Compliments

It's Sunday morning, one of my favorite days at the gym. I enjoy Saturday and Sunday because I don't have to rush to get to work, so as usual, I get to the gym as soon as they open and it's quiet, the weight room is pretty much mine and I can do everything I want, throw in some cardio, take time to chat with friends, or the gal in the cafe as I get my coffee.

I stick to a regular schedule all week long, with the exception of waking one hour later on weekends because the gym opens one hour later. This means I may stay up a half hour to one hour later too.

I am a firm believer in sleep, lots of it and regularly scheduled. It is as important as nutrition and weight training, one piece of the triad.

I trained shoulders today, they look pretty nice here in the picture don't they?  I am not flexing or posing, I am totally relaxed. Shoulder day is my favorite! 

I was really pushing hard, I can tell because people start to watch, I am sure I am making all sorts of painful sounding noises, but I cannot hear a thing, I have my music on way too loud.

As I gathered my things in the locker room a woman looked at me and said "You have a stunning physique". I thanked her and told her I work very hard at it.

So she asked what I do - what type of training and how often. I explained I train with weights, 7 days a week and I don't do much cardio.

She said she thought I looked like I lift weights, and asked if I was a bodybuilder. No, I explained I compete in Figure, and told her I was a poser!

She wasn't familiar with the sport, and that isn't unusual, most people aren't.

I hit a pose and laughed and said "That's what I do!" ha ha ha

We both had a laugh, she said "I don't usually comment on peoples physiques, but those arms, they are absolutely amazing!"

Again, I thanked her and explained I just trained shoulders, so they looked especially good at that moment.

Turns out she is no slouch herself, she is training for her first triathlon! She was in her suit and was going to swim for several miles (I can't recall how many), but I asked how long that would take her and she said a half hour.

Then she would go on a 27 mile bike ride. She said she still had 100 days left for training, her event is in Idaho.

I told her I ran a marathon once, when I was 40 and I would never do it again. I told her I was impressed with any woman who had the determination to tackle a triathlon.

That put everything into perspective for me. While I do believe I am an athlete, the sport I compete in is not athletic, it is physique based. I honestly don't think I have the passion for it that many of my peers do, It keeps me on track for weight management, keeps my body fat low and allows me to interact with others who have similar interests. 

I often consider  stopping, the competitions only, I love to weight train and would never consider limiting that part. In fact, I don't particularly like the look they want for Figure competitions, I much prefer a more androgynous, muscular physique. There is a new division in the NPC called Women's Physique that I am interested in, it's for more muscular women who don't want to look like bodybuilders, in fact, they will be marked down if they are over muscular, I am keeping my eye on this new division to see if I might fit in better there.

But  the culmination of all of my training? A walk in the park compared to her triathlon. Except maybe the fact that I have to do mine in 5 inch Lucite heels!

I wished her luck and went out to the cafe for a cup of coffee, thinking about how much bigger I want to grow my arms and quads.

1 in 12 pro sports fans drunk

I drink alcohol, although I don't drink much. In fact, I will go months without a drink if I am dieting, and then when I am not, well, I am finding that I just don't like how it makes me feel these days.

Here is a picture of me and my younger brother in Paris, I went to stay with him last year right after my July competition. We did an awful lot if this! I had a wonderful time, but it was vacation and the most strenuous event was climbing the Eiffel tower.

I don't have much enthusiasm for anything once I have a few glasses of wine, I guess that makes sense because it is a depressant. And I also find it difficult to wake up at 4:00 am and hoist heavy metal over my head several times after having a few glasses of wine.

There certainly are occasions when I love to join friends and have a couple though. Or perhaps when I am laying on the beach on vacation and have nothing to do but read a good book. Or, like in the picture above, stopping at a bar every few feet as I wander through Paris on a hot day in July.

I do notice that after consuming any alcohol, my skin is not as tight as it was, and that doesn't go away for a few days. I am sure there is a logical reason, and it doesn't matter why, I don't care for the effects it has on my body.

I read this article and it was pretty alarming. I think had I ever sat down just to think about how many people get "drunk" at sporting events, I would have guessed this, but what alarms me about it is my son, your son, friends or family could be involved in an accident with any one of these people, just be being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Keep your eyes open for drunks, or better yet, get pay per view!

January 18, 2011By Dawn Rhodes, Tribune reporter


This is for anyone who has ever encountered a drunken fan at a sporting event.
 

University of Minnesota researchers tested the blood alcohol content of 362 people to see how much folks drink when they go to professional baseball and football games.

In their study, released Tuesday, they determined that 40 percent of the participants had some alcohol in their system and 8 percent were drunk, meaning their blood alcohol content was .08 or higher.

"Given the number of attendees at these sporting events, we can be talking about thousands of people leaving a professional sporting event who are legally intoxicated," lead author Darin Erickson said. The study did not address what percentage, if any, of those fans intended to drive.

To collect the data, research staff waited outside 13 Major League Baseball and three National Football League games and randomly approached fans as they left. Those who consented took a breath test and answered questions about when, where and how much they drank on game day.

The study also found that some groups were several times more likely to be drunk after a game, such as fans age 35 or younger and those who had tailgated before the game.

Erickson said more research is needed but that the results warrant a closer look at alcohol-serving policies and police patrols during and after games.


"People just need to be aware of their alcohol consumption," Erickson said. "This is not just an issue where people are putting themselves [at] harm, but it's really an issue where we're putting others at harm too."

I want to be a Bodybuilder

I want to be a Bodybuilder. Well, not really but this is funny. (Email readers will need to navigate directly to the blog to see these videos).

If you are a Bodybuilder or Figure competitor, no doubt you have seen this, it has been all over Facebook for weeks. But, there are some folks who don't get sucked into the social media websites and who may not be Bodybuilders or Figure competitors.

These two videos are so accurate it is hysterical. The person who created them is either a Bodybuilder or lives with one.

Are there any inaccuracies? A few, for instance, posing trunks may only cost $50.00 but a custom suit for a Figure competitor starts about $350.00 and goes way, way up. I have one, some people get a new one each show (yeah, I know, I just don't have the money to burn like that).

The suit I am wearing in the picture above? $380.00 and then, I decided I didn't like the first bottom that I had made, so  had a smaller one made and that set me back $160.00.

These are not swim suits, they are custom made to fit you very tightly, and show off your physique. The material is velvet with sparkles in the fabric, and then rhinestones set into the fabric, those stones don't pop off, and if they do, the person who made the suit shouldn't be in business.

I can pose in a swim suit and look like a different person in my competition suit, it does wonders!

The farting from the egg whites, ummm I don't believe I experience that.





This is even accurate about the $100.00 fee to the National Physique Committee (or other similar organization) just to be a member who can pay to enter a competition. Here is a picture of my 2011 membership envelope, just about ready to be mailed in.

The cost to do all this is crazy, and sometimes I wonder why I do it. Now, I realize, that I will never be a model, or a supplement spokesperson, or famous. That's not what motivates me, hell I am going to be 50 years old in April, I am thrilled just to look the way I do.

There are some women I know who do think they will be discovered doing this and then become famous, and I support them 100%, but it is like the poor kid from the projects who dreams of becoming an NBA star, it just doesn't happen to that many people.

For most of us, it is a hobby, and like most hobbies, it gets expensive.

This also brings up a lot of good points about the bad part of competing. You cannot go out and enjoy restaurant foods, you do have to go to bed early, get up early to train, or train late.

Pack your food everywhere you go, limit your foods at times to a very few things.

Pay $150.00 for a spray tan that turns you very dark for one day, pose nearly naked on stage (this doesn't bother me, or most people with a great physique though), stand around backstage and hours for hours and what do you get?

A plastic trophy..

But there are so many rewards, and that will definitely be another post!

Champions

What is a champion?

What makes someone a champion?

Here are some definitions of the word champion:

1.a person who has defeated all opponents in a competition or series of competitions, so as to hold first place: the heavyweight boxing champion. 

2.a person who fights for or defends any person or cause: a champion of the oppressed. 

3.a fighter or warrior. 

It's number 3 that I focus in on because that proves that each of us is a champion . Although we may have different goals and dreams, we are all champions.

We all  live for something different yet no one has a more important reason than anyone else. We are all champions in our own endeavors.

I am a champion because I keep pushing myself harder and harder to achieve a level of physical health that is better every year.  My physician will tell you I am doing this quite well, in fact, he says I am "an interesting and unusual subject".

My son (above), is a champion because he plays lacrosse 24/7, is on three different teams at once and even traveled to Canada this summer to play the Canadians! (Yes that is blood on his chin).

There are some people who are finally able to walk without the aid of a cane or a walker who are champions.

An Olympic athlete winning a medal is a champion.

My husband is a champion for the award winning wines he makes.

A child winning a spelling bee is a champion.

My father, who just underwent his first chemotherapy infusion on Monday is a champion. He is fighting hard for something many of us will never be able to even imagine, and it is far more difficult than anything I have ever done.


You are a champion. Don't let others tell you any differently. Whatever you are fighting for, believe in yourself, believe in your ability, believe in your right to achieve success, remember that YOU ARE A CHAMPION and never give up.

Below is an inspirational video that brings tears to my eyes each time I hear the speech. I have posted  this same speech before, but it was to a group of high school football players, it was a much different setting.


If you are an email subscriber you will need to navigate directly to the blog to view the video.

Life long learning

I got this book when I stopped training with SC, although I feel I know a great deal about weight training, there is always more to learn. SC used to ask me "what do you want to work on?" and I would decide if I needed do grow my quads, or my shoulders, or trim something down, and then he would write up a program for me that targeted exactly what my goals were.  I no longer have SC to do this for me. I also miss him, but still talk to him.


My real passion is not "Figure" it is strength, in fact, I starting competing in Figure much later, after I had been lifting for several years. I am actually not a real fan of the "figure look" and prefer to be more muscular, hard and generally ripped than the judges want. I think I like a look that leans a bit more towards bodybuilding.

I started because people would constantly say to me "Do you compete?!" and I decided that  maybe I should check it out, so I did.

When I am not prepping for competition, I like to train for strength, I get a kick out of lifting really heavy weights, of blowing people away in the weight room.

I have been writing up my own workouts now since May and have done a fairly good job of it. I must admit I have "stolen" quite a bit of it from the previous workouts SC developed for me over the years, but things still need to be changed up.


I have found this book interesting, because it focuses in on developing training for the individual athlete and understanding what will make them successful. It explains the differences in response to exercise commonly observed between athletes at novice, intermediate, and advanced levels, explains these differences in the context of the relevant science and presents new training models that work for athletes at all levels of experience.

It also discusses quite a bit about "periodization" and what exactly does it mean anyway?  It teaches about adaptation and why we need to change our workouts. It explains all of the science behind the weight rooms myths.  Here is a little taste of this book:

Communist-bloc countries had (and still have) large-scale sports performance selection processes intended to direct young athletes into the most appropriate sport, based on specific criteria. Once there, athletes achieve and stay in the program or fail to achieve and are sent home. The result is a pyramidal selection structure that eliminates the less competent athletes, leaving only those who have the best chance for international success. 

In the United States and most Western countries, some sports have a developmental pipeline. Football does. Basketball does. In fact, most nationally recognized high school sports that have a counterpart at the collegiate and professional  levels have selection pipelines comparable in scale to those seen at the zenith of the Soviet bloc's sporting success. High school sport in the United States is the base of our selection pyramid. However, high school students in the United States represent a different population than the students of the same age in the old Soviet Union. U.S. kids play sports to get in shape, while kids on the Soviet-type systems get in shape to play sports.

In the former bloc countries, sport was one of the few ways to rise above the constraints of the economic system, and this was a very powerful motivator. This difference is fundamental and significant, creating two distinct levels of athletes that reflect two distinct cultures generating two different levels of motivation for success. Soviet models of periodization were developed for and apply best to only one of these groups.

The U.S. high school student of today does not have the level of general physical preparation (GPP) and movement skills developed by the programs inherent in communist systems, programs in which children learned hot to move effectively and began developing base fitness at age 6, long before they entered sport-specific training.

Elementary school PE programs in the United States are underemphasized and understaffed and ignore GPPncept, the actual norm is one instructor, sixty students, and 45 minutes of class time...... as a formal part of what abbreviated curriculum might exist. Effective physical education is best done in small groups with adequate time. While the educational literature supports this concept, the actual norm is one instructor, sixty students, and 45 minutes of class time.

"Roll out the ball" physical education is the mode in which the teacher (whose own training may not be in physical education at all) operates in the context of overcrowded classrooms, poor administrative support, and inadequate equipment. 

Now this book is not bashing teachers or our society, it is setting the story so a coach can understand where the athlete is coming from, what their skill set may be, how little they may have been able to perfect their talents.
 
Practical Programming has helped me to understand what more I may be able to achieve, by changing my training and understanding the science behind it.  It is not a text book and while has some concepts and terminology the layperson may not know, it makes complex ideas simple and easy to understand.