J2

Just finished an hour devoted only to my back:

1.  Stretching (no cardio warmup… felt way too fired up to waste energy on that!)

2.  wide-grip pullups
- bodyweight x 8 reps
- bodyweight x 8 reps

3.  Underhand mid-grip cable pulldowns
- 100lbs x 15 rep
- 120lbs x 10 rep
- 140lbs x 8 rep

4.  Bent-over Barbell Rows
- 115lbs x 12 rep
- 125lbs x 10 rep
- 135lbs x 10 rep
- 115lbs x 12 rep

5.  Single-arm bent-over DB rows
- 60lbs x 12 rep
- 70lbs x 10 rep
- 75lbs x 8 rep

6.  D-ring unilateral cable pulldowns
- 20lbs each side (actually feels like 120lbs on this machine) x 10 rep fail

Super-pumped afterwards.  Taking my kool-aid, 5g glutamine, 3 g creatine ethyl combo, then my sludge shake.  Then spaghetti and chicken!  Time to get FAT!

40-50g chocolate whey powder
1c quick oats
1 tbsp olive oil
16 oz water

Pre-workout shake gets me through the workout.  The post-workout shake is even bigger.

Just woke up and I feel amazing.  The past week was rough with little sleep, no more than 6.5 hours on any given night.  I felt exhausted EVERY day.  Today I wake up with 8 hours of sleep under my belt.  Starving, going to make a shake with banana, chocolate, cinnamon powder, and make whole wheat pancakes.

Probably going to work on my art a little.  Then workout.  Full day planned.  Sunday is the day of errands.  Don’t forget Mother’s Day!

I never see people training calves.  That’s why nobody has good calves.  People want to blame it on genetic predisposition to having "chicken legs," which I completely understand, but if you NEVER train calves or only train them every 10 days, you’re not going to progress in calf development.

Just like any other muscle group, the calves need constant stimulation to develop.  I talk with people and ask them, "How often do you train calves?"  The majority of people respond, "Not much if ever.  My calves suck because my dad’s calves suck."  Of course, that’s just a generalization, but you get the point.  Most people think they just can’t get decent calves, but then again they never try (work the muscle every 5th day) like they would with chest, back, shoulders or arms.

My challenge to you is simple.  Find a day during the week that you planned to take a rest day.  Warmup on the treadmill or stair climber for 5-10 min to get the blood in the calf and then stretch or foam roll the muscle.  Then do some calf raises, gradually increasing the weights until you feel a heavy 8-12 reps, but can still control the movement.  You don’t need to do 20 sets of calves.  8-10 sets would be fine, just like any other muscle group, as long as you focus on the "feel" and squeeze the muscle.  Don’t think "push the weights up."  Think instead, "squeeze the weights up with control and focus."

Incorporate that into your weekly routine.  Better to work the calf more frequently because it’s a durable muscle.  Pound it every 5th day, or when soreness decreases.  Have one heavy day, followed in 5 days or so (again, as long as you feel the calf has recovered) by a light day with higher reps.  The stimulation to the calf will be amazing and, as long as your nutrition and rest are spot on, they will develop like the rest of your body.

Think, "diamond chiseled calves."

Finally, I feel like I am gaining momentum and feeling "normal".  My lack of sleep is turning around and I am making it more of a priority to get 7-8 hours per night instead of my 5-6.  I am getting stronger, eating strictly, and losing fat daily.  My body feels like I can handle a tough situation at any time, whereas before I felt flat and weak.

I think I can actually break 191 lbs for the first time ever.  Well, I was 190 last year, but that took tremendous effort.  This year I am close to 190 without really trying.  Looking forward to my next leg day.

Fried my calves last night.  They are a good size proportionate to my body, but I want them to grow to be massive.  I don’t care if it looks funny on me.  I would love to have huge shredded calves.

Chicken + yam + orange tea = awesome workout in the next hour.  Abs and maybe some shoulders if I feel up to throwing heavy weights above my head. 

-J

Fitness enthusiasts need to remember something as it relates to our goal of lifelong health and fitness.  Many of us tend to put fitness before any other aspect of life, to include myself.  That can turn out to be a big mistake.  Take my story for example.

Last year (around April 2008), I was approaching the best level of fitness of my life.  I worked as a full-time personal trainer in a gym, where I was expected to be the ideal of fitness, health, energy, positivity, you name it.  And I was for quite a long time, until I tested my body to see how far it would go.  For about 21 days in a row, the gym was on my workout schedule.  HEAVY and extremely intense resistance training, cardio, and a STRICT nutrition plan all got me to a point of a completely shredded body.  I was never "huge" and probably never will be because of my ectomorphic frame, but I was sliced and diced.  People noticed.  I would do cardio at 5:30am, train clients until 4pm, then eat and workout again by 8:00pm.  No rest days for three weeks and some of the days I trained twice or three times.  No drugs, unless you want to count caffeine, which I used almost every day.

Eventually, I physically broke down.  After the third week, I decided to take a week off of training and just eat and grow.  I did, and I probably looked better after that week than I ever had in my life.  However, once I resumed my training program, everything fell apart.  I didn’t have motivation or intensity for nearly 10 more months…

This all leads to now.  Luckily, I have hung up my full-time training job (which wreaked havoc on my sleep schedule), and work an 8am-4pm job.  Having a schedule has helped me get more sleep and feel more normal every day.  Training is now back to a high level of intensity, and my nutrition program is getting zeroed-in.  Abs are coming back, but I want them to be noticeably ripped again by June.

I’m sure many of you want the same.  If you need any help, just message me and I will answer some questions for you.  Let’s all remember that the REST days and nutrition/hydration/supplementation are critical elements to our success.  Let’s not get OVERLY-motivated just yet.  Slow and steady.  1 day at a time.
Didn’t workout last night.

Finished back and traps.  AMAZING intensity and focus:

1.  Pullups x 10 full up and down rep
x 9.5 full up and down rep
x 8.5 full up and down rep

2.  Bent over barbell rows 115 x 12
135 x 10
115 x 10

3.  Reverse grip lat pulldown (cable)  100 x 12
120 x 12 (forced reps)
120 x 14 (forced reps)

4.  DB Shrugs (front)  45’s x  15
55’s x 15
70’s x 12
80’s x 10
90’s x 8 (drop set to…)
60’s x 10  (kept dropping to…)
45’s x 10

5.  Farmer’s Walk  70’s x grip failure
70’s x grip failure

6. DB Shrug to finish  65’s x 8 (fail)

Felt so strong and insane.

I have eaten 5 meals today.  It is currently 5:30pm AZ time.  I am on a good pace for 7 meals by nights end.

Back workout in an hour.  Not sure if it will be good, or if I will feel flat tonight because I haven’t had many carbs.  Let me count… 56g for breakfast (dry oats), 35g for snack (cott cheese and strawberries), 50g for lunch (roast BEAST sandwich), 50g for snack (protein bar and small apple), and 25g for early dinner (eggs, salsa, and 1 wheat tortilla).

216g of carbs before workout… just enough to keep my body running, but probably not enough to have a huge pump tonight.

Here goes everything!  No excuses.  No caffeine.  Just my tunes and focus.

Long day at work, dealing with unprofessional colleagues (as I’m sure many of you do as well).  That was followed by a trip to the "new" local vehicle emissions test center.  In case you haven’t noticed, states are in budget crises and AZ, at least, had determined that my 5-yr old car needed an emissions test for $28-.  Right.  Like my little VW golf is spewing charcoal into the air.  Way to go big government.  START WRITING LETTERS TO YOUR CONGRESSMEN!  Cripes, people are being laid off in record numbers and the state wants to charge you more for everything.  I suppose the only recourse is to move to Idaho, Wyoming, or Montana.

Enough of this rant… I need to blow off some steam.  Just cardio tonight though because my legs are on fire from last night’s destruction.  Have a nice day

I am in physical pain.  In a good way.  Just finished my first really hardcore leg session in a couple months.  Felt sick at the end and I loved every minute of the awful feeling.  I may not have massive arms, but my legs rub together when I walk out of the gym from a leg day.

WORKOUT:

Squats (2 warmup, 3 working sets… felt crazy)
Deadlifts (1 warmup, 3 working sets… heavy, but it felt light!)
Lying leg curls (3 working sets, heavy.  Only got 8 reps per set)
Leg Ext. (3 working sets.  Legs almost exploded, skin was so tight)
Calf raise machine (2 warmup sets, 5 working… calves almost popped)
Abs/obliques (2 sets decline situps, 2 sets each side of oblique stability ball crunches)

Amazing.  I plan on jamming the whey, creatine/glutamine/BCAA’s all week to help speed recovery.  Also on my tribulus and ZMA.

Nutrition is on point.