morris’s BodyBlog

Ok, we all basically know how the ‘get big’ workouts go: heavy weight, low reps. The ‘focus’ workout is just about opposite. The key, is the squeeze. When you flex your bicep (pulling your fist into your chest/chin) you feel that squeeze in the area your looking at? That’s what I’m talking about. With every excercise there’s a point where you can focus and squeeze that muscle to make it do something it doesn’t normally. Instead of simply ‘pumping’ you can slow it down and hold a flex for a brief second to torture those muscle fibers. The key with ‘pulling’ exercises (biceps, middle back, hami’s, etc) is too hold that flex and litterally squeeze the muscle for a second right at the top of the rep. It’s that point in which you’d change direction from pulling it, to letting it go back to start. For the ‘pushing’ muscles (triceps, chest, quad’s, etc) the key is to get to that ‘change of direction’ in the rep and START pushing, but don’t fully push out yet. Hold that ‘push’ for a second and then push it all the way back out. It’s harder to describe but easy to feel once you do it.

 So that’s the key with the ‘focus’ workout. It’s higher reps, 12-15, with weight that’s not ‘too hard’, per se, but focusing on the muscles and squeezing at the key points.

So what does this get you, you ask? Well first off it really strengthens those ‘micro muscles’ that martial artists have been using for eons. It’s incredible strength in a small package. Most people don’t like it because you don’t get the mass, but this will solidify your body. For looks, it will tone muscles and lean them out making them keeping them small, but hard as rocks. So what’s the real practical use? It stabiliezes your body. No more luging around weights or stuff you pick up (ie: your wife), with your muscles stabalized you won’t just ‘lift’ a certain weight, but you’ll be able to carry it wigh authority. Hope this helps mix up your routine, find the workout you’ve been looking for, or simply a bit of information that helps you design your own, ENJOY!

I finally broke thru my ‘200′ mark a while back and was resting just above 190. I’ve continued down that road and now sit between 185-180lb mark. I don’t mind the weight, wouldn’t kill me to be a bit heavier in muscle either, but I’m totally happy with where it’s at. My main issue is becoming more about the body fat dropping off. I just don’t see it. Well just randomlly posting my workout for the night I ran across ‘boxer’s bodyblog which stated his diet plan to cut. Just what I was looking for. My workouts have changed to be more muscle focus oriented (full flex during rep, and slower reps, but lighter weight). I already feel the burn, now I just need to add in this diet and cut the fat. I’ve slacked off with cardio for a couple of weeks but the diet calls for 30mins of cardio, and I know I can ease my way back into it with that. Now I simply need to replace tuna with something non-fish (due to allergies) and I’ll be set. SO, today marks the day of trying to change my diet (it might take a week or so to get food adjusted in the house tho). So a big up’s to Boxer for giving me a guiding light and hopefully, this time, I’ll actually upload pix to track this progess/goal/plan. PEACE OUT!

I normally just post my workouts here, and weight, the number help keep me focused and inspired. Also, I normally have nothing to report, what with going to a small, free, work, gym and all, but today I finally had a little something to inspire/challenge me. Not all the guys who workout there are ‘big’, it ranges from the older guys, the guys who don’t really know how to do what’s "correct" and the huge, kinda fat, dudes. Well this guy was one of the rare, actually BIG guys who isn’t too fat or anything. He was using the seated chair (redundancy, I know) and 55lb dumbbells. I’m not sure what exercise he was doing, but I removed my headphones and asked if I could switch off with him, he said ’sure’ and that he was finished, here’s the kicker, he preceded to pick up the 55lb dumbbells and put them on the rack. Why is that the kicker? Because I was talking about the dumbbells, NOT, the seat. I needed to do Tricep Press and wanted to use the 55’s. Well truth be told 55’s may have been just a bit too much for me, but I didn’t care. It just really got me how he totally assumed I couldn’t do 55’s with whatever I was doing. I felt I wanted to show him, at least, to not judge a book by it’s cover.

Now truth be told, it was a 50/50 guess as to what I wanted to use, and I think we have more than 1 pair of 55’s, so it is quite possible he wasn’t really thinking down on me, he might have just assumed I wanted the chair since there were more 55’s. BUT whatever! lol I used it to push past my breaking point, at least for a time. *whew* Ok that rant is done, maybe next time I’ll rave instead.   boojea! Night all.

Ok, time to shock my muscles! Since I really started back almost 2 months ago, I’ve been doing the same TYPE of sets (ie: chest/back, bi’s/tri’s, forearms/shoulders), so now I think it’s time to shock my body outta its funk! That started with today’s workout: Chest/bi’s. I’m still going to try to not to ’supplementing’ muscles (yet), like tri’s/chest or bi’s/forearms. I guess that’ll be another shock later down the road . Rather than ‘play around’ with this swich like I did last time I started to "go heavy", I’m going to be diciplined and keep my form great and push out as hard as I can. So we’ll see how these gains go, I still don’t know how to shock my core, but I don’t think I’ve adjusted to the extreme side bridges that I got from SuperMaine (woot!). Still haven’t got those 3lbs back yet from last week, that’s a good thing, it tells me I ‘really’ lost the weight. It seems it was mostly bodyfat, maybe not ALL though. I’m hoping the BF keeps coming off, thats the goal here. OH, and I finally uploaded a vid, my favorite song from Draongforce, and a GREAT, mesmorizing (to me) song to workout to: Through the Fire and Flames. Go peep it, at the 4min mark there’s a wicked 2 guitar solo!!!  Ok, that Is all 

WOW!!!!111

After about a full month of trying to put on weight and gain mass I gave up. My form was bad and all kinds of stuff, it didn’t feel like I was really training, just felt like I was lugging weight around in the gym. But in the last few weeks I have gone back to the fundamentals of focusing on lifting (actually I just started doing THAT this week) and it feels like it’s REALLY paying off.

ANYWAYS, but to the main reason for this joyous celebration. Is that after a month plus of not budging from 196-197, I took about a week and a half off from the scale at all and I’m down to 193!!!!!111111oneoneoneone.   woot!!!

I know it’s only 3lbs, and I’m honestly only happy if that’s fat loss (not muscle….please God not muscle!). But seeing as how I have no way of knowing, I’m going to presume it’s a mix, but mostly fat loss, which is just awesome!! So there, I dropped some weight, that’s the "goal-ish" for now, I wanna cut and I’ll bulk later.

Joy!

"What a difference today makes"

Although they’re talking about their morning show "Today", I’m talking about the difference in mindset from yesterday/last night to today. It’s a great feeling when you try to have a good workout and the next day you’re sore, it’s just confirmation that you did a good job. Thus my arms (bi’s/tri’s) are sore today. Nothing horrible sore cuz you can’t ask for THAT much in 30mins, but I do what I can. Perhaps watching ‘Biggest Loser’ last night helped, maybe getting milk for my protein shakes (finally!) did it. Maybe it was the running shoes I bought while on vacation (I’ve never had running shoes, they’re great!). Or maybe it’s just simply getting back into the routine of being home. Soon I’m going to (finally) update my photos and measurements (having a computer issue right now) so that should help with the feeling of "nothing happening". I also banged out some seriously hard college homework today, and finished up some stuff on Skate. (xbox360). I guess all-in-all it feels like I actually did a lot in the last 24hrs, which feels good. Ah! Speaking of "all-in-all", how can I forget my Lord and Savior who gave me strength this morning? Well I can’t  . I had the opportunity to sin and waste a lot of time today, it was tempting but I relied on Him and His strength and was able to overcome, even tho it was very difficult. That’s what really set everything into motion. Thanks to that victory, everything else seemed to fall into place (it’s not like school work or the milestones were easy, but they happened without too much frustration). So I thank the Lord my God for today and look forward to pushing out a good chest/lat exercise today, for Him! AMEN!

:P yea ok, w/e with the title. I guess this is just a good place to vent. I’ve been on vacation for almost a week and although we ate "better" while outta town, we didn’t really get veggies at all. We didn’t eat as bad as we have in the past, but still, not really "good". Now that we’re back I feel really down about working out. It’s tough when you’re in a funk about something and you feel nothing will get you out. After almost 2 months of eating clean and working out every day (even tho it was very short at work, about 30mins) I saw absolutly no results as far as fat loss went. True I did gain SOME muscle mass (and even less muscle definition), but this "all fat spare tire" that sits on my waist just refuses to deflate! It’s tough when you see all the hard work to get rid of said body fat (or any body fat) and nothing seems to come off, and then when you simply keep yourself from eating like a completely unhealthy pig, and you look and almost feel the same. It’s really discouraging. I feel like I’m at the cusp of my "work out cross roads". I will either almost give up on the eating clean, OR I’ll lock down and start hitting the gym hard everyday BEFORE work so I can get a full 1 1/2hrs in. So I’m either going to step it up, or let it fall by the wayside. With so much stuff on my plate I just don’t know if I can keep my sanity without certain amount of "me time". Maybe to make matters worse, we (the wife and I) have not been food shopping since we got back 2 days ago. So there really isn’t much left in the house to eat, no milk espeically! What makes it worse is she made some healthy chiken pasta-ish mix for me at work and I didn’t eat it, instead I went for the unhealthy choice of speggahitti and chicken parmagean that someone brought in at work. One thing I hate about not eating clean, you feel better when you eat (taste, being more full, etc) but you also feel more guilty. Ok, sorry for my ranting…but it’s not like you read all this anyways….did you!?!?? 

Well it seems that if I really want big gains I need to alter things a little drastically in my life. I’m not sure I’m ready to do that yet. There may come a time when I do change things, but as I’ve seen to keeping the change in your life is to make minor tweaks that don’t throw your whole ’schedule/life’ off kilter. However I am changing things in my routine anyways. It feels like the last month I’ve been trying to bulk, however I don’t feel I’ve been doing things "right". My body seems to not be sore after I work out, and that’s something I don’t like. Not disabling sore, but something you feel that you’ve worked. So I’m going "back" to sculpting. 10-15 reps, and to maintain focus of the muscle being used. It’s one thing to bench 150lbs, it’s entirely a different thing altogether to slowly and methodically lift 150lbs. It’s amazing how when you mentally focus on the muscle you’re using and slowly flex that muscle for the exercise how it differs, highly, from just when you ‘lift’. I’ve got no outline for you (not like you’re reading this anyways….and if you are then I’m truly sorry), but I’m doing this because the loss of BF is still slow coming and bulking workouts aren’t going to help shape my body like I want. So I guess I’m hoping that this ‘cutting’ w/o along with the continued diet will slim me down.

Sometimes when you’re down, making THIS "day one" is the best thing to do. That’s me today, thanks to the help of my brother in Christ. Really helped pull me outta my funk and it gave me some help with the desire to hit the weights. There’s many different things, at different times, when you use things for inspiration, it’s almost funny where I’m getting mine today. I’ve got this quote from ‘Scrubs’ stuck in my head, it’s when Dr. Cox was talking about his motivation for working out "the key is, you must HATE…your body". I know that’s probably not the best piece of advice (lol), but sometimes it has a place. Sometimes u use joy to push thru a workout, other times you’re just a machine, and other times u use anger and frustration. I think that last one is me today. I think I’m angry at the ‘funk’ I’m in. I just want to physically push thru that feeling, and hopefully a good chest/back day will do that.

Man, it seems forever ago that I thought I was gunna have a great workout week, little did I know about the future. I was finally able to workout with my wife yesterday, since I was off work, and because I wasn’t at work I didn’t have to keep my workout short. I thought this was a good thing, and unfortunately I thought I could "show off" a bit and impress her (yup, I still try to impress her, maybe it’s a guy thing). Anyways since she does these usual longer workouts I thought I would just do whatever she does. It was legs day. I haven’t done legs in at least 2 weeks. Very bad mix. Not only did I feel much weaker since I work so much upper body, but my form was bad too and neither of those things were "impressive", to stay the least. Plus she was helping me with form and stuff, and overall I just didn’t impress her, nor myself. It was a horribly humbling day. But appently God wanted it that way, oh well.