How I Train, Eat, and Think About Stuff

Training
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COMMITT YOURSELF

Today, I got out of bed at 4:45am to be ready for my first workout of the day at 6am. It was hard. After a weekend full of family obligations and work at home, I would have loved to sleep at least a bit longer.

I went to the gym, did my Monday chest/shoulders workout and then moved over to my office where I sat down in front of my computer and began to eat my first solid meal of the day: broccoli, chicken breasts and sweet potatoes. It didn’t taste well and while chewing on my chicken breasts, I dreamt about pancakes and coffee.

Later the day, after a couple more boring meals, I prepared for my second workout: another cap of Alpha GPC, a Finibar, and on the way to gym I started to sip on my Surge Workout Fuel. My girl had her day off today and I would have loved to go home and enjoy the beautiful early-summer day with her. But, of course, I did go to the gym and I did my second workout of the day.

Today, I made the decision to be a bodybuilder; I made the decision to work out hard, to be disciplined, to eat healthy and to walk that road less travelled by.

I made exactly the same decision yesterday. And the day before.

What I want to tell you, is, that it will never become easy. If been doing this for a long time now and I still crave pancakes, I still try to find excuses not to work out, it would still be so much easier not to.

But I made the commitment to live that life and to be a bodybuilder.

I also made the commitment to be a good son, a good boyfriend, to be there for my friends whenever and wherever they need me, to be good and helpful, to fight evil, to care about our world and the future of our children - and it’s the exact same thing everywhere: it’s not easy. In a relationship, facing hard times sometime is inevitable, it will always be easier to be selfish than to think about others first, it will always be easier to throw everything in the garbage than to recycle stuff… you name it.

It will always be easier to go home and turn on the TV than to go to the gym and lift those weights.

But I’ll tell you something I am a hundred percent sure of: the time and patience you’ll be going to invest into your commitment - be it your marriage, your training, your job, your children, be it your commitment to serve your country or the commitment to be noble, helpful and good - will, in the long run, reward you with so much confidence, happiness, inner strength and peace, there are no words to properly describe. This is true: all the sacrifice you’ll have to make along the way will amount to nothing.

The thing we have to realize, is, that it’s natural that it will feel hard and even brutal sometimes. We have to realize that we can never commit ourselves to anything unless we accept that it’s a decision we keep making again, and again, and again.

Today, I decided to be a bodybuilder. To be a good son, a noble man, to be honest, modest, helpful and good whenever and wherever I can. I did the same thing yesterday. And I’ll keep making this decision again, and again, and again.

Cheers, PA

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Great story haha. And awesome thread.

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[quote]ParagonA wrote:

What I want to tell you, is, that it will never become easy.

Cheers, PA [/quote]

Damn, LOL.

I enjoyed reading the thread, your dedication is inspirational!

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Great thread Paragon, I hope it continues in the same spirit.

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That last post was fantastic PA, great thread.

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Great stuff. I don’t think people realize how much of a comittment it really is. Other gym-goers look at my progress and assume it’s genetics, or that I must magically have more hours in each day to dedicate to my training. It’s a matter of what’s important to YOU, making a concerted effort to remain consistent, and also not allow it to overtake the rest (and usually more important parts) of your life.

Anyone who asks me about my social life, always gets the “My girlfriend is the most understanding woman in the world” speech, usually followed up with stories of how important something else is to her and why I’m going to some social event even though I’d much rather be sleeping. Without a support system, all your drive and consitency will amount to naught. I hear ya big man!

S

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First of all I want to thank you guys for the nice comments and encouraging words!

Now let’s talk about today’s workout… I mean, today’s

WORK-AROUND

Yesterday, I hurt myself. Not while training, but when I sneezed. Really, something in my lower back “popped” and I could hardly breathe for a few minutes. My girlfriend first thought that I was making fun, but after seeing me lying on the floor for 3, 4 minutes, she realized I wasn’t…
Like a sneeze-induced lumbago… (I almost have to laugh myself it sounds so unreal…)

Of course, I didn’t want to miss todays workout. When I got out of bed at 4:45 am I had no idea how I was going to work my back today. I had a hard time making it out of bed and getting dressed.

Fast forward. At the gym, I knew I won’t be able to do 2 deadlift variations, chins and rows. So I tried lat pulldowns. No chance. My lower back/rip area hurt like hell in the stretched position.

Next over to the pullover machine. No luck either.

I must have tried 5 or 6 different machines before I found a Cybex rowing machine that I could use more or less pain free.
So I did 10 sets there with 8 reps each.

The next movement I found to “work” this morning was the overhand grip seated low-pulley row. So I did another 6 sets with 12 reps each on that one.

Finally, I did 10 sets of reverse flyes on the pec dec with the entire stack. I was able to hit 10 reps on all but the last 2 sets where I got 9 and 7, respectively.

After that I went to the shower, got dressed (which took me about 4 times as long as it normally would), walked over to my office and had my chicken, broccoli and sweet potatoes for breakfast.

What I want to tell you, is, that sooner or later, hopefully very rarely and only once in a long while, you will get insured, hurt yourself and be forced to find I way to somehow work around the pain.

Of course, you could just miss a few workouts, but more often than not, you actually don’t have to.
I really can’t remember having missed a workout because of an injury. I hit the gym with crutches quite a few times in the past.

I’m not saying that you should work out no matter what. Never work out when you have fever. This could lead to severe inflammation of the heart and indeed be deadly.
Don’t insist on working out when a loved one really, really needs you - hey, being there for your kids, wife, or parents is just a bit more important than not missing a workout.

But very often, people are literally looking for excuses so they do not have to work out. It’s always easier not to, we all know that.

I’m very happy I went to the gym this morning. Will do it again tomorrow to work my arms… can’t be that difficult (or painful, for that matter…), can it?

My friends, we are warriors. Always have been and always will be.

Cheers, PA

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And a picture of my post-workout breakfast. Love it :slight_smile:

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Not to toot my own horn and make this about me in any way, but I’ve gone to the gym days after a sprained ankle with a brace on and gotten it done. To me its not an option to not go, its just a matter of “how can I go and deal with this particular issue.”

As you said, the only thing that would keep me out of the gym would be a family issue or if I felt I had an illness that I could potentially spread easily to the other gym goers. I suppose a “serious” injury also, but that would probably be defined as being in the hospital or something, I would begin rehabbing as fast as possible and try to get back in there ASAP.

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This thread is gold, great stuff PA

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[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
Not to toot my own horn and make this about me in any way, but I’ve gone to the gym days after a sprained ankle with a brace on and gotten it done. To me its not an option to not go, its just a matter of “how can I go and deal with this particular issue.”

As you said, the only thing that would keep me out of the gym would be a family issue or if I felt I had an illness that I could potentially spread easily to the other gym goers. I suppose a “serious” injury also, but that would probably be defined as being in the hospital or something, I would begin rehabbing as fast as possible and try to get back in there ASAP.[/quote]

That’s the spirit, man!

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THE NEXT 4 WEEKS

For the next 4-6 weeks I will have to modify my routine a little. I will be traveling a lot and have some personal projects going on that just need attention.
No worries, I am not going to take a break from training. I just won’t be able to do 2 workouts a day on most days. So here is what I planned to do (tried it last week and it feels good):

Monday: 2 workouts

am: Neural Charge Workout.
I will still be able to work out twice on Mondays. Being able to have several workouts a day is a luxury. Since I’ll be able to have another workout in my lunch break 5 hours later I can afford to use the first workout of the week just do do some neural charge work.

pm: Performance Workout
Basically, I do only 2 exercises in this workout. Push presses and bench presses.
One week I’ll start with bench presses, the next week with push presses.
The first exercise I do for sets of 3, ramping the weight up every set. I usually do some wave loading and band work as well.
The total volume amounts to something like 12-25 sets, depending on how I feel and what I exactly do.
The second exercise I do for sets of 5, again ramping the weight up. Usually for 6-7 sets. When I start to lose explosiveness, I continue ramping sets of 3, and singles after that.

1 out of 3 weeks I do contrast training. I ramp up the weight from set to set, but squeeze a very light and very explosive set in between all regular sets.

In this workout, I do a lot of blast strap work, too. For rhomboids, rotator cuffs, rear delts, lats and biceps.

Tuesday: 1 Workout

am: Legs, quad dominant. Lots of squats for mostly low reps.

Wednesday: 1 Workout
pm: some light core work, some mobility work, some stretching and foam rolling.

Thursday: 1 Workout
am: Back and some Shoulder work.
I do 3-4 exercises with 4-5 sets for my back. I use higher reps somewhere in the vicinity of 10.
For shoulders I do high pulls (force spectrum ramp) and some isolation circuits.

Friday: 1 Workout
am: Arms
No changes in this particular workout

Saturday: 1 Workout
around noon: I only do 2-3 exercises on Saturdays: floor presses and rack pulls. I ramp them up for sets of 2-3 resp and usually apply some other techniques like wave loading.
I usually end up doing 12-16 sets per exercises.
After that, if the energy is there, I do some sets natural glute/hame raises.

That’s it, my current workout…

Remarks:

I do some foam rolling and mobility work at home or in the hotel room when traveling as often as I find the time.
I throw in some excentric-less back work somewhere during the week when I feel the energy is there.
I try to keep NEPA high, especially when traveling.

Cheers, PA

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That was a very tough week. Worked until 11pm almost every day. Sill got up at 4:45 to have my morning workout.

But look what a cool package I received on Friday :wink:

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Another one to share…

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And this one as well…

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Did I mention I love Biotest? :wink:

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HA! Looks exactly like my “Supp Cabinet.”

Enjoying your “sermons” very much.

Good work.

[quote]ParagonA wrote:
Another one to share…[/quote]

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lmao Looks like my kitchen! I love the looks I get from other people in my apartment building when I get a package that essentially looks likes like a small coffin :slight_smile:

S

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Damn PA, are you expecting the zombies to attack any time soon and cut off the mail or something!!! That is Tim Patterson’s wet dream! Good stuff my friend!

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I have another shelf full of supps in my kitchen, too. And one for my collection of Nalgene bottles…