richieirish’s BodyBlog

the last three months have been spent suffering from back pain caused from dislocating my pelvis and spine and from having six vertebre out of place. i couldnt sit down, i couldnt stand for long periods at a time and i couldnt straighten my right leg. for weeks i slept on my back on the floor to get relief from the pain. i visited spinologists, bonesetters, doctors ect i had several x-rays and was on pain-killers and anti-enflamatories that were so strong i wasnt in the full of my sences for weeks.

the negativity that i experienced while injured was immense. "thats what you get from lifting weights", "maybe now you will take up another interest", "it just shows how pointless lifting weights is" - some of the many many stupid comments i heard from family, friends and healthcare workers. it was like some people were half amused at my misfortune which allowed them to justify their lifestyle of eating **** and being lazy.

my spirit was broken but not destroyed and while i did try to return to the gym to train different bodyparts i soon realised that they were all being detrimental to my recovery.

i soon found myself in the boring routine where training does not come into it! recovery and doctors appointments are a far cry from my regular 5-day split. recovery is still in itself another form of progress and as the weeks passed by i could finally see improvement and after a couple of months the realistic thought of training again was within sight. that day eventually arrived last friday.

not brng one for half measures, i decided it would be sink or swim. i was going to train my back and i was going to deadlift. i had set a pre determined goal of hopefully deadlifting 400lbs 180kg for 1 strict rep. having warmed up on a stationary bike and with some light stretching i began my working sets for the deadlift. 10 x 60kg 135lbs, 5 x 100kg 225lbs, 5 x 140kg 315lbs, 5 x 180kg 395lbs, 3 x 210kg 462lbs it was at this set that i decided to reason with my ego before im back to square one! now look ill be the first one to admit that 460 isnt that big a weight but when you put it in perspective that i was returning from an injury and had not trained or taken any supplements for three months, and that i could have pushed it out a bit more then im pretty happy with the reasult!

sure i have a lot of ground to make up but thats what its all about. its like getting one of your senses back, you just feel that bit more alive! now its time to start setting goals again and breaking them! the frustration of the last three months is in the past now and i can only take it as a hard lesson learned, all thoughts and efforts must now be focused on the future!

yesterday evening i visited a spinologist  due to the fact that i had a "misallignment" between my pelvis and spine. this problem had been brought to my attention from weeks of discomfort and eventually several days of unbearable pain!

the spinologist done what he had to do and while at times i felt like a contortionist and i was worried when i could hear the crunching sound at the bottom of my back, i was delighted as some of the pain was immediately relieved! having attended to my main complaint and cause of pain he then examined my spine!

"i have no real trouble with my back though, just a bit of tightness in my shoulders" i gladly informed him lying face down and at an exhale of my breath, he forcefully pressed down on my spine! while there was no pain, the sound of bones cracking along with the sensation was one i wont forget for a while! after he worked his wat down my spine he informed me that i had two vertebre misalligned at the top of my back and four misalligned midway!

this was a huge suprise to me and i would strongly recommend anyone participating in heavy lifting (competing or not) get their back checked by a spinologist as you might have something wrong with your back without even knowing. i know its not a miracle cure but i feel a lot better after even one session, all the tension in my shoulders is gone and my posture is greatly improved. it will take me several more visits before im back to 100% but im sure this treatment will help me improve my strenght when i get back training again. for anyone interested in reading more about the benefits of the treatment please check the link i have posted below - it is very interesting

 www.btmspinology.ie  im not promoting this guy or his website im just using it to provide what i hope can be useful information to some people!

over the past few weeks i have been getting a pain in my right buttock and the back of my right leg. over the past few days the pain had become unbearable! i could not sit down without pain and when i stood up i found it painful to straighten my right leg. i was able to visit a physiotherapist today to see what was causing this. to my surprise he discovered that my spine and my pelvis have been dislocated (the s.i. joint) due to heavy (for me) deadlifting and squatting!! and now i must visit a spinologist so that he can re-allign my pelvis and spine this evening, then i must make further visits to the physio to ensure a speedy recovery! ok im having a shite run of luck lately and i hope this will come to an end soon. ill see what the spinologist says later and post it here - that all for now!

i woke up early this morning to look into the space on my driveway where my car had been parked last night! WTF!!?! called the cops, did the usual routine! was trying to remember anyone or anything suspicious ( its a cul de sac estate so its easy notice strangers coming in) when i remembered seeing a small red hatchback parked at the bottom of the estate with three guys and one woman in it when i left for work the other night, good thing i took the lincence plate details. gave this information to the police ect.

 in the meantime as im driving around today checking to see if there is any sign of my stolen car i noticed the red hatchback coming out of a housing estate and going out a country road. i followed it from a good distance and when the driver eventually copped that i was folling him he turned right and pulled in his car and pretended to be checking the tyre while seeing what direction i took. i pulled into a nearby house and turned around and drove down after the hatchback again only to find him doing a u-turn - this guy drove down a dead-end and obviously only made the turn to lose me. as he approached my van i blocked the road so that i could get a good look at the people inside (the same punks that were in my estate the other night)!

these are so the b!tches that stole my car, so i followed them back into town to find out where they lived ( i knew the estate they came out of i just had to find out which house they live in)! once i found the house i could see them looking out the window at me, so i decided to get out of the van and go up to the door  at which point they hid behind the couch in the living room. i decided not to go too crazy as it was in broad daylight ( a mistake i made before which reasulted in me being in court) but i will wait for a couple of days and at night-time ill grab one of them and give him a warning (one with a baseball bat reasulting in some broken bones) to either a) return the car - which wont happen or b) repay me the $8000 the car cost me - which wont happen either!!

so im going to end up doing something serious to all four of them and end up in a shitload of trouble over it - the cops know they are suspects but they cant prove they stole the car . . . . so whats a man to do? nothing?? i dont think so but watch the good guy get in trouble when he does something wrong!!!

despite my ex fighting with me constantly for seven straight days and the fact that i have pulled or tore a muscle in my right leg (ham/glute are) i went to the gym today like a man possessed. started my back workout with reverse pulldowns, then bent to 2arm dumbell incline rows and bent barbell rows. 4 sets of each with the heaviest weight possible for 10 to 15 reps! intense training that left me and my two training partners spent!

its when you hit the point where you feel like you cant go on that seperates the men from the boys! and when gianni, my training partner suggested rack deadlifts (12" high) for our next exercise i know my only option was to gather myself and give it 100% effort!

first set was with 140kg (315lbs) for 15 reps, felt so easy and i could feel my lower back fill with blood from this set alone, next set 190kg (420lbs). bit of a big jump in weight but its best not to even think about it - just chalk up and put on my belt - all out for this set, i lost count at 12reps but i was told i did 16reps (not that it really matters)! third set and Csaba my second training partner put the weight up to 210kg and failed to pull it on two attempts! this only caused Gianni to go into a rage and he promptly put an extra 50kg on the bar and with the highest level of intensity banged out 6reps!! the whole rack was shaking and as he finished his set and looked at me there was only one reaction i could do!

i couldnt tell him that this was too big of a jump in weight for me, i couldnt think about my injury, i couldnt think about the fact that i never pulled this weight in the rack before or that im weaker pulling in the rack than from the floor . . . . they are all just excuses for the weak! there were too many eyes on me in the gym waiting to see what i would do next! again, i just chalked up and put on my belt set myself as tight as possible and pulled as hard as possible! as i locked out the first i knew i had more in me and managed to pull two more!!

ok so i didnt better my training partner but i did better anything i had done before and this is while im cutting and slightly injured! we went to seated cable rows then for seven sets of 15 reps weight ranging from 100kg (220lbs) to 150kg (330lbs) and back down again. the workout was finished with some ab work and i have to say it was one of the best back workouts in ages. that and the fact that when doing a front lat spread i noticed my v-taper has increased due to the inches i have lost on my waist . . . . . i have to say . . .today was a good day ))

it has to be one of the stupidest and most overused questions put to people in the gym! why does one lift consume the imagination of so many people? its like this one lift dictates your position in the gym! if you really want to know how "strong" someone is why dont you ask them how much they deadlift? this became apparent to me last monday when i was training my chest.  i was setting myself up on the flat bench when two guys in their early 20’s walked in and decided to focus their attention on my next set! so i unracked the bar and slowly lowered it to my chest with perfect form, nice and slow. then began to perform 5 agonising reps that tortured every single muscle fibre in my pecs!racking the bar my training partners stripped off a plate either side and i continued another handful of strict reps, the last one agonisingly slow! as i came up from the bench sweating profusely i noticed the two guys looking at me in disbelief!

            they were not in disbelief over the massive weight i was benching - they were in disbelief that a relatively big guy like me had just managed 5 reps with 225lb, lifting as is his life depended on it and the managed a handful at 135lb!!! yes they were so confused i nearly started laughing -  as much as i would loved to explain to them that i had already done incline dumbell presses, flat dumbell presses and incline dumbell flyes to failure and with drop sets before performing my "spectacular" flat bench!

far from being embarresed by my flat bench effort, i was actually really delighted with it! having benched 350 for 5 or 6 reps in the previous months its hard to see why i would be so happy with such an effort? well firsti could literally feel every muscle fibre contracting when benching 225 and the reasulting pump was enormous! secondly, benching 225 after so many working sets was actually HARDER than benching 350 on my first exercise!

this has led to me experiment more with my training with exercises like 10 sets of ten reps with 315 on the squat and sets of fifty reps on the leg press! the reasults so far have been really good and the muscles are really responding to this different style of training without a heavy weight! yeah i know its still the basics of bodybuilding to change things every so often, but we are creatures of habit and if we are honest with ourselves do we really listen to everything were told! so the next time some punk or gym-rat asks you "how much ya bench?" tell him "on a good day i might push 225 for two or three reps" just to see the expression on his face

after having such a sh*t day yesterday of feeling borderline depressed i woke this morning with a very positive frame of mind! i was totally focused on the brutal back training session that lies waiting for me today. woke up BEFORE my alarm went off feeling refreshed and decided to weight in again.. .256! ok only a 1lb loss but thats fine, its steadily coming off. this along with new stretch marks appearing on my legs prompted me to take some measurements (which i had told myself i would not do until i finished my cutting phase).

to my suprise my quad measurement has finally reached 28", yeah they are still toothpicks but now they are slightly bigger toothpicks my waist has dropped below 40" and my forearms have suprisingly reached 14"! what a good start to my day! remember this is while im cutting? this is great motivation for me and is just what i needed after yesterday. i am unsure why i felt so sh*t yesterday for no apparent reason . . .does low carbs really effect people like that? anyway that was yesterday, i must concentrate on today and everything positive!

i stepped on the scales this morning and for the first time in months i seen the numbers 257 (117kg) - more weight lost, the next figure i seen was 18.3 - my bodyfat percentage!! this was really disheartening i have lost 15lbs and my bodyfat % has only dropped 3.7%!!!!

i feel manorexic!!! granted i havent lost any strenght in the gym and i can see that the weight is coming off my waist but to lose 15lbs and drop not even 4% bf is just crazy! ok so i had to do some math to try solve this!

start 272lbs bf22%= 60lbs lean body mass = 212lbs

present 257lbs bf18.3% = 47lbs lean body mass = 210lbs

and it is only when i worked it out like this did i realise that im actually doing really good! in the 15lbs i have lost only two of them are lean body mass which i think is pretty ok!

so in order to reach 15% bf while maintaining 210lbs lbm i will have to get down to 247lbs

10% bf means weighing 233 while maintaining 210lbm

well im straying off the point a bit here. ill try for 15% and see how that goes . . remember i have ten weeks of cutting still to do so im actually exceited about how this will turn out for me!

i have been gradually lowering my calorie and carb intake over the past couple of weeks from 6500cal/ 850g carbs to approximately 4500cal/600g carbs! starting from today my new diet will be as follows:

            mon    tue    wed    thur    fri      sat    sun   wk total

protein  405    405    405    405    405    300   405     2730

carbs    500    500    300    500    300    900   300      3300

fats        40     40      80      40     80       0      80        360

calories 3755  3755  3225  3755  3225  4800  3225   25740

wednesday, friday and sunday are the days i do cardio and on these days my carb intake is lower. i increase the number of fats (eating more salmon, steak, whole eggs) on these days to keep the caloric intake from dropping significantly.

monday tuesday and thursday my carbd are up to 500g so i try keep fats to a minimum and change my sources of protein to chicken, turkey, white fish and egg whites! saturday i try to consume 900g carbs and lower my protein intake to 300g. on this day i will try to consume as little fat as possible due to  the high number of carbs being consumed!

any feedback on this diet would be greatly appreciated (good or bad) as cutting is a new area for me! i hope to stay on this diet for 11 weeks ( gradually reducing the number of carbs over this time). thanks for taking the time to read my blog

as of this week i have started training to a different workout split. im in the gym every day now but only lifting four days a week, the other three are cardio and abs and some forearm training. so the split is as follows

monday - chest and triceps

tuesday - back and traps

wednesday - cardio and abs

thursday - delts and biceps

friday - cardio and forearms

saturday - quads, hamstrings and calfs

sunday - cardio and abs

ok, ill have a more detailed training split on my bodyspace page when i have the time to do so. im also changing my diet and i hope to post this soon as well. i hope to keep this training split until the 27th of june when ill be going on holiday for a week and when i come back off holiday it will be back to bulking again!

my old workout split is posted below:

day1 - quads - leg extensions - 3 sets - 30,25,20 reps
- barbell squats - 5 sets - 15,12,10,10,f<10
- leg press - 4 sets - 12,10,10,f<10
- front squats - 3 sets - 10,10,f<10
- leg extensions - 3 sets - 20,15,10

day2 - chest - flat bb press - 5 sets - 25,12,10,10,f<10
- incline bb press - 4 sets - 12,10,10,f<10
- incline db press - 3 sets - 15,12,10
- flat db flye - 3 sets - 12,10,10
- cable cross-over - 4 sets 20,15,12,10

day3 - back - bent barbell rows - 5 sets - 25,12,10,10,f<10
- t-bar rows - 4 sets 12,10,10,f<10
- lat pulldown - 4 sets - 12,10,10,f<10
- incline db rows (2 arms)- 4 sets - 15,12,10,10
- straight arm pulldowns - 4 sets - 20,15,12,10

day4 - rest

day5 - shoulders-seated shoulder press-5 sets-20,12,10,10,f
- seated db press - 4 sets - 12,10,10,f<10
- db side raise - 4 sets - 12,10,10,f<10
- bb shrugs - 6 sets - 25,20,15,15,12,f<10
- rear db raise - 4 sets - 15,12,10,f<10

day6 - lower back,hams - deadlift - 6 sets - 10,5,5,5,5,f<5
-s.l. deadlift - 5 sets - 10,10,10,10,f<10
- good mornings - 4 sets - 10,10,10,f<10
- lying leg curls - 5 sets-15,12,10,10,f<10
- seated calf raises - 5 sets - 20,15,12,10,10

day7 - arms - close grip bench press-5 sets-20,12,10,10,f<10
- lying e-z nose breakers - 4 sets-12,10,10,f<10
- triceps press downs - 4 sets - 12,10,10,f<10
- bb curls - 5 sets - 15,10,10,10,f<10
- alt db curls - 4 sets - 8,8,8,f<8
- concentration curls - 4 sets - 12,12,10,8

day8 - rest