BODY FITNESS PUBLICATION

WHEN THINGS DON’T GO ACCORDING TO PLAN

Today I just realized that nothing is really carved into stone. There really are no set rules for diets or training... or for anything else in our everyday lives. The sooner we realize that every individual has different demands and needs – for an example, different people have different body types, different metabolisms, different characters – the faster it is that we can improve ourselves by adjusting things according to our individual needs.
This brings me back to school days when my teachers would ask me why I was not more like the quieter boys, who would study and not mess around so much. I answered that if we were all the same, the world would be a real boring place. We need individuality to spice things up a little so that the world does not become monotonous.
But getting back to the subject... the reason why I was inspired to blog about this topic is because today I had a certain workout planned for me. But when I arrived at the gym to get down to training, I didn’t have that certain edge needed to train as heavy as the program required; for some reason I felt weak and tired and lacked the motivation. So I adjusted the workout plan and trained lighter, with a faster tempo to exhaust the muscle as much as I could in order to get it stimulated. It really worked. Instead of only training heavy, I added pre and post exhaustion exercises and some dropdowns and the result was great. I really felt the muscle being trained.
So at the end, I just want to say that variety is the spice of life and nothing is carved into stone. Learn how to improvise your training and diets (and even your everyday life) to suit yourself rather than just following the written rules.

Love, peace and big muscles.

SHOULDERS,TRAPS AND TRICEPS WORKOUT

Here is my yesterday’s workout which I did with Razmataaz. It was shoulders, traps and triceps. We were both in a rush so we had to improvise some exercises a little, but overall I think it’s an ok program. Enjoy!

FRONT DELTS

Exercise one: (heavy)
Hammer strength shoulder press
2-3 sets warm-up. 20 reps nice and light with a full range of motion
4 working sets:
• Set one 15 reps
• Set two 8-10 reps
• Set three 4-6 reps (heavy)
On these three sets increasing weight to failure.
• Set four 15+ reps with lightish weight just to get a nice pump. Finish with static 15 sec

Exercise two: (dropdowns)
Standing D/B lateral raises
3 working sets which each set consisting of 3 dropdowns of 10-12 reps

Exercise three: (medium/heavy)
Reverse grip z-bar raises
3 working sets
• Set one 12 reps
• Set two 12 reps
• Set three 10reps

REAR DELTS & TRAPS

Exercise one: (dropdowns)
Seated rear delt machine 3 working sets which each set consisting of 3 dropdowns of 10-12 reps

Exercise two:
Hammer strength shrug machine (heavy)
3 working sets
• Set one 10 reps
• Set two 10 reps

Use heavy weight to failure on each set. Also try to touch your ear lobes with your shoulder and bend slightly forwards while squeezing traps on the top on each set.

TRICEPS

Exercise one: (pre-exhaustion)
Seated one arm cable over head extension
3 working sets
• Set one 30 reps
• Set two 20 reps
• Set three 15-20 reps

I used lightish weights on these three sets as it is just a pre-exhaustion exercise but I did increase slightly the weight in each set. DON’T FORGET THE FULL RANGE OF MOTION GOING FOR THAT STRETCH.

Exercise two: (medium/heavy)
Straight bar cable push down
3 working sets
• Set one 12 reps
• Set two 10 reps
• Set three 10 reps

Nothing special on this exercise. Just remember full range of motion in each set and increasing weight. Don’t cheat.

Exercise three: (dropdowns)
Ropes push downs 3 working sets which each set consisting of 3 dropdowns of 10-12 reps

Love, peace and big muscles.

DO GOOD GUYS AND ASSHOLES GET THE SAME RESPECT AT THE END OF THE DAY?

I have been thinking about this question for a while now. I feel that when you do something good, just out of the goodness of your heart, you often get the response ‘look at that idiot’ because you did something not wanting, or probably getting, anything in return. But if you are a real asshole to people, you are also labelled as an idiot.

So how do you win at the end of the day? Is the world turning us all into jerks? Well I hope not, lol. But the way things are going, it seems that the winners and the ones who get most respect are the jerks.

I gave this topic a lot of thought, and came to some conclusions of my own. A jerk or an asshole is a person with the absence of good in his life, or love to put it in more emotional terms. It is a person who is scared to show any emotion or feelings so he finds ways to put people down in order to make himself feel better. Because he doesn’t know good, and doesn’t see good he is always expecting something in return for whatever he does. And ultimately, he is never at peace with his inner self.

A good hearted person on the other hand, or the goody as they say in movies, is the person that has the good inside him, and will do good because he feels like it, and not because he wants something back. He is happy to do good, happy to see people achieve targets and goals and is not scared to show his emotions, helping people in whatever way he can. Basically, he is at peace with his inner self, and has no frustrations or hate or anger within him.

Not quite sure why I write this but it is something that has been making me think for a while now. Hope it will inspire some of you to be the good guy rather than the asshole! Make the world a nicer place...

Love, peace and big muscles.

WELL I GUESS IT IS TIME TO STOP THE TALK, AND GET TO WORK.

Moving on from philosophising about the sport and how it affects our everyday lives, I am posting a programme that I did, and that I though worked quite well. Here is my leg work out from last week. I was real happy with it – though of course, I know some you guys out there may say ‘hey you over-did this’ or ‘that could have been better’... and that’s ok. Improvements could always be made.

Anyway, here it is, hope you enjoy it, and feel free to post comments about it if you have tried it out.

Warm-up

Stationary bike for about 3-5mins, nice and light to get the blood flowing.

Quads

Exercise one:

Barbell squats (heavy) - feet to be positioned a bit wider than shoulder width

A warm up set of 20 reps nice and light with a full range of motion

4 working sets

• Set one: 10 reps

• Set two: 8 to 10 reps

• Set three: 6 to 8 reps

On these three sets increasing weight to failure.

• Set four: 15 plus reps with lightish weight just to get a nice pump

Exercise two:

Leg extensions (dropdowns)

• 3 working sets which each set consisting of 3 dropdowns of 12 to 15 reps

Exercise three:

Leg press (heavy) – feet in closed position

3 working sets

• Set one: 10 reps

• Set two: 10 reps

• Set three: 6 reps

On these three sets increasing weight to failure.

Exercise four:

Hack squat (dropdowns) - feet to be positioned shoulder width

• 3 working sets which each set consisting of 3 dropdowns of 6 to 8 reps with heavyish weight

Hamstrings

Exercise five:

Stiff leg dead-lifts with Barbell

• 3 working sets of 12 to 15 reps

Full range of motions going down as much as you can to feel the hamstrings stretch. Stay on a good, comfortable weight.

Exercise six:

Laying down hamstring curls (dropdowns)

• 4 working sets which each set consisting of 3 dropdowns of 6 to 8 reps with heavyish weight

Love, peace and big muscles.

WHAT IS THE BEST MOTIVATOR AND WILL IT GET YOU ALL THE WAY?

Hate and anger, finding peace and love within, or slowly seeing yourself develop into the picture you had in mind when you just started?

For me, being a bodybuilder or a fitness athlete is like a work of art. You start off with an empty, white canvas and you slowly give life to it by finding ideas and motivation to paint a picture to perfection. The picture can be anything you want it to be... colorful and full of live, or dark and mysterious...

But what really motivates you to reach that end goal? Personally, my biggest achievements were reached through hate and anger. However, this is not the healthiest means of motivation. In fact, it is a double-edged blade and it is pretty hard to balance in the middle; your strong emotions can push you over the limit and this can lead to you harming yourself. And then when all the anger and hate disappears, what keeps you going? For me, it is about seeing myself develop slowly from that white piece of canvas to a form of art which I am proud of, and also making my close ones – which help me reach my target goals – feel proud and enabling them to play a part in my success.

So at the end of the day, when all that frustration and hate is gone, the long term motivator is in finding peace within yourself. Because all that hate and anger which is such a strong motivator initially, doesn’t really last that long and is not healthy ... its expiry date comes as soon as you reach that certain goal. But the true winner is the one that continues achieving successive goals AND is truly happy inside, rather than just showing a fake happiness on the exterior.

So what is my conclusion? Well I guess I’ll leave it to you to decide. At the end of the day, there is no definitive answer and no-one can say that they know it all. I just share some thoughts with you which I hope may help you on your own path to success.

Love, peace and big muscles.

SETBACKS.

Even the best of us have setbacks, personal or professional, at some point in our lives. I guess it is a means of making you stronger, and getting you to realize how badly you want that certain target. It is also a way of shaking us down, and telling us that we are still human with feelings, and not just walking robots.

I’m writing about this because I also had a number of setbacks in life; times when I panicked and thought ‘this is it’. At those points, everything that I would usually say to my clients and my friends about overcoming obstacles and setbacks would just go down the drain. Just like when you are at school, and writing an exam, everything you had known before, everything you had studied, suddenly disappears when you are sitting staring at that blank paper.
I guess it is different when it happens to you from when you are simply advising somebody else. I just want to say that at the end of the day, we are all human and the true winner is the one who is able to overcome that setback, who learns from it, who gets better and stronger, and who is able to get right back on that track to achieving that certain goal in life... whatever it may be.

Love, peace, and big muscles.