In Hell without a snowball.

I have made some significant changes to my workout to fine tune my gains. I started by adding wrist straps when I am doing back exercises. I have heard many different sides to the “wrist strap” argument. One thing I had heard is that it will perpetuate the lagging muscle syndrome. Mainly that if you do not push the lagging muscle it will not keep up. For me this was not an issue since every night I do exercises I am pushing my forearms. In fact, they started hurting every day and I felt they were falling even more behind due to a lack of wrest for these muscles. I also stopped doing wrist and reverse wrist curls on arms night. I think I was just hitting this muscle group too hard and way too often. Since I have made these changes I have noticed some nice gains on my bicep and back exercises which proves to me I was right in going the route I have gone. I will reevaluate in a few months if I no longer feel these muscles are being taxed.

The second major change I had incorporated was to add squats and lunges to my workout. I have noticed some major changed to my legs in the last few weeks. I believe it is too early to gauge the exact changes but again I will reevaluate in a few weeks. Another benefit is the gains I have made in leg curl and press. I originally thought doing squats and lunges would tire me out in the last two exercises but I have actually found just the opposite to be true. The last time I worked out my legs I went up 10 pounds in each exercise. My legs felt like Jell-O after the lunges but when I started the next few exercises they felt great like I was hardly even taxing them; it was a great feeling.

Tonight I will start the next round of changes to my workout namely trying some new shoulder exercises. I am still doing some research on what these changes will be. I have been doing my shoulder press with a machine and I do not like this. I prefer to kill my muscles with free weights and use cables or machines to complete the devastation not to start it. I will start browsing bb.com and see what I can incorporate in to my work out.

Man, I cannot believe that it has been over a month since I last posted to my Blog. I have been really busy lately and I have not had any time to update anything on the site. I know that I am due for some more progress pics and I do notice some big changes. I am getting close to the point to make some changes to my goals also which feels pretty good. I am still aiming for 10 % bf and some more weight loss before I begin bulking. I do not plan on getting too big (isn’t this what everyone says in the beginning?) just find a nice easy medium between size and being cut. 

The good news is that I have been hitting the gym over the last few months making it a minimum of 4 days a week and an average of 5. I cannot wait to see the progress in the pics and in the measurements. The only depressing part is most of my measurements are staying pretty even. Oh, there is some progress but I misjudged how much was muscle and how much was fat, but at least I am not on any delusions anymore. 

A few weeks ago I was getting the depressed view that I was not making any progress, but luckily, I have gotten past that point. I even had to go out and buy all new belts, which proves that I have been making progress and I love the way I am feeling lately. I do need to buy more pants though. I will probably just pack away the ones I have now for when I hit my next bulking phase; that is one thing I am dreading! I like having a smaller waist and I wonder how this will affect my outlook? I am not too worried at the moment because I have learned to appreciate my gains in the gym as progress versus the gains on the scale.