Phase Five of “appropriate behavior at the gym: the do’s and don’ts, according to a guy with an opinion about anything and everything”

 Don’t: Grunt or yell while lifting

    I know, I know, I don’t know what it is like to lift 350 pounds, so I should not be commenting on the subject of grunting. And you are absolutely right, but I certainly know what it is like to max out and in doing so I refrain from the huge grunt or the loud yell. Maxing at any level whether you are maxing out with light weights because that is your strength level or you are maxing out with ginormous weights, exerts the same amount of concentrated, maximized energy. Therefore there should really be no excuse for grunting or yelling out while working out. I have seen a dude three times my size max out with out making a peep and you want to know why, because he did not feel the need to initiate the inner barbarian at that moment. Now I am fully aware that when you lift you need to pump yourself up mentally and get into that savage mode of thought, but it doesn’t mean you need to act it out. Realize when you let this inner barbarian take control you are really only making a spectacle of yourself. You are drawing attention to yourself which in most cases is bad. I say this because most of the cases I have seen where people are grunting or yelling, have been because they were not properly executing the exercise they were attempting. I see guys doing curls with weights they have no business lifting – wobbling unevenly, rocking the weight instead of lifting it, using there back to lift in an improper way and all the while (yes you guessed it) they were grunting or yelling while everyone around them either shakes their head or chuckles to themselves. Not only are you a spectacle but now you are at risk of ruining your muscle tissue all together because you improperly lifting. According to personal trainer for a very popular gym (both of which need to remain nameless) “chances are if you let out that rebel yell or that exhausted grunt, you are most likely doing something wrong…and while you may see immediate results doing it the wrong way, in the long run your muscles will suffer. Not to mention that you sound funky man.” Even if you are lifting correctly, there is still no reason to yell or grunt: curb yourself, you are not in the wild you are at a communal gym where others don’t want to hear you.

 Do’s: lift properly and just breathe man

    Proper breathing is an essential part of working out correctly and it allows for you not to be the village idiot when you lift. But before the breathing even comes into play make sure you are lifting correctly…first and foremost every time. When you lift, literally just breathe. “While lifting, you are supposed to inhale the resistance and exhale the release. But when you hear someone grunting,” our personal trainer informs us “it is usually when they begin the resistance…when they are putting the weight up.” You hear that, breathe in when you put the weights up don’t let a yelp out. “When you come down with the weight, you normally just hear a sigh even if you are one who grunts or yells.” I have never seen anyone get dirty looks or attract attention for letting out a sigh. Breathing the proper way allows better air circulation within the blood stream, and there for helps to better circulate the blood flow while you are lifting. It seems silly but breathing correctly while lifting makes a world of difference and it elevates the need for barbaric noises escaping your vocal chords. While I may not be a grunter, I have been breathing incorrectly while lifting for sometime now. After I was shown how to properly breathe while lifting it took a long while to really get it down, because chances are if you were doing it wrong, you were doing it wrong for quite a while- which in most cases wears a condition in your body that knows no other way but the incorrect one. So although it might be tricky and seem tedious and mundane, focus on your breathing. If not for yourself, at least for everyone else around you, that has to endure your god awful noises. Once again this is just my opinion, take it or leave it.

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Don’t: not wipe the equipment when you are done using it.

     There is absolutely nothing more repulsive than going to use a bench after Boris the 3 ton muscle machine just used it, and laying down unknowingly in a puddle of pure sweat.  It is a well known fact, even if you grace the presence of a bottom feeder on the IQ food chain, that when you do something to put your body in a constant state of motion/action/resistance that after a while you will begin to perspire (or more simply put – if you are highly active for more than thirty seconds at a time you are bound to sweat). With this common human knowledge ingrained into about 98.5% of the human population from about the age of four, it bewilders me as to why people, knowing this fact, believe that they do not sweat when in the gym on the gym’s equipment.  I see people who step off the treadmill, wipe the sweat from their brow and 30 seconds later hop onto a bench or a machine with some type of seating. Which in and of itself is completely fine, but then when they are done they just get up and walk away as their sweat glistens in a large stain left on that particular piece of equipment. This is just not ok in any situation. You would not go running for 20 minutes and then sit on your friends couch drenched in sweat (unless you are trying to mess with them somehow). At the gym it is slightly different, because it is ok to sit on that bench or seat after running for thirty minutes, but it is not ok to walk away without wiping down the equipment after using it. Whether you do it with a personal towel that you bring from home or a wipe that the gym offers, just simply take the 20 extra seconds to somewhat sanitize the equipment after you use it. The last thing that anyone wants is to get SARS from trying to reach a new bench mark on the press.

Do: WIPE DOWN THE EQUIPMENT AFTER USING IT

    There are a plethora of options when trying to complete this task.  One, you can actually follow gym rules (4 out of the five different chains of gyms had this in the bi-laws) and bring a towel with you to work out. Two, you can grab the disinfectant spray and a paper towel from one of the many different stations around most gyms and spray down the equipment and then wipe. Three, if you don’t have access to the spray or a disinfectant wipe, just take a paper towel at least to equipment so that you are at least lowering the level of precipitating moisture droppings that have gathered congregated where you last laid or sat. Any one of these three options should take you no longer than a minute total. Look at it this way it is the perfect amount of time to segway from one exercise to another – by cleaning the machinery you are giving yourself ample rest time between exercises, which ultimately allows for a more productive workout. Time and time again the solution boils down to common decency and the age old saying “do one to thy neighbor as you would have them do to you.” There are no secrets, no magic tricks, just simplistic everyday character traits to follow – that we should all be doing normally in society in general. Even though you may wipe down your bench completely you are still going to get that person who comes along and wipes it down again. Don’t get upset at this, some people are hyper clean, which is their own prerogative. It is the same as if you made a perfectly good hamburger and you think it is best served with just mayo and someone loads it up with ketchup and relish. They still think it is delicious, they just know their taste. But the important thing to remember here is to at least provide the hamburger by giving at the bare minimum a quick machine wipe down.

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The Ultimate Protein Shake

   Ok if anyone does follow actually follow my blog on a weekly, my apologies for breaking up the gym etiquette segment, but I feel like I need to share a few new things that I have discovered coming from none other than our favorite protein company Designer Whey and a couple of creative minds. The gym etiquette segment is not finished, believe me there are plethora of things left to gawk about. But I figured I would throw a few positive things in the mix so that I don’t seem like such an elitist negative Nancy. I wanted to share with all of you this week, the ultimate health protein shake that will kill that hunger craving and will help build muscle through quicker recovery.

   To start you are going to need a blender – yes this is going to take a little more effort than just a spoon and a cup. Once you find the blender make sure you wash out all of the margarita residue from last weekend: the point of this shake is the amazing taste. Grab a cup of Ice to start and dump it in the blender. Then pour in about ¾ of a cup of water (you can use Milk but it just fills you up that much more) on to the ice. Now for the next part go out and get yourself Designer Whey’s chocolate and chocolate caramel protein powders . When adding the protein powder, add to your liking. Meaning, if you are using protein shakes as a form of dieting or to speed up your metabolism only use about 1 to 2 scoops but if you are trying to gain mass and build muscle use 3 to 5 scoops. What I do is I take two scoops of the chocolate powder and two scoops of the chocolate caramel powder (or if I feel like mixing it up two scoops of chocolate and two scoops of vanilla) and put it on top of the ice and water mixture. Then I take a scoop of cookies and cream light frozen yogurt and drop it in there with a spoon full of peanut butter.

   Now I am going to throw in a warning here about the peanut butter. I love crunchy chunky peanut butter way more than creamy but it does not work so well in this shake. I say this because even with a high grade blender you will still get those little chunks of peanuts floating around and although they are delicious they make you choke and who really wants that. So my suggestion is suck it up and get creamy peanut butter, it gives you the same great flavor. I also say spend the extra dollar and fifty cents and get the lower fat peanut butter.

   Once you have the ice cream and peanut butter in the mix with the protein and ice water, you add what I like to call the non-topping toppings in. The first of these two is the banana. Cut the banana in half, peel it and then cut one of the halves into sevenths and them drop into the blender. Next throw in a couple of squirts of Hershey’s light chocolate syrup. If I could guess right now you are probably thinking to yourself, how is this shake healthy and the answer is simple. Almost all of the caloric content of this drink (with the exception of the light chocolate syrup) are “good for you” calories, meaning that they are easily burnt off and highly utilized within the body. Not to mention that 95% of the ingredients in the shake help speed up the muscle recovery – which is why it is the perfect drink for after the gym. And on top of everything sprinkle in three to four dashes of cinnamon. Cinnamon has also been proven to help speed up and better glucose metabolism which gives it a lot of value in this shake and makes it a little healthier for you. The only two things missing from this shake to make it the ultimate protein fix is a spoon full of tuna and an egg. But we won’t put those in because the idea of this shake is to gain nutrients not to expel the nutrients that you have acquired during the day, with a horrifically induced vomiting session from the taste of this thing.

   Now that everything is in there go ahead and blend to your liking. I like to get it to the consistency of a restaurant style milkshake. This shake is ideal for taking within 30 minutes of any muscle workout longer than 30 minutes in length. If you are trying to build muscle or gain mass this shake has got everything that could want. Give it a try: it’s delicious.

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Phase three of “appropriate behavior at the gym: the do’s and don’ts, according to a guy with an opinion about anything and everything”
3. Don’t: Don’t talk loud enough to where half of the gym can hear you.

- Is there ever really plausibly sound scenario, not just in the gym but in society in general, of when it would be appropriate for me to here your conversation while I am more than 40 feet away from you? The answer of course being not really: pending some interesting circumstances, none of which, however, can be applied to the communal gym setting. Who in the world wants to hear about how many sets you have done so far or how many “Jager” shots you and your overly hair gelled buddy did last Saturday or about how you are having relationship problems? The answer is once a gain a simple one, NO ONE but the immediate person that your conversation is directed towards. If I am in normal earshot of your conversation, then it is my own prerogative to hear what you are saying: at any time I can move a little bit further away and choose to work on something else if your conversation is bothering me. But if I am already a good distance away from you how the hell is this supposed to work. Should I be forced to listen to head phones when I am at the gym because I don’t want to hear your conversation from three car lengths away? No, I most certainly should not. You are having a great time and joking with your buddy and that is just fine and dandy but not everyone around you wants to hear about it. This is one of the main things that I notice the most when I am at the gym. It’s always one or two people each gym shift. Meaning that if you try to work out at night you will have one or two of them or if you want to work out in the afternoon you will have one or two of them. These are the same people that do this crap in public. They subconsciously want those around them to be impressed by what they have to say or they want their so called “swagger” to be a little more apparent. If the goal is to draw attention to yourself, well it is working, but the attention you are getting is probably not the kind you want. Whatever the case may be, regardless of what you are trying to do and regardless if it is truly intentional or not, cut it out it is annoying to most of those around you.
3. Do: Strike up a normal volume conversation and keep it quick

- I actually encourage people to strike up conversations while at the gym, it can be a great way to kill time in between sets and make new friends in the process. But at the same time this can be a slippery slope into these obnoxiously loud conversations. For example most of the people that I see exhibiting this behavior are gym buddies so to speak. Meaning that their relationship exists only at the gym, and when they see each other every other day or week it ignites this loud “Yo “insert name” what the hell have you been up to…man how’d that party go,” that can be heard half way across the gym. Just like with most of these other Do’s all that is really needed is a self awareness of your surroundings. I mean personally loud conversations that people have don’t really bother me all that much, I just find them to be annoying and ridiculous. If anything when they happen, they simply make the people having them look stupid, because usually the content is not something that typically needs to be blasted across the universe like it is. But the low key conversation with the person that shares the same gym times as you or the person that you are working in with are great and almost no negative factors can stem out of these occurrences – unless you are working in with a serial stalker, in which case you might be screwed for life (but that is a whole different story). So the bottom line really lies on you being mindful of your vocal volume and the fact that nobody around you really cares how long Dave did that keg stand for. Once again this is just my opinion, take it or leave it.

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Phase two of “appropriate behavior at the gym: the do’s and don’ts, according to a guy with an opinion about anything and everything”

 
2. Don’t: Don’t just jump on a piece of equipment and think it is open
 -There are two scenarios where this applies: the first scenario is simply just not asking to work in on a set. I can’t tell you how many times I will be standing two feet away from the machine or bench that I am using and someone will just come up and start doing sets on it, like nobody’s business. And then to make matters worse they just sit there when they are done like you were never really there. Finally when you let them know that you were using it they respond, “oh…well you can work in if you want.” NO, NO, NO, that is not how it works. You can in fact work in with me and go at my pace. I know it may sound selfish but what it really boils down to is once again a lack of common respect and social understanding. Everyone uses the equipment at the gym that is why they are there. So given this blatantly obvious fact, it should naturally occur to people to maybe survey the situation just a little before they jump on a machine – ten extra seconds of their time is all that is really needed. It is not very hard to see that the person standing right by the machine that you are about to use, might in fact be using it at this current moment. It is like the guy at the club or bar that immediately approaches the girl at the table before realizing that she has a 250 pound line backer boyfriend named Lazer who was getting her a beer and who doesn’t like people rudely invading his space. This in turn brings me to scenario number two: not asking people if they are done with the machine.

 People do in fact go to the drinking fountain or walk around to circulate the blood in between sets. And if you are waiting for the machine and you see them leave it, why don’t you just ask if they are done using it before you hop on it? What’s the worst that could happen, they say no? People are not going to get frustrated or upset at you if you simply ask, but they are going to get annoyed and peeved when you just butt in on their sets without asking. You know why, because now you are putting them into a socially awkward situation, where they have to confront you to do something that they were already engaged in. Now there is a disclaimer on this one: if you leave your machine or equipment for a long period of time, you cannot be upset if someone does in fact jump on it. But that is a whole different topic. You have essentially at this point turned something very simple into an unnecessary, complex, psychological interaction which often times creates uneasiness and aggravated or agitated behavior. When you go to the gym you should feel at ease and comfortable in your surroundings, as should those around you and hopping on a machine when it is not yours to hop on and without asking first completely negates this level of ease.
 2. Do: Survey and ASK
 -The biggest “do” in this scenario is a truly obvious one: be observant. As a human being living in a world where technically, you are never completely 100% secure in anything you might do, you should be somewhat good at surveying your surroundings. Look around, do you see someone hovering close by the equipment you want to use; is there a towel or a set of keys or a water bottle right there as well? If there is simply just wait a second and see if anyone comes back in the next couple of minutes and if not, go ahead and start using the machine. If someone happens to come back it’s no big deal. Simply excuse yourself and let them know that you did not think anyone was on it because no-one was around. Then just see if they mind if you work in with them. It’s a very simple system of social exchange, yet it is amazing to me to see all of the different people that completely ignore it altogether. Don’t be afraid to ask someone if you can work in with them. In most situations they will need to take a break in between sets and that should be more than ample time for you to get a set in. This also revolves around simple patience. Wait a couple seconds before just jumping on that machine or grabbing those weights, if it looks like someone is using them. If you don’t have a second to waste or you absolutely don’t want to work in with someone, go use another machine and if that doesn’t work then simply chill out on the ephedrine because you are getting a little too crazy.

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 So here is Phase one of “appropriate behavior at the gym: the do’s and don’ts, according to a guy with an opinion about anything and everything”

1. Don’t: Don’t slam your weights down on the ground

 - We all know that you are a novice lifter and that you are putting up crazy weight “bro,” but just because the ground is made out of rubber doesn’t mean you have to be the beacon of attention by slamming down your weights with a grunt. I totally understand that you are trying to go bigger and bigger with the amount of weight that you are putting up, as well you should, but find a spotter or just simply learn how lift. If you can put the weight up five times, you better believe that you can keep it from slamming down. Now I’m not talking about the little drop of the weight from about five inches up that makes a tiny thud, that is perfectly ok and that is in fact what the rubber floors are for. What I am talking about is the “I am on a terror of lifting…I’m so exhausted and pumped at the same time that I can’t control how I put my weight down so I just let it fall or flail to the ground or in the heat of the moment I give it a little toss.” This causes a scene and according to the people at the gym that I spoke with makes you look like a complete idiot that doesn’t know what they are doing. And for the most part the people that are dropping these weights or slamming them on the ground are ruining their muscles by not properly finishing the exercise and instead just simply letting their limbs flop around – which in turn leads to pulled, shredded, strained or torn muscles and ligaments.

 1. Do: Grab a spotter, use appropriate weight or drop lightly

 - You don’t have to go to the gym with a work out buddy to find yourself a spotter. Just simply ask someone working out in your close vicinity – that is in between their sets resting – to see if they will spot you. That way you can go with heavier weights but in a controlled environment, that allows you to increase your strength in a healthy manner that is not destructive to the immediate world around you. And who knows you might even find yourself a new friend in passing.

 Use appropriate weights. If for some reason you can’t find a spotter then make sure the amount of weight that you are using is appropriate for you to use alone with out causing harm to or making a spectacle out of yourself. You can use those heavier weights but make sure that they aren’t heavy enough that when you are done with your set you cannot properly real them in and set them down. Be honest with yourself: you know what weight you can handle. Don’t try to push it to make yourself look like your putting up more weight in front of these people that you don’t really even know. You should be going to the gym to better yourself in some way and you need to remind yourself about that the next time you are feeling self conscious about yourself and try to take on more weight than you can handle.

 Like I said before, it is ok to drop your weights a tad little bit so that you do not strain your back or other muscles putting your weight down. But when you are doing a standing lift set and you drop them from slightly below waste level or when you are re-racking a weight on the bench and you just toss it or drop it instead of laying it down that is just ridiculous. This goes the same for people who are using machine assisted weights: don’t drop the weight so that it slams down on the other stack of weights. Once again not only are you making a scene but you are also not using the machine correctly in a controlled manner which can in fact result in serious or minor injury and who wants that.

 Disclaimer: Once again I am no expert on when it comes to the gym (I just go a lot) and I am certainly no saint. I am fully aware that I have once or twice been guilty of the old weight drop – almost everyone that lifts heavier weights has. But the difference is that I am immediately self aware and I make sure it doesn’t happen again in the near future. And as I mentioned before about 85% of the people that are their follow these practices because they are just common sense. These are only meant to be tips for you to think about the next time you are in the gym. And remember I am just a guy with an opinion, take it or leave it.

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 After going to the gym 6 days a week for the last year and a half or so, I have started to pick up on a multitude of different things. New work outs, new equipment, different way to use equipment, how to approach helpful people and many other interesting intricacies. But the one thing that I have noticed the most is the lack of etiquette or lack of proper social interaction skills when people are in the gym. It is something that really bugs me because about 85 % of the people who I see at the gym abide by these rules – but that 15 % is so noticeable that it makes me stop and think. Is there some kind of book that is written? Are there more refined rules that we overlook in our gym contracts? Are we supposed to act differently when at the gym? And what constitutes improper etiquette at the gym? Well the answers are, maybe, probably, it depends and people’s reactions.

 Maybe: who knows maybe there are several well known and published pieces of literature that hesitant or first time gym goers frequently buy on EBay, created by gym elitists.

Probably: there is probably a rule in the fine print of your gym membership that states you cannot occupy five different machines at once if people are trying to use them, but do people read and follow these things – for the most part no.

  It depends: whether or not you should act differently in the gym is all about how you yourself perceive it. Meaning, are you the type of person that knocks a drink over at the party or a restaurant/bar and doesn’t pick it up because they paid money to get in and serviced, therefore, it is now someone else’s responsibility. Well if you are then you are most likely the same person that doesn’t re-rack weights or wipe off machinery or who takes up five machines at once. You may act a certain way in the comfort of your own home that doesn’t necessarily match up to the standards of society and I say great. But when you have to share common communal property with others you should be aware of how your actions are affecting that said shared space. It’s something funny like gym etiquette but it trickles further into the cracks and accurately reflects societal depictions in some cases. So in that sense, if you are aware that you share this common space with others and you respect that notion of shared community so to speak then no you don’t have to act differently, you can simply apply your everyday rational into your gym interactions and it will be fine – it’s not rocket science.

 People’s reactions: you don’t have to be a fitness guru to notice when you are doing something improperly at the gym, you just have to not be brain dead. Whether it is using a machine the wrong way, taking someone’s spot or just about anything “deemed” un-gym like you can tell immediately by how people are reacting around you. When you are screaming during your sets (for whatever reason people seem to do this) to the point where its probably noticeable from the other side of the gym you can guarantee that everyone around you will at one point in the 30 seconds of actually screaming or the 30 seconds that proceed the screaming, stare at you with a dumb founded expression like you came to the gym without pants on. Then about three quarters of those people will in fact shake there heads in disagreement or make hilarious comments to their workout buddies about how dumb you look. You might care you might not – it is completely based on individual circumstance. This is how etiquette for the most part is defined in the gym and how it works itself out – people’s reactions and their responsiveness to your reactions.

 I write this as an intro to segment that I am about to do on a personally studied phenomenon, appropriate behavior concerning the communal gym. I am no expert but after asking the opinion of different gym goers, gym employees and every day Joes who occasionally go to the gym, and watching the different reactions that the gym masses have to certain behaviors, I feel pretty confident about giving out an outline of behavior for people to think about the next time they work out. For the next 6 to 8 weeks I will be writing two “do’s” and two “don’ts” per week on behavior at the gym. You can take’ em or leave’ em, either way doesn’t matter to me but at least it will be out there.

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I find it very hard to find time for a good abdominal routine after or before my workouts. I am one of those people who only have a set amount of time that I can allot to working out everyday and if I use that time for ab workouts then I fall short of completing my other workouts – which for my personal goals are far more important. But I do not want to leave my abs out because they are not only a key factor in complete physical appearance but they are extremely essential to building a solid core which is one of the biggest factors in upper body strength. I always say to myself, I will just do abs when I get home from the gym, but that never has happened. So lately I have been trying something new – when I do my regular workouts and not the experimental ones. I have been doing a set of about 20-25 crunches in between every set of lifting reps that I do.

Fitness Model James Ellis

This not only has been building my abs back to where I want to see them but it has also been increasing my overall workout stamina. Putting your body in constant motion for an hour and fifteen minutes to an hour and a half is a great workout. When doing this I am able to complete my full workout without relinquishing any amount of time to an abs workout because I am getting my ab workout in while I rest in between sets and because my rest time is spent doing abs, my endurance is getting even stronger.

This is how I have been doing my workouts. On a day where I would do biceps I would do four sets of curls with about 6-7 max reps on each of them. But in between the sets I would do a set of 25 crunches regular crunches. The when I switch to another exercise like hammer curls for instance, I would follow the same regimen but instead of doing normal crunches I would do a set of 25 side crunches and then vary on the next muscle exercise I did. I haven’t found a way to incorporate weights into the ab work out without using machines and taking up two things at once at the gym, but just working my abs by way of crunches and other non-weight involved exercises, I have been able to see a clear result. For about the first week and a half I thought this workout was too exhausting, but that was because I was trying to do too many ab reps in between sets. I was trying to do 50 crunches instead of 25. But after I lowered the amount that I was doing I was able to finish both workouts in the time it takes to do one and not feel like I had absolutely no energy left. When I am at the gym at my condos where there is never anyone there and I can use two machines at once without holding anyone up, I will also try to incorporate running for my rest time. Like I mentioned before, I only do this when I am doing my normal routine and not when I am varying from routine to routine, because it really only personally works for me when I am doing my normal lifting sets. But this can be a good thing to incorporate into cardio or leg workouts as a break that is not really a break.

Proper Crunches Thanks to YouTube ID masterblevins

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   As usual I have been messing with my routines at the gym. This week I tried something I had read about a little while back. I couldn’t find the name of what exactly it is called but I refer to it as the “pump and shape” workout. The main reason as to why I tried this work out this week is because I have been worried that I am not getting enough definition in my upper arms. The workout is simple, it is a normal six to seven max weight reps for four sets and then a twenty rep fifth set with a lower weight and a natural non weight exercise for a specific muscle. So for example, this week when I was doing triceps, I started my workout doing hammer extensions and I did four set of 6 reps at 70 pounds with each arm. Then I lowered the weight for the fifth set down to 40 pounds and turned out twenty reps. But the trick was to do the lower weight reps quicker and with more muscle focus, meaning that when doing the extension I never let my arm come past a parallel position to the ground and while keeping that form, I would speed up the extension. Then after I finished those off, I did a set of 25 diamond push ups for my non weight, because they have a heavy emphasis on the tricep. I followed this regimen for six more sets of tricep exercises varying the type of push up I did. I did this for when I worked biceps and then when I did back and for my natural non weight exercises for both I would do pull ups and chin extensions. I did the same for Chest and then shoulders as well but with different variations of push ups and when I was done with my week I could definitely see the results.
    Although it was a really beneficial and effective workout system, it was extremely tiring, so much so that I would never do it for more than a week at a time. I think that if I did this for consecutive weeks, then I would get burned out and not want to get into the gym every week. It is really a good thing to throw into your training system when you have hit a plateau or when you are trying to build up your stamina or even when you just want to vary from the norm for a week. This work out is a painful one that isn’t very fun, but it will whip you right into shape and begin to chisel away at your muscle’s definition while increasing overall mass. It’s the type of workout that you really feel great about after doing it, but at the same time you just want to go home and die on your couch afterward. So pretty much, like with the rest of the workouts, I say give it a try. Find a way to make it work for the type of workouts you do. That is probably the best advice I can give: curve the workouts to fit your specific needs. With all of these workouts, you can vary them so that you are targeting specific goals that you set for yourself. Just keep varying your cycles until you truly find one that works and then stick with that for a month or two and then switch it up again.

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I always try to get six days in every week because it allows a full week’s workout cycle and one full day of full body muscle recovery. I typically like to schedule this workout cycle from Monday to Sat with Sun off or Sunday to Fri with Sat off. In theory both of these workout cycles sound great and both of these schedules on paper look solid but in reality they are both flawed because they rely on me making into the gym on Sat or Sun. On Friday when I’m leaving the gym I’m thinking to myself, “alright man tomorrow when you wake up, just throw back some protein water, hit the gym first thing and enjoy the rest of the day.” But when I wake up on Saturday I think to myself, “I’m already sweating tequila and I haven’t even started working out” or I think “man I just worked a 55 hour week; I can do my sixth day tomorrow on Sun and then start the six day cycle going form Sun to Fri.” And if I think the later I will wake up on Sunday and think to myself “Ah man I have a full week of work starting tomorrow I should either have a crazy wild extended weekend and suffer through Monday or I should sit on my butt and do nothing for a change and truly enjoy the day.” Both of these scenarios are killers of my 6 day cycles, which ultimately makes me disappointed and angry with myself. But they only become killers if I let them.

Now, I am fully aware that not everyone spends there weekends boozing and being counter productive like I find myself doing every so often, but I am also aware that both Saturday and Sunday are the weekend days, and no matter how you look at them, you don’t want to be doing work. You deserve that time off, truly you do, but you also know how mad you are going to be with yourself if you break your routine cycles for reasons that are trite and mundane. Lately I haven’t missed a cycle, but it’s not because I stopped getting Mexican food at 3 am on a Fri/Sat Night/Morning or that I started writing my congressmen on ways they could improve the country in my spare time. I am still that same unproductive wreck from 6 pm on Friday to 7 am on Monday morning, the only difference is that I actually stepped foot into the gym. I know this sounds like the dumbest thing ever but it is truly the only way for me to get into the gym on the weekends. I can sit there and come up with a million and two excuses as to why I shouldn’t work out on my days off, but if I set foot in the actual gym its like any other day. For example I was, for a lack of better words, hung over about five Saturdays ago, when I woke up. My head was pounding and my stomach was more than edgy and I told myself just go up to the gym and try to at least get half a work out in. The first two sets were like kicking bricks, they just plain hurt. But after that I felt a whole lot better. My body began to detoxify and my morale jumped up several levels. Not only did I complete my cycle and my workout but I had a great rest of the day because I didn’t feel like such a pile. The same thing happened to me last week, but I wasn’t hung over. Last Saturday morning I woke up, dead sober from not drinking the night before, and I just went to the gym before I could convince myself otherwise. Ever since that Saturday morning five weeks back I have yet to miss a cycle, because the first thing I do when I wake up is go straight to the gym and if once I am in the gym I don’t feel like I can do a whole work out, I don’t. And I am perfectly ok with that, because I physically didn’t have the strength not because I was just being a lazy oaf. So if you struggle with these weekend work outs, just don’t let time kill you, get up get into the gym and get on with your day…you will feel a lot better unless you really did drink too much the night before and in that case…well I’m sorry and you should seek counseling…j/k but seriously).

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