What a week(end)

Lets start back at last Thursday.... When I picked up my new car!!!!!! Cute little Mazda 2 Genki. No more driving the beast to work.


Saturday was nothing short of hectic with prepartions for Madi's deb ball. Make up, hair, final adjustments to the dress - she looked llike a princess. I donned the low heel shoes and hobled into Rembrants with Leigh's help..... Sunday morning slept in a little and while Leigh went off to get the Sunday papers I cooked up some omelettes .... pretty much spent a relaxing day together which was great after all the stress and running around leading up to the deb.









Training:
Have manged to get my squatting back to Monday nights...
Box Squat - warmed up on 40kg, then 5 sets of 8 reps at 60kg and finshed of 2 sets of 3 at 80kg
Zercher squat - 50kg 4 sets of 8
Leg extentions - 40, 50, 60, 70, in sets of 14 -> 10 reps

Left it there as my foot had been quite sore over the weekend. Iced and elevated when I got home.

Tuesday, Physio and post op surgeon visit.... Stuart has suggested more stretching exercises for the calf cramps otherwise he is happy with the progress - another 3 weeks of maintenance training and all going well I should be able to start on back heavy training again.

Then into my review with Mark Blackney. The pain and swelling is as expected at this stage and now is the time to start pushing the toe a bit more. Scar tissue has built up and now is the time to start breaking it down - the healing is at a point where I should be able to do this. He has also prescribed a strong arthritis drug, Mobic, to help reduce the pain and inflammation while I work the toe harder, even suggesting that I can start a very light running programme.

Researched a little about Mobic (Meloxicam) on the internet - seems to be quite a potent drug, with some risks attached. Almost in the same category as Vioxx which has been taken off the market. But WOW it works - today I am walking like a normal person.... Its a miracle... I CAN WALK. :-)

Trained last night as well....

Bench 40kg x8, 50kg x8, 60kg x6 (5 sets) then went for a 1 rep max of 70kg (with a little help) Pleased with that given the break I've had from heavy training.
Dumbells 40lb x12, 50lbx8, x6, x6, 45lb x8
Floor tricep press 40lbx12 50lbx8 (3 sets)
Overhead rope 10 reps at each of 60, 70, 80 90, 100
Calf stretches - Per physio's instructions

More Pics from the Deb.......

My next challenge

Poker. Yep, having my first lesson on Thursday and then I'm up for the corporate games poker at crown casino - Joe Hachem make room at the table - LOL

Physio appt last Friday was less than encouraging. Foot is more swollen than expected and not from the squatting or partial deadlifts but rather I am doing too much walking and not enough elevation. So a concerted effort at the weekend saw my foot a little less swollen. Appears that my body is also rejecting the 'dissolving stitches' as I mentioned I had pulled a stitch from my toe and now the other end of the scar keeps weeping - yuck! Anyway I have my followup visit with the Surgeon next week so I can raise this and the issue of calf cramps.

My training to date has been a bit erratic. I've managed two squat sessions, the first being 2 sets of each front squats, regular squats and zercher squats all with only 40kg and I found that although the front squats were hard on my front delts I actually squatted well and pushed with my heels taking the pressure off the front of my foot. Last week I kept to just the front squats and some tried some partial deadlifts at 100kg. The physio has given me the go ahead to increase the weight by 10%, a short more intense heavier training session is preferable to a long drawn out session. Tonight I'm back in the gym for a third squat session, I'm still confused about my training regime. Leigh has been a little to busy to guide me and has suggested I go back to Dirk to work out my training. To be honest I'm a little disappointed.... well frustrated is probably more like it. I hate being tethered back and already I feel like I've lost ground - I know I have! Perhaps Leigh is right, I should sit down with someone and write out a plan to give me some focus. At the moment I go to the gym, start training and make it up as I go along which doesn't seem to be very productive.

In my otherwize nerdy life last week I installed 2 new oracle databases on two test machines and set up a streams environment to play with and to be used for Streams bug testcases..... got bored with that by Thursday and after looking around our internal site I found a new Oracle connector for Microsoft outlook. Downloaded it and installed yippee I was able to finally connect my Dopod to our mail system AND still see my calender appts and contacts.... That was until I rebooted and it all went south for the winter..... So here it is Monday morning and I'm still trying to re-install Outlook (for the 3rd time....) The install is taking all my available bandwidth on my laptop and I cant even get to the bug database - I've had to restort to writing this blog update in notepad!! Crap.

Today I have 'Meet and Mingle' morning tea at 10am.... Now that we've moved to the new building and were are all together management thinks its a good idea for us to get to know our colleagues (we used to be in 2 separate buildings...) Well, its a free latte and muffin..... and probably my Outlook install will still be running.....

Long post and Gripe!!

Decided to head down the beach afterall. Left home at 6.00pm and arrived there just after 9.30pm. Bad traffic accident on the way - triple fatality, held up the traffic for a bit and Mojo got a bit antsy in float. Terrible weekend on the roads with 12 people losing their lives - such a terrible shame, I really feel for the parents of the kids in the accident we sore - especially after Leah's accident at the beginning of this year. (and I'll whinge about this a little more later....)

The weather wasn't too bad, and Madi managed to get a couple of rides along the beach - me with my dodgy foot stayed out of the saddle this time. Mojo enjoyed a nice roll on the beach too.



The mosquito's were in plague proportions. At one point we could not get into the truck there were so many of them, we kept having to spray Mojo with repellent - which he did not appreciate!

In true 4WD form I managed to run over a sign out the front of the fish and chip shop where we stopped to get lunch on the Saturday - ooppps!

Back Sunday night to a roast pork dinner, complete with apple sauce and crackling, cooked by Leah and her boyfriend Andrew - yummm!

Worked Monday, trained chest and triceps - went a little lighter so as not to pull up so sore again.

Flat dumbells: warmup 35lb for 12 reps, 40 x12, 45x10 (2 sets)
Incline dumbells: 45x10 3 sets
Flat flyes: - very light at 20lb 10 reps 3 sets

Lying tricep extention: 20lb 3 sets of 8
Cable pushdown: 80, 90 100, 120 all for 10 reps

GRIPE of the year!

VicRoads are giving Leah a hard time about her accident at the beginning of the year and are now intending to suspend her license indefinitely. She has complied with all their requests, filling in reports and attending 2 doctors appointments to prove that there is no medical reason for her not to drive. The rude and ignorant medical review, Brian, finally telling us that according to the police report Leah has had 2 incidences of 'blacking out' behind the wheel, the other occurrence being in 2005 (bullshit - she only had her learner's permit then!) So I tracked down the 2 officers from Ringwood police to see what had been written in their report. The constable (Matt Henri) that wrote the report is on leave..... great! Any way I explained to the other officer (Mel LeGrande) what was going on and she called Matt at home. Apparently he made a mistake in his report - a typo on the date, which he knew about so he wrote a second report to correct the first one and to his knowledge it was all sorted out. WRONG!!! Even after sending a statutory declaration as to her medical fitness and stating the error by the police officer, the VicRoads guy (although admitting that he knew the 2nd reports was to correct the 1st report) is still taking the 2nd report as a 2nd incident because it too has an error..... so as far as he is concerned she has had 2 blackouts (actually she just fell asleep at the wheel due to fatigue) So now she has to see a neurologist (twice at a cost of $270 each time) and she cannot get the 2nd appointment for a month - VicRoads have given her 10 days notice of suspension of licence (Oct 17 - just days before her birthday!!). Const. LeGrande called VicRoads but without any success - we have to wait for Const. Henri to return from leave next Monday (Oct 15) and see if he can sort out something with VicRoads - in any case the arrogant little VicRoads prick has said he will not give her license back until Mid November. F*%#' sake!!! Do they expect her to take public transport to and from work??? Right - she works afternoon shift at the Police records section, finishes work at 11pm - do they expect a 19yo girl to catch a train to the outer suburbs at that time of night??? Yes she made a mistake - had an accident but for her license to be suspended some 10 months later, when she was not charged with any offense, had a ZERO blood alcohol level and does not take drugs - this is so WRONG!!!

All this anger is making my toe throb!!!

Right - that off my chest, trained last night - Back, shoulders and biceps.

Bent over rows: 40 kg 10 reps, 50kg 3 sets of 10
Lat pulldown: 100 3 sets of 10
Face pulls: 90 3 sets of 10

Overhead shoulder press: 100 10 reps, 120 10 reps 2 sets
Side raises: (light) 15lb db 4 sets of 12

Incline db bicep curls: (light) 15lb 4 sets 12
Cable curls: 20 4 sets of 15

George introduced me to the new guy working at the gym, Reece, who is also a powerlifter and trains at Apollo gym (westside/Metal Militia). He was really pleased to someone that benches 'properly' (as a powerlifter not a bodybuilder - LOL). We had a great ole chat about powerlifting and training. He has offered to lend me his Metal Militia cd's and will help me with my shirt technique in the Metal shirt when I am ready as he uses all Metal gear and so is very familiar with how it should be worn and used. That's a way down the track tho', for now I'm itching to get back under the bar and squat!

Road to recovery

Gentle leg and bicep workout last Thursday

Leg extensions 4 sets, 60, 12 reps
Leg curls 4 sets, 30, 12 reps
Seated good mornings 4 sets, 40kg, 10 reps

Dumbbell curls - 4 sets ,30lb, 8 reps
Single arm preacher curls, 3 sets, 25lb, 8 reps
Cable curls, 20, 25,30 - 10 reps

Physio Friday - Stuart is happy with my progress and swelling is as expected (still) next visit is in 3 weeks and just prior to that I should be able to squat at 30% of my usual training weight (not one-rep max). So when the time comes I'll try out around 30 - 40kg and ease back into it.

Saturday afternoon, drove to Queenscliff with Leigh (and Oden the wonder dog). Nice latte at one of the cafe's, a walk along the beach and then very casual dinner (fish and chips) back at the beach - very relaxing afternoon - away from the footy crowds.

Handed over my car to Leah on Sunday - the lease had ended and she opted to buy the car for the residual. For now I'm driving the truck to work while I source a new car for myself. Test drove a little Mazda 2 Genki last week - neat little car, very zippy and will be heaps more economical for driving to work each day.

This week I'm on an Internal training course at work (long hours) which mean I get home very late.... and haven't made it to the gym so far.

Mojo caught his head in the wire fence and the vet had to be called - so poor boy is back on penicillan and anti-inflamms. We were planning to go down t0 he beach this weekend.... We'll have to see how he is Friday and get sheepskin cover on his bridle.