Category Archives: Health and Fitness

Health and Fitness

To drop bodyfat, all you gotta do is eat less calories, stay away from fatty foods, sugars… do all that, you’ll drop bodyfat in no time…

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Well it seems that my bodyfat has gotten a lot lower lately ’cause I’ve been eating less calories a  lot lately and it seems to be doing the trick. My skin is feeling tighter than ever lately and I’m dying to know what percentage my bodyfat is right now. I’m thinking it must be %10 percent or a little lower than that. I gotta order a bodyfat caliper online and I can find out where it’s at myself.

I continue to eat like 4 or 5 meals a day everyday but I’ve been sticking with mostly low calorie foods. Trying to keep my calorie intake pretty low. I still eat a lot of high protein and low carb stuff, though. I continue to eat a lot of complex carbs too like fruits, vegetables and whole grains. I’ve gotten better with nutrition and trying to educate myself with that.

If I happen to eat bad food for dinner, I won’t overeat and would only eat very little of it. My nutrition has gotten a lot more strict this year. I’ve been staying away from potato chips and bad soups. I’ve been staying away from cookies more (I still like to eat homemade cookies but only in moderation). I do a good job of avoiding simple carbs and other junk foods.

The only junk foods that I only touch are mostly pizza, ice cream and sometimes Chinese food ’cause you gotta have your cheat meals too which I have on the weekends only. You don’t have to avoid all bad foods completely but it’s okay to have that stuff on the weekends only. You gotta have some sugars and bad fats ’cause that actually helps build you muscle and get you bigger quicker. Cheat meals are good for you as long as you only have 1 or 2 cheat days a week, you’ll be fine. I only hog out on the weekends only ’cause I want to bring up a few pounds then I’ll try to lose it during the week.

Some of you may ask, do I keep a log of my meals by writing everything down like my macros and all that shit? I don’t but I should. At least I eat clean most of the time.

I just added rice cakes to my night time snacks ’cause they are very low in calories. I actually like rice cakes.

I just keep my clean nutrition very simple. I don’t do crazy shit like keto diets, plant based only diets, carb cycling, intermittent fasting, etc. I don’t do none of that garbage. I’m not a vegan and proud of it. I love meat and eat meat all the time. I eat a lot of fish, chicken breast and steak and proud of it.

I eat a lot of eggs too and I’m proud of it. I like eating foods from animals and if people don’t like it, that’s tough shit.

I’m doing my best with the nutrition part of fitness. Good eating and weightlifting go hand in hand. If you’re going to lift weights in the gym and not eat right then what’s the fucking point, ya know?

Kev

Health and Fitness

10 gym pet peeves of mine…

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Everybody has gym pet peeves and yes, even I do. I can come up with so many but these ones are the ones that annoy me the most. I don’t think I ever did this list before but if I did, oh well…

Enjoy:

  • People trying to talk with me during my workouts: I don’t really use the gym to socialize. When I’m in the zone and working out, I don’t want to be bothered. Most of the time I’m working out, I have headphones on listening to loud music so I can give people an easy sign that I don’t want to be talked to or be bothered. Yes, people will continue to be rude and want to chat me up anyway by tapping me on the shoulder or something so I can take my headphones off and chat with someone. I don’t want to talk with people during my workouts. I’ll socialize with people before or after my workouts but “during” is a big no no.
  • People who hog equipment: When I need to use a certain piece of equipment, there’s always someone taking forever on it. The squat rack, the deadlift platform and the cable machine are good examples. People take forever on these things, it’s crazy. When they complete one workout on a piece of equipment, they’ll do a different workout on the same thing. So annoying and pisses me off. I just keep doing other workouts while waiting to use this equipment I need to use. I hate equipment hoggers!
  • People giving me unsolicited advice: This happens once in a while. Some know it all comes over and says I’m doing a workout wrong and this person teaches me to do it his/her own way when I know I’m doing it right. This is a problem at the gym for sure.
  • People with bad gym etiquette: There’s a lot of people with bad gym etiquette. People don’t care to put weights back when they’re done, leaving trash behind, leaving benches and other equipment all sweaty, etc. I can go on and on. There are too many people who have no respect for a public and commercial gym. They only care for themselves sadly.
  • A real chatty person who goes around talking to “EVERYONE”: You’ll see this at almost every gym in America. There will always be this very chatty guy or woman just going around talking to everyone even if they’re working out and this person will talk to someone in between their sets. Sadly, some will see using the “gym” as a place to socialize, meet new friends and get to know everyone but in my opinion, the gym isn’t a place to socialize. If you want to socialize go to a coffee house or a bar. The gym is a place to get a good workout in.
  • Watching people doing workouts in bad form: You see this everywhere in gyms. People doing workouts in bad form. It’s a problem at my local gym. I see it every time I go there. Amazing how many people out there are misinformed with working out. Some people do workouts in good form but most people workout in the gym pretty horribly. Amazing.
  • Crappy music being played on the radio: It’s a part of why I bring my own Ipod to the gym so I can listen to my own music. Sometimes my local gym does pick a good radio station like classic rock and metal they sometimes play but my local gym are always playing bad country music, pop and rap music. Sometimes they even crank the radio a bit too loud too. I like my own music.
  • When someone asks me if I’m still using something: Happens all the freakin’ time. I’m using something and then I finish, someone will walk up and ask if I’m still using it. Does it look like I’m still using it if no else is? When I wipe something down and walk away it means I’m done, no need to ask me. Some people would assume I’m super setting on two different workouts but I don’t super set. Fucking people. *sigh*
  • Seeing a group of young kids bench pressing and watching them do it all wrong and sloppy: Sometimes at the local gym I go to, I would see a bunch of young kids. A group of 4 or 5 kids somewhere around 10 – 15 years old getting together to bench press and take turns. They do it in pretty bad form and sloppy, don’t even know what they’re doing. Sometimes I’ll sit there and watch ’em and I worry about them sometimes. I appreciate young kids looking out for each other in bench press but if a young kid that age going to bench press should be accompanied by a full grown adult who knows what he’s doing. Bench press is dangerous for youngsters that age, in my opinion and someday there’s gonna be a freak accident. I know young kids wanna be cool and look tough bench pressing but I don’t like it. Should be accompanied by an adult.
  • Loud weight dropping: Doing deadlifts and slamming the weight down to the floor is okay ’cause you’re doing heavy deadlifts and there’s no way to set it down quietly knowing from my own experience. With dumbbells however is different. Guys dropping heavy dumbbells to the floor loudly and heavily continues to be a problem. Not only that it’s annoying but it’s also very dangerous and could hurt you or someone else. When the dumbbells come down to hit the floor they could hit your leg for sure or worse when someone’s walking by you, you’ll never know that the dumbbell could land on someone’s foot. You could lose your gym membership for that if you hurt someone else. When you finish your set, it’s not that hard to set them down quietly or even better get yourself a spotter when doing dumbbell presses on a bench. I see guys using spotters all the time when dumbbell pressing heavy on the bench. It works. Try it.

There you go. Enjoy.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Finally hit the big 300 as my new p.r. for deadlift… feels great!

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Last week when I maxed out on the 295 lb. deadlift, I took out my lower back pretty good. I didn’t understand how that happened. I didn’t freak out and didn’t panic but kept positive and kept working out throughout the week. When you hurt your back deadlifting, you don’t sit around and do nothing at home. Just keep moving and keep doing your daily activities in life. I was trying to figure out how I did that. Was it my form? No. I figured out what it was that did it. I was doing too many sets and reps before maxing out on 1 rep to test my pr.

Gee, no wonder I had trouble on my pr’s the last couple of weeks on deadlift ’cause I was doing too many sets and reps. Looking at my program, I noticed I was doing a bit too much so from this point on, I’m only going to do 5 sets only and only doing 3 – 5 reps on the heavier ones. I was doing too many sets on deadlift that it was making me more tired and more weaker. I gotta stop doing that from now on.

Now that my lower back is all better and feeling no pain/soreness at all, I decided to try out the 5 sets and 3 – 5 reps method this week. It seemed to work quite well. Earlier today, I pulled a big 300 lbs. p.r. on deadlift (see video above) and it didn’t hurt me that time. So I got it all figured out. I’m realizing now that doing less is more to get more strength and bring your pr’s up quicker. I’m gonna follow that method through bench press and squats as well. Less is more is the trick.

I’ll try not to take out my back like that ever again but don’t worry, I was fine. It was nothing that serious. It was a minor injury but I was still able to walk around and do things. I didn’t bother telling anybody and didn’t go to the doctor ’cause I knew it was going to heal quickly and it did.

Now I’m killing it on the deadlift.

Kev

Health and Fitness

The deadlift, bench and squats maybe the big 3 but so many do ’em in horrible form, it’s very rare when you see people do ’em good…

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I used to never take form and technique seriously when lifting weights but now I do. I take form very seriously now. Every aspect of it, even if it’s the smallest things… gotta do everything right. Yeah, the deadlift, bench press and squats maybe the kings of all workouts but it’s amazing to me that so many people do them wrong.

In this post, I’m going to explain on how people do them wrong. I’ve been going to the gym for years now and I’ve been observing and watching people how they workout. It’s amazing to me that so many do them horribly. I really do believe that so many people are misinformed and not very smart when it comes to working out.

Here are just a few common mistakes I see all the time for all three workouts:

Deadlift:  1) Leaning so far back when locking out. 2) Rounding of the back when lifting barbell off the floor 3) Hips too low as if you’re squatting 4) Deadlifting too close to the bar or too far back 5) Dragging the bar along your shins as you bring it up

Squats: 1) Not squatting down low enough (upper leg area must be lower than the knees, that’s the correct form) 2) Knee cave in as you bring it up 3) Heels come off the floor when trying to lift it up 4) Rounding your back 5) Leaning too far forward and not keeping your chest up where it should be

Bench press: 1) No full range of motion and refusing to bring the bar down to touch your chest (this is where half repping and partial repping comes in) 2) Butt coming off the bench 3) Head coming off the bench 4) Not having your eyes under the bar at the starting position 5) Not keeping your feet flat on the floor (some dudes would just bench with just their toes and heels pointing in the air, you’ve seen it. Some dudes would even bench with their feet planted on the bench which is bad, bad, bad)

There you go.

I’ve learned to perfect my form for deadlift, squats and bench press just by going through two powerlifting meets I did. I’ll be honest, though that my form for deadlift isn’t all the way perfect yet but even I’m still trying to get that down.

The point of this post is that it’s pretty crazy how people do these workouts in the gym pretty terribly. You would only see just a few people in the gym doing them right. I’m sure many guys get injured by doing them terribly too.

Form is a big deal y’all. Injury prevention is pretty important. You do them wrong, you could get injured pretty badly. You could get taken out of weightlifting for a couple of weeks, months or even years… even worse, your weightlifting days could be over for good depending on how bad the injury is.

I’m being very cautious ’cause I don’t want to get injured. Gym safety is important but unfortunately, not many people care about gym safety.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Just figured out why my personal records haven’t been going up lately… too many sets before testing out my 1 rep max? Yes, that could be it!

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Powerlifting training is weird. I’m pretty new to powerlifting so bare with me on this. Keep in mind that powerlifting training is completely different than bodybuidling training. When you do bodybuilding training, you train for like 3 or 4 sets for 8 – 12 reps each set but powerlifting training is completely different. In powerlifting training, you start the sets off pretty light at first and then you put on more weight each sets doing fewer reps.

In the past, I was killing it on bench, squats and deadlift in the personal records… but my personal records seem to be going down instead of going up lately. I’ve been trying to figure out why that is. Is it because I’ve been doing too many sets before testing out my 1 rep max at the very end? Yes, I think that’s definitely it and I blame it on that.

I’ve been doing research on powerlifting training and usually powerlifters train for 5 sets before maxing out on the last set. Maxing out means testing your 1 rep max, I think. Usually, I’ve been doing 6 or 7 sets before testing my 1 rep max and I’m noticing that’s too much. I think I wear myself out which is why my pr’s hasn’t been going up.

So starting this week, I think I’m going to train for 5 sets on squats, bench and deadlift before testing my 1 rep max. I’m going to do this method from now on. Less is more and I gotta remember that from now on. I’ve also been resting too short in between sets so I need to rest in between sets slightly longer too.

So 5 sets before testing my 1 rep max and little longer resting in between sets, maybe my pr’s will start rapidly going up. I’ll be doing another powerlifting meet at Albany Strength again at the end of March and I want to be at my absolute best. I need to bring my pr’s up rapidly and to do that doing fewer sets before the 1 rep max should do the trick. Lessons learned.

Kev

 

Health and Fitness

Finally bought appropriate shoes for weightlifting…

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So today I decided to go to the shoe store at the mall and pick up a pair of Chuck Taylor Converse shoes. I heard these were the best shoes for weightlifting so I went and got a pair for myself. You see, I’ve been noticing that running shoes isn’t suitable for lifting ’cause it’s hard to keep your feet flat with running shoes on. I had to get better shoes for weightlifting so I did some google research and found that Chuck Taylor’s are the best.

I can’t wait to try these next time I do deadlifting and squats. These Chuck Taylor’s are wicked flat and when you wear these shoes, you can feel the ground when you’re walking. I think my deadlifts and squats will improve with these shoes on too so I can’t wait to give these shoes a try at the gym.

I needed a special kind of shoes for weightlifting and I got a pair finally. I got to do leg day at the gym which means it’s gonna be squat day so I’ll try these shoes then… see how much these shoes improve my squat lifting. Wearing these shoes makes you feel like your feet are on the floor so my lifting will definitely improve with these shoes on. We’ll have to wait and see what happens. I’m excited!

I was badly in need of flat shoes ’cause lifting with running shoes isn’t good at all.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Is bodybuilding a dying industry and powerlifting quickly taking over? Yes, it definitely seems like it…

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I hope I’m not the only one noticing this. I’ve noticed that people have slowly lost interest in bodybuilding. Ya know, building muscle and losing bodyfat to be in the best shape of your life. Bodybuilding used to be big, huge and pretty mainstream but now it seems that nobody really cares anymore. Instead, it’s definitely looking like that powerlifting has taken over bodybuilding’s spotlight.

If you want to look at evidence of this, bodybuilding channels in youtube viewers are going down. A lot of the bodybuilding fitness gurus that we all looked up to, their views in their youtube channels are getting lower. Instead, I’m seeing powerlifting gurus in youtube getting more views than bodybuilding channels. You are also seeing people hosting their own powerlifting meets everywhere in the United States nowadays. If you’re a powerlifter or a newbie just getting started, chances are you’ll see a powerlifting competition happening in your local area. On the internet, you see everybody getting into powerlifting nowadays. Seems like nobody is interested in Mr. Olympia competitions anymore. Everybody is all about powerlifting now.

What is going on? Powerlifting is definitely getting bigger than bodybuilding, that’s for sure. When I got into bodybuilding, I didn’t even know powerlifting was around until I started seeing friends do it on FB. Then powerlifting looked pretty intriguing to me and now my powerlifting friends talked me into doing my first meet so I went for it. I did two powerlifting meets so far and now I consider myself a full time powerlifter. I got into powerlifting ’cause I saw everyone else doing it.

Why is powerlifting getting bigger than bodybuilding? I would think that more people want to challenge themselves into doing something different and they also find lifting heavy things pretty addicting so they keep at it. Another reason is that people want to get big and strong. No doubt that powerlifting is getting bigger and more popular.

I’m glad I discovered powerlifting ’cause I want to get bigger and stronger. I too want to challenge myself to a whole new level. Some of you may ask that since I’m in my 40’s now, I’m too old to get into powerlifting? No, not at all. Age is just a number. If you want to get into powerlifting, just do it. I’ve been to a few powerlifting meets and I saw people of all ages that are into these competitions. Ages ranging from young teenagers to people like 70 years old or older. They are lifting pretty heavy too. If they can do it so can anyone.

I’m hoping to do a lot more powerlifting competitions this year ’cause I love doing them. They are a blast. I just do it for fun for the most part ’cause I want to experience something different and want to do something huge in my life. I don’t really care to win medals or trophies to be honest. I just want to have a blast and lift heavy things. That is all.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Hit a new personal record on bench at 155 lbs. at the gym today…

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So today on New Year’s Eve, I decided to hit the gym for chest day. Today was a great chest day as I just hit a new personal record on bench press at 155 lbs. today. It was a pretty easy lift too. I wasn’t able to get 155 lbs. for the past couple of weeks but I got it this time. Actually, I got 155 lbs. once a long while back but couldn’t get it again until now. I know I’m getting stronger on bench each week I do it. So I guess, training chest once a week is the trick to get more bench press strength. I’ve also been experimenting with progressive overload method on bench press which is working. Progressive overload, meaning adding more weight each set you do and do less reps each set. It’s been working so I’m going to keep doing that. Getting 155 lbs. p.r. on bench today is a great number to end the year with. This means I could probably get 160 lbs. next week and I’m going to give it a try next time.

I’m loving the bench press. It’s a great workout and I’m definitely feeling my chest beefing up each week. The bench is definitely the best chest exercise and they don’t call the king of all workouts for no reason.

For 2019, I’m hoping to get even bigger numbers on the bench. I’m hoping pretty soon in 2019, I’ll be able to bench 200 lbs. or over and I’m going to take my slow time and not rush to get there. I could probably reach to 200 lbs. next summer. I’m also going to try to get bigger numbers for squats and deadlift in 2019 as well.

Truthfully there are no easy tricks to get stronger on bench, squats and deadlifts. You just keep at it every week and you’ll get stronger the more you lift, lift and lift. That’s all there is to it really.

My gym days will keep going throughout 2019 and will keep the 4 day a week routine going with very little breaks. I’m really enjoying powerlifting training. Gonna keep at it.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Why we don’t see a lot of lean and in shape people nowadays, too many don’t want to eat good that’s why…

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There’s a lot of people out there that like to compliment me on how lean and in shape I look. I have visible washboard abs, veiny arms and all that stuff. I get a lot of people saying that I look leaner than most people nowadays. Everywhere you go you’ll see people with chunky bodies to really overweight, it’s really totally unreal. I see too many people at the gym nowadays with really high bodyfat over 18%. A lot of people struggle to lose bodyfat but the only problem is, there are too many that are misinformed about it.

Losing bodyfat isn’t hard to do. All it pretty much takes is good eating and good exercising really. While it’s good that people go to the gym trying to get in shape, there are still too many people who work out but their nutrition sucks, though. There are still too many people who lift weights and do cardio but they’re always eating junk food and drinking alcohol. That’s another thing that is pretty whacked. People work out in the gym but they are still heavy alcohol drinkers and yet many of them still want to lose some pounds. How crazy is that?

When you want to lose weight, build muscle and lose bodyfat, you have to sacrifice a lot of things. Yeah, I know eating junk food and drinking alcohol is fun but it doesn’t make sense to me why people continue to do that stuff while working out.

Working out and eating healthy go hand in hand. There’s no other way around it. You want to get lean and build some mean muscle you gotta make some changes in your life. I certainly did. I cut out most bad food and gave up alcohol completely.

Obesity and people being fat is definitely a huge problem in America. People with high bodyfat is not healthy and the problem in America is that leftard America wants to force us to accept fat people. No way… not gonna happen in my eyes. Everywhere you look, you see too many people with beer bellies, chubby looks and people who are way too obese. Sad really, I don’t like it.

Getting lean and losing bodyfat isn’t that hard really. All you gotta do is do these 6 steps:

1. Avoid most junk food. Avoid sugars. Bad foods like processed foods, fast food and simple carbs. Cleaning out your junky nutrition is a must. You don’t have to avoid junk food completely though as it’s good to have a few cheat meals weekly.
2. Drink as much water as you can and drink green tea. Yes, this means cutting out bad drinks like soda, sports drinks and anything with calories. Yep, it’s time to give up the alcohol, y’all.I only drink water and green tea.
3. Eat high protein and low carb stuff like from fish, chicken and eggs which I eat a lot.
4. Eat a lot of complex carbs like fruits, vegetables and whole grains in which I do.
5. Do plenty of cardio like walking, running, bike riding, jump roping, heavy bag punching and HIIT training.
6. Do a lot of weight training in the gym. Yes, lifting weights can be a great fat and calorie burner.

Do all those and you should be on your way. I don’t do intermittent fasting. I don’t do vegan diets ’cause I’m not a fan of “vegetarian”. I don’t do bulking and cutting, I don’t like keto, carb cycling and all that stupid crap.

I just keep my healthy nutrition small and simple. Just 4 or 5 meals a day is all I need.

My bodyfat is pretty good but could be a lot lower and I have already started doing that. I still have a bit of bodyfat to shred away and I plan to do just that. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve already started eating smaller meals by eating lesser calories and I’m already feeling that my bodyfat is rapidly dropping. I may have lost a few pounds too ’cause of it.

I don’t know where my bodyfat percentage is at right now but I would love to find out. In order to be considered a real bodybuilder, your bodyfat percentage must be about 8% or lower. To get a visible six pack you gotta be around 8% – 11%. The only way to have visible muscles like pecs and biceps, your bodyfat gotta be low.

Goal for 2019 is to drop my bodyfat percentage a lot more. I would like to be 8% or lower. Maybe I’m almost already there, ya never know. I’m dying to know what my bodyfat percentage is at right now and I’m going to find out pretty soon. Hopefully after the Holidays. I’ll figure something out.

Kev

Health and Fitness

The bench press the most dangerous workout in the gym? No not at all but what about these workouts???

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People are always attacking the bench press and calling it the most dangerous workout in the gym. Is it really? No not at all.

If you want “most dangerous workouts” there are a bunch of others but you never see the bodybuilding industry attacking them. How come you never see the bodybuilding industry attacking workouts like barbell raises behind the head, lat pull downs behind the head, upright rows for shoulders, dumbbell front rows for shoulders and hack squat with knees together??? There are a few “most dangerous” workouts for ya but you don’t see people criticizing them but they do those workouts in the gym anyways.

I don’t do any of those workouts at all but I’ll admit that I experimented with upright rows for shoulders for a couple of weeks. If you want a workout that is hard on the shoulders, it’s not the bench press… try the upright row whether barbell or dumbbells. You’ll notice right away that the upright row is very uncomfortable. I experimented with upright rows for a little bit but I noticed something was up with my shoulders and it was making my joints uncomfortable too so then I immediately stopped doing upright rows.

In my opinion, I think the “upright rows” are the most dangerous workout but you see lifters do that workout in the gym all the freakin’ time. I also believe “upright rows” or “behind the neck” exercises are overrated. Both are very dangerous to the shoulders but you see a lot of guys and even women do them anyways.

In my opinion, the best exercises for shoulders are seated dumbbell presses and standing dumbbell lateral side raises. That’s how I got those big delts by doing those. You don’t need to do behind the neck barbell pressing for shoulders and don’t need to do upright rows at all ’cause those look risky to me. There are plenty of other great workouts for shoulders but instead you see people doing the dangerous ones.

It’s very weird to me that people call the bench press a dangerous workout but they’ll never admit that there are plenty of other dangerous workouts in the gym like those ones I talked about above.

Truthfully, though, ALL workouts in the gym are dangerous and you can get injured in ALL of them but those ones talked about in this video are the most dangerous of all.

I enjoy most workouts in the gym but I hate “upright rows” for shoulders. I wish people would quit doing them ’cause they are going to wreck their shoulders if they continue and their lifting days could be over for good.

Kev