2008 December | Look At My Muscles
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.