Randomness

6/29/2012 - Progress Pic..still have a little more fat to go especially in my lower midsection

This week is coming to an end again and I just had some random things to speak about as you can see below.  Something that I changed this week for my cardio is that I'm staying totally covered up now.  Usually I do my cardio just in shorts in a t-shirt but this week for all of my sessions I wore sweat pants and a winter fleece type of zip up hoodie along with an AB sweat belt.  The point of this is to create an even more thermogenic cardio session by heating up your body temp.  So I figured why not get the maximum benefits that are possible for each cardio session..remember..it's the details.  You will sweat like crazy but if you ever pay attention to your midsection when wearing just shorts and a t-shirt it stays cold while the rest of your body is heated.  The ab belt keeps that area heated and I can tell a difference just in this week on my midsection.  I decided to do this because one of the trainers that I study his methods (Neil Hill) gets all of his clients to use this method so I did some research and applied it to myself.  Give it a try and see if it works for you!

Today was QUADS!  I'm feeling extremely drained from it after I had gotten home and showered on my way back down the steps my legs literally almost gave out on me.  I got some good video footage of the workout so that video will also be up very soon since everyone that bought the ebook this past week should be starting up Cycle 2 this upcoming week.  After I got cleaned up and had a couple of meals I had to make a Costco trip and my legs still felt full and numb!  Needless to say it was a great workout and I can't wait for you guys to try it out! Ending the week off with a volumized leg session leaves your body depleted and ready for a carb up!  Tomorrow I'm thinking some good old PopEye's fried chicken,mashed potato,mac n cheese, and carrot cake cupcake!

In 2 weeks I'll be making my annual summer trip to my hometown Roanoke,VA and I can't wait!  I have not been up there since X-Mas so it's definitely past due.  I'm looking forward to seeing my whole family and getting some kick ass workout sessions with all of my old training partners.  Another plus is that all the gyms in Roanoke are surprisingly better than here in Nashville.  I'll be going up for a full week so I'll be getting some workout video footage of my training partners and I.

Random Thoughts to end with:
Ask yourself this question next time before walking into the gym.  What are you thinking about during every rep of every set of every exercise?  Do you actually think about every inch of every rep or are you just moving the weight?  It takes unparalleled concentration and ability to block out the rest of the world; but if you can do it you will be thrilled with the results.  Set your mind on the perfect rep and never compromise that form.  Execute each rep to perfection.  When form gets compromised, so do your gains.

Today I read a pretty interesting article that makes total since to me and I can very much relate to this.  It's an article on how mental stress can wreck your gains.  Written by Charles Poliquin from www.charlespoliquin.com

"Decrease your stress to recover faster from intense training and make strength gains today. By managing your mental and physical stress levels you will get better results in the gym, have a better body composition, and a happier life. I know it sounds too simple, but you must manage your stress if you want to “be all you can be.”

New research shows that stress will hamper results and put you at risk for poor performance, which will cause you more stress! Don’t let this happen! A new study in the journal of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise found that in trained college students, those who had higher stress scores on two well respected stress scales had a delayed recovery from a high-intensity lower body resistance training workout. Participants performed multiple leg extension sets to failure and then had their psychological stress levels measured during a one-hour period.

Recovery of maximal isometric strength was nearly 10 percent lower in the students who were more stressed. There was a distinct inverse relationship between lower stress ratings and greater recovery of maximal strength.

Researchers suggest the mechanism behind delayed recovery has to do with a chronic overactivation of the stress hormone response—mainly cortisol. This causes a cascade of negative physiological effects that may include irregular muscular activation, altered breathing, low blood pH, altered neural firing patterns, poor glucose tolerance, and atrophic gene expression, which shifts the body to a more tissue degrading state."

Screenshot from Quad Video - 6/29/2012 Nashville