chock fulla nuts

a little over a week ago a story came across the boards. a professional strong man jesse marunde passed away while training. if memory serves he did 5 sets of 8 reps of squats followed by a set of 20 reps. two tire flips and i think there was something else before he laid down. laying down post set is something that he is known for doing... unfortunately this time it was different. his passing sparked a sense of community on the boards. so to honour his passing many of us added a 20 rep set our workouts.

sunday is my day to train quads, thus it was my day to do my 20 rep set. sunday, july 29th was also the day i promised to go out and skate with the guys. although i don't really see myself as having changed that much in the past 7+ years, clearly i have. the added muscle has changed my center of gravity and i really can't skate to save my life any more. it is kind of sad i mean it wasn't that long ago that i was a professional competitive rollerblader with a world ranking. these days on my skates, on the ramps i'm much like bambi on ice. but it was nice to spend some time with the guys again.

my legs were feeling all kinds of special post workout, but it really wasn't till the next day when it was time to deadlift that i really started hurting. but i wore the limp that ensued with honour.

it's been tough on the ego of late. i guess maybe that is why i haven't been blogging to much. a couple of unrelated incidents that due to their unfortunate timing have me taking one on the chin. or maybe it's just simply a case of me feeling a tad sorry for myself.

the first instance. out for a bite with a friend. he started telling me about a new girl he was casually dating. this new girl does train at our gym and i asked him if dating a woman who trained was something he felt he needed to do. my friend is generally a nice guy but he suffers from a horrible case of foot in mouth disease. so first he says that although it would be nice if she 'worked out', he didn't feel that he needed... struggling for words he pointed to my shoulders. he decided to try agian in order to be more 'clear'. he tells me that he likes his women to have 'womanly curves' and not 'mannish' musc-... about here his brain kicked in and he stopped talking and started apologizing profusely.

number two. there is a lot of drama going on right now in the gym. one of my friends there was telling me that there is a series of 'nicknames' that have been given to different female members. as you can imagine they aren't particularly flattering. i was quite suprised to hear that i had some how managed to avoid being nicknamed. she told me that the only thing she had heard about me was that they thought i was gay. apparently she came to my defence but, and here is the part that just makes me shake my head, the guy she was talking to told her that i was an fbb. and that as far as he was concerned we were all gay anyways.

i just found out that the women at work, were terrified of me when i started there. they took one look at me, and you have to understand that i don't see me as being all that 'big', and were convinced that i was going to kick the sh!t out of them. i couldn't for the life of me understand why one of the women wouldn't even talk to me for the first two weeks i was there. i get it now. for some reason... it really bothers me. not enough to stop doing what i'm doing, and not enough to start wearing turtle necks and sweaters... but on some level it does hurt.

as for the new plan. it's too soon to really tell, i do know that i haven't been sleeping very well and i think that might be having a negative effect on some of my results. i am pretty tired so far tonight so maybe i will sleep like a champ tonight. the upside is my strength gains are returning. the downside is i can see that i've filled out already and some of my definition is already gone. bodybuilding is a funny sport. you kill yourself getting lean, the whole time b!tching about the loss in strength. then it's post contest time and your strength is coming back and your disappointed at the return of the bodyfat.

i also received my copy of the show dvd in the mail. i was really frustrated by the way the show was shot... and particularily how he shot my routine. it was a tight shot, from just above my head to my belly button. i dieted for 26 weeks, i practiced that routine religiously and i have no clue how it looks. i have no idea if i hit all my poses properly, i have no idea if i flowed smoothly. $85 bucks down the sh!tter. the funny thing is, this company has an exclusivity arrangement with the OPA. so even if a friend or family member came in with a video camera, they would be told to turn it off.

the photoshoot pics have yet to be mailed out. they should be hitting the mail tomorrow morning. so with express post i should have them in a few days.