Saturday, March 29, 2008

Change of plans

Leigh suggested that we train on Friday morning rather than Thursday night which suited me quite well as my upper back was still a little sore from back training on Tuesday. Plus Madii was desperate to go a pick up her new phone, a Hiptop Slide. This also afforded me a $200 JB Hifi voucher which after sweet talking the salesman I was able to get a $50 discount on the Office 2007 software I've been after to connect/sync my Dopod. The software was (over)priced at $299 so with my discount and vouchers I only had to shell out $49. Not bad, especially as I hate paying for software.

Training started at 6.30 am, which as we discovered is not my best time of the day. My enthusiasm to train was thwarted by my inability to lift heavy at that time of the morning. Persevered thru partial deadlifts, but not to my usual standard. Continued after that with some rowing, shrugs and finally hamstring work - lying leg curls.

Breakfast minus the training debrief, Leigh still deaf from his ear infection, or whatever it is, so very difficult communicating. Spent the time writing messages on the napkins in the cafe.

Back home in time to get up the paddock and catch Mojo for new shoes and then off to a cross country clinic for Madii and Mojo.

Fell asleep in the recliner waiting to pick Madii up from a party later that night. Soooo tired.

Today trained with Leigh again at Doherty's. This time a little later... like 12 noon!

Chest
Dumbbell press with neutral grip
Incline dumbell - extreme pain right shoulder traveling down into the triceps - dropped weight back to like 10kg dumbells. This is the shoulder that I'm having physio treatment for - I'm getting so frustrated with this and nothing seems to be helping.
Light shoulder press - just trying to get some blood into the affected area.

Calves
Seated raise - 3 sets toes in, 3 sets toes out.

Discussed over lunch (as much as possible with Leigh being deaf...) my debilitating shoulder problem and the possibility to stopping benching totally for a while. Reality is that I will not be making any gains in my bench press this year. This is quite depressing.

Went over to Shazza's to see her new place, she's only moved in today. Only a quick visit as her BF, Brett, was there and I didnt want to impose too much while they were busy getting the place set up. Few things I'd like to chat to her about but no chance... it can wait.

Earth hour tonight, I will turn off as many appliances as I can but I'm not sitting in the house in the dark all by myself for an hour... stuff that, I'll have one light on and read my book (with my nerdy classes on) Talking of earth hour its 7.50 so I'd better go and start turning off thing and make myself a latte before turning Silva off.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Training log: week starting March 24

Easter Monday (public holiday)
Trained legs at 3pm at Doherty's - earlier than the usual 7pm.
Light squats (hip/piriformis strain still giving me grief) and partial hack squats.

Tuesday (at Definition)
Benched 5x5@65 - bit of a sticking point for reps
Rowing 4x8 @ 120
T-Bar 4x6 @ 40 (narrow grip)
Attempted to use the shoulder press machine but the rear delt strain put a quick end to that.
Rear delt very very light aka rehab 4x10 @7.5kg dumbells

Wednesday (rest)

Thursday (tonight)
Partial deadlifts...... (TBC)

Monday, March 24, 2008

In a rut

Lately life just seems to be rolling by. Day after day of the same old thing. Sitting in bumper to bumper traffic along the freeway and Hoddle street. Some mornings taking over an hour to get to the office to face an endless queue of software bugs to be reviewed and backports to be processed, pager going off monotonously. Basic repetitive training, rehab work, painful ITB massage......

Early morning traffic & city skyline from the freeway

some time later on Hoddle street...

Nationals are still my goal this year but I'm having to think carefully about about it. With it being the only comp this year, it may wind up being a practice run for 2009 - an expensive one if I do go as its in Perth, Western Australia.

On top of that I've recently completed the nerd look by acquiring a pair of reading glasses. Long distance vision is perfect, but close up - forget it. While I was in at the new NIB health insurance center claiming back yet another remedial massage I decided to have an eye test with their in-house optometrist and the result, as I've just said is I need glasses for reading, not for my computer work - just reading (and painting my nails!)

Easter long weekend, Leigh attended an auction by telephone from my place and later we watched episode 11 of Underbelly - unfortunately there seems to be a problem with the sound which I'll investigate at with my 'supplier' next week.

Saturday morning up early and we drove to Beechworth for the day, stopping at Avenel for breakfast. While we were there I took time out to visit the museum and get this photo of my great grandfather, Michael Considine.
Michael Considine
Also drove out to the cemetery to see my great grandparents grave - a bit of family history!
Beechworth Cemetery

Back on the home front, a family of magpies have decided to adopt us and have been calling in daily for a feed. Such bold little characters they've been taking the food from our hands.

Magpies

This morning we were treated to a couple of white cockatoo's - but I'm not feeding them, they're known to be quite destructive to timber deckings!

Monday, March 10, 2008

Oops I did it again....

Still rather slack on the blogging side.... but.... my exciting news....

I MET BEV FRANCIS !!!!!!
Powerlifting & bodybuilding legend!

Bev and myself with Bev's Daughters either end, Tara and Haley.

What an amazing and inspirational woman, living in the U.S. but a true blue aussie at heart.

KING of the Bench....

goes to...
you guessed it....

Shaun Bostock

who weighed in at 146.4kg, benched 'only 300kg' as he put it!

2nd place Paul Nay (255kg) & 3rd Yuval Bar (220kg)

The next few placings were very close with body weight being a determining factor:
Daniel "Chucky" DiPasqua 220kg
Rhys Jameson 240kg (who works at Definition part time...) Rhys took a 4th attempt at 260 but unfortunately missed the lift and it looked as tho' he burst an eardrum in the process.
Steve Kirby 220kg
and awesome lift from Queensland teenager Guy Belgrove, 180kg at age 19! Go Guy!!

There were some big attempts from Martyn Girvan (240kg) and Dave Park (280 & 300) both from Apollo gym, but unfortunately not successful on the day

Unfortunately I don't have any pics from the bench comp as I was on the scoring table along with my fellow powerlifter Louise VuDuy. Good to hear that she is also planning to make the trip across to WA later this year for the Nationals - Victoria will have a strong team!

Also I missed the local show that was on prior to the pro-show, so no pics there either, but looked to be a strong although small lineup.

Random pics from the Pro show will be uploaded later (once I sort thru them).

Foot notes:
My review with Mark Blackney (my toe surgeon) resulted in a cortisone injection into the joint (read OWWWWW) While the joint now has more movement, the arthritis is still a problem, hence more Mobic and the injection. If there is still a problem in a couple of months, Mark will inject a local anaesthetic into the joint and we'll have a go at some hard core manipulation of the joint and if all else fails he'll cortisone it a few weeks before Nationals so at least it wont hurt.

SO at this stage, still no running and with daylight savings coming to an end soon, this has been my least successful "summer running" to date.
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