May 29 2009

P1 pager has finished for another week and I'm about to head into the city to see Gemma at Melbourne sports medical centre. She did such a great job with my quad - see pic... good as new ;-) Anyhoo my shoulder/right scap is giving me more and more grief each week when I'm benching. Usually Andrea gets it under control pretty quick but this time the pain comes back a few days after treatment. So I'll let Gemma loose on it and see where it leads. Of course a trip to MSMC also requires a mandatory call-in to Haighs......

Latte'd with Tink (Jojo) last night after training, whinged to her about my shoulder too, she recommended that I go see Shaun Bostock for a massage..... I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea considering, you know, as a massage therapist AND massive bencher himself, he'll know the mechanics of what my shoulder is doing/not doing or doing badly...... Tink speaks very highly of his massage skills. Maybe I'll absorb some of his benching ability through touch.... or osmosis.... LOL. Providing I can get past the embarrassment...

Training
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Despite the shoulder I still managed a pretty good bench session at Southern on Saturday. First workout with the old/big shirt on (which protects my shoulder) and the plan was for 4x4 @ 75kg but felt good and pressed out 5x5 @75.

Sunday squats postponed due to strongman comp and so squatted Monday eve. Meh! not so great. Plan was 5x3 at 115 with just wraps and belt but it went more like... 3,2,2,3,2,3 = same net result by adding an extra set, 15 reps all done.

Deadlift training this week was rack pulls below the knee (belt and wrist straps) 150 5x5 , again a bit of a struggle so adjusted the pin height up a bit and then and worked down with each set until I was back to the original height for the last set.

Finally a night off training - yay. Gonna slip into the nom nom (dressing gown) as soon as I get home, crank up the heating and park myself in the recliner with a latte and my little chocolate treat from Haighs to watch the Strongman series on OneHD at 6.30pm and then catch up on all the shows I've recorded this week.

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may 27 2009

Strongman Comp

Lightweight Division:

1st place - James Grahame

2nd place - Tristan Woods

Random Photos's

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May 23 2009

Saturday morning sleep in... mmmm Poached eggs on muffins and a latte to wash down a multitude of pills.

I didn't bench Tuesday night (speed stuff). Monday night Dad was rushed into hospital by ambulance with breathing difficulties and heart problems, he has emphysema so Tuesday night we're all at the hospital making sure he was ok, and thankfully later in the week he was allowed home. So, anyways, I'm itching to get under the bar today.



No squatting tomorrow but still no sleep in, Madii and Mojo have an early start at pony club.

Then we're off at lunchtime to watch a strongman comp at D's in Dandenong. Should be fun, Tristan is competing and I'm sure he'll do well. I'll be there to cheer him on! Should shape up to be a great day I'll be sure to take loads of photo's





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May 19, 2009

Who says lightning doesn't strike twice?

The black agents swooped again on Saturday morning at training. Just 18 days since the last raid, this time wanting urine AND blood. SMS'd Leigh... who responded jovially with "Chuckle. R they only "taking the piss out of u?" :-p :-p" Bahaha

3 Black agents blending into the background

Once again chaperoned around the gym while we train and because a blood sample is required we must wait around for 20mins after training before they can take blood. So I trained as usual, and waited until the end to provide the urine sample. Arghhh... could only squeeze out 75ml... Fail! When a blood sample is requested you have to provide a 'supersized' sample - 30ml more wee than a regular wee sample of 90ml... So I am granted a 2nd attempt... which is good 'cos powerlifters always get 3 attempts :-) At least the DCO has a sense of humor.

The blood sample wasn't as bad as I had expected, they did bring in a registered nurse to do it and I have to admit she was good, didn't hurt (yes, I am a wimp) but it was over with quickly. But guys, seriously, come around too often and the novelty will wear off fast....












After being traumatized again Madii, Leah and I went out for some retail therapy and stopped into Koko black for a hot chocolate...mmmmm

Yummmmmm

And... As I haven't been out to the movies in ages... Saturday night I treated myself and Madii adn saw Star Trek , which I *really* enjoyed - not a mad trekki but the movie was entertaining and trying to see recognize Eric Bana as the baddy, Whoa, hard to see it was him. Arrived home around 11, neighbors having a very loud party, and set the alarm for 5.45 am... Ughh early morning squats.... Music got turned down at midnight thankfully but still not enough sleep time!

A little over cautious squatting with the quad strain, but it felt pretty good and I managed some slow and possibly slightly shallow squats at 105 with knee wraps and at 110kg I added my belt!Very little accessory work again and then off home to an ice-bath to head off any swelling in the quad as suggested by the physio. The worst thing... the ice bath hurt my feet and you cant raise your feet out of the ice without raising the quad out too..... Arghhh pain!!!

Why are men's jammies so much more fun....
Ba-ha.. Grumpy! Yep that's me!

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May 14 2009

Despite having reservations about seeing a new physio I was quite impressed with Gemma. She was able to describe exactly what I was doing including details aboaut stance and toe position.... hmmm wonder if she reviewed the gym security tapes? LOL. Some massage and ultrasound treatment, stretching exercises and and compression tube. Follow up appointment today.

Got an email / survey thing from ASADA. Fine, filled out the responses till I get near the end and this is this rather odd question:
Finish this sentence:
Getting tested by ASADA makes me feel.....

Ummm? Special?
Violated?
A 'wee' bit intimidated?
Paranoid?

Chuckle........

Deadlift training tonight - no actual deadlifting involved.... Assistance work only followed by a latte with Jojo and Loretta.
On the topic of deadlifting, here are some pics of my 150 deadlift from the Melb Championships taken by Yoji from SPLC and below that a clip of my technically challenged 165kg deadlift also many thanks to Yoji.








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May 11 2009

Mothers day - two new sets of jamies for winter.... of course this lead to tears as I had to pick one set to wear.... but ended up wearing both.... :-)










Spoke too soon about not having any injuries too. Ho-hum...

Injury 1. Right shoulder -this is an recurring injury - shoulder out, not dislocated as such but gets inflamed and doesn't sit well in the joint. A couple of visits with Andrea usually fixes this - under treatment.....

Injury 2. Stupid, stupid girl. Not sufficiently warmed up last Thursday before doing box squats using the spastic bar (which I don't like at the best of times) and strained my right quad vastus medialis (refer to diagram).

Stopped immediately - Rest, ice, yada yada. Andrea took a look on Saturday morning, bit of massage there and thru the ankle and it felt better. Heavy training Sunday re-aggravated it. Felt fine for the warmups and 40kg. 60kg could feel a twinge, wrapped early at 80kg - could still feel it. 95kg mmm getting sore... triples on 105kg - did 3 sets and called it quits. Rest, ice, yada yada. Made an appointment this afternoon with atGemma Melbourne Sports Medical centre. Haven't seen her before but neither Roger, Gordon or Jesse were available. Most annoyingly was that the 105kg actually felt quite good if it wasn't for the stabbing pain.


Minh from Titan brought a couple of F6's to training on Saturday. Tried getting my arm into the size 36 first - with help from Steve Giffin, but while he could get it up close tot he elbow he didn't think it would pull up too well at the top of my arm where my tricep is thickest. Settled for the 38 on his advice and may be able to get the chest plate taken in.

Which reminds me, I need to take my squat suit back to the tailor and have the shoulders altered down another 5cm. Tight!

My old runners finally bit the dust. So a trip to Active Feet in Prarahn on Thursday saw me come away with a new pair of Asics (and a free T-shirt!). Maybe I'll even be able to get bit of a jog up at lunchtimes to keep my weight in check. Wen suggested I might even aim for 5k run in Corporate games in November as well as the poker! :-)

My number plate???

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May 5 2009

I am well impressed with 'House of Pain' . I placed an order last week for 2 pair of Inzer black knee wraps, 1 pair of Inzer black wrist wraps, 2 HOP beanies and a $1 cooler pack (gift thing) and it arrived today! The site quoted 2 -6 weeks delivery for international orders and a week later its on my desk! AND in the box was this months Powerlifting USA mag - bonus!

My new Titan shirt should also be available this Saturday, all going well for the new Australian Titan distributor. Minh will be bringing both a 36 and 38 for me to take a look at. I'll bring some silks and see if I can get my arm into the 36. I've also asked him to add a couple of boxes of ammonia caps to my order. Leigh assures me they're good so we'll see!

Comp details for this years Nationals are up on the Powerlifting Australia website. I am considering doing both the 3 lift comp and the bench press comp. Since I'm putting in all this effort, I might just as well do both!


Spoke to soon about the black agents - LOL. They fronted at the gym that night and nabbed almost everyone in the club for testing. I discovered that despite much practice peeing all my life, I could not pee with someone watching.... I know some people pay good money for this kind of thing, but this is not going to be a money spinner for me!

Anyway the whole process was quite interesting and amusing, being that I have a warped sense of humour. Choosing the container for the sample was like a lucky dip - but not so lucky. The lid for the sample container looked like a sipper lid, I will never have a drink with a sipper lid again and then the embarrassment of carrying the damn sample thru the gym to the testing station Ughhh!. Then the fun starts, pouring the sample into separate container, the ASADA dude checking the quality of the sample - I do good quality pee! and then sealing it all up and bidding it farewell... I sms'ed Leigh and he met me after for a debrief and welfare check - such a traumatizing experience... :-)

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