richieirish’s BodyBlog

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