Flibbertigibbet

My Genes and My Workout

I think I'm going to start running a little bit again. I haven't been running in probably a year. When I do my cardio workouts in the morning, I'm usually on the eliptical, but this morning I hopped on the treadmill and cranked out a little over 5 miles on the "hills" workout without much of a problem.

Then, I went to the locker room to get dressed.

Last fall I bought this skinny black suit. I decided to wear it today because I'm going to this art show at a gallery later and was asked to "wear black" because the dress code is "downtown hip" whatever the hell that means. Anyway, I'm wearing this skinny black suit which has always been, well, skinny on me.

I have sort of big quads due to soccer in high school and then all the running I've done in the last five or six years.

Anyway, I put on my suit this morning and it was big on me. Last week, I noticed that I had to cinch my favorite belt a notch tighter, too.

Even though I'm trying to build up, I take this as a good thing since I'm trying to tone up and burn off a little fat right now.

But one thing I have to come to terms with is the fact that I am not genetically disposed toward having the sort of body that I admire in other guys.

I'm not talking about those crazy, 'roided-out, bubble bodies. I'm talking about bodies like Antonio Sabato Jr. in that Janet Jackson video or like Brad Pitt in fight club or... well, lots of guys.

Here's the thing, though: I have narrow shoulders and a long, lean frame. I seem to have more slow-twitch muscle fibers than fast twitch. Building muscles with any noticeable bulk is rather difficult for me.

I'm sure that if I worked at it really hard for a long time I could build up a nice amount of muscle and a body that is of the sort of body that I like to see on other men, but the fact is that I would have to work at it more than some other men.

Instead of aiming for some crazy standard that isn't really "natural" for my body type I'm trying to develop in my mind an image of how I want my body to be that is consistent with how my body CAN be -- without an insane amount of work. (Emphasis on insane, there, cuz I'm not opposed to doing a significant amount of work.)

Anywhoodles, an inquiry was also made about what my workout consists of.

I work out with my trainer two days a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we do different things. In order to keep my development pretty steady and make things exciting, my trainer and I cycle through different sorts of workouts on a 6 to 8 week cycle. (I think it's 6 to 8 weeks. He keeps track of all that stuff and I just do what he says to do.)

We do a cycle of lower weights with repetitions of 12 to 15. Each exercise usually consists of just two sets and we move pretty quickly from exercise to exercise. This cycle also includes lots of exercises that I generally categorize as "jumping." In actuality, it's a bunch of aerobic and plyometric exercises. We do a lot of things with one arm or one leg at a time, too. And there's a lot of standing on one leg, too, which I hate. I usually end these workouts by collapsing on the floor in a panting puddle of sweat. It's good.

Right now, we're in the heavy weight cycle where we do three sets of exercises with high weights and few reps -- six to twelve depending on the exercise and how well I handle the weight. My trainer likes to get the weight to where the 10th rep is my limit and I am almost about to drop it but not quite. We usually do fewer exercises during this cycle, too, because we rest for up to two minutes between sets.

During both cycles, we focus on different muscle groups. Right now, Tuesdays consist of Legs and Shoulders. Thursdays are Chest, Back, and Arms. On Saturday, when I work out by myself, I hit my entire upper body, Chest, Back, Shoulders, and Arms.

All of my workouts start with 4 to 7 minutes of cardio to warm up and some kind of ab exercise.

So, our Tuesday workout might look something like this:

1 legged leg press - 3x10 - 240lbs
Weighted Lunges - 3x20 - 60 lbs (30lb dumbells in each hand)
Shoulder PNF - 3x10 - 20lbs
Hack squat machine - 3x10 - 540lbs
Shoulder press - 3x10 - 40lbs (40 lb dumbbells in each hand)
Seated calf raises - 3x10 - 90lbs
Wall sits - 3x1.5min to 2min. Sometimes I hold a 25lb? bar out in front of me, but I've only managed to hold that up for about 40 seconds.

My shoulders do this weird thing where, when under stress, they will briefly pop out of the socket. It's mildly painful and terrifying to my trainer, so we're always doing things to try to strengthen the muscles around my shoulders and rotator cuffs.

On Thursday, we might do something like this:

Bench press - 3x10 145lbs compound set
Bent-over rows - 3x10 60 lbs

One arm Lat pulldowns - 3x10 100lbs? compound set
Push ups - 3x20

Skull crushers - 3x10 60lbs compound set
Standard curls - 3x10 25lbs

Something like that.

And then on Saturday, I try to do 8 to 10 different exercises that cover all of the major muscle groups in my upper body. I follow the same 3x10 pattern Trainer has me do. I really like compound sets, so I do a lot of those, too.

I'm terrible about keeping track of my exercises and weights. Trainer does all that and I never seem to be able to remember what we did. He also changes things every week, so we rarely do the same exercise two weeks in a row. I should really start writing them down or something so that I can keep track.