Sans Bullshit

I received an ankh for my birthday; I've wanted one since I was very young.

Lots of horeshitastic nonsense in January, I mean ta tells ya!

But rather than get into all of that, suffice to say I’ve been binging rather orgasmically. The only record I’m obliged to place at the moment, is Thursday’s workout.

Depletion workout on Monday, with a return to fasting as well.

Birthday Lifts

Deadlift

1. 65lbs. x 5 (from hang; hook grip)
2. 65lbs. x 5 (hang-hook)
3. 95lbs. x 3 (hang-hook)
4. 140lbs. x 2 (from floor; hook grip)
5. 165lbs. x 5 (from floor; left hand under; increase next week)

Incline Bench

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 45lbs. x 5
3. 60lbs. x 3
4. 80lbs. x 2
5. 90lbs. x 3 (stay-at next week)
6. 80lbs. x 5

Hi-Low Twist

1. 20lbs. x 5
2. 30lbs. x 5
3. 40lbs. x 3
4. 50lbs. x 2
5. 60lbs. x none! half-way, static hold (staying the weight)
6. 50lbs. x 1 (keeping in mind the goal of the de-loaded sets is to get one more rep than the previous set…)

Weight: 161lbs.
Body Fat Percentage: 15.8%

Obviously, I didn’t make my birthday goal. My goal by the end of May is sub -9% body fat. Let’s get to it.

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Love Today

Love. I would ban the word from the vocabulary. Such imprecision. Love, which love, what love? Sentiment, fantasy, longing, lust? Obsession, devouring need? Perhaps the only love that is accurate without qualification is the love of a very young child. Afterward, she too becomes a person.
-White Oleander

Perhaps I’m just taking it all a little too personally.

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Gookfest

This is from Thursday.

I don’t know about anybody else, but when I walk into a room (especially a big room) with nothing but staff being all of the same visual ethnic background, it weirds me out. Even if I identify with the group (Asians, in case the post title wasn’t ambiguous enough) it messes with me. You know how I like to take my glasses off and look for “hey, that’s kind of a celebrity!” Well, I kind of now get that god-damn Liu Kang nickname for myself, especially after bumping into Shang Tsung and fearing for my [little brother's] life.

(Then I remembered I don’t have a little brother… Oh shi-)

Then I saw him do crossovers and I could see striations in his chest. Without glasses. I immediately fled to the other side of the gym and deadlifting amidst Chow Yun Fats.

Deadlift

1. 135lbs x 5 ~ Not bad from having been doing my warm-up sets from a hang. Could never figure out the proper height so I just did them via form back then. Whatever. Bumping weight.
2. 145lbs x 5 ~ Much more taxing. Still not HARD, just, my whole body felt “uhh… whoooa~”
3. 155lbs x 1 ~ My midback failed. I couldn’t draw my shoulder blades together at all. I did as much of a shrug as I could and put it down. Looks like it’s 150lbs. next workout.

Incline Bench

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 55lbs. x 5
3. 65lbs. x 5
4. 75lbs. x 5 – Getting tougher here, but the bar hasn’t slowed down yet.
5. 85lbs. x 1 – Failed @ lower pins on the second rep.

Hi-Low Twists (each side)

1. 20lbs. x 5
2. 30lbs. x 5 – iffy on form, I have to pay attention to too many things at once for what is essentially an ‘isolation’ exercise.
3. 40lbs. x 5 – slowed down, but I felt like more/stronger was still possible here.
4. 50lbs. x 5 – slowed noticeably. I decided to stop a set before failure because I’m not really sure about ab work just yet, and I don’t want to torque my spine or something.

Body Weight: 156lbs.
Body Fat Percentage: 15.9%

I spent the  day after at the mall: Panda Express Lunch (shouldn’t have had the chicken egg roll, it was good but I had to force it down because I was full and didn’t wan to feel like I wasted the money… but I did, I SOOO did); doing job applications (Applebee’s, Footlocker, Bar Louie, Devon, Bravo!, LA Fitness [ha!], and Barnes & Noble); and reading stuff at Barnes. Really interested in that Clint Eastwood biography, and the Neil Gaiman one.

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I Feel

From my paper journal: 1.13.10,

Read the rest of this entry »

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Fake Bowflex Pounds

Mom had to work really late, so if I had gone to the gym for this workout I would have been there into the evening. Which would have meant sleeping in on Saturday (I am so screwed if I ever get a ‘real’ job), but I had another date scheduled for Saturday. So I stayed home.

But then she canceled on me, and I was stuck at home, and I was like “well, crap.”

So I cleaned off the Bowflex and did a bunch of sets of various degrees of incline chest pressing, because there’s no way to get consistent angles without mirrors to check form and the poundages the rods advertise are for masturbatory purposes only.

So the “poundages” on here represent “fake Bowflex-pounds”

1. 50 x 5
2. 50 x 5
3. 70 x 3
4. 100 x 5
5. 100 x 6
6. 100 x 5
7. 100 x 3
8. 90 x 8
9. 90 x 8
10. 90 x 8
11. 90 x 5
12. 80 x 8
13. 80 x 8
14. 80 x 8

And then I got tired and took a nap.

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Turtle Workout

You know, I watch one video on youtube where a dumbass rounds his back during deadlifts and I unconsciously do it too. (Granted, it’s upper back, so there are probably powerlifters out there jerking off to him doing that, but I feel bad because I called him on it.)

I’m going to have to retest my 5RM with really strict form next. I have no idea how long I’ve been fucking this up. Furthermore, next week I’m starting a new routine. Still low volume, but it’s going to compensate for my tendency to miss the second workout of the week while still making a second workout worthwhile. I think.

Deadlift

1. 80lbs. x 5
2. 80lbs. x 5
3. 120lbs. x 3
4. 170lbs. x 2
5. 205lbs. x 1 ~ I was paying a lot more attention to my form than I might ordinarily.  I didn’t like what was happening. I decided to do singles.  As with all heaviest sets on DL, mixed grip. Left hand over here.
6. 205lbs. x 1 ~ MUCH BETTER. Left hand over.
7. 205lbs. x 1 ~ Strictly GOOD. Distracted like a motherfucker on descent though, some ginger doofus felt like trying on my glasses because I left them on the windowsill.  I hate that.
8. 205lbs. x 1 ~ Not bad. Could have done better I think, but not disastrous.
9. 185lbs. x 3 ~ This is where my back started rounding. At this point I just wanted to be done with deadlifts. A trainer came over and bro-viced me on my form. I WAS TURTLAN GUISE! (Still, I’m glad he said something to confirm my suspicions that I’m a fuckup. I honestly need that.)

Lat Pulldown

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 45lbs. x 5
3. 55lbs. x 5
4. 70lbs. x 3
5. 85lbs. x 2
6. 100lbs. x 5 (FUCK YEAH!)
7. 95lbs. x 4

I skipped Horizontal Rows. I’ll hit my mid back from now on by, you know, doing deadlifts correctly. Fuck my life.

Well, only kind of. Today I have a date! So after she texts me that she’s on the bus over (it’s a long ride, poor gal :( ) I resolve to do some ab work before I take a shower. Somehow, doing less than three exercises in a workout seems lazy to me. I dunno. I’m sure three exercises seems lazy to everyone else in the world except maybe Starting Strength folks. Though I bet SSfolks would scoff at my dedicated ab work, so, I have no friends.

Rectus abdominis = blitzed still. I felt like I would have torn something if I tried to do any more than a token amount of effort with it. So, obliques. I asked my DLbro to show me some oblique exercises (mentally: NO SIDE BENDS.) So he showed me how to do bodyweight side bends on the thing I probably maybe would have done back extensions in a long time ago. I stepped on it and it wobbled, so I took his other advice “twist at the waist with some resistance. Up to down, down to up, straight across, whatever.” He didn’t demonstrate, but it was essentially what I was hoping for.

I shared the pulleys with this porky fellow who was very polite about taking turns, and I tried to work with his rest intervals. Whenever he’d rest, I’d work, and vice versa. He was doing crossovers though. We didn’t actually say anything to each other. That’s how I know he’s polite.

Poorly Executed Ignorant Oblique Twists, Shoulder to Hip

1. 30lbs. x 7
2. 40lbs. x 5
3. 40lbs. x 5
4. 40lbs. x 5

All listed are for both sides. I now know all the leg bending I’m supposed to do and what the range of motion should look like, but at the time I was doing essentially the kind of twists I would do with no weight: no bend in the arms, turn along 180degrees, and go back. I did a lot slower and more controlled than I would trying to pop my back, but it definitely felt it where I’m supposed to feel it. So I’m going to increase the weight ten pounds (or whatever the other pulley stack has, if I can do a smaller jump I will) next session.

Then I took a shower and headed out for a day date.

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I Am The Master of My Fate

Saw Invictus last night; been feeling pretty motivated overall.

Not that it helped the fact that I lost some muscle over the holidays. Evening workout on the wrong day didn’t really help matters, either.

And I was called back for an interview with p.i.n.k tomorrow. Go figure right?

Onto the numbers:

Weight: 156lbs.
BF%: 18.8%

No excuses today. Just going to take it for what it is. I’ve got roughly six pounds of fat I want to lose before the easy part of the diet is over.

Flat Bench

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 50lbs. x 5
3. 70lbs. x 3
4. 100lbs. x 1
5. 95lbs. x 3
6. 100lbs. x 1

I had to sneeze; still didn’t get my reps though.

Incline Bench

1. 85lbs. x 4 (seat was too high, did the set anyway)
2. 75lbs. x 5 (three holes = good)

Skipped incline fly today. Had some upper-depletion work I wanted to get in, and I wasn’t budging the 25 DBs tonight.

Round 1

1. Row: 10 & 2 @ 55lbs., 15 @ 40lbs.
2. DB Curl: 2 x 15 @ 5lbs.
3. Cable Extension: 15 & 11 @ 7.5lbs.
4. Lateral Raise: 3 x 15 @ 5lbs.
5. Crunch Machine: 3 x 15 @ 40lbs.

Round 2

1. Row: 3 x15 @ 40lbs.
2. Crunch Machine: 1 x 15 @ 40lbs.

Cut short because mom was picking me up; she was visiting my cousin who had flown in from Cali to celebrate the holidays. I’ll see her this summer. Can’t be missing workouts!

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

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New Year’s Resolution

This year, I want to screw up more than I ever have before.

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