Updates and ramblings

6 weeks and 4 days out.  Time is starting to fly now!  I am hitting the wall a lot of people hit - feeling a bit resentful about having to spend so much time at the gym and wanting to be able to take a day or two off.  I saw this and thought it was so true!

I think this is also a control issue, as I my endurance is waning as my time in the gym gets longer.  My workouts are still hard and fast, but as I lose endurance, my strength fades a little, which I hate.  Overall, my workouts are still very solid so far.  And I am only doing 5 more minutes of cardio per day that I was a few weeks ago, so that isn't too bad, although I still hate cardio.  What is wearing me out is trying to expand the time I spend in posing practice at the gym.  I like to do it at the gym for two reasons: 1. because there are mirrors everywhere and the lighting helps me see what I need to work on flexing, and 2. I can do it uninterrupted there.  It is good to practice after my workouts, too, because my muscles are tired, so I gets used to holding poses when I am exhausted, which, in theory, should help when I hit the stage.  I feel better about my posing, even though it still needs a lot of work.  The more I practice, the easier it is to get the basic mechanics of the pose, the easier it gets to remember to flex everything, and the less I have to think about it, freeing me up to also starting working on my transitions and forming my posing routine.  I'm steady leaning out, and though I still have some fear I'm not going to come in on time for the show, I am less dominated by that fear.  I think the thing I have to remember is that I am not trying to come in perfectly conditioned, but conditioned enough to experience my first show. 

Here are my pics from 7-21-12, with my usual commentary, of course!

I am happier with this pose, as I can see improvements:

 I can't take this pose seriously.  It feels so awkward!  It is easy to see that I still have a long way to go with my stomach.  In the end this is going to be what makes or breaks whether I do the show.  I can see where my upper thighs are starting to lean out some.  Thank goodness, as I never thought that was going to happen!

 I can make this one like a search it game...this pose brings up an obvious training error for me.  Do you see it?  If not, I'll elaborate on this in a bit.  Again, my stomach is an issue in this pose, which for now accentuates that I am still carrying baby weight right below the belly button.  That has been leaning out a lot recently, though.  You can see hear where my upper legs are leaning out more, but refer to the back quarter turn pose to see where I am still thick...

 I am getting better at bringing my arms down and still flaring my lats.  My legs are showing more definition, as are my arms and shoulders.  As with the other front poses, the stomach is the major problem area...

 Here I can see where my actual waist is starting to leaning out, giving me width in my lats and shoulders.  The skin is an obvious thing, especially when I have my top pulled down to expose my lats.  This is something that will come taper down in the last few weeks and is normal.  The thing that I really noticed here was that I am still pretty thick through the glutes.  That has been leaning out from week to week, too, so we will see...

 I have really been struggling with my leg placement on these side poses.  It has gotten better, and more comfortable, but it is still weird.  I can move my front leg around for transitioning, which is a huge improvement over two weeks ago. 

 I am happy with the side quarter turns.  I really worked this past week on what it feels like to pull my shoulder back without pulling my elbow back and think I have made a lot of improvement in hitting this pose better, in general and in transitions.

 As with the side chest, the side tricep posing is awkward due to the leg placement.  I can see definite improvements and can identify here what I need to tweak.

Like the other side, I am gaining confidence with this pose overall, although my elbow may be a little far back here.

Now...back to the front bicep pose question...did you see the training error?  If you look closely, you will see that my left bicep is fuller than my right bicep.  I thought for a bit that it was related to my inability to flex it fully do to some tendonitis, but I am realizing that it is a conditioning issue specifically related to the inner head of my bicep.  If you look at my back bicep pose, I have full and symmetrical biceps.  Not so with the front.  I finally realized that, as a result of the pain of the tendonitis, I was probably making minor adjustments with my hand placements, resulting in less stress on the inner head, thus resulting in less fullness overall.  I am not a fan of self-portrait pictures, but here is a side:side comparison, where you can really see the issue:

 Left

Right

I started working on correcting this yesterday.  It's funny when people walk by and see you with different weighted dumbbells.  I was waiting for someone to say something, but no one did.  I had to do this a while back with my front delt, so I know it's a relatively simple fix.  Hopefully it gets corrected in time.

That's it for today!  Hope everyone is having a great week so far!