TLC: Trust, Love, Consistency

Last night I had my second session with Joe my trainer and we decided for the next three weeks we’ll concentrate on my back. I’ve never felt I’ve been able to get a full contraction on most of my lifts for my back, plus a stronger back will help stablise my shoulder and therefor allow me to improve my chest and delt lifting to fix the imbalance in my left side. This is my logic anyway. Joe seemed to agree.

I don’t think I’ve trained back with such intensity. I was entirely doped up on stimulants and cold and flu meds but I really powered through the session with more focus and strength than I’ve ever felt. Joe reckons I’m being silly worrying about my back, but I want it to be amazing. I left my training feeling like I could conquer the world (too many stimulants?!). I followed up this morning with a nice long hill walk with my border collie training buddy and rounded everything out with a massive chest workout. Even after 2 sessions with Joe I’m already finding I’m able to concentrate on isolating and contracting my muscles better and am training with much more focus.

Slap me, I’m feeling way to excited and confident.

I can’t believe I haven’t blogged in almost a week!

Training has been a bit lighter than I would have imagined but solid. I started with my periodized program and I’ve been doing 4 sets of 15 this last week. Not as sore as I’d expected except for yesterday, where I managed to strike up a bit of soreness in the legs. Missed calves so I’ll do them tonight along with a stack of smaller muscles, forearms, biceps and tris.

Saturday was the info session for the INBA comp. Nick Jones was there to inspire us all and to pimp GenTec products. I got to have a look at the ‘competition’ and I’m happy enough except with the chick who was handing out the thermofuel, who is going to be up against me in novice and has the worlds most massive forearms. Hence why I’m adding forearms in to my workout! The thermofuel was amazing! The buzz off that stuff is exactly what I want. I can’t wait to finish my iSatori fat burners so I can grab me some thermofuel, it’ll make July so much more bearable. The whole seminar was great. Nick had some inspiring things to say and I got info on trunks and found a posing coach. Nick also gave a sample diet which he uses pre-contest. It wasn’t that much different to what I had lined up but included basmati and brown rice. So stupid me goes and adds basmati rice into yesterday’s meal roster and BAM! I wake in the night with a lead weight in my guts and 2.5kg increase on the scales. Rice is NOT a good idea for my pre-contest diet. Other carbs seems to be sitting fine and my mood has improved through the roof since I’ve upped them to 40%.

Time to hit the gym.

I had my first training session and measurements with Joe at Adelaide Health and Fitness. We spent half the sessions just doing measurements and stuff, which I don’t find out the results of ’til next week and then Joe set about working out my 1RM’s.

He had me back squatting at nearly full strength and kept telling me I was too hard on myself for bagging my squat. We tried BB bench but with a combo of my weak wrists and crap shoulder decided pec dec and BB’s were the way to go. He then pushed me through some tough lat pull-downs which my shoulder tolerated quite well. Apparently I’ve been cheating on my pull-down all this time. He reckons he’ll have me chinning again soon too! All in all, I got some good positive feedback on where I’m at right now, my plans for the mini-bulk/growth phase and my overall prep. Joe certainly made me work hard, but somehow it didn’t seem like hard work. I’m feeling positive and confident and already looking forward to next week.

I’ve been toying with upping my calories along with my carb intake for the rest of the month to see if I can stack on a bit of lean muscle to replace what I lost with my injury. I’ve upped from about 1500 to 2000 which should be just above my maintainance level. I’ve been feeling mainly hungrier (especially early in the morning) so I’m hoping this is my metabolism revving up. I’m a bit worried this is a stupid thing to do 16 weeks out, but I figure I can cut hard for 10-12 weeks and make the grade. I’ll be running this all past the master of my destiny, Joe, tonight.

I’ve also booked an appointment with my GP for next-next weekend to just get a check up. I want to be on top of anything that might spring up while I’m prepping and so I’m gonna see about getting all the bloods done. I’m also a bit worried about my circulation after my physio pointed out that I was blue all the way to my elbows! I’ve always had blue hands in winter but I’ve been paying a bit more attention to the symptoms since he mentioned it and I seem to warm up and cool down with food. This ring minor alarm bells with me as my Grandmother has a lazy thyroid and react the same way to food. Dad tells me that she’s also always had dud circulation. I’d love for this to be an excuse for my metabolism to be crappy, though I somewhat doubt it. My metabolism must be OK as I’ve been sitting at 15-17% bf for over a year. Looking back I don’t even think I’ve fried it too bad by dieting as I’ve varied between lows of 1400 and highs of 2000 pretty solidly.

This is all speculation. I’ll report back with the result from my teams of experts!

I know I sound like a softy and a year ago I wouldn’t even try the foam roller exercises my physio gave me for my knee problem, but with nothing to loose I tried it out on my recovering shoulder. Wow! My ROM is 100% and strength is racing up. I’d been coming into the gym just to use the foam roller, but today at my physio appointment I was able to buy one. I showed my physio the exercises I’d been doing and he’d never seen anything like it but agreed I was hitting the exact right spots for my shoulder and neck pain, and was slightly amazed at my recovery.

I am so excited about the prospect of using foam rollers to help with speedy muscle recovery over all.

I know that I’d never be able to afford/justify a weekly massage but now I can do self myofascial release I know I’m going to be bouncing back from all my weights sessions. I used it on my tight hamstrings the other day and felt amazing!

I’ve got lots to be excited about today, as it’s my first training session with my PT and I anticipate getting a flogging. Hopefully he’ll also do body fat measures with callipars so I can see where I am. I’m slightly nervous too, as he’s had stacks of experience with BB and figures and I’m worried he’ll say I won’t cut it. Joe, my fate is in your hands!

I woke up this morning ready to pack it all in. I had no energy. I rode for the first time since my accident yesterday and combined with my ‘push’ workout it destroyed me. I hit snooze twice, where normally I’m out of bed before my alarm. Then it dawned on me, all I needed was a big bowl of high fibre weet-bix. I’d totally drained my stockpile and it need a proper refuel.

No kidding, I felt better in 15 minutes! I wrapped up the egg white omlette I’d prepared and packed it to replace a later meal, downed my paw-full of supps. and literally bounced out the door to the gym.
I’m so proud that I recognised what I needed and didn’t just crawl back under the covers and give up.

Intrigued as th how this woll turn out on the scales.