Michigan Muscle Boy

Pre-workout Caffeine

So, Scott has written a nice article on the effects of caffeine.  He tried to quit, but that just did not work out.  He likes the stuff too much.

I do too.  I tried to quit a few years ago and lasted 3 days before getting the shakes.  I should point out that I was also simultaneously cutting carbs to 20 grams.  My cut is that cutting caffeine was just one deprivation too many.  Arnold just laughed when I told her that story.  Well, those in glass houses...

At any rate, over at Scott's the issue came up regarding pre-workout caffeine.  My observation is that mental attitude is critical for weight workouts.  You have to have concentration and will.  Caffeine can help you focus by escalating your arousal to just the right height.  Too much caffeine  though and your concentration is fried.  All of this seesm to jive with the Caffeine Roundtable Scott cites over at T-Nation.  Scott, himself, kind of holds to the idea that caffeine can help in cardio by getting the engine running.

My personal experience is that getting the right level of arousal is really important for the mental game in lifting and caffeine can help with that.

Images for our new site

These images represent some doodling for the new Muscle Ventures site that Nancy Arnold and I started to put together at the beginning of the month.  Believe it or not, there is a t-shirt coming to my house using them.  I suspect they are really too complicated for that.  They may work well for things like web banners, etc.  Any thoughts?

BTW, you can check out and even buy the t-shirt I made with these images at our beta shopping site.

The leg pressing Walindas — Contrasts in Nutrition

Went to Outback with the 1200 calorie wonder, Young Arnold, and became a leg pressing Walinda.  A few observations:

• Having achieved my weight loss goal, I'm ramping up the cals.  Today, I did approximately 2500.  That's about 400 more than yesterday.  Fitday tells me I should do 2800 to maintain weight.  Nancy recommends slowly ramping up because my body has probably ratcheted down.  I'll try 2500 for a while.
• The 1200 cals are whacking Nancy.  I can only imagine what she is going through.  She's really bearing up well though.
• At 500–700 calories above where I was losing weight and twice Nancy's calories, I feel overflowing with energy.  It's astonishing.  I was starting to lose my concentration at the old calorie level.

The workout was interesting.  We did compound sets and super sets per Scott Bird's definition.  Compound sets basically combine two exercises that work different aspects of the same muscle vs. supersets which work two agonist/antagonistic muscle groups.  I like the difference Scott makes.  In my experience, compound sets are hard but supersets less so.

The remarkable thing was that I kept on going up in weight.  I'm going to report the workout as best I can with maxima in lbs.  I did not make notes.  We did four combined sets of 15 reps of each exercise in the pair.  We took 30 seconds rest between combined exercise sets.

• Leg press/ hip abduction: 250(?)/160.
• hack squat machine/ stiff legged barbell deadlift:  180/125.
• butt blaster/ single leg curl:  70/40.
• hip adduction/ donkey calf: 100/ 240.
• leg curl/ quad extension:  55/ 130.

The Hell of Triceps Supersets and Other Observations

So, as I mentioned a few days ago, Arnold and I have embarked on the highest intensity training routine yet.  This thing is killer, and Arnold informs me today that she has now reduced down to 1200 calories daily intake. 

She's on a do or die mission to lose the last 10 lbs.  This workout should make her achieve it.

To be honest, I kind of like the new routine from the perspective of lifting.  One of its main benefits is that it puts stress squarely on the muscles and off the joints.  With the basic recipe of high reps (12) with supersets and short, 30–45 second, rest between supersets, you wind up having to cut weight, typically to somewhere around 70–80% of what you do under more normal conditions.  The drop in weight preserves your joints.  The high reps make the particular muscle group you are working feel like its going to fall off.

Today, I worked without Arnold (scheduling issues), and did chest, shoulders, triceps.  This is a tough workout.  Typically, I superset chest for two supersets, do a shoulders superset, a shoulders/tri superset, then a triceps superset.

Triceps supersets are like hell. 

Shoulder press supersets are like hell.

I thought it might be worth it to jot this workout up.  I report all maxima in lbs. and did four  of each superset.

• pullover/dumbbell flye:  70/35.
• cable cross/decline pushup: 60/ 15 reps.
• rear delt nautilus shoulder press/front delt nautilus: 70/70.
• cable lateral raise/triangle grip overhead triceps extension: 20/130.  Not so long ago, 130 was a maximum for the triangle grip overhead extension.
• rope pushdowns: 80.
• close grip pushups: 12-8-6-6 reps.

I had to break the triceps superset because I could not do them together.  The shoulder press superset almost broke me.

Upcoming Events

So, we've had a bit of a fallow period here on Michigan Muscle Boy as travel, insane work requirements, and an even more insane workout schedule with Arnold have kept me from regular posting.  All of that is about to change for the better as regards Michigan Muscle Boy.  I'm back from travel, and things are more under control.

Arnold and I have been discussing a few things, and I have made a few decisions on my own.  Here's what you can expect to see:

• Muscle Ventures Media, the first element of Arnold's and my joint venture, is going to receive its final push to launch.  We are going to implement a number of the fixes Scott Bird has suggested.  We also have a lot of backlogged content.
• We will do some exercise analyses of Nancy's bodybuilding poses.  As it turns out, these are isometric exercises in their own right.
• Muscle Ventures will sponsor Nancy in her competition, now scheduled for April 29 in Flint, MI.
• I am going to post more running commentary here on our new rotation.
• I am going to come back to some of the posts on tweaks and nutrition that first started this blog.
• Nancy and I are likely to guest-author on each other's blogs.

In Vancouver, back tomorrow

I've been wanting to update the blog but am overwhelmed with a conference and final travels.  I'll be back on track and reporting workouts and nutrition next week.

From the banks of the Vltava to Huron's Shore, I scoff at the fitday gods — I have achieved my final weight loss goal

Unbelievable.  Much as I feel I tempted fate with my Prague adventures.  Much as I feel I committed dietary sins beyond recompense on the banks of the Vltava.  Much as I was swayed for one meal upon my return in the thrall of Zingerman's Roadhouse, not far from Huron's shore.

Much as I did everything in my power to ensure damnation by the fitday gods, I have succeeded in reaching my most ambitious weight loss goal, 176 lbs (roughly 80 kg).  Yes, 176.

During my week in Prague, I was too embarassed to write down my food consumption because of how far I was departing from my norm.  Now, in retrospect, I think I should have recorded every grain of rice, every pizza, every beer, every glass of wine, every sinful bohemian morsel in an effort to capture the magic weight loss properties of Czech cuisine.  More seriously, I wonder if a little diet relaxation doesn't sometimes help.  You throw your body out of deprivation mode.  Then when you go back to the diet, your body responds better.

Trouble is, I'm not sure how to stop now.  Maybe, I'll try eating somewhat more food.

45 seconds, supersets, and a 2X3 rotation

It's interesting to see Mich is about to kick off another weight loss phase while Scott may still be on a gainer.  Nancy is trying to blast through her last weight loss plateau.  It's been a tough one for her.  I have yet to reach my final goal of 176 lbs. but have no doubt I'll get there.  Weight loss has not been the challenge for me that it has for her.

So, we're upping the intensity level for Nancy.

We're doing supersets of 12 to 15 reps for each exercise with 45 seconds rest between supersets.  We retain our three day rotation:

• legs
• back, abs, bi
• chest, shoulders, tri

But now, we are going two rotations back to back and only taking one day off per week.  Nancy and I have upped our training together to four days per week to ensure we keep the intensity up.

I'm not reporting workouts because I'm not sure I can think straight anymore. 

Every body part is sore.  Every one.

Back, abs, and bi blow-out

Well, The Big Girl and I had another hard one today.  Hard to believe she does this on 1350 calories even if she was on her second "high carb day" in a row (high carbs = 125 grams, enough to make most people crash from carb depletion and wonder what had happened).  Tomorrow starts the low carbs for her, and we're scheduled to work out again on her second low carb day, Wednesday (low carbs = 70 grams, ouch, hard for an athlete, but you can adapt down).

We're on our new high reps (12–20 per set), low rest (30–45 seconds after finishing the last rep) regimen with supersets.  For the uninitiated (perhaps some of the new Ross MBA readers of this blog), supersets means that you do two different exercises before resting.  Under our current regimen, that means 24 to 40 reps between 30–45 second rests.  We repeat that 4 times for each superset.  Tough.

Here's the workout.  I report maxima in lbs.  Scott would like me to come back to kg., and I'll try starting next week.  Right now, too much work, and too little time.

• Underarm cable row/wide lat pull down:  120/130
• T-bar wide grip/straight arm pushdown:  90/110
• Leg raises with mediciine ball/bicep dumbbell curl: 20 reps/30 lbs.
• Bosu crunches/incline curls: 20 reps/30 lbs.
• Obliques on romain chair/reverse free motion curls: 12 reps per side/60 lbs.

That's 480 reps in about 1 hour 10 minutes.  Wow.

Bodybuilding — Muscling up, dieting down, and posing

Until I started to train with Arnold, I did not really have a notion of what bodybuilding was about.  Sure, I had some picture of incredibly tanned people with bulging muscles, many of whom were chemically enhanced.  But, I did not have a real personal perspective.  Nancy, who is not chemcially enhanced,  invited me to watch her practice posing a bit with Mary, and it was really interesting. 

Up to this point, I had not realized posing was an isometric exercise all by itself.  As Nancy describes in her post about today, holding your body taught with muscles maximally contracted through a series of seven poses is tough work, and all of this after our (tiring to me) workout.

I now realize bodybuilding is this amazing sport where you have to build muscle through lifting, diet with intensive cardio to make it show, and perform isometric exercises to show it off.  The sport is not a direct head-to-head competition in any of these, but rather a test in how well you put them together.  Remarkable.

Obviously, the sport is not for everybody.  I don't see myself getting up on stage any time soon, but you have to marvel at the difficulty of synthesizing all the different components and the dedication it takes to keep it up.  I was glad Nancy let me have a look at her practice today.  It's really helped me put it all together.  It's great to watch her excel.