Archive for the ‘BodyBuilding’ Category

Heard of the book “Cant Hurt Me” by David Goggins? Its a good book, easy to read & very motivational.

Goggins was a regular guy with a tough childhood that became a special forces operator & eventually retired to become an ultra endurance athlete. One of the best in the world.

However sports people need to remember that there are millions of regular every day people that are just as fit. Goggins has a resting heart rate around 30 BPM. But my old lumberjack buddies when I was a teen did too. Heart rates of 40 BPM were normal from hellish weeks of pruning pine trees by hand. The top guy pruned 180 trees in a day. That’s an insane feat.

They were regular young guys that were as fit as super athletes & special forces. Did it go to there heads? Of course it did. That’s another story. Unfortunately we all had cannabis & alcohol problems back in the day. Many still do.

Anyway when you perform like this for a long time you get injured. You end up a broken man. Very few people ever 30 do that forestry job.

Goggins is injured bad & isn’t 50 yet. His solution – Ultimate Human Performance

This is a stretching & flexibility program from a kinesiologist with the surname Hippensteel. Hippensteel’s brother is an over 60 masters crossfit champion.

I’ve checked the program out & its excellent. Plain language and no BS. The exercises are practical and to the point.

Joe Hippensteel

So you need to check it out for yourself.

Ultimate Human Performance https://www.ultimatehumanperformance.com

PS: I guess that for me was the big takeaway from Goggins book coz I too had a rough childhood, hung with some bad ass characters in the day. So for me that part of the book was not so unusual.

A long time ago in the Army we used to use webbing with metal pins. These would dig into your lower back above your hip bone. We had old Alice packs & these would often force down upon the webbing so those metal pins would rub & dig into the back fascia all day long.

I recall I used to consider that it was probably doing damage that would pop up one day.

That day came some 13 years later. Seven years ago roughly I started to get back pain occasionally in that very same spot above my hip bone on both sides. The iliosacral region above the hip bone flexes and bends a lot. It also rubs against the ground if you engage in some activities. I do all of those things in my job renovating & painting houses.

I climb up and down ladders and scaffolding. I bend over & pick stuff up. I lie & roll around on steel rooves & concrete floors all day long. Have for 20 years.

I twist, bend & rub all day long in that job.

So a few years back I started to get a couple of bouts of back pain every year. It would last a few hours or a day or two and be gone for months.

Gradually the incidences began to become more frequent. After 4 years or so I was getting it every couple of months.

It was around this time I noticed there were some small welts or soft lumps exactly where it would hurt. I assumed these were muscle knots & several massage people told me that was the case & massaged the area.

Not a good thing to do on a hernia & I never got any relief at all from massage

Over time the lumps got bigger and the pain became more frequent. Excruciating pain like a stubbed toe. But in my back

However its intermittent & when it doesn’t hurt there is zero pain upon palpation.

Eventually after many years I realized the lumps are lipomas. Unfortunately GP’s are trained that lipomas are benign and not painful.

Its kind of like dentists being trained that cavities are not painful.

Trust me Episacral Lipoma is as painful as hell. It hurts like the devil for hours relentlessly.

So I went to 2 physiotherapists who confirmed the lipoma’s but had no idea how to treat it. I went to a GP who was clueless and said it doesn’t hurt to have lipomas & he refused to remove them surgically.

I wanted to punch him in the face but politely told him I wont be using his services.

Finally after years of pain I know exactly what I have & that it can be fixed with a 20 minute operation under local anesthetic.

OK so in this stupid city Auckland I cant find a surgeon that is willing to do the surgery.

There is one final option though it just takes longer. A couple of research papers document episacral lipoma being treated with ultrasonic fat cavitation. Also ultrasound shockwave therapy. Both methods can shrink the lipoma (fat hernia) and allow the torn fascia that it has protruded through to heal.

I have ordered the two machines above from Aliexpress to treat the lipomas.

I got the fat cavitation machine yesterday & have already done a treatment. This will melt & shrink the lipoma.

I don’t yet have the shockwave machine. This will also melt the lipoma & in addition will stimulate the damaged fascia & ligaments to heal.

I expect this to take 3-6 months minimum.

Well there are two sides to Queenstown as a fitness destination. Good & bad. I’m leaving in a week after a 2 month stay.

I’ll tell you the bad stuff first. The air here is polluted. You wont see that in any article or official report but I have coughed my guts out the whole time I have been here – especially at first.

In the tourist village its caused by chimneys all over the place. Being an alpine village it often gets a bit chilly & folks just crank up the fire.

However on other trips I have stayed at Frankton near the airport & also coughed my guts out. Over there it was a dust bowl. So if the smoke doesn’t get you the dust will.

Up on the mountain in the trees however the air is clean & fresh. As it is most places around here just not where most of the people are to be found.

OK second thing wrong with the place is drugs & alcohol. The village is full of bars & drunks. At the backpackers here they are on LSD & god knows what. So many people come here to party not keep fit.

Finally this is not a town for bodybuilding & powerlifting. Of course you can do that anywhere if you want but it is not the focus here.

I joined the local gym which makes it pretty clear its a gay friendly gym. I am not gay lol but its the only place available to train without catching a bus. So I would have much more preferred to train at a hardcore body building / powerlifting nohomo gym.

There are a bunch of CrossFit & fighting gyms in town but again – probably not for heavyweights in this town.

Now for the “good” news – kind of

This place is a meca for endurance sports & athletes. There’s are so many super fit mother fuckers around here that kick my ass at endurance. Cycling – there are races all over the place, marathons – they just do it daily, not up hill, up mountain. Even many old people here are super fit, and the freaks on LSD are also very fit at endurance.

Suffice to say all of the folk hiking for days on end & zapping up mountains in 1/4 the time of me are skinny little runts with little fat or muscle.

I can beat them all up but they are kicking my ass badly at cardio. The consolation is that Queenstown is a special destination. People that come here to participate in the sports or great hikes usually have trained hard at endurance for months in advance. If you come here as a weightlifter & they kick your ass like me, don’t feel so bad. These fuckers came prepared.

So if you are cutting, losing some fat & building up endurance this is a great place to be for a while.

Life is good

Yeah now this is a good place to endure COVID. At least in summer time. I’d love to stay a couple of months. Currently have a sore throat & nasty head cold. Blood pressure is fine.

I posted a while back about my Blood Pressure & how I quickly got it under control & everything was great.

Well during my travels up in northland for 7 weeks I got slack. I took none of my BP lowering herbs, no hibiscus tea. I trained hard at the gym but ate burgers, fish & chips and entire tubs of chocolate ice cream. I gained 6 kg.

Didn’t take my blood pressure monitor so had no idea what was going on.

Well I am in Auckland now for a few days before heading south to Queenstown. Bought a new monitor & check. 180/90

Yes it was freaking heart attack level yesterday. I tested it about 20 times over the rest of the afternoon and evening. Average reading is 160/90. Not good at all and I had a few spikes like 175/100. Over night I checked twice 137/96 & 150/90 this morning.

Following that early morning I had several normal readings. Yesterday I had only 2 normal readings out of 20 or so.

Well I went & got my Mukta Vati pills & hibiscus tea. Dropped an aspirin too. No more junk food for me – ever I hope. It should come back down pretty fast I hope. If not medical assistance will be required. My symptoms? Zero. Wouldn’t have known without the monitor.

Don’t let your guard down.

UPDATE: 5th Jan 2021. Blood pressure back to normal this morning. 122/80. Took 2 Mukta Vati pills twice a day. Hawthorn, coQ10, hibiscus tea & garlic. Also cut out all junk food & am mostly veg. So that’s it only 2 days to fix with correct herbs & diet. Most important to do slow belly breathing exercises & reset nervous system.

I used to train at the same gym for over 20 years. It had 2 gyms, a giant heated pool, squash courts & a large basketball court. There was even a shooting range underneath the gym. Sadly it got contaminated with lead from the rifle range & the cost of decontamination was too great.

Youthtown, one of the best gyms in town shut permanently. After this I did kettlebells & functional training hardcore for 5 years & ended up tearing my rotator cuff. That injury took 18 months of daily physio to get back to 90%. So much for functional training. Its bullshit.

So since that time I have been training heavily at cityfitness which has gyms all over New Zealand some of which are very large & well equipped but its not a power lifter or bodybuilders gym. In many ways its what I call a poofters gym. Plus the music they play is fucking terrible.

Anyway I am out of Auckland for the summer & recently dropped into a gym in Whangarei called Pumping Iron Gym. I also had a few sessions at the aquatic pools gym which has a sauna.

Pumping Iron Gym is a real gym for bodybuilders and power lifters. Best of all they have Keiser Air Resistance Machines.

I had never seen these machines before & they look a bit weird. A bit of a gimmick maybe but having trained for 36 years I had to try it out. I tried the leg extension first. Not bad & I liked the way you control the air pressure with buttons or a foot press. Its so easy and gives you immediate control over resistance either up or down. You can even change resistance effortlessly during an actual movement or isometric hold.

I swapped to regular weights for my hams & as there was a real hot chick doing stretches in the Keiser machine area I went back & tried the pec machine, like a fly I think it was called the butterfly machine. OK again not bad being able to change resistance on the go.

Next I tried the seated bench machine. This is when the lights went on. The machine can go up to 600 lbs. After 36 years training I know my body. This machine is what I want. I’m sure I can double my bench real fast training on this thing. Why? There is no jolting, no strain on tendons that is biomechanically compromised. It just feels way better than fixed resistance. You have foot pedals controlling resistance. You can pump it up for a super strong lock out and pull back down where you need to. you can change resistance immediately for each set.

Its a chest training machine that certainly works for me. The bummer is I leave here on thursday & will only get one more session.

I searched the net & cant find any other gyms in NZ with this gear. Thats not to say they are not out there. Still looking.

Frankly if I can find a Keiser equipped gym to train at for 1-2 years I will be stronger than I have ever been.

About a month ago after 2 lockdowns in Auckland’s CBD I finally got out of the city. Right now I am in the beautiful Bay of Islands resort town Paihia. I lived here for a year when I was 19. Had not been here for 25 years.

The ride up was pretty weird. Its been so long but after nearly 3 weeks here its gunna take some discipline to leave. I booked a bus out on thursday having delayed it by a week. I may delay for another week.

After this I intend to head to Queenstown for some mountain hiking. Here in Paihia I have been at the gym nearly every day. Current weight 106 kg with zero creatine. My only supps for 5 weeks have been vitamin D & fish oil.

I didn’t post for a while because its been a disruptive year but I have trained right through either at the gym every day when not in the 8 weeks of lockdown or with my dumbells & strength bands at home. Also I have been doing a lot of boxing bag work.

I’m in New Zealand & we had our first lock down for 6 weeks starting at the end of March. We actually eradicated the virus as New Zealand is an isolated island nation. Had zero virus or lockdowns for 3 months. Unfortunately the government has let 35,000 people in from all over the world and now we are back to square one.

A new lock down which began a few days ago with about 12 hours notice.

So here at home I have some heavy dumbbells, jumprope & a pile of strength bands of various sizes. I stocked up on strength bands after the first lock down.

So that’s it. I do 100 press ups & a bunch of dumbbell curls & tricep extensions which has resulted in great arm growth. I have a doorway pull up station & a bunch of grip training gear too. Try to do some jump rope everyday.

I went hard at the gym for 3 months between lockdowns & was doing real well. Taking creatine, whey & HMB/laxogenin. The supps did fry my kidneys however & I am letting the bod have a break from heavy supplementation for a little while.

I completed my Ostarine about 3 weeks ago.

It definitely worked & I will definitely take it again. The best thing was the healing of my rotator cuff injury & a decrease in aches and pains in my body.

Ostarine clearly has anti-aging benefits. When I was on higher dosages some of my workouts were something else – like I was 30 again.

Generally the effects were subtle. Unfortunately in the second week I got poisoned by black mold at work & got sick but this cleared up after a week.

My physique also became better. In general its a bodybuilding tonic for sure.

Now post cycle my balls did not shrink but erections deceased substantially so I have been taking a testosterone booster, boron , dim etc.

I am also using more pine pollen than usual so yes it shuts your gonads down a bit.