Up at 5.
My cat woke me up at 5am, and I couldn’t go back to sleep.
I ended up at the gym at 6:30 and did a nice hour of cardio on the elliptical. The last 5 mintues I went above 150bpm a few times – blame “We didn’t start the fire”.
Last night, I had my first shoulder/arm workout. The only real problem was the shoulder press machine. I’m either not the right size for it, or didn’t use it right (I’d bet on the latter). My biceps are hurting today! And skull-crushers are tough.
Feeling great today – I’m going to have another great day of eating correctly, and get some work done – I’m working on a nasty parser that’s giving me some grief.
Skull crushers are
awsome. Since you mentioned that you’re basically n00b at weight lifting, here’s a quick french press tip: Many people will finish the end of the tricep extention and have their arms at a 90 degree angle to their body. This removes all strain from the triceps, and so reduces the effectiveness. Keep your arms in a reduced superman at the end, so that even at full extention your tri’s stay flexed and painful :)Er – Looks like you’re getting there! At the gym by 6:30am, you can’t be related to me! Looking forward to seeing more pics as those abs start revealing themselves.
Hah, If I taught every night, I wouldn’t be up that early, but when you get to sleep at 11, 6 is easy :)
Your picture(s) are odd. It looks like you are distending your abdomen. From what I can tell, its possible we are not seeing the whole picture. From the way your picture looks, I am guessing that you are an ectomorph and pretty low body fat. First of all there is no way to genetically know if one has a six-pack or seven-pack or eight-pack or whatever. The only way to know is to have a low enough body fat (8-9% for men) to have the abdominal muscles showing through. If you are distending your abdomen in the pictures you may already know what your adbominal muscles look like and are already low enough body fat to succeed without doing anything more than slightly dehydrating yourself. Can you show us some real pictures so that we can see what your “real” current state is.
Otherwise, if you are telling the truth, losing body fat around you abdominal region is tough to do, but building up the muscles underneath the fat is pretty easy (just do a bunch of crunches)
In the pictures, I’m in a relaxed state, not flexed or distended. I will be flexing as time goes on, and the layer of adipose is thinner.
I am pretty sure that my rectus abdominus is “built” just fine – I have VERY strong abs and can feel the firmness of them THROUGH the fat.
The fat layer (measured one inch from my belly button to the right, pinched vertically) is about 32mm, so I have a ways to go.