Cork

That's definitely Pavel writing that. If you watch any of his videos, he makes fun of girly men.

Dude, I have no appts set yet, it is not a big deal to get a jump on it in NY...

I can't stress how grateful I am for getting the heads up on these opportunities. I sent you an email.

Any rotator cuff exercises you do will help. You can never get enough RC work. Just do it at the end of your workout.

Also just to update you guys on my training. I've decided to back out from the bodybuilding show. I just wasn't far enough along for my preference. The goal was to take top 3, and with the conditioning I have, I would have been lucky to place that high. So I'm off the wagon and eating and drinking again, oh what a life it is, haha.

My goal short term is to keep lean and ride the contest prep rebound to get some amazing strength gains.

Oh man, NY is soooo much closer than Richmond, VA..... Screw it, I already have my slot for November, so I'll wait until then. I don't want to mess up your schedule.

Might be that I gained too many pounds to my deadlift too soon

Malarky! If you can lift it, you can lift it. No way would a heavy deadlift give you a bum shoulder unless you have some sort of crazy technique.

Thanks for the learning experience. Seems like it might be a once in a lifetime chance to get a tattoo from him, and the price reflects that.

Forgive my greenhorn ignorance, and the following blunt question... but who is Chris Conn? I've read this forum from top to bottom, watched interviews, and read tons of other material, I don't recall the name.

Please no flame, I'm just here to learn. :)

The moth tattoos now make me think of the Mothman Prophecies movie. Great movie, but real freaky imagery that I now can't get out of my head.

Octopi make badass tattoos.

Well I'm pretty stoked now, to say the least.

Yeah honestly I wish it weren't about the money. Just the whole wedding and house thing and budgeting with a joint income. If this convention is an opportunity that I can't pass on, I'm going for it. If it turns out that the Stells are going to be on the East Coast again in maybe the next 5 years, I'd rather wait until then when money won't be a factor. I emailed Jennifer :)

2.5 hours and my arm pit was screaming.. one more session left in June..

Damn, would you get that thing finished already!? haha

Looks good. The only thing I'm not keen on is it looks like her eye is rolling into the back of her head. Is it supposed to look like that?

Thanks Jennifer, I'd like to chat. Planning a wedding and a house purchase early next year, so coming up with a number ahead of time would ease my fiancee's mind. I'll brainstorm a bit and decide between a tiger or a panther, haha. I'll PM you when I can. I'm taking only a quick internet break at work. Thanks for the info.

The classic raptor riding an old time bicycle.

Tattoo by Alex Vidaud, at Nautilus Tattoo in Newington CT

Gunnar

What is Richard's rate these days? I'm seriously considering travel to the Richmond Convention since it seems that might be the closest you 2 get to me.

That back piece looks amazing... and for that whole bottom half to get done like that in only 3 hours. Crazy.

Vibrating bone, eh? Hate it when that happens. Keep up with the pushups and I'm sure that as your strength increases, that will go away.

I used to leg press but some how it always manages to be the first removed from my regimen when I try different things. My leg day used to be squats, leg press, walking lunges, seated extensions. Now since I split my leg day into two, it's a whole lot of squats, front squats, dead lifts, and glute ham raises since I have discovered the importance of a well developed posterior chain, which leg press does nothing for.

Most people who have lower back problems have them from an underdeveloped posterior chain. Substituting leg press for squats is only enforcing that weakness. This is coming from my own personal experience. My lower back sucked and I would be afraid of hurting myself on every dead lift day. My core is now stronger than it has ever been, especially my lower back, and it's been through many grueling core strength exercises and strict strengthening of the arch in the lower back.

There is a black guy at the gym I frequent who has the spartan shield with the red cloak hanging around it. You can definitely tell that it's red, but it's very dark. I'd say on the scale of blackness, he is about average skin tone.

I need to go to London....

That looks awesome. Great battle royale.

Plague doctors, skull morphs, cthulu , knuckle duster & roses , taz ....

cthulu gets my vote!

The English wiki is a lot different than the finnish. In the english ROA they only speak about military, but in the finnish one also about police. And the police holds the trainings for people who want to teach the "Special forcible means" :) That is the term from finnish police website. I guess they just directly translated from finnish to english :P

So, I have no idea what the correct term is!

You might be talking about SWAT or something similar. I understand what you're saying.

I would ask out of curiosity only, no way I'd give up my place on the food chain at this point.

CG

Cheers to that.

I post regularly on a bodybuilding website on my training with video and pic updates. I just did a good update today, and instead of copying and pasting, I'll just share the link out of ease.

Spaceballs: The Training Log - Page 51

No offense, but going to a female vegan and asking for nutrition advice is a waste of time. Women rely on food for emotional support and very few understand how to put together a diet. If you are vegan, you do it for belief and not to live a healthier lifestyle, though many vegans will claim the latter.

And Andreas Cahling ate eggs; animal protein.

Most obvious question -how many grams of carbs are you having per day ?

I've always been the carb sensitive kind of guy, so I keep pretty low carbs even when I'm not doing contest prep. I honestly don't track my macros perfectly right now. I get them all set at the beginning of my prep, but they change depending on how I feel. I normally run pretty low, about 100-150g a day, all based around my workout. I do refeed days about once every 5 days of ~250g cho.

Ha, silly math. I even typed 225 but for some reason I had 325 in my head.

Sucks to hear about he pain @Colored Guy. Hopefully PT works well for you and you heal up fast.

@hogg A 2xBW bench is damn impressive. I'd say 88lbs BW with dips isn't too far from a 225lb bench. How do you setup on the bench and what is your sticking point? I'm sure your technique could use some work. Pick an appropriate exercise to work on that weak point and your bench should go up. Also, get your body weight up and do your upper back work. A more stable body means bigger weights can be handled.

I'm stilling going strong with my contest prep. I sort of psyched myself out by looking at the competitors who have done this show in the past couple years. They are in damn good shape and top 3 is going to be hard to get. I just have to hope that I got big enough in the last year and keep on charging ahead. One of the worst parts of competitive bodybuilding is all the damn mind games you play with yourself.