Psychoholic's "I ain't wearin no grass skirt!" log - Team Norton!

[Psychoholic]

Let's try this for the 5th time.

Super short introduction - currently around 275-280, unknown bodyfat. Here are some pics from walking around the Arnold (I'm probably 15 lbs fatter now)

http://gallery.me.com/psychoholic/10...12680576280001
http://gallery.me.com/psychoholic/10...12680579370001
http://gallery.me.com/psychoholic/10...12680579460001
http://gallery.me.com/psychoholic/10...12680580180001

My various attempts to cut so far have been fruitless and have fallen victim to the same damned thing every time - me. I don't mind doing the work and I don't mind dieting or cardio or lifting, it's I don't seem to like making myself accountable for the things I do when it comes to diet (which is abnormal considering how I am with the rest of my life), so I have enlisted the help of the mighty Dr. Layne Norton to help me and for me to be accountable to. I'm not going to let him down.

Stay tuned here for daily updates.

[Psychoholic]

Forgot to mention the grass skirt thing.

I have a friend who is about the same build as me (probably 15 lbs lighter, but 3 inches shorter) and we wanted to make a little wager. Here are the details:

"The bet is that both myself and <friend - name removed> (loser) will enter and compete in a natural bodybuilding show around the beginning of April 2011. Since most federations don't post their dates until a few months out, we'll have to decide on a contest around December/January.

I suspect that most have the same rules around what is allowed and what isn't.

http://www.snbf.com/rules.html

The 'wager' is that the loser or the one that doesn't enter (loser by default) has to cut the winner's grass wearing a grass skirt while being videoed. I would imagine that a pair of shorts, socks and shoes are acceptable underneath. Loser is defined as both parties enter the contest (probably in the same weight/height class) and does not accrue as many points or place as high as the other. In the event that they are of different classes, then the number of points will be compared. In the event of a tie - we will request that the judges of the event judge the 2 side by side and rule. If this is not possible, then an impartial panel must be found.

If both parties back out of the deal, then they BOTH have to cut the other's grass in the aforementioned skirt.

I am going to military volunteer <other friend> to be the neutral party for this since he holds us both in the same level of regard (and would get the biggest kick out of us having to do stupid ****) and can make sure the contest moves forward appropriately.

Reply to this email with agreement to officially kick off this contest, and may the best bodybuilder (me) win."

[co1e_train]

Awesome man! A log will help keep you accountable. Glad to see you take charge man. Dr. Norton will get you to where you want to be. Have full faith!


-the train

[bucsfan]

In for this. Good luck man.

[Psychoholic]

Mornin BB.com peeps.

I took starting pics this morning and weighed myself - I was not a happy camper with the pictures. Granted taking pics 10 minutes after waking up and with zero pump is not exactly how one should feel good when thinking bodybuilding, but it works and it can be consistent. Funny that my arms are 18.5" unpumped and 19.25" when pumped. =)

I need to knock out 2 or 3 days of HIIT each week and a few lower intensity days too. I decided that I would do the HIIT in the pool since it is pretty much the biggest ass kicker for cardio I've ever done. Managed 6 good laps of a strong breast stroke to get warmed up, rested for about a minute then had 6 full tilt laps (25m) of freestyle, roughly a minute of rest in between each one. Good stuff!

If you're interested in seeing my food each day, I'll be logging with this:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/psychoholic

[Psychoholic]

I have to say that of phrases that motivate a brother, walking in the door and rendering your wife speechless with how awesome your shoulders look is definitely up there. Such terms as 'holy ****!' and 'wow, your shoulders look amazing... I mean... wow!'.

Felt pretty good today, right up until I stood up on the rear delt flye machine and crowned my f'n head. I developed a righteous headache about 10 seconds later and decided that shrugs could get skipped.

Seated military press - 25@bar,12@95,12@135,9@155

Front db raise: 10@25,10@30,10@35,10@30

Leaning side lay raises: 10@30,10@30,10@35,10@35

Rear delt fly: 30@75, 10@130,10@130,10@130

Smith shrugs: 20&225 (pull and hold)

[Psychoholic]

As luck would have it - I got sick as hell the last 2 days. Not like puking, but my energy has been completely not there, fever, sore throat. I have pretty much played God of War 3 from my couch all day and rested.

On a cool note, these came today!

http://www.heavygrips.com/en/p16909260.html

I'm very excited about them. I think my biceps are awesome, but my forearms only measuring 14.5" just ain't gonna cut it.

[Psychoholic]

Still feel like ass, but had an AWESOME leg workout.

Vsquat (machine weighs 54, so add 54 to all of these): 12@90, 12@180, 7@360, 7@450, 1@470, dropped 470.

Stiff leg deadlift: 10@135, 7@225, 4@315, 4@315 (hands were slipping),

Seated leg ext: 12@210, 12@210, 12@250 (very hard), 10@270 (failure),

Lying leg curl: 12@110,10@155, 10@155, 10&155

Single leg calf ext: 5 x 20@270,

[Psychoholic]

Couple of phrases that help get me hyped:

"You may beat me, but it won't be because you outworked me"

"You aren't here to work out, you are here to train"

"You working hard? He's working harder!"

"You don't want to step on stage with bird legs do you?"

[Psychoholic]

Scale said 271 this morning - mighty happy about that. My lung capacity still isn't full there yet, but I do feel a little better. Not 100%, but I'll live.

Did some HIIT in the pool this morning - 5 laps of breast stroke to get the heart going then 25m swims at full tilt, as hard as I could possibly swim with a minute of heaving rest at the end of each lap - managed 4 and thought I might die. Got done, went to the car and my body was shaking! I would consider that a damn fine workout.

[Psychoholic]

Howdy BB.com folk.

Did pretty pitifully over the holiday and my subsequent birthday, but felt I got it out of my system. I feel hyper motivated and ready to tear up the world.

Did some crazy shoulders today. Started with standing arnold presses and supersetted with incline front raises. Minute or less of rest between sets.

From there added leaning side raises and lying side raises in a superset.

Did one arm heavy rear raises supersetted with bench rear raises.

Front shrugs supersetted with shoulder bombs.

Finally ended with hanging leg raises supersetted with db oblique crunches on the hyperextension bench. I was pretty well ruined after.

Food has been awesome today - should be right on target for my metrics if I can sneak in another meal somewhere.

[Psychoholic]

Weight: 276

Feel pretty good this morning - went and did HIIT in the pool this morning, got a few more laps than last time, but it's still an ass kicker. I was working on my breathing a bit more this time too, so hopefully I can get that figured out so I don't come out of the water sounding like the next plunge will be my last.

Here's to another great day!

[bucsfan]

Weight: 276

Feel pretty good this morning - went and did HIIT in the pool this morning, got a few more laps than last time, but it's still an ass kicker. I was working on my breathing a bit more this time too, so hopefully I can get that figured out so I don't come out of the water sounding like the next plunge will be my last.

Here's to another great day!

HIIT in the pool sounds rough! I did my HIIT this morning on a arc trainer and it kicked my tail. Keep up the good work man.

[Psychoholic]

HIIT in a pool is no joke - I highly recommend it.

Had a simply bodacious back workout with Alex today (my training partner). I would like to add that this is without gloves or straps.

Started out with the neutral bar cable rows - 10@65, 10@255, 10@300, 10@300, 10@275
Reverse grip iso lat pulldown machine - 10@180, 5@230, 10@180, 10@180, 6@230
db rows - 8@125 right hand, 1@125 left hand (NO grip strength left), 4 x 10@100.

A few months ago I was trying to deadlift 405 (which I can pull 6 or 7 times usually) without straps and I simply could not hold the bar - this bugged me. If I want to ever compete in powerlifting I'm going to need better grip. This is why I've got my HeavyGrips and why I quit using straps.

I feel obliterated right now.

[Psychoholic]

Slept really good last night - got up this morning and the wife noticed that I'm losing weight already (probably just leveling out from the poor food of the other day - but it's nice to hear). Went slightly over my macros for carbs yesterday, so we'll have to adjust today to make them closer to where they need to be.

Did not get up and do cardio this morning, had to finish up a few things for my boss before my day-o-meetings begin.

[Psychoholic]

I feel great this week and my workouts have definitely reflected it. Didn't do anything crazy heavy, just felt really good and my form was spot on. My chest has so much pump to it that it hurts to try and reach across my own body!

Supersetted incline smith press with incline db flyes - don't remember the weights, but they didn't move mountains. I am trying a more narrow grip and putting my elbows more forward to relieve some of the tension from my shoulders and focus on my chest.

Then we laid the bench 'almost' flat, meaning that we put about 2 clicks up on angle and did that for incline and flyes again - 5 sets of 10. I was sweating buckets by the end of the workout.

My food has been good today so far and looks like I should be within metrics for the day again today.

[Psychoholic]

Yesterday's metrics were spot on! Probably need to resort my food so that I'm not running out of food by the end of the day and I need to pair my carb/protein combos better - but for now I'm gathering what makes up a good day and I can sort it later.

Got home last night and did 20 minutes on the elliptical with a heart rate of around 160 and I was SPENT! Had to get some spreadsheets done this morning so I didn't work out, but about to go KILL arms.

As an aside - my lats are f'n wrecked from our back day the other day.

[Psychoholic]

Bad-ass arm workout!

Superset hammer db curls and ez curl wide grip curls: 10@25/12@40, 10@45/10@70, 9@50/10@70, 8@45/10@70, 10@45/10@70

Superset on arm overhead extension/ez curl overhead extension: 12@25/10@50, 10@35/10@70, 10@35/10@70, 10@35/10@70, 10@35/10@70

Superset spider curls/reverse grip db curls: 10@35/10@30, 10@35/10@35, 10@30/10@35, 9@25/10@30

Seated dip machine: 20@230 - figured that the machine wasn't going to cut it today so I did bodyweight dips - 3 x 10 x bodyweight (~275).

I managed to get the trainers at the gym to let me borrow the huge rope and the weighted sled - put 4 plates on the sled to warm up and did 50 foot pulls with it.



Put 5 plates on it and did about 6 full length pulls - that was awesome!!

Well, off to see the in-laws.

[Psychoholic]

Today was brought to you by the letters HFS. Holy F'n S**t! Saw Layne post on his facebook once that he was going to go do car pushes for cardio and I thought that sounded like an awesome time. So me and my Sunday morning harem (every Sunday my wife Nikki and I go work out with some friends of ours and their husbands rarely go - so it's just me and 3 women that I call my harem) decided it would be an awesome day to push my corolla around the parking lot of a local park.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvB5doFo14o

Here is my wife doing it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bx7UYjDpCM

I seriously thought I was going to puke afterwards. Its been 3 hours and I'm still hot and feel completely drained. Totally doing this again next week sometime!

Time to go grill 10 lbs of chicken for the week.

[Psychoholic]

My friend backed out of the challenge in favor of a boxing match - I'll give him that one. I made a statement to my wife telling her about him backing out and I guess the bet was off and she basically told me that I'm going to compete and I'm going to place or I'm going to have to wear a grass skirt and coconut bra!!! So I'm not just competing against another fat guy, I'm now going to have to beat other bodybuilders.

Did laps in the pool yesterday but I don't consider it good cardio since I was focused more on technique and breathing than actual cardio work.

Yesterday was legs and it was offensively painful as is evident by my decreased motion today. Started off with leg extensions, did 3 sets of 40 reps (2 warm up first) where I went to 210 for 10, 150 for 10, 90 for 10 and 210 for upper range partials. Sweet jesus!

Then came leg press - loaded up 3 plates and did a set of 20, a set of 30, 36 reps with 2 plates and 32 with 2 plates.

Went to the vsquat and did 2 sets of 20 at 200 backwards (facing the pad), finished off with the hip abduction and adduction machines for 3 sets of 20 each at max weight. Hobbled out of the gym and went home.

[Psychoholic]

What a day, what a day. Pretty much started working at around 6:30 this morning and didn't stop till about 7:30 tonight. Didn't get to work out at all and I'm a little miffed about that - oh well, tomorrow we'll kill it on shoulders.

Ready to add another dimension to my cardio regime? Mountain biking!



My insane workout partner Alex knew I was in the market for a bike and he offered me this one as a loaner for a bit! Add this to the running, car pushes, elliptical, swimming and now biking and you've got a pretty good way to make sure I get 5 days of hard cardio in each week without being bored.

Gonna eat some cottage cheese and head to bed.

[Psychoholic]

And for any of you bike geeks out there - it's a 2000-2001 GT XCR-1000 with Shimano XTR rear, XT front, diore crank, fox vanilla float r rear shock, xmo xc o2 front forks and a bunch of other good parts. I'm excited as hell to just ride around my neighborhood for cardio this morning!

[NaturalLoco]

just found this log

your in good hands; he knows his stuff! subba dub dubbed

[Psychoholic]

Shoulder destruction!

Seated side laterals: 20@10 warm up.

12@15,20,25,15,10 straight!
12@10,15,20,15,10 ugh!!

Seated db ohp: 20@40, 20@40, 16@40

Partial side lat: 30@30 standing, 30&30 seated, 30@25 standing

Rope pulldowns: 30@85, 20@110, 15@110

Various shrugs.

I'm also happy to say I was down 3 lbs this morning.

[Psychoholic]

Back:

neutral grip wide pulldown 12@85, 12@180, 10@240, 10@240, 10@240

Reverse grip smith rows: 10@90, 10@180, 10@180, 8@180

Hammer front pulldown: 10@100 each, 12 front grip/12 underhand grip at 60, 10@100

Mid width neutral grip cable rows: 12@200, 8@260, 10@260, 9@260

Quick set of hammer curls with the 50's and called it a day.

Might go out and ride the bike here in a bit.

[Psychoholic]

"What do you want to eat for lunch?"
"STEAK!"
"Sounds good"

Man I do love Texas Roadhouse. Felt weird to get the 8 oz sirloin instead of the 16, some sauteed onions/mushrooms and a sweet potato with the butter and cinnamon on the side. Didn't realize how calorically high the rolls were until after I ate 2 of them (227 calories each!), but the food was AWESOME. There is something just perfect about a really good steak.

[Psychoholic]

I am digging the new bb.com' iPhone app!

About to head out and do car pushes.

Got to want it to win it!!

[Psychoholic]

Good oogly moogly! That was f'n tough.

Did 3 x 1/4 mile up hill (albeit slight - maybe 10-15 feet total incline over 1/4 mile) car pushes. This was twice the distance of last week's pushes.

For entertainments sake I did the last set with 4 adults and 2 kids in the car.

I'm going to go die now...

[Psychoholic]

Went mountain biking this morning - and got LOST!

http://runkeeper.com/user/Psychoholic/activity/13060517

Had a blast, was sweating buckets and legs were on FIRE but had a blast.

[Psychoholic]

This is the story I posted on my facebook page - thought I'd share it here too.

Went to Harbins this morning to hit the trails - try and get in a 30 minute ride and just have some fun. Went around trail MB1 which was pretty short and lots of fun, covered that in 15ish minutes or so, grabbed my water and thought 'I'll go hit the next loop - should be fun'.

Apparently I made a wrong turn and ended up on the hiking trail and equestrian trails (which have NO maps) - long story made short - I got LOSSSSSST! Wasn't sure I was going the right direction at all, didn't know which way to go to get back and kept having this nagging feeling that I was almost back to the paved path so I kept on going. I did have to walk a few points (legs were on fire) but still was having a blast. So my 30 minute ride took an hour and 10 minutes.

I finally made my way to the paved path and saw a walker - imagine this scene if you will - me, sweaty as hell, kinda muddy, looking particularly deranged come flying out of the woods onto the trail, panting with a happy gusto.

"Excuse me ma'am <pant, pant>- do you know where I am?"

She looked scared.

"How about this <pant>, do you know which trail I'm on?"
"I've only walked the one"
"Do you know where the playground is?"
She points, I thank her and ride to the hill.

I do have to wonder why I waited so long to get a bike, this was AWESOME.

http://runkeeper.com/user/Psychoholic/activity/13060517