Torso destruction

For my workout today, I did 2 sets of 7 bench presses, close grip, at 110 pounds, with pull-ups to failure after each set, and then 2 sets of 5 bench presses, wide grip, with wide arm decline pushups to failure between each set. My muscles are twitching just writing this. I didn't have to do any other exercises after this, my arms and chest are completely worn out.

Really short post, but i'm making progress and needed to share it.

The facilities and starting pictures

Finally got around to taking some pictures. I got a few pictures of the gym in the basement and couple of myself; I plan to shoot some pics of myself once a month so I can rate my progress.

I've got the safety cage here, so that way when i'm doing squats or bench presses I don't crush myself.

A smattering of weight plates, a few of the weights, and a kettlebell and sandball.

My personal favorite, the heavy bag. Oh, the fun one can have on this!

This really is all the more one needs. I can do some seriously intense cardio on the heavy bag, it's great for boxing and even kicking. The nice thing about it is that it can toughen up your bones on it, which isn't a concern for me because I don't plan on doing any serious fighting, but it's nice to I know I can/will.

From here I can do a ridiculous number of different calisthenics and powerlifting exercises. I don't need to go out to any other gym to do any exercise, I can do it all here in the basement. Saves money, saves time, and saves annoyance because I can play the music I want to play without having to fiddle with my earbuds or put up with lame, not motivational music. The only thing I don't like is not having someone around to, well, compete with, more or less. It's much harder to be motivated when it's just me. That's part of the reason i'm putting all of this on my blog, i'm hoping this all being on the internet will help keep me motivated.

But enough of that, I've got a picture of myself to put up.

Yeah... I am *WAY* too skinny. That's why i'm training as hard as I can (and that includes eating as much as I can) so I put some weight on and feel like a healthy, normal person.

As I go on i'll keep posting pictures of my progress for comparison. Right now i'm at 132 pounds, hopefully by about this time next month that number will be a little higher and i'll be looking a little better.

Progress

Well, now that I've been working at the warehouse for about four weeks, I can already tell that my shoulders and arms are filling out quite nicely. My weight is very consistently sitting at 130 lbs. instead of fluctuating a lot like it used to do, and my core (abs, obliques, back, etc.) is getting pretty solid. The only things I need to focus on really are my chest and leg muscles. I'm going to be doing yoga fairly regularly too, just to help reset my muscles and to get my flexibility back (when I was doing TaeKwonDo regularly, I could bring my knee up to my forehead without arching my back).

I tried taking some pictures of my last set, but that fancy new camera just doesn't seem to want to cooperate. So, with my next set I'll try again on my old camera. I'm working on some video but I'm not sure what I want to record just yet. I could always shoot a round of one-legged squats or Russian twists.

Health and training

I've never been a particularly buff guy; I stay in shape and work out but when the sun sets, i'm still only about 130 pounds. Now that i'm back to working regularly, this is something i'm going to begin changing.

My new job, being at a warehouse, requires me to be moving boxes between 30 and 60 pounds for ten hours a day, four days a week. That gives me three days in which to rest, recover, and work the muscle groups that don't get affected much at the warehouse. Working with heavy boxes all day, I don't really want to do too much weight lifting at home because I want to avoid overtraining (as it stands I get some pretty intense arm, back, and shoulder work at the warehouse). This leaves me with a lot of calisthenics, and not too much else. So i'll be doing lots of pushups, pullups, situps, and some other exercises.

As far as eating goes, that's going to be my biggest issue. I need to be able to eat over 5,000 calories a day, every day, and put down at least 150 grams of protein every day. At that point, eating is a chore, and annoying. I've done it before but it's a royal pain. But, it's the only way to put weight on; you want to get big, you've got to eat big.

But on the upshot, I wouldn't have to worry about fat; by working so much constantly and burning lots of calories (and also by eating properly) i'll be staying fairly lean as time goes on. I'll be taking pictures as time goes on, and posting some videos of some of the exercises that I do. As I come up with good recipes for shakes and meals, i'll post those up too.