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trixter747

"Work on addressing areas of weakness between now and January, then diet down for my first show (possibly two shows) in April"

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trixter747's Stats for July 2007
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Archive for July, 2007

Day Off For Good Cause

Tuesday, July 31st, 2007

No lifting today. I was called early this morning by the blood center I usually donate at and was reminded it’d been long enough since my last donation that I could do so again. My blood type is O+ so it’s always in demand since anyone can accept it. I talked my fiance into donating with me by informing her she could get an ice cream sandwich from the wait area after doing so. She’d had blood work done, but never actually donated. We’d had a good lunch and both had a shake right before we went in. I’ve donated on enough occasions to know I’m perfectly fine doing so, however, my finance has to be a little more careful. Weighing ~120lbs, she had a little while where she got a bit light headed while she waited for some sugars to get back into her system; yay apple juice! I’d been meaning to finally go get my ears pierced, which I did, but was glad I’d held off so I could donate again before doing so. As a safety measure, blood cannot be donated within 12 months of getting any piercing. At least I can still go back in a few months with my fiance to drive her home after so she can still donate. It’s a great cause, saves lives, healthy to make the body build new blood cells, and it only takes a little time out of your day every few months.

Change Of Plans

Monday, July 30th, 2007

GVT started today. The past week had been inconsistent and we were looking to start a good week. I read a couple articles and found a good routine that looked appealing and started that tonight. Felt good, but different. I’m most definitely not "tired", but by the end of the sets I was certainly functionally tired and barely able to finish out the last rep. I’m sure I’ll feel it when I wake up in the morning and hit day 2. The routine is a 4 day program, so the fifth day can be either a rest/recovery or made into a light core/cardio day if feeling up to it. It’s a good opportunity to hit abs since they’re not really covered other days. I figure with this being the first time I’ve done something with this much emphasis on tempo and control I’ll ride out the first few weeks more or less as is before making any changes that seem necessary. For example, switching dumbell rows for seated rows just because I really dislike supersets that aren’t working the body symmetrically. So yeah, on that note I’ll also need to change up the diet and supplements a little to increase the carbs and overall caloric intake. A trip to the grocery is in due order…

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Biometric Results

Monday, July 30th, 2007

Everyone at work got a free testing, so it was nice to see where I’m at since I really didn’t know.

Blood Pressure - 124/67

Cholesterol - HDL:34, Total 127

Glucose - 99

So I’m a little low on the diastolic blood pressure and could get my HDL up a little more. Really happy about the cholesterol overall though and blood sugar.

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Bush’s Resignation Speech

Sunday, July 29th, 2007

This is totally unrelated to BodyBuilding, but I believe it’s good enough to warrant posting. It’s an email I got today and yes, it’s satire, but it hits so many points that I definitely agree with about our society.

President Bush’s Resignation Speech:

We all have our disagreements with President Bush.  Immigration, U.S. Attorney firings, Iraq, Darfur, etc. are all hot topics these days.  The following "speech" was written yesterday by an ordinary Maniac.  While satirical in nature, all satire must have a basis in fact to be effective.  An excellent piece by a person who does not write for a living.  Sent with the author’s permission.

The speech George W. Bush SHOULD give:

Normally, I start these things out by saying "My Fellow Americans."  Not doing it this time.  If the polls are any indication, I don’t know who more than half of you are anymore.  I do know something terrible has happened, and that you’re really not fellow Americans any longer.

I’ll cut right to the chase here: I quit.  Now before anyone gets all in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, or to avoid prosecution or something, let me assure you: there’s been no breaking of laws or impeachable offenses in this office.

The reason I’m quitting is simple.  I’m fed up with you people.
I’m fed up because you have no understanding of what’s really going on in the world.  Or of what’s going on in this once-great nation of ours.  And the majority of you are too damned lazy to do your homework and figure it out.

Let’s start local.  You’ve been sold a bill of goods by politicians and the news media.  Polls show that the majority of you think the economy is in the tank.  And that’s despite record numbers of homeowners including record numbers of MINORITY homeowners.  And while we’re mentioning minorities, I’ll point out that minority business ownership is at an all-time high.  Our unemployment rate is as low as it ever was during the Clinton Administration.  I’ve mentioned all those things before, but it doesn’t seem to have sunk in.

Despite the shock to our economy of 9/11, the stock market has rebounded to record levels and more Americans than ever are participating in these markets.  Meanwhile, all you can do is whine about gas prices, and most of you are too damn stupid to realize that gas prices are high because there’s increased demand in other parts of the world, and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than your economic security.

We face real threats in the world.  Don’t give me this "blood for oil" thing.  If I was trading blood for oil I would’ve already seized Iraq’s oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell.  And don’t give me this ‘Bush Lied People Died’ crap either.  If I was the liar you morons take me for, I could’ve easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could be ‘discovered.’  Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty.  Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me.  Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office.  Some guy named ‘Clinton’ established that policy.  Bet you didn’t know that, did you?

You idiots need to understand that we face a unique enemy.  Back during the cold war, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off.  We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do.  We were simply able to outspend and out-tech them.

That’s not the case this time.  The soldiers of our new enemy don’t care if they survive.  In fact, they want to die.  That’d be fine, as long as they weren’t also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can.  But they are.  They want to kill you.  And the bastards are all over the globe.

You should be grateful that they haven’t gotten any more of us here in the United States since September 11.  But you’re not.  That’s because you’ve got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that.  When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight.  I’m disappointed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of ‘Survivor’.

Instead, you’ve grown impatient.  You’re incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do.  You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops.

Making matters worse, you actively support those who help the enemy.  Every time you buy the New York Times, every time you send a donation to a cut-and-run Democrat’s political campaign, well, dammit, you might just as well Fedex a grenade launcher to a Jihadist.  It amounts to the same thing.

In this day and age, it’s easy enough to find the truth.  It’s all over the Internet.  It just isn’t on the pages of the New York Times or on NBC News.  But even if it were, I doubt you’d be any smarter.  Most of you would rather watch American Idol.

I could say more about your expectations that the government will always be there to bail you out, even if you’re too stupid to leave a city that’s below sea level and has a hurricane approaching.  I could say more about your insane belief that government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from.  But I’ve come to the conclusion that were I to do so, it would sail right over your heads.

So I quit.  I’m going back to Crawford.  I’ve got an energy-efficient house down there (Al Gore could only dream) and the capability to be fully self-sufficient.  No one ever heard of Crawford before I got elected, and as soon as I’m done here pretty much no one will ever hear of it again.  Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to die of old age before the last pillars of America fall.

Oh, and by the way, Cheney’s quitting too.  That means Pelosi is your new President.  You asked for it.  Watch what she does carefully, because I still have a glimmer of hope that there are just enough of you remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2008.

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Heaviest Lifting Yet

Saturday, July 28th, 2007

To try and strengthen my lower back more, I’ve been trying to do more weighted extensions on the roman chair as well as sumo deadlifts. The sumos don’t load as much weight directly on the SI joint at the initial part of the lift, but you get a good back pull at the top part of the motion. Last night I shot for about twice my weight for the last set and was able to get 3 really good and controlled reps out at 365lbs! It was perfectly comfortable, and though I was tempted to try for a 4th rep, I figured it was enough for the time being. With the exception of leg press, this is the heaviest I’ve ever lifted before so I’m quite happy and anxious to work toward breaking 400. At that point I’ll probably drop the weight again and go back to more romanian deadlifts and squats and see how the low back feels.

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Schedule Change, again.

Friday, July 27th, 2007

So I got promoted at work, which I’m of course quite happy about. I’m back to working mornings at 6:45am, which is fine by me in terms of at least the hour I have to be up and functional by. Obviously now I’m going to have to get myself programmed for afternoon/evening workouts more instead of trying to get up and squeeze it in early in the day. I’m not happy that I have to work Sundays, but alas when you work for a company that has an exclusive offer to broadcast every single NFL game that plays on Sundays, the whole call center frequently gets thrown into an "All Hands On Deck" state, where it doesn’t matter what your title is, you’re on a phone. Sundays are also usually off for church and watching my fiance at her hockey games, so that’s now shot as well. I’m still greatful, don’t get me wrong, but it is getting a bit old having to change things around every few weeks. Makes me miss when I still worked my old job and had at least a smaller set timeframe that I would have to work in and could always workout at the same time. Now I just need to make sure I don’t burn myself out early in the day, or at least try to get a nap in so I have more drive to lift later on.

Sweat, Pumps, and DOMS!

Sunday, July 22nd, 2007

Haven’t been sore for more than a day for a good while, even on days I’d totally exhaust myself. Friday was legs and every rep was held out for 1-2 seconds with a bit lighter weight. One variation I did was on the seated leg extension. Rather than just doing them with pointed toes, I also turned my feet in about 45 degrees to hit the lateral side more and I’ve definitely been feeling since
then. The pump was also much stronger and I couldn’t walk very well after my last sets, which happened to be a drops. This last week has been the first time I’ve really tried to hold out every rep as opposed to just the last few. I really like the burn I get with it, and it’s helping cut a lot faster. Taking V-hack squats on a 2-3 count down/explosive up made me break the hard sweat that I normally wouldn’t hit until at least 10 minutes into interval cardio. Overall, I’m really shedding any extra weight very quickly and am going to have to watch things very closely to make sure I don’t start losing muscle. Might need to go on a quick 1 week bulk diet if I start getting too lean. The lowest I’ve ever been was around 6% bodyfat. As much as I like being that lean, I know my body just won’t put on any muscle in that state. Goal for now is to keep it right around 10%.

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Frustrated.

Friday, July 20th, 2007

I need to vent a little. Lately my experiences in the gym have been two faced. On one hand I’m slowly increasing in strength, which is good. I’m not training to power lift and don’t want to train for just size alone. I’ve always preferred the more difficult challenge to build mass and maintain definition at the same time. I’ve tried bulking once, and it seemed to work to an extent. I’m not sure if my training routine at the time was the best, but I know it still worked. I’ve also tried to train strictly for definition and lost a lot of strength in the process. It’s been a constant test to figure out what, generally, works best for my body. I know that in response to stress the body undergoes a number of physiological changes, so I have to change along with those. But the bottom line is that I’m not making enough progress for my own personal goals. Size wise, I’m the biggest I’ve ever been. I know my body is starting to grow faster (as demonstrated by some stretch marks) but at the same time I’m really not where I wanted to be. I’m not setting goal weights for myself until I start competing down the road and I’m borderline between classes, which I doubt will be the case anytime soon. I mostly go by what I see in the mirror and how I’m feeling. Right now I’m not content with it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m quite happy, but I feel like I’m just a bit short of my own expectations I suppose. I’m pushing myself harder in the gym than I have before and really am trying to get the absolute most out of every rep. I don’t exactly know where I’m going with this… I guess I just really need to make a good jump in progress sometime soon for my own sanities sake. It’s the whole hamster on a wheel thing… The work’s being done, the calories burned, muscles trained, but it still feels like you’re going round and round. Progress without advancement. I dunno… Maybe I’m just kicking myself a little too hard here or somethin, but I do really need to figure out something quite soon to get back on track at the pace I want to be.

Updated Workout Program

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

With reference to my previous blog, I updated my profile with the current workout program that I’m following. Hoping to stick with this program another 3-5 weeks unless I start to plateau earlier than expected.

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Current Program Thoughts

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

Been on the new routine for a couple weeks now. It’s a six day routine lifting each muscle group twice a week, but different exercises those days. The style has been 1 warmup set of 15 reps, two working sets of no more than 12 reps, and one drop set of 3-5 reps followed by about 8 more good reps before total exhaustion. I’ve found a nice ratio of weight to go along with, too. It’s easier to explain backwards… Take your set 4 weight that you can lift 3-4 times. Take ~55% of that weight, and that is your warmup. It’s also the weight that you will drop to after the first reps of your 4th set. Weight for set 2 is whatever you can do and hit partial failure at 11-12 reps. Set 3, do as many as you can, which should of course be fewer reps than set 2. It’s been working very well for every muscle group so far. For an extra challenge hold each rep for a moment, or at least the last few reps of every set. The other thing I like is that I’ve never felt too worn down by the next workout that hit the same muscle groups. Granted that diet, rest, etc. are all helping that out, but still. Overall very pleased with how things are coming along. I’m quite anxious to see the difference in lifting stats from beginning to end, because they’re increasing nicely…

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