Jettisoned Ponderings

Good write up that explains one of the reasons I don’t get them.

Here’s The Article Link

This weekend I had the pleasure of meeting Flex Lewis at the Axis Labs 2009 Natural Colorado Open. He is truly one of the most down to earth and fun guys I’ve had the opportunity to meet in this industry. Thank you to Gaspari Nutrition and Flex for your contributions to making another of Colorado’s shows a success! I told Flex I’d get him some extra attention on YouTube, so here’s his posing routine. (I also have to graciously thank my good friend IFBB Pro Rita Rae for hooking me up with the awesome seating behind the judges table. Thanks!)

I fairly regularly get messages asking me what I think about various prohormones or anabolics because of the cycles I’ve logged in the past. Yes, I’ve used prohormones and I certainly advocate them provided that people do their homework. I also do not recommend them for anyone under 21. Personally, I didn’t venture into them until I was 23 and had some training experience under my belt first. It concerns me that I get people who are in their teens asking me what I think about them. Now, with the FDA going on a crusade to get prohormones off the shelves, the reality is that this will push more people to seek out true steroids instead. On that note, this video is one that I always encourage people to watch. People usually will watch a video long before they read a scientific write-up. Its also a good video for people to watch for self education. So, on that note… give it a watch. There are also some other good videos on the site worth watching:

http://www.steroid.com/video/Injected/Steroids-and-Teens.php

I’ve been a fan of Shane Ellison, aka "The People’s Chemist", for a while ever since I discovered some of his YouTube videos last year. The blog he recently wrote is blunt and straightforward as always. In the light of our country’s pitiful view of making steroids and and such the next great evil, it baffles me that people can’t see there is something larger and more threatening. A crusade to "save the youth", yet they get pumped full of these anti-depressants at the first sign of "depression". You know all the excuses. "My kid isn’t excited about school", "He’s depressed he didn’t make varsity", "work is too stressful and has me depressed at the end of the day". Cripe, people, suck it up and take some responsibility! Its like a kid ignoring a warning not to touch the hot stove burner, people turn a blind eye to the list of side effects with these drugs because the risk is worth the benefit. Bull.

Give this a read and if you or anyone you know (all of us know at least one…) is on them, hopefully it’ll be a wake up call.

http://www.thepeopleschemist.com/view_learning.php?learning_id=30

This is awesome, heh. Watch the whole thing!

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1137883380?bctid=17075685001

I’ve decided its time to really refine down my "Friends" on this site. Having 300+ is just ridiculous and honestly, the vast majority don’t use this site frequently for bodyblogs or updates that I would love to know about. Most are just useless fodder and people posting redundant progress photos to try and boost their hits for a personal advertisment or get more affiliate hits for supplement referrals (you all know which company I’m talking about). As well, I’ve left all but one BodyGroups. I figure that the people who really want to have me as one of their friends on here can message me. Most people probably won’t even notice that I’ve removed them, and that’s fine. This site has grown massively since I first joined it when it was only a couple months old. I still keep in touch with the few people that I’ve talked to the longest time on here. I’m all for making new friends, but really, if someone isn’t an individual that I admire on some personal level, or an immediate peer, then I don’t need all their status updates and what not cluttering up my page that I would rather use to keep tabs on those few I care about most. So… with that, if I’ve removed you and you still want to keep me as a friend on here, please accept my apologies, shoot me a comment or a PM and I’ll add you right back! To me, a "Friend" needs to be more than just a click of a button.

The day started off well waking up refreshed from a good night’s sleep for a change. Then things went to crap. While making breakfast I noticed my new rice cooker I’ve only used once had died. Great. That and since the first batch of rice turned out OK, I’d already thrown out the receipt. At least I still have the original packaging and can make an attempt to exchange it after work. Besides being an annoying inconvenience, and possibly out some cash if I can’t get them to return the thing, it threw a wrench in things since I don’t have all my food made for the day now. Today is also my early day to work, so I only have 2 of my remaining 5 meals prepared for the day. Half way to work I realize I’d also left my wallet in my gym bag last night and phone on its charger, so I was late to work. Now I’m sitting here, hungry, trying to figure out what sort of sustenance I can get since the only things near me (I’m the only one at my shop today open to close, so I can’t drive anywhere) is a Quiznos or a pizza place.

…on the upside, at least I remembered my water today and its Friday.

First, its nice to see that the home page finally got rid of the top profile, biggest blog and most comments nonsense. Maybe now people will make this place less of a popularity contest and stay on track with why we all should really be here. That was a breath of fresh air I’ve been meaning to comment on for a while.

Inspirational People, what a great idea! There are certainly more than 10 people I can think of, but I’m slowly adding a few to mine. I’m going with the people I have known on here the longest and who have truly kept pushing me to surpass my present self. I hope that perhaps I can be an inspiration to a few people out there, too.

Training partner, its all in the green! I’ll be starting to train with BrittRod tomorrow for legs. Surprisingly she hasn’t been following any sort of a structured routine. This should be interesting…

Food. The new diet is working beautifully! I’m going through chicken like crazy. At least there’s no room in the freezer to store any cheat foods ’cause its got 30lbs of frozen chicken at any given time, plus some beef for me since she’s off red meat now these last weeks of prep. Not to mention the extra fish fillets and bags of broccoli and green beans. Ahh, the details of the bodybuilding lifestyle…

Work: I have two jobs and I truly enjoy both of them now! I still am working at Max Muscle doing nutrition plans there. We also have another local wholesale online supplement store that I now work at both in the store retail, stocking, and pulling orders to ship out. The best part is that with both of these businesses there isn’t the crazy corporate overhead, or having to change plan-o-grams for some stupid promo. I’ve worked for Vitamin Shoppe and GNC in the past, and both of those were more political nonesense than they were worth. The best part is that between the two I get a heavy discount so that will in and of itself save me a good chunk of change (I’m gonna need it for all the groceries…).

The last detail is that my health is finally back to where it should be. I’m still getting chiro adjustments twice a week for now, but I’m feeling the best I have in a long time. People don’t realize how much some extra tension in their back can cause other systems in their body to be affected. I can breathe easier, sleep better, my body is digesting food better despite throwing over 4000 calories of whole food at it a day, I just can’t believe how much of a difference its made. Court’s now having work done as well to correct some issues (surprisingly she was in worse shape than me with a reverse curve in her neck) so overall the state of our household is really taking turns for the better.

Its a good day.

Now that I have days where I have to pack my 5 of 7 meals with me, I had to go get a new cooler. Capacity enough to hold 30 cans, or just one hungry aspiring bodybuilder’s rations for the day. Saves me having to cram two lunch boxes into my duffel bag and try to remember which one I put which meals in.

On another note, back in the 190s! The first couple days on the new diet I actually DROPPED weight down to 187, but as of this morning I’m back up and on track at 191. Still need to gain about 1.5lbs per week to hit my goal.

Next investment, a rice cooker and a giant bag of rice…

Been getting 3 sessions with my chiro for both the last two weeks. Thankfully everything is working wonderfully. I haven’t felt this good in a long time. It reinforces how often we overlook gradual changes in our bodies day to day until they come to a head as a full blown problem. I’m kinda kicking myself a little for not doing a better job of maintenance because I certainly know better. On the upside, I was initially looking to have to get 3 more sessions next week, but after yesterday’s I will most likely only need two. It has helped immensely to not be doing weights this week to let all the muscles loosen up and take some stress off the spine. Next week I’ll probably get back into the gym for resistence training, but keep it low intensity just putting the muscles through the motions, maybe 70% of my usual intensity, to help maintain but not work them to the point that anything spasms back out or becomes counterproductive to the rate of recovery. I know its better to always rest the body and recover first before going back at things. The 2 weeks off lifting has made a huge difference. Cardio has been a filler when I need to try and have some additional activity. Yesterday I did something I haven’t done in a long time… running. The iPod came back out for cardio and I’ve added a lot of music from Pendulum on it, so when it "Hold Your Colour" started playing I just felt the urge to speed things up and kept a nice 6mph pace the whole song. Not a full on run, but certainly got my heart rate up. I didn’t think I’d last more than a couple minutes because its been so long since I’ve done anything but low intensity. It was a kinda refreshing, though. Great song, by the way, if you need some upbeat music for your workouts: