Back in the Saddle Again

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted anything. The last post that I wrote was all about my shoulder injury. I did see the Dr. about my shoulder and he determined that I didn't have a tear nor did I have Bursitis he thought it was Tendinitis. He gave me script of a NSAI called Indocin. The stuff worked great and within three days and a lot of ice the shoulder was feeling better. I wasn't able to take the all the medicine, that stuff killed my stomach and it was very strong. In order to help the shoulder along I added a lot of shoulder stretches and I took a week off from the gym. I hated doing that but long term it was in my best interest. When I returned to the gym I did everything at half weight. I hated doing that too but again I'm thinking long term. Once all that was done I went back to full blast. I will admit that going all out was pretty tough. I felt that my shoulder was tired but overtime I felt the strength coming back as well as my stamina. While I was going through the healing I felt like I lost a little bit of confidence and some of my bodybuilder mentality. Along with that I felt a bit weaker overall. Then it hit me. As I started my rest week I was also ending my 42 day cycle of Animal test. I can certainly say that when I'm off cycle there is a difference. I have already bought another can of pills and I will go back on it on around December 15th. As for now my focus and outlook has returned 100% and most important my shoulder is feeling great. I'm still going to keep the shoulder stretches as a regular part of my stretching routine and for a while longer I will ice my shoulder right after working out.

Now for something very important. Knowing that my shoulder is on the right track and that the Animal Test has positive results is leaving the window open for me to intensify my workouts. I'm adding in new things and more sets. Of course I'm not competing at Olympia but my goal is to be bigger by the time Olympia rolls around in September 2011.

While I was on my shoulder rest week I got sick. I feel like I got lucky with that. It was great luck to get ill during my rest week. I didn't miss any gym time due to illness.

Last week was a terrible food week. My work hours were long and that caused me to miss a few meels and drop two pounds. I'm looking forward to getting back to my proper food routine.

Injuries Suck!

It's been a couple of weeks since I have posted anything so I'm glad to be writing again.
In the last couple of weeks my right shoulder has been bothering me. Nothing terrible but I was keeping an eye on it. As time was passing by I was having totally hardcore and strong workouts. I seemed to be having personal bests with everything. The problem is I think I had too many personal bests because my shoulder really started to bother me. I was at my Chiropractor for my regular tune up, he said to be careful with it. He cracked my back but put more effort into relaxing my shoulder. It was after that visit that I decided that I need to take action. My first step was to make a Dr. appointment to really get it checked out. I was able to get an appointment for Oct 29th. I also knew that I had to take things into my own hands. I kept going to the gym but I worked out smarter to guard the shoulder. I also started to do some major shoulder stretches, I applied ice on a daily basis and I started to do some basic physical therapy movements for the shoulder. As the week went on my shoulder was starting to feel much better. I was still stoked for my Doctor's appointment, I was feeling that the appointment would be the perfect icing on the cake. Unfortunately I was unable to go to the Dr. on Friday. Ya see, Slomin's came to repair the house alarm but when they did that they also took out my DSL internet connection so I had to wait around for them ALL DAY to repair what they screwed up so I ended up missing the appointment. I did plan on doing a light shoulder workout that day but it got late and I decided to skip it. Looking back it was probably a good thing. By Friday night my shoulder was feeling pretty good. I did go to the gym for a chest workout out and my shoulder did very well. When we got home I was up on the ladder cutting down tree branches overhead, this caused me some discomfort in the shoulder but overall it was nothing. I'm very pleased with the way my shoulder has progressed in the last week but I also know that I need to be very careful with shoulder issues so I have decided to to skip my workouts on Tuesday (heavy chest and back), Thursday (bi and tri) and Friday (Shoulders, traps and forearms). Monday I am off and Wednesday is abs so I will still do that work out. My goal is to return to the gym on Saturday. Since I got back from Olympia all the workouts have been solid so I don't feel too bad taking some time off. Rest is good for healing and it's also important component to building muscle. The great thing about all this is that through this injury I have never lost any range of motion. I'm pretty sure that I don't have any tears but I know for sure that I have inflammation and maybe some Bursitis (Inflammation of the bursa sack in the shoulder). So that's the story of my shoulder, I hope to see you at the gym on November 6th!

Superpump 250 vs. Amino Energy

It's been two weeks since I have been home from Olympia. This also means that I have had plenty of time to start to try new products. For those who may not know, the expo center portion of Olympia is a blast. There are tons of companies giving free samples of their products both old and new. So in the future I will be comparing products. Today I'm going to compare Superpump 250 by Gaspari Nutrition and Amino energy by Optimum Nutrition.

At Olympia I taste tested the grape Flavor Amino Energy. That was yummy. So I grabbed myself some sample packs. I was pretty stoked to try this stuff, I have never dabbled in N.O. energy drinks but I'm up for it. So when I got home I tried the Amino Energy and I was blown away. I ended up with Fruit Punch flavor. I drank it down and about a half hour later I worked out. I had a slammin' work out and also got an amazing pump. This pump was visible for hours after I worked out. I had such a great time on the Amino Energy that I of course had to try one of my sample packs of Superpump 250. Once again I had an amazing workout and a great pump. The pump didn't last as long as the Amino Energy pump but it was a great pump none the less.

Now I will compare these products side by side.

Flavor : I used fruit punch for each brand. Amino Energy Fruit punch is OK. Nothing fantastic but it's OK. Superpump250 seems to have a bitter taste. I found it tough to drink. I could take the slight bitterness but it gave me small felling of nausea as it settled in my stomach.

Stability: Both of these products are powders. Amino Energy is very dusty. What I mean by that is when you put the powder into your shaker a lot of powder goes into the air. That also happens when you open the container. Amino Energy is messy that way. Superpump 250 is much more stable. You put the contents into the shaker and it all stays in the shaker.

Positive Effects and Negative effects: 2 scoops or one sample pack of Amino Energy gave me an awesome workout and a pump that lasted a long time. I felt like I had good clean focused energy and strength. I loved it. The same dose, 2 scoops or one sample pack of Superpump 250 was a bit much. One packet (2 scoops) scared the hell out of me. My heart was racing far too fast, I thought my heart was going to bang through my chest. I had a good workout but it was a scary workout. At times I lost focus because I was scared of the adrenalin that I built up. There was no way that was good for you. I had a great pump, but that was way too scary for me. I also didn't like that I got got red in the chest (that what I was working out that day).The redness means that my blood pressure shot up. That's not good. I didn't feel too good that night or the next morning. I counteracted this by drinking a lot of water and flushing my system. I did try the Superpump again using one scoop or half a sample pack. That worked much better.

Ingredients: Both products pretty much have the same ingredients. They both have the BCAA's that are needed but Amino Energy doesn't have Creatine in it and Superpump 250 does. I rather not have the Creatine in my drink because I take my Creatine with my protein shakes. Optimum Nutrition only has 25mg of caffeine per scoop. Gaspari doesn't state what the amount of caffeine their product has. When I called Gaspari to ask them they said each scoop contained about the amount as a up of coffee. To that I say hogwash. They may put that much caffeine in the drink but I think it's loaded with a lot of other stimulants.

Safety : My experience tells me that Amino Energy is safer.

The winner is: Optimum Nutrition's Amino Energy. Amino Energy is safer and smoother and it gave me awesome results. With the right dosage Superpump 250 gave me great results but I suggest taking the product with caution. Only take one scoop. So I will give the nod to Amino Energy. I have always been partial to Optimum Nutrition products and once again I think O.N. has come through with another awesome and safe product.

Drink up, lift hard and stay focused.

Back Home From Olympia

Well, we had five days in Vegas for the Mr. Olympia contest. The first thing I must say is congratulations to all the competitors and I mean all of them, body building (all genders and weight classes), Figure, Fitness, Bikini, Power-lifting, Grappling and strongman. There wasn't a competitor out there that didn't give their all. I also want to give Jay Cutler a big shout out for retaining his Mr. Olympia title and becoming a four time champion.

The Olympia experience is amazing. I went in there thinking this is a once and a life time experience but I left saying come hell or high water we will do this again. It's an amazing event, well organized and done to perfection. From the press conference, to the expo and the ending seminar. Damn! We had the perfect vacation.

The expo was amazing, I left the house with about eight or nine shirts for our trip. At the Expo we got about another fifteen FREE shirts and more free samples of powders and pills than I could imagine. I still don't know how we crammed everything into our luggage but it's safe to say that our luggage was screaming for mercy.

Me and barb got lots of singed autographed pictures and barb also got a lot of the athletes to sign her work-out journal. Mega cool!

We are back home and feeling very energized, I can't wait to get back to the gym tomorrow. The only downside to the trip was that I wasn't able to eat my seven meals a day. I did good by staying away from junk foods and sinful deserts but I came home about five pounds lighter than when I left. I will gain the weight back by the weekend and then I will continue my quest to 160 pounds.

While I was away my weight belt arrived and now that I'm back home it's day one starting my new supplement Animal test. It's a testosterone booster and estrogen suppressor. I will take that for 42 days and then report back.

It's great to be back home, we missed the dogs. Now it's time to SHUT UP AND LIFT!

REST IS IN MY FUTURE.......SORT OF

2010 has been the year where I have taken weight lifting to new levels. I'm pretty sure I expressed that in past posts. This has been the year where I went for it all and hit the supplements too and I have had wonderful results but this has also been the year where I have backed off of my traditional rest weeks. I normally take a rest week the week of Christmas but I didn't do that and I normally take a rest week sometime in August. The reason I didn't do a rest week in August was because I knew we were going away in September. Right now we are eleven days out from hitting the road and going to Las Vegas for the Mr. Olympia weekend and contest. This also means that a much deserved rest week is on the way. My right shoulder has been yelling at me and my left elbow has a bit of an attitude too. I think this rest will shut them up for a long time. My original plan was to work out all next week and then start the rest week on Monday the 20th. We fly out on the 22nd and return the 27th. That would be eight days rest and then I would also hit the gym hard on Tuesday the 28th. But now I'm thinking of starting my rest week Saturday the 18th. I think the extra rest would do me very well and of course when your muscles are resting it gives them a chance to fully heal and grow. I'm strongly thinking that ten days of well deserved rest is the way to go. I also know that my workouts when I return will be hardcore. I'll be energized from Olympia and on Tuesday the 28th I start using Universal Nutrition's Animal Test.

So rest is in my future and so is the vacation of a lifetime.

Against The Grain

WOW! I can't believe it, tomorrow (Sept 5th) I'm going to be 45. That's right forty effin five! Talk about middle age.

I feel like once again ( this is a good thing) that I'm going against the grain. Legend says that I should be slowing down, maybe I should start to take it easy but I don't see any point in that. The human body is a machine that likes to be used and to me I can't see putting actions to a number and stop doing things that I enjoy. So that puts me in the category of a forty five year old weightlifter, maybe someone that will even compete in a contest under the Masters division some day. I feel great about things. I'm in the best shape of my life and I'm stronger than I ever have been. Each week at the gym I accomplish gains in the weights I can lift and actually there are more people commenting on the way I look. Thankfully they are positive comments.

Years ago I never thought I would be using dumbbells that had such crazy numbers on them as 90 or 100 and I never though I could do the things that I'm able to do. This is good stuff, I can't wait to see what I can accomplish at the gym at 45.

A few weeks ago I posted about goals. Goals are important and with forty five turning the corner and knocking on my door to greet me I thought I would review some of those goals. How am I doing? Where am I headed.

The first goal I posted about was to get to 150lbs by July. I put on seven pounds of muscle when I changed my diet and I'm at 152. My goal is still to get to 160 by January. I'm in the process of revising some diet things to reach that goal. I'm such a hard gainer this is going to be tough no matter what. I also spoke about doing 90lb Preacher Curls by the second week of September. Actually I have already reached that goal but I have decided to back that weight down and accomplish a stronger form. I'm still very proud that I made the goal ahead of schedule. I also hoped to be using 85lb dumbbells for bench pressing by the second week of September but I smoked that goal in August. My new goal is to be using 90's sometime in October. Another goal that I smoked was legs I was hoping to leg press 800lbs (45 degree) by the second week of September but I'm already up to 850.

So my goals are going well which means I'm focused and that's a great thing. This also makes it easier for me to maintain positivity through all aspects of my life. That's not always the easiest thing for me to do. I'm going to try to maintain where I'm at for now. Then on September 22nd we fly out to Vegas for Mr. Olympia which will also equal some well deserved rest time from the gym. Then by October I hope to work on some more serious gains.

Wish me luck!

Halodrol MT and Animal Test

Roughly 21 days ago I posted that I was going to try a different supplement. The supplement was Halodrol MT. Well I finished my cycle and here's what I think of it.

To be honest I was pretty pleased. No I didn't gain ten pounds of muscle like some of the exaggerated reviews and advertisements say and I didn't have strength gains through the roof but looking at this product from a realistic spoint of view I can say it was pretty cool. There's no doubt that I had some gains in strength at the gym and although my muscles didn't grow to Mr. Olympia status I can say that the Halodrol MT rounded the muscles a bit and gave me a slightly thicker look and since it's a test booster there were some changes in my libido. The problem was that as I was no more than half way through this product Gaspari Nutrition decided to discontinue it. This is the third generation of the product and now they are coming out with a new formula. Gaspari is known for always changeing things up. Technically I'm supposed to do a 42 day cycle but I'm going to stick with a 21 day cycle because I don't want to get in with a product that wont be on the shelf in a month. Normally after my cycle I would take Gaspari Novadex but that got discontinued too. So what's a guy to do? (See next paragraph for the answer.)

I have decided to change brands and take a product by Universal Nutrition called Animal Test. Universal has been around a long time and this T booster has been called a high quality product by almost everyone. It's actually a T booster and estrogen suppressor all in one. The product is all natural and totally legal.

So today I will order up a can of the stuff. (Universal's gimmick is pills in a can) and I will start it after I get back from Mr. Olympia. So for now by body can cycle off the Haldrol and and I can patiently await Universal Nutrition's Animal Test.

Reviews to come in late October after my first cycle.