Building up the arms & shoulders

When I began lifting I was scared of getting bulky. I didn't know enough about lifting and diet at that point to realize that unless I really ate to bulk, lifted very low rep and high weight and did little cardio, that probably wasn't going to even start to happen. 

I don't supplement heavily, I eat a moderate amount (1500-1800 calories most days), and lift in the 8-12 rep range. I'm not bulking. But what I am trying for is nice, visible muscles. Now, different people put on muscle differently and even for the same person, different muscles will be easier or harder to grow.

I have always had trouble putting muscle on my upper body, as I've mentioned before. To that end I do 2 (ish) arm workouts a week. I say "ish" because one is a hard, solely arm workout and the other one I combine with my chest day.

Today I noticed a nice line between my bis and tris when my arm was down at my side doing shoulder rotations on the cable machine. That got me pretty stoked!

Either way, there is still a long way to go between me and the muscle I want on my arms.

Current Arms

Hopefully one day in the future -- arms

Unmotivated - II

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been very unmotivated to lift. I have boiled this down to four main reasons:

1. Pain
2. I can't do some of my favourite lifts because of injury and increasing aforementioned pain
3. The nice weather
4. The gym switch

1 and 2 go together, so let's start there. Over a month ago, I injured my lower back pretty badly doing DLs. I'm pretty sure I tore something, as I could barely move, twist, or bend for a while and even after that got better, picking weights up off the ground caused pain. So I rested it, I stretched, I foam-rolled, I got Ryan to give me back rubs (amazing bf that he is!). And I thought it helped. Eventually I could do normal everyday things without pain. Instead of going back straight to DLs, I decided to try light squatting instead. By light I mean the bar up to my BW. Pre-injury, my sets started at BW and worked up to 1.75 BW. So I figured this would be ok. The squats themselves actually didn't feel bad at all. What felt terrible was waking up the next morning and the morning after that.

So here I am, in pain still (didn't even try squatting on Sunday) and not able to do some of my favourite lifts (DLs, squats, and hypers). Talk about de-motivation. :-(

3. The nice weather. Nice weather encourages me to be outside. I love outside. I moved to the south primarily for the warmer weather. I'm one of those people that can handle 90s and almost never turn on the car AC. That said, the last thing I want to do on beautiful days is workout inside. Beautiful days are for trail running, walking the dogs, swimming etc...not for lifting in a gym. Especially if the gym happens to be very dark...

.....which brings me to number 4. The new gym. I'm not gonna lie...it's not my favourite. It has been more crowded recently (probably due to summer), and it's very dark inside. Dark, and full of sweaty lifting guys and high school kids. I only work out there on Thursdays and Saturdays now. I try to go to Duke's gym on Tuesday during the day and Sunday I sometimes trade lifting for running, or I go to Duke.

I feel like, in order to stay motivated and healthy, I need to spend a little less time lifting and a little more time outside running or doing other activities. If I find that this really decreases my strength and physique, I will switch back. In my opinion however, it's better to be able to stick with something for the long hall, than to burn out.

Lacking Motivation....

I'm finding that with lack of motivation to workout and lift comes lack of motivation to write about working out/lifting and general fitness things. Somehow they must be entangled...

This lack of motivation has been kind of creeping up on me for the past week or two. Whenever it comes time to go to the gym to lift I find myself feeling mentally and physically drained. When the weather has been nice I have found the motivation to run outside, but to me, running isn't terribly mentally draining as I tend not to have to focus so much.

One of the possible causes for the drain could be that I work out at different times now, and I workout at different times of the day depending on what day of the week.

I used to consistently work out in the mornings. During the week (Tues/Thurs) it was between 7:30-8 start time, while on the weekends (Sat/Sun) I slept in a bit and started around 9 am.

So accurate sometimes...

Now my schedule is:

Toss-up Tuesday: Sometimes it's at 8 am, more often it's during lunchtime, but also sometimes if I'm busy it's after dinner with Ryan.

PM Thursday: Typically I've been going to the new (non-Duke) gym after dinner with Ryan on back day.

AM Saturday: We have been going to the new gym on Saturdays, but usually around 10 -- not quite as early as we used to head to Duke.

AM Sunday: I actually haven't done my past 2 leg workouts. One I replaced with a nice run around the golf course and a walk with the pups. The other I just didn't do much. See? Lack of motivation.

I'm not quite sure what to do about this other than just plug through it. Maybe change up my workouts a bit? If I figure it out, I'll be sure to post!