Pushing a Car vs Lifting a Car

There is a guy at the gym that will stack every available 45lb plate onto the hip sled machine and then proceed to do multiple reps with but a few inches of travel. His leg day and mine usually land on the same day and he is typically doing his workout while I am doing my squats.

When he is done, he always comes over and asks me why I don't try my hand at the hip sled like him.  I often tell him its not really my thing. I really dont want to get into a debate on lifting techniques with him.  I just want to get in, lift, and get out.

Today while I was standing around waiting for the squat rack to open up, I thought of a great analogy of the sled vs the squat rack.

Many people can push a car. It really doesn't take much to push a car into motion and then continue that motion.  But let's see that same person try and actually lift that car. If they could, that would be impressive and would really show the strength of that individual.

I personally would rather be able to lift a car than push it. Which person would you rather be?

Update Week Ending 05-11-2012

It's been a little while since I have thrown an update out here. My wife and I recently purchased a home and we have been pretty busy painting, cleaning, and doing all of the little things that come with moving. Because of the move, I took about 2 weeks off from the gym and my diet took a dive. I found it hard to prepare good and healthy meals while moving between two houses. I know some people will say where there is a will there is a way but I just didnt have the will to do that. :)

To make up for the bad eating I continued to do my daily 16 hour fasts. I also tried to make sure that the first meal I ate was very low carb.  Then for dinner, I pretty much ate whatever I wanted to (pizza, hot dogs, etc). The next day I started over with the 16 hour fast and "reset" my body. The first week of doing this saw my body weight go down a few pounds. The second week, I feel like my night time "cheats" increased a bit more and my weight stayed the same.

Now that this week is just about over and we are getting settled into our new home, I will be able to get back to the way things should be. I am going to continue to experiment with carb back loading though. I really like the freedom it has given me with the ability to eat the wonderful things my wife prepares. Going really low carb at lunch allow me some wiggle room with dinner and as long as I don't go over my allotted carbs for the day, I see nothing wrong with this approach.  If it fits your macros, eat it!

Like I stated earlier, this is an experiment and time will tell how my body reacts. So far so good though. I challenge you to find what works for you and then let me know in the comments!

I Dont Always Eat Food

Don't Be One of These Guys

This video had me rolling on the floor. I see at least one of these guys everyday when I go to the gym.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-91_iXATY8

Program Switch

It's been exactly a month since I have posted. Time sure flies when you are busy doesn't it and boy I have been busy!  My wife and I are in the process of buying a house and packing up our townhouse.  In addition to that, we are looking for renters, attended my brother's wedding, enjoying my daughter's first communion and waited on my sister to have her first baby!  All that in the last month and coming up in the next few weeks.  Phew, that makes me exhausted all over again just thinking about it.

My workouts and diet have suffered a bit over the last few weeks. I can't say with any certainty that my weight has changed because I have not weighed myself but I do know that my clothes still fit like always so that is good. My progress in the gym has come to a bit of a halt though. I seem to have plateaued and my eagerness to go to the gym is started to wane. Looking back, I have been doing reverse pyramid for close a year now and have had really good progress doing it.  But now I need a change for a few weeks. Something simple. Something that I have already done in the past and that I have all the notes on. No, its not P90x. It's Visual Impact and more specifically, Visual Impact Phase II and III. In fact, I started with it today and the change is exactly what my body needed. My excitement is starting to increase and I am getting eager to hit the new few days to see if my enthusiasm returns.  Heck, I might even take a few progress pics. :)

My diet has waned a bit the last few weeks but overall its still pretty good. I have had a few too many cheat days and although they have not caused my waistline to increase, I often think about how great I "could" look if I just had a little bit of self control. I always say this but I am going to try and really reign my diet in over the new 30 days along with the Visual Impact and some HIIT and see what kind of results I can get.

Weekly Wrap Up 3.17.12

Personal Records

Another really good week of lifting. It's sort of funny when I think back to my actual workouts. I didnt start any of my workouts actually "feeling it" but yet I put up new personal bests every time.

Deadlift - 365.0x3 - At the end of January I was deadlifting 325.0x4 so I have increased by about 40lbs.
Bench - Benched 230.0x5 back in January. This week it was 240.0x4. Not a huge increase but I will take it.
Chin-up - 65.0x4 - With my current body weight of roughly 185 this puts my chin-up weight at 250lbs. At the end of January I was at 235lbs
Squat - 275.0x4 - I was doing 235lbs at 3 reps at the end of January.

As you can see my strength continues to go up week after week. I couldn't be happier.

Scale

I hopped onto the scale yesterday and weighed in at 183.8lbs. This is about a 9lb decrease from my highest weight of 193 which I recorded right after the holidays. It's always nice to lose weight and gain muscle at the same time.

Workout Changes

My tweak to the Reverse Pyramid routine is going good. As last reported, I increased my reps on shoulder presses to allow for more muscle growth. I have also gone to a 12-10-8-6, 12-15 set on curls to, again, allow for more growth.

Diet

My diet has been consistent this week. 100 grams of carbs on lifting days and less than 50 on rest days. Yesterday I played racquetball with a guy from work so I actually increased my carbs to 100 to account for the large deficit playing caused. Friday's are always hard for me because they are my cheat day. I always go into them thinking I will go high carb but still try to stay under my calorie maintenance level. Well that never happens. I tend to really binge on Fridays. On the plus side my weight continues to drop so I must be doing something right.

Injuries

Obviously my toe was feeling good enough to play racquetball this week so that was good. I am suffering from some sort of pain in my elbow though. It's almost like a tendonitis type feeling. Hurt's to the point where it's hard for me to lift any amount of significant weight with it. I am hoping its just the effect of playing racquetball yesterday and not being used to the movement of the racquet.

Wrap-Up

That wraps up this week. It's now been 4 week since my last deload week and I am seriously considering taking next week off from the usual routine. Who knows, I might do some crossfit type stuff. We shall see.

Peace out.

Weekly Wrap Up 3.02.12

Personal Records

Overall this week was pretty successful for me in the gym and on the scale. I am down another 2.5 lbs this week for a grand total of 5lbs lost since I went back to doing a low carb leangains cycle. I know last week I had mentioned that I thought my strength was going down since I switched to low carb but this week pretty much shot that theory to dust when I exceeded all of my PR's in almost all major lifts! I set new PR's in deadlift, squat, bench, and pullups/chinups!

Scale

Someone hit me up on twitter this week commenting on the fact that I am weighing myself again. He found it funny since I have been against not getting on a scale for awhile now. I am doing it for two reasons. Reason number one is for the contest that I got talked into doing at work. I really don't want to be the guy that gains weight so I am doing the best I can to not. The second reason is this bodybuilding show coming up in May. I really want to enter and the deadline is approaching fast. I felt that if I can get my weight down a little bit, I might actually have a chance at getting on stage. I am currently at 185 and I feel I need to be at 175 in order to make a run at it.

Workout Changes

I am tweaking my Reverse Pyramid routine a bit to allow for some muscle growth in areas I feel that I could use it. For now that means my shoulders and arms. I am still doing RPT but with high reps/lower weight and taking it to failure on those body parts. I should know in a few weeks if I was a good idea to make that change.

Diet

My diet has remained pretty constant the last 2 weeks. I did have a pretty big cheat day last Sunday caused by some friends pushing a 2 lb bag of M&M's on me. I cannot resist those stupid candies and ended up having quite a few handfuls. My body didn't seem to mind too much and I still was able to drop that aforementioned 2.5lbs this week.  I seem to do pretty well if I can go low carb all week followed by a 4 hour high carb feeding window.

Injuries

I have been fighting a sore neck and back for a week now. It hasn't really affected my workouts too much but does make it a pain to turn my head to the left. My toe is also recovering (slowly) from its run in with the wall during racquetball 4 weeks ago. I feel that I am finally at a point with it that I can start playing again.

Wrap-Up

That about wraps up my week. I am looking forward to another 2 weeks of hard lifting followed by a week of casual cardio and maybe some disc golf.