Fit for Freedom

Most, if not all, that read this will not be the ones it is intended to reach which is a tragedy. It has happened again, some nasty/negative/loud mouthed SOB has chased another of my female friends out the door.  Many of you that know athenagreece are probably disturbed by this as well.  guliagoolia left earlier this summer because of the same.  I guess some of the other girls get this creepy mail but I am sure some could kick the @@$ of the person writing them.  I guess they have thicker skin.  Where does lewd comments or mean spirit come into body building?  It would seem best if these creeps would put their testosterone in their muscles instead of their mouth and brain.  But neanderthals will always have that problem.  A little more honor and respect for the fair sex please.  Related to the latest worldwide fertility measurements the male gender is already headed out the door.  Hell, there is one eskimo tribe that is only giving bitrth to girls.  So I suggest we take the long walk with dignity, swagger and beef with a side of charm, compliments and encouragement for our lady lifters!

You know how they say that after your greatest victory comes a defeat?  Well I have done just that.  After maxing so much, counting my chickens, cash checks my body bank didn’t have etc…I gave myself a Grade 1 Hamstring tear doing exactly what I knew I should not do.  I jerked a hamstring curl up too heavy and too fast. Following the pop I felt and then the dagger in the back of my leg followed by the explicative in quick succession.  So now it is RICE-Rest, ice, compress and elevate. Fortunately it feels like it is healing well.But 3 weeks before I can start rehab.  The other leg will pay for the left leg being a slack dog.  Then with my mens new silky drawers…aka-compression shorts I will start the progress all over again.  Oh well.  I did find some really cool gloves to lift with though at "Plow and Hearth."  They are a spandex with a nitrile covering over the fingers and palms.  Why gloves-some people just do not clean up after themselves when lifting and spewing body fluids.  Granted being in healthcare I am a little phobic with Hep A,B,C, Mono and meningitis in a college area so I don the gloves.  Plus I can just pitch them in the sink and wash them off each time.  A small price ($7 USD)to avoid a bigger cost.

Feeling a little down about your longterm progress?  I have the solution.  About every quarter I measure in pounds and Tons, yes, tons the total amount I lifted for a particular muscle group and compare it to the prvious 3 months.  Wow, what a difference.  For instance, yesterday was chest day.  3 Months ago I lifted 7.25 tons. in 45 minutes.  The exercises were wide grip bench, incline bench, pec flys and isolateral pullovers.  Yesterday, 18780 lbs or 9.39 tons.  Yowza!!! What a difference a longitudinal view has from just banging away every day at the gym.  What’s the key for me?  The 5×5 program, split workout covering 7 days to do the whole body (in 4 workout sessions) and lots of rest.  This program has not failed to produce gains.  The strength gains are consistent but the mass is so-so.  But I cannot complain the facts speak for them selves.  I love the 5×5 ’cause I don’t get the lactic acid burn my muscles just fatigue under the heavier weights and stop.  Plus anyone can get to 5.  Something about pushing to 10 and beyond gives me a mental barrier just like cracking 220 for the first time in the bench press.  I was working out with 190 but mentally the wall was there.  Now, wall?  What wall?  I still have 13 pounds to go for my goal.

Well are these just really soft porn, something like PG-13?  I mean if we were really interested in gluteal development should these be nudes or string thong shots?  I laugh most of the time because these remind me of Marlin Perkins (for you guys that remember him) on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom when the female chimps are strutting their butts around so one of the males would mount them! LOL  What is the best way to show off a glute?  Posterior leg extenstion?  Side angle view while squatting? Half way through a lunge?  Let me know.  Don’t get me wrong, I like the picks but it really doesn’t help me lift or show me much development.

Regardless.  Today is arm day.  I love gun work.  The 5×5 program is still giving me constant gains but the diet is the killer.  Just finding the time to eat and paying for it is quite the challenge.  I get more concerned about where and how quickly I can get protein in my blood stream than actually being able to find a parking spot at the gym!  Staring the blender up at 0500 in the morning is not really and option.  I guess I will just have to settle on packing Revolution Bars (best tasting I have found.)  But first I think I will invest in their stock before I start buying them as their stocks are bound to go up.

Greetings fellow bodybuilders.  Are you feeling any soreness today?  Great.  You are putting your "balls to the wall."(Quoting someone else-Do women put their ovaries to the wall?  God, I think that would be more effort!)  Aches and pains is another thing.  Dealing with tennis elbow for lack of a better phrase.  For me it is something a little different.  After doing shrugs with 300 lbs I pulled that right forearm area and now it is sore.  I try to go with the pain and be conscious of it instead of pressing through the pain.  I have noticed if I loosen my grip on all activities that seems to help the most.  I have never noticed that if I squeeze the bar really hard the plates go any higher.  Same is true with holding my breath (which I never did.  After being a neurosurgucal nurse I felt that increasing one’s intercranial pressure was a bad thing with aneurysms and things like that!)  I am eating more protein than ever and becoming more "religious" with my creatine-Halleluyah Brothers and sisters.  But the course of time-just doing the training consistently provides the best path.  Just look at JackedinMich, slow steady progress.

Oh, by the way, who else misses atheenagreece’s "kiss shot?" 

Well, it has happened again.  The boys and girls of the university have invaded the gym like the Huns with all their scoping, bad techniques and what not.  It is hard to encourage them as they "know everything."  There are the true lifters though, put their head down, pump iron and go home after shooting the breeze with fellow leviathans.  That group also consists of me and other "faculty" lifters who continue on in this rite of fall but ours is the rite of life-lifting for health, appearance and strength in the long term.  My recent move validated all my time at the gym.  Lifting that couch was a breeze!  But this fall is different, knowing that things slow down with the cadence of decreasing light I am increasing my protein intake and creatine.  It should be a good packing on year.  I have about 18 months to reach my weight goal while clean bulking-but it is just everyday clean eating, heavy on the protein.  Although I did falter and murdered an entire package of creamhorns! Such is the temptation of the flesh. p.s.  Beware of egg protein powder.  It will produce more sulphur dioxide emssions in the lower parts than you may care to deal with….

Did you read the latest on MSN on the 8 foods you should eat everyday?  Well, some caution is in order.  If the Contractor of the universe thought these were the be all end all of food there would exist just these on the planet but as "variety is the spice of life" it is the well rounded diet that gives the chiseled frame.  A true paradox but it is one that has worked for myriads of time.  Eating protein is essential and meat, fish, poultry is part of the equation.  By just looking at our dentition we can see that our teeth are a mixture of everything from a Tiger to a horse and everything in between.  You can argue a vegetarian perspective all you want but the body shows a different builder design than to eat just veggies.  Sure you can but you can also put low octane fuel in your car and it will run but it will never perform as well as a higher octane fuel,  simple physics.  As with everything there are exceptions and if you feel you are one, please by all means eat green.  Now for something weird.  If any of you have read anything about Anthroposophy, a brain child of the scholar Rudolph Steiner, you know that there are energetic qualities in the food we eat (according to him.)  Meat is harder to digest because in simple terms, your energy system has to rip off the residual animal energetic component and incorporate it in your own.  Ever notice that people who eat meat, alot of it just seem different.  Some may assimilate it better than others.  Just food for thought.  I really cannot tell in myself and no one has accused me of malcious slaughtering activity from eating too much meat but I do notice and increase in libido after I have eaten more rare, healthy meat from the wild or organic sources.  But again, just an observer.  In the grand scheme of things it may not matter at all in the long run. Happy lifting.

Well, I have not damaged too much but my pinch grip has dropped with the tennis elbow or do we call it plate elbow?  I have not enjoyed the pain much.  Tomorrow is leg day though so I will walk out wobbly as usual.  My diet has sucked lately and that has to change.  I became a cream horn whore over the weekend.  Just as bad but more expensive than the little Debbie snack cakes.  Not to mention I do not like the hard blending it takes for eggwhite powder but oh well,  man-up so I will just chomp the chunks.  You know I am still pissed that someone gave guliagoolia a bunch of shit and she left.  Her husband and she were great encouragements and great resources.  Whoever did it "FEEL MY PSYCHIC WRATH!"  Great Minds will always be attacked by the mediocre one ( and that is being generous to the later.")  Albert Einstein