So today the Mexican President attended the funeral of one of his former top heads in his war against drug cartels. A few hours before the funeral, a senior detective was gunned down by seven bullets to his head & neck, and two other top police officers have also been murdered over the span of a few days.

Safe to say that the drug cartels are in charge? Wonder what has to be done. I guess it’s rough ousting the former ruling party, eh? Very sad.



The Many pains of Jujutsu
Today I had initially planned to get home from work, and then work out my legs. In reality, I got home from work, and worked out my eyelids. Because I was tired, and my legs were more-so.

My knees. My knees felt like they were suspended in pudding or something. They were slow, felt swollen, and just sort of ached a little. No real pounding pain, but it just didn’t feel like my good ol’ knees in general.

My leg muscles. My butt was sore, as were my calfs. I sort of figured my calfs would be sore from all the toe-curling action during the kicks and takedowns, but I didn't figure on the butt. So I in effect got my leg workout on already, albeit a day early.

Oh, and my foot. My left foot I think I sprained the top of it. The top of it? Yeah, the top. I was doing some rolls yesterday as practice, and I rolled onto and then over the top of my left foot, and I heard some popping. I made it through the rest of the class, but when I got home I could tell that it was probably going to be a little sore today. And I was right.

Oh well. Such is life. I feel pretty good overall, especially after my nap. Tomorrow I begin class at 11am. Hopefully I sleep well tonight. Will need it.



Tired?
Yeah. Remember we watched “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” last night. Well I mentioned it was long? Couple that with the fact that we didn’t actually start it until closer to 10pm. I don’t recommend that, should you find yourself in a similar situation.



The Girl’s changing climate wrt Pit Bulls
For the longest time The Girl has maintained that pit bulls are not inherently dangerous, that they are trained to be a certain way.

I have not believed this myself during this time. The truth of the matter is that pit bulls are involved in more bites & attacks than any other dog type. For me, it’s safe to say that the same as labradors are instinctively drawn to water & swimming, as are pit bulls to aggressiveness. I mean, that may not always have been the case, they weren’t always supposed to be killer dogs, and in fact they do have some stigma that is not deserved (German Shepherds actually bite harder, and both pale in comparison to the Rottweiler). But the fact is that today’s pit bulls are not by rule friendly family dogs as they once were, sad as it may be.

I attributed this defensive posture of The Girl to the fact that her dog is figured to be part pit bull of some fashion, most likely American Staffordshire Terrier, which is is commonly grouped with pit bulls (duh). Yes, she’s cute, no she’s not much a threat, but that doesn’t change the rule. It might just help define it, know what I mean?

Anyway, those feelings & defenses have eroded over the past few months. First she had her mom inform her that her cat had been killed when someone brought over their “friendly” pit bull and it chased down the feline and essentially ate it. The cat was some 20 years old or thereabout. Then just tonight, she found out a coworker friend of hers had her dog killed by someone’s “friendly” pit bull at a party both dogs attended.

Not only that, but we had also read recently in the paper about some dogs that had been attacked & killed by someone’s “friendly” family pit bull at the beach. Twice. In February.

I think it’s safe to say that The Girl is ready to admit that perhaps there’s something to the idea that pit bulls are in fact inherently dangerous pets. In the same way that Labradors are inherently perfect family dogs. It’s in the breed, I’m sorry.

Peace.

Tags: Gym, Entertainment, Politics

My luck with Canon Digital Cameras has been less than stellar recently, I would say.

Last time – not all that long ago, either – it was a Canon SD870 that saw fit to severely underexpose all images when at 80% zoom or more, regardless of actual lighting conditions (like, say, outdoors on a bright sunny day). This time it’s at least not a software problem, but a mechanical problem: the lens seems to be “stuck shut.” When I try to turn it on, the lens tries to extend out, and fails.

I say “at least” in reference to the hardware failure because that’s easier to troubleshoot; the software failure leaves the “techs” on the other end to question whether you are ‘doing it right,’ with ‘it’ ranging from “turning on the power” to “do you even know what the hell a camera is?” Yes I do, dumbass, probably better with them than you. But I digress. This makes it a simple “oh ok well the mechanism appears to be broken, please send in for warranty repair.” OK I can do that.

What’s really weird about it is that I had the camera out, took some pics, put it away and walked around for a bit, maybe a whole 2 minutes, before a chance for a ‘Miles Movie’ presented itself and I pulled it back out. I am not sure if I by chance had anything to do with its demise, as I pulled it out and hit the on button, then was holding the zoom function down as it was starting up. Could that have confused it or jammed the mechanical mechanism? I don’t think so, but maybe if two gears are fighting to go different directions when they shouldn’t be…

Anyway, a call is to be placed on Monday. Wish me luck.



Tomorrow’s Workout: A marathon affair
It’s going to be some 3 hours. Really. See I had planned to do my shoulders today and my biceps & triceps tomorrow with a day off on Sunday, but I’m so sore today from my chest & back workout yesterday, that the whole shoulder thing was not close to a possibility this evening. Clearly. I could not even feint the appearance of a full range of motion today.

One option was to move everything back a day, but that binds other things from Sunday on forward, and moving them back further means more than two days for some stuff, making my workout routine far too spaced for my liking. So the other option was to combine things that I could get away with, and just lengthen the hell out of the schedule. I opted for this as tomorrow I have nothing going on after work, save for dinner @ The Girl’s work, so even though I never ever do it, I’m going to go the marathon workout route.

I expect it will run anywhere from 2-½ hours to 3 hours long. Wish me luck.

Luckily I have the next day off, for my workouts anyway. Still gotta get up and go to work though, so it’s not like it’ll be a cakewalk of a day still. And I wanted to take the dogs out when I got home too, so we’ll see how it goes.

Peace.

Tags: Gym, Technology

Today I got in my workout. Yay for me, except that I had to laugh at myself once I was damn near through.

See, I had started doing my back exercises, and I felt really strong. So I upped the weight a little, then a little more… 20 pounds more than I would normally do. Like, 20 pounds more than I would have done the last time I did them. That’s quite an improvement! Trust me!

Well it seemed like quite an improvement. Until I was damn near done, and I realized that I had put on the 25lb plates instead of the 35lb plates I normally use. Whoops!

Anyway, I guess it goes to show that I know my limits rather well. (2x25+20=70; 2x35=70).



The Guffaw over LeBron & Vogue
I got a glimpse of the “provacative” Vogue Cover featuring LeBron James & Giselle Bundchen (she’s hot btw). But have you heard all the ruckus over the perceived “racial overtones” of the cover? You know, that it portrays black males in a “vicious manner,” with an angry face and “clutching” a helpless white woman…

I know it sounds absurd, but in reality I see where they’re coming from. It DOES look like a scene from King Kong (the good version, not the “Jack Black’s in it totally f*cking it up version.” I hate Jack Black, btw). What would have been so bad about him being dressed to the nines? He could have still held a ball or something. Why have him in such an “active” stance, with such a scowl on his face (yes I know he’s almost smiling, but still it’s not a “hi nice to see you” sort of appearance either)?

They may not have necessarily meant it in that way, but they should have nabbed that before it went to print. Voque’s been around awhile, their covers are usually pretty well-conceived; this might not have been intentional, but it probably wasn’t an accident, either.



Did you see this video yet?
If you know me personally, then I already emailed it to you. But if you don’t know me personally, then maybe you haven’t seen this video.

It’s a rather lengthy video by internet standards (upwards of 20 minutes), but also very important. It’s also very spot-on. I’ve been saying essentially the same thing for years, and I’ve seen how people tune out; it’s funny how quickly people will bury their heads in the sand and just claim ignorance, so they can continue being someone else’s pawn.

Anyway, I didn’t learn anything from the video. Which isn’t to say that I’m smarter than anyone, only saying that it’s not news, if you’ve listened to me you may recognize some of what the narrator says. But it’s put together well, and ties a lot of things together nicely.

Definitely worth checking out. What are you waiting for? Click already!

Peace.

Tags: earth conditions, hate, Gym

They keep on saying that we need to bail out the damn mortgage industry, some sort of “economic stimulus” plan, prop it all up with some $30 billion. I just don’t get it.

To me, it would seem that amounts to perpetuating the republican agenda. I mean, the dems didn’t create the housing boom, it serves the purpose of keeping most of the people (whom they’re supposed to be “for”) out of one of the biggest facets of the American Dream… yet they keep right on going for that. Election year politics? Man, f*ck.

Sorry, but propping up the housing market serves no one except the people looking to turn around and sell for profit sometime soon. The market’s overvalued, and if they prop it up and keep the prices artificially high, then they’re locking soooo many low-income families out of the possibility of ever owning the roof over their heads.

This is decidedly not a democratic ideal. I don’t know what the hell they’re thinking. I actually – GASP! – agree with McCain on this one.



Workout stories
I haven’t worked out much recently. I was hit by the flu bug, albeit not too hard. But then I just sort of never got much better for the better part of two weeks, and only recently got good enough to lift frequently. Like, 3 days ago.

One thing I noticed during my hiatus: lack of gas. Yeah, that gas. Almost as soon as I got back on the bandwagon though, the gas came back. And it hit me: I may not be as naturally gassy as I feared myself to be; it may be a byproduct of the whey protein supplement I take when I work out. Er, used to take. I have been off it for almost two weeks and haven’t had any issues, so I am going to try getting on it again, see if the gas reappears. If so? Then I’m screwed.

More specifically, my wallet’s screwed. Because it’s not like I’m going to not lift. Rather, I’m going to have to relegate myself to actually eating the protein I need, as opposed to drinking it on the cheap. And it’s not like I don’t enjoy the eating. It’s just a bit more expensive.

So if you’re a workout buff and you think gas is just a way of life for you? Maybe not. It may just be a “whey” of life. May be another point to the old adage, “you get what you pay for.” No way to cheap out on the weight gain either, apparently. At least for me.

Peace.

Tags: Politics, Gym

I said earlier that I wasn’t going to get to play with my new weed wacker until tomorrow. But I lied.

Around 3pm or so the rain cleared and never came back. So I changed my schedule around to accommodate a workout that was unplanned (did chest & back yesterday; usually too sore to do shoulders the following day), and in between sets I managed to get in some wacking of weeds. Yes, now the back and front yards are completely edged, and everything’s looking just that much better! Yay.



Organic Chicken: it haz a flavur
You know those jokes, everything tastes like chicken, chicken tastes like everything, everything tastes like nothing…? Well if you’d never eaten fresh, organic, free-range chicken, you might agree with this. God knows we (me and The Girl) did. She so much as disliked chicken before.

But now? Now it’s a staple. We don’t even marinate it. Just throw it on the grill, baste it, and serve. It’s that good. Its has an actual taste, so once you get below the top layer that actually absorbed the baste, it still tastes wonderful.

Really. You should try it. Remember, though: Organic, free-range. Those are important. They will make all the difference. Trust me. Trust the ‘bob.

Peace.


PostScript: The “it haz a flavur" is slang from “teh intarwebs,” in reference to “lolcats.” just in case you were wondering. You weren’t but I thought I’d share.

Tags: Gym

And they felt good. All went smoothly, and I actually moved more weight than I figured I would; pretty much 100% of what I normally would do. Maybe 95%. Definitely at least 90-95%. Definitely.



Lookin’ Good, too
Not, like, compared to others or anything, but after just one workout following a near 2-week hiatus, it’s a miraculous change. I have a chest again. A small chest, but a chest nonetheless. Sweet.



Feeling good about work, too
I don’t want to jinx myself, which I’m prone to do (read here, then here, and here), but I’m feeling good about myself at work. I’m not about to rewrite the company or anything yet, but I feel like I’ve got the hang of what needs to be done and how to accomplish it. And I notice that even though I’m the newest management hire, when I am closing shop, I am tiypically 100% on, out on on time, and neater than the others (at my level, anyhow; my superior manager is still better than I by quite the margin). Not to knock the others, they excel at certain things beyond what I am currently capable of, but I’m just saying…

But yeah, uh, no jinxing hopefully. It’s just that I feel like I can work there and succeed. I just need more time to learn.



Oh. My. Goodness.
On the agenda for tonight? A day I have off? Well besides another workout (legs this time), we’re going to sit down and watch No Country for Old Men. I have no idea how this happened, mind you. I put it on our Netflix queue, but it was listed as “Long Wait.” Yet for whatever reason, it’s the next movie we got.

Which is really cool, because I wasn’t in a Rocky Balboa kind of mood. Which was the next movie that actually had an “available” status. Next week though, it's me & you Balboa.

Peace.

Tags: Entertainment, Gym

First, the Good:
It’s a decent way to throw away 2 hours. If you’ve got nothing better to do, and you don’t mind watching two or three decent actors throw their talent around the screen, you might enjoy The Brave One.

Now, onto the Bad:
It begins to make a point about vigilante justice as a savior. It acts like it wants to ask the question. Is vigilante justice ever justified? It’s a good debate really, and there’s a good argument to be had for either side. Is it the slippery slope? Where do we say that we know for sure? And then? Make a law for it? So that that law can be broken by the next vigilante? (maybe I’ll do an article on it at some point, flesh it out)

However, it never really does more than lightly broach the subject. That’s all it has for us, to mention that maybe there’s this bigger thing, this bigger issue that might be worth looking at. And that’s kinda frustrating for me. I mean, c’mon, I’m a big boy, I can take it. Give me a debate. You don’t even have to answer the questions.

Another thing that irked me was the juvenile pointing. Huh? I hate it when a movie just assumes I won’t get it. So they resort to pointing out the underlying meaning of something. Like the scene with the kid who got his iPod stolen, as he’s being questioned by the authorities, he mentions that maybe he didn’t come forward because he felt like they deserved what they got.

What ever happened to allusion? Why doesn’t that happen anymore? Look, I don’t need the idiot of a character to spell it out for me. Really, you can just casually drop the hint that people are debating the issue. I don’t need right- and left-wing nuts spewing garbage at me to inform me of the point that there’s something at issue that’s perhaps morally grey.

As if I’m stupid or something. Get with it; I’m random, not ran-dumb. Duh.

And then of course there’s the issue of how the hell did they not catch her after the crowbar incident? I mean, as she’s interviewing the cop, he so much as says he looks for evidence at the scene, blood, DNA, etc. She had her arm ripped open, blood gushing out. How the hell were they not able to get a sample of that? How come when it is needed to further the plot, the cops can’t actually use the science they always tend to use to put away the bad guys, to find the mediocre guys? I know, I answered my own question, but still, you get my point.

It’s not bad. But it’s certainly a far cry from great. I’ll be kind (because I saw booby, and a Guy from Lost), and give it a B-.



Need. To. Work. Back. In. SLOWLY…
I had recently strained something in my back – perhaps sleeping funny, or maybe the kinky sex, who knows – and had been avoiding heavy workouts since I was in no shape to huff & puff like that.

I have been feelin’ good the last week or so, and in fact started lifting again this past Friday. Sunday, it was legs for the first time in about 2-3 weeks.

Right now, it’s hard for me to pass gas without grimacing in pain. I can’t even look at my legs without screaming in agony. My legs are screaming. Like, if you were standing outside my house right now, you’d probably be like “what are those faint voices I hear? Are children crying in the distance?" You’d have thought that by now, I’d have learned to ease back into my workouts slowly. No such luck. Turns out I’m hardheaded.

Hey, maybe they do need to spell out things in movies for me. Maybe I am that idiot. God knows my legs would agree with that statement about now…

Peace.

Tags: Entertainment, Gym

So a day early, and my SD friends left for home. And in so doing, left my home back in my control. Ahh…..

Now having them here was a blast. But having them leave was also a blast. I mean, I didn’t throw a party when they left, but shortly thereafter our house was clean, organized, and most importantly, the bathroom door stayed open. Yes, no more closing the door when I pee. What a relief. Literally. And um, figuratively too.



Sleep. Another thing I missed
While they were here, I did not get the opportunity to request days off. Thus, there were days I had to work, and my work schedule doesn’t always jive with visitors. So my personal hours were all over the place, and in the shuffle of trying to “entertain,” I had heavily reduced sleep time.

So as soon as they left, I got busy trying to get caught up. Only thing was, the rains came, and even more importantly, the winds came, and collaborated to keep me up at night.

For whatever reason (probably nature), the local winds seem to come from the south. My bedroom wall is on the south side of the house. The ONLY wall the bed fits against is the south wall, between two single-pane windows.

Now imagine a sleepy boy, in the middle of the night, trying to sleep as the wind hurls small pebbles of water at these windows, a mere two feet from sleepy boy’s head.



Working out? HA! I couldn’t even sleep, remember?
I had plans to workout while they were here visiting. But with the limited sleep (not to mention that they sleep like it’s an olympic event) and all the things I wanted to take my visitors out to see….

Let’s just say that workout plans were not just set aside, they were abandoned entirely. Kinda like Warner abandoned HD-DVD recently (I called it! BD wins!).

So Friday saw me hitting the weights again for the first time in about 6 days. And I have not worked out since, either. I got busy on my chest & back, and subsequently they got busy hurting me. It’s now Sunday, and my chest hasn’t hurt this bad in a long time. I planned a shoulder workout today, but instead I sat around and watched football and typed up this blog entry.

I was still thinking of working out this morning, but then my Fiancé got home from breakfast with a friend and started rubbing… my… chest… When it hurt so bad that I was both speechless (yeah I was shocked too) and breathless, I knew it wasn’t going to happen.

So as you can see, I’m starting the new year off like everyone else: fat, tired, and desperately trying to get unfat and unsleepy. If only I wasn’t so tired & fat, I could do it, too.

Peace.

Tags: Gym

We stayed up late (didn’t get home from work until 11:15pm anyway) and opened gifts around, oh, 12:01am Christmas Morning.

I got a nice sweater, some shorts, a piece of workout equipment, a Blu-Ray Movie (which I don’t have a player yet to watch it with :-( … ) and a mini wet/dry vacuum.

The Girl got some pants, a sweatsuit, some shirts, a couple sweaters, a cast iron pan & handle cover, & a Victoria’s Secret Nightie & Undies. And handcuffs. Yes, Handcuffs.

So you could probably say I got a piece of ass for Christmas, too.



Later that day…
We got up and had breakfast (using the new cast iron pan), then hung around and eventually got up enough strength to take the dogs out again today. We were helped along by some wet-nose prodding, of course. We went out to the less-frequently visited portion of the beach, then trekked around (in 4x4 mode) along the beach to the tip of the peninsula and around to face the bay. Here, we let Miles have at it in the waters for an hour or so.

Hopefully they’ll be worn out enough tomorrow to leave us the hell alone! Well Miles, hopefully. Zoey’s already so tuckered out that she’s falling asleep standing up with her face on the couch.



Then…
The rain came. I had plans to do a workout and also to mow the lawns. Suffice to say that instead, I took a nap and lounged around all day.

Not that rain prevents working out. It’s just that I figured, what the hell. It’s Consumer-mas. So I skipped it. Well, not so much skipped it as pushed it back a day. I’ll be home by like 3:30pm tomorrow, provided I don’t get fired. So I should have plenty of time.



Then it was movie time
We rented Meet the Robinsons on Christmas Eve, to watch on Christmas. I’m not going to give an overview here now, but maybe in another day or so.



And, you?
Like I said yesterday, “Joyous festival of your choosing.” So hopefully you did that, huh? Was it everything you hoped I would be? Did you get a 60” Sony Flat-screen LCD HDTV with 2ms response time or less?

Because if you did, I hate you.

Peace.

Tags: Animals, women, Entertainment, Gym

What can I say about Ocean’s 13? How about: MAN, I sure liked Ocean’s 11. And that about sums it up.

The Girl said something equally accurate. Namely, that it’s sort of been-there, done-that stuff. Not only that, but where the first two (first ONE in particular) was measured and conceived – the plot, that is – the 3rd just sort of throws stuff at you, then tries to explain it away later. Which I hate.

It’s too fantastic and not well-enough designed to be worth watching. Guess I’ll have to remove the Trilogy from my wish list.



Wind & Rain & Bears, Oh my!
The last couple of days it’s actually been windy here. I was curious so I looked to see what the wind speeds were that everyone around here is so apt to complain about. 20mph. 20mph. OK, so again, I come from a land where they name the winds they’re so strong, right? So, uh, 20mph.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s still windy. But we’re talking between ⅓ to ⅛ the strength of the Gale-Force, 100mph-+ Santa Anas.

Here, you lay awake in bed, thinking man it’s hard to sleep with all that noise. Down South, you think Man. I hope my home is still standing in the morning.

I think I’ll survive is what I’m sayin’.



No Really, not Mad
Hey for those of you taking it personally that I’m rewiring myself in regards to the website? Calm down. Like I said, I’m not mad, just a little disappointed. I was stating facts and explaining how I’m going to be taking care of things considering. You’re not being singled-out, you’re being en massed out.

Yes, you rarely visit. Yes, I’m disappointed in that fact. No, I’m not mad, it just is that way and that’s fine, so long as I bring my expectations in line with the reality of it. So stop sending violent emails and throwing things at me on the street.

And uh, my pages save a history of the last 500 visits, including time, IP location, etc. So yeah, I know when you’ve visited, it’s not just a guess on my part. :-)



JLH mad at her body
Yes, I know she’s been telling everyone that she’s mad at Hollywood for giving young women a sense of beauty that’s unrealistic. You know, all those beautiful size 0 women.

I think she’s focusing her distaste for her own appearance on the media on this one, however. Look, I agree that hollywood DOES give people an unreal sense of beauty when they touch up people’s photos and do this & that to make such & such person look a way they don’t really look. BUT, to say that a level of beauty is unattainable is hogwash. I see girls every day that are FAR more perfect than the famous faces we see on TV. Perfect bodies. They just didn’t make it in hollywood. I mean, there’s only so much room, and once you have an established act, you stick with it, right? It sells. You have a following. So JLH gains 120 pounds, you try to slim that down on film because everyone loved her in I Know What your Beautiful Big Breasts did 3 Summers Ago at that One Place with the Boats & the fishermen & that one hunky guy; You know the one I’m talkin’ about. But that’s not to say there’s no women out there who look a certain way or are beautiful. That’s what we call a reach.

Because you see, I believe Art imitates Life, not the other way around. Hollywood shows me things that turn me on, because that sells. They don’t tell me what arouses me, because Willy Knows best, OK? You try to dress up the ham, I’m sorry, but I’ll call BS and point out that it IS just a pig in lipstick. I have a built-in beauty pointer, and it never fails, OK? And it ain’t pointing at you, honey.

But even IF she was dead-on in her estimation (she’s not), that doesn’t detract from the fact that she appears to be a cellulite-ridden size 22. And you don’t get that way from decent diet and exercise. You get that way from laying around and eating bon-bons. Fudge-covered Bon-Bons. She can yell all she wants. But she’s wrong in her focus point. I can show her pics of beautiful women that aren’t touched up at all. Because they DO exist.

But yelling at the media is easier than taking repsonsibility for one’s condition, right? So of course she says the media makes beauty unattainable. She’s mad at that she says, when really she’s mad they got a good look at her and burst the bubble. Because, I sure as hell didn’t see her turning down Hanes endorsements, flaunting those big fun bags that everyone thought were cute & perky.

Yeah, pissed that she got caught is what it looks like to me.

So, uh, ladies? Don’t listen to this line. You best be taking care of yourselves. It can be done. I do it daily. You just have to show up, that’s the hard part. Really

Peace.

Tags: Entertainment, Gym, women

I’m not usually one to get giddy over Video Games-to-Movies, but recently I saw a trailer for Ironman. Yeah, Ironman. And though I didn’t really like the video game, I must say that at the least the trailer for the film looks to be quite entertaining.

Not “and the winner for Best Picture is…” kinda good, but entertaining. You know, like any other summer action flick. Except the Fan-suck-tic 4. There’s nothing you can do to make that entertaining short of lighting it on fire. I’d buy popcorn to watch that f*ck of a franchise die.

Oh, and for those of you that don’t know, apple’s movie trailer website’s pretty nice and has lots of stuff to view (even in HD! Yay!). Take a peek here.



Tales from the Gym: I hate you all….
Welll as you may recall from a recent post, I have had issues of recent trying to get my workout on. These troubles stem from the abysmal creation that is olympic dumbell sets that DO NOT lock as advertised. In fact, today doing our legs (me and The Girl), we had another weights falling off the dumbell episode, so I am 110% positive that they suck and it’s not user error. So there!

Anyway, back to my point. Due to our not having any standard weight sets yet – due to our desire to put it against next month’s or the month-after’s budget – I’ve been doing something quite alien to me: Barbell exercises. You know, all that stuff that I never did that all you meatheads do all the time and chastise me for not doing, like regular bench press & shoulder press. Now before I go any further, let me say that my arm is still not 100%. I can’t even do 1 complete pull-up, as it just plain hurts too much right now. I haven’t worked out regularly since August 9th (I got un-lazy and looked up the date I did it. Yes, I keep track…), and this week marks my first full week back into some sort of routine.

Having gotten that out of the way, let me be honest enough to say that man-o-man, am I freaking weak. Yikes, I have been scary weak. I know that quite a bit of my bench press weakness is due to the fact that I haven’t lifted more than my – Well, uh… my shoes. Yeah, shoes – in more than a month, and even more of my weakness has to do with the fact that I haven’t done actual bench press since sometime around Moses’ parting of the sea. But still, some of it has to be just plain weakness. I’m weak. I– I haven’t managed to even put up my own body weight more than 3-4 times without fear of severe head trauma. And I have spotter bars.

So for all you that knew I was probably pretty weak? F-you man, F-you. I hate you all.



The Healing powers of large inanimate objects
After a month & a half of rest to help my forearm along, I decided to start lifting weight with it gently. Yeah, I didn’t do any workouts for that time. It was a bad injury, it really was, and I’m just beginning to realize that myself, exactly how bad it was. But like I was saying, light weightlifting with it. Mostly to gauge where I was in the process of becoming complete again. I didn’t like what I saw, but I did like how I started to feel. It hurt pretty bad at first, but I pushed through it and the next thing I know, it’s starting to feel better a few sets in.

This is the 4th time I’ve had an injury to my forearm. This is only the second time that it’s been workout-related, so cool your jets on that. Once was just a re-injury of a damaged forearm due to some jackass at work not knowing how to carry large objects in tandem while communicating. But I digress. This time and the time just before it (as I was healing from the injury sustained by dumbass. But I digress…), I went back to the gym before the arm felt like it was 100%, and both times it was because I got to the point where it was like it’s never going to be 100% again, I need to learn to deal with it like it is. So I end up pushing weight, and lo-and-behold, my arm starts to get better. I am not sure exactly why as I’m not omnipotent, but I have a theory as to why lifting weights causes my injuries to heal.

Specifically, I think that it’s simply my body having to deal with the stress of it. It’s the same principles of weightlifting itself: the body will only grow as a response to stimulus. So I’m providing stimulus to the area, making it stretch and bend and go through motions, and as such my body compensates and begins to adapt. What’s more, I think that there’s added assistance being thrown into the mix by increased blood flow and thus increased nutrient availability to the damaged tissues.

So basically what I’m saying is, once you’ve rested your injury for a length of time, if you really want it to get better, you need to begin to push it slowly. Ankle still sore after 5 weeks? Start running lightly. Push through the minor annoying pains. It’ll force your body to adapt, and adapt it will! This is the second time that I’ve worked it out for my forearm, and I must tell you that I’ve done it before for a knee that I never thought would be right again, after 3 months of rest and compress.

When in doubt, lift it out. That’s my new motto.

Peace.

Tags: Gym, Entertainment

OK, I didn’t want to say anything when it first happened, because I wasn’t sure if it was me or if it was the failure of the equipment, so I decided to wait & see. And, well, because if it was me, I might not have ever told anyone! But it wasn’t so we’re good to go.

OK so here’s the scenario. You may recall from a previous post that we opted to get our own home gym equipment on the cheap, rather than try to get a membership around here for a club that’s not as good as we’re used to anyways, and then have to actually find this club and drive there. Cool. Well we got a Smith Machine, and like most it uses Olympic-sized weights, meaning that the carrier hole is large (and possibly, in charge). Wanting to keep our weight collection as simple as possible, I searched out for Olympic Dumbells. I use dumbells for a lot of exercises, substituting Dumbell presses for bench presses to counter my chest deformity/imbalance, etc. So I was rather pleased when I found some olympic dumbells at The Sports Authority that looked to fit the bill; they looked as though they’d fit 4-5 10lb plates on each end, plus the locking collar. SWEET, I thought, I’d be in business and able to easily move up weights. The pickup date was July 5th, the infamous “move out of so cal” day. This was because the only place that had the home gym Smith Machine I wanted was halfway between so cal and “here cal.”

Anyway. I liked the idea of the locking olympic dumbells because it meant I didn’t need to have two separate & incompatible sets of weight: Olympic for the Smith Machine, standard for just about everything else. Cool, no duplication!

Now if only it would have worked out. Fast forward to the first workout back for me, my chest. I go a little light because it’s been two weeks, but it doesn’t matter, because my left forearm is about to get a nice surprise, in the form of 70lbs in an awkward decent towards my face. I guess making it quite a surprise to my face as well, huh?

So I was putting the weight up to do some incline dumbell press. The “locking collar” on one of the dumbells didn’t lock so much as it faked it, and next thing you know as I get 70lbs over my head & face area, it’s calling its own bluff and the weights start to shift. Now this is bad for more than one reason. It’s not that the weights have to fall to cause catastrophe, but imagine straining to hold a certain amount of weight up, and suddenly the balance point – which you had in the middle of your grip – suddenly changes and you can’t really compensate fast enough, and next thing you know you have weight crashing towards the ground. This is made doubly worse if your face is between the ground & the weight.

So the weight shifts and I am no longer in a position to keep it up. It starts to cascade towards my face, which while not pretty, certainly wasn’t going to be bettered by 70 more pounds landing straight on it. So I arched my body to put the weight closer to the outside of me, which worked, and it grazed off of my side and landed on the padding below. Well that set was shot, I thought, guess I better set up the second. Only problem was, as I went to tighten the locking collar up fully, I felt a sharp pain in my left forearm. Ouch. I guess as the weights were headed down the side of my body, I tensed to try and soften their landing. Bad idea, because that meant that I was basically doing a negative one-armed curl of 70lbs with momentum! For those that don’t know, that’s a freaking lot of weight. So yeah, it’s way more weight than I could handle even on my best day, and something had to give. My forearm was the lucky winner! Ouch.

That was mid-July. It’s now late September. I’m beginning to lift lightly again, heavier on non-bicep-related exercises as that’s where the damage is most apparent. But I’m working that back in now too, and it’s getting better. I say it’s 70% now. 65-70%.



Which is the long way to say this:
Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT invest in olympic dumbell sets; they’re sure to be your downfall. The locking mechanisms can’t hold as much weight as they need to, especially considering the fast movements & angle shifts associated with dumbell exercises. Let’s see, what else to say about my weightlifting saga up here?

Oh yeah. Though I bought it thinking it’d be cool as sh*t, I must say that the Gold’s Gym GR7000 could use some serious improvement. It’s hard to know these things in the store because it’s not like you can load it with 500lbs and test it out. But yeah, it kinda has its flaws, some of them serious enough I’m contemplating writing them about it. The seat base on one side is plastic. Plastic, y’all. Do you know how stable that feels when you have your own body weight plus an additional 100+ pounds? Yeah. Could use a little revision there, guys. Then there’s the thoughtful way they cut costs by supplying the Smith Guides as hollow tubing instead of, say, solid tubing? So when I’m doing squats on it, the bars flex and bend, which isn’t too confidence-inspiring. And this is a problem kinda, because the safety catches are attached to the poles and then rotate onto some locks to stay in place. Well, if you try to rack the weight near the safeties (say, to do calves), the latches flare out and can (and have on one occasion) come off what holds them in place at a specified height, meaning no more safeties. That’s bad.

On the “Not going to kill anyone” front, I can still pick a few flaws out. The damn bearings they used don’t actually exist. Which sucks, because it means that teamed with the fact that the bars bend, friction increases non-linearly. What? Why so technical? OK OK, what it means is that if you put on 100lbs and you gauge that you could do twice as much, think again. The friction created by adding that much more weight doesn’t double it, it freaking quadruples it. Yeah, So maybe it achieve this phantom 200lb goal weight you have to trial & error by 10’s or something, maybe ending up at 140 or something to “double” the weight of 100lbs.

The short of it? Take a browse by a gym equipment store, take pictures, come up with ideas to make it better, then have someone build you the thing with your improvements. That’s what I should have done.



More to come. Eventually. I swear
Yeah there’s been a hiatus. I haven’t had time, OK? And my usual two-day off routine for Monday & Tuesday has been done in, so probably not until.. Let’s check the calendar… OK, Thursday good for you? We’ll