Meals VS. Training

It's been said by the professionals that they would rather miss a training session than a meal. CRAZY RIGHT? Not so fast, It has also been estimated that nutrition is 80-90 percent of success in bodybuilding. That number is staggering because so many of us, myself included, get lazy, depressed, or just lack discipline to always eat our meals and eat the right things when we do eat. The problem is this, we all workout and give it our effort and think, "Oh I just need to push myself more, I just need to change up my routine etc..." and all thse are legitimate reasons for lack of growth, however, many times it is as simple as nutriont, if you eat better, eat more, and eat more often...you will grow.
Keep this in mind next time your stuck

My Routine right now

I'm essentially following a routine surrounding the reps 8,8,6,6 and a typical routine in a week looks like this

Monday - Chest Triceps
-Bench - 220x8 , 230x8 240x6 205x6 (Last set, very slow, flat back, feet up on bench, Flex at the top of the movement)
-Incline DB -70x8 80x8 85x6 90x6
-Life Fitness Dip Machine - 8,8,8,8
-Pec Deck Flyes- 8,8,6,6 (Good Form, Slow, Flex on every rep)
-Cable Tricep Extrensions (with a straight bar attachment) - 8,8,6,6 (Slow, Flex at the bottom of every rep)
-Chest Press Machine - 8,8,8
-P-bar Dips- 2x Failure

Tuesday - Back and Legs
-Pulls ups - 4x near failure (Slow, Flex lats at the top)
-Squats- 5,5,3,3
-Straight Leg Deadlifts - 3x10 (Slow, straight back, bend at the hips)
- Hammer Strength Rows- 8,8,6,6
- Leg Extensions - 8,8,8
-Leg Curls - 8,8,8
-Hammer Strength High Row - 8,8,6,6

Wednesday- Delts and Biceps
Military Press - 8,8,6,6
Preacher Curl - 8,8,6,6
Upright Rows- 8,8,8
Cable Curls -10,10,10
Lateral Raise - 10,10,10
21 Guns

Firday- Full Body
Whatever I feel like needs work, yoga, cross training, intensive abs

Life is about balance

I know this my second post today, but I feel like writing and given my track record of failure to update this blog on a regular basis I might as well write while the motivation is present. I read a verse last night that stuck out to me (Proverbs 30:8-9) which says "...Give me neither poverty nor riches- feed me with the food allotted to me; lest i be full and deny you and say, "who is the Lord?" or lest I be poor and steal, and profane the name of my Lord.." This author in this passage is praying that the Lord would neither bless him so much that his head inflates and he feels invincible and feels no need for the Lord, but also that the Lord would not let him suffer so much that he would be tempted to curse the Lord's name. I find that passage speaking to me and I want it to be my prayer as well because whenever things are going really well (I kinda touched on this a few posts ago) I am tempted to ignore the Lord but when things suck real bad I come back. I just hope that all of our prayers in life would be that God would give us as much blessing that we can handle without ditching him.

Another thing on my mind is that being balanced is very important. Not just from a spiritual standpoint but from a practical standpoint as well. listening to one type of music for example or focusing only on one of your God-given talents, and being content to sit on your butt while life passes you by is not acceptable. Life is about balance, trying to incorporate everything God has put before is important, it says that Christ came for us to have life and have it abundantly and limiting yourself because of narrow-mindedness or bias or just plain being stubborn and failing to appreciate other things in life is frankly immature and will hurt your ability to relate to other people. I'm not saying I relate to everyone all the time but the more life experiences I have the more avenues I am provided with for communication with other people. It is hard to reach out to people without establishing friendship first, so please, do not limit yourself in any aspect of life

Revolutionary? well it is to me

Muscle under tension baby, that's my motto these days, I benched monday and got the best pump of my life...why? Simple. I lifted using a "muscle under tension" concept rather than a numbers concept. Muscle under tension is just my way of explaining how the most muscle growth comes from having a targeted muscle under tension for a longer period of time. Strength training is about explosive, fast twitch muscle fibers and using overloading poundages to convince the body to recruit more muscle fibers. That is all good, however, if you want large muscles you will have to incoroporate muscle under tension techniques, which I firmly believe was one reason my growth has been slow because I was doing quick reps no matter if the ranges were as low as 3 reps or as high as 10, the time it took for me to perform the reps was the same. All this to say, the reason for the incredible pump I had was because I dropped weight and had a slow controlled lowering of the weight to my chest, then a pause, then a slow controled press and flex of the pecs at the top of the movement. After just one set of this, my chest had swollen up. I was amazed and now I'm hooked. I used this technique for the rest of the workout including my cable tricep extensions and felt extremely sore the next day. I think I am going to use this technique for a few more weeks or as long as I am not strength training. Give it a try.
...until next time..

...just to keep your mind right...

I once met a marine working out at my YMCA back home. This guy was a real roughneck, he probably liked to have a beer with his beer for breakfast by the looks of him. However, his strength was surprisingly very good, I sometimes attribute that partly to the mental strength he gained form being in the service. This guy had been in Iraq and ...yes... seen men under his command die, and needless to ask out of common decency, I assume he killed a few of the enemy as well. All this to say he knew the definition of stress and as we got to talking, he told me how when he was in Iraq, no matter how many hours of sleep he got, be it 3, be it 8, he and his crew worked out. This is interesting because in today's society so many people blame "fatigue" on why they never exercise with excuses such as "its been a long day at work *sitting at a desk*" or "I just want some time to myself". So why would this guy on 3 hours of sleep while carrying stress that most of the population can not relate too still go and workout? One quote he said sticks out to me that says it all, "When your in the military, you workout just to keep your mind right, because when you have men your responsible for that are dying, it can get to you." Or something along those lines. That really hit home to me, I came to realize that lifting weights no longer had to be just a physical therapy for me, but an emotional therapy as well. Something about the iron is always right, constant, you get what you put into it and there's no worry, no unknown factor "X" to be concerned about. So in a way, in a world that is unstable, especially in a war zone such as Iraq, weightlifting can be a sort of relief from the world , if only for a moment , into another world where Hardwork + Nutrition = Results ....PERIOD

Until next time

Is it too early or is it too late?

It's 2:23Am as I embark on writing this next post. I went to bed at approximately 11:30 pm and have unsuccessfully tried to fall asleep. So, I do what I normally do on nights I can't sleep. I pray, read my Bible, and chill. I have class at 8am, then a span for a nap, hopefully that will help me but I know God gives me the strength for any challenge I face so tomorrow will be surmountable. This first week back at school has faced me with some challenges again, one primarily is that I realize how far I drift in my walk with God and I realize also how similar I am to the Israelites of the Old Testament. Now by this I don't mean that I have a big nose and am Jewish, well actually my nose is a little big, but what I really mean is that when things are good in life I neglect my relationship with God and feel like I can do it on my own. Then when I am again faced with struggles, I come crawling back begging for help. It's really silly actually, I wonder how long I will be on this spiritual see-saw, besides when I was a kid, the see-saw always hurt my butt so I want off!
But how?! How does one get off the spiritual see-saw of self reliance vs. God reliance. I realize during hard times that apart from God I am nothing and can do nothing, literally, can not sleep, do nothing. However, when things start looking up I become as giddy as a school boy and run along with no regard for who corrected my predicament. The problem is this, I am all jacked up on emotions. I feel this, I feel that, it dictates my fellowship with the one true God. That is not the model shown by David of Israel, it is more like the model shown by Samson and we all know where that got him. David was a man after God's own heart, and in the midst of his screw ups, there is evidence from his Psalms that he understood that apart from God he was nothing. I pray that in the coming semeseter the Lord gives me direction, strength, and a desire to stay tight no matter the circumstances and kick emotions to the side because they never tell the truth anyway.
Until next time..