lukifer24’s BodyBlog

Ok so i did my first real sledgehammer workout today.  50 hits, 60 sec rest, switch hands and repeat for a half an hour.  Holy hell, that’s a cardio workout for sure.  I was dripping sweat and huffing and puffing towards the end of each set.  Forearms and hands were burning too by then end.  I’m hooked.  Loving it.

So I finally went in to a  local gym that I have heard about for a while in La  Mesa.  It is called Parkway Fitness and it is such a refreshing change from the usual crap at 24hour.  This place has everypossible piece of equipment imaginable.  Probably too much as there is no floor space anywhere.  but it has old school original nautilus, and a ton of custom pieces and a mad array of cable pulleys all over the place.  There are mutiple benches, several squat cages both with pins set up above and below for rack pulls and benches off the pins, it’s great.  The reason I signed up was for the olympic platform with bumper plates and there very own glute-ham raise.  I love this place already.  It’s a little dirty with old ass iron plates and I love it.

Just a little update on how my cutting has been going.  Started in March at 199.5 lbs, had a couple bumpy weeks where I would gain a little back trying new stuff, but overall I’ve done very well I think.  Here are some notable stats.

March                   Â
 Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Aug

Weight- 199.5                 186                -13.5 lbs

Waist- 35.25                   3
2.75              -2.5 inches

Hips- 41.5                    
   40                  -1.5 inches

Thigh-26                  
       25                  -1 inch

Chest-45                  
      44.5                -.5 inch

Bicep- 16                     
   15.75             -.25 inch

 

I’ve been doing some steady state cardio totalling 45 minutes after my lifting, (which I don’t like) and also running sprints in the sand twice a week (very hard, but fun).  I’ve done some sled sessions and some basketball to burn those calories and been watching my diet very closely with the help of Crystal Lowery, IFBB figure pro and my nutritionist.  I have 13 more days till my 30th birthday and as long as I don’t freak out at high light I am now I will lose a little more fat by then and see how well I’ve done overall.

I’m on a cutting phase right now and I’ve lost 3 lbs in two weeks and most of the measurements I want to shrink are, ie 1.5inch off my waist in two weeks, and the ones I don’t want to a staying pretty stable- not too much loss in arms legs chest etc.  But surprisingly I’ve gained a half an inch on my forearms.  Which is great.  I bought TylerGrips, from EliteFTS.com and I’ve been using them pretty regularly.  You just slide them onto bars, ropes, dumbbells and it’s an instant fatbar.  Apparently they are working great cause I haven’t done a single "forearm" exercise, but they are growing.  So yeah.  This is me, losing weight and being happy

I’m on a cutting phase right now and I’ve lost 3 lbs in two weeks and most of the measurements I want to shrink are, ie 1.5inch off my waist in two weeks, and the ones I don’t want to a staying pretty stable- not too much loss in arms legs chest etc.  But surprisingly I’ve gained a half an inch on my forearms.  Which is great.  I bought TylerGrips, from EliteFTS.com and I’ve been using them pretty regularly.  You just slide them onto bars, ropes, dumbbells and it’s an instant fatbar.  Apparently they are working great cause I haven’t done a single "forearm" exercise, but they are growing.  So yeah.  This is me, losing weight and being happy

So I changed my routine up a bit to a Heavy Pull/Heavy Push/off/lightpull/lightpush/off/off

On my Heavy Push day I started with 8×3 supersets of front squats and flat barbell bench.  Doing 315 on the bench feeling good, get to the sixth set and rep #3 just wont go up, can’t get it to the pins, can’t get it to the low pins to save myself.  The gym was half full but noone seemed to notice, so I escaped.  I set the bar on my chest tightened my abs and rolled the bar down my abs to my hip bones.  Sat up and popped the bar up a bit and jumped my legs back out of the way and dropped the bar to the bench.  Haha survived another one.

I will admit I rarely do any form of cardio- it’s just not very beneficial for getting bigger and stronger.  But I also can’t really see my abs.  So I’ve been doing cardio each weight training day after my lifting is done, as I am attempting to get real lean for this summer.  However, I will probably tip over a treadmill if i have to use it 4 or 5 times a week for a few months. 

 Hence my "cardio" on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  After I’m done lifting I grab a medicine ball, head into the basketball gym and start throwing.  Chest throws, overhead throws, rotational throws, overhead slams, one arm throws for height, for distance, to catch off the wall, bicep tosses, tricep overhead tosses (don’t try to catch these ones), all sort of stuff.  I even do some lunges with the med ball overhead, in front, and rotating to the sides.  I’ve decided to do heavy throws with a lot of legs for power on Tues, and light throws with a lot of chest, shoulders and arms on Thurs just to keep some variety.

 It’s a great workout, really gets the heart pumping, and I wont tip over any machines in frustration. 

sucks.  I got up to 295 and did it fine, but my arms felt like they were going to tear off.  Went up to 305, unracked it and promptly reracked it.  Hurt like a sonofab, and I think broke some blood vessels in there.  I don’t even know if it’s a good weight or not, it just hurt, and not like ooh good workout muscle trauma that leads to growth pain.  It just hurt.

I was a little worried today about doing my front squats with my knee all messed up.  But it’s pretty stable/pain free with pure flexion and extension so I figured what the hell give it a shot- if it didn’t work out, I’d just deadlift.

 Super excited cause I worked singles all the way up to 315, and missed at 335, which is by far PR for me and had no knee pain- thank goodness.

My knee is all messed up from playing dodgeball, so on ME Legs tuesday I did deadlifts instead of squats.  doing 405 on my third rep just as I straightened up I looked down at my left hand and saw my grip slipping and fingers stretching out, so I dropped down the weight and looked at my hand.  Blood was oozing out from the callous that I had ripped off.  Lovely- that was the end of deadlifts for the day.