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Post by seltzer on Feb 28, 2020 20:55:17 GMT
I wonder if chipmunks like chocolate chip cookies? One of the great questions that we all need to ponder. :-)
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Post by M@ on Mar 1, 2020 15:13:26 GMT
I wonder if chipmunks like chocolate chip cookies? I'll put one in the humane trap* and see if they buy it. -- Weight: 284.5 lbsI'm extremely sore, particularly in my neck. I'm wondering whether any of this soreness is due to the Crestor (5mg) or if it's just from leg day. I did a lot of heavy deadlifts and really tried to pull the bar apart while doing so. I think the fact that my rhomboids are sore leans towards the DOMS explanation. I'm finally watching the MuscleMeds series where Kai Greene works with amateurs. Dude needs to go into coaching whenever he's done with competition. His knowledge and passion are massive and his voice is mesmerizing. The only thing that drives me nuts is how much he sweats in all of the videos. There must be so much DNP in his system that his sweat would make grass grow. Lily is starting to talk and I told the kids I'd take them out to the park this morning. She's laying on the floor behind me, holding her iPad with her toes and saying, "Daddy...daddy, I see you. I seeeeeeee you, daddy. Park. PARK!" I love weekend mornings. I just noticed that I have the JSF homepage up on one of the tabs in this browser. I want to leave it there. * ...and will then chuck the humane trap into a bucket of water if it catches anything. This isn't JSF, so I can post about exterminating rodents.
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Post by phillydude on Mar 1, 2020 15:59:29 GMT
One of my good friends Mike Pulcinella shot all those Kai Greene documentaries... he works for MHP now, but he's still making movies and doing commercials. And here's Kai and I. He is more amazing in person that you can possibly believe. He actually asked me about the medal I was wearing... and was genuinely interested.
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Post by macdiver on Mar 1, 2020 19:04:49 GMT
Shamie can test if mice like chocolate chip cookies too. .
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Post by M@ on Mar 2, 2020 17:55:45 GMT
And here's Kai and I. He is more amazing in person that you can possibly believe. He actually asked me about the medal I was wearing... and was genuinely interested. That's so cool that you got to meet him and took a photo with him. He has that reputation of connecting deeply with fans. I'd say I'd like to meet him someday, but experience has proven to me that I just get too anxious about approaching famous people. Shamie can test if mice like chocolate chip cookies too. . I can attest that they like Clif bars. They broke into my office and ate them all. -- Weight: 288.5 lbsI did both of my hypertrophy workouts with specific attention to stretching and contraction of the muscle. I had to drop weight, drastically, on a couple of the exercises. I'm completely gassed. I did legs today and my forearms are exhausted. I figured out how to use the high/low cable setup on my power rack to do improvised hamstring curls on the flat bench. I may try extensions next time for quad isolation.
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Post by M@ on Mar 5, 2020 18:35:47 GMT
Weight: 286.1 lbs
Now that I have a few strict hypertrophy workouts under my belt, I really felt it when I was doing heavy bench press today. The first couple of reps were primarily pecs, but those soon wore out and I'd be finishing a five-rep set with mostly front delts and triceps. I stayed heavy there, but realized a little further on into the workout that - even on heavy days - I should still be focusing on form and contraction/extension. The extra weight is compensated for with the rep range. I dropped weight on all other exercises to find the sweet spot of just barely being able to get out the full amount of reps with good form.
The really interesting one was wide-grip cable pulldowns. I could get the weight all the way down, but I couldn't hold the contraction. The weight just pulled my arms back out a little bit. I had to drop the load almost 50% to get to a point where I could squeeze and hold the contraction for a second. My lats feel enormous. My entire upper-body is pleasantly dead. I had to pull my keyboard into my lap to type this because my arms were getting fatigued from reaching for it on the desk. It feels like I'm growing.
I will say, however, that I'm delighted to have a home gym because the paucity of resistance I'm using would be embarrassing to use in public.
I got a flyer for Planet Fitness offering a year of their top tier membership for $21.99/month. I may stop by there and see what they have in the way of leg machines.
I have a near term goal: Fit comfortably into my 44" suit trousers in time for Sara's cousin's wedding on March 28th.
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Post by M@ on Mar 6, 2020 21:39:49 GMT
Weight: 287.8 lbsI crushed my heavy lower-body workout this morning and have had that whole-body dead feeling ever since. The only think I can relate it to is when I've spent a whole day playing in the water at the beach. I'm just very comfortably tired. Also, my chest feels fucking huge. I'm really curious to see what the tape measure will say this week. I met up with my buddy for lunch at Urban Plates. That place is amazing. It's like Boston Market in that it's a cafeteria of pre-made, hearty food, but organic/farm-to-table and super fresh. I had 8oz of flank steak with chimichurri sauce, brussels sprouts, macaroni and cheese, bread, and an iced tea to drink. There was a lot of olive oil on everything but otherwise it seemed pretty damn straightforward from a macros perpective. They also have entrees of salmon, tuna, chicken, and (I think) turkey. If it were closer I'd probably eat there 4-5 times a week. We talked about work and he told me he's got an 8-hour interview with Amazon next Tuesday. They're doing it remotely due to Coronavirus fears. I don't envy him having to sit in front of his computer at home on an interview for that length of time. I hope he gets the job because it sounds like things are going south in his current gig. I keep getting recruiting messages from them and Apple but I'm loathe to leave my government job (that I enjoy tremendously). The pay is incredibly attractive, though...and I can always come back to the government now that I'm officially a career fed. I clipped Arnold's description of his workouts while he was training for the Olympia under Weider in CA: - MWF am: Chest & Back
- MWF pm: Thighs & Calves
- TTS am: Shoulders, Arms, & Forearms
- TTS pm: Calves & Abs
- Sun: Off
I wonder when he did hamstrings?
Anyway, I've always heard about the volume of Arnold's regimen and how insane it was. He describes six hours of work per day, broken into two sessions (am and pm). With six hours of sleep per night because he also managed to get in his nutrition, education, and side-jobs. The pharmacology must have been amazing. My buddy from lunch told me to look up Bill Burr's comedy routine on Arnold and how he's been the luckiest, most Forrest Gumpian human being ever. Need to check that out.
It's pretty damn funny and spot-on. Warning PROFANITY!
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Post by phillydude on Mar 7, 2020 18:48:06 GMT
He did his hams and quads in the same workout... thighs.
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Post by M@ on Mar 7, 2020 23:28:49 GMT
He did his hams and quads in the same workout... thighs. OMG were U THERE?!?! :spaz: ...but seriously, did you actually meet Arnold and ask him, because that's kind of what I'm expecting based on your track record of fearlessness. Weight: 285.5 lbsI don't know how common it is, but all my life I've had people in authority marveling at me and exclaiming about what I could accomplish if I only applied myself. It's the mantra professed to every ADD kid, so I'm told, but it doesn't mean you're destined to be the next Elon Musk. I always thought that I knew what they were talking about: When I actually gave a shit about something, expending 100% effort was no question. I was just super-interested and fascinated with the process of becoming more of an expert. When I got into drawing and art I would spend hours and hours and hours practicing. Every time I sat at the foot of my bed, with some broadcast TV playing on the 12" CRT on top of my dresser (or Aerosmith's PUMP on the stereo), and worked through a ream of off-colored copy paper one of my folks had brought home from the office, I would resent having to stop. I'd toss crumpled up sheets of sketches into the trash and start fresh until I had to go downstairs to dinner or go to sleep or whatever. Every session had a purpose: Capture the thumb where it joins to the palm; Get the foot's interaction with the ground right; establish the correct spacing between the eyes-lips-nose-mouth from a hundred angles. I practiced trivial shit over and over again and felt like I got a microscopic-amount better each session. Same thing happened when I committed to learning how to hit a golf ball properly. To this day, I go and get a bucket of 135 balls three to five times per week and work on a particular sequence (e.g. today was: Rotate around the spine; sink into the heel of the right foot on takeaway; keep head steady; transfer weight to left heel and toe evenly; keep head steady; turn hips around to target; pull handle of club with left hand; hold follow through to make sure you're in balance. I did all of this and watched 9i shots go 145y with a tailwind (goal is 160 with no help from the wind), but the contact was sweet and solid). The ball deformed and screamed up into the air far beyond what the force of the club should have dictated.). It's not a chore. It's a pleasure. I hate that my body wears out around 100-110 swings and I have to finish out by chipping. That said: I employ the same micro-goal application to the time spent chipping those 25-35 balls. I applied the same enthusiasm to getting a 4.0 in graduate school. I isolated the things that I wanted to learn in each class and I dived into them head-first. I studied beyond what was required; employed more than what was required on all deliverables; and hauled my teammates onto my shoulders - often doing the work of three to five apathetic classmates - to secure the A. It wasn't a chore. It was a pleasure. Blah blah blah. Me me me. I'm so great. Whateverthefuck. That's not the point. The point is that I'm reading about Arnold's early days in bodybuilding and I'm seeing the same things. More importantly: I'm seeing that the level of attention and commitment and individuality that I'm applying to my workouts is weak and pointless. I've learned a lot about weight training and fitness in the past sixteen years, but I haven't embraced any of it, for real. Having a professionally designed plan and adhering to it is...whatever. I have, personally, given zero consideration to whether or not a plan is working for me. I've just followed it by rote and enjoyed what (unrelated) benefits it conferred. Recently, watching the Kai Greene videos, I watched Kai tell a trainee that he has to find the right feel for an exercise; and that if it took five sets to find the right mind-muscle control on a hamstring exercise, that he should then stop what he'd planned to do and start from scratch: At set zero of the plan-prescribed exercise, using what he'd learned to get five good sets in. Then repeat with the next effort. Arnold mentions something similar in his Education of a Bodybuilder: Bodybuilders hung on to me like fleas [after winning Mr. Universe in England at 20 years old], because they thought that if they did the same exercises that I did they would get the same kind of muscles. But I watched them fall away with absolutely no results except exhaustion. They weren't mentally prepared for intensive championship training; I knew the secret: Concentrate while you're training. Do not allow other thoughts to enter your mind.This week my chest is bigger and my waist is smaller, despite the scale not changing much. I look better. I have more energy. My clothes fit better. It's fucking awesome. I know what I need to do moving forward and I'm ready to commit myself to bodybuilding like I've committed myself to other efforts where I've had massive success. Again, from Arnold's book: I knew that if i went in [to the gym] concerned about bills or girls and let myself think about those things while doing bench presses, I'd make only marginal progress. I'd seen guys reading the newspaper between sets, day after day, and they always looked bad. Some of them had been going through the motions of training for years, and you couldn't tell that they had ever picked up a weight. It had become nothing more than a pantomime.
That's definitely been where my head has been at for my entire training career, but it's changing now.
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Post by phillydude on Mar 8, 2020 13:50:13 GMT
When was the last time you REALLY watched Pumping Iron... especially the training scenes... with that kind of concentration and focus?
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Post by M@ on Mar 9, 2020 21:52:12 GMT
When was the last time you REALLY watched Pumping Iron... especially the training scenes... with that kind of concentration and focus? I’ve only ever watched it once. I’ve wanted to watch it again recently but it’s not available on any of my streaming services and I can’t seem to buy it on iTunes or Amazon Prime. Something must be going on with the rights. I might have to resort to buying it on DVD or finding a torrent (with the latter more likely because of the inconvenience of watching a DVD). Weight: 290.5 lbsSara and I went out to Randy’s Prime (a new steakhouse in Tyson’s Corner, VA) for her birthday dinner last night and the scale tells the tale of how much I overate. We had oysters and then each got the lobster crabcake and filet combo, sharing duck fat & truffle fries; wild mushrooms; rainbow carrots; and brussels sprouts roasted with bacon as sides. I also got a caesar salad, telling myself that it wouldn’t be a bridge too far. I was full enough to skip birthday cake with no regrets. It was an epic meal. We had professional portraits taken at the office last Wednesday. They came back today and I’m horrified to see the giant fat guy looking back at me. I have neck rolls. It’s humiliating.
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Post by M@ on Mar 10, 2020 17:33:10 GMT
Weight: 290.5 lbs
Kind of surprised that the scale didn't move at all yesterday. I was strictly compliant and drank a lot of water. I'm not concerned, just curious. The bloat will come off when it comes off.
I have a very, very rare day all to myself today. Sara's at her folks' place with the kids and my parents are going to their dinner group tonight so I don't have to take care of anybody after work. If the day had been even the slightest shred nicer, I would've taken off of work early (or completely) and gone out to get my first round of golf of 2020 in. Unfortunately, we got a soaking rain in the morning and I don't feel like sloshing around in the muddy grass this afternoon. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself tonight aside from meal prep.
Coronavirus panic is rising. I was supposed to go downtown for an Adobe conference at DOC headquarters tomorrow, but Adobe backed out saying that they didn't want their employees flying. The kicker is that I only heard about that from a coworker whose Adobe POC emailed him directly about the cancellation. I have yet to hear anything from headquarters about the event being canceled. I'm very happy not to have to take the metro in to work tomorrow and hang around big rooms with a few hundred people. That's not a coronavirus thing so much as a, "M@ is an agoraphobe." thing, but the virus scare doesn't help. My boss said I could telework tomorrow to concentrate on a big project. I think management around here is on the verge of authorizing full-time telework until the scare lifts. They really should. Seeing everyone in the room flinch whenever someone sniffles or coughs is disturbing.
I have upper-body DOMS from Sunday's upper hypertrophy routine and my legs still feel dead from yesterday's lower hypertrophy. I had to drop the weight on my improvised cable hamstring curls to five pounds to sufficiently isolate the muscle for the entire rep range. I'd started at 50, then dropped to 20 when that was obviously too much. Even at 20, though, I'd feel my glutes taking over around rep four (of 12). My hams are fried from that tiny little bit of weight.
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Post by M@ on Mar 11, 2020 19:22:23 GMT
Weight: 288.4 lbs
I was able to get in an extra workout this morning since I was cleared to telework and I don't feel like going out to the range this afternoon. I did abs and extremities (forearms and calves) after a long walk on the treadmill. I have a feeling my abs are going to be very sore in the coming days. I haven't done direct ab work in years and it showed. It's like I almost didn't recall how to contract the muscles properly.
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Post by shamie on Mar 12, 2020 15:03:30 GMT
I was reading Phillydudes journal, you wrote something about hair loss. Did you ever try Propecia? I think it works for me. I still have my hair, my father didn't, my brother doesn't. But I do not know if I didn't take it, if I would have lost my hair. But I don't want to stop and find out.
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Post by M@ on Mar 12, 2020 18:53:56 GMT
I was reading Phillydudes journal, you wrote something about hair loss. Did you ever try Propecia? I've never tried it. It tried Rogaine/Minoxidyl when I first noticed hair loss back in 2010 but it didn't seem to do anything. I looked into Propecia later on, but since we were trying to get pregnant, I didn't feel comfortable having it around the house. After the kids were born, my dad came down with bladder and prostate cancer which puts me in that risk group. So I don't want to elevate my risk for a vanity drug. I'm comfortable going bald as long as I lose some weight. That said, if I ever come in to a large amount of discretionary income I'll seek out whomever did Tom Brady's hair and get the same procedure. Weight: 286.6 lbsI put music on the TV in the basement/workout area today instead of having something narrative play. I wanted to focus on my workout. It made a huge difference. I was down there for 1:53:00 because of some work interruptions and because I dialed in the loads on several exercises (taking several experimental sets to do so for each). It's weird not to be lifting ego-soothing poundages, but there's nobody down there to impress and I have bumper plates so the diameters are all the same. I'm gathering a ton of pictures from the golden age of bodybuilding and am going to put together an iPhotos album so that I can run a slideshow while I'm down there. The Coronavirus hysteria is getting to me. I haven't been this uneasy since the days of the DC Sniper. I need to stop watching the news.
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