Most Muscular's Transformation... nuff said...

[RoadPigJohn]

Originally Posted by Most Muscular

I have just been into the gym three times so far but it feels like I can already feel the difference since the first day. My muscles are a little sore which also reminds me that I have to take it slow. The pace I want to keep, especially here in the beginning, is to limit the amount I stress them. I have to hold myself back from pushing myself too hard here in the beginning. My goal is to get 20 to 25 reps for each exercise and at times I find I've added weight to the stack that is limiting me to 12 to 15 which is my reminder to back things off.

It really sucks to for example, do a shoulder press machine using the the lightest weight on the stack when I used to do the heaviest weight on the stack. I have to learn to leave my ego at the door and do what I have to do.

nuff said...

It looks like you are getting slowly to your roots, keep that attitude going!

[ectoBgone]

I can't believe I missed this thread for this long. Subbed, and looking forward to learning a lot and seeing a great transformation.

[Most Muscular]

After one week being back in the gym I am very surprised at how well things are going. I have been doing my best to taking it very slow but at times it is hard for me to back off pushing myself more.

I spent this first five workouts of the first week doing total body workouts each time and every time I was in the gym I found I could easily add a bit more weight to the stack and do a few more reps with the same weight as I had the previous workout. Now granted, it has become a very humbling experience for me as I don't recall ever having to use the colored dumbbells before but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

Today I did just legs and will probably do some double bodypart workouts when I can get into the gym this week. Perhaps Chest/Back and Shoulders/Arms during the week.

I probably kicked it up a bit today on legs and will probably feel it the next couple of days. Things felt relatively easy so I kept on adding weight to the leg press and staying with my 20+ rep scheme. I ended up doing 5 plates per side for 20 and then backed that off to two sets of 12 reps for safety sake. When I was hitting it good last spring I was doing 7 to 8 plates per side for 20+ reps so I was very surprised that I was able to get somewhat near that in my first real leg workout. As always, I warmed up extensively with leg extensions to get my knees and quads throughly warmed up.

I then went to hack squat like machine (which is designed to not compress your spine... you kind of sit in it intead of having the pads on your shoulders. I like this machine because I have lower spine problems that can not be compressed and I do not want to compress my neck area at all) and did a few sets of 15 reps with 2 to 3 plates per side with a very wide stance. I found these really tightend up my glutes and hamstrings last winter.

I then did some hamstring curls and 50 long lunges across the gym floor.

Again, I probably pushed this a bit too far but it did feel good to actually do something instead of pretending.

Of another notable achievement: I am starting to see not only my strenght go up but my muscle weight as well. In the last week I have added 1 to 2 pounds of weight onto my frame which I attribute to muscle by the way things are going. It is hard to gauge an accurate weight gain as my weight can flucuate so much but it is consistantly higher this week than last week. While I may never gain 7 pounds in two weeks I am happy with anything I can get at this point.

I have also found that being in the gym has also fostered a bigger dedication to eating more protein and less junk. While I am still struggling in eating with my new job I have found that being back in the gym (and seeing and feeling improvement) is giving me more motavation to doing more and doing it better.

nuff said...

[BuckSpin]

I am sure your muscle memory is going to be amazing to watch. And major props for doing this right, safe, sane & also props for "new" (recent?) PRs every session. No better indication of growth than those extra reps or more weight.

You are leading by example...

[Most Muscular]

Well this week sure hasn't worked out like I planned... I have been working 12 hour days so by the time I've gotten home I have been pretty beat and have not made it into the gym since Sunday. The rest of the week isn't looking very good either...although the overtime pay is well worth it.

I've waited over six months to work out so another week or two of this isn't going to hurt anymore than the past.

I'll get back to it when I get back to it.

nuff said...

[2nd_chance]

Tough break Randy. But good for the extra dough .

How's the diet going?

[Most Muscular]

As I said before... since I've gotten back in the gym I have at least cleaned up my diet a lot and started adding extra protein back into it so I know once I get back in the gym on a more consistant pace I should make my gains back better compared to how I was eating.

I always preach on how important a proper diet is so I have to also practice what I preach.

nuff said...

[Most Muscular]

As I had mentioned this week was very frustrating for me because I ended up working a lot of 12 hour days and I was only able to workout one day during the work week. Last night I got home around 6 but then had to immediately go to a birthday party (yeah, pizza and cake!...)

However more frustrating was the phone call I received from my boss when I got home. He asked me how things were going and informed me that the Vice President of our firm called him and said the Manager of the Wastewater Treatment Plant (where I am observing construction work on site) had informed him that they like my work so far and they would like me to remain on the project until its completion! Unfortunately this is September of 2010!

While it is nice to be liked this is not the position I was hired for, although I would have the opportunity to do some design work when things are slow on site if I can get my laptop properly configured to the firm's network through the internet. Unfortunately that hasn't worked out so well yet. We are also opening our new office on November 2 and I was looking forward to working 2 miles from my home instead of 85!

With winter soon arriving (and seemingly already here at times) I can see my daily commute extended from over 1-1/2 hours (one way) to over 4+/- hours during some snow days (stupid drivers). Even on decent days with long work hours I find very little time or energy to get my workouts in, this new twist will give me even less time.

If I have to work throughout the winter out of town I can see proposing staying at a hotel 1 to 2 nights per week and perhaps having to join a Snap Fitness to workout at as there are a lot of them in that area. I'll probably also end up working on design projects in the evening for something to do. You can only watch so much TV in a hotel room.

After having this long time away from working out my priorities on life have changed a lot. Now having time to workout is farther down on the list of things to do compared with spending time with my family, as it should be. When I do get home late it is not the rush to get to the gym as it would have been in the past.

My transformation really seems stalled at this point and will not accelerate much at this rate. The positive is that my diet has improved (well... except for last night...) although it may also suffer somewhat if I live away from home.

Oh well. Today we hope to hit the gym for shoulders and arms after hitting chest and back on Thursday. When I was in the gym the other night I noticed a sign on the wall saying that kids 12-15 could workout with their parents. My 12 year old son has wanted to start working out with us but we had thought he had to be older to do so. It will be nice to now make at least these weekend gym excursions into a family affair when we can!

nuff said...

[Most Muscular]

This week again consisted of many long days at the construction site and two days in the office. The weather has really sucked this October with rain and snow being the norm nearly every day. I am not a cold weather guy and even though I try to dress warm I still feel cold much of the time. Then I see some ironworkers wearing t-shirts. Damn, I'm a wimp.

Last Saturday I took my 12 year old son with me to the gym for his first gym experience. He LOVED it! I didn't get in much of a shoulder/arm workout as I had hoped but it also was fun for me sharing some knowledge about lifting with him. I showed him mostly all the machines and free weights they had for doing legs and explained to him the proper form and techniques for the various exercises. I tried to stress over and over again how important proper form is to prevent injuries and also for helping build muscle mass.

I worked legs on Monday night and again was surprised how much strength they had retained compared to the rest of my body. I guess they have stayed strong because they continued to carry a lot of this lard weight around all summer.

I did chest and back on Wednesday night and these bodyparts have really lost a lot of strenth during my sabatical away from the gym. However each week they are getting a wee bit stronger.

I did shoulders last night and I have to control myself with many of these exercises because I realize they put a bit of strain upon my neck. With my recent surgery I can't afford to mess something up there. I also now realize that my neck often hurt during and after doing many chest and shoulder presses in the past and I was probably aggravating my neck discs to the point that eventually one of them decided to herinate last spring.

Today I want to get back into the gym if possible to hit arms. I really haven't worked them much so I want to give them a push. I also think back to last winter when I did certain exercises like barbell curls, etc. and they tended to put some strain upon my neck and traps when I did heavier weights. I may have to use more machines to do biceps that will not tend to strain my neck and traps during the movement.

So far each workout I have very slowly increased the amount of weight I am lifting. I'm probably pushing it a bit too hard at times but it's hard to keep myself back. I also am gaining about a pound per week with my increased protein intake and workouts but I wonder at times if it's all muscle. My gut seems to be really protruding a LOT these days.

I"ve found that when I take whey protein after my workouts it really bloats me out a LOT! My wife figured I was at least 4 to 5 months pregnant. I hoping for another boy.

nuff said...

[ntrllftr]

Originally Posted by Most Muscular

Last Saturday I took my 12 year old son with me to the gym for his first gym experience. He LOVED it! ...

This morning my son (who is 12 as well) asked me when I was going to take him to the gym. I told him in a couple years. After reading your post I thought about it. I think I'll talk to the wife tonight about funds to purchase a membership where he can go, like the rec center. They will not allow him to lift at my regular gym until he is 16.
So I am glad I read this. It will give us something to do together on the weekends instead of the usual sitting around the house stuff.

[2nd_chance]

I think 12 is a great time to get started. That's when I started noticing some of the big older guys in my neighborhood who had started lifting.

[BuckSpin]

That is awesome about your boy. All that time & effort you spent building yourself did not go unnoticed.

[Most Muscular]

Finding something to do with your children that you BOTH like to do is a great way to have family bonding. I know that when my wife and I first started dating we spent many of our evenings working out together and talked a lot between sets and had the opportunity to get to know each other well during those discussions. The same effect can be done with your children. It isn't often, especially as they grow into teens, that you can have that type of opportunity to spend some one on one time together and to talk to each other between sets.

I always wanted my oldest son (Dennis) to workout with me but he never showed much interest and I wasn't going to drag him into the gym because he would never make the commitment to working out if he himself didn't want to go there in the first place. Before he joined the Army a few years back he started working out with me a bit to get into shape for his basic training and I really enjoyed that time with him before he left. We really bonded more than any other time in our life.

I always told him how important nutrition was and that seemed to be his downfall. When I went to his Army graduation I hardly recognized him! He trained hard during basic and MP school and ate a LOT of food and gained 30 pounds of muscle! He was one of the select few in his company that was recognized for his physical abilities and was awarded a physical fitness award during his graduation. He was always a thin kid but the man I saw that day had broad shoulders, a thick neck, and looked HUGE. Unfortunately after his discharge he lost all of his muscle mass, started smoking again, and didn't eat well anymore. He did acknowledge that perhaps I did know what I was talking about when I always stressed how important eating big to get big was important. This summer he joined a gym again, started eating more and has gained 20 pounds in the last 2 months! He now can snicker at my fat ass! I do believe he also has great genetics that are fostered with good training and nutrition.

We'll have to see how my younger son (Michael) grows with his training. I have stressed to him that the training will be for naught if he doesn't eat properly. He certainly is going through a growing spurt lately and will easily be taller than me in the next year or two... which really isn't a tall order since I'm only 5'-2"...

nuff said...

[Most Muscular]

Even though I had another week of very long hours I did get into the gym four times this week and will have the opportunity to get in there today and Sunday also. With each workout I notice some improvement in strength. As I said before, my legs have retained a lot of their strength but chest and shoulders suffered the most. My working sets for chest this week were at 135 pounds which normally would be my warm up sets in the past. Oh well... that's an improvement over the previous weeks!

Last night, after warming up my triceps with some push downs, I tried to see how many dips I could accomplish. I recall my first day back into the gym I could only do 5 reps but last night I pushed out 25, a 5x improvement! Someday I'll again be strong enough to hang some additional weight on myself to push myself harder. For now my triceps are struggling to lift this lard body. After warm ups, I've always tried to do heavy dips as one of my first tricep exercises because it can be one of the heaviest exercises in the group.

In fact, with every body part I work I'll tend to do a warm up exercise and then proceed to the exercise that will involve the heaviest weight for that bodypart. I want to have the most energy available to push that bodypart to it's max. These exercises will also usually be compound exercises instead of isolation exercises. I don't want to leave the heavy work for the end when my muscles are fatigued from previous injury. I'd just be asking for an injury if I did.

For legs, after warming up my knees with light leg extensions, I'll proceed to the leg press. For chest, after multiple warm up sets, I'll do heavy presses. For back (in the past when I could) I'd start with dead lifts. Today I'll tend to focus on pull downs or rows (alternating between the two every other week) to build width and thickness.. For shoulders it's alway military presses. For biceps, barbell curls, and triceps it's dips.

As with anything else in bodybuilding it's not really rocket science... it's just common sense.

Besides the increased training this week I've also been fairly good with my diet in getting in good amounts of protein spread between 4 to 6 meals per day. With each meal having around 40 to 60 grams of protein I feel I'm getting in decent amount of protein each day and my body is responding my building up more muscle mass slowly but surely.

And while I may not be noticing a big jump on the scale each week (it's been about a pound per week) I have noticed my body changing in the mirror which is what I want. My chest and shouldes are starting to fill out again and it's great to see progress there because that is where I lost the most size and strength.

My plans for November will be to continue getting into the gym when I can and continue to eat enough protein. It appears I'll be working out in the field until Thanksgiving and then start getting back into our new office (which officially opens on Monday) to do some design work.

When I get back into the office in December I'll hopefully have more opportunity to get into the gym, do my cardio at home before work, and eat more consistant meals. It is then when I hope to see better improvements. Patience. We don't have it as a child but we're supposed to have it now?

nuff said...

[2nd_chance]

Sounds like a good plan to me

[fitbanker]

Randy, I've just subbed to this thread, and am looking forward to your transformation journey! Thanks for your willingness to put this out for all bb.com community.

[Bob45]

Just reading through some journals to get myself going again. A few guys are just getting back like I am. Having long work hours is not such a bad thing. A lot of people can't even find work now. Sounds like you are doing good as usual.

[Most Muscular]

Another week rolls by... again it was some long hours (mostly around 12 hour days this week except for Friday which was an 8 hour day). I got into the gym last weekend, one night during a long day, and again on Friday, Saturday, and hopefully sometime today (Sunday).

I am typicaly exhausted when I get home after a long day and when I lay on the couch I"m out, usually by 9 pm every night snoring away. Lucky for me my wife enjoys doing some of the outside clean up because I never see it when it's light out!

I am showing improvements in my workouts each week being able to lift a bit more than the previous week for the most part. I can also see some improvements in my physique although it is still too early to post photos. I'll probably post update photos in the beginning of December or so which will mark two months of gym time. My gut is still an issue and I realize only cardio is going to shrink that thing but that'll have to wait until December also. I was standing in front of the mirror a few weeks back and askded my wife if she thought I was like 3 to 4 months along... she replied, "No, more like 6 months..." Thanks dear.

My diet continues to remain, for the most part, very clean and full of protein. I really should log my food some day soon here to see where I am. "Do as I say, not as I do..." For all the advice I give to others on the importance of diet you would think I would have a better grasp on what I am feeding myself. At times I know the chicken breast I am consuming is probably a lot bigger than it needs to be I have not bothered with weighing each one like I do when I am in a contest prep mode. During those times I became a bit anal and wieghed or measured and logged EVERYTHING that went into my mouth.

My son is also very much enjoying weight training with me and I have told him that we will also have to take photos of him so it will be able to see the progress he will be making. Not surprisingly he is quite strong for his little (at this point) frame and I expect he has the potential for building up some good solid mass in the coming years if he sticks with it.

I am currently up over 170 pounds an increase of over 6 pounds in the last 5 weeks of weight training. At a pound per week I'll add over 50 pounds in the next year! NOT.

nuff said....

[stayfit2008]

Originally Posted by Most Muscular

I am currently up over 170 pounds an increase of over 6 pounds in the last 5 weeks of weight training. At a pound per week I'll add over 50 pounds in the next year! NOT.

nuff said....

Of solid Muscle no less,..

[Most Muscular]

Since Monday night I've been on the edge of getting a cold or the flu... something is going on with me... I've had a tad of a sore throat every night and slight congestion in my head. I stayed away from the gym for a few nights to get some extra rest but I did go tonight because I wasn't feeling too bad and I had a shorter day today (10 hours).

I think the gym is where I more than likely picked up any cold germs as that place is sure to be infested with everything you can thing of and everyone touching and using the same weights and machines. After my workout tonight I took a sauna (pronounced SOW-na and not SAW-na) and threw plenty of water on the hot rocks to get some good hot steam to open up my sinuses.... yes you can throw water on an electric sauna stove and not get electrocuded... I've done it for years. Being 100% Finnish I have taken saunas all my life and even sold them some years back... anyway, I'm degressing from my blog...

I've decided to change my training up a bit from anything I've done in the past. I've always worked one body part per week (except when doing total body workouts because of injury or during the last week of a contest prep). I've examined my physique from the past and present and realized that my chest has seemed to be one of my weakest bodyparts in terms of size and proportion. My shoulders tend to get big and take away from the illusion of a swelling chest.. plust my normally big gut really makes my chest look small!

As a result I am going to focus on my chest workouts and that means working it TWICE per week. Once will be perhaps worked with back in a push/pull type workout alternating the two bodyparts throughout the workout. The other will be chest only or perhaps combined with biceps or something. I want to space out the two chest workouts by 3 to 4 days at least so I'll have to figure out some way to accomplish that task.

I've always been an advocate of working a bodypart only once per week and giving it the rest it needs to grow however there seems to be a lot of people that do hit a bodypart more than once per week so I'm going to give it a try. I'm not that stubborn or set in my ways that I can't try something else to see if it works... besides, I have to find some way to focus more on my chest development and can't think of any other way. I do NOT want to spend more than an hour in the gym to work it longer as I do not think this is the avenue to pursue. We'll have to see how it works....

nuff said...

[2nd_chance]

Randy good luck on your Chest x2 experiment. I'll be curious as to your thoughts afterwards. Get well.

[Bob45]

Sounds like a plan! There is a lot of sickness going around in my area. I already had it so hopefully that's it for a while. My favorite was always chest and it shows. My chest and back were always my strong points. I found every 5th day I could hit it again. My chest was my weakest point when I first started at 21 years old. I wouldn't even go to the gym. I didn't want to be embarassed. I remember I could only get 80-90 pounds for 10 reps. 4 years later rarely missing a workout I got 275 x 10. Still not a ton but great for me.

[scrawny2brawny]

Randy, My chest used to be my best feature but as my shoulders and arms have filled out my chest seems to have stalled so I started this week doing Chest x2. I am interested to see what kind of split you come up with.

[Most Muscular]

Originally Posted by scrawny2brawny

Randy, My chest used to be my best feature but as my shoulders and arms have filled out my chest seems to have stalled so I started this week doing Chest x2. I am interested to see what kind of split you come up with.

Figuring out a new workout scheme that can accomplish the task of hitting chest twice in one week I found takes some careful consideration. My objective in planning a schedule was to avoid putting the two chest workouts too close to each other so the pec muscles would have ample time to repair themselves. I also wanted to avoid having a tricep or a shoulder workout too close before a chest workout as both of these bodyparts can become activated during a chest workout. If they are fatigued they will fail long before the pec muscles fail and thus it would be senseless to try to work my chest if it wasn't actually going to get worked!

I thus have decided to try the following plan of attack:

Chest and Triceps

Back and Biceps

Legs

Chest

Shoulder and Calves

Repeat...

The only drawback is that I have a shoulder workout before a chest day but I will try to incude my regular days of rest between these workouts if possible. If that is not possible I will focus the chest workout more towards decline presses and flyes instead of inclines, etc. which may involve the shoulders more.

I have been experiencing some discomfort in my neck when doing some exercises. I recall now that I felt this same discomfort for the last few years before my neck surgery but ignored it. I don't anymore. I realize that certain exercises put some strain upon my neck so when that happens I back away from the heavier weight and try something else. I have learned to make some lighter weights feel a lot more heavy by slowing down my reps even more so then in the past. The negative reps, when done slowly and under control, can tear muscle fiber nearly as well as heavy weights, plus I've found they help strengthen the muscle tendons.

Pressing exercises put strain upon my neck along with heavy bicep curls. I figure if I do my biceps with my back workout they will tend to be fried from the back workout and take less to fatigue and break them down. No, I won't be able to lift as much but I've learned you just have to leave your ego at the door and do everything with good form.

nuff said...

[BuckSpin]

Randy,

You have very similar concerns to mine as far as keeping Shoulders & Tris away from Chest, although my main concern is not so much secondary recruitment (but that is very true) as it is giving the RCs a chance to chill.

I'll just throw out my current splits (in order):

Chest/Bis
Quadz
Back
Shoulders/Tris
"Deli Day" (smoked hams & butt )

Keeping Chest/Bis & Shoulders/Tris as the 1st & 4th (or could be 2nd & 5th) sessions addresses your concerns plus allows the RCs to rest.

I currently (due to work) have a variant of a 2 on/1 off split. I train Sun, Tue, Thu & Fri with 5 splits, so basically each split's focus is a primary 1x/9 days and secondary at least 1x in the interim. I never go more than 1 day off, plus get a 2 day in a row for a shake-up. Also using 5 splits like this, my training weeks cycle every 5 weeks. I never have the same week 2x for 6 weeks, which keeps it fresh & fun. I also get to hit my wheelz hard 3x/9 days instead of 2x/7 days.

Keeping Shoulders & Tris together allows Chest to not have to be overly concerned with the pre-exhaust, as you mentioned.

Disclaimer: Due to my dad's "gift" I don't do Calves directly. No Fankhouser by any means, but they are abnormally big & grow without direct work.

Just some food for thought....

[Most Muscular]

Todd, I appreciate the input and it sounds like you have perfected a system that works well for you. As I said, my main objective was to try and figure out a schedule that would allow me to hit my chest more often but the complexity of trying to avoid the chest workouts from being too close together along with trying to avoid shoulders or triceps close to a chest workout is a daunting task.

Right now it probably won't be a big deal because with my current work schedule I am not getting into the gym on a regular basis anyway so my chest workouts may be separated by a lot more time than I want to have between workouts. I am hoping by the end of the month I can get back into a regular schedule if I will be in the office more.

At that time I also plan to start doing cardio again in the mornings before work at least 5 to 6 days a week to try and get rid of my big gut. So far all my bodyparts have seen growth... but unfortunately so it seems has my gut! The added calories are not always going to the right place and I realize at my age that I have can't just rely on diet alone to get lean. My diet for the most part has been pretty clean but I need the "omph" of cardio to get my metabolism to speed up a bit.

Like yourself, I too have been blessed with good genetics when it comes to calves and rarely work them at all. But I put them on my schedule and if I have time I'll throw in a couple of sets but most often than not I forget to do them.

Thanks again for your input along my journey...

nuff said...

[BuckSpin]

No, thank you for sharing all you know & for setting an example for the rest of us to aim for.

[Most Muscular]

Well another week behind me... My cold is still hanging on, although I only tend to feel it when I wake up with a sore throat and head congestion and at night I get a hoase cough and congestion again. During the day I am pretty much symptom free but it is still dragging me down a bit.

Because of the cold and another week of long hours I didn't make it into the gym much during the week. I did get my two chest workouts in but realize that if I'm not getting into the gym much during the week days then I'll have to reconfigure my workout schedule as it seems that during the week I may have more days of rest and then try to fill in the workouts during the weekend. This places my two chest workouts too close together so I'll have to mix things up a bit and throw a chest workout in during the week because it seems I take a few days off then.

I pushed myself a bit more on leg day this week (more heavy sets) and I sure could feel it for many days after. It was very hard climbing around the construction site all week when my quads and hamstrings were tight and stiff. We'll see if it translated into leg strength next week.

It appears I added another pound this week although I don't think all of the weight I've been adding is necessarily all "good" weight. My goal is to start my morning cardio routine on Thanksgiving day and try to be faithful to it during December, hopefully putting in about 6 days a week on it. My gut has seemed to grown the most which was not my objective in this transformation. I now realize, more than ever, that cardio is a necessary evil that I have to contend with. Diet alone will not suffice.

I've never been too good at taking supplements. I may start out okay, but then forget to take them in a regular manner. To get the full benefit out of their usefulness I feel you have to take them regularly and for at least several weeks to notice if their useful to you or not. I just have to get into a schedule and remember to take them every day.

The only supplement I've found that really has worked for me is creatine. I used it more when it first came out. Although many people have had fantastic results with NO products I unfortunately have seen nothing from them. I wish I did, because when it works for some people they really sound like they have some good workouts from them. I get nada, nothing, zilch.

I also take glutamine after my workout (when I remember) and although it is not something that you can really "feel" working there have been enough studies on it to convince me of it's usefulness.

When I was nominated for "bodybuilder of the week" this year bodybuilding.com sent me coupon for $50 worth of free supplements so I decided to order something I normally would not buy because of its price or because I wasn't sure if it would work. I ordered some BCAA powder because I recalled when I first started working out I took some BCAA pills that seemed to help. I also used to take some before a workout when I was in contest prep and carb depleted. They seemed to give me some energy. Maybe it was a placebo effect but I don't really care, as long as I can have something to push me a bit harder.

I figure sometime during the first week of December (or so...) I will take some progress pics to help gauge my progress, or lack thereof. My shoulders, which have always been one of my stronger bodyparts both in size and strength, seemed to have shrunk, both in size and strength, the most during my layoff from working out. They are also struggling to regain their size and strength during this transformation it seems. Of course many of the exercises that I do for my delts I also feel some tension in my neck which causes me to immediately back down from the intensity or weight of the exercise. In the past I think I would just work through it which probably was a leading cause of my injury in the first place. I have become not only older, but wiser too. I just have to continue taking it slow and eventually it'll come back.

nuff said...

[Most Muscular]

On Monday I had another very strong leg workout and I'm still wobbling around because of it. Getting stronger can also at times be a curse because it usually means that the next week you have to push even more weight around to continue the process and my body I find is having a hard time recovering as I age.

I was scheduled for my monthly chiropractor adjustment last week but because of my long hours out in the field I missed it and haven't rescheduled it. I really need it too because my lower back is killing me tonight. I think it is a combination of being out of adjustment and spending a lot of my time driving each day.

Since starting my new job they have continually pushed the date when I am supposed to be back in the office. The other week they agreed that it would be after the Thanksgiving weekend but I found out last weekend that that date has now been moved to December 14. My boss called me today and now informed me that the guy I was covering for might be back in the field on December 14 but he has also scheduled a vacation for December 23 to January 8. In the end, I doubt I'll even get the two weeks back in the office.

I had made a vow to start my daily cardio sessions on Thanksgiving day (tomorrow) figuring I'd been in the office. Even though I'll still be out in the field I am going to try to keep my vow and get up early and do my cardio before heading out for a long day. God knows I need to because all the weight I've been gaining these last 8 weeks or so has not been all muscle.

As an added incentive to get into shape my wife and I are planning a vacation to Mexico at the end of March. I want to get into the same (or better) shape I was when we went to Disney World last spring.

I posted a thread in the Over 35 Misc section asking for advice on where to vacation in Mexcio. If you haven't read it please provide your input too!

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...#post414016801

My wife "talks" about getting into beach shape too but she has never stayed on course for very long when pursuing a body reshaping challenge. I gave her a "carrot and a stick" approach tonight to consider but she didn't like it. I told her that as incentive to do cardio 5x a week she would have to agree that if she DIDN'T do it she would have to post a photo of herself on her Facebook profile page for all her friends to see. She said there is no way she would do that, but she couldn't understand my logic that she would never have to do that IF she followed through on her commitment. I told her not to think of the negative but of the positive. If she kept her commitment she could proudly post a bikini photo of herself. I think she thinks the stick is too big.

Her suggestion was to not be allowed to go on Facebook unless she had done her cardio that day. She's a big Facebook addict but I personally don't think that is enough of an incentive.

What say you?

nuff said...

[2nd_chance]

Happy Thanksgiving Randy.

I don't know, my daughter can't live without facebook. Might work.