mikschu’s BodyBlog

Sipping on my coffee and getting ready to go to the place where real men are made…  Mentally preparing to use my mind to wage war on my muscles.  The body things there’s some "limit" to the amount of weight it can lift…  The mind knows there is NO limit.  The mind is unbound in it’s endeavors, anything is possible with the right mental state.  Sometimes the mind tends to listen to the body and responds by telling the body to stop.  The trick is to control the mind and not listen to the body so the mind never tells the body to stop, and rep after rep will be cranked out of some weight that otherwise would seem impossible.  I don’t mean ignore a pulled muscle/tendon or other injury, but ignore the nerve responses that say "too much weight, only three reps, stop now" and crank out a few more reps to complete the set.

This and being well fed, listening to some heavy metal, and just being excited about the workout:  good time.    Lately I’ve been really focusing on my thoughts during the workout, and mentally focusing on the lifts and making sure to get my head in it 110% and pushing myself way past my limits.

The results?  Well before every workout I always visualize my lifts and set a small goal for the day and I’m happy when I reach the goals.  But lately I’ve been breaking these goals and going even further.  The feeling that comes from that is…  Euphoric.  I feel unstoppable after that.  Nothing can really bring me down when I have that.  Life is good.  Be a champion, lift strong, lift smart!!

The mind controls the body.  Control the mind, control the body.  The mind speaks, the body listens, lift… lift… lift!  LIFT!!!  Fourth set…  two-hundred seventy-five pounds was quite good for the first couple of sets of deadlifts, a new personal record.  It’s still quite a lot, two fifty-five, my heart has been up around 90% and back down several times.  I could see stars a couple times after the six reps.  I could feel the blood coursing through my vains, I wonder how many gallons I pumped while I was down there, how many bath tubs I could have filled up.  I look in the mirror and I can see my eyes drooping, the sweat pouring down my face and neck in droves.  Slowly I bend down and grab the bar, squeeze it as hard as I can, then I let go and spring up.  My heart is throbbing and I haven’t even lifted anything yet.  Millions of molecules have just rushed throughout my entire body to prepare my muscles to move some heavy duty weight.  I tell myself "the mind controls the body, lift!"  I get down and there and grab on, take a few of the deepest breaths I can manage, I breath in one final time and pull!  First my legs extend then my lower back and hips extend and I’m standing looking at myself in the mirror, veins popping out of my neck that look like garden hose.  Face has a purplish/red tint to it; I can feel my heart racing.  It seems somehow easy despite the face I see in the mirror, teeth gritting and slight tears forming at the rims of my eyes.  Bend over, stand up again, good, two reps, four more.  By number six suddenly the hands start to rebel, almost naturally as if the bar were as hot as an iron.  The mind controls the body, ignore the pain in the hands, hold on, up…  That’s it, put it down and breath.  That was the fourth set of deadlifts.  On to the stability ball crunches.  Simple, it’s almost like active recovery after the prior feat mentioned.
About thirty seconds to a minute later its over to the single leg split squats, which don’t deserve hardly as much merit or lengthy description.  After deadlifts nothing seems challenging.  Nothing could be harder than that right?  Wrong.  Immediately following the split squats, it’s onto weighted hanging leg raises.  I grab the 35 pound dumbbell with my feet and do a chinup.  Holding on, pretending I’m hanging from a crane one-hundred stories above asphalt, I pull my knees up as far as I can manage.  The chinup slowly turns into a dead hang but by the time my arms are extended the sixth rep is finished.

That marks the end of the fourth set, and the most mentally challenging set of the most mentally challenging workout I’ve probably ever done in my weight lifting career.  I had two more sets after that, but they somehow seemed easier, as if I had already ran the marathon and I was simply cooling down with a nice slow jog.  The deadlift never went below 245 lbs, that was another new personal record.  I could have done more on front squats but I did a comfortable weight because it was my first time doing them in months, so 55 lbs for the first 3 sets and 45 lbs on the last.  I used a dumbbell and held it like a goblet.

These are my favorite days because they are the only days that really make me stronger.  I’m not developing the the same strength I get from upper body days; but I’m developing my body’s overall strength, and my strength as a Man.  Putting three plates on a bar and lifting it (with any exercise, in my case deadlifts) is  huge feat for any weight lifter, and I am almost there.  2 plates and a quarter, I never thought I’d ever be able to move that much weight in ANY movement.  The mental strength I gain from this workout will make everything else seem so much easier and I’ll be able to move more weight with greater ease.  These days teach me how to control my mind, and how to use it to control my body.  The body cannot be let to control the mind; if that be the case we would give up after the first set.  Our body would immediately tell us to stop lifting the weights because we’re doing "damage."  Luckily we learn to ignore the message–that is in a good way, barring injuries–and keep lifting.  We damage our muscles so they will grow back bigger.  The stronger mental will power we have, the more damage we will be able to incur and the bigger and stronger we will grow, faster.

Controlling the mind in every aspect of life is the key to success, in everything.

I was so jazzed and energized this morning that when it came time to bust out some pullups I jumped on that bar and pulled with all my might!  Yeah the energy felt great but there was one problem.  I pulled so fast and hard that I popped my bicep tendon out of the bicepital groove!  Ow it hurt.  Well it wasn’t that bad, I was able to do a lot of other stuff.  I probably shouldn’t have but I just finished the workout, still did ok.  I think it was really minor but enough to really piss me off.  Oh well, better luck next week I guess =(

I think I need to not go so wide.  I’ve been going as wide as the bar permits me, maybe that puts too much stress on that tendon.  Going just a tad narrower will give me a break, even just an inch or two on each side could give me a couple more reps.  I’m also considering making one day a week into a "fun" day of random calisthenics at the park.  I’ll jog to the park and just do all kinds of pullups and dips and pushups on all the playground equipment there (monkey bars, swings, etc.)  This is inspired by the bartendaz on YouTube.  I want to be be able to do crazy shit like them.  It will also be a nice way to keep my muscles guessing and stimulate some better growth.  I’ll find out if its counterproductive to my current goals first though, and if it is I’ll just can that idea.

Look up bartendaz on youtube…  Those guys make me just wanna quite right now.  Or maybe work really hard to maybe be like that someday.  Well I don’t think it’s possible for me to ever be like that, but it’s still inspirational…

Did weighted chinups for the first time today, full range of motion, nice and controlled tempo and form.  I added 10 lbs and did 6 reps, that was ok for the first 2 sets, then the third set was a struggle so I dropped it for the last two sets.  Yeah I know 6 chinups with 10 lbs not really a big deal for a lot of people on here, but it is for me…  Plus I’m 6′2′’ and I weight like 195 naked, weighed around 200-205 in the gym with all the clothes and water in my stomach.  So I’m happy!  Now I just need to work on being able to do wide grip pullups with some weight!  I’m still struggling to get good reps with just my body weight…  I’m working on getting at least a couple from deadhang all the way up till my chest touches the bar.  I’ll be really happy when I can do 6 or so with that kind of form.  I’m practicing just holding myself up at the top of the bar as long as I can.  Currently I have to use a chair to help hold myself up there, it’s very challenging.  When I say "wide" I really mean wide too, not just a little bit wider than shoulder width like some people do.  I go to the end of the bar with my hands, as far as I can go.  Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself and move my hands in just a couple inches…  That little bit can mean the difference between one rep and 6 reps.  But I want lats, so I’ll stay wide.

I feel like I’ve been trying to climb up this mountain for several years now, but for the first couple of years I was just circling around the mountain looking for the trail to climb.  It’s liberating to know that what I’m doing in the gym is going to produce progress.  It used to be so stressful; I’d try all kinds of different techniques, rest pause, drop sets, supersets, negatives, because I didn’t realize I was just always on a really crappy program.  I never ate sufficiently either.  It really takes three things to see results: a good program, the right diet, and strong mental will power to get out another rep.

Now I even know my limits, and how long I can stay on one microcycle before I start to plateau, so I can tweek my program BEFORE I even hit the wall!  That is a good feeling…  It basically means if I stay on top of my pre-game (planning workouts ahead of time) then I can almost ALWAYS see results.  Wow…  If the past-me could see the now-me he would probably think I was a genetic freak or something!  That’s another thing that really made me self-concious…  I always thought that because I wasn’t growing that I just had poor genes.  Well there are no genes that can hold anyone back from getting big and strong and good looking; genes only affect how long it takes you to get there.  Even then, people genetically inclined for slower recovery can get to the top at the same time as the freaks if they have a program that’s tailored to their physiological adaptations.

Anyway.  I am really feeling yesterday’s workout (but in a good way, I can tell everything has already had great recovery and still is, afterall I think I ate around 4000-5000 calories yesterday.)  The chest, shoulders, and back are all feeling it.  Biceps and triceps a little bit too.

Rest day today, lots of homework and reading.  Tomorrow is medium intensity, legs/core, 5 sets of 6.  I’m keeping it at 5 sets this week so I can really push the weight up on every movement.  I’ll deadlift 265 and see how it feels if I can add a 5 or 10 on each side.  I’ll see how I feel about front squats while I’m there…  I don’t even really like to add to much weight to them…  Simply slowing down can make ANY weight feel heavy with those, it doesn’t take much.  I could get a great workout from just keeping a plate on each side and going really slow, but I should probably add a 10 and focus on getting more weight up with those.  I may just do single leg split squats too, I haven’t done those in a long time… hmm…

Look in the damn blogs…  One guy has posted like 30 blogs of complete nonsense.  I think there’s a video in the blogs and I didn’t click on it but I’m sure it’s probably linked to a virus or worm or something.  This place is becoming myspace…  And what’s the deal with people who have like 4000 friends and invite everyone?  I don’t add those idiots…  I’m basically just here to keep track of my workouts and use blogs to psyche myself out before the workouts.  I guess some people get off on the whole "social" thing.  But it’s really sad, this is just another chatroom basically, having 4000 friends doesn’t make up for the fact that you don’t have any friends in the real world or can’t even talk to people in person.  Bah…  Some will take offense to this, I don’t care.  This blog is for me anyway.

Leaving in 15-20 minutes…  High intensity day, upper body.  I’m starting 6 reps today (from 8,) keeping the sets the same at 5, and increasing the weights on everything!  It should be very good.  Starting with unilateral dumbbell bench press superset with bent over barbell rows, then standing military press superset with wide grip pullups.  On the pullups I’m REALLY going to get thrashed because I just plan on doing all negative reps.  I’m going to help myself up with a chair and just fight it all the way down and try to stay up as long as possible.  I have a hard time with these and a I think doing this every other week might help.  My biggest weakness is pulling my chest all the way up to the bar.  I think if I can just get that down then I should automatically be able to do quite a few good reps.  I shouldn’t be too hard on myself though because even gaining muscle weight is still extra weight that my lats have to pull, so technically I’m still getting stronger even though I can’t really do more reps.  I’ll post a comment with the results when I get back.

If I’ve never talked to you on here and you have like 4000 friends!  This isn’t a popularity contest.

I’m getting fueled up to head out in just a few minutes and get blasted.  I’m doing close-grip palms-in incline dumbbell press superset with reverse close-grip bent over barbell rows.  Should be a good day, 5 sets of 8.  I’m going to start at 165 on the rows and see if I can go up from there.  I actually  know I will be able to go to at least 175.  For the dumbbells I hope to get up to 55’s.  Again I’m kind of expecting to be able to hit them.  I don’t plan on being able to feel my arms when I leave today.  I love these days because it’s like targeting arms for a bicep/tricep workout but with compound movements so I’m also getting a shoulder, chest, and back workout in the process.  I’m excited about tomorrow, it’s my run day!  One day of running a week…  I miss it a lot; I love running so much; however, I love the results I see from lifting in the gym a little more.  I have noticed huge energy / growth differences from only running once a week.  I’ll post a comment on this blog to update how I did today in the gym.