Highs and lows, peaks and valleys, that is just life ain’t it?
No matter what you are doing, you could be up one minute and down the next. Happens in sports all the time, in careers, and in love…..so the gym is no different. Some amazing sessions followed by disappointment. Week to week my mind changes thinking I am not doing enough, then my body reacts negatively and tells me I am doing too much. The week started brightly and ended on a whimper, bit disappointing but we go again for the final push in this 20-week course. Muscle mass is growing, is it time to start cutting?
Session 1 :
I got the blood pumping early with a nice 10k that day. It was the longest I went since my knee injury in December so I was buzzing for a bit of weight training after. Chest and back is always the week opener, with high reps and lots of sets. The opener was fairly standard, however, when we went onto the incline we supersetted the superset, 20 reps then straight into single arms presses, followed by a bit of back rowing into single-armed ones. The biggest shocker to the system was the decline bench. Usually, we use a machine for that, it was a bit weak but that is to be expected. Leaving that day I had a chat with Vinnie and told him I would like to try and push towards upping the max bench press just for shits and giggles so for the final three weeks I should have a max! It is exciting.
Session 2 :
I got the shit-talking in early, slagging off Vinnie before we got started. Telling him I was disappointed to see he would be in charge of today’s session due to his penchant for making this too easy. Now hear me out, there is a method to my madness. I wanted to be challenged, but too many times I caught myself complaining in jest while training, even though I loved it. So I wanted to piss Vinnie off, so he would make that day’s workout particularly intense. Then I would make a point of never stop smiling, no matter how he tried devoted he was to breaking me. Yes, I was starfished on the floor as we got to the end, but I stayed smiling despite Vinnie’s efforts! Next week will no doubt be tougher, but it will progress.
Vinnie would pick up a 10 kg plate and I would scoff and ask is that was all, so 10kg became 20kg. Vinnie would count reps and I would hold up my fingers counting with him, so more reps got added. Time under tension added plates, strongman training, nothing was gonna bring me down. I was on such a high after my run that morning, it clears any fog in the head and you are ready to attack the day.
Session 3 :
An absolute write-off. After a tremendously positive day on legs, shoulders, and arms day was abysmal. I was in such a rush coming in and felt tense. I rapidly did my warm-up before going onto the Viking Press. I was motivated to get a good sweat but disaster struck as on the second set on the eighth rep my right shoulder felt like it just gave up. I pushed on and completed the set in bad pain, then finished the next set. It was when we went to the next machine that my shoulder gave up and Vinnie made the call to do some rehab type exercises. It was a quite shocking reminder of my neglect in regard to my mobility throughout my 20’s. Flexibility is pretty much zero. I fecking hate stretching, even before soccer games, the warm-up used to wreck my head. It is time-consuming and a waste of energy, I would say to myself. Never had a serious injury, a few pulls, partial tears, and sprains but nothing to major. Then as I got older my disregard seems to be catching up with me. Vinnie reckons it may be a rotator cuff issue, however, did recommend I go to the physio. I was gutted to have to give on the day’s session, but I have been living hard and fast throughout April, so it may be an indication that I need to slow down, Dwayne Johnson I most certainly am not.
