Body Journal

I’ve been at this for a while now and over the years the injuries have racked up.   I’m in the thick of finals season.  Been eating fast food for pretty much every meal and im getting leaner.  My workout partner hates me whenever I talk about my shit diet.  You want to eat whatever you want and stay in single digit fat %? go to law school. nuff said.

I’m actually listening to a recording of my property review session I failed to show up for today while i type this.

So here is a list of my injuries and how I coped with them over the years.

lower back injuries.

I’ve strained my lower back several times, the last time was probably 3-4 years ago.   Other than that I haven’t had to deal with them since, aside form workout partners breaking.  What i can say about it is that it sucks.  Its scary and most guys end up giving up after a back injury.

In retrospect I injured myself because I was careless.  Like that one time I had already done 5 sets of deadlifts and decided to do another heavy set just to show off… pwnt, dead, game over.  Funny thing is I remember a voice in my head telling me “careful”, actually it was a voice in my lower back… or maybe that was the sound of my erectors cyring.  Either way, listen to your body.

Lesson learned: put your pride at the door and the only showboating I’ll do is lifting my shirt or flexing.

I like to use lifting belts.  Some guys think its for pussies, but I’m no power lifter.  I’m here to build good muscle and preserve the integrity of my joints.  A belt allows me to lift heavier and for more reps than I normally could.  Allows me to burn more calories and shred more muscle.  That being said, I hate the thought of not being able to workout simply because I forgot my belt.  I usually don’t use a belt unless its the heavy working sets.

I’ll refrain from discussing how to do a proper deadlift here, save that for the exercise guide.  check back later for that.

shoulder sockets

I used to never be able to lift shit when it came to military press or those types of motions.  I couldn’t do behind the neck presses for a long time either for fear of my shoulder slipping.  I never had an injury in my shoulder, just sometimes it’d slip out.  Same for when I did lat pull downs when I wasnt concentrating on my shoulders.

I never let weaknesses stop me from doing exercises and I’m not putting in all this work to build an asymmetrical freak body… I want freak pretty.   So I started light and gradually went up.  I always made sure my workout partners know, so they’ll keep their hands on the bar.  After a while my shoulders got stronger and the problem solved itself.

Lesson learned:  no need to rush, even if it is humiliating that you’re benching 3x your military press.  slow and steady.  Pretty is worth the effort.

A lot of guys I know have the same problem, I’m telling you, stick with it.  O and try the machines.

Wrists

I hate wrist injuries.  I’m still dealing with one.  I’m actually in the process of dealing with it.  Its an injury I had 3 years ago while traveling in Vietnam.  I travel the world.  I’m usually in some different country 2 months out of the year and i never let traveling stop my training.  Its also a life goal of mine to train in every country in the world.

Anyways, so there I was in this mountain resort town looking for a gym.  i end up finding this nasty ass ghetto gym adjacent to a pig farm.  Imagine a shit rat-hole dungeon wall papered in bodybuilding magazines and porno.  The machines had no ball-bearing joints, basically just pipes and grease.  Mostly free weight.  No shoes allowed lol.  Shirts optional… they actually requested i train without my shirt on… go figure.  Imagine arnold’s pumping iron.  Real good bunch of guys, there are some big guys there, nothing liek jay cutler or ronnie, but then again there aren’t roids readily available there.

So there I was doing dumbell bench and I want to drop the weights like i normally do, had there been foam pads that would be ok, but the floors were wooden with shitty outdoor carpet on it so tried to slowly ease them down, at some point my wrist twists back… BAM.

It didn’t hurt so much, but even now i find because of this injury my ligaments don’t engage correctly and so when i do bicep exercises my wright wrist engages my forearms more than it does my biceps… end of the day my left bicep is significantly stronger than my right (hence the cartoon below)  the bones in my right wrist seem out of place.

I should go see a doctor but i don’t have time and I’m lazy.  Subsequently I wrapped my wrists and use foam wraps so i could continue lifting.  works, but when ti comes to curls…. i fail.  if you want to talk shit about me, train with me on a bicep day.

I’m going to start rehabilitating it by trying those forearm grips and doing wrist curls.  I’ll keep you guys posted on that.

Rehab is really just trial and error man.  with a basic knowledge of body mechanics and common sense I think most people can figure things out themselves.  Lets face it… the kinesiology majors aren’t exactly rocket scientists… no offense to you guys.  I’m just stating facts, and im too cheap to ask a pro.

Chest

the most recent injury was my left pec about a month ago.  Pretty sure i strained it.   I let it heal for 2 weeks off, got back in it and strained it again.

Lesson learned:  wait a week after you feel like you’re ready and you’ll REALLY be ready.

you dont know how humiliating it was to sit there at a lifting competition while kids asked you how many you could do… and the only thing you can say is..”my chest… my bloody chest…” while gripping your strained pec.

I find that large muscle groups like chest or back generally heal very fast.

o and Glutamine is a must.  its cheap too.

Coming back after an injury

Yea I know it sucks.  Being able to lift only a fraction of what you used to, but patience and re-arranging your split may help.  When I injured my chest, I took the opportunity to focus on my legs.  I shift focus every month on a particular body part anyways.  you’ve got plenty of tools to play with, no need to let your entire routine suffer if only one part is hurt.

My be replace the X day with a cardio day if you can run or bike.

whatevers. injruies blow.  i gotta get back to this damn audio review session.

peace love whey.

Sorry, won’t be much updating for the next two weeks.  Finals… I now know why I was so damn lean in Undergrad ( i hovered aroudn 6-8%bf….

mal nutrition.

partied 5 days a week, ate absoultly horribly, but i lifted like a fiend.  Kept me lean and pretty.

Funny how a week of finals does for your physique.  Lost a lot of water weight and droped 2% bf.

Best diet fad diet ever? The Finals Diet.

too lazy to take pictures of my self these days…. and it feels pretty silly.

BTW. i never do cardio.

“You’re a f*ckin’ gym slut thats what you are.”

After 2 weeks of no chest due to an injury, I did chest last night with an old workout partner sans current partner.  Tried waiting, but he was busy with school and projects.  Finals coming up, didn’t have time to sit around and wait.

So he greets me today bitchinga bout how long hes been waiting and how it’ll be another week before he gets to do chest.  I told him…

“You stole me off another guy and you expect me to be faithful?  I didn’t get to where I am waiting around.  There’s no honor among thieves.”

I used to rotate workout partners.

Yea, I’m a gym slut…

Its always awkward meeting old gym buddies… like meeting an ex girlfriend…

^old cartoon I drew… some 4+ years ago?

Yep, I’m back on it.  Triceps atrophied a little, but nothing weighted dips can’t remedy.

so far so good.

Too tired right now to work on the noobie guide.

Just a little gym time humor.  So I was in a rush and was out of laundry so i decided to go comando in some cargo shorts for a chest workout today… figure it wasn’t legs, so i could get away with it.

I was doing incline dumbell presses, I’d lift the weight and sit down while resting the dumbells on my knees before I kicked them up.

First set, all good.

Second set, still good.

Third set, I’m about to sit down when I heart a tearing sound and a breeze blow by my johnson. I looked down and there he is, just staring back at me…

I drop the weight, stand up and hold my pant legs together.

“hey man, I need those pants off you *motioning my workout partner to take off his sweats*”

“What?!”

“Yea I jsut tore my pants, and I’m free-ballin’ it today.”

he busts out laughing, we go to the locker room and change.

Finished my workout and went home.

Its the second time my pants have exploded on me, first time was while doing squats.  They literally tore right down the middle, even my boxers.

Workout tip: when doing squats, always… always wear elastic/stretchy boxerbriefs.

anyone else have wardrobe malfunctions at the gym?

For all you noobies out there who are eager to start your road to fittness and getting whatever idealization of the perfect body you may have, do yourselves a favor and start with squats.

I can’t begin to tell you how important squatting is in any workout regime.

• Want to lose weight fast?
• What to eat anything you want?
• not have to do cardio?
• get ripped?
• burn calories fast?

if your answer is yes to all of these things, then you answer should also be “yes” when someone asks you whehter or not you squat.

Here is a simple photo of how to squat i pulled off the internet:

Pretty self explanitory right?

Perhaps if you do it with light weight.

Key things to note are: most people probably stop at 2 or 3 and don’t finish the motion at 4.  On certain days I actually go further than 4, what many meat heads refer to as “ass to calves.”

I like to rest the weight between the back of my neck and where my traps start, I have abnormally large traps so it makes for a nice cushion.  You’ll notice that people have their arms on either side of the bar, but this is only for balance and your arms should no way be holding the weight up (a no brainer, but one can’t ever be too sure)

Here is a vid of a perfect squat.

In all honesty its monkey see monkey do.  A few things I tell people to try to keep in mind is that there is going to be this point while you’re going down that your body will try and shift the weight forward due to balance this will cause the weight to shift towards your lower back.  You want to fight against any urges to lean forward by looking up or keeping your back at that natural arch.  You’ll notice in the video that the girl is keeping her head faced forward and not looking down.  Key.

Once you’re at the bottom, what to do?  Its as easy as standing up.  But keep in mind do not try and lift or get the momentum going with your lower back.  A lot of people will try and cheat by bending over a bit so it feels like they are going lower, all you’re doing at this point is putting strain on your lower back.  notice in the video she keeps a nice natural arch.  her torso at the same angle the entire motion.  a lot of times people forget this and that’s how injuries happen.  I tell people to imagine thrusting their hips forward, almost like humping the air.  If you keep that image or goal in your mind, I think it will help keep your form.

I’m not sure what other issues there may be.  Its been a many years since I had to work on my form so I’m not familiar with beginner issues, but if you have any feel free to leave a comment and I’ll see what i can do.

several things to try, alternate different foot positions, angles and widths.  I usually tell people to start with a feet parallel at shoulder or slightly wider width (depending on the individual’s build)

remember, your legs amount for a great amount of muscle and training them effectively will increase your metabolism and burn a lot of calories.

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Squats 2.0

I mentioned before how important it is to finish the motion from step 1-4 in the diagram above.   However, there are benefits to not going all the way down.

• Takes a lot of stress out of the knees if you don’t go all the way down.
• you can go a lot heavier
• don’t really need a spotter

There are benefits of not going all the way.  I’ll alternate, some days ill go ass-calves others i’ll simply go to parallel.

but its very important that you do use the full range of motion at most of the time.  burns more calories, pulls more fibers into the motion.

I can actually build an entire routine around the squat cage.  I pyramid (explain later) squats into drop sets and end off with some machines and that would be a day.

In sum, if you need more:

This guy has a pretty good tutorial, but I don’t like the way he rests that bar on his back… too much emphasis on the arms.  good for newbies…

This workout is something I like to do when I need to give my lower back a rest or when I have to do legs the next day (generally because of scheduling conflicts with workout partners)

• bent over rows 225×10 warm up, 315×10x3, ended with two concentrated sets at 225 (slow and deliberate motions without the jerk that would be required for the heavier 315; I’d also hold it at the top for a count before releasing)

• Latpulldowns 180×10x2 220×5 and then a light one at 150, same slow and deliberate motion with a count at the bottom.  Really helps me hit the interior muscles, but kills my grip.
• seated cable rows 185 for 3 sets, 7-10 reps.
• not sure what to call this next one, you go on the cables as if you were going to do standing cable flys, but instead you take a step forward and drop to your knees.  The start of the motion, your arms are extended in a “Y” like position gripping the cables (single handles, fingers facing ceiling).  Begin to pull elbows towards body and rotate fists so figners face the front.  Its almost like an iso-lat pull down except you’re kind of pulling the cables intowards you.  I always like to hold at the bottom for a count.  Or have the spotter help you down and slowly release doing negatives giving an excellent stretch.  I go between 120-150 each side for reps around 7
• seated cable rows using a wide handle, lower weight for concentrated reps with the same pause at the end of the movement.
• decline row machine 2 sets, 5-7 reps
• behind the neck lat pull downs, same deal controled movements with a pause at the bottom.

I find that when doing back, on days I want to really tear into my back without sacrificing my lower back, the deliberate movements with a pause at the end really helps get that extra burn the next day.

I’d generally have to use lighter weight so I don’t get that rush I’d normally like after tossing around plates, but the reward comes an hour or so after the workout when my lats begin to contract.

good night.

my new regiment is based on drop sets… one day I woke up and just wanted to feel pain…

flat bench warm up at 135 x10, 225×8, 275×5, 315×3… and now for the paint, drop-set: 315×4-225×6-136×10

the theory is that the first 4 sets is just to aclimate the joints so you don’t pull shit, so i dont rep them out.  i save all that for the final drop set.  makes you closer to God, trust me.

incline bench: 185×6, 225×6, and then the pain, drop set: 275×3 (plus 2 negatives)-225×4 (plus 1 neg)-135 till failure… I dont remember how many I did, I was in la-la land.

decline bench (on smith machine, because USC gym is a peice of shit and doesnt have a declined bench): 275×8, 315×6 (plus 2 negs), pain: 315×5 (plus 1 neg)-225×6 (+2)-135 till failure.

incline dumbell flys: 50×8x2, 60×8

machined flys: 175×10, 195×8x2

iso-cable press (think cable-flys but with a press motion): 100 per-side x 10, 110 per-side x 10×2

finished the workout with decline machine and incline machine.  waste of time posting weights and reps… all machines are different.  soemthing like 5-10 reps, 3 sets each.

be easy.

Great workouts make me feel alive…  they release the chaos of my soul… they undo the chains of society…

legs.

squat: 135×7, 225×7, 315×7, 365×5, 405×2.

easy shit.  now for the kicker… one big drop set: 405×2, 315×7, 225×7, 135×10… no rest, the spotters pull the plates off and you keep going until you brains bubble.

front squats 135×10x3

sumo squats with 100db, 10 reps 2 sets

stuff leg box deadlifts 225×8x2

standing calf rasies: 300×10x3

seated leg curls 165×10, 190×7, 190×4

hacksquat machine (the one where you lie on your back) 355×8x3

leg extensions 165×10, 190×8, 220×4

the drop set of squats pretty much neuters the rest of the workout… but god it was beautiful.

Its been about two weeks now that I’ve been off my routine.  I’ve managed to squeeze a few workouts here and there between the days, but nothing one would call a solid split.It’s starting to get at me… gnawing at me.

I’m more irritable and can’t stand most people around me.  Truth is I can’t stand myself.  Even if the break is necessary, logical and out of my control.

I quit work two weeks ago to move to LA for law school.  Took the extra time off to get things in order and work out the logistics of transferring my essential goods 3000 miles away and take the Patent Bar (of which I passed). 

What annoys me most is knowing that it’ll be another two weeks before I can get back to the swing of things.

Its killing me.

A whole month will be wasted by the time this ordeal is through… fucking. 

I miss iron :’(

meal1: cup of oatmeal heated with milk and a protein shake.

meal 2: small bowl of rice, chicken and veggies

meal 3, wendies baconator combo with chili

took a nap, jogged for an hour and swam…. had a peach after the run and some water.

meal 4, two bowls of rice, some beef and chicken soup with veggies

meal 5, bowl of yogurt

finall, protien shake before bed.

 each event is separated by a 2-3 hours.