hdjedi1’s BodyBlog

Simple and old school today. 

I felt pretty good, did morning cardio.  I watched someone swing some 5lb dbells while doing the treadmill and gave it a try!  What a difference in sweat! That’s a keeper.

Came back in the aft for weights. Bench press, incling Dbells, fly’s, dips, rope pull downs (with a double drop) and skull crushers. 

My press is off and I got a couple of warning shots from my shoulder this aft.  Did 4 sets of pretty much everything, but was only repping a buck fourty on the press, which bummed me out a little.  I did get a really good pump and called it an afternoon.

My diet has been really clean and after some time weight is coming off again and both the scale and calipers have moved in the past couple of weeks.  Its nice to see some changes, I will getting a lil frustrated.  A new friend told me to have patience, she’s right.  Nice to have the council of someone who has been doin this for fifteen years. 

The work gym is offering a free meet and greet with a couple of trainers.  I’m curious about this.  I do a lot of reading, but I think a few visits with a "skilled pro" would be a benefit.  I am sure i have also developed some bad form habits I don’t even know about. I should give it a try, and they seem reasonable.

Still working for the six pack … the ghost seems a lil more visible!

This last month is one of the busiest of the year for me at work.  I have the NAB trade show which puts me in Vegas for 11 days and then a corporate sales convention which takes me out for another week.  So I was on the road for basically 3 of the 4 weeks. The hours at these two events get stupid so training gets sporatic.

I had semed to hit a plateau of the past 2-3 months.  Tape measure and weight kinda stuck around the same places for quite some time.  So today I was very pleased to find that masurements had changed for my chest and for my quads by almost 3/4" over the last 6 weeks (applaud if you want to … i thought someone stole my mojo!).

I don’t know if I just managed to get a good rest and recovery during the month (kinda felt i had been burning the candle at both ends) or what.  My strength has gone up during this period and my workouts I thought were nicely varied and challenging. I know I was putting everything I had into them. So I was quite frustrated by the scale and the tape.

Last thought was I managed to catch a gastro this week.  "Holy cwap" as my 6 year old would say!  Completely out commission for about 36 hours and only 70% yesterday in the gym. However it has passed and I’m rarin to go!

Tonight was all about abs.  I have come to discover these are stubborn creatures that will take a ton of love but not give much back.  I usually try to hit them hard and from a bunch of different angles … but, as mentioned, they are stubbord basstids!

So the routine was 3 x 30(ish) reserve curls on a slant board, an oblique exercise one of the gym sirens showed me, an oblique move using a ball between my legs and curling the ball while up on one butt cheek - keeping the ball balanced and off the floor (i have no shame when it comes to gym sirens…) front and side ab cable pull downs and a mid height cable twist (i think i invented this) that hits the obliques pretty well. Topped it off with old fashioned slant board sit ups and some dbell deadlifts.  I’m feeling it now.

Karla mentioned to me that the people i mentioned in my first post had alot of experience lifting and body chiseling and she is of course 100% correct. I am certainly not aiming that high, I think turning a few heads and a compliment everyonce in a while would be nice.  The worst critic i have is my mirror. I would like to push this pretty hard and see what happens, hopefully i will get over the current plateau and see what’s on the other side.

My first attempt at a blog.  I have been training for almost a year and i think i have run the gamut of emotions with the task: Pleased at initial changes, a couple of injuries (nothing serious), frustration after adapting to the workload and then pleased that the pictures show improvement even though the tape and scale haven’t changed so much lately.

I have gone from a “more then social drinker” to a non drinker, from “bad diet” to a “much better diet” and couch potato to, well, active potato over the last year.  My peak weight was about 225 to howevering around 198. I went from feeling tired all the time to saying “is that all you got” to my 6 year old.

 My company opened a nice fitness facility that opened to a brisk crowd that has thinned greatly over the past year (yea!).  I use it everyday that I am in the office.  I have also found many great facilities at the hotels in Tokyo and LA that i frequent over the year.  This also help greatly with the “more then social drinnking” as it gives me a diversion while travelling.  So there is easy access most of the time if I want to commit.

 BBCom has been a great source of inspiration.  To see someone with the shape of Ava or Wolf4Life really makes me think I can have the body I have wanted to since I was 12 and “never quite got around to”.  I realize that mid forties is “late” to commit to this, but one look at Musclefyr makes it seem attainable. (not discounting anyt of the incredible work done by those folks, you have my admiration!)

So I would like to share the goals I have and get some feedback. Im not expecting miracles or to compete, but I don’t want to waste time and effort if I can improve the time Im spending on this.

This morning was shoulders, just to ease in after a week of travelling where access to facilities was very limited.  Did 4 sets of dbell presses, 4 sets lat side raises, 4 sets machine presses, 3 sets of single arm cable inverted rows, 3 sets front raises and dbell and calbe shrugs.  Last set of each was a drop set.  It felt wonderful and I got a great pump.  Also manged 3 sets of back extentions with a 25 dbell behind my neck while on the ball (nice to have an empty gym!).  Nice thing here is we have a good cafeteria where I can get eggs made to order and oatmeal afterwards. Will do cardio and abs after work.

If anyone could suggest a routine that i could incorporate into a 2 a day I would appreciate it.  I find that two a days gets me alert for the day to come and gives me a great stress relief afterward.  I sure sleep well these days and I’m usually fried by Thursday. Probably need to manage my expectations and work load during the weeek.  Best Rob