best of all my shoulder did not hurt.

I started with squats today and did a lot of warm up stuff. Then moved on to some heavier doubles and then tried my opening weight for next weekend. 400, felt way good and hit it easy with plenty of depth. I finished up squats with some speed work concentrating on exploding out of the hole. I then moved on to bench and worked up to my opener of 250. Again felt very good and easy. Finished up with some speed work on bench also. This is the first workout that has actualy been fun in a long time! I am looking forward to next weekend as I know I should easily beat my previous best total and hopefully get the 1200 total I am working towards. Also looking forward to backing off after the comp and going back to having fun workouts.

On another note, I did get out turkey hunting this morning…..Did not see a thing but had a great time being out and got a good cardio workout hiking up and down the Des Moines river valley. If it doesn’t rain may try & go again in the morning. Also need to get the Harley out and serviced so I can start riding it back and forth to work. It gets a lot better milage than my truck and this $3.35 gas is killing me!!

Later all…

I am so glad I am nearly done with this training cycle! I am in week seven of my competition prep and I just finished my last heavy deadlift work out. I just hurt all over. I shouldn’t complain as I have made great progress though. I have hit PR’s in both my deadlift and squat the last couple of workouts. I have one more heavy bench day on friday and then I can kick back and spend a week in recovery mode before the meet. I am looking forward to that, just hope I am giving myself enough time to recover and be at full strength. Time will tell. I still need to lose some weight if I want to lift in the 181 but I don’t think that will be a problem. I am close enough now I could probably just dehydrate the day prior then weigh in that night. Then I would have 12 hours to rehydrate I load up on carbs & be ready to go. I need to spend some time now deciding what my opening lifts will be.

Here is an ongoing problem I have. You see, my wife is a fantastic cook. Now she knows I work hard to keep my weight down. She also knows that I have a contest coming up and still need to drop about 10 pounds in the next 2 weeks. So tonight for supper she fixes linguinie with fresh sea scallops and a crab meat and mushroom sauce. Now what kind of support is that? And then to add insult to injury for desert she brings me a chocolate cake with cream frosting under a big scoop of ice cream. I just do not know what to do with this woman!! I just find it hard to believe she treats me so badly..:o(

I have been struggling the last few weeks with my bench workouts because of shoulder pain. I think it is an inpingement issue with my left shoulder. So, tonight I did all of my bench work with one board to limit the range of motion. I do think it helped as I was not having as much pain during the workout. It is pretty sore right now so I am icing it. Will see how it feels in the morning to know if using the board helped.

I am exactly two weeks out from my next contest, the NASA Iowa State Championships. I am happy with the progress I have made over the last 8 weeks. I should be abe to beat my previous best lifts with the exception of bench due to the shoulder thing. This next week I will be doing one last heavy workout in each of the three lifts and then I will start resting up and practicing my opening lifts. Plan on opening with a 250 bench, 400 squat, and 450 deadlift. If all goes well I am hoping I can get a 280 bench, 425 squat, and 500 deadlift. That would put me 5 pounds over my 1200 total that I have set as a goal for this year. I gotta think that is pretty good for an old man like me!

Be sure to check out Jason2459’s blog. He is getting ready for the same meet and has some humorous workout notes.

Ok, so it went pretty well tonight. I felt worn out after work and had been hitting the Dayquil bottle during the day, but I knew I had to get some form of deads in. while starting to warm up I actualy felt like I was getting my second wind so I thought "what the hell, might as well hit it hard." I increased the weight on all of my sets by 5 to 20 pounds. Was going good until I got to the last heavy single of 460. This would have been a new PR but when I tried to pull it, it just as well have been welded to the floor. I did get it moving but at less than knee high it stalled. I took a good long break and hit it again with the same results. Oh well, all in all it was still a good workout.

I did get a kick out of watching a couple of goofy teenage kids trying to bench. They had stacked several 10 pound plates on the bar and were not using collars. When the one with the string bean build tried to lift it, he tillted to one side and dumped off one plate. Of course then the bar tipped the other way and dumped a plate from the other side. He then over corrected and rocked back the other way again. This continued until he had unloaded the bar. He was then able to get the bar racked and they made a quick exit…

Does any one else like peanut butter on their eggs? I love it but have found that almond butter is even better. Holly cow it is expensive though. Breakfast today was six scrambled eggwhites with a yolk thrown in for good measure. Half a cup of non fat cottage cheese, and a big spoonful of almond butter. All stirred up in a big cereal bowl, Yum. Also my normal HUGE cup of extra strong coffee.

I feel a little better today. The cold is still hanging on but it doesn’t feel like it is going to be a bad one. Still taking the zycam and zinc cough drops. I will get to the gym tonight and even if I don’t feel well I can work on my deadlift form and speed. It just pisses me off that I was adding weight to my lifts on a consistent basis and now I need to back off a bit….oh well, such is life.

Hope everyone has a great day!

Ok, I have never written a "blog" before so please don’t be too critical….

I am going to start with a rant. How come just when I am seeing good gains in my lifting, I catch a cold and feel like crap?! I have a comp coming up in 3 weeks and I felt like I was exactly on track with my training when, POW, I wake up with a head and chest full of snot!. So, I stayed home from work and rested today. Been taking zycam and drinking lots of fluid. I hope I can shake this and get back to my workout schedule tomorrow. I am due for heavy deadlifts and I know I will fail if I don’t feel well. I would welcome any opinions on how to work through a cold and not let it slow down your training…