ROCKLOCKRIDGE’S BLOG

My name is on the cover of the January 2010 issue of World Physique magazine.  I am honored to be on the cover along with the one and only Obi Obadike.  Make sure you check out the January 2010 issue of WP magazine coming out soon! 

This is my second cover with my name.  I was also on the cover of the September 2009 issue of Ironpinoy magazine.  Hopefully my 3rd cover will be my first with my name!

Go to worldphysique.com and click on Training With The Rock

New episodes are up NOW!!!

Blog #300.  Woohoo.  OK, moving on.

Hope everyone out there has a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday.  This is normally my favorite time of the year.  The fact that I am unemployed has not made it the best yet, but I have faith that I can get through it.  I am well aware that there are many people out there that need help more than I do and I am very thankful for all the blessings I do have this year.

I am looking for feedback on my FST-7 article.  Comment me, PM me, or email me rock23@bodybuilders.com.  Any and all feedback is appreciated.  It covers back and is up on the supersite now.  It is part of a series I am doing on FST-7 which is a tremendous program.
It is absolutely amazing out people that you have never laid eyes on know who you are and appreciate you yet sometimes you have trouble figuring it out yourself.  Someone told me that the person that doesn’t seem to know who I am is me.

I came from the physical therapist and I tore a tendon in my foot and I have fallen arches.  Eventually I am going to have to have orthotics in my shoes.  Nice.  In the meantime, the only training I can do with my legs are extensions and leg curls.  I don’t think I am ever going to get to do squats again. Sucks.  I love them, but every time I go to get into heavy leg training, I get hurt.
There are going to be new videos coming up on the Training With The Rock series over at worldphysique.com  They should be up by the beginning of December.  To those that have subscribed to me on YouTube, thanks for your support and let me know what you think about the new ones.  In the meantime, I am only doing vids for WP so there won’t be anymore added to my YouTube page anytime soon.  Thanks to Tammy Renee and everyone at Team WP.  I am thrilled to be a part of it.
For those companies and people here emailing about contributing to your project.  Thanks for considering me, but I am afraid I cannot take on anymore free projects until I have stable income coming in.  I can do interviews and the like but I can’t give full effort to anyone regularly until I have a way to pay my bills.  I apologize about the inconvenience.  In case you are wondering, yes you can be famous and not rich.  I am living proof.

Thanks to bodybuilding.com for everything they have done for me this year.  They are one of the many reasons I am thankful this year.  Another HUGE thanks to all my BodySpace friends, groups, and supporters for all they do for me to keep me motivated and inspired.

I am on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace if any of you are interested.  Look up Roger ROCK Lockridge
Have a great holiday.  Train hard.

Rock

The new article is out.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/fst-7-training-program-test-drive2.htm

Let me know if you live there.  I might be moving there in the next few months and would like a lay of the land.  Good gyms?  What can you do for fun? Other things like that.  I appreciate any responses.

Basically the purpose of this is therapy for me and me only.  I just felt the need to post it.  I don’t know why, I just did.  I feel the need to get some stuff off my chest so I can move on and get back on track.  2009 has been such a great year for me and I hate to see it come to this near the end of it.

I always seem to try to do things in my life too well.  I don’t know if I am gifted with some special type of will power or if I just have some subconscious need to feel accepted.  I try so hard to do something and everything so good.  Unfortunately for me, it also results in really feeling down more so than the average person.

I try to be the best spokesperson for a cause, I try to be the best employee at a job, I try to be everyone’s best friend.  In that instance, I try too hard.  I don’t drink, I am not that funny or make for a good conversation, so I am not the greatest social person.  I try to make up for it by being there for EVERYONE!  Anyone who knows me knows my expression “My loyalty knows no bounds”.  I would go to the end of the earth for people just so they know I care.  Some people see that and I think they genuinely appreciate it.  Others don’t seem to care and take advantage of it.  When that happens, it really does hurt.  When you are asked to be there so many times because of this and that and yet when you are not asked to be there just because, it gets frustrating.

I feel the same way when I support a cause.  I have tried with every fiber of my being to stand up and support the domestic violence movement.  I have spoken every time I have asked, I have helped at functions and gatherings whether I was asked to or not.  No one, let me repeat that, NO ONE man has done as much for DV as I have in this area.  Males in the DV field are rare, so I felt the need to fill that void.  I was a child victim of DV and my story has helped kids speak out, has helped doctors question more, and has impacted the system to do more work.  Yet as much as I have volunteered and spoke out for the cause, when I go to attempt to make it a job or career, I can’t seem to catch a break.  18 years of contributions that I have made isn’t enough?  As passionate as I am for it, you run into a wall so many times, you tend to go in another direction eventually.

Another example is bodybuilding and fitness.  I have the support of a multimillion dollar company.  I am featured in magazines and on websites every month.  People from over 50 countries and all 50 states have made the claim that I helped change their lives for the better.  Anyone that thinks I am full of it can let me know and I will forward you all the emails and comments I get.  Some people also think I am rolling in money because of it.  I wish that was the case.  I write for bodybuilding.com for store credit, and to their enormous credit, they give me amazing publicity and notoriety.  Ironpinoy and World Physique, though, I do for free, folks.  Those articles and videos I am not getting paid for.  I get attention and appreciation, and that means a lot to me.  At the end of the day, however, I would like to pay bills.  I am not looking to get rich, just break even.  Not mad at Ironpinoy or WP, thanks to both companies.   Keep reading.

You would think that since I am putting in that much effort and feel so strongly towards the cause, that someone in my own hometown would take a chance and hire me to work for them.  Again, it doesn’t seem to happen.  People can be lazy and do next to nothing and get executive positions at places of business, but the guy that stays and helps others, the guy that is an example, no, THE example of proof that you can do ANYTHING you set your mind to, the guy that has recognition worldwide struggles to get a story in the paper, never mind get to work for a gym.  They won’t hire a guy that writes for BODYBUILDING.COM and 2 MAGAZINES!!!  All of this gets very frustrating when you finish up a workout and get people asking you all the questions when the people that get paid for that very purpose are at the desk twiddling thumbs.

I seem to put myself in these positions of support for people or causes over and over and over again and I seemed to get burned or hurt every damn time.  I took in THREE people between 2007 and 2009 that otherwise would have been homeless.  Guess how many of them people speak to me now.  None.  They either don’t talk to me at all or they are short with me when they do.

I have been getting asked why do I not seem happy or appear to be in a bad mood lately.  This is basically it.  I have put so much effort into everything I do and gotten to the point I can’t pretend anymore.  It is old and tiring.  I can’t keep it in anymore.  I hope things change and they change soon.  I can’t keep giving of myself to all these causes when bills are due and the holidays are coming up.  At the end of the day, I have to look out for me, whether anyone else cares or not.   That is why I quit Spare Time, that is why I gave up being on the FRC Board, and that is why there are going to be more changes coming.

If you read all of this, thank you for caring.  From this point on, it is back to business as usual.

Last year about this time, I was going through something similar to what I am now.  I was unemployed, I was dealing with taking care of a 17 year old, and I was hurt.  I got into a depression and quit trying.  I didn’t care and gave up on my body.As a result, I ballooned up to 260 lbs. 260 FAT pounds.

This year is different.  I am now unemployed again, but the teenager is now 18 and on her own.  I wouldn’t say I am depressed, but I wish things were going better.  I wish I had a job, I know that.  This year however, I am not giving up on the training.  If anything, I am more serious by the day.  This is the only thing going right so I am staying positive and training heavier and harder.  I am hitting the cardio harder too.

It is harder to stay focused, but knowing you guys are watching me keeps that drive in me strong.  Thank you all for that.

Now, it is time to go hit some iron.  Monday is actually shoulder day for me.  Everyone else does chest or arms, so I am hitting delts since I know I can get through the workout quicker.  Let me know how your workouts are going.

ROCK

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/4-mind-power-techniques.htm

Thanks

Rock

People email me and wonder how I stay motivated now that I have achieved some level of success in the bodybuilding industry.  It is one thing to be motivated enough to chase your dream, but once you catch it, then what?  Do you just adapt or do you find a new dream?

I think the answer is rather obvious.  You either find a new dream to catch or if you are like me, you change your dream to a higher level.  I wanted to leave a little thumbprint on this sport that has done so much to improve not only the quantity of my life, but the QUALITY of it.  After 15 articles, three interviews, a radio appearance, and a hit internet video series, I think my thumbprint is there.

Now I want it to be a footprint.  And chances are after that, I want it to be a landmark.  I want to go down as one of the most impactful names in the game.  I want to be known as the guy that helped millions of people change their lives for the better.  I want to know that the world is a little better place because I did something important.

So what goes through my mind now to help me get to that point?  I think about the fact that in a small way, I represent two magazines that took a chance on someone that was unproven.  I want to make it worth their while.  I think about the fact that that camera is on me and whoever watches it might be inspired by something that is captured on film.

I think about the fact that in a small way, I represent the biggest bodybuilding website on the face of the planet.  Over 300,000 people a day and 2 million plus hits a week see what I am doing.  What I do today makes either a positive impact on it or a negative one and I better make the right choice.

Most importantly, I think about the fact that in some office or on some laptop in anywhere from New York to London to Australia to right here in my hometown of Lewisburg, WV and at any and all points in between, someone is looking at my profile or at my blog or something that I am doing and there is a chance that I could inspire that person to do what I am doing.  I call myself a World Champion for that reason.  People around the world are inspired by what I do.  Therefore, I champion their cause to change their lives for the better.  If I give ANYTHING LESS than 100% effort into this, I am doing that person a miscarriage of justice.

Today I MUST give all that there is to give to this sport, because when you are a part of the greatest sport of them all, it calls for that and that only.  All that there is to give.

That is what goes through my mind now.  What goes through yours?

ROCK

Do you ever think back to when you first started working out?  Do you remember who it was that helped you along the way when no one else would?  There was that one guy or lady that encouraged you when no one else would or could.  They seemed to know how to keep us motivated when nothing else would.

It was Bill Phillips that got me started, but it was Demon Gary (Demon-Lavar) or Jason Morgan (ActionFigure73) that kept me going on a day to day basis.  After I figured out what to do, they pushed me and spotted me when I needed it.

Next time you need a kick in the butt before training, think about this person and you will get psyched up.  If you see them, make sure to thank them.  That will motivate them.