Lift Forever

SQUATTING ON HIGH HEELS

2009-06-14T15:40:00.003+02:00

Squatting on high heels. That's exactly how it felt last Friday when I was squatting with 80% of my max with the new weightlifting shoes.

If you remember, prior to that I was squatting with old runner shoes that were already worn out. And, therefore, their soles have already lost all their "bouncing properties".

Anyway, I didn't feel strong in the squat. I really hate that because squat is my strongest lift. And, the most important lift to me. I felt like I was front squatting: With almost all the weight in my quads and without the possibility to let other muscles to help in lifting the bar. Plus, I felt that I was about to fall forwards cos the bar was too much too the front; but, it also felt that getting in a more upward position would make the bar too much too the back with the risk that it would felt out from my shoulders.

I guess I'll need to get used to the heels. At least they improved greatly my snatch from the hang.

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Image Credit: foobar

MY FIRST WEIGHTLIFTING SHOES

2009-06-09T22:59:00.002+02:00

I'm so glad my first weightlifting shoes finally arrived.

Where I live, there's no way to buy them in a shop. So, you have to buy them through Internet. While I've been buying a lot of stuff through Internet (mainly books). Shoes are something I like to try on before buying. Specially with weightlifting shoes cos they are expensive and they should fit tightly.

Anyway, I had to take the risk. I selected and Adidas model and asked the seller for advice about how to know what was the right size for me. He recommended me to go to a sports shop and try on running shoes from Adidas to see which one was my size. And, order shoes with the same size (size go by UK sizes) or the 0.5 size bigger (they go by 0.5 increments) if that one was slightly too tight.

I'm aware that I gave you the name of the brand of my weightlifting shoes. I did that only because the trick to know your correct size might be specific to this brand. But, I'm in no way suggesting that you should buy that brand. I'm sure you're a big guy (or girl) and can figure out what brand and model is best for you.

So, anyway, I ordered the shoes. And, this morning, I finally went to the post office and picked up the shoes and tried them on. And, I thought, "Oh, sh*t! There too small. The length is alright but they're extremely narrow!". And, I went to work, thinking I'd have to send them back and order 0.5 or 1 size bigger.

But, this evening, when I came back home I tried again. And, I realized that they really are my size. I just loosen the shoelaces enough (I guess that I was too much in a hurry this morning because I was late to work) and they fit perfectly. It seems that the important parameter (at least with this model) is length and that the wideness can be greatly modified to suit your needs.

So, Shoes fit me perfectly. That's just great. :-)

I'll try them out tomorrow. I had the temptation to go today. But, I'm completely fried from front squatting iron beasts.

THE EVOLUTION OF WEIGHT LOSS

2009-06-02T13:24:00.006+02:00

This post is about a guest post by Brad Pilon (the author of EatStopEat) at The Fitness Black Book. Here's the link to the original post.

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I read Brad's post and I thought that this is a post we all should read and think about it.

I think low-carb/low-glycemic/paleo with non-processed foods is a great way to eat (for fat loss and for strength training). And, I guess some of you agree and some of you don't (which is alright). But, I think it's important to realize that, for fat loss, if you aren't losing fat and everything else is in place you need to eat less. And that, by eating less, you can lose you're unwanted fat with many different diets.

That's why I think it's important to read and re-read Brad's words when he talks about all the different diet approaches he has been advising over the years (low-fat, cheat-day, low-carb, low-glycemic, carbohydrates-cycling, fasts). For ALL of them he says:

"And, this approach helped people get lean. Really lean. Sometimes even contest lean."

And as, a conclusion he states:

"Just about any diet will help you lose weight as long as it puts you in a calorie deficit. [...]
[But] you DO NOT have to be in a calorie deficit every single day.
[...]
The bottom line is this – The diet that will allow you the best weight loss success is the one that you find to be the easiest to follow and most comfortable way to create an ongoing calorie deficit over time."

So, if you're weight loss have stalled, and if you aren't paying much attention to calories and portion control, this might be something to think about.

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Image Credit: babaghan

MY WATER KEFIR EXPERIENCE

2009-05-27T22:23:00.006+02:00

I've tried to convert my milk kefir grains to water kefir grains. Water kefir grains are supposed to be clear like crystal. But, a lot of people have successfully converted their milk kefir grains to water kefir grains.

But, as you can see in my first pic of the post my grains don't look too happy. The color is because that's the color that the drink they generate has. But they don't seem to be growing. Maybe it's because I just drop them to the new watery mix without doing the "induction" process mentioned in some web pages. That process, if I recall correctly, consists in submerging the grains in water with sugar and change water and add again sugar for some days. Anyway, it's still too soon to tell if my grains will grow or not.

So, here it's how I do it. First, I put non-processed sugar in the jar, water and mix it well. Then, I add the grains.

Then, I add the fruit: half lemon, two dried figs, two dates, six raisins, and a cinnamon bark.

In the fourth pic of this post you can see the water kefir jar "kefirising" by the milk kefir jar.

If you have some fruit that floats, like the apples in the last pic of this post, you can put a glass like I did (I don't know if you can see it in the picture) so it keeps the fruit submerged. In this jar, I also added some pieces of coconut so they don't spoil. That's another very good use for the kefir water: If you have any fruit that it's going to spoil, just drop it there and eat it whenever. I should try with bananas.

At the beginning, you won't know the kefirization speed of your mix. So you can taste it. If it's still too sweet let it ferment more. If you let it ferment too much it will be too acid. Also note that the fermentation makes it a slightly alcoholic beverage. But, I think it's only 0.5% or 1%.

Once it's ready, collect the fruits and you can eat them. OK, except maybe the cinnamon bark. Then, pour the kefir water through a plastic strainer to recover the grains. And start again the process.

If anybody has experienced with water kefir and wants to share it, just drop a comment.

I hope, this post makes some of you people that are already doing milk kefir to try to also do water kefir.

MY KEFIR EXPERIENCE

2009-05-23T20:27:00.003+02:00

I friend of mine gave me some kefir grains and I've been doing kefired milk for a while. Here you have some pictures that show you my kefir routine.

You can see in the first picture, how my kefir jar looks after 24 hours of "kefirization". In the bottom of the jar there is the serum of the milk that has been separated from the more solid yogurt looking part (which is basically casein and fat).

Every evening I take the kefired milk, shake it a little bit and pour it through a strainer. I shake it so the serum mixes with the yogurt-looking-part and, therefore, it is easier to strain.

I put the kefired milk in a pitcher and to the fridge.

The kefir grains are put back in the jar.

The jar is refilled with milk. I use organic milk. Try to use the closest thing to real milk you can get.

So, if you want to try, just find somebody that gives you some grains. Don't buy them. It's easy to find in Internet somebody that will give some to you.

Use plastic strainer. Metallic strainer can damage the grains. The grains will grow. The more grains the faster they will kefirize your milk. Let them grow till you're happy with their kefirizing speed and size. Every time you have too much kefir grains you can just throw away some of them or give them for free to somebody.

YOU GOTTA ALSO TRAIN YOUR ARMS

2009-05-13T12:37:00.003+02:00

Lately, it has became obvious that I need to focus on training my arms and shoulders. Because my arms are my weakest body part.

You see, I'm a squatter. Squats are my strongest lift. Which is great. So much more better than if my strongest lift would be bench press or biceps curls. X-D

But, I've been a little bit carried away with the "squats-dealifts-benchpresses-shoulderpresses-rows-chinups-dips-nothing-else-is-needed" philosophy. Plus, I haven't done enough volume with my shoulders and arms to get them where they should be. Moreover, I haven't been so mentally focused with my arms as I am with my squats and deadlifts.

Yep, that's the complete opposite of the average gym Joe.

An important thing to note, is that with arm exercises is hard for me to keep my elbows tucked in. Always, my elbows seem to beg to tuck out to be able to do the exercises. Maybe it's because a head of my triceps is specially week. I don't know.

But that's gotta change. I need to get my arms up to par with my legs. So I'm gonna try to do arms in almost any single workout and see what happens. I'm even gonna do isolation barbell exercises for my biceps and my triceps. Oh, my God. What's happening to me. ;-P

And most importantly, I need to make arm exercises in such a way that they seem almost as excruciating as squatting and deadlifting.

Wish me luck. :-)

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Image Credit: trehala

DO YOUR CARDIO

2009-05-02T18:34:00.003+02:00

Few weeks ago I read the article Advice You Don't Want to Hear from T-Nation. I bookmarked the article knowing that I needed to put in practice some of its advice.

The truth is that, since I've started doing weightlifting my cardio has been reduced to zero. Yep, that's right I don't do cardio at all, nada.

This would provably be alright if I'd be in my target weight range. But, that's not the case yet. I thought that weightlifting alone would burn the fat that I needed to lose, but no luck.

Since I can fit in my weekends one or two cardio sessions this is what I'm gonna do. Today I did a light weight workout with mainly shoulder preses. And then HIIT, cardio plus steady cardio.

In case your wondering why I did shoulder presses, I'll confess that my strongest lifts are my squat and deadlift, so I need to bring up my upper body. Yep, that's the opposite situation of the typical gym goer.

Anyway, coming back to the subject of this post. If your training and diet are in place but you still need to get rid of some fat, do what Dr. Clay Hyght says in the T-Nation's article: "Do Your Damn Cardio".

And, now that you have the link to the article, read the whole thing to see if there is more "advices you don't wanna hear" in the it that you need to put into use. Just as I've already done.

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Image Credit: dextr

RESISTING TEMPTATION

2009-04-19T16:43:00.004+02:00

Yesterday I had to fight against temptation. It was strong like hell and lasted more than an hour.

We all have to face temptation in this quest. It might be skipping training, doing an unplanned "cheat" meal, drinking beer or eating chocolate when we decided that we won't, etc.

In any kind of quest, once you've drawn your big plan and start following, you know you'll be faced by temptations.

So, before you start you have to think about what are you gonna do when temptation comes.

I propose you write a list. Here's mine:

Accountability

If you tell somebody about your plan, it might well be that you'll stick to it so that you don't have to tell to that someone that you failed. You really don't need to tell it to absolutely everybody, but if telling to everybody works better for you go for it.

Counting how many days in a row you've sticked to the plan

It might sound silly, but if you count in a calendar how many days in a row you've sticked to the plan. You know that if you succumb to temptation the counter is gonna go back to zero. Plus it helps you to get in the "day by day" mentality.

Plan ahead your day

Before going to sleep, review all the temptations you're gonna face the day after and see how you will avoid them. Maybe you can rearrange you day to make it easier.

Negotiate

If things get tough you might be forced to negotiate with the part of you that wants to give up. Of course, the plan is not negotiable. But, you can offer some other compensations that do not affect the plan.

Focus on the target

When faced with temptation, focus on the target. Think about the difference of fully achieving your target (even beyond your expectations) and getting very very far away from it.

The enemy

Think of the voice that wants to give up as the enemy. Give it semi-human characteristics. So it is not that you're weak. The thing is that the enemy is strong. This is war! It's your enemy that wants you to lose. But you shall prevail. Go ahead and make it epic.

Remember the crab bucket story

One day I was walking along the Washington Beach, the black beach in Washington, North Carolina with my father. I was about eight years old. I noticed a man with a bucket of crabs. The crab bucket did not have a top on it. I asked my father why the crabs were not able to escape. My father’s explanation taught me a valuable lesson.

My father said, “If there was only one crab in the bucket it would certainly escape. However, when there is more than one crab in the bucket, if one tries to crawl out, the other crabs would grab hold and pull it back down so that it would share the same fate as the rest of them.”

This is true with people. If one person attempts to better himself, other people will attempt to drag him back down to share their fate. My father said, “ You must ignore the crabs if you want to be a success in life.

[...]

Do you know crab people? Have you attempted to better yourself only to have family and friends to discourage you? Watch out for the crab syndrome.

Use the fact that your friends and family (the wants that should support you the most) are the ones that seem to want to see you failing. Don't get angry with them. Imagine that the voice ("the enemy") is also inside them trying to make you fail.

Optionally, if it works for you, resist temptation just to show that you're stronger than them.

"Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own." -Bruce Lee

Try up these things. Decide what works and what doesn't for you. Come up with your own ones. If you fall, stand up immediately and start again. Practice makes perfection.

Oh, yeah, I forgot. About yesterday... I was able to finally resist temptation.

Good luck to everyone.

BTW, what are your techniques to resist temptation? Do they work well to you? Leave a comment to let me know.

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Image Credit: ArTeTeTrA

I FAINTED TODAY

2009-04-11T19:57:00.006+02:00

I fainted today. But it wasn't after the first time I gave blood (like the guy in the picture). It was in the gym. It wasn't powerlifting (we do have buckets, but they are there just because of the many ceiling leaks we have). It was weightlifting. At the end of a clean, and before the jerk. I was doing a clean and jerk from the blocks (so bar is just below knee cups). It was actually the last rep. I was using the same load than the previous lift.

It was my first time (that I fainted, I mean). Afterwards, my trainer has explained that it has happened several times to him. Even in competition. I still don't know exactly why it happens. I know it happens when you clean the bar too close to your neck. Maybe it preses some artery and the blood doesn't reach your brains. Or, maybe it pinches some nerve.

Anyway, I just remember looking at my trainer. He was with a wide smile. I felt very happy so I was also smiling. Then I wondered why was he laughing, so I asked him. He told me that I had just fainted and I was like 'really'. I didn't remember anything. I also laughed and told him that I was alright. He told me that I'd been like ten seconds unconscious.

I tried to move and then I realize that I was lying on the floor and that the trainer was leaning on me. Just before that, I would have sworn that we both were standing. So, I moved the bar apart and got up.

For some reason I was very happy for the rest of the workout (yeah, I know, brain damage ;-P).

The only bad side-effect from the fainting was that (for some wired reason) my gluteus where completely fried. Which was kind of extra-tough because after the fainting it was pulls from the hang and back squats. But I got all the reps and survived.

Of course, I'll try to avoid fainting by all means. But, all in all, it was a good workout. And I'm still smiling (yep, I know, permanent brain damage ;-P ).

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Image Credit: halgatewood

LAZY DAYS

2009-03-30T11:05:00.003+02:00

Lately, I'm having very lazy days. It's probably because my new training program is quite demanding combined with other things going on in my life.

On weeks like this, I just allow myself to be lazy. And, I cut a lot of tasks that are not too important. I just make sure that I train right and I accept that my body needs to be lazy outside the gym and I try to even enjoy this laziness.

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Image Credit: heavenuphere

LIVING WITHOUT A TRAINING LOG

2009-03-10T17:30:00.002+01:00

I haven't kept a training log since I started weightlifting. My trainer does it for me. That's the way it should be. He just tell me the exercise, load, reps and sets and I do it. I don't question it. It's like I'm a soldier and he's the captain. It takes a lot of the mental drain from me. Yeah, it's actually freeing.

Well, I only train with him on Mo,We,Fr. On Saturdays and Sundays I train alone (if I'm too destroyed I skip Sunday). For those days I might have to start to keep a mini-log. But, it is not as important as my training log when I was training all by myself.

Weekend trainings are somehow more relaxed: Trying to go through the points of the snatch and of the clean&jerk that I do worst. Doing some some really heavy squats, rows and benches. Because, on week days the emphasis is more on the Olympic lifts.

So far things are going great: Elbows and knees hurt and I ice them. My hands are full of turn calluses and I put athletic tape on them before going to the gym. Most training days I feel kind of scared before going to my training and I recognize this as a sign of having challenging enough training sessions.

Now, that I'm being physically beaten up by the new training. It's a good thing that my trainer does all the planning and logging for me and that I don't have to worry about it.

P.D.: Hopefully, the hurting joints and the turned calluses is a temporary thing. ;-P Yeah, I think so, my elbows are getting stronger day by day and don't hurt much anymore.

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Image Credit: RunnerGirl713

MY NEW GYM

2009-03-01T15:21:00.002+01:00

So, this is my new gym. It's in the basement of a commercial gym. It only has a long weightlifting platform (the platform is long enough for two or three people to lift at the same time), many rusty Olympic bars, rusty squat stands, as many plates as you want, chalk, and not much more.

You can see it in the picture on the left. The bucket is not for puking. It's because the ceiling has leaks. ;-P We have more than five buckets all over the room. No windows, no mirrors, no distractions.

There is also a place for bench pressing (you can partially see it in the top left corner of the picture), and a very rusty leg press.

I'm still getting adapted to the new gym. But, so far, it looks good. One of the things that was worrying me was to do heavy squatting without safety catches. I was used to have safety catches and to squat till I almost touched them (which was almost ATG).

Now I'm squatting Olympic style (which means that both front and back squat are done in such a way that my thighs touch my calves and that my ass is almost touching the floor and without safety catches.

So, today I was doing some squats after practicing the snatch and I knew that sooner or latter I'd fail a rep with that weight and that I'd had to drop the bar. When that happened, the movement of pushing backwards and dropping the bar was very easy. It was like my body already knew how to do it but I was afraid of doing it because I had never done it before.

I'll miss my dip station and my dumbbells from my old gym, but in here it seems that we can also use the commercial gym. So, if I'm desperate to do some dips I can always go upstairs. Anyway, it's feels so much better down here in the basement, training alone on weekends and with the Olympic herd on Mo/We/Fr. Upstairs, I think they don't even have Olympic bars. And, they have very few plates.

And, down here I can do almost everything that is important for me: Olympic lifts, squat, chin ups (with a barbell fixed to the wall by its sleeves in such a way that it can rotate), deadlift, bench press, shoulder press, bent over row, hanging hip raises, etc.

STARTING WEIGHTLIFTING

2009-02-23T11:28:00.003+01:00

Great news!!!

I finally found a weightlifting gym with a weightlifting trainer!!! :-)

It really sucks, but in my country weightlifting is kind of dead. I thought there would be no way for me to find a weightlifting gym. But, I finally found my place. It's looks more like an old small car-repair garage than like a gym but it has everything we need. It's actually a big room in the basement of a public gym. The room is owned by the regional weightlifting federation. It has no windows and no mirrors. And, the bars are a little bit rusty. But I just love it.

So I paid the federation fees and started training on Wednesday. There is only one teacher and a single schedule: Mo, We, Fr at 16:30h. We are only three persons training with him. I'm the only one who is just starting to learn proper technique. I had been doing the power version of the lifts (specially the power clean). But doing the lifts with proper technique is a whole new thing.

So far, it feels great. The feeling at the end of a weight-training session is completely different. You feel less winded. I actually feel tired and energized at the same time, and cannot help smiling all the time.

Besides, a turned callous and some teared off skin in my hands, it's great mentally to leave all the planning to the trainer and concentrate only into doing whatever he says. Besides the weightlifting sessions I plan to keep going on Saturdays and Sundays to do my usual weight-training sessions. I didn't do it this weekend because I had a cold with sore throat.

This is gonna be a very big change in my training. So I expect that it will be mentally refreshing and physically shocking. And that, my friend, should create some big strength gains!

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Image Credit: Infinity Fotos

INTERMITTENT FASTING?

2009-02-17T15:56:00.004+01:00

I didn't know what intermittent fasting was till very recently. I read somewhere about somebody trying it. But I was believing the traditional wisdom that says that if you fast your body will eat your muscles. I still think prolonged fasting has that effect on you.

Nevertheless, I wasn't a believer of the "six meals a day" mantra. I believe that you'll be alright with three or four meals per day. Actually, I think that many people will overeat when having six small meals a day because they will consume many more overall calories than they would if they'd consume only three or four meals. Besides, I didn't believe that it was that crucial for mass gain and fat loss. All in all, I've always thought that unless very well planned "six meals a day" might not be your best choice.

Moreover, some days I had dinner only because it was dinner time. Not because I felt hungry. Of course, once I started eating I was hungry. So, sometimes I wondered if me having dinner was necessary or not. But, hey, you don't want to be wasting muscle.

Then, I came across intermittent fasting through the "Relative Strength Advantage" website and started to do some Googling. I found the Fast-5 Diet and I thought it was an interesting concept.

Basically, Fast-5 says: eat all you want during a 5-hour windows and fast the rest of the day. They recommend having this 5-hour window at the end of the day; although they say you can place the 5-hour window wherever is most suitable for you. But, for me, it makes more sense having breakfast and lunch and then fast (basically skipping dinner) than skipping breakfast and maybe also lunch. If I go to work on an empty stomach I'm completely useless.

I also found Leangains. Leangains modifies Fast-5 to have it in a 8-hour window with three meals for people that train.

All in all, it made me think that maybe if I don't feel hungry at dinner time I could safely skip it and just have a nice cup of green tea without worrying about losing muscle mass.

What do you think about it? Has somebody experimented with some sort of intermittent fasting? Did you get good results?

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Image Credit: jani.elizabeth

NEWBIE TAKEN AWAY FROM THE SQUAT RACK ...

2009-02-09T15:40:00.006+01:00

... AND BROUGHT TO THE USELESS SIDE OF THE GYM

Yesterday I was training doing shoulder presses and barbell bent over rows (alternating sets of both exercises). My gym doesn't have much space that is clear from machines. So the bar in which I was doing rows was too close to the squat rack. That usually isn't a problem because, unfortunately, this ain't a squatters gym.

Then I see a young man coming to the squat rack and immediately I kindly ask if he's gonna use the rack. He says 'yes' and shows me his gym workout printed in a page (I assume provided by the gym trainers) where he's pointing to a drawing of a man doing deep squats.

And, I'm all like thinking "Oh, my God. The trainers recommend deep squat to newbies. What a wonderful World". So I find another place to put my bar, and resume my training. After doing one set, I see he's now in a machine that "simulates" the squat. The heresy-machine is one that has you lying down on an horizontal bench with pads on your shoulders, and where you push a platform with your legs. So, basically, a completely useless and half-assed-simulation of the squat.

I usually don't talk and don't care in the gym. Hey, I'm working. But, this time I thought that the young man deserved better than that. So I go there, where he is with the trainer and ask: "Hey, weren't you going to do squats. And the trainer replies in behalf of the man: "I don't want him to do squats yet. We were going to do them in the smith but there's a guy training there".

That's when my soul was smashed back to the hard floor of reality. This is a commercial gym.

I still don't give up, so I kindly but firmly say: "This machine is completely useless. And doing squats in the smith injuries your back since our body cannot do the movement in a completely vertical and straight path. The squat is the real deal."

But the trainer (which, I'm sorry, but looks like he has never lift anything heavier than a pink dumbbell) replies "Well, I've been speaking with a lot of personal trainers and they all agree that squatting with a barbell is dangerous for your back and the smith is safe. This machine is not as save as the smith. But, the smith is taken right now so he'll have to do it here".

Here I give up. Who am I to contradict "a lot of personal trainers" that earn they living by giving such advice? The young man looks at me. By his look I get the feeling that he is sending me a telepathic message that says "Don't give up. Say something that convinces the trainer to let me do the SQUATS." But it's too late. I'm already thinking about a polite way to end the whole thing. And I find myself politely saying something like "Well, I guess each trainer has its methods".

And then, I start shutting my mind and getting ready for the next set. But, while the rest of the World (that is, everything but me and the barbell) starts to blur, I cannot help to have some voices in the head saying things like:
- You failed to the young man.
- You don't want to get into trouble with the management of the gym. On how many gyms will let you grunt and deadlift in this country?
- You still ...

Thoughts disappear... Now, there is only me and the barbell.

It's row time!

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Image Credit: Habitat for Humanity ReStore Elgin

F*CK, I'M SO TIRED

2009-02-01T16:45:00.002+01:00

If you remember, I'm training on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. I do so because It is so much easier for me to allocate two of the three training sessions in the weekend (when I don't have much else to do). Nevertheless, some Sundays are super tough. I feel sore at the beginning of the workout and I'm winded by the time I'm stretching. Today was one of those "Bloody Sundays".

Trying to minimize the "bloody Sunday" effect, I already have and "easier" workout on Sundays. But, easier just means neither squat nor deadlift (it is still a tough workout: barbell shoulder presses, barbell rows, weighted dips, and hanging hip raises).

Anyway, after my workout I drunk my liter of milk in the gym and ate my meat once back at home. And now, fortunately, since it's Sunday I can spend the rest of the day doing nothing but posting, reading blogs, and being lazy.

By the way, talking about reading blogs, I just found those two that seem pretty interesting ones:

- Double Your Gains

- Relative Strength Advantage

Enjoy

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Image Credit: Crossfit HEL

SQUAT MOTIVATIONAL POSTER

2009-01-23T17:15:00.004+01:00

I was google-ing for an image of somebody squatting. And I came across with this great squat motivational poster.

"SQUAT, because out there, a girl is warming up with your max."

Anyway, I was laughing, and I thought that I'd share the picture with you so you would laugh too.

But now, I'm thinking...

IT IS TRUE!

- If you are a boy (or a man), there IS a girl warming up with your max. (Girls, you know what to do, just go to the gym till you are the one who squats the biggest load. That should teach them.)

- And, if you have been training for many years, there IS a person that has been training for fewer years that squats much more than you.

So make sure you are training as hard as you can. Make sure you're not starting to take it easy because you're already more or less happy with your current loads.

Being the biggest squatter in your gym may make you proud. But the max squat in one gym might be a warm up load in another one.

P.D.: I wonder how much she squats.

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Image Credit: ???

SLOW PROGRESS IS STILL PROGRESS

2009-01-19T18:05:00.003+01:00

Last week it was a test for me. Specially in the Squat and Overhead press. If you remember, the previous week I only got 4,2,2 reps for the squat and 3,2,2 for the overhead press.

Well, last week I got 4,3,2 for the squat and 4,3,3. So, I guess I won't deload at all. Because slow progress (even that extra rep in the squat) is still progress.

Of course, I hope the speed increases soon, otherwise it's going to be hard to achieve my target for week number 16th (which is in April). But, still it's better than stalling.

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Image Credit: Rosina

WEIGHT PROGRESSION STRATEGIES

2009-01-12T14:22:00.003+01:00

COMING BACK AFTER A TWO WEEK HOLIDAYS

Last week it was my first week after my two week holidays. But, instead of having some light training sessions to build slowly to the poundages that I was lifting before the holidays, I just jumped to the gym with the program and poundages that I would have done if I wouldn't had that two week break.

That's right, and I even had an increase of 1 Kg in my squat and deadlift loads, just because I got my reps in those exercises the week before holidays. In retrospective, maybe I should have just kept the same loads than the last week. Or maybe not, because I got again all my reps in the deadlift again.

As you know, I'm doing 3 sets of 5 reps for almost all exercises. And, I consider to reduce load when I get less than 12 reps in the 3 sets. Well, the only exercises where I didn't got that 12 reps minimum where the squat (with 4,2,2 reps and feeling that my lower back was not too strong) and barbell shoulder presses (with 3,2,2 reps and feeling that my left triceps was fried). So, I think, I'm going to keep the poundages for those two exercises this week and see if I can get the 12 reps per exercise. Otherwise I'll drop 1 or 2Kg.

In the other exercises (weighted chins, bench press, deadlift and barbell row) my reps where alright.

All in all, I think it was a good idea. Although you might disagree with me and think that it was stupid to do so and that it could stunt my progress or risk injury. I think it gave an interesting shock to my body after those two weeks without going to the gym and I never got the feeling I was risking injury.

Maybe it's something to consider after a short gym-break. Maybe you don't need to drop much your poundages (or even at all) when you go back to the gym.

HOW MUCH TO INCREASE THE POUNDAGES ONCE YOU GET YOUR REPS

MuscleHack has an interesting post about how to increase poundages. Instead of having all your working sets with the same load, he suggests to have independent loads in each of your working sets for the same exercise. So you will provably have the most weight on your first set and a little bit less in each of the subsequent ones. Each time that you reach the target reps in any of the sets, you increase the load for that specific set without modifying the loads for the other sets.

I think I'm gonna keep having the same load for all my working sets but it really looks like an interesting thing to try. Maybe it's something you could consider. Specially if you're looking for some small change or tweak in you're program without changing the exercises.

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Image Credit: marielito

RESTING MY BODY AND MY SOUL FOR A COUPLE OF WEEKS

2008-12-24T15:19:00.000+01:00

Image Credit: vipa

KEFIR

2008-12-20T18:24:00.014+01:00

Today I started eating (or drinking, with kefir it's hard to say ;-P) kefir. Before I was eating yogurt (the real thing, not the one you find on most supermarkets). All this is part of an effort to help my intestinal flora to be healthy with the hope that it make me less prone to colds and flus. And, that it will improve my overall health. Which hopefully, will lead me to better progress in the gym.

Because, we have to try to have the best nutrition. Otherwise, all our efforts, sweat, tears and blood in the gym will not return the results we could have if everything nutrition-wise was as good as we can manage. A lot of people train hard and rest hard, but then fail to have a proper nutrition and get subpar results. Don't be that guy (or garl).

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Image Credit: toyfoto
Image Credit: hjselde

GRUNT!

2008-12-14T17:01:00.004+01:00

This weekend, after a lousy Squat Wednesday, has been great training-wise. I've already surpassed my poundages target that I had for the end of the year.

Maybe it's because I'm starting to recover from my colds. Although now I feel quite winded. Maybe it's the extra abbreviated training that is allowing better recovery. Maybe I've found some new motivation.

But one thing I'm sure:

Grunting has helped me to get more reps!

I'm not in a grunting gym. Hell, I'm the only one that deadlifts. But so far nobody seems to be bothered by my grunting. I'm glad about this.

I do not grunt very loud. People on the other corner of the gym might not hear me. Grunting very loud, would imply losing to much intra-abdominal pressure. Plus, I'd feel silly I just do some minor grunting at the bar before some tough sets and some grunting in the last reps of that set.

It makes me do more reps so I'll keep doing it.

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Image Credit: kelco

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

2008-12-08T16:44:00.007+01:00

Or, in other words, the information is in the Internet: How should you train, how the old timers trained, what should you eat to be healthy and strong, how to have a healthy live stile, how to avoid many modern illnesses, how to fight against your illnesses, how to surpass your limitations, how to have a simpler and happier life.

But it doesn't stop here. Nowadays, you can educate yourself about almost anything you want. You only have to learn to separate the wheat from the chaff. And, to realize that in this modern global world a lot of people lie to us deliberately so they can cash more money. A lot of times they even get their people into the government of many countries to push their lies even further. This is no conspiracy theory, it's just how money changes people.

They lie and they lie, even if that makes a lot of people sick and unhappy. That's tough to digest. But, don't take it personally. Don't let it affect you. Don't allow it to make you angry. Just feel compassion for them.

Just keep on learning. Adopt what works for you discard what does not. Don't give advice to people (unless they ask for it, and even then be cautious). Don't try to "save" them. Don't try to convince anybody about anything. Just change yourself. Let your acts speak for you without paying much attention to them. And keep walking.

It's alright. :-)

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Image Credit: Jay Dugger

SAUNA: OR HOW TO TRAIN WHILE HAVING A COLD

2008-11-29T17:05:00.005+01:00

After not going to the gym last week because a got the flu. This week I'm dealing with going to the gym while having a cold (with a little bit of sore throat). I think it's because my current bedroom is a little bit too cold and moist during the nights.

Anyway, what do I do to keep going and get pretty decent workouts?

First, I use an extra abbreviate training: Two exercises (superset but with rest after each set) and a finisher.

Wednesday: Squat / Weighed Chin ups. Grip.
Saturday: Bench Pres / Deadlift. Abs.
Sunday: Overhead Press / Barbell Row. Power Clean and Press singles.

What about cardio, you might ask? Only 3 minutes warm up before weight training, and 8 minutes cardio afterwards.

Then, some stretching (faster than usual so I don't get cold). And, finally, sauna sweat sauna.

Sauna is great when I'm not with a cold or flu. (And, I think it helps my progress in the gym). But it is just like being in heaven when you have a cold.

I notice my body stocking on the hit. So later during the day it doesn't have to spend that much energy keeping my body warm. Don't believe me. Just give it a try. After all, in some countries they have a saying that goes: "IF SAUNA DOES NOT CURE YOU, IT MEANS YOU ALREADY HAVE A FOOT ON THE GRAVE".

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Image Credit: cabin9

THE FLU? OK, NOW I'M PISSED

2008-11-22T16:34:00.003+01:00

Isn't it just typical? The same day that I posted about how well I'm progressing I get the flu!

I've been quite stressed at work and this combined with some other things have weakened my body defenses. Weekend with training sessions on both Saturday and Sunday where the two heavy iron straws that broke the camel's back.

Which reminds me that I should modify somehow my training so it doesn't drain my body defenses (at least during autumn/winter).

The good think about the flu is that puts everything in perspective. Now, I don't care about anything that was stressing me just some days before. I feel quite relaxed. And I'm just resting and reading for a week.

Some other times I went to the gym although I had the flue (which most of the times made the flu last longer), but this time I feel the right thing is just take a week off from almost everything. So I can come back the next week stronger than ever.

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Image Credit: VikaValter

IF IT WORKS, DONT'T FIX IT!

2008-11-16T16:30:00.009+01:00

In a previous post, I told you that in order to gauge my progress, recently I started again to sum my working loads for the squat, the bench press and the deadlift for any given week. This gives me a single number that is easier to track than trying to track everything that goes on my training log. If this number goes up I'm progressing, and I don't care much about which of the exercises are progressing and which ones are not.

I also told you that in week #42 I set a target for the end of this year (week #52).
"To increase this single number (my 'total' workload) by 10 kilograms". Which means increasing it by 1 Kg (I'm able to do 1Kg increases in the barbell).

So that was the goal. And, right now we are at the end of week #46 and I'll already know that I'll make it! In the picture you can see the chart of my progress. The X axis is the week number and the Y axis is my "total workload" (but showing only the last digit of the number).

I think the chart says it all. After plateauing for more than 6 weeks and fixing my goal I'm breaking through the plateau and I'm only 2Kg shy of my end-of-the-year goal.

I'm always looking for ways to improve my training. Even now that I'm progressing at good pace, I'm wondering what I could change to progress even faster.

By coincidence, yesterday's, Bill Hinbern, in his "Free Super Strength Training Newsletter" (which despite the name, is just an e-mail he sends regularly with training tips and motivations followed by recommendations of some of the books he sells) was talking about exactly this question:

"Am I doing enough?"

And his conclusion was that if your goal is to get stronger and your poundages are progressing then don't force it. Don't try to do more, otherwise you could hamper your progress.

In other words:

IF IT WORKS, DONT'T FIX IT!

If your loads are increasing don't touch anything till they stop increasing.

About my current success in increasing my working poundages, I believe it is due to the following key elements:

Having a good breakfast with eggs. Also bacon (and sometimes even cheese).
Drinking one liter of milk after weight training.
Using my mp3 player with most of the exercises.
Having a little bit longer saunas after training.
Having one day (of my 3 weekly workouts) in which I don't train legs.
My weight-loss has stalled. It was hard for me to try to lose lard and gain muscle at the same time.

TAI CHI AND MILK

2008-11-08T19:08:00.009+01:00

On a previous post, I mentioned that, besides going to the gym on Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday mornings, on Monday and Tuesday evenings I also do Tai chi chuan (Chen style).

It relaxes me and takes away a lot of stress while making me more aware of my movements in general. And, I feel it's good to my joints. Sure, there are many more benefits than just those. But, Tai Chi is something I've been only doing for few months so far.

Anyway, a problem I've been having with Tai Chi is that most of the time you are with your knees partially flexed. As you can imagine, after being one hour like this your quadriceps are screaming: "WE ARE TIRED!". Also, as the weeks were passing by, I started to feel as if my leg muscles had all the energy sucked out. It affected by Tai Chi practice. And I new I had to do something before it would start affecting my gym training.

My nutrition is low carb. And I remember having read somewhere than in Atkins (which is one of the low carb diets out there) the first weeks you could have a similar feeling and that taking a little bit more carbs would fix it.

So what did I do?

Well, let's talk about MILK. I hadn't been drinking much milk for a couple of months, although I have the sentence "SQUATS AND MILK" very present in my mind, because of its carb content.

Here were I live, UHT milk (at least the brand I drink) has the following contents per 100 milliliters (0.422675282 US cups):

Whole milk: 62,8 kcal; 3,10 g protein; 4,50 g carbs; 3,60 g fat; 130 mg calcium
Semi-skim: 45,0 kcal; 3,15 g protein; 4,60 g carbs; 1,55 g fat; 132 mg calcium
Skim milk: 34,3 kcal; 3,20 g protein; 4,70 g carbs; <0,3 g fat; 135 mg calcium

There is also "sterilized milk" which more or less the same numbers than above, although this one might be harder to find. I think I should try to find out what's the difference between UHT and sterilized milk (in vitamins, nutrients and so on). Let's see.

Anyway, these numbers mean that carb content is almost the same in whole and skim milk. I choose whole milk over skim milk because it HAS FAT. That should slow the effect carbs do to my insulin levels. And, also because it's less processed.

So what I do is I drink a liter of milk just after work out in the gym on Saturday and on Sunday (which are the heavy training days) and not on Wednesday. Then I go on with the cardio part. Well, usually I drink most of the liter before cardio and the rest after cardio and during stretching.

After two weeks, one thing is sure, now my legs don't feel like their muscles are being sucked out. Also I think it's making it easier for me to add pounds to the bar. On the dark side, I gain weight during the weekend but, so far, I seem to be able to lose it by Wednesday.

Still it's too soon to say anything, but it looks very promising. It could be a great way to avoid excessive glycogen depletion in my muscles and get stronger faster in the gym without adding pounds of fat in my frame.

I don't know a lot about nutrition, so if you want to tell me what you think about it, just leave a comment.

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Image Credit: JeremyJQuinn

THUNDERSTRUCK!

2008-11-01T19:31:00.005+01:00

I was Caught
In the middle of a railroad track
(Thunder)
I looked round
And I knew there was no turning back
(Thunder)
My mind raced
And I thought what could I do
(Thunder)
And I knew
There was no help, no help from you
(Thunder)
Sound of the guns
Beatin' in my heart
The thunder of guns
Tore me apart
You've been - thunderstruck!

Today I used my MP3 player in the gym for the first time. You gotta give it a try. It didn't make me rest less but it made me get more reps in the deadlift and the bench press. By the time it was Turkish getups turn, I didn't have anything left in the tank and was unable to do any rep with the usual load. Talk about intensity

On a side note, for exercises with a lot of balance (like the Turkish getups) maybe you'll find it is better for you to play the music only before the set and not during the set; as it could distract you.

Conclusion, give a try to the music in your training for new levels of intensity and motivation.

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Image Credit: AbleKay47

THE PROBLEM WITH DIET ADVICE

2008-10-31T15:14:00.012+01:00

I just read an article about fat loss at Figure Athlete by Chad Waterbury.

It takes her one paragraph to give diet advice, another paragraph to talk about stress, and the rest of the article to talk about training. Why? Because there is nothing complicated about dieting! We've made it complicated!

The training part was not of interest to me. But, in the diet paragraph, she says it all. The only thing I'd add to her diet advice would be not to eat processed foods and not to drink anything but water, milk, tea and coffee.

This is the diet advice paragraph:

The problem with diet advice is that there's really nothing new to say. We coaches know what works, and there's only so many ways we can dress up that pig long enough to hold your attention. I mean, come on, how many different ways can you tell someone to cut carbs, eat more vegetables, and add more protein?

'Nough said!

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Image Credit: Kiky ta ta ta taaaaaaaaaaaan

LEFT BICEPS

2008-10-25T20:14:00.004+02:00

Have I ever told you about my left biceps?

Well, if you follow this blog, you already know that I don't pay much attention to my biceps. I mean, don't get me wrong, they are important, like every muscle. But, they are not axial muscles, they are periferical muscles. And as such I don't train directly, although they get plenty of training.

To make myself clear, I don't do biceps curls, but I do weighted chin ups (with loads that make my lats AND my biceps beg for mercy). That's how I think periferical muscles should be trained.

But, when I look myself in the mirror, at home. Don't worry, you'll never catch me in the gym looking my biceps in the mirror. So, as I was saying, when I look myself in the mirror to see how my fat loss is progressing, and also to see if there is any new vein popping out in my body, and how the different muscles look; I cannot help to notice that my left biceps is much smaller than my right biceps.

Of course, I'm right handed, and that's quite normal, you'll say. But, In addition to that, when I completely flex it and contract it as much as I can, it feels tight at the end of the contraction and I cannot hold it for long. Or otherwise it hurts.

So that's not completely an aesthetic issue. There IS something wrong with my left biceps. And, believe you me, it is weaker than my right biceps. But, it is not a weak biceps at all.

Trying to solve it, for the last few days, I've been fully contracting for a while and then stretching it. I do this several times a day, when I'm alone. And, it seems that it's starting to get fixed. Maybe it will also help to make it a little bit bigger. But that's not my main concern.

I think it's gonna be fixed in a month or so. But, if any of you had the same problem, maybe you can share your experiences and possible fixes with me.

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Image Credit: gass2002

MORE ON PLANS, AND GOALS, AND KEEPING TRACK OF EVERYTHING

2008-10-19T18:00:00.008+02:00

MORE ON PLANNING FOR THE REAL WORLD.

I know that I have to reduce just a little bit my daily calorie intake (without actually counting calories). I know that the best meal to do that is dinner. But, I'm having a pretty heavy breakfast (two-eggs omelette with cheese and beacon, whole milk glass and a small piece of 85% chocolate. So it is actually EASIER to do a smaller breakfast than a smaller dinner. Of course I can only do that on non-working out days ans on days that I know that I'm not going to have a tough day at work.

Believe it or not, if your going to have a tough or stressful day, you'll better have a great breakfast. Otherwise, sugar will drop and you'll not be able to keep going. The solution IS NOT coffee and donuts once this happens, it's a good breakfast.

So, while I'll still have a great breakfast most of the days, I might reduce my breakfast some of the days of the week and, on the other days, I'll try harder to reduce my dinner. It's easier for my mind because I can always think: "It's OK that today I have a smaller dinner, tomorrow I'll have a bigger one because I'll have smaller breakfast." Yes, brain gets tricked that easily.

GOALS AND KEEPING TRACK OF EVERYTHING

In a previous post, I told you that the 3 kings (Squat, Deadlift, and Bench Press) where the most demanding exercises from a mental point of view. This is because these are the exercises that I use to gauge my progress. Which is not an uncommon approach. So, I sum my working loads for the squat, the bench press and the deadlift for any given week and I get a single number.

Sometimes it's easier to concentrate on this single number and just say: Each week this number has to go up by one Kilogram (two pounds). So if this week squat is too heavy to get the all the reps of my working sets (3x5) I'll have to get the reps in either the bench or the dead. And then you can say: "We are in week #42, by the end of the year (week #52) I'll have to have increased my 'total' by 10 kilograms".

And that's a goal. You know: specific, measurable and with a deadline.

So, just like this, you're gonna work harder and it's gonna be less taxing from a mental point of view than if you would have goals for every exercise you do. Well, at least that's what I'm gonna try for the remaining of the year.

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Image Credit: CoolPersonRobert

PLANS FOR THE REAL WORLD

2008-10-18T18:39:00.008+02:00

Sometimes we do plans like if we would think that we are perfect and live in an ideal world. That can actually be a bad idea. Of course, you have to see what works best for you. You have to know yourself, see in what kind of period of your live you are, and see if right now you can do a more strict plan or if, on the other hand, right now you have to do a more flexible plan.

With a more flexible plan, you have the risk that you actually have made it easier to cheat or to deviate from the program. So, you might be more tempted to do it. But, also you don't make a plan that you know you won't be able to follow at all.

You have to find your balance and be insultingly honest with you.

In my case:

1) I know that when training three times a week arranging in such a way that a train two days in a row is counterproductive. But I also now that I have plenty of time on Saturday and Sunday. And, that it's almost impossible for me to go to the gym two working days per week. Also, I know that, on Saturday and Sunday, after gym I have a lot of time to relax and recover. I don't do anything stressful or physically demanding. I just go out with friends (not in a party-animal, way of course), read, browse the Internet, post in my blog, watch movies, have enough sleep during the night, etc.

So my Saturdays and Sundays are actually: waking up not too early, having a good breakfast, hitting the gym like crazy, having a good lunch, and relax into the rest of the day.

2) My third workout day is Wednesday, but in the last four weeks I've missed the Wednesday workout twice. September and October are busy months at my work place.

So, knowing that, I've rearranged my workout in such a way that if I miss Wednesday's workout, I won't miss a critical exercise like the deadlift. Also, I make the Wednesday workout more "relaxing" from a mental point of view. I mean, I'll still lift like hell, but without doing any of the 3 kings (Squat, Deadlift, and Bench Press).

That might have as a negative side that I might be more tempted to skip Wednesday's workout. But I know myself enough, and I don't think that's gonna happen to me. The key is to know yourself and your current situation so you can estimate if planning for a little bit of slack is good or counterproductive for you.

By the way, yesterday afternoon, after my work day, I was feeling weird; kind of low and nervous and angry. I didn't know why. I was even considering to have a couple of beers to cool down, which I didn't. I thought that it was maybe because of the workweek or because drinking too much tea. But today, after I was coming back from the gym, I was all smooth and relaxed. And then it hit me, on Friday I was five days without going to the gym.

That's just to tell you that although I plan my workout in such a way that if I have to miss the Wednesday workout it's not a too big deal, I have a very good reason not to skip it: To keep my mental sanity. So if Wednesday morning is not an option, it will have to be Wednesday evening. And if even that is not an option, well, I've planned it in such a way that it's also OK.

So that means, that my workout plan has some minor adjustments (swapping Deadlifts and Power Cleans):

- Sa: Squat, DB Overhead Press, BB Row.
- Su: Bench Press, Deadlift, Turkish Getups.
- We: BB Overhead Press, Power Cleans, Chin ups.

Summing up, know yourself and find the balance of how strict your plans have to be so you get the best results.

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Image Credit: -Teddy

LOSING MY FAT ASS

2008-10-11T19:52:00.008+02:00

This year has been a good year for me in training. Not because my poundages have been going up like crazy. But, because my weight has dropped down. Actually, right now I'm the lightest ever in my life. It's funny because I thought that if I ever weighted what I weight right now I'd be completely ripped. Which I'm not. I can feel my six pack if I touch it, but I cannot see it.

That means that, most of the time, we carry more fat that what we think. That the magic number in which you'll be able to see your six pack is probably much lower than what you think. And, that a lot of what you think is muscle is just a layer of fat covering your much-smaller-than-what-you-think muscle. Believe me, it happened to me.

And that, basically, there is only one way to know what that magic number is: To get there... or close at least.

Now, you'll probably wonder how did I lose those substantial-amount-of-fat-covering-my-muscles while eating enough to be able to train three times per week with squats, power-cleans, deadlifts, preses, etc. Well, it's actually pretty simple:

1. Eating no processed food.
2. Drinking only water and tea.
3. Eating low carb.
4. Not starving.

1) Eating no processed food: Yes, it's doable. My only processed food are four supposed-to-contain-meat cylindrical croquettes twice a weak with my luch. Ok, recently I have a small piece of 85% cacao good quality chocolate with my breakfast, but that's it. Apart from that, everything is unprocessed: Omelets, salads with no dressing but olive oil, fish, meat, poultry, seafood, fruits, sometimes a few nuts, milk. There is only one way to do that, and it is to prepare yourself almost all of your meals. I even have a frying pan that allows me to cook meat, fish and omelets without using neither oil nor butter.

2) Drinking only water and tea: The hardest part for me is the not-drinking-alcohol part. I haven't had a drop of alcohol since beginning of March. Also, I'm not a coffee person (it makes me too nervous), I use tea instead. Juices have to much sugar and no fiber (eat the fruit instead of the juice), sodas are just plain unhealthy (get rid of them right now), and alcohol... well, you already know.

Actually, looking back the only periods of time where I've done some significant weight loss have been periods in which I haven't drink a drop of alcohol. For me, the message to take home is: You're not gonna loose weight if you drink alcohol.

3) Eating low carb: No bread, no pasta, no rice, no potatoes, no pizza. Also, one moth ago I substituted my breakfast of all bran cereals with milk by two-eggs omelet with cheese and bacon and three tablespoons of wheat bran with a glass of milk and a small piece of 85% cacao chocolate. The highest carb food I eat are one or two thin high fibber Swedish toast about every training day and a relatively low carb piece of fruit a day.

I'm not on strict Atkins (I'm working out three times per week so it doesn't sound like a good idea to me; and I don't want to count grams of carb), but I read the whole book (a thing that most Atkins critics have obviously not done) and I liked it (one of the thinks I specially like is when it says "if you don't exercise you're not doing Atkins"). I guess you could say that I'm doing a mild version of Atkins without having planned to do so. Actually, the only main modification to my nutrition after reading the Atkins book was the substitution of cereals by beacon-and-cheese omelet and the selection of relatively-lower-carb fruits.

4) Not starving: Cos otherwise, the muscle goes to the furnace. Let's drop only fat (well, let's try to drop mainly fat). How much muscle I've lost. Well, I don't now. But, my poundages haven't dropped. I'm stronger than before (although not much stronger).

A good thing about low carb is that you're less hungry. I know that, if I'm full, I can eat more and be hungry again if I eat white bread. And everybody knows that when you're full you can still eat dessert. Makes me think about low fat diets (and therefore high carb diets) as a bad idea.

Anyway, having a nutrition without processed foods, sodas and alcohol is far more important than whether you have it in a low carb way or in a low fat way.

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Image Credit: Patrick T Power

YOU STOP TRAINING AND I'LL SHOOT YOU!

2008-10-07T22:09:00.014+02:00

I DIDN'T STOP TRAINING!

Yeah, yeah. Eight months have passed since my last post. What happened? Well, I had to move to a different city and start all over. My live changed completely and I realized that I didn't have neither the kind of time nor the peace of mind to post here. So I thought that I would just stop posting all together.

Yep, those where stressful and tough times. Until I slowly adapted to my new situation and found a new balance, a new me.

But the good thing is that:

I DIDN'T STOP TRAINING! NOT FOR A SINGLE WEEK!

Even if it was only because I was well aware that the only thing that could keep my sanity during those tough times was to keep going to the gym three times per week NO MATTER WHAT!

And so I did.

There are always tough times in our lives. Big changes, losses, stressful periods. This is where our long term target is at risk. We know that we finally will achieve our long term target in the gym if we keep working hard with consistency and perseverance. But it is in those tough periods in our life when we might be tempted to stop going to the gym. When we will wonder "what's the point of going to the gym with all this stuff that is happening to me?".

In my case, I didn't have a choice. Fortunately, I'M ADDICTED TO THE GYM. I love my Squats, my Deadlifts, my Power Cleans, my Presses, my Barbell Bent Over Rows, my Turkish Getups, my Weighed ChinUps and even my Bench Presses.

So at the same time I was looking for a flat I was looking for a gym. And I managed to be training in a new one in less than one week. The new gym is not great. But it's OK. It meets my basic needs (namely, a squat rack and Olympic barbells and plates). And, it has a sauna that is on everyday but Sundays, which is great.

Nowadays, I train Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday (always during the morning, after breakfast). I don't like training two days in a row but for me it's the most convenient schedule nowadays. And one that I recommend in case you have difficulties finding time to go to the gym during the week.

My current workout is:

Saturday: Squats, Standing Dumbbell Shoulder Presses, Barbell BentOver Row.
Sunday: Bench Press, Power Cleans, Turkish GetUps.
Wednesday: Deadlift, Standing Barbell Shoulder Presses, Weighted Dips.

First and second exercise combined (one set of the first one, one set of the second one, and so on) and the third exercise alone. Total time 45 minutes. Then, 10 minutes cardio in the elliptic machine with a HIIT program. Then, hanging from a chinup bar till my hands open. And, finally, 30 minutes stretching and sauna (unless it's Sunday, that sauna is off).

Sets and reps: 5x5 where the two first sets are warm up sets with increasing warm up load and the three working sets are with the same load. Except for Turkish GetUps, that I do singles.

So, pretty much staying to the basic principles that I've always been advocating here.

On Monday and Tuesday evening I also do Tai chi chuan (Chen style). You can check Wikipedia:Tai_chi_chuan in case you're wondering what Tai chi chuan is. But, that's another story.

Anyway, the bottom line of this post is: No matter what, not even in your darkest hour, don't you ever stop training. That thought cannot cross your mind. It should be just as impossible as to stop breathing.

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Image Credit: Ar'alani

BIG GAINS IN THE BENCH PRESS IF WE STOP DOING IT WRONG

2008-03-03T18:43:00.003+01:00

Image Credit: Fulmen

Today I started with 5x5 supersets of bench press and power cleans. As you know, before, I was doing bench press without supersetting it with any other exercise, and with the classical 3x10.

I had several reasons for that, bench press is kind of busy spot in the gym and doing a 5 sets of bench presses alternated with another exercise seemed like I was hogging the bench unnecessarily. Also, I remember reading somewhere that bench press was one of the exercises that benefited the most from longer reps and that if you were on a plateau that was a good thing to try. But again, I've read so many stupid things about weight training. How do I know what to believe?

But finally I decided that 5x5 was probably what I needed to try. And, if anybody would ask to work in the bench of course I'll be glad to let him. Besides, I usually go during lunch time.

So, I've been doing the 5x5 bench press for several workouts and, although it is obvious that if you reduce the reps you'll be able to lift more weight, I feel I'm just easily increasing and increasing the load week by week. I'm already lifting more than 10% my previous 3x10 load. At least, mentally it's just great after so long in a plateau.

Also, since I'm in the 5 rep sets I'm not breathing before every single rep. I do this because Rippetoe's "Starting strength" says that although novices should be instructed to take a breath before each rep, "more experienced lifters may prefer to use one breath for the whole set".

I'm not comfortable with holding my breath the whole set. So, right now what I'm doing is: 3 reps, breath, 2 reps. I should remember to do a complete exhalation before inhaling for the set. That might allow me to do the whole set without breathing.

At the end it might be that what I needed to break my bench press plateau was to move to the good ol' 5x5.

P.D.: By the way, today was also Turkish getups. If you remember in my post "Big dumbbells for Turkish getup" I was using the dumbbells from the biggest set. These dumbbells have a thicker bar, so it's much harder to grip. So, last week I only got seven reps instead of the targeted fifteen reps. Today, I got the fifteen reps! Maybe I rested to much between some reps. But still. I see it as a great accomplishment.

About the picture: Yes, this is Arnold. It's doing inclined bench press and the post is about the flat bench press. But I think the post probably applies to any kind of bench press (inclined, flat or declined). And, yes, he is using a thumb-less grip which is dangerous and which you should never do. But, he is Arnold and the picture is just great.

HURT LEFT CALF ON SQUATS BUT IMPROVED TECHNIQUE

2008-03-01T18:55:00.000+01:00

Image Credit: Replicant?

Today in squats I've been working with the biggest load I've ever used. That's why it didn't sound too good idea to change my technique. But it had to be done, so I did it.

When I grip the bar a put my thumb around the bar. For me a thumb-less grip in squat was almost as stupid as in the bench press. But then I read Rippetoe's "Starting Strength" which advices to use the thumb-less grip and I thought that he must be right but that I should wait for my next deload to implement it.

But the thing is that I don't want to deload. I mean, I want to do whatever to postpone the point in which I'll have to deload. And, probably, proper grip is one of them.

So I tried it in the warm up set and it felt even more natural than the thumb-around grip. My wrists were in a more natural position. So I decided to go for it and use that grip for my working sets. It went great. So, from now on I'll use the thumb-less grip for squats. Before you start saying that that's not the proper grip for squats, read the Rippetoe's book.

It's good to see that after these years I still improve my technique. This reminds me of when I stop using the bar pad for squats.

Anyway, in the first rep of my third set I pulled something in my left calf because I descended too fast. But when I came up it didn't hurt so I continued. I could feel it only when hitting the hole so I finished the set. Maybe it would have been wiser to stop the set. But I'm not always very wise.

In the last rep, a foreigner guy, that must have thought that the bar was too big for somebody that small, came and spotted me my putting his arms on the sides of my ribcage. But I was already on the upper half of the squat, so I wasn't needing any help.

Anyway, it really surprised me that the guy knew so well how to spot squats. I thanked him and told him not too do it anymore. The guy kind of mumbled that it was too much weight while looking at me with disbelieve. But then I guess he understood that it wasn't too much weight for ME and moved on.

I studied the situation of my left calf. The more cautious thing would have been not to squat more, but the thing is that it didn't hurt at all. So I did the fourth set. While doing it, I felt again that it hurt a little bit when hitting the bottom of the squat. I failed my fourth rep and left the bar on the safety caches. Maybe my body is smarter than me. It happens a lot that if your body knows that your gonna injure yourself, it just pretends not to be strong enough and fails the rep.

Still, I felt great. So I decided to do a last 3 rep set and move to the rest of the workout. Did cardio on the inclined treadmill, did the usual stretching, and went home. Once the muscle cooled down it hurt more. So I applied some etofenamat cream (it's a anti-inflammation cream that has worked wonders for me in a lot of injuries). Etofenamat is not the name of the brand but the name of the main ingredient. The brand I'm using is Flogoprofen which absorbs really fast.

I hope that in a couple of days it will get fixed.

TRAINING LOGS AND TOUGH EXERCISES THAT DON'T FEEL TOUGH

2008-02-27T22:07:00.002+01:00

Image Credit: anvilorhammer

Today I saw somebody with a notepad in the gym. I assume that it was his weight training log. That would be very good news. Because usually I'm the only one who is writing down the loads, sets, reps and other kind of annotations in my gym. I didn't see him writing on the notepad. So I cannot be completely sure. And, anyway I had to focus on my training.

Today I was starting with a 5x5 superset of deadlift with dips which went very well. Last rep of most sets of deadlift where slow and tough, but that's OK. I paid special attention to make sure that the bar was as close as possible to my legs through all the motion and that weight was on my heels and not drifting to my toes.

Then, it was supersets of chin ups with abs. Biceps where fried too fast to get my chin up reps. Even after the workout I could feel my biceps fried for quite a while. Now, while I'm writing, triceps and traps are a little bit sore.

I still don't like the combination of exercises in this training day. Weighed dips, weighed chin ups and weighted abs are to me, psychologically speaking, just like bodyweight exercises. And with bodyweight exercises, no matter if you cannot get a fifth rep, you don't feel like you're working hard. So after the workout, I get the feeling that the only decent thing I did today was the deadlift. Even today, when I haven't been able to get all the reps in chin ups and when I'm using the biggest load ever in the dips. So, I leave the gym very tired but with the feeling that there is a more productive way to train.

That's just the feeling. I really believe dips and chin ups are great exercises. Just like barbell rows and preses. I'm sure you have a similar feeling with these exercises.

BIG DUMBBELLS FOR TURKISH GETUP

2008-02-23T18:49:00.006+01:00

Image Credit: Freshjyver

Today the power cleans where so tough that, although I got the reps, the last rep or last two reps of each set where not with proper form. In those reps, I was finishing the racking of the bar in my shoulders using my arms' strength while brushing my chest on the way up. I might have also done this in the last rep of some sets the last time too.

I think this is cheating and that from now on I shouldn't count the reps that I finish in this way. Just in the same way that in barbell row I don't count the reps that I finish with a wrist motion (which by the way can injure your wrist, so don't do it).

But the highlight of the training session was Turkish getups. It was my first day to do Turkish getups with the thicker bar dumbbell. In case you don't remember my gym has to sets of big dumbbells. The heavier set is rubber coated with thicker bars.

Of course, since the bar is thicker, the exercise is much harder. Plus it was 2Kg heavier than the last time. It was great. Very tough, but great. I couldn't rest the dumbbell in my chest anymore when changing hand (because breathing under such load only made me more tired). So the dumbbell was resting on my side.

It became more of a breathing Turkish getups set. As I would take 2 or 3 breaths after each rep. Finally, I failed in my eighth rep (it should have been 15 reps) with my left hand. But then I thought that it was because I didn't try it hard enough. So I decided to keep on going. Now, with my right hand. But I also failed the rep. After that my hands where hurting and my forearms where burning and swollen. So I considered the set finished.

Only seven reps but I now I'll get more reps the next time. The gap (4.5Kg) between the two dumbbell sets is too big, so it would be very inconvenient to do a deload now. Maybe I'll even get the 15 reps next time. Once my hands and forearms get used to the thicker bar. I think this is gonna be good as it's probably gonna have a great carry over in my deadlift (because of the increased grip strength).

Also I'm gonna use 5Kg less in the power cleans next time and make user I use proper form (which will also make me arrive to Turkish getups less tired). I'm starting to really love heavy Turkish getups.

SQUAT SO TOUGH AND I STILL HAVE THREE SETS TO GO

2008-02-20T18:29:00.003+01:00

Image Credit: munfitnessblog.com

Today's workout started with squats. But the last rep of my second set was so tough that I thought I wasn't going to get my 5x5. But I didn't want it to happen. I needed those reps. So I start analyzing what happened:

- I wasn't fast enough. I need to try to lift as explosive as I can (even when facing huge loads).
- My quads were extending a little bit faster that they should compared with my lower back. And then, my lower back had to finish the lift (instead of finishing with both at the same time).

So I went to do my barbell row set. Cos, that's what I superset with squats. By the time I went back to the squat rack I was determined to put the bar into around the moon.

I was faster, more upright, more explosive, more determined. I didn't put the bar into orbit. But I did something more important than that: I got my reps.

And, the same for the fourth set. And for the fifth. That's the way you do it.

Of course after this, I still had the 5x5 superset of shoulder press with hanging hip raises. And what is worst, last time I did the shoulder press I was far from getting the 5x5. This time I didn't get them either. But I was closer. If I don't get it next time I'll have to lower the load about 10 percent and start again. Let's see.

But never do less in the first half of your workout because you now that the second half is gonna be tough too. Before doing that, try to have shorter and more intense sessions.

Good luck in your training.

P.D.: I'm sure you recognized Franco Colombu, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ken Waller in this famous picture.

GOT YOUR REPS?

2008-02-16T18:14:00.002+01:00

Image Credit: howaye

Got your reps?
Cos nothing else matters.

Going to the gym. Getting your body and your mind in whatever mode they need to be, lift those iron monsters with good form, and get your reps.

It doesn't matter if you where parting yesterday.
Now you'll pay for it.

It doesn't matter if you feel tired or week.
It's probably just the lazy voice in your head.

Stop thinking that the iron monster is too heavy. That you're probably not gonna get the reps. Lift it. Feel it. And, what's more important, GET YOUR REPS!

IF THERE'S A WILL THERE'S A WAY

2008-02-13T23:12:00.003+01:00

Image Credit: sporksmith

Today my workout started with 5x5 superset of bench press with power cleans. At the end of my last set of power cleans, a man in his fifties came and asked me if I was doing weightlifting. To which I replied:
- No, I'm doing strength training. Weight lifting is actually a very technical discipline...
- Oh, cos I saw you training in a weird way similar to the way I friend of mine is training, but not quite the same. He's doing weightlifting.
- This is not a weird way to train -I replied smiling- what is weird is to only train biceps and pecs like so many people do here.
I said that loud enough so half of the gym heard it (not my intention to be loud, just the testosterone, I guess). I continued:
- Long time ago everybody was training this way.
- Oh so you are doing it the old school way.
He said while smiling. Afterwards, he thanked me for my time, tapped on my shoulder and left.

So that means that not everybody in my gym is a jerk. This really is a surprise.

Anyway, I moved to Hise shrugs, and then it was time for the finisher of the session: Turkish get ups (15 rep single set, alternating hands with the dumbbell resting between my pecs and abs).

The problem is that my gym has the typical set of dumbbells that go from 12.5Kg to 27.5Kg (with 2.5Kg increments) and another set that starts at 32 (dumbbells covered with some kind of rubber and that go with 2Kg increments).

So, yeah, what about a 30Kg dumbbell. Cos the 4.5Kg gap is huge. And, last time I did the Turkish get ups with 27.5Kg. I should do it with more but 32Kg sounds too much. My progress could stall.

Here is what I did: I brought a roll of athletic tape and taped two 1.25Kg to each end of the 27.5Kg dumbbell. Voilà, here you have the 30Kg dumbbell. The only problem is that I used two thirds of the tape. A gym trainer saw me doing the thing but he didn't say anything. I guess that he thinks I know what I'm doing. I have to confess that I was feeling a little bit embarrassed while doing the wrapping. I was hoping that people wouldn't notice or at least that they wouldn't say anything.

And with my new 30Kg dumbbell I started the pleasuring torture. I mean, the 15 rep each hand set. By the time I had done around 3 reps, an asshole said something like "Hey, somebody call an ambulance". I hate those pencil necks that make fun of people that train for real. Anyway, I just ignore him and keep doing my thing.

By the time I had done 12 reps there was complete silence in my usually noisy gym. Outside only silence and me, sweating. Came back inside. Inside, I was destroyed and defeated. And then somebody whispered with awe and respect "what a beast". And then I thought. "Yes, I am!". A shiver of energy went from my skull down to my spine and I did the last 3 reps with more focus than before.

After that I couldn't help but to lie on the floor while smiling for a minute. When I got up nobody was around. It was lunch time (that's exactly why I try to go to the gym around lunch time).

All the nervousness and fear I felt before going to the gym was gone. Now it was time for me to enjoy my victory. And to remember that believing in yourself is crucial in your training. Next time I'll try the 32Kg (no wrapping this time).

Just in the same way I found a way to get my 30Kg dumbbell, there are ways to get a save home squat rack. In this post you have another cool picture of a squat rack. I have to say I prefer this one (compared with the one in my previous post) because it acts also as safety catches. Maybe you can combine two sawhorses: One in a high position to be used as rack and another one in a low position to be used as a safety catches.

THE LAST SQUATTER AND HOW TO GET A CHEAP SQUAT RACK

2008-02-09T18:36:00.000+01:00

Image Credit: walshew

Today it was squats day. Once in the gym and after warm up I go to the squat rack. There is a guy (he's there quite often) in the rack with a bar (not an Olympic bar, but a fixed load bar) with some 2'5kg plates added on each side. He's doing biceps curls.

So I politely tell him that I'd like to do squats and that if he'd mind doing it somewhere else. He, also politely, replies that he only has a set left. So that's OK for me and I let him do his set.

During my 5x5 of superset of squat with barbell rows the gym trainer takes a spray air freshener and goes around the gym spraying here and there. He's pretending that this is just one of his usual chores and avoids spraying too close to me. But I think we all know that I'm the main reason. Or at least, I'm what made him remind about air freshening the gym.

I wish I was the norm in the gym instead of the alien. I wish we all did squats and deadlifts and power cleans and barbell rows and overhead presses.

After my first superset came the second one: overhead press with hanging hip raises. I have as a norm that when doing presses I clean the bar from the floor every set. There was almost nobody in the gym. I was tired and I thought that I could just stay with the bar on the floor in front of the rack for the presses. Nobody uses the rack anyway and the gym is almost empty.

But, before my last set I guy came and asked if I was done. So I answered that I wasn't done yet but that I could move away. And asked him what was he going to do. To which he replies that he'll just do something else.

After I finish I quickly remove the bar so the guy will see that the rack is free and shortly after he comes. And what does he do? Biceps curls! Just in the same way that the guy that was in the rack when I arrived in the gym!

Anyway, searching in flickr for a picture for this post I found this one by walshew with a great idea: using sawhorses as squat rack for your home gym. I know that is not related to the rest of the post but I thought it was just great. With this idea the amount of money required to get a home gym gets pretty low. Shame I don't have the space.

DEADLIFTS, CHIN UPS AND CLOWNS

2008-02-06T19:13:00.000+01:00

Image Credit: nyxolyno

My deadlift day used to look like this:
1. Supersets of 5x5 with deadlifts and chin ups
2. Supersets of 5x5 with dips and an abs exercise (like V-ups).
With abs sets being of 10 reps instead of 5 reps.

But, lately, my chin ups were affecting my deadlifts. And I cannot let ANYTHING interfering with my deadlifts. The Same goes for squats, of course.

So, today I superset deadlifts with dips and chin ups with ups. In this way there is less overlapping from the exercises worked in a superset. On the bad side, my lats and biceps are working the whole time (first with the deads and then with the chin ups).

I've been thinking about moving the chin ups to some other day's workout but I don't see where to fit it.

As you know there is no such a thing as a perfect workout program.

So I guess I'll just have to tough it up.

---

And, on an unrelated new, today I had problems trying to ignore the clowns of my gym. Especially the skinny guy that was looking at me while I was doing deadlifts and he was, you guessed it, doing biceps curls.

The lazy and jealous boys are all the same. They try to find something to make fun of you. No matter how obvious is that they are the pathetic ones in the gym.

In this case it was the fact that after 45 minutes of working hard (including deadlifting) I'm all sweaty and smelly. Which for me sounds quite normal. The skinny guy never even breaks a sweat.

So then, although it is obvious to everybody in the gym that I could break his pencil neck with my left hand, he makes fun saying to a friend of his that they should install some air freshener because it's really smelly there.

And then I make a big smile because, for me, the funny thing is that HE is making fun of ME. So I just empty my mind and move to the next exercise.

But afterwards, when I'm doing cardio it all comes back to me and I get really pissed. I know that I should just ignore them. Because it is really the only proper way to deal with this. Any reaction would be a waist of time and energy. I just have to cool down and imagine that I'm alone in the gym working out. It's just that sometimes it gets really hard not to get angry with the clowns. Specially if you've been deadlifting or squating.

GYM SUPPLEMENTS

2008-02-02T18:14:00.000+01:00

Image Credit: disdatmac (debbie T)

Not that I think I couldn't achieve my goals in the gym without supplements. But, when you're putting so much effort and thought into something, it's better to make sure your body is not missing anything.

About food:

- I eat a lot of meat, poultry, fish.
- I drink lots of water.
- I drink milk every day. And I drink a pint of milk just after coming home from my gym workouts.
- And of course, lots of salads, veggies, fruits, and a balanced diet.

And, this is the list of supplements I use:

- A good multivitamin pill almost every morning.
- Green tea the after lunch the days I go to the gym. I also drink it some other days.
- An Omega-3 pill with my pint of milk.
- Echinacea drops (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echinacea). It tastes like hell. I only manage to drink them once or twice per week.

And, after somebody's recommendation, I've just added two more supplements to my list:

- Guarana. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarana
- Maca. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepidium_meyenii

The good multivitamin is just to make sure my body is not missing anything. I drink green tea with the hope it will help me lose some fat and also because it's antioxidant effects. I take the omega-3 pill (I also try to eat sardines frequently) to help my joints. I use echinacea as an immunostimulator because gym workouts seem to leave my immune system without energy. And, now I'm trying guarana and maca (both are plants) to give me more energy in the gym and to help me speed up my metabolism. I don't drink coffee.

Of course, all those supplements are useless if you don't have a good and balanced diet. And they are quite cheap. Do I need anything else? I don't think so. And I'm not willing to spend a lot of money for pills that either have no effects at all or that ruin your health.

And neither should you.

PEC ENVY

2008-01-30T19:06:00.000+01:00

Image Credit: bodybuilding.ericsgym.com

Today in the gym, after a set of squats a guy came and ask me to spot him in the bench press. I came with him and could see that he had bumper plates on the bar. That's kind of typical. Normal plates are much closer to the bench and bumper plates are close to the squat rack. Which kind of makes sense.

But, in our gym normal plates are all painted red and of course they are much smaller than bumper plates. On the other hand, bumper plates are bigger and have that color code so you know how much they weight from a mile. So, when somebody really wants everybody in the gym to notice how much they bench press, they put bumper plates.

He is young, so we can forgive him. But then, the bar has no safety collars. I casually say: "Hey, you forgot the safety clips." To which he replies, "I never use them. What could happen?" I only manage to say something like "Well, I guess you don't use safety belt in your car when you drive either. It's you're neck."

Anyway, he tells me he's gonna do 4 reps unassisted and then maybe 1 or 2. And that's actually what he does. None of the reps touch his chest. They stay maybe half an inch short. The before the fourth unassisted rep he brings his legs up and crosses them. Luckily he doesn't loose his balance when doing the fourth rep in such unstable position. And then he gets 2 assisted reps with not much help from me. I know how to spot! He actually thanks me for the good spot at the end of the set. Most people help too soon and too much.

So, alright, I'm not that impressed. The guy has no legs and the bar didn't touch his chest on any of the reps. But, still he benched with a weight much bigger than what I use currently. And, OK, I do 3x10 in the bench press and the bench press is my worst exercise. My best exercise is squats.

But still, in the back of my head I got a little envious. And, actually, bench press is the only exercise that I do in a 3x10 set/rep scheme. I do most of the exercise with the 5x5. Of course, if I move from 3x10 to 5x5 I should be able to lift more. And, of course, in general 5x5 is a very good (if not the best) set/rep scheme for strength. But, is it too for the bench press? And, should I change right now, or wait for the next plateau?

BEER

2008-01-26T18:18:00.000+01:00

Image Credit: a4gpa

Today workout was starting with 5x5 superset of Deadlift and chin ups. Now that my deadlift loads start to get bigger it seems it's not possible to do it together with chin ups. I'll probably have to think about reorganizing the exercises.

I got my deadlift reps. Which was the most important thing. But I didn't got my chin up reps. And, afterwards, in my 5x5 superset of dips and abs (abs sets are actually 10 rep sets) I didn't got my dip reps.

Why. Oh well, everybody has bad training days. But I bet it had to do with something I did yesterday:

Drinking beers.

Which is twice a bad thing because it affects my performance in the gym and because it doesn't allow me to lose that fat I need to get rid of.

THIRST!

2008-01-24T22:41:00.000+01:00

Image Credit: buggee

Yesterday I was training when we realize that the gym didn't have running water. I was about to start my 5x5 superset of power cleans and shoulder press and that was very bad news.

I sweat quite a lot in the gym and I usually drink after every second set. So when I came to the gym trainer and asked him about the problem and if he had a bottle of water for me he smiled because he realized this was going to be a big problem for me. Also, I guess, because by now he knows this is not going to be a reason for me to stop my workout.

Anyway, he didn't have any bottle of water. So I came back to my two loaded barbells looking down. They didn't seem to care much about our water problem. That calmed me down. I thought "Well, that's gonna shock my system for sure. Let's do it!".

Six sets latter I was feeling like the one in the picture. But I had the determination and the confidence to finish my workout. Although it looked I wouldn't get the 5 reps on the last two sets of shoulder press.

But then the running water problem got somehow fixed and I went smiling to fountain. I drink a lot of water. I drink even more than what my thirst ordered me to. Just in case, the think could get broken again. And, after that me and my full camel hump went trotting back to the barbells.

Didn't get the 5 reps on the two last sets of shoulder presses (I got 3,3) but that's OK.

STRETCH!

2008-01-20T17:30:00.000+01:00

Image Credit: hangglide

My workout sessions are usually: 1 hour weights (which includes 5 minutes warm up), 30 minutes cardio and 30 minutes stretching. For me, stretching (except mild stretching) before doing weights or cardio doesn't make much sense. Actually, I thing it's a great way to then injure yourself when doing the weights or cardio. But you should stretch afterwards. Doing so, you not only increase your flexibility, but you also reduce the risk of injury due to the exercise you just did, reduce the muscle soreness you will have the following days, and make those muscles stronger. So for me, it's really a no brainer.

Today, I was in the gym doing my stretches. I was tired, specially from squats and barbell rows. But I did the stretching. Usually not many people go to the stretching area, and when they do their like 5 minutes and leave. But today I even heard a guy telling to a friend that was doing some good stretching: "What's the point in getting even more flexible?".

Forget what the lazy people might say. I know you're tired, I know you worked hard, but before you hit the shower get that extra mile. Stretch!

FIRST MICROCICLE AFTER THE BREAK

2008-01-14T17:57:00.000+01:00

Image Credit: ifbb.com

Today I've done the third workout of the year. That means I've finished the first microcicle after the break I took for holidays. The main modification in my program is that I reduced drastically the gluteus work by taking away SLDLs and lunges out of the program. Even doing that, today my gluteus were a little bit sore form the workout I did two days ago.

Today I did:

- Superset of 5x5: Deadlifts and Chin ups.
- Superset of 5x5: Dips and Altering arms bent press.

I don't know if the bent press is there to stay. Maybe I'll be doing different exercises every time instead.

But, while I was doing a guy asked me what did this exercise do. I only said "wait", finished the set and instructed him not to talk to me when I'm in the middle of a set. I might have looked a little bit mad because the guy hurried to apologize and he even told me that it won't happen anymore.

Anyway, since one of my new year resolutions is to be nicer and more helpful to the others in the gym. I instructed him about the lift. By the look in his face it was clear that he didn't want it to try, otherwise I'd have coached him in his first encounter with the bent press.

IMPROVING MY TURKISH GET UPS

2008-01-12T18:45:00.000+01:00

Image Credit:
Mr. Low Body Fat

Today I got more efficient on my Turkish get ups.

In the Turkish get ups there is this tricky moment where you are trying to bring your legs from the front to the back. But, here's a thing, when you start to use heavy weights, your body starts to look for more efficient patterns.

I noticed that when I was tired and my lifting arm was my left arm, I would do some kind of little jump when bringing my legs to the back in such a way that for a small fraction of second the only point of contact with the floor was my right arm. Since my left arm is weaker and I kind of have learned this movement pattern when getting up off the floor, I couldn't do it with the other arm.

But now that I've done a small deload in this exercise I've been able to do this kind of small hop that makes the whole exercise more efficient. And I guess that I'm using my lats much more in the mini-hop part.

Another good thing, in my opinion, is that when I land my feet on the floor one of them is on their toes and the other one is almost flat. This way I can exert more strength than if one leg is on its tibialis anterior.

You could give it a try. Of course, first with a small dumbbell.

THE CALL OF THE IRON

2008-01-09T17:09:00.000+01:00

Image Credit: Khushroo Ghadiali

Yesterday I came back from my holidays. I was pretty tired and my lower back was a little bit sore from sleeping in improvised beds, going around with a rock sack and from my plane trip back home.

So today I thought that I wouldn't go to the gym. Although that meant that I'd probably have to wait till Saturday. But by midday I started to hear the call of the iron. My lower back wasn't hurting, I didn't felt tired and I had I hunger for iron.

So I followed the call.

Workout started with squats. I did a deload of 10% because of how went my last squat workout. I was actually thinking of doing a deload of 5% but the warm up sets suggested that 10% was wiser. On the other exercises I just did a deload of 2.5Kg.

Squats felt harder that what I thought they'd be. But that's probably just because I forgot how hard squats are. On the other exercises -barbell row, overhead press and hanging hip raises- I felt stronger than ever and my cardiovascular system wasn't as challenged as usually.

After the workout I went to for a run. And this time my cardiovascular system was more challenged than usually.

Now I feel tired and happy. I followed the call. Can't you hear the call?

RESTING MY BODY AND MY MIND FOR A FEW DAYS

2007-12-26T15:17:00.000+01:00

Image Credit: vipa

MY LAST DEADLIFT THIS YEAR

2007-12-26T14:25:00.000+01:00

Image Credit: Egill Bjarki

Today I've done my last workout of the year. I might still do something light and funny. Maybe going to play with my rings in the park, or going to run a little bit. But today was my last real workout of year.

Workout which, by the way, had as main star the deadlift. Lower back seems completely recovered from the injury. And, the poundages are going up to what is now a decent load: almost 75% of my best ever. Please note that my best ever was not with the best form ever. Otherwise I wouldn't have injured my lower back.

Anyway, hopefully next year I shall reach that level again and even surpass it. I'm really looking forward to see how these next months are gonna unfold.

Back to the workout: 5x5 superset of Deadlift and weighted chin ups and then 3x5 of weighted dips superset with a 3x10 of knives. Knives instead of lunges cos now, after having punished my gluteus so badly during the last weeks, lunges are out of the question.

Why only 3 sets on the second block of my workout? Well, it turns out that there is something going outside the gyms called Xmas that made the gym close today at 2PM. That and some moaning coming from the gym workers about the fact that they have families. I didn't know about it so I had to cut my workout a little bit short. Still, no big deal.

I'm not complaining, one of the few good things of my gym is that it only closes 2 days a year (December 25th and January the first).

Now it's time to look at the workout log of the whole year and see how much have we progressed, see what worked and what didn't, and learn from our mistakes.

Please, tell me you have a workout log!

HOW DUMB CAN GYM TRAINERS GET?

2007-12-23T16:25:00.000+01:00

Image Credit: Scoutj

This Saturday I was on the gym. Still angry about the squats on Wednesday. Anyway, workout-B hardly punishes my gluteus and hams, so I thought I'd be fine.

I made my targeted reps on all the sets and it the only thing that I still had to do was the finisher: Turkish getups.

Great exercise. With a heavy dumbbell alternating hands and placing the dumbbell on my chest/upper abs to change hands. So brutal that it makes me smile. I didn't know if I'd get the 15 reps per hand but for sure I was going to try it.

A was about my fifth rep when a trainer asked me if she could watch! I couldn't believe it! You don't talk to somebody in the middle of an exercise! I think I nodded my head while having the dumbbell on my chest to change hands. Forgot the thing and focus again.

But the trainer talked to me again! She asked me what was the name of the exercise, if I invented it, and if I did that because I was on martial arts!

I failed the rep. I think I told her without looking at her that I couldn't do the exercise and talk at the same time. She still had a couple of questions! I wanted to cold murder her. Somehow she got the hint -maybe the expression on my face- and sat quiet.

I had lost only a couple of seconds, so repeated the failed rep and kept moving on. On my nine rep it was obvious that my wrists were so fried that any more rep I was risking an injury. So I got all the focus and strength that was left and did one more to get the round number of 10 reps. I don't think I would have done many more reps if she didn't break my concentration, but I'll never know.

Once I was done, I was frustrated because I didn't get the 15 reps. But first things first. I looked around to see if she was around to instruct her not to talk to me never again while I was in the middle of an exercise. But she was gone. I'll try to tell her in a polite way next time I see her.

But my question is: How dumb gym trainers can get?

Because one think is not to know what Turkish getups are, but not to know that you cannot talk to somebody that is lifting a huge dumbbell over his/her head... Well, that's just dumb.

ASS OVERTRAINED

2007-12-23T14:15:00.000+01:00

Image Credit: FlickrBandit

If you remember my workout was this one:

Workout A:
Superset 5x5: Squats and Barbell Rows
Superset 5x5: Stiff-legged Dead Lift and Hanging Hip Raises

Workout B:
Bench press 10x3
Superset 5x5: Power Cleans and Over-Head Presses
Hise shrugs: 1x20
Alternated Turkish getups: 1x15

Workout C:
Superset 5x5: DealLift and Chin Ups
Superset 5x5: Lunges and Dips

But, for the last four weeks or so, doing squats in workout-A after having done deadlifts and lunges in workout-C was very hard on my ass. Well, I mean, on my gluteus and hamstrings. They were very sore and sometimes it was quite painful.

But, you know, poundages were progressing, so I thought "body will adapt". It turns out that it did not. It accumulated fatigue and more fatigue till last Wednesday. On that day it was workout-A and my gluteus and hams were very sore. Anyway, I went to the gym. Squats were waiting with 2.5Kg more than last time. And I thought: "So what, if you get something like 5,5,5,3,2 still will be good". But I got a painful 5 (with my face completely red) and then a 4 (couldn't get out of the hole on the fifth rep and I had to leave the bar on the safety catches). I could not believe this.

Now, for you will be very easy to say that it was bound to happen because squats, SLDLs, deadlifts and lunges are too much gluteus and ham work. Actually, I was starting to think so and I had planned to change it after the break I'm gonna take at the end of this year and to substitute lunges and maybe SLDLs for some other exercises for the upper body. In fact this was my last day with squats before the break. So I thought that was over-reaching rather that over-training.

I decided to do drop sets with the 3 remaining sets (since I was super-setting with Rows). First time I didn't drop enough (2.5Kg) and did 2 reps. On the other sets I decide to take off 5kg each set and things went fine.

After that I did overhead presses instead of SLDLs and I think I'm going to keep that change in my workout program. I still need to find a substitute for Lunges. Anyway, next time I'll overtrain (or burn) a muscle I'll be able to recognize the symptoms and adapt my training program.

At least I can be happy that it was my gluteus and hams and not my pecs and biceps the muscles I was given too much attention.

TODAY A GUY GOT INJURED DOING SQUATS IN A SMITH

2007-11-28T18:05:00.000+01:00

In the first half of my training session I could see how a guy got injured in his knee while doing squats in a smith. He doesn't know he is relatively lucky, because he could have injured his lower back instead.

In the second half of my training session I was doing my superset 5x5 of Stiff-legged Dead Lift and Hanging Hip Raises. By the way, maybe that wasn't clear enough two posts ago. I do rest between one minute and one a half minutes after each set (in a strict superset you don't rest at all).

Anyway, while a was resting between two sets, a guy that just arrived said something that somebody is going to get injured sooner or later. Which a thought it was funny because somebody just did. I thought that he was talking about the stupid people that do exercises cheating and without proper form. But then he kept on with the thing that that gym was looking like a circus. So I realized, this must be the circus guy. He is making fun of me. One of the few people here that train hard. But it was already time for my next set, so I just forgot the whole thing and got back into my world.

At the end of my workout a looked around, including the guy that made fun of me and I thought:

Yes, definitely this gym looks like a circus. It's full of clowns.

CIRQUE DU SOLEIL

2007-11-21T17:27:00.001+01:00

Today I was finishing my workout with a set of 20 reps of Turkish get-ups alternating hands (so 20 with my left arm and 20 with my right arm). Trying to ignore the stupid teenagers that where pretending to be training. And then I here one of them saying something like "this gym starts to look like 'Cirque du soleil'.

Everybody except me was chatting, doing biceps or similar exercises so I guess he tried to make fun of me. Which reminds me that I need to find a real gym...

But, anyway, it remind me also of the kids that make fun of the kid that always do his or her homeworks and gets good grades. They know that the kid that does the homeworks, be it an intelligent kid or not, will succeed and that they won't. They are jealous and that's why they make fun of you.

Kind of the same happens in the gym. It doesn't matter if you're weak or strong. If you train like you have to train, you will succeed in getting stronger. And they know that. So don't stop doing what we know it works. Have the courage to do what works! They are just jealous.

By the way, they wish they had the strength and endurance that the people from
'Cirque du soleil' display in each of their shows.

MY CURRENT PROGRAM

2007-11-14T17:28:00.000+01:00

My current program has most of the exercises done in a 5x5 set/rep scheme and super-set with another exercise also performed in a 5x5 manner.

There are 3 workouts and I go twice per week to the gym. I'd love to go more often but right now is complicated.

It's supposed to be done in 1 hour (including warm up). Afterwards 30 mins cardio.

Workout A:
Superset 5x5: Squats and Barbell Rows
Superset 5x5: Stiff-legged Dead Lift and Hanging Hip Raises

Workout B:
Bench press 10x3
Superset 5x5: Power Cleans and Over-Head Presses
Hise shrugs: 1x20
Alternated Turkish getups: 1x15

Workout C:
Superset 5x5: DealLift and Chin Ups
Superset 5x5: Lunges and Dips

Nothing too fancy. Just the, what I consider the most important exercises, in a 5x5 manner. The only unusual thing might be the super-setting of the 5x5s. But, I like it.

GOING TO THE GYM WHEN HAVING A COLD

2007-11-14T17:13:00.000+01:00

Winter is coming and I already had my first serious cold. I've actually taken a couple of days off from work. That means that I have to be extra-careful when going to the gym.

What I do is doing everything I can to stay warm all the time:

- Try to reduce my time between exercises (use super-setting most of the time).
- I don't do rowing for cardio (I get kind of cold rowing). I only do inclined treadmill with a hooded sweatshirt (with the hood down).
- I'm kind of sweaty, so after cardio I jog to my place, take a shower, and only afterwards do all my stretching. Stretching all sweaty was like begging for the flu.

BURSTING MY WRIST GANGLION CYST

2007-10-20T17:15:00.000+02:00

I had a ganglion cyst in my left wrist for quite some time. The size of a chickpea. It was very annoying although not quite painful. But I couldn't clean a bar in the gym and push days in the gym were hard and painful.

So yesterday I found this page:

http://orthopedics.about.com/cs/handwristsurgery/a/wristganglion.htm

Were they talked about wrist ganglion cyst and read:

8<--------------------------------------------------------------------
Another alternative, that some call traditional, others call a bit barbaric, is to smash the wrist ganglion cyst with a hard object such as a book. This pops the cyst, and ruptures the lining of the cyst. Because the lining is disrupted, the smashed ganglion cyst may not return quite as often as those drained by a needle. However, many patients are uncomfortable with their doctor 'whacking' a book against their wrist...
-------------------------------------------------------------------->8

So I took a softcover 500-pages book and smashed it against the thing. It was more of a technical than a very strong impact. When I took away the book, the ganglion cyst had disappeared.

After a few minutes there was a little bit of inflammation, like if there was some liquid inside. But it disappeared in a couple of hours. Today is almost like there was never there. Maybe, if compare both of my wrists, there is a little bit of liquid retention in my left wrist.

So today I had a happy push day at my gym. And I cleaned a bar just to check I could. No problems whatsoever.

Bottom line. I'm not a doctor. I'm not telling what you should do. I'm telling you what I did and that it worked for me. Maybe you have the same problem and after reading this post you decide to give it a try.

THE MIRROR MUSCLES

2007-10-08T14:49:00.001+02:00

Last Saturday I was working out and I needed a low mini bench that we have in the gym for box squats. The normal benches that we have are just too high. So start looking for it and I see that two guys that come quite often are using it and they are alternating sets. So, no chance for me.

But what really pisses me off is what they are using it for. They are doing incline dumbbell bench press and use the mini bench to leave the dumbbells so they can lift the dumbbells from there and get into position for the set.

F*ck it. I clean the dumbbells and sit in the bench without much trouble. Maybe that's because I train legs and back and they only train the "mirror muscles". To make it even works they clang the dumbbells loudly at every single rep.

Anyway, I thing I'll give it a chance and ask them politely if we could alternate the use of the mini bench. Guessing they might say something like "Sure, we don't really need this for inclined bench press." But, no luck.

In case your training only the mirror muscles be aware that you will en up with a body unable to work as a unit or for any practical purpose. Just like those two guys. Unable to lift the weight they bench press.

INTERESTING "HEALTH AND NUTRITION" BLOG

2007-10-05T15:39:00.000+02:00

I found through a post in stumpblog (http://stumptuous.com/cms/stumptuousblog.php) and interesting blog called "Health & Nutrition by Michael R. Eades, M.D." (http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/).

It seems an interesting blog about nutrition that (by looking at the last posts) seems to advocate for low-carb diets.

So it might be of help in our quest to get rid of the fat that covers our muscles.

SQUATTING WITH VERY SORE LEGS

2007-09-24T16:20:00.001+02:00

Two days ago a had a workout that included a 5x5 Deadlifts, 2x10 box squats and 2x12 lunges.

Yesterday my legs and my ass were sore.

Today my legs and my ass were VERY sore.

But, what can I do? Today is squatting day. So I headed to the gym, thinking that it will be tough but that most of the soreness will go away with the warm up set.

I was so wrong. The soreness didn't go away a bit. The first working set was perfect. But it was also very painful. The good part, if there is a good part to this kind of punishment, is that a could feel all my muscles while doing the 10 reps of the set.

The second set was ugly. After a first half of the set the pain was so intense that I needed to look up to get out of the hole. Bad thing, cos I got blinded by the sun going through a high window. Anyway, somehow I finished the second set with only 8 reps (when last week I was able to do 9) with good form in all reps except maybe a little in the last rep.

So, not so bad. I guess this is the kind of stuff that builds character. I just hope is not like this every week, or I'll have to adjust the workouts.

After Squats, it was Stiff-Legged DeadLifts (SLDLs). So, I was expecting to keep with the same kind of punishment. But, for some strange reason my legs didn't hurt that much and after finishing the sets with the target reps my legs felt slightly better.

After finishing the workout and the cardio, stretching the legs was very painful. But, I new it was necessary. I really hope next week will be better. By better I mean less painful.

STRONGLIFTS.COM

2007-09-22T18:09:00.002+02:00

I added to the links list 'Stronglifts.com'. This blog, written by a Belgium guy called Mehdi, has as great plus that gets a post each day. So if you need a little push before going to the gym. You can just check out his last post.

Mehdi is doing a great job with his blog. Not like me (this is my third post this month). ;-P

I NEED TO GET THESE REPS!

2007-09-22T18:09:00.001+02:00

Today I started my workout with the 5x5 Deadlift. Lately, before every challenging set (that is, almost every set I do) when there is the doubt in my mind, I say to myself "I need to get these reps. And I need to perform them in perfect form. I need to get these reps!". And then, I do the set. Most of the times I get the reps. Some times I get one or two reps short of my target. But that doesn't really matters. What matters is that I really really try to get them.

I've been changing what I use before doing a set to get my reps. Now it's the "I need those reps!" scream. Before, it was a wordless animal "GRRRR!!!". As I said I don't say these things aloud, I say them to myself. Other gym members don't need to be impressed or bothered.

Try to see what gets you there. You might look like you want to kill somebody just before each set (which is good because that way nobody is going to interrupt your training) but that's OK in my book.

SUPERSET OF 5x5 DEADLIFT AND CHIN UPS FOR STARTERS

2007-09-16T16:47:00.000+02:00

Yes, I mean starting a workout with a 5x5 Deadlift superset with a 5x5 chin ups. No, I'm not recommend in you to try it (although, feel free to give it a try). It's just what I'm doing to reintroduce deadlifts to my weekly diet.

The overall 3-day split workout looks kind of messy, but it has all the ingredients (exercises) I want.

As you might guess, my grip was fried afterwards. But the feeling was good. I started with a quite conservative load and I'm increasing it by 2.5Kg each week.

Since loads are sub-maximal I'm also trying work on my form. Let's see.

I GOTTA DEADLIFT AGAIN

2007-08-28T15:10:00.000+02:00

It's been since week #23 that I haven't done deadlifts. This week is week #36.

I stopped doing them cause I change the program for a west side kind of program and I had the squat as main exercise in ME for the legs and back day. I guess I should have changed. But I can't see myself without squatting for even a week.

To make things worst I was still not in my best poundages in the deadlift (I was slowly increasing up the load due to that lower back injury). Now that I jump back to a 3-day week program I have to put an end to this.

I don't want to completely stop doing speed/explosive days because I think they have helped a lot in my training. But I MUST start doing deadlifts again.

Let's see how I combine the whole thing into a workout.

Maybe keeping the ME days for leg/back and press and having a day in which I do a 5x5 of deadlifts and then some speed/explosive exercises. Let's see.

GOOD SQUAT TECHNIQUE VIDEOS

2007-08-17T17:19:00.001+02:00

I see in Krista's blog ( http://stumptuous.com/cms/stumptuousblog.php ) a post titled 'This guy knows squat' with links to good squat technique videos. They are really worth seeing for all you squatters.

I you don't find the post just search for "squat rx" in youtube.
Or even better. Check youtube user page of the guy that is posting them:

http://youtube.com/user/johnnymnemonic2

Enjoy!

REDUCING CARDIO INTENSITY

2007-08-17T17:02:00.000+02:00

This 4-days a week program is starting to hurt my knees. But is not because of the weights. It's because of the cardio. I usually do 30 minutes cardio. Many times is HIIT and some other times is just high intensity.

But moving from a 3-days to a 4-days program the intensity is starting to get to my knees. So today I decided to reduce it's intensity and did 15 minutes row and 15 elliptic in a less intense way.

Anyway, in a couple of weeks I'll have to go back to work. Which will force me to back to a 3-day program.

TODAY I FAILED TO A GIRL IN THE GYM

2007-08-03T16:51:00.000+02:00

I was in the last part of my workout when a saw a girl doing one arm dumbbell rows with a tiny dumbbell. That she was doing it with a tiny dumbbell was alright to me. She was obviously still learning the exercise. But she was doing it with her upper back bended in a way that it couldn't be good to her spine.

I was very tired, because I was in the last part of my workout. And I've seen many people doing stupid things. But she wasn't doing stupid things in order to lift more. She was trying to do the exercise right.

The voice in my head is too strong to ignore it: "Give back to the sport".

So I talk to her pointing the problem of the curved back and I say that the gym trainer could teach her proper form. There is always a gym trainer in our gym. Not that they are very useful. But, I think teaching one arm dumbbell row is something they should be able to do. So I go back to my workout and the girl goes to seek the gym trainer assistance.

After a short while (my set) I can see that the trainer (which was also a girl) has redirected her to a machine version of the row.

And then the voice in my head says even stronger than before: "You've failed to that girl".

I can imagine what happened. The trainer didn't even try to teach proper form and redirected her to the machines. Or maybe just gave instructions and when she saw that still the girl wasn't doing it right sent her to the machines.

I taught once to do the exercise right to a person and I know it takes some time to get it right. For sure more time than it takes to me to do a set of any given exercise.

Next time I won't redirect anybody to any gym trainer.

NOT EVEN HELL IS TOO HOT TOO TRAIN

2007-07-31T15:48:00.000+02:00

July and August are the hottest months of the year for us living in the north half of the planet. In some countries that means REALLY HOT.

So here it is again, the small lazy voice saying:

- Hey, it's too hot to train. Let's take a week off.

Or:

- Hey, it's too hot to train hard. Let's have a light month.

Only the thought of somebody thinking of doing a light month makes me wanna chain him (or her) to a loaded bar in the squat rack till September.

Sorry, I just came back from gym and I'm still a little bit... Whatever it is that I am after gym.

Anyway, of course it is hot. It happens every year, remember? And yes, depending on the gym you train, stupid teenagers appear like mushrooms in the training room because they are on holidays.

Just go to train. Maybe you won't get all the reps in your heaviest exercises.
Maybe you'll have to rest more, drink more, and curse more (although that's not mandatory).

Just go to train. And, oh yeah, try not to kill many teenagers.

WESTSIDE PROGRESS

2007-07-13T15:08:00.000+02:00

It's still too early too fully assess the effectiveness of the new program. I think the speed day has a good effect in my squat and bench press. What is sure is that is not as psychologically stressful as having heavy squat and heavy deadlift days in the same week.

Anyway, I want to repeat that is not a pure westside program. Is more like a blend of my previous program (classical 3-day split: squat / bench press / deadlift) and the westside program.

Right now it looks like this:

Speed day: Power snatches, fast box squats, fast dumbbell bench press, fast JM Press, and hanging hip raises.

Squat/Deadlift day: Squat (or squat variation), Deadlift (or variation), 1 arm dumbbell rowing, dumbbell biceps, abs.

Bench press day: Bench press, dumbbell press, dips, dumbbell inclined pres (or triceps press), abs.

I'll be changing exercises periodically, but right now this is how it looks.
Maybe when I start my summer holidays I can change to a 4-day split with two speed days (more like the real westside program) but is not something I can do while working.

WESTSIDE BARBELL?

2007-07-05T19:19:00.000+02:00

I've been too long with my current workout program.
I'm taking a look at westside barbell.

Today tried some exercises like speedy squat box, JM Press, etc. Although it was kind of a speed whole body day. I'm considering doing a 3 day split having: a speed whole body day, a bench day, and a squat/deadlift day.

I couldn't resist to start with power snatches cos it's been so long without them that I was missing them. And there was no way to get a good feeling with the JM presses (even after watching JM demonstrating himself the exercise).

Anyway, I'm still looking into it.

If you have interesting links or advices/opinions don't hesitate to post them.

MY LEFT WRIST HURTS A LITTLE BIT

2007-06-29T17:24:00.000+02:00

It's been a long time without having any problems in my left wrist. But yesterday I felt a little bit of pain in my left wrist. Not a good thing cos today was 'back-day' meaning Deadlifts and other pull exercises. Training went well. The only thing is, as you can guess, than now my left wrist hurts a little bit more.

Looking to my training logs (cos they are useful, you know?) I think it must be caused by the use of the elliptic machine. Cos the wrist is moving all the time in a direction that is not very natural to it.

So I'll change to something else (inclined treadmill or rowing sound cool) and see how it goes.

CONCENTRATE ON EACH REP

2007-06-18T15:01:00.000+02:00

Before getting into this, let me tell you that those two kiwis per day that I was talking in the previous post worked like a charm. So if you have the same problem I had just give it a try.

Now to the concentration thing. We have all been there. We progress till we can lift quite serious iron beasts and then we start to worry. We worry that maybe we won't be able to get all the reps. We worry that we might get injured. And so, we leave the present moment. We are taken by our thoughts. And so we do the reps in a rush, without pausing, without going rock bottom in the squats, and with worst form. We don't realize about it because we are not there anymore. We are not in the present. We are ahead in the future, at the last rep that we don't know if we will be able to get. Sometimes we even lose the count of the rep (like was this the 7th or the 8th). That's one of the clearest signs that something is wrong.

Get back to the present moment. Here and now. Grab the bar and don't worry if you'll be able to get the target reps. Do this first rep. And then, do another rep. Treat reaps as if they are the only rep. THE REP. There's nothing else. And, believe me, you'll get a better set, you'll greatly reduce the risk of injury, and you'll be in the path of great gains.

Now, it is easy to say: "This is so obvious. Of course we know we have to concentrate on each rep". Don't be so fast. Next time before a set remember this post and see that you do it.

NEEDING TO ADD MORE FIBER TO MY DIET

2007-06-13T14:20:00.000+02:00

I'm finding that I'll need to add more fiber to my diet. Lately, my intestines don't work like a clock anymore and don't "produce" enough stuff. If you know what I mean.

Unless I change this there is no way I'm gonna lose weight. And besides, having the intestinal functions not in perfect order has a big impact in your general health.

Anyway, it's not gonna be difficult. Here's the plan:

- Add one or two kiwis per day (the first 15 minutes before breakfast).
- Eat lentils, beans or chickpeas once every second day.
- Eat just a little bit more bread (but not white bread).

I more or less did all these things before but I didn't realize how important they were.

I think that the rest of my diet of my diet is more or less OK. I already have muesli for breakfast. And for dinner, I start with a big salad most of the days.

If all this fails, I'll consider to start having coffee with my breakfast again (nowadays, I'm a caffeine-free person, only green tee thanks).

NEW EQUIPMENT IN MY GYM

2007-06-01T17:18:00.000+02:00

Today I went to the gym and I saw that a central area that was empty now is full with eight or so machines making a circle in such a way that people using it face to the center of the circle (or to each other).

Which is bad news, cos now there is no way they could fit a second squat rack or a squat cage that our gym needs so badly.

But also it means that the gym users get the message that machines are the way to train. Otherwise, why the gym would spend so much money in machines that must be quite expensive.

To make things even worst, these are the worst machines I've ever seen. Instead of the typical stack of weights that have all the machines I had seen before, these machines have an horizontal line of pins numbered from 1 to 12 to select the level of strength and when people use it you don't see any weights moving.

What is this?! Is it so people don't have to be ashamed that the weights they can lift are ridiculous?! I'm sorry but there are few things more motivating to push yourself hard in the gym than being aware that the loads you are using are small. That is, if you are wired the way you should be.

Me, I don't do the machines. I cross the area and go where real changes and challenges occur. I go to the free weights side.

BE CONFIDENT WHEN LIFTING SMALL IRON BEASTS

2007-05-30T16:30:00.001+02:00

Today was legs-day. Starting with squats.

Yesterday, I had a quite stressful day at work. It turns out that my stress likes to accumulate in my lower back. So, yesterday night I was thinking that squat sounded a little bit risky with my lower back so tight. I decided to put ice and latter on some liniment and see how was my back next morning.

Today it didn't felt alright so I thought that I'd skip today's workout. But after an hour or so it disappeared. So, finally I went.

Another thing that was bugging me is that last time I was squatting I approached the bar with a little bit less confidence that what I should. I remember lifting the bar from the racks, feeling it heavy, having to do more steps to get a right stance, after all this feeling already tired, which made the whole set quite crappy. Form was OK but I didn't felt right. And I was fearing an injury.

It's important to realize that all this was because of FEAR. It was because lack of self confidence. Of course I could leave that small iron beast. It was not the first time. And even if it would have been the first time I go by 2.5Kg increases in the bar; so it wouldn't have been nothing to be scared of.

Today I grabbed the bar with confidence. I didn't worry about if I'd get the targeted reps. I just grabbed the beast, lifted, got into position and did rep after rep without worrying if I'd get to the target reps. And that's why I made it.

HOW LONG CAN YOU AVOID THE TRUE?

2007-05-25T15:31:00.001+02:00

More than one year ago, in this old post

http://lift-forever.blogspot.com/2006/03/i-dont-train-legs-because-i-run-on.html

I was making fun of a man in the gym that said to a young woman "I don't need to work out my legs cos I run on weekends". And I was pointing out that obviously both the man and the young woman newed that IT WAS NOT TRUE.

Well, I'm happy to report that the men has started to do regularly box squats. I thing today was the third or fourth time I saw him doing them.

So, what about you?

How long can you avoid the true?

DRAGGING MYSELF TO THE GYM TO DO DEADLIFTS

2007-05-18T13:20:00.000+02:00

Today I didn't feel like going to the gym. I felt tired and my back was a little bit sore from doing rowing as cardio two days ago.

Finally, I started to slowly pack my gym stuff. In this way, that other voice that says "We are too tired to go to the gym!" stays quiet and nice. I'm just packing the things slowly without thinking about the workout. Then, I leave home and start walking. It's like a mind trick in which I pretend that I'm not going to work out. Just packing staff, going to the gym. And then, "Oh, look, we're in the gym! Maybe I could do some warm up."

After three minutes of warm up I'm ready. You should really try this mind trick.

Today I did the Deadlifts a little bit different. After the bar cleared the knees I pulled the bar in such a way that it kept very close to the thighs all way up. Usually, I pull in such a way that the bar rapidly separates from the thighs.

It was quite harder. Lower back was working much more, but I got the impression that although maybe you can pull a little bit less in this way. It's much saver.

I could only keep this 'style' in warm up set and first working set. Second set was done in the usual way.

STILL TRYING TO BRING MY LEFT SHOULDER UP TO PAIR WITH MY RIGHT SHOULDER

2007-05-16T13:53:00.000+02:00

Saturday was legs-day and today push-day. I'm still trying to bring my left shoulder up to pair with my right shoulder. It seems it's going to be a long long quest. Dumbbell versions of most exercises and micro-load helps though. I'm trying to find specific dumbbell exercises to speed it up but there seems there is no silver bullet to me. So it will have to be the other way: hard work, consistency and perseverance.

SORE THROAT

2007-05-11T14:14:00.001+02:00

Since Sunday I've been having a sore throat, caused by having dinner on Saturday in some friends of mine house that was full of chain smokers. I was only having two alcohol-free beers and of course didn't smoke. And, next day my throat was hurting like I had been partying like an animal.

Anyway, on Sunday I drag myself to the gym thinking it would get well by itself. But, throat is still quite screwed. So today I used a throat lozenge during the cardio part. Let's hope it gets better during the weekend.

BREATHING IN WHILE GOING DOWN

2007-05-04T21:04:00.001+02:00

Legs day. First squats. I always breathe in while going up and breathe out as going down. I guess that might sound crazy for some of you. It's just the way it seemed more natural to me. But today, in the middle of my first set, I reversed the pattern. And, I have to say that it felt OK. I did the same for most of my second set (I'm so used to do it the other way around). At the end of the first working set I felt very very slightly a point in my right lower back so I decided to play safe and took away 2.5 kg for the second set.

Then lunges, calf rises, and a superset of alternated dumbbell bicep curls with hanging hip raises. Only the left grip got fried on the second half of the last set of curls. Felt again a little bit dizzy in the curls. Maybe I should try to also change my breathing in the curls.

STILL FEELING MY LEFT ANTERIOR DELTOID

2007-05-02T15:13:00.000+02:00

Pull day. Deadlifts felt like I can start increasing with microloads. The rest went fine. My left anterior deltoid was hurting a little bit. Fortunately, I'm not using it much in pull days so I didn't need to modify my program.

Maybe I'll have to add some light dumbbell front raises in my push day to fix this. Probably substituting triceps press. Let's see.

Did again 25 minutes HIIT cos I still feel guilty/stupid because of the eating/drinking of last weekend.

SLIGHT PAIN ON MY LEFT DELTOID

2007-05-01T15:32:00.000+02:00

Today was push day.

In my effort to eliminate the asymmetry between my left and right arms 'n' shoulders with the dumbbell versions of biceps curl, shoulder press and row. I'm starting to feel a slight pain in my left anterior deltoid. Hope it will solve by itself.

Feeling guilty about eating and drinking in a trip with some friends of mine last weekend, I decided to go for 25 minutes of HIIT instead of the 20 that I had planned.

As you can imagine, during the 3 days the trip lasted I regained the amount of fat that took me two weeks to loose. I'll try not to do it again.

LITTLE BIT DIZZY DOING DUMBBELL BICEPS

2007-04-27T14:03:00.000+02:00

Today was legs day: Squat, Lunges, Calf rises, finished with a superset of standing alternated dumbbell biceps curls and hanging hip raises.

By the time I got to biceps and started the first set I could see I was a little bit dizzy. So I try to completely focus on the set. After the hip raises, coming back to the second set of biceps I can see that my whole hand and my forearms are really fried: Joints OK and muscles hurting but not in like an injury, hurting like completely fried. Which tells me this workout is going great.

It's kind of weird of doing biceps after legs, but there was no way to feet them in back's day.

NOT INCREASING MY LOAD ON THE DEADLIFT

2007-04-23T15:38:00.000+02:00

After the back injury, which is now alright, I'm being careful before increasing the loads on the deadlift, but not in the exercises that follow after that: chin ups, dumbbell rows, l-flies and back extensions.

OK, l-flies is not a back exercise but the others are. And I feel that lower back joints do not suffer with these exercises (not even with back extensions). So I push on those pull exercises. ;-P

And that's gonna be this way till I feel that inner need to increase load in the deadlift. You know the feeling.

FIRST DAY WITH MICRO INCREASES IN LOAD

2007-04-20T15:28:00.000+02:00

Today I took my two 0.5kg plates and two strings and went to the gym. It was push day. Fortunately there was quite few people there. I must confess I was a little bit embarrassed to go with those tiny little fellows and to tie them to a pair of dumbbells.

They were for my dumbbell shoulder presses. I used them only in the first set. Cos the idea here is to do the 0.5kg increase first only in the first set, then in both. And, then do another 0.5kg in the first set, and so on.

I only gonna do that in the dumbbell exercises (DB bis, DB shoulder press, and DB one arm row). For the other exercises I use barbells and increases of 2.5kg (cos the smallest plate there is 1.25kg) in the same fashion that with the dumbbells, which seem OK. Besides, the plates in my gym are not that accurate that it will make sense to use smaller increases.

Now I can really feel my left anterior deltoid screaming (in a good way). Remember I have an asymmetry between my shoulders and arms (like most people do). That's why I go dumbbell in this exercise.

Anyway, this micro increasing thing looks promising.

SQUATTING AGAIN

2007-04-18T13:22:00.000+02:00

Today was kind of a test. A test of how much my lower back had recovery. I injured myself doing squats last time, and today it was squats again.

But when doing my warm up set I felt the load light which told me everything was OK. Doing the working sets, I realized that the problem (when I injured myself) was not that I was going too much to the bottom with my ass. The problem was that I didn't make an effort to stick my ass out so my lower spine would be protected. Then, as I get tired through there would be a rep where lower back wouldn't be completely locked. And, yes, that's the road to Injuryville.

Once identified the problem, I kept (with certain effort) my ass pointing out for the duration of the two working sets and everything went just fine.

MY BACK IS ALMOST ALRIGHT. I JUST DEADLIFTED TODAY

2007-04-13T20:36:00.000+02:00

That my lower back didn't bother me in push day was a good sign, but, of course, the real test for my lower back recuperation was the pull (back) day.

Cos, oh yeah, it starts with DeadLifts.

The plan was to warm up throughly and to do two warm up sets of deadlifts with progressive loads. That would tell me if my lower back was ready. At the first sign of discomfort I would abort the deadlift part and move on with the other exercises (chin ups, dumbbell row, l-flies) to finish with back extension with a weight that didn't cause any discomfort.

But everything went alright and I could do all the things with the proper loads.

BACK RECOVERING WELL

2007-04-11T14:03:00.000+02:00

Today was push day. Which is great for my back recovery cos it's the easiest day and the day in which lower back is hardly involved. Everything when great and I only felt a little bit my lower back when doing cardio in the elliptic (which I solved by placing my feet a little bit more forward so abs would be more involved in stabilization and lower back wouldn't have to work much).

OUCH!

2007-04-06T13:45:00.000+02:00

At the end, I didn't go to the skiing trip. So, today I went to do some leg training. But at the end of the second set of squats I hurt my lower back (the right side). It didn't really hurt, but I noticed that something got screwed. And, since it wasn't the first time I injured in that place, I know I have to take it seriously.

So I stop and went home. On the way home it starts to hurt and feel stiff. Once at home I put ice on it, drink a pint of milk, take a shower, apply an anti-inflammatory cream, and wait.

I won't know how bad it is till tomorrow morning.

Some people say that there is no "bad luck" in the gym. Which implies that if you get injured is because you did something stupid (or let's just say something wrong).

Now, sitting at home, I try to think about what I did wrong:
- Loads where quite modest cos I was a just reduced them last week.
- Maybe I didn't warm up enough. But, it happened at the end of my second working set.
- Maybe I lost my concentration in that rep and let the spine lose it's locket position.
- Maybe I went lower that what I can without bending (even so slightly my lower back).

I don't know.

All I know is that it sucks.

DUMBBELL CURLS

2007-04-02T16:37:00.001+02:00

I cannot remember the last time I did dumbbell curls. Well, I actually don't remember what was the last time I did any biceps specific exercise. But, I think it must have been something like a year ago.

Anyway, today was pull day and I did again dumbbell curls. Not so much for my biceps. But more for trying to reduce the asymmetry of strength in my arms and also to work my left side scapular muscles (that support the arm while it's curling). That's why I've gone with the dumbbell version instead of the barbell one.

Today finises the first round of doing it 'the brawn way'. So far, so good. I did DL, pull ups, DB row, DB biceps and L-flies (external rotations). I forgot to superset the last two, so I did the whole thing in 49 minutes. Then 20 minutes cardio.

It's gonna be like a week before I hit the gym again cos I'm going to a downhill sky trip. I'm not very skilled, but I manage quite well.

INVERSION THERAPY

2007-03-30T15:24:00.000+02:00

Today was push day. I did bench press, dumbbell alternated shoulder press (cos my left side is quite weaker than the right in the shoulder presses), dips, triceps press, and an easy version of dragon flags for abs.

Since it only took 40 minutes, I did 20 minutes cardio.

Afterwards, I started my stretching with 'inversion therapy' (as it is called in the book 'Beyond Brawn'). Basically, since we don't have anymore that cool inverter machine, I took the structure for back extensions and let my upper body to just hang there for a minute. I only used my hands to force the upper body to be vertical. And, I have to say that it felt half the good than the inverter machine. Which is better than nothing.

BEYOND BRAWN

2007-03-28T15:08:00.001+02:00

I've got into my hands 'Beyond Brawn: The Insider's Encyclopedia on How to Build Muscle & Might' by Stuart McRobert. I've already read most of the book. And I have to say that I've liked it a quite a lot.

The book reminds us of the first principle in the gym:

"POUNDAGE PROGRESSION IN PERFECT FORM".

And it gives a trick to keep that poundage progression coming: Use small increases (like 1 pound) in your load.

I've decided to implement some of his advice, so I've changed some of my training program.

Now it's gonna be 45 minutes weight training and 15 minutes cardio (before was 30 minutes cardio). I'm gonna eliminate SLDL (that I was doing the same day than squats, despites the fact that I also had the classic DL in my program).

I've reduced all my loads to about 90% of what I was using, and I'll start to increase the load with very small increments.

I'll have only two workouts per week (before it was three per week). I'll still have my classical split legs/push/pull (so it will take 3 weeks to do 2 rounds).

Today was legs: Squat, Lunges, Calf raises, light good mornings, hanging straight leg-hip raises.

Squats at 90% of my best load, felt as heavy as the ones done with my best load. But that's because much better form is used. I could actually feel my abs working much more than usually. And form was so perfect that I smiled at its beauty while squatting the first reps.

Now, I can feel that I've trained real hard while giving to my body better chances to recover.

BRIEF AND INTENSE

2007-03-23T16:11:00.000+01:00

Today was legs day. I did the same exercises than usual but with one main difference: Instead of taking me 60 minutes, I did them in 45 minutes.

I guess I should have done this before. I think that before, I was resting too much between exercises. At the end of the day legs day is 'only':

Squats, Lunges, SLDL, Calf Raises, and Hanging Straight Leg-Hip Raises.

I did 2 sets of each exercise in the 8-12 reps after my only warm up set (squats with half of my working poundage). Thats 1 warming up set plus 10 working sets. That means more or less four minutes per set.

The only thing is that I had to super set the last two exercises to finish on time. And that the 30 minutes of HIIT cardio afterwards found me more tired than usually.

Anyway, if I can do this in the toughest day of my program (legs) I guess I can do it with the other two (push and pull).

DUMBBELL UPRIGHT ROW

2007-03-21T15:07:00.001+01:00

Today, (pull day) I've changed from Barbell Upright Row to Dumbbell Upright Row. I've done that because in this exercise my left side is much weaker than my right arm. Actually, if I recall correctly, that's why I started doing upright rows.

I've looked at what other exercises I do could be changed to the dumbbell version and the only one seems to be shoulder press. The last two times I've done one set of Barbell Military Press and a second set of Barbell Behind Neck Press. Maybe I could try Alternated Dumbbell Shoulder Press.

Let's see.

Note: I'm using the same exercise names than the ones used at:
http://www.exrx.net/

COMFORTABLE LIES

2007-03-18T12:21:00.000+01:00

Today it was push day. And it didn't go too well. I did less than last time. I bet it has something to do with that half bottle of wine and that beer I had yesterday night during dinner.

Saying that I can have half bottle of wine with my dinner without affecting my performance in the gym next morning would be just another comfortable lie. And gyms are already full of comfortable lies. Most of them can be summarized in one line:

"You don't have to train so hard".

- "Squats and dead-lifts are dangerous for your back". Oh, that's great because they were really making me exhausted. Now, I can get the same benefits in a safer way by doing leg presses.

- "You only have to squat till parallel". Oh, good because that means I can use the double amount of weight so it looks I squat more than that other person.

- "Machines are saver". Great, because last time I tried a free weights program I almost died.

- "If you want to lose fat you have to do light cardio". Thanks, so I'll stop doing weight training and high intensity interval training (it was really killing me). Light cardio sounds better and easier.

- "You have to isolate your muscles". Good because multi-join exercises (like squat, dead-lift, and so on) make me so tired.

- "You have to finish your work out before you're tired. You have to leave the gym energized, not exhausted". Oh, how fool I've been till now. Now I understand than "less is more".

- "Only by having the right genes and by using steroids you can get really strong". So it's not my fault that I'm a lazy maggot. And now I know how that person in the gym that looks so good got there.

OK, you see the pattern. Those lies catch on because it would be nice that they were true. That would mean that I don't have to keep punishing myself consistently during many years to get to where I want to get.

They are comfortable lies.

MAYBE MY GYM DOESN'T SUCK THAT MUCH

2007-03-16T13:51:00.001+01:00

On Wednesday (back day), during the hour and a half I was doing weights and cardio I saw things I'd never thought I would see in my gym:

A guy was doing barbell row and afterwards stiff-legged dead-lifts. Later, another guy was doing lunges (the real ones, with a long step). And, finally, another guy was going squats going reasonably low with his ass (almost Ass-To-Grass).

OK, the loads where not too impressive. But, still. Anyway, I don't care that much about the loads. Mines weren't too impressive neither few years ago.

So, was it a coincidence? Did we got a new gym trainer that told everybody to stop chatting and doing useless exercises and start doing the real thing. Well, I don't think so. Maybe it was just that I went much latter than usually. So different people where there.

So maybe my gym doesn't suck that much.

At least that's what I thought when today I went to the gym (legs day) and I saw a two_inches_leg_presser. I'm sure you know that sub-specie. With the leg press full of weight and with a barbell with more weight on top of it. And there he goes, two inches down, two inches up, repeat. As I pass by (in my way to the rack to start my squats) I hear him talking with another guy and saying that there are more than 400kg in the press.

I start my warm up set for squats ATG (with much, much less load in my barbell than what he has in the leg press, of course). And, suddenly, there is silence in the gym. Because with certain things you cannot lie, not even to yourself.

TRAINING ON AN EMPTY STOMACH

2007-03-11T14:01:00.000+01:00

Today, my stomach didn't want to eat anything. I don't know why. So I told it:

- Alright, be my guest. Have only this sugar-free coffee with milk. But we are going to train anyway.

And we went.

Now, after doing 'push day', cardio, and stretching, I'm tired but not specially hungry. I might be a little nervous because of my work (this month is a little bit more stressful than usually).

I'll try to convince my stomach to eat something later. But now I feel a little bit like puking).

Anyway, I gave another chance to 'the barbell rollout' (as explained by http://stumptuous.com/cms/displayarticle.php?aid=3). I did it after pulley abs, so they were already tired but I plan to do it as my main abs exercise next week.