Прекрасное Далеко....

So, 8 weeks on, another comp. I'm a little disappointed, but hey, all improvement is good. I had 2 goals going into this - to bench 100 kg, and to total 380, which is the minimum total to qualify as a D grade raw powerlifter.

I benched 90 pretty easily, but totally failed 95, twice, even though I made 92.5 easily last comp. I have a couple of theories about this - one is that the rock climbing I'd been doing before the first comp was actually good for me - I cut it out 3 weeks before the comp this time in case it compromised my training, but next time, fuck it. So more climbing and more trapeze.

The squat was my biggest improvement - 135 kg, up from 110. To be honest, I should have made 120 last time, but I didn't, so I get to claim 25 kg improvement this time.

Deadlift: 165 up from 160. Failed on 175, but came damn close! I was worried about the dead, it didn't seem to have improved much, but I think I would have made 170.

There's clearly some strategy in choosing attempt weights that I'm not across yet - I tend to start with the heaviest I think I can lift, and then increase optimistically. If I'd settled for 130 in the squat, would I have made 175 in the dead? Who knows. If I'd settled for 170 in the dead, my total would have been 5 kg higher, but I would have wondered about 175.

Anyway. That's a total of 390 kg, 10 kg over my goal and 27.5 over my last total. It was all from the squat, but I'll take that, thanks :)

I do have to say, I am unconvinced by my coach's approach to programming. So I have my copy of NROL and SS out, and I'll work something out for myself next cycle, I think. And go back on the protein powder and creatine - I got pretty slack with the protein this time around. My squat results suggest that wasn't actually the problem, but we'll see :)

7K in my best time ever yesterday. 33k this week. (7/7/x/5/7/7/x), plus 3 weights sessions. No straps, alas, but some trapeze as well.

Therefore.

I thought there was a more visible change, but apparently not. Still, the meat puppet is starting to look and feel good.

jai.
.

http://glasshouse.eccentrify.com/solitaire/jai/pics/buff/dscn3291.jpg -> http://glasshouse.eccentrify.com/solitaire/jai/pics/buff/dscn3375.jpg


http://glasshouse.eccentrify.com/solitaire/jai/pics/buff/dscn3293.jpg -> http://glasshouse.eccentrify.com/solitaire/jai/pics/buff/dscn3376.jpg

Fitness update! Feeling fabulous. Up on weights, although (or perhaps because) boot camp has become less strenuous with our regular instructor injured. Jogging a couple of days a week, need to eat better! But overall, fabulous. Next week, I run Boot Camp hill again. 6 minutes!

Physio have signed me off on the gym equipment at work. Which, given that I have free weights at home is not a huge deal, but it's a means to an end - I can now go to the acrobatic coach and say "I've signed a waiver, I have permission to use the gear, all I need now is your permission to use the straps." And he will say "That's great! Now start a much more intensive program of upper body strength, and when you're actually strong enough, we'll get you on a trapeze and start from there!". My hope, and it might just work with Warren, is that I can convince him that a static trapeze is just a very expensive pullup bar, and that he should let me use the trapeze itself to work on pullups and hanging leg raises and all the other fun painful stuff that comes before an actual, y'know, trick. We'll see :)

Garage moments: Found a cocktail umbrella[0], gave it to the crazy Russian for her flight. Tips for young players: before you do this, work out what you're going to do if she a) doesn't give it back, and b) refuses to then take her proper umbrella. All during one of the tightest changes in the show. *sigh*. I did convince her that she couldn't actually fly with it in her cleavage, though I stopped short of personally retrieving it. So she gave it back to me, I put it with her stuff, she took it away at the end of the show. Awww. Then she turned up the next night and demanded another one. *facepalm* Fortunately, I had a spare. Unfortunately, we went through the whole cleavage thing again. Well. I *say* unfortunately....

This is the same crazy Russian who dismounts from her iceblock by putting her forearms on my shoulders and jumping. Most of them offer us a hand, or put their hands on our shoulders, or give us some actual option for helping them down in a demure manner. Most of them are 5'10 willowy dancers, who have an actual waist to hold, and can step down. Nastyushka just launches herself, and there's absolutely nowhere safe to grab. Chuck points out that if I don't at least try to grab her, I do end up with her breasts in my face a lot. Chuck, I think, misses the point....

Oh, but it's not all fun. Wait a minute. Yes it is :)


[0] Actually, bunnikins found it, to give credit where credit is due.

Ouch.

Physically, I'm not far off where I was when I was going to the gym, but apparently it's not muscle.

Or rather, I'm out of lifting practice. It happens. These numbers are embarrassing, but rather than hide them, I shall post them so you can see improvement :) Also, I think I could go heavier, so the next few weeks should shoot up, but I want to be sure my form is good first.

(Notation convention: db == dumbells, weight is per arm. bb == barbell, weight is total. Weights are in pounds. Don't ask. Weights do not include bar, unless noted.)

Bicep curls: db - 3x12@15. No comment.

French Press: bb - 3x12@bar. This is a fun one! But I really didn't want to risk failure, since that would involve dropping a bar on my face. I can go heavier, but my triceps are *woefully* neglected.

Shoulder press: db 3x12@15. That's pathetic, given that I was at 35 for the last gym entry I can find.

Squats: bb 3x12@bar. Bad knees, and dubious form - that can go a lot higher once I'm happy with my form.


So. Y'know. I have a burn on, but nothing like I used to. So I think it can all go higher when I'm happy with the form.

The artist who runs fitness bootcamp over here is also a personal trainer, so I'm getting him over to check my form and hash out ongoing workouts. Nothing like having an ex-Olympic silver medallist to inspire you ....

jai.
.

Or, "Thou shalt not suddenly realise that thou art doing bicep curls to the techno remix of _Cry, Little Sister_, lest thou recoil in horror and drop a 30 lb dumbbell on thy foot. Because it fucking hurts."

The trouble with good weekends, as I may have remarked ere now, is that they underscore just how brief and pathetic the weekends really are, and can plunge you into a fugue of depression as you contemplate yet another Monday morning at the office, or in my case at a conference full of sad geeks who are just going to bitch about how impossible the IMS LO spec is to implement, and look smug at having managed to extract information no-one will ever give a damn about from learning objects no-one will ever actually use because the entire concept of "shared content" between schools, let alone countries, would have failed to take off anyway under the weight of lumbering bureaucracy, hideously labrynthine international IP concerns, tha failure of Esperanto, and the fact that it's just stupid even had it not been technically all-but-hamstrung by the spectacularly useless "specification" that we could have predicted from a joint IEEE/IETF/GOTUS/random-academia committee.

Christ. I didn't think I could get any more cynical than I was when I started typing that sentence. Wasn't I wrong.

( Anyway. )

Right. I promised pictures. This is me, not looking as buff as I would like. Ignore the goofey expressions - I hadn't realised my face was in shot :)

I'm sure, btw, that I look buffer than this in real life, and bunnikins confirms that :)

Frontal pose
Actually, the shoulders in this one are ok - you can see the delts sloping down and then the shoulders bulging. And the biceps aren't so bad, just sheathed in a little too much fat. And that belly is much less than it was six months ago.

Back pose
Again, the delts are ok (Uh, I think they're delts. The bit sloping down from the neck to the shoulders), and the lats would actually be pretty impressive if I lost the love handles. Though then I'd probably lose half the lats, too :) You can also see, I think, on the right arm some definition starting to happen on the shoulder/bicep area, too.

Front pose, again
Again, I think that particularly on the right side, you can start to see definition between the shoulder and the bicep, rather than just a contiguous bulge. That's pretty exciting, let me tell you. Also a little from the shoulders to the pecs.

More in 6 months, when I look like teh Vin.


sol.
.

New routine last night - figured the old one was getting stale after 6 weeks.

Squats: 3x15 @ 40K. I think my form is getting better, but I've got a couple more weeks before I up the weight, I think.

Lat pulldown: 3x15 @ 80/90/100. I started at 110, sinec that's what I was doing for the Vgrip lat pulldowns, but this is wide grip, and oh boy did my poor abused left shoulder complain. So I backed off on the weight and eased back into it. It's a little tight today, but 100 should be about right for the moment. My form needs a little work, though. Slow, controlled. It's very easy to do the lat pulldowns hard-and-fast, which tends to mean you're "lifting" from the hips.waist, by throwing the body into it. Bad form, no biscuit.

Shoulder press: 3x15 @ 66. That's a 66 lb barbell (30 K), instead of the dumbells. And it's even harder, for some reason. Maybe because I've just come off a set of lat pulldowns :)

One arm dumbell row: 3x15 @ 35. Yay rows. I like these ones, though I'll have to play with the exact positioning a little to get comfy.

Bench press: 3x15 @ 35K. I need, really, to decide on whether I'm talking pounds or K here, don't I :P Bench presses, finally. Depressingly light. I am not yet butch. But I'm finally doing them, so I only have to add dealifts, at some point, and I'm hitting all the powerlifting moves. This was really hard, though- weird tight, stretchy feeling across teh chest, and it's one exercise that would be easier, psychologically, with a spot.

Calf raises: 1x15. Boring and painful. I should have done more sets, but I hurt :)

abs/cardio. Ten minutes jogging - I really wasn't in the mood. And yeah, that's o way to get buff like Vin, but oh well.

So there we go. Routine shamelessly lifted from krustukles site - http://www.stumptuous.com/weights.html .

With regards to pictures .... I'm not yet objectively impressive, and I don't have any "before" pictures, so there's no comparison for subjective impressions either. But I guess I should take some now, so that in 6 months, they'll be the "before" pictures. So ok, maybe, this week some time. But I warn you all, I'm not buff yet. Just getting there.

sol.
.

Well, that was a fun weekend. Went to kitlings on Friday night, despite having said I wouldn't, to watch while the filthy stinking gamers painted WarHammer 40K miniatures. Made the mistake of pickin up the filthy stinking rule book. I think I might need to borrow an army from someone at some point. It is, as sly_girl says, Car Wars without the cars. Not that I'm a filthy stinking gamer. Oh no.

Gym on Saturday - good day. Eased off on the weight a little - back to a step below my last session (so back to pre-Canberra levels) but good form for 3 solid sets in each exercise, and I added chest presses back into the mix. And did *real* squats. Badly, but I did them. Actually, not too badly. I had the bar too high (on the bony bit of my neck, rather than on the traps), but other than that, I felt good about my form. Light weight, again, but the squat is not an exercise where you want your ego to outdo your ability to keep your lower back straight. Gory details:
d/b shoulder press: 3x15 @ 30
Seated Row: 3x15 @ 120
Squats: 3x15 @ 10K (plus the bar, which is 19 K)
d/b Bicep curls: 3x15 @ 20
d/b chest press: 3x15 @ 35

Think that's it. Then a good 20 minute jog, and 5 minutes on the rowing machine.

I too was feeling bleh last night, and nearly didn't go to play pool, but I'm very glad I did in the end. I haven't spent much time with freekboi and fizit, or vastneonwolf and strepsil, come to that, and it was good to be out with unusual people. In so many senses. And I hadn't forgotten how much fun it was to blow a night on bad pool with good people, but it's certainly been far too long. And we won, which helps :)

And I thought for a while that no-one would turn up to Frisbee Club today, given (I presume) the weather, but freekboi made it, complete with frisbee, and then bunnikins, nigelw and kitling arrived all with kites, so it became Kite Club for the afternoon, which was, I must admit, a nice change from frisbees. And they all even flew! Though not all terribly well - being a geek, I suspect I'm going to have to invest in some silk and bamboo. nigelw and freekboi have done this kite thing before, I suspect.

Good gym day. *Good* gym day.

D/B shoulder presses: 3x15 @30. Well. Ok, the last set was 14.5, and only just that, and my form was ... dubious for the last set. But still!

Seated Row: 3x15 @ 120 . Booyah. Burning forearms, which means, I suspect, that my grip is still a weak point, but well worked shoulders too.

Hack squats: Back to 3x15 @20 Kg (10 per side) . I dunno. Deep good. Hack machine not so good. Going less deep in the squat after being dubious about my knee after last time. Must talk to Ambrose about getting off the hack machine and into *real* squats.

Bicep curls: 3x15 @35. Again, only just, and with dubious form on the last few. But I did it. The curl machine makes it easy to work harder with the right biceps, and let the left freeload. Which is, of course, exactly the opposite of what I should be doing. I should probably start doing them with dumbells to make the left work harder.

Tricep pushdowns: 2x15 @80, 1x15 @70. In hindsight, I should have just cranked out another half set at 80. Dropping to 70 was too easy - I ripped out another 15. I've used up all my beginner's luck in tricep pushdowns, though. For the other exercises, I'm adding 10 lb every third session or so, but I've only been doing them for a couple of weeks. For the triceps, which I've been doing for 2 months, I'm starting to slow down the pace at which I add. Maybe. OR maybe I just need to shut up and push harder.

And then 30 minutes on the treadmill. 35 odd minutes, 3.5 Km, and a claimed 300 calories after cool-down. The calory count, of course, is to be taken with a bushel of salt, but it does make me feel good :)
Then ab work. Ow, sore abs. But abs, somewhere under all that fat.

It's weird, though. I do feel slightly excluded at the gym. Partly, of course, because I don't know anyone there. Duh. But new gym goers often report feeling slightly left out because they're fat/weak/out of shape. Me, I feel slightly left out because I'm straight. And, y'know, Fitzroy. Duh. Of course the place is full of muscle maries. And that's actually pretty cool. Not only is it vastly amusing watching big buff burly muscle queens pat each other on the head or cuddle after a good set, but I feel like I'm gay and 17 again. Uh. 17 again, and gay. You know what I mean :) There's one guy in particular who is just fucking *stunning*. He's on the short side, but he's built like the proverbial brick shithouse - bulky as a motherfucker and *cut*. And deeply tanned. And I keep wondering what gym etiquette is when it comes to wandering up to strange gay men and saying "Hey, nice body....". So I just watch - and hope I'm not being too obvious about it. But today, we nearly ran into each other in the door to the changeroom, and I found myself thinking "Oh god it's *him*. Quick! Tell him you want his body. Um, a body like his. Um... shit!". And, of course, I said nothing, which may be just as well. Wouldn't want to get his hopes up, after all. But then I was doing hack squats while he was doing leg presses in the next machine. And I found myself thinking "Hey, I could add another 10 kilos each side. Then he might notice me...." Feh :)
But these gay men, they take their pumping iron pretty fucking seriously. Even the least buff of the hardcore clique is, like, a year away for me, easily.

I did have a great chat with one of the older gentlemen as I was leaving, which was nice. I mentioned I'd been going for a couple of months, and he said "Ah yes. Give it time, it will start to become habit, and in a couple of months you'll start to see actual results". So he was suitably impressed when I said I'd already lost 5 cm and 4 Kg. Yay for impressing old gay men!

sol.
.