Ok here we are Tuesday afternoon and I am here to speak of my weekend and beginning of the week. I attended a seminar for Microsoft late last week for the MCSA/MCSE and got with course directors from the University of North West Florida about my direction of proceeding. I am one of the few with alot of hands on past experience and the advice I was given was to just go ahead and study for the five different courses involving the MCSA at home and clep the tests and move on to the MCSE. I have begun this and even scheduled my first testing date of February 2 . All is well in the knowledge world and I will move to my Saturdays training schedule. I got up and went to the gym earlier than most days. I had alot of trouble in the treadmill due to phone calls etc but managed about 20 minutes uphill. In the gym if you answer your phone its like a sin and they will come and ask you to turn it off so I had to pause and go outside to talk. When I returned in just a few short minutes the machine had reset itself and I was already 20 minutes in so I just did about 8 more minutes and had no way of knowing any stats except for I burned around 400 calories. From there it was the normal 100 crunchs and another 50 behind the head and the obliques 30 each side and then I did a few warm up concentration curls with the 25's sets of 10 and some pullups at the rate of just 5 at a time for two sets. Now down to business. On this day I felt like I really needed to pummel my arms and I dont have a table curl so I do it sitting on a bench with wrist curls first per arm and then half curls with my elbow resting on my hip. I do these with comparativley heavy weight starting with 60 pounds and a set of 10 wrist and 10 curls per arm. Then since I was using even numbers of 10 I go up 10 pounds and do it again. Everyone is different so the number of reps per set will vary with people but I carry the reps of 10 all the way to 100 pounds and then just back off to 3 reps curl and maybe 8 or 10 reps wrist above 100. I felt like there was no reason to tear myself totally limb from limb on this day so I stopped at 120 pounds. On a good day after do this type of curl regularly I have been know to go as far as the 150's but I planned on doing hammer curls on the machine this day so I stopped at 120. Left handed I just stopped at a set of 5 with 90 pounds as its injured and no sense in hurting myself alot worse. My right has always been extraordinarily strong compared to my left though. I stopped at the reverse tricep extension cables on the way just to loosen up a bit before the hammer curls. I guess I have outlined my hammer curl machine info earlier in this group of blogs so I will make it short. start at 45 pounds , do left and right and go up. On this day I stopped at 130 right handed and 110 left handed. It was kind of achy through the sets but felt good once I made a first rep and was in motion. This was a very heavy lift and upon completion of these two excercises to their fullest I had no reason to continue because I had other plans for Saturday. You may have guessed it though I think I talked earlier of my chores. This day it was the Boat. We have a parking lot of gravel etc and you cannot keep a boat in the salt air in florida without cleaning it regularly. here is a link to pictures and it is a 2 to 3 hour job done correctly with a scrub brush and is a part of my training that I use to get my base strength up to par. Pictures found here and the paint job was expensive so it takes alot of care. http://www.battlesbailbonds.com/boat05.html
On a Saturday this is alot to do but I didnt stop there after finishing I went home and studied and cleaned part of the house which continued into suday and involved using a wire brush to to prepare a dog crate for painting and then the usual stuff we all do in laundry , dishes , vacuuming and studying to be a Microsoft Certifed Systems Administrator to compliment me and my Bail Bonding Agency.
In comes Monday and a busy day it was with many phone calls and business and appointments with attorneys blah blah blah. If I had not been doing what I did to prepare for the incoming week I would not be productive at all so once again stressing on hold down the whole fort in preperation through all this for I day off and a 600 mile drive to armwrestle. Armwrestling Practice came and went on Monday night and revalations and reality set in with my changed diet plans to meet at 220 pounds instead of 209 which is my norm. It was much more difficult to get in the monkey bar training. again whatever you feel you need and can make be it Monkey bars/beam - rope - tree climbin - rock climbing and or even bowling for light weights hehe. Bowling can help but wont be the complete package but to each his/her own. I stepped up my beam training by increasing the time I remained on it to double trips. I was devastated with my extra weight and the added distance but managed. Then we armwrestled but on this night it was more about just stretching and pulling pretty hard but not to pin. Everyone was sore and we just pulled hard and let it go at that. I know I am ahead of the game and next week will be the last hard pull leaving me one week and my grand finale' on how to not self destruct before getting to the tournament provided I can afford to even go once we make it that far. Too many youngsters put together a fine training method and then get close to a tourney and total trash their chances by letting the testosterone run wild with their emotions. It aint over until its over and doing foolish things after all the hard work that will only ruin your chances for success is the number one reason so many fail to reach the goal. I.E. dont be stupid and try a finger lacing contest with someone and weaken your hand going into a competition and I will cover some of the many other mistakes people make by not knowing how to train the hand and working the grippers too much before they get there.
Until the end of the week this is all the advice I can give along with telling everyone that will listen to just calm down when you get a week out from a competition . That doesnt mean go stagnant but does mean you will most likley not get any stronger than you are at that point. The trick is to be as strong as you can be to see a good day for you armwrestling on the day of the competition. We will deal with that coming up. Stay Tuned, James