RoryQ

@Scott R

Just don't have scrapes on your shin from deadlifting the week of your appointment!

Homemade burgers with melted blue cheese on top and a big bottle of rogue porter... OM NOM NOM.

Defrosted the fridge freezer (yeah, my glamorous day-off) so I 'have' to have about a kilo of steak and eggs in the morning. It's rough, but I'll get through it.

I saw a guy get a buddha head with flowers on his side from Hua (East Tattoo) late last year. It had to be a one-day job because of the way they were booked up and guesting, so the guy sat for 6-7 hours. He was pretty solid for the first 5 hours but for the last two he was shaking like he had withdrawals, moaning and generally suffering.

He made it, but it looked like agony.

I've only had a bit of outline from my back stretch stretch towards my ribs and my sense is that I will get them done ... But I'm going to limit my sittings to half-days - I'd rather tackle it in bits and pieces.

Yeah, in the ordinary course of things I would always choose a squat variation over the leg press, but in this instance I'm prepared to be convinced to the contrary if in the short to medium term if it would be easier on my c-spine.

Thanks guys...

Day 1 GVT !

Warm-up and prehab as above and then on to it. I decided not to super-set the first time around. So 60 seconds rest between sets.

10x10 DB bench - ... I estimated too light on this, as I got 10 reps on my 10th set. That said, I'd rather under-estimate on my first day than overestimate and end up with only four or five reps for the last few sets. I think just going a few kilos heavier would have been fine on this.

10x10 Inverted row with feet elevated - ... This was more like it. I got 10 reps for the first 5 sets and then dropped off to 9, 8, 7, 7, 7. As I read Polloquin's original articles I think that's about right? Even better if the drop-off tapers off in the next few workouts due to some neurological adaptation.

So, too light on the bench but that's something I can easily remedy. The rows felt about right.

I'm thinking I might actually leg press and leg curl for my lower body. I know leg-pressing is an acceptable alternative to squatting on GVT and my rationale is that it may be easier on my c-spine (going to check with my physio first). I figured leg curls versus RDLs for the same reason, but we'll see what she says. I'm normally a free weights type of guy, but the nature of this programme might actually lend itself well to leg pressing.

I thought of trying to stick with single leg exercises, a la Mike Boyle, but that would mean doing 10 x 10/10. I might try it, but I suspect it would be both time-consuming and even more hellish.

I've been curious about Black Garden - Tutti Sera in there does some amazing stuff also. Animal heads in particular.

Anyone ever given GVT (German volume training) a decent go - any views on it?

I'm going to work more in higher rep ranges for the rest of the year. At the moment I'm more or less doing a Mike Boyle 3-day a week template, but have always been curious to try something stripped-down and high-volume like GVT. I haven't previously done any purely hypertrophy orientated training and thought I might be a couple of months of progress out of it.

Was thinking of doing something like

Warm-up as usual-

-Mobility warmup

-Neck and shoulder prehab

Then (either super-setting these with 90 secs rest or seperately with 60 secs rest between sets)-

Upper body day

10x10 Bench @ 60% 1RM or bench variation etc.

10x10 Inverted row with feet elevated or other row variation

Lower body day

10x10 Squat variation @ 60% 1RM

10x10 RLD, leg curl or variaion

Probably do some arm and shoulder assistance work and midline work after the main lifts if I have the energy.

I think this is more or less healed up. Bit of a rubbish photo but I'm only using the Mac. Got to get a proper pic later to forward onto Ching.

The last session (face and headpiece) has settled down and blended in with the rest. And yes, I really am this pale.

Over the rest of the year I am looking at a couple of smaller traditional pieces on my right leg, and then sometime towards the end of the year I am going to try and sleeve the rest of my right arm with Ching - got a design planned out already.

Thought this one was cool. I still think tiger head hand tattoos look great for some reason.

Just got a box in the mail this morning from the Wesvleteran brewery. It's an abbey that makes trappist beer and is one of the more unusual ones in that you still have to more or less go there in person to get hold of the beer.

From time to time they break their rules on this, when money is tight. I bought a pack of bottled beers and two of their special glasses as part of an online sale to build a new wing the abbey needs.

I've never had it before, but Westvleteren is intriguing because various beer websites and tasters consistently place it amongst their favourite beers. On the one hand I wonder if this isn't directly linked to the unavailability of this beer in the general course of things, but I should know in about an hour, when I open a bottle.

The tasting notes mention 'blue cheese'. Hmm.

They make up with their female talent though!!!

Sweden certainly has some beautiful scenery. You've just got to be careful when you're travelling with your girlfriend.

The whiskey was called Mackmyra. It was about 48% and actually smelled kind of nice and floral... But even cut with water it seemed to have a really high-alcohol mouthfeel... Not the sort of oily, peaty, interesting robustness you might get with a potent islay whiskey - it was just more like a raw alcohol taste.

Afterwards I opted for the safe bet and went for a 16 year old Lagavulin. Hard to beat that, and the contrast was pretty remarkable. I know that's a bit like commenting that driving a BMW 5 series felt vastly superior to driving a Nissan Micra or something, but they cost me the same so I think from a punter's point of view it's a fair comment!

Interestingly they were selling the whiskeys by the 10ml, with a standard swedish measure seeming to run at 30ml - 40ml. It was costing me about 14 euro for a measure, which I guess would work out at 15-16 dollars. Not sure what you guys think of that, but here in Dublin I would reallistically expect to be paying at least 12-20 euro for a measure of 16 year old whiskey like the Lagavulin (in contrast, a blended whiskey like a Jameson or Paddy's might be a third of that).

Drank some swedish whiskey over the past few days - form a distillery north of Stockholm.

Let's just say there's a reason Sweden is not famed for its whiskey!

Cool man it will be a real trip for her. What is she wanting ??

She's giving him a pretty free hand with the design, but they've talked about a phoenix and some specific flowers and whatnot...

Another one from Ross Nagle (at the risk of regurgitating twitter - I think this one's worth it).

Is it your girlfriend who is getting tattooed by Shige?

Yeah, that's right. Consultation last winter, first sittings this coming winter.

Reading this thread has made me think about the difference between backpieces that are do-able in sub 30 hours (and maybe have a lot of negative space, or only cover the back and don't go far down onto the ass, or legs) versus ones, like Tick's, which sound they like really are from neck to low on the legs.

In terms of tattoo time there must be a heck of a difference.

My girlfriend is starting hers later in the year, and she's going to be going down onto her thighs. I suspect it's going to be a much more dense design too. To be honest, I think I might have gotten off lightly.

You can probably tell what was the last area to be done, LOL.

Finished my backpiece today (whew, glad that's over). Will try and get a decent pic once it has settled down a bit.

Chad Koeplinger cancelled on me for Friday - he isn't coming to Ireland after all! Oh well, I'll catch him later.

@Cork

I finished my backpiece today. It took about 25 hours, give or take, but it was all black and grey and there's a fair bit of negative space.

I've heard of this before but never tried it - Mamma Mia! Pizza Beer?

To be honest any speciality beer which involves fruit, coffee, honey, smoke, hemp, oatmeal, guava, gingseng, whiskey or whatever is going to be 'love it or hate it'. Personally I think coffee flavours can work in a stout or porter, and there's a locally brewed hemp IPA here that is pretty popular. There's obviously there's a lot of popular beers which are aged in whiskey, rum or bourbon barrels to develop an unusual flavour. And Christmas ales, with ginger, nutmeg, etc? People have been brewing using fruits and alternatives to grains for a long time.

I think special offerings do have a place in the beer market. Sure, most of the time I am happy with a conventional well-made ale, stout etc. with no bells or whistles, but there are times when it's good to see the envelope being pushed. Imagine if we applied a logic to food whereby we said he only want certain flavour combinations and nothing 'out there'...

A tomato and basil element in a beer strikes me, personally, as pretty disgusting, but then again I can't understand how people can eat canned tuna, so to each their own....

Re-watching 'Dog Soldiers' .... Absolutely the best werewolf movie ever made.

@Avery Taylor

I've wondered about some of that biker flash you're talking about, Avery - what the context was, and how much people really thought about the significance of some of the symbols being used. I mean, it's not like it was Jondix using something in the context of an eastern repeat pattern, or whatever - it's the skulls, deaths heads, swastikas etc. I know there are a lot of traditional tattoo enthusiasts on here, but isn't that legacy fairly hard to celebrate?

I read a little about how it should be seen through a lense of tattooed people back then as outsiders and maybe an attempt at 'shock value' - but, would we accept the same argument today?

Re: DOMS -

I've no doubt Kyle's right that there's an individual element to it. For me I only seem to really get it bad in the lower body - usually if it's following a workout where there was a lot of volume and in particular if it was single leg stuff: Bulgarian split squats, like Hogg mentions, or even moreso if it was lunges for some reason (think Mike Boyle has written about the physiological reason for this and the less commonly-used muscles involved). I know what you mean about lowering yourself onto the toilet, Cork. This must be what it's like to be 80.

In gyms here I don't see that many people who are just lifting who have decent tattoos.

The BJJ/MMA crowd seem to be more likely to have some decent stuff, particularly japanese-style work, although the preference seems to still be for fairly uninspiring tribal and black work (not exactly Thomas Hooper / Jondix calibre stuff, put it that way).

I remember last year in Chicago I did meet one huge bodybuilder who had a cool Hanna Aitchison pin-up on his leg.

Been wanting to try whiskey stones! Another alternative to them would be one of those extra-large ice cubes - I gather they're used because they don't melt as quickly.

I think it depends on the whiskey. I went to a tasting run by Jameson before Christmas and they made us taste everything uncut, and then cut with water (say, half of the measure of whiskey in the glass). In the cases of particular bottles - the cask strength ones, for example - I think it makes sense to cut it to get the best from it.