mikschu’s BodyBlog

Well that’s how I feel…  But somehow I still managed to make some pretty great progress.  I ran a mile in 6:33 yesterday, down from 6:57, so 24 seconds faster than last week.  Clearly I’m growing the mental power to keep my legs moving the entire time.  It’s a very unique energy system to train in order to run a mile very quickly, one I haven’t ever focused on before.  So I know this rapid progress in the beginning is my body adapting to the specific energy demands to in order to go all out for one mile.  But the funny thing is I felt like crap the whole time.  I was surprised when I saw my time but not disappointed at all.  Then today I jogged to the park for my calisthenic day and was able to bust out 11 pullups in the first set, up from 10 last week.  So I’m very excited about that.  They get easier every time I do em.  I know they’ll be putting some good mass on my back and arms as I’m now able to do reps in a solid hypertrophy range.  getting past 6 or 7 reps is all about growing the mental power to control your muscles and get your chin over the bar, and you will develop your muscles during this process, but it’s mostly mental.  After that it’s about developing muscle mass.  I know it will slow down eventually because that’s how all muscle development occurs; you start out with quick gains and then it tapers off because building muscle mass takes longer than building the mental power.  Knowing this is good because we can set realistic goals and thus not be let down if we aim for too much in too short an amount of time.  I think it becomes mental again once I get past 15 reps (I can’t wait till I hit that point.)

Anyway, good week overall…  I missed my sprint interval day, oh well.  And I had to cut out early from the park because I felt like puking.

Today I started my 10 rep cycle.  One word to describe the workout: humbling.  Jumping from 8 to 10 is a huge difference.  This week I’m doing 3 sets of 10.  Next week I’ll do 4 sets.  Then I’ll evaluate my progress in the two weeks and decide whether or not I want to start making my way back to 4 reps or stay at 10 for another week for a total of 3 weeks at 10 reps.  I could put on some good quality mass if I stay at 10 for just  a little while longer, but I don’t want to plateau.  I could counter the plateau by just switching a lot of movements up with dumbbell vs barbell or vice versa.  I may stay for 3 weeks to give myself a chance to get some good negative work in at 10 reps; it could really help build up a lot of strength and mass at the same time.  Anyway other than that it felt great today.  I didn’t even care how much weight I was lifting as long as I was doing it with perfect form.   My deadlifts are evolving towards the SLDL end of the spectrum and I’m still doing a pretty happy weight (for me) at 205.  It feels good to control that for 10 good clean reps.  The weighted pullup negatives were insane, especially on my forarms.  Standing military press felt really awesome today; I can tell my pushing power is getting really strong right now.  That’s a good feeling because I’ve always felt like my ability to push has always lagged behind my pulling ability.  Anyway I gotta go, BE STRONG

Monster.

I did 10 pullups today!  Ok I will admit I had to cheat and do a rest pause for the 10th rep, but even if you only count 9 as one set I still beat my record: 7 reps.  I’ll count 10…  Yeah… I did 3 more pullups than last week!  I’m pretty happy with that jump.  I won’t be disappointed if I plateau at 10 for a couple weeks now.  I made a big jump and raised the bar pretty high, but I do look forward to seeing a big leap like that again after a few weeks.  Next month I expect to be around 13 or 14 in one set.  I know incorporating weighted negatives has helped me make this leap.  I will continue to find ways to shock my muscles with different techniques so I don’t plateau too often.  I’m living it and loving it…  Determination and consistency fuel this engine.

So my recent pics have really done a lot to motivate me in the gym and while running.  They don’t look that great so I’ve been thinking about them while I lift or run, and I’ve been having some intense workouts as a result!  I had to take some for a fitness challenge with some bodyspace friends and now I’m happy I did.  So basically my word to the wise: take progress pics and post them, even if you feel self conscious about them…  Take the most revealing pics you can take and don’t try to hide your trouble areas; take extra pictures of parts you hate!  Posting them and knowing that anyone can look at them will motivate you to take care of it!  I’m on a soap box, I’ve only had like 2 or 3 workouts since I posted them.  But I know the difference has been from those pics.

I’ve recently implemented something new to my program.  Instead of doing as many pullups as i can do and then assisting myself to fill the set of desired reps, I loaded some weight around my waste and just did negatives.  I assisted myself up with my legs on a chair and just lowered myself as slowly as possible for every rep.  It felt amazing!  My lats haven’t been so sore in a long time.  My arms were feeling it too!  It definitely proves that the compound movements are going to increase arm size and definition (they already have) faster than concentration.  I’m going to apply the negative work to more movements in the next couple of months.  I’ll just do one movement in negative every work out or ever other one.  Not too often, but often enough to hit every body part with negative work at least once every 2 weeks.

My friend will be lifting with me more often soon and we decided to switch over to barbell bench and spot eachother to do some heavy negatives.  I’m really looking forward to this because I haven’t hit barbell bench in at least half a year.  I know I will see huge gains in my chest and triceps because it will be so different from dumbbells, plus we’ll be doing negatives so I’ll really be able to load up some heavy weight on that.  I’ll keep that up for a little while and then I think I’ll start alternating between dumbbells / barbell every 2 weeks or so.  I can’t decide if one is better than the other so I’ll just do both (yeah I know what I said a couple of blogs ago, but sh@t happens and people change their minds, ok? OK!)

Because that’s all I’m going off of today!!! **** YEAH!!! INSOMNIA RAAAAAAAAWKS!