waterbear’s BodyBlog

Oh my goodness, has it really been a year and a half since I posted something in my blog!

Well gee. I working on leaning down and finding the passion and dedication to do it once again. I have an epic coach who preaches about being consistant above all else and I do believe he’s got something there. So here I am, hopefully I’ll have something good to follow.

Running stairs…..seemed like a good idea last night. I think I need a handicapped sticker for my car.

Aside from my spin class that I teach in the morning at @ 5:45 I subbed a class at a more upscale gym today where the members always seem to want to have their workout handed to them. I give an excuse to the over 60 generation who just plain don’t like ACDC, The Beastie Boys and Pendulum. That’s fine. They can leave and go to a quieter room. But what drives me crazy is that only 10 people at the most got that it’s an INTERVAL TRAINING class. If you can chat with your neighbor between sets of hills sprints and whatnot, you’re wasting your time. I had one guy who actually brought in a newspaper to read. Holy Crap. He then afterwards asked me every question there was to ask about cycling and spinning and why his legs hurt. This man had spin shoes. I assume that when someone had been taking spin long enough to have bought shoes they know the basics because their instructors teach them during and after class…nope. He said he was reading the paper because it helps him keep his heart rate down in the fat burn zone. WHAT!!!! Who is normally teaching these classes!?!? All I have to say is I love my home base nitty gritty gym with old broken spin bikes that the members have to pull out from the back of the aerobics room, drag over carpet and then put back after they are done. They come to ride and they destroy those bikes. There are days they fog up the mirrors they heat up the class so much.  After classes like the one I subbed today, it makes me appreciate my regular bunch who are not "above" using a older,smaller, less assuming gym. They come to work. Period. Gotta love em’.

On another note. For years I have never tried wrist straps because I thought if my grip failed first then I just need to work on my grip and not default to wrist straps. But the other day I gave in when my fiance and I wanted to see if I could deadlift my bodyweight. SO I tried wrist straps for the first time and oh holy wow, how much fun. I was able to increase my workload on everything a good 20%. I’ve never seen a female at my gym use them…ever, but then again, it’s not exactly venice beach. But this opens up a world of possibilities. I’m going after my back and shoulders this year and I think I just found a nice little tool to help with the back. Y@Y!

I have a few things on my plate for 2008. Aside from getting married in July, I want to compete in  a few NPC shows before then and actually place. So I’m building as much muscle as I can in the pre-season and trying to keep the body fat in check, although, I must say I managed to set myself back quite a bit in that area during the holidays. It took a while to get my head back on straight, so I’m not doing teh shows in March and April that I had my eyes on. I don’t want to get into crunch time like I have in the past and come in soft and without the muscle that I need becasue I crash dieted it off in an attempt to make up for poor planning on my part. So I’m giving myself a good 5 months to bring it in nice and steady. I have such an admiration for competitors who keep their BF% in check year round. That is my goal. So here’s to public accountability. First weigh-in, measure and progress pics  (the painful kind including legs and all) on 2-8-08.