Gym Motivation Video - Franco "The Sardinian Strongman" Columbu Bodybuilding legend

01:35 Unknown 0 Comments

Franco Columbu is one of the greatest bodybuilders in history often falling behind Arnold's shadow even though he was very talented and a great champion bodybuilder, power-lifter and boxer back in the day. He had the size and the cuts, if he was taller I think everyone would rate him higher and maybe arnold would not have won the Olympia as many times as he did (he probably would have still won since he played mind games with his opponents).
Franco Columbu posing with his huge arms and lats
Franco Columbu posing with his big arms and lats

"My back is a weapon that I use to destroy my opponents." ~ Franco Columbu

Franco is a bodybuilding legend, there is no denying that, here is a motivation video dedicated to the Sardinian Strongman:

"Don't attempt advanced routines with extremely heavy weight until you are at the appropriate level of strength. Be your own judge."~ Franco Columbu

Do you want to give up working out?

09:17 Unknown 0 Comments

Many people start things but never finish them because they give up too quickly. When it comes to being successful it’s never going to be easy, giving up certainly isn't going to help you achieve success. This a fitness blog and I talk about building muscle so I am going to talk about how people give up when they do not gain muscle as fast as they wanted, or when they start to feel a little pain. Some people even achieve results but something makes them stop and they never get back to lifting weights or exercising, in the end they get in worse shape than before they even started exercising.

never never never give up
never ever give up

Don’t Give Up

Giving up is easy, you do not get anything from giving up. I mean you do not get anything positive from giving up; you get depressed and feel like a failure when you give up. Muscles do not grow easy, building muscle is a hard and long journey. This journey often weeds out the weak, so that each week, each month all those guys not willing to put in the hard work, not willing to stand the pain and not willing to dedicate their time to the gym fall off like flies not having achieved anything, but those who make it, those who stick with it and are consistent build not only muscle but a high self esteem which improves other areas in their lives, those who make it come out strong. What you have to realize is that you may be weak now but everyone has to start somewhere. Weakness is a choice, you can be weak today but go to the gym, push yourself hard, push through the pain when your mind is telling you to give up and the beast that will result from this torture will be strong both in mind and body.


It’s normal to want to take the easy option

I have felt like not going back to gym before, it was the easy thing to do but I said no! I am going to the gym even if I felt like shit and I would get there pump that iron, start feeling the pump and the endorphin rush and I would think “WTF was I thinking before”. Its hard sometimes going back to the gym if you have been missing a few gym sessions, one week  turns to two and the next thing you know you have not set foot in the gym in years. Do not allow that to happen for you, think about your goals, think about how you will feel once you look like your goal physique, think about how it felt at the end of your workouts. Remember that sense of achievement when you lift a heavy ass weight you could not lift before.

“It’s always too soon to quit.” – Norman Vincent Pearle

Never choose the easy path it often never pays off. Before you even think of giving up, try different things first when your current workout plan is not working. There is a workout that works for everyone out there you just need to find what works best for you. Giving up is just lazy, laziness will get you zilch. It’s easy being comfortable, eating whatever the hell you want whenever you want but what does that get you? Fat! It’s not easy counting calories, eating healthy and working out but it’s worth it because you get to look and feel like a Greek god. Think about that next time you decide to quit. 

Its bulky time, time to get big by eating big and training like a beast

20:07 Unknown 0 Comments

People in the northern hemisphere are gearing up for the summer and in fitness terms that means they are getting cut so that they look ripped, to showcase the muscle gained during the long and cold winter. Others did not bulk (at least not intentionally) during the winter so they might just want to get a beach body by losing a few kilo's. Most of my blog readers/visitors are from the northern hemisphere so I guess most of you guys are getting shredded, but I am going in the opposite direction. I am bulking up to pack on some size, even though I was gaining lean muscle these past few months, I was not in bulk mode.

bulking like a saiyan
Its bulky time

Why am I bulking now?

First of all I am bulking because I have been in pseudo-cutting mode for a while now, and my goal is not to be a small or medium sized cut guy, I want to be big and cut at least appearance wise even if I am not really big weight-wise. The other reason is that I live in the southern hemisphere so it is autumn here right now and soon it will be winter so everyone is going to be covered up, so its the best time to get bulky while we hide from the cold in the comfort of warm  clothes (not that it would be cold here for you northern hemisphere guys but to us guys in the southern hemisphere who are used to temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius, it is cold to wake up to temperatures at 0 degrees or anything under 5 degrees Celsius for that matter).

can you handle the bulk
can you handle me when I am bulking?

Also I do not follow the whole winter bulk/summer cut routine that some people follow, its just a coincidence that I am bulking now and not in the summer. Before I said I was cutting in Jan I had been on a constant bulk basically ever since I started lifting weights through all 4 seasons I would just bulk. 

Another reason for bulking now is to optimize the effectiveness of my arnold type workout plan, I feel I will get better results if I am in bulking mode while doing this program. Note that when I say I am bulking and cutting, I usually do not change my workout, I merely change the amount of food(calories) I eat. So when I say I am bulking I mean I will be increasing my food portions which have been restricted since Jan.

bulking up eating up
its time to eat a whole lot of food

I liked the results I was getting with my Arnold workout with decreased food portions, It gave me lean, hard, skin-tight muscle but I am looking forward to see what an increase in calories will do. Its a good thing I will be buying new winter clothes soon, my old clothes were getting too small for my comfort.

Dirty bulking vs clean bulking

There are basically two ways people bulk up, one way is eating anything and everything you can find, that includes eating a whole lot of junk food commonly referred to as a dirty bulk, this method is not preferred if you want serious muscle gain as it will give you more fat gain than muscle gain, also you will find that when you cut that you have not made much progress since you only got fatter during bulky season. The other method is more difficult but yields better results in terms of muscle to fat gain and that's the clean bulk, its a lot less tasty but some people can make healthy food delicious, its expensive but can be made more affordable by replacing certain meals with protein powders.

Look at how shredded Dwayne "the rock" Johnson got by eating clean:
This is my reward for 150 consecutive days of eating clean.. One. Legendary. Day. Work hard and earn your rewards.. (and a few cavaties ;) ~ the Rock 

the rock feasting
source: Facebook

How do you feel about rest day? How about unplanned rest days?

15:27 Unknown 0 Comments

Earlier in the week I was on twitter and one of the people I follow on twitter was sick and had to take an unplanned rest day. She is a beast in the gym and you can tell by her progress, so naturally being the gym junkie that she is, she hated the fact that she was ill, feeling weak and awful but what she hated even more was that she had to take an unplanned rest day. A few days later I too fell ill, so I missed a few gym sessions this week while I was recovering and all drugged up on medication. I lost my appetite but I forced myself to eat, was feeling tired and sluggish all the time (the medication added to this feeling), I basically felt like death but the worst is over now and I am looking forward  to hitting the weights again. I do not get sick often so when I do get sick, it usually hits me hard. 

rest day is the worst day of the week
Rest days are the worst day of the week
Image from: muscletown

Rest days suck but they are important

Taking a rest day sucks for a gym junkie but if you want to fully recover and continue making progress you need to have a rest day or two in your week depending on the kind of workout program you are on. The more demanding your workout is to the body the more rest days you need, for example someone on a whole body compound exercise program takes more rest days than someone who trains individual body parts every day. This is because the person who trains individual body parts can have up to 5 days rest per muscle group depending on their split even if they do not have a rest day whereas a whole body program trains all muscles groups in each workout session so you are more likely to train for only 3 days a week and rest the rest of the week to allow proper recovery.

What you lose with unplanned rest days/forced rest days

Getting back to why it sucks to have to take additional rest days or forced rest days. Imagine you have goals and a program in place to make sure you achieve such goals in the designated time. If you are on a whole body program and manage one gym session instead on three during the week that takes you a step backwards, if you are on a 5 day split and only managed to get maybe two gym sessions in this week that takes you a few steps backwards because that means there are a few muscles that have had too much rest instead of the usual 5 day rest they now have 10 days rest. Basically you are losing muscle, losing your muscle hardness and possibly the strength gains you had the week before, this little extended break may have taken your progress a week back.

What good could come out of unintentional rest days?

On a positive note the extra rest days may have been what your body really needed after a long period of extreme stress on your body. You may find that after the extended rest you will gain back all your strength that you lost, all the mass you lost out on in about week and you may even find that after this extended rest period that you break through the plateau you had hit prior to the rest. These rest days may have been all the recovery you needed to finally break through the walls you were starting to hit and being the gym addict that you are you may be even more motivated to lift with more intensity, lift heavier just because you feel bad about missing so many days of gym...after all going harder is what all gym beasts do when they get back to beast mode after a short hiatus.

Taking an extra day or two off the gym because of sickness is a good idea because like the sickness, the gym is a stress on the body and puts pressure on your immune system. If you are really sick and you continue to push yourself in the weight room, you may find yourself worse off than you would have been had you taken a few rest days off to treat the illness, giving your immune system time to fight off the sickness and recuperate instead of adding to the problem.