you think too much

i'm often accused of that. i can't say that they are wrong. but i do feel that thinking works for me. i do not tend to fly by the seat of my pants. i do tend to carefully consider the pro's and con's. i can tell you that even my bouts of apparent spontaniety have be carefully considered... in advance.

sometimes i decide on my actions quickly and sometimes it takes more time.

this time it took a while, it affected my sleep and i let it affect my mood. but i am happy to say that it worked. i've come up with a good working plan. i've reworked my training week. which should give me more effective use of my rest days. as much as i hate them... they are needed. i've reworked my training to focus more on adding the mass that we all know (or should know) that i need. and most importantly i have forgiven myself for what i consider to be a poor finish at my show.

onwards and upwards

p.s: all the shots are in from the photo shoot i did in ohio last march. he says he is definately going to publish one in the next issue of the magazine. things that make ya go hmmmm....

there is no off-switch

no posting... only thinking.

seeing is believing

so the dvd came in the mail, so i now have a souvenir from the show i did. i watched it as soon as i got home from work.

so what did i think?

i don't know what to think. it would have been nice to be able to look at the tape and jump up and down and scream that i was robbed. but i would be lying. i watched my routine a couple of times. i hadn't 'seen' me do it before, for whatever reason i stopped watching the 'rehearsal' footage the closer we got to the show, you know it really is hard to 'watch' yourself objectively.

i would have to say that i almost enjoyed it in spots. during my routine i clearly won the crowd over... guess that's why i got the best poser award.

next year i have to also win the judges over... i want to win my class... fawk it, i want the overall trophy too!!!!

the wheels in my head...

thinking, thinking and more thinking. it is all that i seem to be doing lately.

it's 47 weeks till my next show. that gives me 27 weeks of building and 20 weeks of dieting. the key to improving one's physique, and hopefully, one's placing is by making the most of the offseason. i've heard npcchicka say time and time again 'contests are won or lost in the offseason'.

so how to make the most of my offseason?

well first i have to take a good hard look at the package i brought to the stage last time. figure out where i was weak and chart a course to make myself stronger. now 27 weeks sounds like a lot of time but in the world of bbing its not that long... well it is if your dieting. the reality is, there is only so much that i can accomplish in that 27 weeks so i have to prioritize. i am currently trying to ask a few people for an honest opinion on what areas to focus on this offseason. my sense of 'self' is still horrifically distorted after the rigours of show prep. i still fail to see a bber when i look in the mirror and the more time i spend looking at my show pics the more disappointed i am in what i brought to the stage. clearly i am going to need an objective opinion to help me plot my course.

one of the women in the gym this morning was congratulating me on my placing. she then asked where was the picture of trophy presentation. i told her that it was at home. she then said that it should be blown up and placed on the wall in the gym and that she had already spoken to my coach/boss about it. he assured her that he was 'working on it'. i think i died a little inside when she told me that.

last night my mother wanted to talk about my old training partner and what had become of her. she wanted to know if we were still friends or if she 'dropped me'. i told my mother that i was dropped and i could be wrong but it seemed like she got some sort of twisted pleasure out of that. sometimes it feels to me, like my folks revel in my failures. i can only imagine, especially seeing as they hate the sport, how much my family would enjoy hearing about the show. most people can't understand why i say i finished last in lieu of saying i finished 2nd... but trust me, thats exactly how my family would look at it.

training by myself continues. i expect to continue to train by myself... just as well i guess ive got lots of sh*t to do before feb 26, 2007

master of illusion

last night i had to run a couple errands before i called it a night. i had to get the dvd back to the video store and my truck needed some liquid gold.

as i pull up to the pump i happen to glance at the driver of the vehicle behind me. there was a man calmly sitting behind the wheel of an suv, what struck me as unusual was that said man was sitting there entirely in 'white-face'. i fought the urge to do a triple-take, i wanted to pull up to the pump not wrap my truck around it. so after i park i look back, courtesy of my rear view mirror and buddy is now dancing in his ride. i glance at his vanity place... would ya believe 'A MIME'? i kid you not.

he gives me one of those exaggerated mime winks and i smiled back. i leaned against my truck, closed my eyes and started filling the tank. there were two reasons for closing my eyes, first i was tired and was trying to squeeze in a quick nap and two i was ferverently praying that my tank would miraculously fill for under $20. my pump mate, if you will, was not outside his vehicle completing the pay at the pumps process. two kids walked by from the nearby tim's and one of them almost walked into the other when he caught sight of the mime.

next thing i knew mr mime and his mime-mobile were right behind me. it seems that he recognized me, said he saw me in an elevator downtown. since he got the intersection right i had to believe him, i know i get tunnel-visioned at times but i would like to think that i would have noticed riding up in an elevator with a mime. so then buddy-boy starts to tell me about his 'other' business, he does human statue work for parties and corporate events. it would appear that 'they' really like using bbers as human statues and would i be interested.

okay now you all probably care to know what i said to him, but to be honest i was having a little party in my head because he called me a bber! i lift like a bber, i eat like a bber but i guess i don't always look like a bber. sure people can tell i train, that i am serious about it, but rarely do they know enough to call me a bber. so that made my night.

now that i think of it... what was a mime doing actually putting gas into his tank? should he not have 'mimed' it?

since mime's are all about 'seeing' what isn't really there... does it really count that he saw me as a bber?

when mother nature strikes back!

as you know, i have been aiming to spend as much time as i possibly can logging time and distance on my bike. well trying to get any quality riding time in was a decided challenge this past weekend. on the weather menu was written rain and thunderstorm activity. rain is one thing, but thunder is quite another when your hovering over a 400 lb lightening rod.

sunday morning gave me the break that i needed and i took it. i rode the bike in to the gym as i was rounding out my shift one of the members mentioned that it was raining again. well it went from kind of spitting to a downpour in seconds. unfortunately i still had a client to train. suffice it to say i was a drowned rat when i got home.

but it cleared up again soon after so i had to take the bike out again. my parents have some friends that frequently do the big park bbq throughout the summer. i rode over to that but rather than belly up to the bbq i started to get antsy. i gave speed racer a call and she was into it. so i ditched the folks at the bbq and met up with speed racer for a ride.

so there we are happily tooling down the road when we come across a flock of seagulls, (no, not the 80's band members with the crazy hair), chilling on the grass. i can only imagine that the hindle 'music' coming from my aftermarket pipe startled the birds because as we got closer, they got airborne. it was no big deal and so when we came upon some more birds a short time later i don't think either speed racer or i expected it to be any different.

as we rode up, the hindle 'symphony' was in full effect which i can only assume startled the gulls. these birds were none to pleased about being disturbed. much like the other flock of gulls they took to the air, but rather than fly up, or even away from the source of the disturbance they chose to fly straight for it. suddenly i was ducking into my windscreen to avoid gull flight patterns. i can happily say i escaped the 'attack' without injury. speed racer however, was not as lucky... guess you could say she scared the sh*t outta the gull that hit her.

yeah... literally!

aiming for clarity

today i want to talk about my opinion on the drug use in my sport. it's no secret that i do not use and it's also no secret that i'd rather not have people think i do use. i can't help but wonder if that gives people the impression that i might be more intolerant than i am? so i am going to clarify it for you... here we go.

first and foremost i am a fan of the sport of bbing. the professional bbers of the IFBB are by no means natural and yet many of them are my favourites and many have physiques that i admire.

secondly, i do not consider users to be lazy or cheaters. the simple reality is that you can take a whole azz cheek full of this and that but if you don't do your work in the gym, don't eat properly or rest adequately your never going to get anywhere.

i understand that if you want to get to a professional level in the IFBB there are choices that have to be made. i don't claim to understand use if your not trying to turn IFBB pro but to each his own... i suspect. i don't claim to know very much about drug use, but i know that what i do know scares me.

do i think that i am 'better' because i chose to be natural? no, it's merely a different means to the same end. what is interesting to me, is that i am still naive enough to be suprised when i realize who is not natural. i said this yesterday for the the first time and frankly i find it somewhat ironic but...

it's not cool to be clean

now understand this, the path i'm on in no way, shape or form means that i am any less serious about bb and my goals within the sport. it's just for me, as ice cube so eloquently puts in 'you can do it'

life ain't a track meet (no)
it's a marathon

and i'm just trying to make it to the finish line.

things that make me go... hmmmm

yesterday i went over to tim's to grab a coffee. as i crossed the busy downtown intersection i happened to notice a man trying to earn a few bucks with a squeegee. now seeing 'squeegee kids' downtown is not out of the ordinary, in fact it's quite common. but what made this sighting odd was that the man in question was wearing a two-way communication device. i can honestly say i did not realize that these people, who i had previously thought were homeless, were quite so organized. i mentioned it to a friend who told me that she often sees them with cell phones as well. okay so you don't have a home but you have a motorola razor???... hmmmmm

we had a couple freelancers in the studio yesterday helping out. one of them was sitting next to me and eventually she noticed my 48 can cooler bag sitting on the desk. "hey", she asked, "is that your lunch?" to keep it simple i answered that it was. she then noted that i must take nutrition pretty seriously and guessed that i probably bodybuild (finally somebody who didn't think i looked like a figure chick). her next question took me a bit off guard though. "so whats in there?", she asked. in my defence, i have a huge project on the go and not a whole lot of time to produce it, so mayhaps my response was a bit more succinct than necessary but it was the truth. "food"... hmmmmm

one of the other artists has been keeping me abreast of his workouts. he recently found his way back to the gym and was telling me how he had hit the treadmill 4 times this week. he then mentioned something about 'getting back into lifting', when one of the other women responded with shock "you lift???!!!". i almost fell off my chair. the guy in question was hurt, he kept assuring her that he did indeed lift. one minute he was over by her desk lifting his shirt sleeves to show her his arms. then he was over at my desk to show me a tricep that still maintained a hint of what was.

english isn't her first language, she gamely tried to explain her query all the while grinding his ego into a fine powder under her boots. "well i didn't know,... i mean you just don't look like you lift,... to me". tears are streaming down my face and buddy is giving me whatfor. he felt that i should have said something to back him up or at the very least, not be so dayummm amused. well all he has told me about is the frequency and duration that he has been on the treadmill. well guess what sweetheart, getting on the treadmill is not lifting... it's flippin cardio. however, something tells me he is going to be pounding the iron for real this weekend... hmmmmm

then and now

as i sit here over my second serving of spinach today i am reminded of a conversation i recently had with a friend. she had gone to see my athletic therapist about an injury and during the session they somehow got onto the topic of me. my friend was horrified to learn that at one time i had less than stellar nutritional habits. it's not her fault really, she didn't know me back when phrases like; 'i'll have a quarter pounder with cheese, medium fries and a coke' or 'can i get a small, pepperoni, ground beef, hot banana peppers with fresh garlic?' regularly fell out of my mouth.

but that was how it was over 6 years ago, my athletic therapist remembers when i used to come in for appointments armed with a large bag of nibs, or enough sour charm lollipops with gumball centers, for the both of us.

i have changed, i am constantly evolving, the blame rests solely on this sport that consumes me. i know that i can no longer eat that way and achieve the physique that i want. jennifer abrams is a national level competitor in the u.s., she has the kind of natural physique i strive to achieve. she recently competed this past weekend at the nyc team universe, it is a natural show wherein a amateur competitor can earn their pro status. jennifer and i are about the same height and she just competed at 150 lbs!!! hopefully in another 9 years or so i too will be able to step on stage at 150 lbs.

i think i'm going to need more spinach.

the awakening

there was something about that last post. it inspired me in some way, it brought with it a need to find another creative outlet. i can not remember the last time i legitimately had a need to express any real creativity. what about work, you might ask? well if there was any activity likely to suck any and all creative energy from me, it would be computer graphics. so here is the new challenge, i have the desire to be creative and the need to find another avenue in which to channel it. the only remaining question are how and where? to quote shakespeare "ay, there's the rub" (therein lies the rub)

i currently sit 5 lbs out from where i want to be for my photoshoot. the earliest date that we can do it, according to the photographer, is another 3 weeks away. i am re-adjusting the carb cycling... with 5 lbs to go it is too soon for that.

well my friends the gym she beckons. on the new schedule it is chest day and today im feeling like incline db's, hard and heavy... of course. we got work to do.

~the miche-ine~

oddly enough...

oddly enough the hardest thing,in my opinion, about show prep is not the diet, or the training while exhausted depleted and deprived, nor is it the endless hours of cardio. the hardest thing is what do you do next.

this journey, that i am on, is an awakening if you will. the need to make myself understand why natural bbers are the size that they are. well i think i have learned something new. i knew that it had to do with spending more time dieting and competing than growing. but what i didn't understand was why. i think i get it now.

you spend somewhere in the neighbourhood of 16-20 weeks focused on this one day. and assuming all goes well that day in question arrives and it is bigger than you imagined. but then like the day before it and the day before that... it goes. and then what? you wake up the next morning with a realization that you are no longer x number of days out, you don't have to be in the gym training... i'm sure you get the idea.

so what brought on this sudden burst of melancholy? you know that friend of mine, who won all of those shows saturday? well she was talking about that very feeling this morning in her online journal. she remembered that i mentioned it when i was post-show and i guess at the time she thought i was being particularily strange. but she woke up this morning and got the dubious pleasure of feeling it for herself. her coach posted that post-contest blues are quite common.

what has been getting me through this phase is focusing on what is to come and what i feel i have to do. to bring that bigger, better, undeniable package to the stage next year. i changed around my training week today. i've had the same training days for a while now. but i am going to move some of the days around. prioritize some of my lagging body parts and get some more size on me.

also having the photoshoot to focus on has given me yet another date. i guess i am one of those goal oriented people who just needs to keep some sort of finish line in sight.

speaking of photoshoots, i got in touch with a guy who took some shots of me at the arnold last march. he sent me a copy of one of them today and i was shocked. i blew that picture up as large as i could because i was convinced my bicep had to have been photoshopped. i couldn't find any signs of tampering so i guess that was my arm. holy crap! i think that is the first time i've ever had that kind of reaction to my pics. that's not to say that i am not looking forward to building bigger shoulders, larger biceps and more formidable triceps. but what it means is for right now, today... i am content.

i got in some decent quality riding this past weekend. my bike has a lot of bike friends and she seems to be making more and more friends as the season continues. here is a pic from 3 weeks ago, taken before my first ride through the forks of the credit. beside it a picture taken yesterday when i went out ride with my friend and her new v-star.

phase two

i am now into phase two of my recovery from the nutritional free-fall. basically i have re-introduced the carb rotation that i used for much of my contest prep. the mission, and i do accept it, is to return as close as humanly possible to my contest condition for the shoot.

in other news, as i start to plan my offseason, my charge into the 2007 season i have made this initial decision. it is my intention to take my posing to another level. people who are known for masterful posing routines can, when they are truly lucky, make a little bit of cash doing guest posing. since i tend to like dreaming in HD colour. instead of aiming to just always take the best posing trophy, i'm going to aim just a little bit higher instead. after all i'm still searching for my true calling. the only way to find it, is by the process of elimination.

i am also very excited to report that my friend from delaware had to rent a freakin' u-haul trailer to get all her hardware home. her event was two shows combined in one venue. so she won the middleweight class and the overall in the first show and then won the middleweight and overall in the second show. my girl is going home with 4 trophies!!! i am one of the people who knows how hard she worked for this, as i said before with our shows so close together we went through our preps together. the sc's of the bb board that i am on, have all done really well this competitive season. a lot of top place finishes, overall wins and so forth. i think it is a really good environment for me to be in and hopefully next year i can be hauling in the hardware myself.

planning my course

my ego took a major hit yesterday. one of the reporters who covered my show said that my competitor 'handily won the heavyweight class'. now people keep trying to tell me to take that opinion with a grain of salt. although that is good advice, when you get right down to it as hard as i try to play otherwise... i am human.

so for the next 11 months and change i will be thinking about that comment and using it to fuel my workouts so that i bring a bigger, better, undeniable package to the stage in 2007.

in 4 days i have made great strides in recovering from my post-show nutritional free-fall. at this point im still enjoying an offseason diet but ive cleaned up all the crap. the dough from the pizza, the cookies and the bread from the burgers have all reeked havoc on my mid-section. i do know that bread products tend to bloat you, but what i can't remember is, how long it takes to undo the 'damage'. the goal for the photoshoot is to get my condition back as close as possible to my show condition. i have a little over two weeks and i still haven't re-introduced my show-prep diet.

my friend in delaware has her show this weekend. i talked to her for a while on the phone last night, her spirits are good. i saw her pics on the board yesterday, wow... she has done her homework, she is sliced and diced. i told her that i expect a phone call asap to tell me how she did. i can't imagine anyone else will that conditioned on stage... but the reality is, you just never know. either way i am very proud of all she has accomplished. i have often said that its a shame that we don't live closer to each other. we would make awesome training partners.

speaking of training partners, my coach has yet to make his return to the gym so i've been on my own. since my legs are still shot from mondays workout i am going to have to train chest tomorrow in lieu of hammys. it would be nice to have someone around to spot me, should i need it. its not like there aren't people there that i could ask to spot me, but not everyone knows how to spot and not everyone knows how to spot me.

some people like getting a 'lift off', some prefer you keep your hands on them as they lift. i however prefer a hands off technique. i want my spotter to stand behind me paying attention, obviously, but with no contact at all. now if i am about to be crushed by the weight by all means get in there and help me. but if i've got it... keep your hands to yourself!

before a set with a new spotter i will tell them how many reps i am going for, that i will lift it up by myself and to only touch me if i look like i'm about to 'wear the bar'. they always say 'sure, no problem' and on the lift i can feel their hands on my elbows pushing up. grrrr! "i didn't help you", they say "i just gave you a little lift off... you had it". what they don't understand is to me that initial lift is key, it is my way of ensuring that i can lift the weight. if i am struggling to get it up... then i know to put it back down and try something lighter. if i can't get it up by myself, then i surely won't be able to control the weight mid-set.

or maybe im just justifying my independant streak??

they like me... they really like me

well as i've mentioned previously i've been green-lighted for my return to the gym and to training. something odd happened monday morning and i did not wake up in time to hit the gym before work. at the time i was pretty pissed off but in hindsight i think it was for the best. i went to the gym monday after work with a plan, i was going to squat, i was going to start off light and work my way up.

well i had to park my ego in dry dock as what i expected to be 'light' was all kinds of kicking my azz, there was no going up. and to add insult to injury i did not experience DOMS, (delayed onset muscle soreness), but rather its evil twin IOMS, (instant onset muscle soreness). my quads and hammys were locking up tighter than fort knox! but im a determined lil cuss and i kept in there and got 'er done even though i left the gym with the grace of fred sanford.

that night i received a lot more email and private messages from people within the bodybuilding community. i am hugely flattered over all of the positive feedback and supportive comments i have received. one thing is for sure i still don't see what they do. i guess that's a good thing though. since i don't think i look like a bodybuilder yet i will just have to keep working hard.

i was having this very conversation with one of my bb friends today. she was commenting how 'we' had a distorted sense of self, as fans of bodybuilding we are used to seeing athletes with more years in the sport, with physiques we can only dream of. thats not to say we aren't going to move heaven and earth to get dayumm close but the reality is, the chances of looking like an ifbb pro is slim to none.

another friend told me that i needed more pictures up here. she feels that my witty repoirtee is not enough to keep people tuning in. well here then is an example of what i think of when i think of a competitive fbb and what i see when i look in the mirror.

yup... miles to go before i sleep

back to the drawing board

well today was a very good day. it was my first training day after a forced 2 week layoff. i am sure for some of you 2 weeks out of the gym doesn't sound nearly so bad at all. but try to remember that training is one of my favourite things to do. it centers me and it helps to regulate my mood. which is by no means an easy task.

i was a bit like an unmanned missle. my coach was too pooped to make it in this a.m therefore that was both a figurative and a literal comparison. all in all i would have to say that i didn't do anything stupid. i didn't overtrain and i didn't start out too heavy. i lifted with my head!

saturday was a fun day. i went to a bike shop in ajax with my riding buddy, she has a hot hand so i've taken to calling her speed racer. anyway we both came away with riding pants. so with my new tinted visor and my full leathers i feel more than a little like the miche-inator.

on saturday night i judged the musclemania show. at the event my coach talked to one of the physique photographers about scheduling a photo shoot for me. basically i have 3 weeks in order to get my body back on track. suffice it to say that i spent the past 2 weeks nutritionally cliff-diving. i replaced training with carb ingestion... i think i've had nothing but sugar filled crap in the past two weeks. so it should be of no suprise to learn my coach and i went out for a late dinner after the show. we went to eastside marios and i put away an 11" new yawker pizza. why go out with a whimper when you can go out with a bang??!!!

i now have two sets of show pics, from my friends who were there and the event photographer. i've shared both sets of pics with a variety of different people, both within the industry and out, i'm both pleased and a bit suprised about how favourable the reactions have been. i guess even now i can't help but doubt myself. i know my friend in jersey had hoped the show would 'fix that', but i guess since it took me so long to develop all these interesting idiosyncrasies its going to take more than a minute to get rid of them. but you know what?? it's all part of my charm.

tomorrow is quad day and i will be going to bed shortly to dream of free squats!!!!

you see friends, my prep for 2007 starts now!!
buckle your seatbelt dorothy it's gonna be a bumpy ride

the decision is in...

i ran into my nutritionist today. he congratulated me on my showing. we talked a bit about the show, unofficially and without pics, he mentioned taking a look at the pics, 'seeing what was missing and what i need to bring up for next year'. in the only conversation i had with my coach about 'my future plans' he said, "... you could take the summer off and enjoy your bike."

so my friends i believe my team has spoken. i am officially offseason. i imagine that the 'official pics' will show that i can easily add more back density, quad size, calf size and delts.

and finally a situation that didnt make sense at the time, but since i talked to my nutritionist, i understand it all much better.

on wednesday my mother went in to see the nutritionist for a follow up appointment. he said to my mother 'so miche did really well this past weekend eh?' of course my mother didn't know what the hell he was talking about. he then apparently tried to dance his way out of trouble, he told her i did some fitness thing. she told him that she knew nothing of it.

now mom doesn't say anything to me but i guess she told my dad. so later that night my dad comes into my room and tells me to watch the discovery channel. they were doing a feature on the 'science of superhuman strength'. from across the hall, my dad screams and when i turn around to ask him what is wrong, i happen to notice kevin levrone is on screen in the middle of a back double bicep. my dad's one word explanation for the scream 'ugly!'. i may have muttered fawk-off under my breath... the details are sketchy at this point.

a couple days later dad traps me in the kitchen and he gets uncharacteristically talkative.

dad: ya know that show that was on the discovery channel the other day
miche: ya? (not liking where this is going)
dad: man... when those guys puffed themselves up like that... ya know... ugly!!!... ya know... there is nothing to admire about that... you know what i mean?
i am fuming inside but i say nothing
dad: and... how much of that STUFF, they must have to take to get like that... you know what i mean?
i grab my food and head up to my room and close the door.

so, clearly my decision not to include my parents in my journey was the right one!