Look At My Muscles
Mar 6

I recently turned 30, and for the first time have braces. While most of my friends dealt with this back in grade school, I’m dealing with it now as an adult. My teeth were never that crooked, and growing up we didn’t have a lot of money so there wasn’t a justification for it. Now that I have good dental insurance (and my teeth have moved quite a bit), I’m on a 16-month plan to get my teeth straight. The main problem is that I’ve been losing weight like crazy. It’s always been difficult for me to keep on weight, especially taking in enough calories to match the lifting I had been doing. Now that it hurts to eat most foods, my workouts have been a disaster. While I can still take weight gainer and protein shakes, by not eating anything else, it’s been tearing up my stomach, so I’ve cut back on those too. The good thing is that my abs are showing pretty clearly since I’ve lost all of this weight, the bad thing of course is that I’ve lost a lot of muscle mass.

Any body builders out there that have braces? Any suggestions on how to keep the weight on?

Sep 9

I recently was transferred from sunny Southern California to very sunny Dallas Texas for work. I really fell off the wagon there for a few months, what with moving and starting a new job in a new city and new pretty much everything. I still had my 24 Hour Fitness membership when I got here, but there wasn’t a gym close to my new place and the ones that I could drive to were a bit run down. LA Fitness seems to be really popular here in the Dallas area and all of the clubs are really new and nice.

LA Fitness, unlike most gyms don’t post their prices online and there was a lot of haggling involved in negotiating the terms of the initiation and rates. I ended up paying $50 initiation and $29/mo all clubs with no contract. I think the negotations started at like $150 and $35/mo, and I’ve heard of people getting better deals than me so don’t let them sell you on what they first offer.

Anyway, it feels great to be back at the gym. I’ve been working some crazy hours, but even at 9p, a good pump keeps the blood flowing and the a-shirts tight. I’ll try to post some results of my progress as they become evident.

Mar 11

Most gym rats have a chest/tricep, back/bicep and shoulder/leg schedule, or something similar. For the past year, I’ve switched to a back/tricep and chest/bicep rotation to change it up. Changing up your rotations and workout schedule keeps your muscles from getting used to a routine that can quickly lead to a plateau. The back/tri & chest/bi routine was not only to change it up, but to get a stronger tricep and bicep workout since the main muscle group wasn’t fatiguing the secondary group. I really liked this schedule, but for now I’m going to switch back to the more typical schedule of chest/tri and back/bi for two reasons. The first is like I mentioned, that is to just change it up, the second is that my workout schedule isn’t as concrete as it used to be. Back when I worked out with my HB buddies, gym was Monday, Wednesday and Friday, no exceptions. There were three of us, so it would be very rare that at least one of my two buddies wouldn’t make it. Now that I’m working out with my buddy Eric who’s pretty busy at work, and with my wife pregnant, our workouts are a little more sporadic and the chest/bicep workout means that i can’t do two workouts in a row or even every other day since the secondary muscle group would be too sore to support the primary of the next workout. The typical chest/tri and back/bi rotation means I could workout Monday and Tuesday if that’s what worked that week, and my Tuesday workout wouldn’t really be affected by Monday’s.

With a baby on the way, I expect that my gym schedule is going to be more random than ever and I’m going to do my best to get in at least two workouts a week. Hopefully this rotation will make it easier for me to stay in shape despite how busy I plan on being.

Feb 4

One of the best ways to track your weight lifting progress session-to-session is to keep a journal of your weights and reps and the order of your workout. This allows you to see progress over time, and lets you know what weight you should be attempting at your next session, so that you’re always pushing yourself to do heavier weight.

For the longest time (and when I was my strongest/biggest) I kept a log in a little spiral notebook, but found that I was always forgetting a pen, and writing down the exercises and the reps/weight just became too much of a hassle and I stopped using it. My buddy Mike showed me an iPhone app that he’s been using that I decided to buy called Gym Buddy. It took me 20 minutes to setup the application the exact way I wanted it, but that’s what makes this app great. You can set categories like “chest/bicep day” and then select all of the workouts you do in that session (you can make your own if they don’t already have it listed). While you’re working that session then, it’s just a matter of tapping on the exercise, entering the weight and reps, and you’re done. The app also has cool features like multiple timers, that you can start so you are always resting the same amount of time between sets, and it can also calculate what your 1-rep-max should be for that workout based on the data of your last set.

The app is $2.99 and available in the App Store on your phone or through iTunes.

Jan 28

In need of a new gym, I checked out the Spectrum Fitness Club in Manhattan Beach. Having gone to Bally’s or 24 Hour Fitness for as long as I’ve worked out, it really was a night-and-day experience. The club was huge with a spa-like atomosphere and a very friendly, helpful and knowledgable staff. Everyone there is beautiful, the equipment was all in good shape, almost everything was available, there’s towel service, bla, bla bla. The only drawback is that membership (even with my corporate discount) is $94/mo. That’s more than three times as much as a regular-Joe gym, so as great as my trial membership was, I signed up at 24, with an all-club membership at $29/mo.

My new membership is month-to-month though, and to be honest, if the economy wasn’t in such shambles and I wasn’t expecting a kid in less than 4 months, I probably would’ve splurged and signed up at the Spectrum. Maybe in 6 months or so when things are more stable I will. But weights are weights and fancy won’t make more muscles.

Jan 20

So my previous gym membership expired somewhat unexpectedly and I’m now in search for where to get my pump on. I’ve previously been a member of 24 Hour Fitness and Bally’s, and it’s likely that i’ll go again with one of them since they’re inexpensive and have facilities just about everywhere. it seems that both of them are also offerering non-commitment memberships for between $25-$30 which is completely reasonable. decisions

Before i sigh up though, I plan to take a look at two other gyms. There’s a Gold’s Gym really close to my work and my corporate discount actually makes it cheaper than the aformentioned gyms. My main workout buddy also has a membership at the Spectrum where he does cario with his wife and tomorrow we’re going to go there to do a chest workout so I can see what the deal is. The main deterrent is that membership fees are $94 (my corporate discounted rate!) and I’m not sure if i could bring myself to spend 3x the money as other gyms, but I’ll report back after I check it out.

Jan 14

In year’s passed, I’ve been particularly motivated to hit the gym hard and often, but this year has started off kinda slow. I’m still making the gym at least twice a week, but I’ve had this problem with my left shoulder that has hampered chest and shoulder workouts and my buddy Eric strained his back, so between the two of us, chest day and back day and shoulder days have all been kinda ho-hum. I think the best course of action is to keep doing the workouts as long as I’m not feeling any pain in that particular movement and keep it light until whatever is wrong gets back to normal. The gym has been busy with it being the new year and all, so it’s also been difficult to be particular with what workout I do unless I’m willing to wait and since we usually work out in the later evening I’m intent on powering through the session.

I think my shoulder injury, which is similar to another one I had a while back is the result of me not working my shoulders as hard as I used to, while still working chest at the same and higher weights. My chest wants to and can move big weight, but my shoulders just can’t handle it and keep getting strained. When I do regain full usage of my shoulder, I’m going to be sure to dedicate a session to shoulders and make sure that I’m keeping my weights between shoulders and chest balanced.

Dec 29

The gym seemed to stay busy much longer than years passed. But now that there’s only a few days left in the year, the gym is a ghost town. I hit the gym at about 11:45a today (Sunday) and there were only about 10 people in the entire place, which was nice because I didn’t have to wait for a machine, or change around my routine if someone was on a machine I wanted to use.  I’ll enjoy it while it lasts though, because come January 1st, I expect that place to be packed. It’s usually mostly the cardio machines with people looking to stick to the New Year’s resolutions and meet some weight-loss goals, but yeh, it’ll be hectic.

I don’t have any particular weight training goals for 2009, although I should probably set a few before the year is up. My wife and I are having our first baby in May, so once that happens, I imagine I’ll have far less time and opportunity to be at the gym. Although with the gym being one of my few escapes, it might turn out that 2009 ends up being one of my strongest years yet.

I hope everyone has a happy and prosperous 2009. Thank you for helping make this website succesful!

Dec 17

I’m usually not a fan of documentaries, but I saw a great film over the weekend about steroid use in America. Bigger, Faster, Stronger is a documentary that follows a family of boys and their use of steroids and its effects on their families and themselves.  The film is balanced and is very entertaining and nostolgic since these guys are roughly my age and grew up admiring the same people.

They take a good, fair look at steroid use in America among athletes and recreational users, and bring up interesting points about the politics, studied health effects and social aspects of using steroids.

I don’t want to give away too much about the movie, so just go ahead and see it already. There’a a trailer for the movie on the website that you can preview. The film’s already out of theatres and on DVD, I watched it on Netflix which has it in HD through its streaming services like TiVo and Xbox360.. but you can also just buy it in the store.

Dec 5

I’m not sure if it’s just me and my smaller body frame, but when I’m out sick (and not eating right/taking protein supplements) for more than a week, I lose mass and strength so fast. Like I mentioned, I had all 4 of my wisdom teeth extracted a few weeks ago and was not only away from the gym for more than a week, but I was hardly eating anything. I thought the weight that I lost was just water weight, but now that I’m back at the gym, it really feels like I lost about a month worth of gains. It’s just kind of depressing to know that I have to stay on it so hard and so well to keep the muscle that I have. I know some bigger guys like my buddy Dave, who can take months off at a time, keep his size and most of his strength, but I guess that’s just differences in our physiology.

After a couple weeks back at the gym, I’ve gained back a lot of what I lost, but I’m still not as strong as I was right before I had the surgery. My workout schedule (and my workout buddies’) have been a little off lately because of the holidays with families coming in and out of town. The strange thing is my gym is still as busy as ever. Back when i used to work out in HB, by this time of year the gym was empty. I’m scared to think how busy it will be right after the new year.

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