robmckim2’s BodyBlog

Whew…squats are a killer!  This is something that I have in fact known but I haven’t practiced using squats for a very, very long time.  I had a lower back inury while serving in Iraq so since then I just haven’t done squats at all; was just chicken I guess…or maybe gun-shy; however you judge it~I just haven’t done them.

Well, today I decided was the day to incorporate them into my leg workout.  I’ve been back at the gym now for a couple of months, done my leg work regularly with leg presses, extensions, curls, calf raises, ect…so I figured that I had decent strength.  I do not!  I’ll admit, I went easy on the squats today…more important to me to have a good, full range of motion and a quality, controlled lift.  So I started very light…95 lbs, and did 6 sets working up to 185 lbs for 8 reps.  Not much weight but a starting point!  Damn they sure kicked my butt…seriously, my glute are quite tight today, along with every other muscle in my legs…LOL!

It felt good to do squats again though; I’m glad to work them back into my routine!

I feel better today than I have in the last few days; I actually got some sleep yesterday.  Not like 8 hours of deep, REM sleep but at least I DID sleep for a few hours!
Then this morning (last night) when I got up, before I went to work I decided to check my BF% at the advice of someone on BB.com.  Well, my waist line has actually gone down a couple of inches, dropping my overall BF% down with it!  I know it’s not much to most, but any sign of improvement is important to my motivation.
So only 5 more hours till I get off shift and then it to the gym, shower and off to bed to TRY to sleep even more!  Wish me luck and best of luck to all of you with your goals!

Sleep?  What’s that? 

This whole schedule/time change thing has got me so f@#^d up, I don’t know what else to do to get my body to sleep-good sleep-during the daylight hours!  It’s been a few days and I thought I would start getting into some type of sleep pattern.  That has NOT happened yet; hell I even worked out 3 times to try to make my body tired and wanting to sleep.  Still, I went to bed at 1345hrs and didn’t sleep but maybe 2-3 hours, very sporadically until I got out of bed at 2200hrs.  I tossed, turned, got up to pee, got up to investigate a couple explosions, got up to eat…I was up anyway an thought the protein would do me some good…all in all, I laid in bed trying to sleep and only managed to get a few hours of rest…not real sleep!  So here it is 0200hrs and I’m not tired or sleepy but I don’t have any real energy…but I’ll keep trying to make myself sleep when I go to bed, eventually I will get adjusted.

Has anyone ever used melatonin as a sleep aid?  I ordered some today in hopes that it will help…just don’t want it to be the type of thing that makes me feel like crap afterwards.