Xerxes’s BodyBlog

I used to loathe running.  I would rather have done MMA training with Randy Coutoure for eight hours rather than run.  I would gladly mow the lawn, rake leaves, or wrestle a rabid bear than spend my time running.  But over the last few weeks that has changed.

Every time I would go running (inside, outside, or treadmill) I got tired quickly, was never able to keep a decent pace, and my knees hurt like HELL.  I attested most of the shortcomings to genetics or my lack of consistent cardio training.
Why did my opinion change you may be asking, well it turns out it had to do with my running form.  I have known for a few years that my running form was incorrect but had never bothered to figure out how or why.  Why was my form causing me to hate running?  I was a "heel striker" meaning that when I placed my active foot on the ground I contacted the ground with my heel first then rolled my foot forward to generate forward propulsion.

After a bit of research, reading, and Youtube’ing I discovered the proper way to run is by striking the ground with the balls of my feet rather than the heel. When you strike with the heel you are essentially applying the breaks to your stride and causing stress to your legs/body.  By striking with the balls of my feet I am essetially absorbing the momentum I am creating and effectively transferring that into propulsion.

So I decided to give the new style a chance.  It was awkward at first and had to start slow.  I just started running in place for a few minutes to get used to the foot placement.  Then I started moving forward at a slow pace to understand the mechanics of the stride.  It took about two weeks to re-train myself and still sometimes I find myself slipping back to heel-striking if im "zoned out" too much.

Wow, I mean WOW!  Running is SO much better now (although I still think its boring as hell). My knees dont hurt at all, I can maintain a higer heart rate without being out of breath all the time, and my pace is substantially better (not to mention more consistent).  So if anyone reads this (which I doubt will ever happen ) and you hate running, make sure you have the proper form and see if you don’t change your mind.

Two of my closest friends were married this weekend so obviously that involved unhealthy amounts of eating and drinking.  The groom is Greek so there was plenty of food to be had, and the open bar did not help matters much either!  I maintained my standard diet through the week and then tried to manipulate my eating schedule to align with the wedding as best as possible.  The amount of food and drink I consumed was definitely over the my normal daily intake so this week in the gym will focus a bit more on getting rid of the extra calories my body is trying to hold onto.

I have been tweaking my diet for the past few months and hit it to a point where I think I may be hindering my lean mass gains so I am seeking professional help.  I see all these profiles and read all the articles on Bodybuilding.com from other BBSpace members who are ripped and cut nearly year round and am trying to ascertain what my problem is with maintaining a similar physique.

My four month gym routine spilt is too long of a period and I don’t make gains consistently.  So I’m going to try a two month training split starting November.  The current routine is 3-4 sets 10-12, I think for Nov and Dec I will go heavy and keep the reps 6-8 (still 3-4 working sets) to put on some mass.  With the input coming from the professional nutritionist I should see some decent gains in size and body composition.

Back pain has subsided but there are good days and bad days.  At least the pain isn’t suicidal for the time being.  The herniations are still present but the pain is manageable once again.  I’ve started going “heavy” and doing deadlifts once again, so hopefully I can keep from agitating the injury again.

So I’m still in a lot of pain.  This time it seems as thought I have done more damage to my disc rather than aggravating existing damage.  I have a chiropractor appointment and an appointment with my spine doctor over the next few weeks.  I haven’t had an MRI since 2004 so I’m sure my Doc will want me to get new ones.  At least this time around I have insurance (whew!).  I am highly doubtful there is a remedy available save surgery which is disconcerting.  I’m still going to try to live through the pain but it has not waned for the past two weeks and I am doubtful about the future.  My greatest fear is that since it is a chronic and compounding problem I will eventually have to get my disc replaced.  I’m not sure of the impact of this on my ability to workout but I have a feeling I will never be able to "go heavy" with a synthetic disc, something I will have to discuss with my doctor.

The past five days have been terrible.  First a little background, I have two herniated discs in my lower back.  I have had this condition for about five years now.  Some days are bad but most are manageable.  I did something a few days ago (not entirely sure what though) and agitated the herniation.  So for the past five days I have been in excruciating pain.

Doctors like to ask "on a scale of 1-10, what would you say your pain level is?" I’m never really sure how to answer that question.  I mean I’ve never been shot, had a limb severed, or been exposed to napalm all of which I assume are extremely painful.  However, the amount of pain I’m feeling is by far the most pain I’ve ever felt so I usually tend to respond the the inquiry with a default "10".  Sometimes it spikes and I can’t breath for a few seconds.
Why am I writing about this? Well I suppose its one of my many pain coping methods.  Sometimes I like to visualize the injury or focus on the pain or write about what I’m feeling (physically) to better help me cope with it all.But my biggest and most useful method for coping is hitting the weights.  When I first injured my back I found that the less I work out the more pain I experience.  So every day I force myself to fight through the pain because I know I will feel better later.  One day (probably when I die) there will be no more pain, which will be nice.

Well I missed yesterdays back/bi workout cause I had to work late.  I hate that!  Back/bi is one of my favorite days so I’m thinking I may hit up the gym Saturday morning. Other than that things have been going relatively well.  Started doing some light deadlifts here and there to relay focus on the form before I start lifting heavy.  I mainly just super-set it with another exercise on random days.  Trying to change up the diet some to help get BF% down.  I’ve been gaining weight with a little bit of fat so I need to remedy that.  Time to ramp up the PoWO cardio a bit.

Yes, I know I haven’t written in a few weeks but hey who reads this crap anyways right?  Well here’s the latest I suppose.

This past weekend we had another paintball tournament. My squad won first and our other squad (same team different squad) won second.  We had three squads in the tournament and we all had to play one another.  Believe me when I tell you that having to play your teammates in the prelims, semis, and finals makes it VERY difficult to get first and second.  However, we managed to pull it off somehow, so kudos to all my teammates!
I have been taking NO-Xpolde since the beginning of the month and overall I like the effects.  I think I will be writing a small product review in the next week or so.  Training has been consistent with a few missed routines for various celebrations.  There have been no injuries aside from the normal joint pains so thats always good news.  I have been tanning and my skin tone has greatly improved from the pasty white it was from the winter months.  I will be taking some new picture in a while so keep an eye out for those.

Well I suppose thats all I have for now don’t forget to check back for the updated pictures!

WOOTz!

Well last week was a busy one.  In addition to having a paintball tournament all weekend, I had to get prepared for my commercial shoot on Monday.  The tournament went well enough and but my diet was screwed up as usual.  Most meals were bars and shakes no real food.  Monday during the shoot, I managed to eat most of my normal meals but I missed the two before my workout so I had no energy to get to the gym which is why I skipped out on Monday’s workout.

Yesterday was back to normal for me but I had not prepared a the new April-June Tuesday workout so I used January-March Tuesday routine.  The April-June routine will drop the sets to three but keep the rep range between the nominal 10-12, with 60-90 sec. rest periods.  Some goals for April-June routine are increase max weight (obviously), develope width of lower lats, continue developing upper chest, continue developing delt/bi tie-in, and continue developing quad mass.  I will need to take measurements and pics in the next couple of days for comparison in June.  I will be sure to post information regarding the starting of this phase once I get all the information recorded.

As a side note, The commercial shoot I did on Monday will air in 11 different countries during the summer months.  I don’t have a speaking role and I’m not sure how much "face" time I get seeing as thought it is probably a 30 sec. spot but I will be sure to get a link to the final commercial once its complete.

I was taking some pictures of the standard poses the other night for my bodyspace page and realized something, I’m white.  No, I mean REALLY WHITE, so white the flash on the camera reflects off my skin and causes the images to be blurry and hazy.  So I deleted the pictures and decided I need to start tanning.  I think for now I’m just going to use the one at the gym (costs about $20 a month).  On problem with this is that I do not tan very well and even when I do tan it has a red tint to it so it looks more like I’ve burned.  After a couple of weeks have passed whilst tanning, I will try taking the pictures again.

Well this weekends diet was better than most.  Unfortunately it was my Mothers birthday and Easter Sunday so I did splurge a little.  I missed only one meal each on both Saturday and Sunday.  I kept my usual meal times and just prepared a little more on Thursday.

I pulled a muscle during the workout, either a rhomboid or a trap on my left side.  It is a chronic injury that I got last year around labor day weekend.  It’s actually quite painful but is usually gone in 4-5 days.  It impact all of my workouts thought, so this week will be lighter than normal.
As a side note, I felt a bit out of sorts Saturday night, I actually craved a beer!  I don’t usually drink that often, maybe once or twice a month.  So I decided to hit up one of the local hot spots for a brew.  I stopped by Cans Charlotte, there are always hot ladies up there, they have the widest selection of beers available, and it was on my way home so it seemed like the obvious choice.  As per the norm, there were plenty of hot ladies so the "view" was nice and the NCAA was on So I grabbed a seat at the bar and just kind of took everything in.  I don’t go out often so it’s always nice to sit back and take in the scenes.  So I suppose I have to hit the treadmill a bit longer this week.

The weekend was nice with the whole family in town for Mom’s birthday, but I am exhausted this morning.  I think I will be going to bed real early tonight.  The first quarter of the year is almost over so that means I need to start working on the new workout regime.  I will be sure to post the new schedule in the next few days once I decide what I want to focus on for the next three months.

As much as I look forward to weekends, I dread them equally.  My diet suffers the most on weekends.  Not necessarily that I’m eating bad, although that does happen occasionally, but becasue I’m not eating at all.  Honestly, I end up eating three meals, sometimes less, on Saturadays and Sundays.  I need to come up with a more regimented eating schedule for the weekends so I don’t waste all that hard work I’ve put in during the week.

I think it primarily has to do with scheduling.  I live my life on schedules and routine and my weekends are not always planned out precisly as I like.  I think the key to having a a better diet during the weekends is to force myself to schedule and allocate specific times to accomplish the tasks I feel i need to complete over the weekend.  Which in turn means I need to allocate some time on either Thurdsdays or Fridays to figure out what I need to be doing during those time frames.

We’ll try it out this weekend and see how things go.