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Calves… Tour de France or World Cup?

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So we all have body parts that we struggle to control, grow, or define. Right? No, just me? Ok, stop reading here.

For those of you who do, I can relate. I have two body parts I really struggle improving – abs and calves.

Abs I’ve discussed before… So, what brought the calves up?

Cristiano Ronaldo legs, calves, absI watched some of the World Cup and some of the Tour de France recently and my oldest daughter walked in during both with roughly the same comment. Those guys are lean and they have great legs! Dad, you need to run / cycle!

Lance Armstrong CalvesOUCH! On two accounts. One, freaking me out a bit with her commenting on the guy’s legs. Two, I know what she meant.

I naturally have smaller calves. I know it and I work on them pretty hard. Not hard enough evidently.

Would I swap my chest and arms for their legs? Uh, [Read more…]

Workout reality check

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My primary workout partner aka ‘That Guy’ is traveling today, or so he says. So I worked out alone today for the first 30 minutes and then our part time partner (ie, shows up a couple times a week) decided to drag his ass out of bed and make an appearance.

I was finishing up with some triceps cable pushdowns so we moved over to the biceps machine for a superset with seated tricep push downs. Note – supersets with only two people is always an effective way to get someone moving who is a talker – they would rather discuss stocks, sports, cars, or anything else that avoids lifting heavy weight consistently – not enough time with this plan! You can thank me later.

New Guy at the GymAnother guy at the gym who just started coming in a couple weeks ago asked if he could work in on the bicep machine. Ugh, new guy :(

5am, very sparse crowd, SERIOUSLY? WTF, but since we were moving fast no big deal. OK.

Then he started critiquing technique. What?

Here’s the deal… We generally have two rules in the gym and sometimes we mix in [Read more…]

The World’s Smallest Violin

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Not sure if they still make these instruments

You have most likely heard the phrase, or perhaps seen someone make a gesture as if they are playing a tiny violin.

Well, I had to pull mine out and tune it up today!

In case you are not 40-ish and are too young to know what I am referring to, here is the standard situation you might use your tiny violin:

You have two people talking and one of them is not at all impressed with the other person’s story and really considers it whining or complaining. The listener begins rubbing his thumb and forefinger together near his ear and often asks “Do you hear that” or “do you know what I am doing? I’m playing the world’s tiniest violin and a sad song for you!”

There is a time for everything. Usually.

No, I am not referring to Ecclesiastes 3 which spells out a time and place for everything… that is for another post.

For the 40-ish crowd, if you don’t read the bible, you might recall Ecclesiastes 3 from Kevin Bacon’s plea to the schoolboard:

The gym is not the time and place to whine and complain about your life to others, especially guys. Even more specifically, your workout partners… No, not even if they are [Read more…]