Got Built?

Once upon a time, I had no delts.

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

In fact, in the eighties, I was the queen of shoulder pads.

DAMNED GENETICS!
When I started lifting, I could NOT connect to my delts. I tried millies, all the machines, lateral raises, laterals with static holds… nothin’. Invoking once again the wisdom of Dave Tate: “you can’t flex bone”. (I’ve noticed you can’t flex fat either. So much for “toning exercises”!) (more…)

Workout:

Done as antagonist pair:

• T-bars: 3×8 with two plates
• Low incline bench: 3×8 with 95 lbs

Done as antagonist pair:

• One-arm dumbbell rows, 3×8 each side, 50 lb dumbbell
• Low incline dumbbell press with stretchy bands: 3×8. I TRIED 30 a side, but I barely squeaked out 6 reps. Nope. Dropped to the 25s and hammered out 3×8

Bosu crunches: 3×8 with a 75-lb dumbbell on my chest.

Comment: I’m keeping the weight a little lower so I can build up the volume a bit for chest. My RC likes this better, and I’m gradually making progress. I really think the dumbbell presses with bands are helping me with this.
Weight: 142 and holding.

Workout:

• RDLs: warmups, then 3×8 with 185, smooth as silk.
• Split squats: plate a side, 3 sets at 8 reps each leg
• Bosu GHRs: 3×8, felt stronger than the last time, still assisting on most of the positives
• Sissy squats ss with the top third of leg extensions – 3×8 supersets

Ran out of time or I would have done close-grip bench. I’ll try to get a few in tomorrow.

Diet: still not tracking. I’m concentrating on foods I generally find satiating, and avoiding wheat like the plague. It’s amazing to me how much my appetite is affected by wheat.

Post workout meal: Homemade “instant” kheer with a side of cottage cheese.

Weight: holding steady at 142-ish. Kinda digging the whole “not tracking” thing.

I love Indian sweets – and living in Vancouver is both good and bad for me in this regard, because there are a LOT of really, REALLY good Indian restaurants and sweet shops in this city. Sadly, I cannot justify Gulab Jamun on the basis of any redeeming health benefits, but I have managed to come up with a perfectly acceptable use for India’s answer to rice pudding: kheer. Interestingly, I don’t like English rice pudding at all – and I don’t really know why. But creatine and kheer after leg day… there’s just nothing like it.

Instant Postworkout Kheer

- this may be blasphemy, but it’s really tasty and I make this “instant” version from pre-cooked rice.*
I take this with 5g creatine monohydrate post-workout.

Toss the following into a blender:

For each 50g cooked (salted) rice, partially blend with 10g dextrose and 50g milk. Add vanilla and cardamom powder to taste.

Blend until it looks like thin cream of wheat. It’ll thicken up as it stands. I like mine runny – if you don’t, well, add more rice. It ain’t rocket surgery!

If you want to be truly decadent, blend in a few tablespoons of coconut milk. I haven’t included this in the fitday calculation below. Coconut oil is a rich source of medium chain triglyceride, a fat your body easily oxidizes, so it tends to be burned rather than stored, and such fats tend to promote satiety. Not that you’ll find Kheer particularly satiating!

This is how fitday works it out for my usual 150g cooked rice (50g raw weight), 30g dextrose and 150g 1% milk:

*When I cook rice, I use 2 cups of water and a half a teaspoon of salt for each cup of rice. 100g raw rice translates into 300g cooked. For the above macronutrient breakdown, I used the raw weight.

Glute Ham Raises are among the most effective training modalities available for hamstring work. With no attached weights or moving parts, you would think more gyms would invest in this simple, basic piece of athletic equipment.

However, there are a few pretty major problems with GHRs:

1. They’re hard as hell (more…)

It has been a hell of a summer. My cut had been going very well – I was seeing some nice vascularity and size though my delts and abs, my legs were almost looking decent, got down to 133 lbs and I think about 15% bodyfat – but personal tragedy was followed by – in no particular order – a kidney stone, a breast-cancer scare, a flu, an MRI for a possible cartilage tear in my right hip, and an eye infection that took five courses of antibiotic to clear.

I’m hardcore, but I’m not stupid – I ended the cut. I need to get healthy. (more…)

I’ve seen how most people train when their trainer isn’t around. How they eat. They lack focus.

I train like I’m driven.

I train like God is watching. (more…)