Bodybuilding Mirrors All of Life

I DO Know SQUAT!

This time last year, I couldn't bend my left leg at the knee joint past 90 degrees.  (For those of you who are new to this blog, I sustained an injury during a charity tug of war event in late August 2007 of which is documented ad nausiem in earlier posts if you care to get yourself up to speed.)  After months of rehabilitation and slowly working back into intense leg workouts, I decided to go ahead and push it a little bit further . . .

On Tuesdays I train my legs.  Depending on the workout that I have planned, I typically begin with free weight squats.  When I do squats, I perform three good warm up sets to get the mind and the body in sync.  When I am ready, I put on 135 to begin my working sets.  With each successive set I ratchet up the resistance in increments of 20 until I hit 175.  For quite some time now, I've been squatting 175 without incident.  Since I've been cranking through 12 solid repetitions at this weight for quite awhile I just knew that it was time to up the ante . . . raise the bar if you will. 

For whatever reason, squatting 185 just stressed me right out.  (185 is a 45 and a 25lb plate on each side.)  It stressed me right out because at this weight you can see the bar flex and bend which makes me think about the load that I am putting on my spine not to mention my quads, hams, glutes, back, shoulders and to some degree my knees. (Although if you squat properly, the knees really don't get overly taxed.  The movement begins at the hip and the knees merely follow secondarily to put maximum load on the quads.)  I've been squatting now for years with excellent form.  In fact, it took me a LONG TIME to perfect the squat and to this very day I REFUSE to increase the resistance until I can get 12 perfect reps.  I have a great respect for the weights and realize the damage that you can do if you workout with improper and/or sloppy form.  I never sacrifice form for weight and simply will not allow others to goad me into adding weight before I am mentally prepared to do so.  I go at my own pace . . . PERIOD.  And this approach has served me well for the past eighteen years so I don't see any need to change it.   

Logically I knew that I could get 185.  Certainly, if I could blast through 12 excellent reps at 175 without thinking about it, then I could  get 185 for at least 8.  That's the thought process but the mind is a powerful thing.  When you are pushing to your maximum there isn't any room for doubt.  You cannot afford even a split-second lapse in mental focus; once you commit to the set you have to stay in it, push through it and never give up.  If the mind goes, the body follows and injury could very well be the result.  I was determined to get 185 and just wasn't going to back away from it.  Since I typically workout alone, I didn't have a spot so I made sure that I adjusted the bars on the squat rack just in case I had to set it down.  Because my mind couldn't accept an additional 10 pounds all at once, I went ahead and put  2.5 pounds on either side raising the overall resistance to 180.  After confidently powering through 10 solid reps, I went ahead and added another 2.5 pounds to each side bringing the resistance up to 185.  I got 8 solid reps!  I gotta say, at the moment I am pretty pleased!  (Even though I know that it will only last so long before I feel the need to push it again and go to 190.)

Just in case you guys are wondering, I went on to perform three sets of heavy hack squats (I hate these) supersetted with a variety of quad extensions to really shape and develop the quads.  After that, it was three sets of leg presses (single leg) supersetted with the seated leg curl.  I wound up this little routine with a few sets for the calves and made sure that I pushed every singe set to the absolute limit! 

And today . . . exactly two days later . . . my ass (along with my hamstrings, quads and calves) are postively KILLING ME!  I LOVE IT!        

Perspective

Every so often life gives you a shot of perspective.  Just a little bit of insight into how others perceive you.  I always enjoy these unexpected moments because they tend to let me know if I am on the right track.

The other day, I was in the gym talking with a bunch of my group training students before class began.  Turns out that one of them has a six-year-old daughter with an artistic flare.  Apparently, one evening the child decided to sit down and draw a picture of the gym and some of us in it.  She made sure that she drew the stairs leading up to the gym, the doorway leading into the gym, the front desk and then me:

Though it's a little difficult to see, the partially erased figure on the far left with extraordinarily long stringy hair is yours truly.  When her mother took a look at the original picture, she told her daughter that I recently had my hair cut to which she replied, with a raised brow, "oh, I wasn't aware of that."

Not at all a problem for our budding artist.  She quietly set about back to work and drew me again.  Hence the figure on the right of the girl with the short hair and baseball hat on backwards!  Here's a closeup:

HA! HA! HA! I LOVE it!  Children always seem to nail the details.  She might have missed my impressive biceps and absolutely incredible lat spread but at least she got the big smile and the New Orleans Saints hat . . . you know the real important stuff!   

The Long and Short of It

I finally did it. 

After about a year and a half, I decided that it was time to have my hair lopped off.  I grew it out to such a preposterous length for one reason only -- to donate it to Locks of Love for someone to use and enjoy.

I have to admit that one of the perks for me during the past year and a half was that my hair really didn't take much to maintain.  (At least not the way that I did it.)  For those that really know me, I am not someone who enjoys overly fussing with styling my hair; getting up and running a brush through it is about all of the "styling" that I can tolerate . . . really. 

All of my life people constantly commented on my "wonderfully thick" and "beautiful" hair.  Decades worth of hairdressers noted just how much I could do with it.  Well, that's nice except that I cannot think of a more fantastic waste of time than having to spend an hour styling my hair.  I therefore did the next best thing; grew it out, cut it all off and then sent it forth into the world for someone else to style! 

So knowing my general attitude toward all things excessively girly, you can imagine the hysteria that ensued when I told my little sister that I was going to pay a visit to a random hairdresser to have my hair cut off . . .  all by myself! 

Holding the phone out about two feet from my ear I heard very loud and abundantly clear, "CHRISTINE HARDY!  DON'T YOU D-A-R-E GO WITHOUT ME!"  She had to make absolutely certain that she was present at all pertinent times to give the professional hairdresser explicit instructions on how to properly cut and style my hair.  (Recall that she was the one that made me put in big purple curlers before my photo shoot . . . and I did so . . . without a peep . . . well almost anyway!)   

To command the utmost control over the situation, my little sister arranged to have a hairdresser come directly to her home.  My request was pretty straight forward -- cut my hair and make it look half-way decent.  Accomplishing the task required only a single comb and pair of sharp scissors.  That's it.  My little sister, on the other hand, required so much more . . . of everything.  There were numerous mixing bowls involved, an assortment of intriguing brushes, tongs, clips, combs, rubber gloves, pins, little sheets of tin foil and an array of unidentifiable substances; substances that smelled like industrial paint remover and could likely melt your skin and/or instantly burn a hole clean through your skull.  At a certain point, I couldn't help but wonder if exposure to this kind of stuff was safe without extensive Hazmat gear. 

For me, this was indeed quite an eye-opener.  Before this experience, I never dreamed that it was possible to tie up the better part of an entire day having your hair done.  Apparently it is. 

When all was said and done, I ended up with something called a "modified shag" and Locks of Love ended up with twelve inches of hair to to with as they see fit.  For the most part everyone seems to like my brand new style.  In fact, I received extensive compliments and in the process discovered that there were literally hoards of people out there (many of whom I've never formally met) who thought that I looked like utter shit with long hair.  Do I really care?  Uh . . . hell no!  

Here is what I look like now in case any of you happen to pass me on the street (want my autograph) and don't immediately recognize me: