Some Competition
So I got to the gym last night at about 7:30pm which is really late for me. I greeted PG at the desk and went to warm up. I wore the "Lift Heavy" shirt I made with my son last week. I warmed up on the treadmill and headed back downstairs, but had taken off the t-shirt at that point. I swear, how I’m dressed/looking really does effect my workout. It’s probably silly, but it is what it is. So I go with my feelings and off came the shirt. Tights and workout top. Decent.
I early in my mense so I’m still bloated (or maybe I’m just bloated) so I didn’t love that look, but at least I could see my arms and shoulders which are looking decent. Anyway when I came downstairs I said to PG as I spun around "See this?" meaning my shape. He says "Yeah, I see it". Nicely. "What should I work on, other than the obvious losing fat." He asked me when I had last worked out and what I had done. 3 days ago and full body circuit. "Well you could work your back to work on your V-taper"
Now I’m showing you an image of a dude, but you get the idea–wide shoulders and narrow waist. You have to build up the back and take the fat off the waist. See…
He looks like a bg V.
Anyway I decided to do my full body circuit as usual, but focus on back–upper lats among what I did. I started with legs per usual. Got a belt. I also talked to PG (this dude is FULL of INFORMATION–if you ever go by Diamond go in the evening and talk to the big dude in the baseball cap behind the desk…you’ll learn something) about wrist straps. I stared wearing them when I begain including deadlifts in my routine. I started them with FT a while back and used a reverse grip. Check it. It allows you to hold onto a heavier bar better than either front or reverse grip.
Sorry for the hugeness of this image…anyway if you scroll across you’ll see the hands are alternated, one front and one reverse grip. It allows you to hold more weight comfortably. Anyway it is still heavy as hell and I had a hard time holding it so I started to use straps (which basically wrap the barbell to your wrists so even if it slips you have a hold of it).
PG was saying that he found he lost a lot of grip strenth when he used straps for a while years back. He went back to working with no straps. I thought about this and decided to try to go back to the reverse grip. It worked out fine I must say.
Anyway I did 6 sets of squats up to 150# on the barbell–drop set, deadlifts 4 sets, but they were ****ed up because I got interrupted mid-stream by a new friend who wanted to chat. I love you but don’t interrupt my sets. My muscles got cold. Damn. Sort of threw off the rest of the workout, plus it’s getting cool and I didn’t get my good sweat on–may have to go back to sweatshirts to keep warm. I did some Arnold presses and dumbell curls (up to 30# and 25# respectively), and some clean and presses up to 35#. Probably did a few other things, but my rhythm was thrown off. I was thinking…"When a workout is ****ed up do you keep going and finish it off or quit?" I did stick it out but it was basically for naught! Ugh.
On the way out stopped to pick up my little bag from the desk I had another convo with PG. We were talking about competing and he brought a good new perspective to my mind. I mentioned when I went to a couple of shows this summer that there were either no women in the bodybuilding competition or they didn’t look that good (I don’t think I actually said the second thing actually but that does happen in the smaller shows). Anyway he was saying what is the point of winning a show by yourself or without strong competition? A lot of people do well in small shows and don’t bring their best conditioning to the show, but as they progress they come up against people who have actually been working hard on their conditioning and don’t place as well and wonder why. He said, "I’d rather place lower knowing I was competing against the best out there, than win against weaker or no competition." Makes sense, eh?
See ya!
Alissa
