gmand75’s BodyBlog

This tour is almost over.  Made some nice accomplishments this tour, and they include getting my Personal Trainer Certification.  Did not hurt myself at the Gym and managed to increase my overall bench by 10 LBS. I had to drop weight since last deployment due to developing tendonitis on my Rotators last year but still above the 250lbs range.

Now I am working on my Nutrition Certification. Not much going on other than there now happens to be a lot more people at the gym due to redeployment. I think its funny due to the fact that most of these people had no clue where or what the gym was but sure did know where the dfac was.

Still trying to gain a bit more size. This time I am going to try it dry, not supps nothing just water and pure heart.

Hello everyone.

This morning while at the gym working out with one of my Soldiers, and 30 minutes later one of the other Soldiers that had been working out with us walked in. He started complaining right off the bat about his knees hurting and his NCO did not wake him up and all other sorts of excuses as to why he has not been there the past few days. My Soldier Petrus I call him “Penus” obvious right.  Well he is trying to get to 1000 lbs in squat, bench and dead lift. He currently has 305 on bench and we are working on the other 2.  Well to get back to the point of this blog, this is going to be the start of my so called Wall of Shame.  I am doing this because its funny and a good way to have these guys come back to the Gym.

I have already had a couple of them tell me that they will be there at the gym first thing in the morning but I have heard this before and yet its still just 2 of us hitting the gym hard.

I am currently up to 310 on the Hammer strength due to hurting both my shoulders last time that I was deployed. I have also moved up on the barbell bench press where I am currently at 250 and 225 on the incline barbell and 275 on the decline.

I have been using the free weights stats and not the hammer strength stats on my profile. My goal is to get to 300 before I go on EML.

Well, back to my “Wall of Shame” your comments are welcome and also I want you all and the people that are in the pics that this is just for fun, and this is in part due to them talking crap about my Soldiers and the PT Standards that we uphold. We might be Chair borne and a bunch of Paper pushers but we can also push some serious weights when it counts.

All comments welcomed (all in good taste that is)

Today received my ISSA Personal Trainer Examination results.

I PASSED I PASSES!!!

Wow this is something that I had been wanting to accomplish for some time now and thanks to my lovely wife and her wonderful continuous nagging I did it. Thank you baby, all that is needed is for me to get my CPR certification and I am good to go to pursue a long time dream.  

Today my Soldiers and I took a Diagnostic PT Test.  To my surprise I did pretty well. I was not too happy since I had been lifting for 30 minutes prior to the PT Test. This morning I had decided to work out on chest and arms.  I had already finished working out on the fly machine average 4 sets at a slow burning pace.  I followed up on machine preacher curls at 125lbs with pushups sets of 15 in-between each set. By this time I was already getting a pretty good pump, so I proceeded to follow up with bench press. I started with a slow warm up set of 180 lbs. I followed this with 3 sets of 8 reps of 270 lbs at a slow pace. My Soldier and I proceeded to cable flys again with pushups in- between each set.  At this time I was getting a bit tired and was about to do some cardio. The next thing I knew I was told that I was taking a PT test. I was not too happy but maybe I should have read my emails a bit closer, for I was told about this a couple of days.
I was tired for some reason but I have never failed one and was not about to today, not in front of my Soldiers. I think I did pretty good I managed an average 77 pushups along with a mere 74 sit-ups even though the guy that was supposed to hold me feet did a shitty job of it. The run was my weakest due to it not actually being 2 miles its just a bit more but by this time I was burnt out. I ran it in 16:24 and the last 200 meters really hurt but I did it I passed the pt test.
One of my Soldiers hurt himself during the pushups but managed to complete 50 even though he was hurting and still ran the 2 miles. He failed the pt test but gave a lot of heart. My other soldier failed also but he improved considering he just came off of leave and all that happens while on leave mainly during a deployment is drinking and partying.  
I give it to both my Soldiers, they work out everyday and even though they are hurt they give it all. As for me, I did ok not too impressed with my score over all but for a 32 year old man with a daughter and wife and 12 years of this I did ok and next month I will do better.

Another day here in this hell known as FOB Delta.  My wife has been gone for 2 days now and I thought that I had it bad, but from what she tells me I am actually living it up. Her camp is a lot worse than mine and I give it to her. Most female Soldiers in her situation normally cry and whine over leaving their husband and ac and a bed. My wife is truly hard core, as she is now sleeping on a cot and not a mattress along with any ac and from time to time MREs instead of hot meals like I am here. If I could I would trade with her so that she can enjoy what most people here in this FOB are literally taking for granted.  Since she has been gone I have pretty much been down and even the gym which was my way away from it all is not helping. We do get to email each other but my night shift and her day shift kind of makes it hard. We have just less than 12 months left on this wonderful vacation that we also call a deployment and well it is getting really really boring.  If only my wife were back here and worked the same shift it would make it all worth it but for at least for a couple of months we will be apart at least we are deployed together and we get to take leave together and see out daughter.

I am finally doing what she always asked me to do and that is get her on a program that will help her. I usually do not do this for I just go to the gym and do what pops in my head at the time. But since she so nicely asked (not really) I am actually going to give it a try and get some workouts ready for her so that when she comes back she will have something written down and actually write down her progress.  I am not sure how this is going to work but I will give it a try.

In closing 12 months left in this wonderland named Iraq and just a couple of months without my honey here to keep me company.

10 Aug 08 Today is my cheat day. I have been going to the gym everyday this week and the optempo has just quickened here so today I decided to take a day off from the gym and also cheat on my meals. Of course a lot of my soldiers took this as a chance to pick on me. I like these days cuz I do get to hit the weights hard the following day. Another good thing that happened this week is that I also received my sups and now I am even more energized at the gym. This place suck I still live in a tent and still working graveyard for another month, and there are 13 months left on my deployment. The good news is that my wife is deployed here with me so it has its pluses and minuses.

Today I had the opportunity to have one of my Soldiers tag along with me at the gym and work out on over all chest.  This is the first time that any of my Soldiers has actually tried to hang in there. He started doing ok light weight 10 to 12 reps on the flat bench and the other exercises.  He really surprised me towards the end of the work out. I decided to finish with the Cable Fly and between each set a slow yet effective set, and for the first time I actually had someone keep up with me.   Though his form started to deteriorate after the 2^nd set he hung in there and when I wanted to stop at 4 sets of each he pushed me to finish my last set. This kid has the no quit attitude and that is rare among young Soldiers now.  He wants to continue working out with me and tomorrow is back day and I am going to make him cry at the end of the work out.

I have been here in Iraq for the past 3 months and finally figured out this blog thing I think.  Since I have been here I have hi t the gym pretty hard.  The gym here is pretty good its got every thing that I need to stay In shape and to add some size.  I still have not bee n able to go down in weight but managed to gain a bit more size.  Once I move into my trailer or shu like it is called here I will be able to ask my wife to take some progress pics so that I can put them here and hopefully get some feedback from you all. Supplements here a   very scarce and the tiny PX runs out of them very fast so for the past week ive been working out clean not supps other than NO xplode and I still have the same drive I love it, but I am waiting for my last order to arrive.  I think that it is already here but the civilians here that run the mail ops tend to take their time on getting us Soldiers out packages. Besides that this deployment is going pretty smooth.

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