Today’s Amusing Gym Antics

 

I was quite surprised today to see three guys doing bench presses in the walk in  squat rack.  They had the bar on the dead-lift mounts and they were lying on the ground on a mat. Six things really bothered me about these guys.

1. There are 4 bench press benches in this gym. 2 were not being used.


2. Two of the guys were personal trainers at the gym.


3. The weight they were using was very light and I didnt see anything special about the movement that warranted using this particular piece of equipment.


4. In between sets, they walked over the cable machine were they did incline cable flies. All three would go at the same time. This left the squat rack alone with their weight on it for about 4 minutes each time.


5. Two of the guys were wearing skin tight Under Armour shirts. I am a huge fan of Under Armour and wear quite a few of their products and even own a skin tight one. But I only wear it under other shirts and only when I really needs its moisture wicking ability. Skin tight Under Armour shirts should never be worn by themselves in my opinion.


6. One of the guys proceeded to ask me, immediately following my first set of dead-lifts, if I was almost done. I guess the two pieces of equipment they were already hogging weren't enough. When I did finish, he proceeded to put on 135lbs for squats and then screamed so loud while doing them, that the entire gym took notice. 135lbs.

Back to 24

Feels so good to be back at the gym that started my weight loss journey 6 years ago. I saw a lot of familiar faces that are still there from trainers to lifters. Time to get really serious if I want to compete in 5 months!

Thanksgiving Challenge

 

Today starts Day 1 of my 2800 push up challenge. Each day for the next 7 days, I am going to attempt do 100 more push ups than the day before. So today I am going to do 100, tomorrow 200, Wednesday 300 and so on and so forth until Sunday when I need to be able to complete 700.  It doesn't matter if I do 10 sets of 10 or 100 sets of 1 as long as at the end of the day, I have hit my goal.

As an added bonus to myself, I am going to do some mini-challenges as well. For example, today I am going to do 100 pull-ups. Tomorrow might be 100 body squats or 100 burpees.

There are two reasons I am doing this challenge. First and foremost, Thursday is Thanksgiving and I want to be able to enjoy all the wonderful food that will be prepared. Secondly, I will not have access to my companies corporate gym so weight lifting is out.

So there you have it. My official challenge is out there. If you follow me onfitocracy.com, you can see my updates. If not, then check back here early next week to find out if I completed it.

If you feel like joining in on the challenge, feel free to do so either anonymously or in the comments below.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

 ***** UPDATE *****

Recently I was asked if I completed this challenge. Well....it didn't work out quite as I had hoped. I managed to get through the day after Thanksgiving but them my wrist started to get quite sore and I stopped. I think I managed 1500 over the course of 5 days.

Power Lunch - 11/11/11

Just polished off the rest of my power lunch.  This lunch follows a 17 hour leangains type fast and a heavy squat, pullup, bicep day. Here is what I ate (in no particular order)

• Chocolate covered donut


• Chocolate chip cookie dough pop-tart (2)


• 2 potatoes


• 12oz of chicken breast


• 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese


• 5T of ketchup (give or take)


• 1/3 cup Ocean Spray Craisins

I think that is about it.  I have a protein shake in my lunch box for later and then I will chow down on a small protein enriched salad tonight. Should be epic.

Manly Lifting Stats

According to Martin Berkhan, as an advanced lifter I should be able to do the following lifts:

•  Bench press: body weight x 1.5 = 285lbs


•  Chin-ups or pull-ups: body weight x 1.5 = 285lbs


•  Squat: body weight x 2 = 360lbs


•  Deadlift: body weight x 2.5 = 475lbs

These are all for a 1RM

Even though I cannot do these amounts (yet) I still consider myself advanced because I have been lifting for so long. I have been lifting incorrectly but that is a whole other post.

As of right now, here are my starting stats. They are not my 1RM but rather my starting set of my reverse pyramid sets.

My stats:

•  Current weight of 190


•  Bench press = 205x8


•  Pull-ups = 235x6


•  Chin-Ups = 245x5


•  Squat = 275x4


•  Deadlift = 225x6


•  Standing Military Press = 95x6 (threw this one in on my own)

Here is how far I am away from hitting those goals

• Bench = 80lbs


• Pull-ups = 40lbs


• Chin-ups = 10lbs


• Squat = 85lbs


• Deadlift = 250lbs

As you can see, with the exception of deadlifts I am not that far from hitting my goals. My goal is to hit all of them within 6 months.

Carb Nite Wrap Up

I officially finished my carb nite protocol experiment last Friday, 2 days short of a month.  My overall experience with the protocol was mediocre at best.  I stuck to the plan 100% but overall lost nearly no weight. My appearance did seem to change a bit which makes me think I was doing more of a body re-composition than weight loss.  But that wasnt my goal. My goal was weight loss, pure and simple.

I chose to end it on Friday because that was the day I did my weigh out for my company's weight loss competition. Leading up to that day, I did a water cut in which I drank 2 gallons of water a day starting on Monday and continuing that through Thursday at noon. Then I cut the water off completely until my weigh in Friday at noon. Over the week, I dropped 9lbs of water weight which put me 2lbs below my starting weight 1 year ago.

I mention the water cut because I was hoping that, it, combined with the carb nite protocol would have helped me cut about 15lbs in that last month.  Heck, I even stopped lifting serious amount of weights in order to cut weight. Nothing seemed to work.

I think the carb nite protocol might work great for someone that's quite overweight and wants to lose weight fast. But for someone like me who has at best 10lbs of excess fat, it might not have been the best way to go. I am starting to get frustrated with my quest to be a lean mean fighting machine.

 

Reverse Pyramid Setup

Spent a few days tweaking this and I think its just about ready. I am pondering this setup for my new “Reverse Pyramid” scheme.