TLC: Trust, Love, Consistency

I just completed a nice long posing session. I put on the 2007 INBA all female DVD and posed along to all the madatories and then set my iPod to repeat and worked through my routine 10 or so times. I never understood when competitors said they were sore from posing practice, but let me tell you, I was getting sore. The first half of my routine is looking really good but I just haven’t got a good feel for what I’m doing in the second half. Luckily I’ve booked an extra session with Mareike so I can sure things up a bit more.

Yesterday was my first day in the gym with my new program from JD. I looked at it with contempt, a glute and ham day without any deadlfiing or squatting is foreign to me. But let me tell you, it got the job done. The workout also started with a back focus. It called for assisted chins, but when I walked into the gym (different gym from usual) and looked at the machine, it beckoned me to try a BW chin. No worries. I knocked out 4 in a row! Before my accident I could only do 2, hence there was a bit of a grin and a happy dance performed, much to the amusement of my fellow trainees. Today the whole back of me, shoulders to calves is telling me I worked hard. What was really nice was that I even had time for a sauna and steam afterwards.

I almost skipped the whole session because I was feeling so flat. My chiro/natro, upon examining me, told me I wasn’t getting enough sleep, and he was right. I’d bounced out of bed at 5.30am that morning feeling wide awake (no cardio was even scheduled so it was a waste of sleep time) and couldn’t get back to sleep. After my chiro visit though, I felt so flat, I was ready to drive straight home but couldn’t get in contact with the boy to see if he needed a ride so I figured I’d just try. Lucky I did, I think weights went up on everything. I came home and cooked an amazing fish stew and fell into bed salty (over salted dinner) and tired.

The fish stew was awesome so here’s the recipe:
2 serves

110g skate, cubed
4 big green prawns (shrimp)
1/2 onion, finely sliced
1 clove garlic
1/4 red capsicum (bell pepper), finely diced
125g tinned tomatoes, diced
a pinch of smoked paprika
a pinch of ground fennel seed
a pinch of saffron
2/3 cup, canned, cannellini beans
1/2 cup fish stock
1/2 teaspoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
cooking oil spray

Lightly spray a non-stick skillet/wok and saute the onion for 5-8 minutes or until soft. Add in the garlic and capsicum and saute for a further 2 minutes. Add a drizzle of stock if your pan is getting too dry.
Add in the tomatoes and spices and simmer until reduced 2/3 and a thick paste is formed.
Stir in the fish stock.
Add in the seafood and beans and simmer, covered, for 5 minutes.
Stir through the fish sauce and basil and season to taste.

Serve with the mandatory green beans and broccoli. Sprinkle with a little Parmesan cheese if you’re braver than me.

In other exciting news, we got a new microwave today. Meaning I may not die from eating the melted glad wrap that was getting deposited on my raw food WFT!? The new one claims to defrost chicken boobs super quick and be able to roast meats. We’ll see.

The days you don’t feel like cardio sometimes turn out to be the best cardio days.

For me Saturday’s are always tricky. We always head to the beach for breakfast, a catch up with my Dad and to let the dog run wild and chase balls/frisbees. I’m very much a get up and get to the gym kinda gal and if I have a whole day ahead of me to workout I tend to put it off. Food is always a bit off too, though I now bring my own kangaroo to add to my eggs and spinach. I get weird looks from our border collie owning friends but they now know I’m competing and even want to come and cheer me on.

By the time we get home, S is ready for a nap with the paper, and I’m almost always tempted. Today, instead, I cooked up my 2 kilos of roo on the BBQ, chopped my  day’s vegies and, against instructions from my natropath, downed some thermofuel with my supps.

I got to the gym thinking I’d do 20 minutes of sprint intervals and maybe 6 minutes of tabita squat presses (ouch). I couldn’t find my groove with the sprints and gave up after 16 minutes and switched to a bike to finish them, but that felt even worse. So I whacked in another 16 minutes of ‘hill training-interval’ on the elliptical and let it do it’s thing. Then I realised the problem, my 2 previous cardio machines weren’t infront of FOX8’s Saturday fight special. I’m not a violent person, but I love watching the WWF, the Contender and other mind+brute force shows during my cardio.

Time flew by and half way through I noticed Mr Shoulders jumping off the tready in front of me. He also fessed up to being a fan of the FOX8 line-up for Saturday cardio and jumped on the elliptical next to me. With the elliptical set on heart rate target and someone to chat to and fights to watch a 26 minute cardio session turned into a monster hour and a half.

Mr Shoulders was still debating competing this year and had had a diet slip up the past week so was flogging himself (I think he’d been there a fair while before me). We realised we’d each forgotten each others names, so now I have a real name to call him. It also turns out he’s won several (NABBA) Australian titles for his weight class and showed me some amazing photos. He’s natural now and still has one of the biggest physiques in the gym.

I left the gym 666 calories lighter, totally pumped with how my prep is going. I love having ‘me time’ in the gym. It’s normally headphones on and head down. Consequentially I know almost no one except by sight, so it was nice to have a training buddy for the day. Thanks for the great workout Mr S.

I’m feeling so pumped to get into the gym.
I know I said I wasn’t gonna hit the gym until Monday, but after yesterday off and seeing my progress pics, along with a solid night’s sleep I’m literally watching the clock for my lunch break. IT"S BACK DAY, yum! I know if I go now the gym will be packed. Can I really wait another half hour!!?

I’m also a little excited because I’m meeting with my suit maker tomorrow. Eeek! It’s really happening… I’m gonna compete!

A big thanks as always to V for her wonderful advice and to everyone who’s dropped by and like my abs. I actually haven’t done any ab work in 3 months, just pilates…. go figure.

After all my complaining yesterday about my shocking workouts, I am taking V’s advice and calling in rest. No weights until Monday and I’m really going to force myself to only do my morning dog walk. Problem is, it’s sunny and not windy, perfect bike riding weather.

In reality I haven’t had a rest week in at least 13 weeks. My body always starts beating me up at this time. The timing isn’t awesome but if I come back super energised then I’ll be able to pound out some really awesome training next week and I’ll be in a much happier space. Right now I’m forcing myself through all this and it’s no fun.

Dog walking+super doses of glutamine+ 9hrs sleep x 4 days= a new me

Also, I meet with Mareike my posing coach, today for the first time. I’m a little scared.

My last few workout with Joe, my trainer, have left me feeling a little lack-luster. We trained shoulders last night and i just couldn’t get my head into the right space, again. I love training shoulders and left feeling disappointed. I think I like setting my own pace in the gym and working through the weight and reps that I know I can do. On the other hand I love having someone there to help me get out that last 2 reps that I just can’t do myself. I’ve got about 3 more sessions with Joe paid for and I’ll feel guilty if I don’t keep training with him up until my comp, but I just don’t see the benefits right now. All this being said, I’ve had generally unfocussed and weak workouts for about a week now, hopefully it’s just a monthly problem and I’ll be firing again next week. I sure hope so, I can’t handle feeling weak for much longer. On a contradictory note, I’ve also been thinking it’s time to start chatting with more of my co-gym rats. We’ve all trained together for ages and I’m always to shy to say hello.

I’m on day 2/3 of the no caffeine, no chilli, no AS (in addition to my other no wheat, no dairy) and I’ve failed on the no AS and no chilli fronts. When no chilli means, no paprika or chilli I’m just stuffed. Lemon juice, salt and smoked paprika are my staple chicken seasonings. I’m going to have to check how much paprika counts. The no AS (artificle sweetner) is something I would have thought would be a breeze; and it would be, if it weren’t for Xtend. I tried taking BCAA capsules instead but the Xtend has all sorts of other goodies which are just to nice to avoid. Again I’ll be querying this one.

On the no coffee front, I think this was an excellent idea. At 6am I thought it was a lousy idea, but I have slept really well the last few days and anxiety levels are right down. I think I was getting really used to the caffeine and thermofuel wasn’t as fun as it was when I started. Hopefully this means when I’m back on it in a month it will all be magic again. In the meantime my new pre-workout stack is BCAAs, glutamine (must buy more), tyrosine capsules, acytle L-carnatine and creatine. Without a scoop of Xtend in this mix it’s truely gag worthy. I’m also trying to get back on the green tea and have just started taking spuralina powder.

This morning’s workout was only so-so as I didn’t really get enough sleep last night; quality- excellent, quantity-poor. It took me the whole workout to figure out why I wasn’t on the game, so sleep is back on my priority list. After my workout I picked up some berocca high performance, which is what I’ve been using as my multi-vitamin. In all the fandangle of my other sups I’d run out and forgotten about it. The combo of a berocca and a pot of green tea was just what i needed to get my energy back and I’m very glad I didn’t cave on the coffee.

Reading the results from last year’s SA INBA show I noticed that there is an award for ‘most potential’. Normally I squirm at such things, but I really want this one. This is my goal. My body is looking awesome, but I just don’t know where my left delt is going to come from. So my plan is to step on stage absolutely smokin’ and get that award….. That or they need a new category for most deformed!

Tonight, it’s back to Dr Frank for more crunching, poking and worried looks. He does claim to have a plan for my left delt, but (un)fortunately he only works on a whole body basis (kinda why I chose him). I donated blood at the Red Cross yesterday in an effort to find out my blood type. I won’t know this until next week and then he’s going to start blood typing my diet. I’m not sure how I feel about this, but anything is worth a shot and my body is my science experiment.

A quick update after a relaxing weekend.
Friday night I was doing my head in. I was a tightly coiled spring, so I decided Saturday, I would try to think about something other than competing. I stuck to my meals and did a quick bit of cardio (jumped rope for 15 minutes) and that was it. No crazy sprints, hours of planning diet on CalorieKing I was just a normal civilian eating a lot of green vegetables. By the evening I was tired but feeling so much more recovered. It was lovely. I really get worked up sometimes on account of having to work all my diet and exercise out myself and then not being so sure of my plan. As if by magic (or maybe a drop in anxiety levels) my weight nicely dropped Sunday morning and I was given a double booster as I could already see great progress in the mirror.

Sunday, hound and I had a lovely 45 minute walk through the hilly parts of our neighbourhood. We took a new route and found a nice walking trail in need of further investigating. I then stocked up on my vegies and eggs at the farmers market. I love that while I have to eat so much crazy food for my lifestyle I can be responsible for where it comes from. I tried my best to do my quads and biceps workout that afternoon, but I just couldn’t get my left arm to co-operate with front squats and moved on to angled leg press instead. I slaughtered it. I’d knock out 15+ reps put on another plate, and easily another 15. I think I wound up doing almost double what I normally would. Weird. Mentally I really wasn’t there and this wasn’t getting me fired up. There were also these 2 (weedy) guys absolutely screaming at each other ‘****in pull mate’ etc. etc. jerking weights about and throwing them to the ground at the end of every set, it was driving me and everyone else in the gym crazy. Halfway through my leg extensions I cracked and turned into gym bitch from hell. Apparently they work out like that every day and no one had ever complained before. The guy look like he wanted to hit me. Gawd I love being a chick!

This morning I went back to the same gym to train chest (my gym has multiple locations and I prefer different ones for different days), luckily they weren’t there, but the heating was cranked up to maximum, making for a very off-puting workout. I really struggled to bring my mind to the game and couldn’t channel a huge amount of strength. I played around with a combo of DB work, hammer strength and cables and eventually decided I’m due a refeed. Good thing I’ve got one scheduled for tomorrow. Bring on the carbs! I’d totally not left myself enough time to do cardio and had to knock out 15 minutes of inclined sprint intervals. Running felt really good and I would have loved to have gone for longer but I had an appointment with a new member of team Michelle, Dr Frank. Dr Frank is an osteopath/chiropractor/accupuncturist/kineisiologist/natropath and general body guru and I’d read and heard good things about him. He gave me a thorough quizzing about my entire medical history and then very matter of factly dictated my defects to his assistant. It seemed like I have a lot of defects, but he really seems like the guy to fix them Again, we was worried about the atrophy of my left delt. He treats lots of BB’s and want to work really hard with me to get it sorted. I so want my shoulders back!

I was poked and prodded inside and out (he poked around in my mouth and now my sinuses are clear). He did that horrible thing that chiropractors do to your neck, which makes you vow never to see one again, but it wasn’t so jerky so I’ll forgive him. In general I left wishing I’d got onto the whole thing sooner. His whole body approach made so much sense and is so much better than the patch-up work I’ve been getting done. I’ve got 2 more sessions this week and then have to visit him regularly for a total of 12 sessions at least. By the end of today’s session he’d made my neck and shoulder feel a fair bit better,  cleared my sinuses and made my hips feel like I actually have control of them (I’m very flexible and they cause no end of problems to me). I really do feel as light as air.

Dr Frank also furnished me with a little guide book of tips and how tos and asks all his clients to go wheat, caffeine, orange, pork, chocolate, peanut, dairy and spicy food free for 1 month. I was doing fine until this point, but no coffee and no chilli make Michelle go something, something (go crazy? don’t mind if I do). Also no artificial sweetners. At this point I wasn’t really sure which of my supps I have left. No Xtend, no whey, no fat-burners; oh my! I promised him I’ll do my best. I also have to find out my blood type so that he can fine tune my diet. A-types don’t do so well on red meat apparently; and blood type  might help explain my rice issues too.

Looking forward I’ve got a huge week, tomorrow, operation monster shoulder begins with Joe. Wednesday and Friday I’m back to Dr. Frank, Thursday posing classes and tomorrow lunch fish and healthfood shopping on my lunch hour. Good thing I don’t have too much on at work!

Will my left side even out in time?

I just uploaded more progress pictures (here, and here). I can see progress. Fat seems to be coming of my midsection and chest.

I worked shoulders good and hard last night and was looking amazing afterwards. Every muscle and vein was popping out. I had time to kill so I practiced my (poor) posing technique in the changerooms, much to the amusement of passers by.

By the time I got home to take photos they’d shrunk a bit, but everyday, in my weights sessions I can see definition coming through and it gives me confidence to keep going.

82 days, 6.5kg, 7.5% to go.
24 hours fog free!

A quick follow up on yesterday. The slight changes to my diet (adding in dextrose to my workout, eating my weight in greens afterwards) seems to have done wonders to my energy levels. I’m sure the seista helped too but I can’t do that everyday.

Saturday, I bought the Nick Jones training DVD (view a sample here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNaJYFu94Dg).

I’d heard great things about it and was also hoping to spot myself in the background as it was filmed in my gym and I was there when they were filming leg day. It was weird watching something filmed in my gym but I didn’t make a cameo. Nick’s attitude is so fantastic. This is a guy who really loves his art. He totally thinks of BB as an artform. Nick was a pro BBer for many years and did well in untested leagues until he came down with cronic fatigue several times, prompting him to reassess his career and turn natural. He has since won MuscleMania  titles and had a fair bit of success. His attitude towards training and life really impresses me. I really love his idea of quality over quantity when it comes to training. He’s a big clock watcher and keeps his sets within the 40-70 seconds window, which studies have show to be the best for hytrophathy with very strict rest breaks of under 2 minutes. He aims to be in and out of the gym in 45 minutes. I’ve started to workout in my lunch break so this is an ideal concept for me. I also love his warmup activation routine and gave it a shot yesterday before my leg workout.  You can see it here (http://www.myfittribe.com/jamcoretraining/men/warm.html), he stole it from his mates at JamCore. I’ve still got 2 workouts to watch, but it made me think about my split a bit more, and how I was going to try and target my weaker areas in the next 12 weeks.

My strongest area is my hamstrings. Apparently they are slightly superhuman, which means I want to have the calves and quads to match. Also, I need to regain some of the lost size from my upper body after my injury so targeting some form of upper body work daily is pretty crucial to me. So I’ve split my leg day in half. Yesterday I hit 3 quad exercises, 2 exercises for biceps and 1 exercise for triceps and 1 for calves. Friday I’ll do 2 exercises for hamstrings (bent-deads & curls), death step-ups for my glutes, 2 exercises for triceps and 1 for biceps, 1 for calves. This sounds like a fair amount of work, but using Nick’s ideas about strict timing I was in and out of the gym, including warmup and extra exercises my physio gave me for my shoulder, in under 1 hour.

Today is back day and it’ll stay the same; lots of rowing for my stuffed trap but I also really want to work on bringing up my lats. I’ve dropped back extensions from my routine and am debating bringing them back in but am worried they might make me too thick where I should be tapering. I guess I can’t gain too much in the next few weeks anyway.

Tuesdays, I train with Joe and we’re doing chest at the moment. Last week’s chest workout was really full on; and although I felt very comfortable with the movements while doing them, my shoulder has been complaining ever since. I’m going to have to kill BB bench in favour of DB bench, which is recommended in the Shoulder Savers articles , in the hope that I can still train heavy without the pain in my bones.

Shoulder day, I need to concentrate on putting some size back in my anterior delts (front raises and front grip presses?) and getting the area where my delts join my  arms up a bit (cable laterals and single arm db laterals). As much as I enjoy the 2 sorts of shrugs I might just alternate weekly between DB and BB. I’ll throw in 1 set of calve here too.

I do a pilates class on Thursday’s so this takes a good hit at my abs, and they’ll get worked directly on my other non-weight day too.

I feel like I’ve missed something in my re-division. If anyone can see anything let me know.

Generally, this week I feel I’ve got diet and exercise under control and am much more optimistic than last week. I’m just getting impatient for all the great work I’m doing to start showing up. I had a carb-up/refeed planned for tonight, but right now I’m feeling so good I might leave it until after my chest workout. I plan to keep these wheat, sugar/sweetness and dairy free as since I’ve ruled these things out I’ve virtually stopped grazing/snacking.

To answer V’s question from yesterday. My 2 month out goal is: to be down to about 14.5% which by my math is just under 62kg (136lb). My final goal being 9.5% which is about 57kg without all the depletion, so I imagine my onstage weight being below 55kg (121lb). For the record I calculate my LBM as 53kg (117lb).

Shoulder day has always been my favourite. I love shoulders, I love my shoulders, I check out other peoples shoulders in the gym and that’s how I gauge their physique. I know there’s more to it than that, but I love all the tiny lumps and bumps that show up in a good shoulder workout. Good news for those with broken collar bones and a love for shoulders, they recover a lot better than pecs!
Today I managed to squeeze my shoulder session into my lunch break.  Here’s what I did.

3 minutes rowing machine to warm up, 1 x stair sprint (4 flights)
Arnold press (my injury has finally allowed me to do these-hooray)
4kg x 15(warmup)
7kg x 15
8kg x 12
9kg x 10
10kg x 7
12.5kg x 3 (left shoulder couldn’t really handle this)
Cable side laterals (never done these before- will become regular)
2.5kg(left)3.75kg(right) 10×4
DB lateral raises + bent-over lateral raises (super+drop-set)
6kg x 15 + 5kgx12, 3kgx12
7kg x 12 + 6kgx10, 3kgx10
8kg x 8 + 6kgx10, 4kgx10
9kg x 5 + 7kgx8, 3kgx10

BB shrugs behind back /superset w seated calves (this bizaar combo got the heart pumping!)
30kg x 10/40kg  x 10
30kg x 10/40kg x 10
35kg x 9/40kg x 9
35kg x 6.5/45kg x 7

I so love the lateral raises tri-set but am thinking it should for fear of over-training now I’m starting to lower my calories. Thoughts anyone?

The BB shrugs are new, replacing DB shrugs. I really felt these all the way through my shoulders and back. Sometimes a simple change makes such a difference.

I was reading about the cable lateral raises and never imagined they’d be so hard. I was on the top pin, how weak I felt!

As mentioned above I’ve started to drop my calories slightly. Paranoia setting in. This week’s intake has been around 1700. I’m planning on going at 1550 next week and then I’ll go back up to 1900 for a week to see how the metabolism reacts. It seems that I loose weight really quickly when I do a really low week followed by a maintainance week. My widget’s telling me 92 days to go. Time to start getting serious. I’m anxiously looking forward to Tuesday when I’ve got pinch and tape measurements. I’m looking leaner but weighing more which is both good and scary.

I also, finally managed to get hold of Mareike from ‘one life live well’ who’ll be doing my posing coaching. Annoyingly, she’s heading away on holidays for the next 2 weeks, but I’ll meet with her on my lunch break in a few Tuesday’s time. I told her about my routine music, Paul Oakenfold’s Pink Panther theme, and she was going to look for some cool fabric for my suit today.

So the ball keeps rolling.

Just a quick catch up on the last few days of training.

Tuesday evening’s workout was chest, to follow after my energetic cardio in the AM.Chest is former favourite, recently  however, it’s become my dreaded hour of shameful effort due to my injury. This week’s workout, however, left me grinning from ear to ear (and nice and sore). I don’t think anyone has grinned as hard at being able to do 3×12 pushups (toes). Until last week I was able to do 3×5 on my knees. I don’t know where my strength came from, though I find chest the day after back seems to do wonders for my shoulder. For the next 3 weeks I’m training chest with my trainer so hopefully we can get the ‘missing muscle’ to show up.

Yesterday morning I figured I was onto a good thing with the thermofueled manic elliptical session and had another crack at it. Only managed 300 calories in the 20 minutes this time but that’s not to be sneezed at. The rest of the day was a ‘rest day’ which i spent trecking around Chinatown photographing (greasy, unhealthy, tasty) food. One client gave me a bubble tea (can someone say insulin spike) but I’m just not a sugar fan and politely only sipped a small amount. Most of my meals were in store-bought bar form. I did find a new favourite, rising from the world of crapness that is protein bars. Horley’s carb-less made me think I was eating a snickers or picnic. I’d eat them everyday but they’re $3+ each and no real fibre to speak of. I did get a nice bowl of fresh Phö for lunch which is always a decent bet on a cut. I was exhausted by the end of the day and had to nap before dinner.

All refreshed I managed a fairly decent arms workout with stair runs in my rest periods and now I’m off to pilates. Have a great day.