partsRheavy’s BodyBlog

One of the reasons that I work out is that I can forsee a time when physical fitness will be more of a requirement for everyday life (for everyone) than it is now. 

I think that time will come when gas gets to $4.50 or $5 a gallon. 

When I walk into a store and see young (20s and 30s) but clearly fat people, I want to tell them to start walking or lifting some weights NOW so that in a year or two if gas gets really expensive they will be able to walk to a bus stop or ride a bicycle 5 times a week if necessary.  I restrain myself though.

That crisis time could hit as soon as July or August of this year.  2006 and 2007 were really mild hurricane seasons.  But remember that the first spike to $3/gallon gas was in August-September of ‘05 after Katrina and Rita.  We don’t know if 2008 will be another mild or active hurricane season. 

A lot of folks lift and do cardio for appearance.  That’s OK, but there’s a little more to it than just one’s own body.  It’s about being able to function in a changing economy and society.

A lot of women get hung up with soooo many body image issues.  Frankly, I hardly care.  I’ll never be Miss America or a supermodel.  I’m looking for functional strength and health.  I w/o in a "guys’ gym."  I WANT the noise —- I hear noise every day at the factory.  Dropping things happens every now and then - who cares?!  I use the free weights - the bench and the squat rack.  The machines are used last, if at all.  I vary the routine just about every w/o, although I focus on chest for Mon, Back for Weds. and Legs for Fri.  It’s almost a powerlifting philosophy but I use bb type diet and a mixture of workouts to keep the body fat percentage to something that’s proportionate.  I started at around 28%.  Don’t know what I am now.  There’s a BodPod at a relatively close college campus, so I’ll go there later this spring (after some outdoor cardio) and have it checked out.

My parents rode bicycles regularly to go shopping and to the post office.  I grew up around bikes…before the age of spandex LOL!  My folks were cognizant of conserving energy - the opposite of the average SUV driver. 

Yes - people in our California town thought we were a little odd.

I don’t ride my bike much at the moment, but I believe a time will come when I’ll be riding a lot more to include bicycle commuting.

That time has been coming awfully quickly the last couple of weeks as oil has jumped from ~$95-105 per barrel. 

I want to advise folks reading this that NOW is a really good time to start adding functional strength and endurance…no matter what your activity or sport is.  Those who are, say, 28 years old at 40% bf and haven’t exercised since high school will be a lot better off if they start NOW in a gym or YMCA than next year if they find themselves forced to walk three miles each way to work because they can’t afford to fill their car’s gas tank.

Friday night went to the gym and did legs.  The squat rack was set up with 135 so i did that after warming up with 70 lbs at the rack beside it. 

I like using weights that other people leave around…if they’re anything close to my capabilities.  It varies my workout so that there’s something a little different each time.  I’ve bumped my lifts up a couple of times doing this…I’d been squatting 115 and 125 but cranked out 4 sets of 11 or 12 with the 125 on Friday night. 

Some other folks were doing arm supersets with pyramiding db’s (large to small - increasing a rep each time).  Doing curls, hammers, and a couple of other things I don’t know the name.  After my squats and walkouts, I joined in.  Yeehaw!  Quite a burn on the arms and still a bit of soreness two days later in forearms and biceps.

We have a short week at work tomorrow.  Some maintenance work will be done on a machining filter.  We’ll take Friday off which is OK with the production schedule because there’s a dropoff in parts orders as a result of temporary shutdowns at GM related to the strike at American Axle.  See…the GM plants ran out of axles so they had to shut down so they can’t use our fan drive parts at the moment.

I’m happy to have the extra day off next week because it’s time for a little break. 

It’s late winter, and this gal can’t wait for spring and some warm weather, daffodils, sunshine, and a little bit of rain!

That being said, the other night I benched 75 lbs for four sets with the following reps: 5,5,6,4.  Ummm…I felt proud of myself. 

Went again tonight and did some misc stuff with back and shoulders including some Pendlay rows (65 lbs for four sets of 8 or 9 reps each), some overhead press (30 lbs for 10-11 and 40 lbs for 8 reps), a few pulley exercises, and a visit to the dip machine.  In addition, I basically rowed ~15-20 lbs for much of a workday while a coworker with a runny nose did some other factory tasks (like running parts on an assembly line). 

I hope the multivitamins work to get rid of the coworker’s cold, because I don’t want it!  I’ve had a good long run of forward progress with lifting and my personal health since late April of ‘07…and I want to keep going forward! 

By the way, another reson that I’m looking forward to warmer weather is to get a few new progress pictures taken in daylight with some normal warm-weather clothes.  Can’t guarantee bikini time or anything like that…but I’d like to get a sleeveless pic or two along with a ray of nice clean sunshine.  

Yeah…I’m champin’ at the bit for SPRING!

I have a four-day weekend, and have used the first two days to do some much-needed de-cluttering.  My first lift of the day was a good forty lbs. of old boxes and clothing that hadn’t been worn in over a year…to the Dipsy Dumpster!

But just because I didn’t clock in at the factory today doesn’t mean I stayed away from lifting.  I visited a gym close to home (my usual gym is close to work) for about an hour and a half this evening.

My routine was:

squats - 115 lbs - 8 - 9 - 8 -10

leg press (the kind with a weight stack…not where you load plates) - 255 lbs - 12 - 12 -12.  Changed up to 275 for 14 reps and then got 12 reps out of 295 after which I was tired.  Obviously, I wasn’t familiar with this piece of equipment so I tried to find the correct weight.

bench press.  First, I tried static holds with 95 lbs to get used to holding it upright and racking/unracking it.  Did 5 of those.  Then, I tried 75 lbs, which was my previous one-rep max.  Goody, goody!  Got two sets of 3 reps each!  Then, I backed it down to 70 lbs and did 5 - 4 -5 - 4.  I’m trying to increase my strength in the bench press, but in some workouts I do more typical 8-10 rep sets with 65 lbs.  Hey, it ain’t much but it’s a girlie bench press!  LOL.

Did a few sets of lat pulls and curls and then did

Decline for 8 reps of the bar only and then three sets of 5 reps at 55 lbs. 

Last exercise was static holds at the dip station.

Went and ate and came home and then did 10 min of sort-of-unplanned cardio.  When a winter storm comes in, I need to park my car down the hill…walk back home, but it sure beats driving down a hill on snow and ice!

Weighed self at gym.  I’ve actually lost a couple of pounds since mid-December mostly because I did some walking during the warmer weather earlier this month. 

 Now, I have two days off and then on Monday back to gym and work. 

Since I’ve been working out seriously, I notice that my right arm gets the tinglies if I hold the computer mouse too long and also sometimes when I wake up.  I find that I need to stretch and move the arm around.

I guess that my arms are becoming adapted to moving _real_ objects around rather than dinky little computer mice.   It shows that the artifacts of sedentary lifestyles (like computer peripherals) really aren’t ergonomic.

I’d like to see an "iron mouse" developed especially for manual workers and people who work out.  It would be a little larger and a lot heavier than normal, and would feature a very firm, responsive mouse button rather than the soft mushy plastic junk that’s normally used.  A weight would need to be placed inside the mouse, and the buttons wpuld need to be redesigned to be more like the onn/off buttons on a TV remote. 

A computer user would have less frustration with a mouse that weighs a couple of pounds and clicks very solidly.  Sedentary people might develop a bit of hand strength. 

So…it’s Sunday afternoon and I open my e-mail…here’s one from bb.com from a couple of days ago noting that I haven’t updated my BodyBlog in a couple of weeks.

So…what has my body been up to since the start of the year?

First of all, I took a break from working out for a week around Christmas.  The factory was closed and I needed some rest.  It did my spinal erectors a world of good.

Now I’m back for a planned three months or so before my next break.  My goal is to increase my reps on lifts and to make moderate increases in the lifts.  I think I still have some newbie gains left.  I’ve been working out regularly since May of last year.  Bottom line…this is a bulking phase for me.

Well, since January 3rd, I’ve been back at work (in the factory) and of course have been moving lots of parts around checking their balance (a quality check) and putting them on an assembly line.

This past Monday (January 7th), a new person joined our team after a long-term employee changed shifts to accomodate her college schedule.  There’s a lot of turnover in my area.  Some of the turnover relates to routine things like budget situations and college schedules, but a couple people have also left for the same reasons that people stop showing up at the gym.

One key aspect of training for a beginner is not to rush into a rigorous 5-day-per-week workout schedule immediately.  Folks on the boards note that the pros’ workouts in magazines often aren’t appropriate for a beginner….because they’re too long and because they’re 5 days/week.

Beginners to working out do best 3 days/week.  That’s how I started a couple of years ago.  I shouldn’t have slacked off in ‘05 and ‘06…but the small amount of preparation from ‘03 and ‘04 helped me out when I started back exercising again last May.  In ‘03 and ‘04, I started out going to a gym about 3 days a week.  Then, I took up volkssporting, which is 10km walks.  I worked up my distances to the point where I walked a marathon (blisters included!) in April of ‘04.

Diet:
Last month, I discovered a terrific buffet called Asiana.  This isn’t the usual Chinese buffet with 4 or 5 dishes, some egg rolls, and some chicken wings.  No…this is more like a Las Vegas style buffet complete with sushi bar, Mongolian BBQ, and *salmon*…in addition to all the usual dishes.  Personally, I like the curry chicken, chicken wings, and a generous helping of salmon.  i plan on eating here once or twice a week for the next couple of months, along with a buffet at a local natural food supermarket.  I’ll also be eating some Mexican food and cooking up 4 eggs most nights before bed.

Here’s a usual day’s food:

Meal 1.  Some cereal like grape-nuts.  Unsweetened fiber-containing cereal.  A little dark chocolate (sort of like coffee).  Water.

Meal 2.  Pre-work but may be after visit to gym.  Buffet meal with chicken and/or fish…or Mexican food.  Preffered meal is salmon or tilapia with chicken with veggies.  Multivitamin and fish oil.

Meal 3.  Break at work.  Leftovers from meal 2 or sometimes cereal or rye bread.

Meal 4.  Second break at work.  Unsweetened fruit yogurt with 1 scoop whey.  multivitamin.

Meal 5.  Four eggs fried/scrambled in olive oil.
Last week, we had some very nice weather and I did a 35-min fast walk on M, T, W, and F.  Wanted to start out light with a week of mostly cardio and not go too intense on the lifting.

Last week, I visited the gym twice…on Tuesday, I focused on back and arms by doing incline and flat bench plus the dip machine.  On Thursday, I had a longer w/o and did squats, leg press, Pendlay rows, incline bench, and the dip machine.

This week, the weather man is saying the weather will be lousy, so I will probably visit the gym 3 times but not do much cardio…time to focus on lifting.  I’ll also eat a little more heavy this week.

I am off work from Saturday, December 22, 2007 through Wednesday, January 3, 2008. 

 Between November 29th and December 21, I have been continuously at the work task area that involves heavier lifting.  Before, I was in that area 2-3 days/week and doing something else (lighter) the other days.  The reason for my move is because another employee was not available.

The bottom line is that, although I didn’t do a lot of gym work this past month, the frequency of certain lifts (rows, curls, and I-dunno-what-to-call-it-other-than-pushing-1
000-lbs-with-a-pallet-jack) has gone up.

I checked my squat and bench on December 20th and they’re about where they were in late November.  No surprise…(no loss…but I haven’t been pushing for gains either).  I feel a liitle bit "overtrained" from 5 days/week of lifting at work.  I want my spinal erectors to recover fully before going back to work.

Therefore, I am in the middle of taking a week off from lifting.

I’ll be going to a gym late this week (Sat. or Sun.) to start up again…bit on the light side for now.  I will be doing a lot of cardio during my time off from work.

Walked around my favorite park today for ~35 min and had a great time!  I’m so thankful for 55-degree weather rather than ice and snow.

.

I di 

I’m new to this blogging forum. 

I got 4 days off work this week so I went to enjoy the fall leaves on an uphill hike in east Tennessee.  Had a great time!  It’s a short part of the AT close to Erwin.

Woo-hoo!

Yeah!!!   The hill was much less strenuous than last year when I hiked it.  Four months of lifting M-F WORKS.   Yee-hah!

I only check my lifting stats (squat/bench/DL) every few months - no details on them for now.  What can I say…I’m working on ‘em.  I wanna increase the squat and slowly get the bench up to something decent. 

 :-)

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