Exercise and depression

In a recent medical study published in the British Medical Journal says there is no direct link with exercise and positive effect on depression (http://tinyurl.com/6rtjk6j).

From personal experience, I wouldn't agree. I know that if I've not been to the gym for a while I can have some very black days. I used to forego the gym because of a ill founded sense of duty, to work or family. Over these periods, my view of the world would suffered badly.

However, since I became self employed I have made sure to make time for the gym. This had benefited me in two ways. One is I've not suffered the dark shadow of depression, and my body has responded well.

So I would say if you do suffer from depression, maybe exercise could give you the same freedom it has offered me.

'life in the fast lane'

I found myself coming back from London today in the midst of the rush hour. We successfully negotiated 10miles on the M25 in 1hour. What fun!

It's days like this that make me glad to be self employed. With the power to fit the day around the 'fun' of the rush hour. I remember my 3 hour commute on a Friday night home, which on any other day took about 1 hour.

So even though you loose the satisfying comfort of a guaranteed pay cheque at the end of each month, the benefits you can gain, do out weigh it.

Sadly, No gym today, so I'm having to drop a rest day this weekend, to keep my schedule from slipping. So it will be an early start tomorrow for a pump day on chest and shoulders.

My chest has never been so well defined. It is amazing how bad form can screw up potential muscle grow. So remember don't be tempted by the big weights. Keep the exercises strict and slow. The weights will grow, but this way your body will grow faster.

Work and play

Next Thursday is the third CPD event in a series of four. Basically we offer free training events to our customers and potential customers. It's always a nerve racking time as I have to face my foe, the telephone and do a bit of cold calling. Still, I did it this morning.

Lunch time I headed for the gym, power day, lots of heavy weights and low reps for strength, I did my best ever strict bicep barbell curl, 110lbs. It felt amazing! My wife gave them a prod in the car, which means she successfully guessed which body part I worked out.

Then back to the office to see some more work had come in, lovely. Unfortunately, I skipped a proper lunch, not great when i am trying to grow. And had to settled for a protein drink instead. Definitely getting more size making the shakes up with semi skimmed milk instead of water.

Then this evening focused on getting the reports done, hopefully it will be a lot cooler than it is now.

Good day really.

Long day

As promised, a busy week. We've been flying around the south coast, doing our searches. It is nice to share the time with my wife, even though we are in the car, it is good to have time to chat and laugh together without the children.

This was followed closely by an afternoon and early evening completing the reports and sending out to customers.

All this an I still managed to get into the gym :)

Now I can have a relaxed evening knowing that I've worked and played hard.

Legs

After a busy weekend and unusually busy Monday with work, it was good to get to the gym today. It was a pump day, legs, back and biceps.

I always have trouble getting a good pump in my thighs, as years of field sports have made them quite strong and resilient to exercise. They do respond, and grow, but I never get that feeling of pumped muscle.

So today, I thought I'd drop in some additional leg extension super-sets with my leg press, dropping the weight once on the leg extension super-sets, going to failure on each set of the extensions.

I follow this by doing lunges, but rather than using a barbell at the squat station, I performed them on the smith-machine. I super-set these with no weight sissy squats to finish off my thighs.

Amazing pump tonight. I would highly recommend performing lunges on the smith-machine as this really isolates the thighs.

So I happily sitting here now nicely tired, with an amazing tightness in my thighs. Love it.

It always amazes me how so many people don't work their legs regularly. When I was in the North-West, this was frowned upon, The common nickname for this sort of guy was 'sparrow-legs'. They work on the theory that they can wear trousers at all times and so there is no point to working them. But they can end up looking top heavy, also they can never think about doing a show with such a weak body part.

Busy weekend

We had a good day yesterday, at the X-Press Legal National meeting (http://www.xpresslegal.co.uk), lots of new thing happening this year that will be of great benefit to our clients. I am really looking forward to getting with the clients and discussing our new advances. I know they will be impressed, and as eager as me to get it live.

The majority of the meeting was taken up with the first of 4 seminars with Chrissie Lightfoot (@TheNakedLawyer, http://entrepreneurlawyer.co.uk/) on making social media work for you in business. A great seminar building the blocks for the future. Looking forward to the next seminar as we move forward on this.

Today it's the turn of our eldest, with her bowling birthday party, we're supervising from a suitable distance, so We don't cramp her style, as if we would.

Her major present this year is a visit to the new Hogwarts film set exhibit (http://www.wbstudiotour.co.uk/) in London, I think the whole family is looking forward to it, and trying out Butter Beer.

The only downside of this weekend (beside the 'Sooty Show', arcade game, constantly chirping, 'put in some money and watch the show to win a prize'), is that I won't be able to get to the gym this weekend! A travesty I know, but I'll be back in the gym tomorrow for a pump day. But it'll throw out my workout schedule for the rest of the week, especially as I've a busy work week coming.

Slow down

Have you ever seen people rushing around the gym, fitting an hour's working into 20 minutes?

Performing each set at break neck speed, only having a 10 second breather before their next workout, or set? Then proudly proclaiming that they've finished they workout in record time?

Sorry to say, but this ain't the way to go if you want to build good quality muscle.

With these super fast workout you will get physically tried and thus feel that you 20 minute stint in the gym was worth it. But you are only working out your fast-twitch muscles and not the all important, and bigger, slow-twitch muscles. These are the boys that give you the muscle mass.

So if you only have a finite amount of time for the workout, cut back on the amount of exercises/sets you have planned for that session. Take it down to the basics, ensuring your still covering all the body parts you had planned for.

This way you have more time to focus on the exercises, move the weights slowly and deliberately. This will get your larger slow-twitch muscle groups in on the act, and you will still benefit from even time-limited workout sessions.

Strict form

A really good day at the gym today; a pump day, getting the blood flowing into the muscle to promote recovery after my power day yesterday. Felt really strong, and increased all my weights for the exercises, but kept the strict form, result? I got an amazing pump.

One thing you do notice, especially after concentrating on making sure you are observing strict form on your own exercises, is the number of people, surprisingly, both experienced and novices that are obsessed with moving the most poundage, irrespective of the form. (Yep, I was guilt of this too, and suffered ripped lat muscle - painful)

What they are missing is that because they are jerking the weight to get it moving by rocking their body, they are not getting the maximum benefit.

Sure it looks great when you load the the numerous plates on the bar, or select the full stack, but when you try to move it without strict form, not only are you only really moving a fraction of the actual weight, but your also putting your body under additional stress, which can lead to muscle strains, or worst.

The best thing to do is to stop trying to impress your peers, and stop trying to prove your right to be there by using the big weights.

Everybody has the right to be in the gym.

While you're in the gym, FOCUS.

Focus on your form, keep it strict.

Focus on your muscles, be aware of which muscle group you are intending to work and make sure that you actually feel them working.

Yes, you'll have to lighten the weights, but the weights you can handle will increase. You will grow, and you will benefit from fewer injuries and muscle or joint strains.

Back in gym after 2 days rest

The hardest part of building your body, is having the discipline to let your body recover.

There are so many guys who go to the gym 7 days a week, and expect their body to grow muscle. Yes, you'll loss weight, but you not giving you body time to recover.

Without the discipline to have rest days, all that pumping of iron, and strict diet is not gonna help.

Father's day

Had a wonderful breakfast in bed this morning brought up by my two lovely little girls. Also I was lucky to got loads of BCAA and Creatine, well timed as I'd just ran out. Also some chewy chocolate protein bars from CNP. Great for when I'm stuck in the car.

Stats 16/6/12

My stats today

Neck 18
Chest 48.5
Bicep l 16.5 r 17
Waist 38
Thigh l 25 r 25.5
Calf l 16 r 16.5
Forearm 13 r 13

I'm really chuffed that my arms are starting to balance out, as from on a double bicep flex you can see the difference.

Not bad for a day of rest...

Power Day

Great to be back at the gym. I know it has only been 2 days, but I just working out.

Power day today, legs; back; traps and biceps. Love to push myself as hard I can go.

Pump day tomorrow

Day of rest

No gym today or tomorrow, rest days. Looking forward to getting back to the gym Thursday.

Ran out of my matrix protein last night, so I'm back on CNP products. This time I'm trying Promass, as I don't think my diet has enough calories to help me grow. Somehow I picked up strawberry, mixing with milk. Clean taste and thicker than the CNP's Whey Protein that I had previously.

My current supplements

Matrix anabolic matrix 80% pure protein
- All the reviews have said how the this tastes a bit poor and isn't the smoothest of shakes. All are true, but the taste you get use to and it does have an amazing 40g per serving.

LA Muscle Norteen Heavyweight
I preferred the LA Muscle Vasculator combined with their Discorea Deltoidea tablets. Unfortunately, you cannot buy Discorea now, as they have this product in Norteen line. Shame because I made some amazing gains while I was on these two together


Procreatine 2 creatine ethyl ester
a lot better than the old days when you had to load up and come off it after a month.

ZMA zinc magnesium vitamin B6
This is something that I read about recently. It helps you sleep at night after a heavy workout, and yes it works, not slept so well since adding this to my routine supplements.

Branched chain amino acids
'nough said important for muscle recovery and growth

Centrum advanced multi
Standard off-the-shelf multi-vit to make sure I not lacking anywhere as it's amazing how a deficiency can restrict a body's growth

Craze
A recent find. I used to use CNP's Naplam, but it never really worked for me. Read all the reviews, and besides the comments about the taste DS Craze was bigged-up up as amazing. And it was, I take about 1.5 scoops 30 mins before working out and I feel amazing at the gym. I would highly recommend it.

Current stats

I have recently started my power/size phase of my bodybuilding training, here are some of my starts from just before I started and some from last week..

Neck. 17in
Chest. 44 in
Bicep. L 15. R 16
Waist. 38 in
Thigh. L 22. R 24
Calf. l 16 in R 16
Forearm L 12 R 12

I do have a little symmetric issue in my arms.

Measurements on 1 June

Neck: 18in
Chest: 46in
Bicep L: 16in R: 17 in
Waist: 39in
Thigh L:24in R:24.5
Calf L: 16 R: 16.5
Forearm L: 12.5 R: 12.5

Go progress so far, but gotta watch my waist ;)

Nerd at the gym

Well to be honest I am a bit of a nerd. Having made my career in the IT industry until the down-turn. You wouldn't think that the defence industry, or national security would of been effected by the squeeze on spending, especially so close to the olympics.

Any how, let's see it as an opportunity to move forward and grow my experience.

One benefit of the change in circumstances is that I can get back to my little hobby/obsession as my wife may put it.... Bodybuilding.

I'm not into running for hours on a treadmill, or lifting light weight for toning. No unfortunately, I enjoy the dark side, straight up bodybuilding.

So this is my blog of the gym life, family and work life.

If you find it interesting, or have some training advice drop let me know.

Cheers