Where's Wally?

Been a little unmotivated to blog lately. Unless I manage to blog my training or whatever immediately I find myself accumulating 'updates'.

Of course my training has been far from unmotivated and I've come away from each session feeling both drained and elated.

Squats have been 'back to basics' - Light 60 - 90kg, 5x5's 8x3's and super deep, butt to the floor. Hack squats, hack squats and more hack squats - some full, some partial. Again light and always hitting rock bottom.

Benching with with the same routine, concentrating on 5x5's alternating with 8x3's then trying some incline dumbells (which have to be light due to my rear delt impingement), upperback face pulls, wide rowing and tricep press.

Deadlifting has consisted of rack pulls from below the knee 8x3's conventional style - last night pulled 140kg and rubbed the skin off my thumb - amazing how the little things hurt so much. Rope pull thrus @ 150, lots of reverse hypers and throw in some ab work at the end.


Tonight - off to the movies to see Rambo (!?!)
Tomorrow - no chance to slep in as Madi and Mojo have their first event for the year (after EI has been lifted), so we're off to Yarrambat for state trials.
Sunday - Pager, glorious pager... (not).

Pro show next weekend, I'm still trying to get Damon's excel spreadsheet to work for recording the bench press attempts.... yes I'm in IT but these windows apps leave me cold....

Sore legs - again!

Dinner Thursday night with Leigh for Valentines day. Early start Friday morning, like 4am, as Leigh stayed over the night and was off to Toowoomba for the weekend to attend an auction at the national antique & bottle show.

Partial Deadlifts Friday night with the knurly bar.... big mistake... Ripped callouses of both palms. 120kg, not all that heavy but given the below knee starting point I found it tough going. Followed this up with pull thru's, reverse hypers and front raises (shoulder rehab).

Watched the much publicized and banned episode of Underbelly - excellent show can wait for the remaining 11 episodes to be uploaded each week!

No training at the weekend since Leigh was away. I know - slack! Shoe shopping at DFO Essendon Saturday morning - came away with a couple of bargins and then headed to Brunswick street with the girls for a latte from Atmoica. Couch potatoed on Sunday morning with Leah, Andrew and Madii watching 3 episodes of Cashmere Mafia - This is going to be a big hit here I'm sure.

Sunday night, surprise surprise! Starving hungry for dinner, Leah insisted on delaying dinner for no known reason until I heard the familiar sound of Leigh's ute coming up the driveway, hang on he was supposed to be on a plane to Sydney for some more wheeling and dealing..... Finally we could have dinner :-) and watched Underbelly again.


Saw Shazza at Doherty's last night with her new beau. She seems well smitten with this young guy. ;-)

Training per Leigh's instructions (focussing on depth not weight)
5x5 very deep no belt knee wraps only
4x16 full hack squats - hit the bottom
3x15 leg extentions. (to failure)

Not quite as tough as last week, but legs still fatigued - Leigh wasn't there to berate me for any failures! But I did miss our post workout walk and debrief over a latte.


2008 MuscleTech Aus Pro Grand Prix is being held on March 8th - Check out Doherty's website. The Australian IFBB Pro Grand Prix VIII will also include the "King of the Bench - Pro Bench Press" as well as the NPFC All States Amateur Bodybuilding competition. I've agreed to help out on the scoring table for the bench press comp. Should be a great show.

xxx

Happy Valentines day

What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

William Shakespeare

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.

-Aristotle

Underbelly

What a crock of shit.... This has been pulled from TV tonight.... only in Victoria. Any interstate readers uploading the series or recording it please drop me an email or post a comment. Thanks

PS. Gotta love the judge's specs....

.

dear diary....

Friday Feb 8

Romanian deadlifts 6x8
Rope pull thru's 6x10
Reverse hypers 3x15
Hanging leg raise 3x10
Standing ab curl 4x10
Overhead front raise (light - shoulder rehab)


Saturday Feb 9

Up early for Adult Riders Club. Groomed and tacked up by 9.30, headed off to Bucks reserve where the clubhouse is. First order of the day is to pay my membership fees for the year.... $145.00 plus the $10 instructors fee (which is paid at every rally), then out on the arena, sans horse, to setup the jumps. 11.00 am the first lesson starts - show jumping (little jumps) starting off with trot poles and gradually building up to to cross rails. By the end of the lesson we are all going over a 5 jump course with a little cantering between jumps. Really good confidence builder for the first lesson back after such a long break. 2nd lesson was dressage - pretty boring as the instructor spent most of the class instructing just one person who was having a problem with a new horse, trotted in circles 'forever' got a couple of canters in, polish the seat, polish the seat.... I need to NOT rise so far out of the saddle... polish the seat.... Inner thighs and lower back really got a caining. Quick meeting afterwards on the verandah to discuss the new cross country course and fund raising activities to meet the cost of a budget blowout for the course and new arena (to be built) and then tacked up again and rode home.

Leigh came over for dinner and then we're out to the movies, stopping in Prahran afterwards to share a late night pizza.

Sunday Feb 10

Up at 8, made my special porrige for Leigh and myself and then had to head off to Pony club with Madi - Mojo had a hard weekend.... Spend the day running between home and the pony club trying to get some housework done. Sunday night collapsed in the recliner - where did the weekend go?

Monday Feb 11

Squatting at Doherty's

Deep, deep squats - something I am not used to. 80kg x3's with knee wraps. Had a couple of failures but as I moved on each set seem to get easier.
Hack squats, no lockout, with some forced reps.
Leg extensions 3x15 light but very taxing.

Legs were trashed... Leigh, mucking around. pushed me forward, I only managed a couple of steps before my legs gave out and I was on the floor laughing. Gave them a good stretching out and then down the street for a latte and session debrief.... and I copped an arse whipping - literally - as Leigh picked up a stick that had fallen off a tree and processed to whack the back of my legs with it until it broke across my backside. Punishment for failing in the squat - Yeeoooowww!

The week in review

Friday

My last day of holidays (weekends dont count) and Madi's first day back at school.... booked myself a 1 hour remedial massage at Fearnly. Bliss!

Saturday

I'd decided to chuck out my old, old, old 2nd hand dining chairs (crappy) and so went to 'Early Settler' store to look at some new ones. Madi found 6 nice cushioned wood chairs that had been marked down from $195 each to $110 and down again to $89. A couple of them were slightly damaged so I picked the best 4 with the help of the Salesboy who seemed quite taken with Madi, you know, throwing cushions at her and generally being silly.... anyway he must have been so distracted with her that he mistakenly charged my on $49 per chair.... I scooted out of the store quick smart with my bargains!

7am Sunday

Police Centre Gym (Leigh was expecting it to be empty.... however there were a few guys in from the Force Response Unit (FRU) - sadly they were not in uniform... :-)

Bicep dumbell curls
Preacher curl machine
Hammer curls

Tricep press down
Seated incline o/head cable press
Seated reverse grip press

Followed by breakfast at 'The Fitz' in Brunswick st, Fitzroy.

The rest of my day involved loading the truck with stuff to take down to the road for the hard rubbish collection - with much help from Madi.

Big cleanout of the garage too - now I have soooo much room!


7pm Monday

Squat Lockouts sets of 5 reps @140kg and sets of 3 at 160kg (easy)
Jump squats with 20kg (felt like nothing on my back!!) still have trouble jumping out of the bottom tho'.

Jason and Mil were there squatting too. With them another new face, but obviously not new to powerlifting..... introduced himself to me... Kevin. No sign of Shaz or Jojo.....

Legs were 'heavy', thats the only way I can describe them - even the next day.

Tuesday

Jigsaw puzzle arrived in the mail at work. Thomas Barbey 'Tourist Trap'


Spent the night on the floor.....

6.30pm Wednesday

Bench 2x8 @ bar, 2x8 @ 40kg, 2x5 @50kg, 5x5 @ 55kg
Bench lockouts 15 @ 70kg (each rep required me to re-setup - so like singles but not...)
Lying dumbell press 4x8 @ 25lb

Had been to see Andrew Lock earlier - now have some new rehab exercises for my rear delt. Lying face down with 1kg dumbells and lifting my arms superman style - 25 reps twice a day along with the lying rotator cuff work.