Category Archives: Man Biceps
Nike may be on to something – Just Do It
People please just stop with the excuses already and JUST DO IT!
Love it Nike!
Client: “I don’t think I can do another burpee.”
Me: “Take a deep breath and JUST DO IT! You’ve got this. Come on!”
Client2: “I don’t have time to workout on my own.”
Me: “Just try 20 minutes at home.”
Client 2: “But…”
Me: “Just do it!”
I promise I’m not a mean trainer, but sometimes the complaints and excuses get overwhelming. Sometimes I just want to throw up my hands and scream “SHUT UP! STOP THE BULLSHIT AND JUST DO IT!”
But I don’t say that…out loud at least.
But seriously, how do you know you can’t do something or don’t have time for something unless you’ve actually given it a shot? How many times have people said “they can’t” before they’ve even tried?
I know, unfortunately, that I’ve been guilty of this at one time or another. There are definitely weeks when I walk up to the deadlift bar with 200 some pounds on it and think..”I can’t do this.”
Sometimes those four words slip out and then I hear the frustrated tone in Brian’s voice as he says “Yes you can. Just do it. You’re a beast.” I love the “you’re a beast” part by the way….
Anyway, back to the “Just do it” part. I really do think Nike is on to something here. If instead of saying “I can’t” we just said “Just do it,” I wonder how much more we would accomplish? I wonder how much faster we would achieve our goals?
So the next time you are about to say to yourself or your trainer, “I can’t_____” instead say “Just do it.” See what happens. I’ll bet you’ll make a lot more progress toward your goals than you ever thought possible.
Please stop being the person that says “I can’t.”
Also, I thought of you Mom when I wrote this. You always used to tell me “Just do it” when I played matches. 🙂
Bucket List
So this weekend we are being hit by storms from Hurricane Irene. Right now it is just rainy and windy, but since I have no desire to go out in the mess, Ryan and I have been watching movies.
Last night we watched “The Bucket List.” It was cute and entertaining, and it got me thinking about what I would put on a “fitness” bucket list.
Would I put, “Run a marathon?” Would I want to do a triathlon? I mean those are definitely the most popular “bucket list” fitness things for people to do, but I can’t say I have a great desire to do either.
I hate running, and I really don’t think a sprint triathlon would be challenging enough…not to sound cocky.
So what would I want to do? Below are the things I’ve thought of in no particular order. Some are very random, but whatever!
1. Take fitness photos because I’ve gotten my body fat down and have six-pack abs.
2. Enter a fitness competition.
3. Deadlift 300lbs at least.
4. Enter a crossfit competition.
5. Take a long bike ride across numerous states in the U.S. and see the sights.
6. Be in such great shape that I can do any activity that someone invites me to do. (Yes this is very general, but it would be awesome to feel in shape enough to go do a 2 day bike ride at the drop of a hat if someone asked me to.)
7. Help at least one woman go from never lifting to being able to do every power lifting move with a very respectable amount of weight.
8. Experiment with numerous diet and exercise plans and be able to give advice about what works. (Already started on this one!)
9. Own my own gym where women have to lift!
10. Have Man Bicep become a movement and get 1 million views. haha 🙂
Ok so some of these are silly, but they have definitely gotten me to start thinking about what I really want to get out of my workouts and personal training.
What would you put on your fitness bucket list?
A “Thank You” to my Man Bicep Males
I’ve loved lifting heavy weights since I was taught power lifting in college. But I do owe my current obsession with heavy lifting to Ryan and Brian.
Me in college when I'd just started the heavy lifting.
After college, I continued to lift. I did higher reps and challenging weights, but I never worked toward increasing my one rep max. I even threw in some P90x and Insanity (I highly recommend the P90x, but Insanity, I’m not a fan of). I was doing lots of cardio (not chronic cardio, but still cardio).
I shed all the weight I had gained since the end of my collegiate athletic career. I also shed a ton of muscle. I was just plain old skinny.
Ryan had also lost a lot of weight on the low-fat diet we did for 90 days and he decided he wanted to stop P90x and get back into heavy lifting. He invited me to tag along.
So Ryan and I began my first round of truly heavy lifting since college. My bench max went back up. My squat and deadlift got stronger. We were doing sets of 5 reps, and I was getting stronger and adding muscle. I gained 15lbs over the next 8 months of lifting with him. Part of it was definitely muscle and some of it was definitely fat. My diet had sort of gone out the window. And I had an excuse for that. I was bulking. HA!
So Ryan and I continued to workout until he hurt his back. He then needed to take time off, and I was left to lift on my own.
I continued our routine, but had hit a plateau and was making only the smallest of gains. It was hard lifting super heavy weights with no one there to spot you. That’s when Brian joined the staff at our gym and we began working out.
Brian worked on my lifting form. He changed the rep scheme. We did sets of 1-5 reps. We worked on increasing my one rep max. And boy did it increase.
Before I was stuck at 205lbs for deadlift. Now I’m up to 265lbs (and that is after reps). My squat and bench have gone up too. I’m at about 110lbs on bench (I’ve only gotten that once) and 205 on squat. Again both of those numbers are after reps so my max weights could actually be a bit higher! And I’m still working on getting those numbers up. I want to deadlift 300lbs, bench my body weight (120lbs) and squat at least 250lbs. I want to be a BEAST! haha
Brian also helped me relearn the snatches and cleans that I hadn’t done since college. Which I now love! There is something about mastering those explosive power movements that makes you feel so good. They are just SO COOL! Also, I’ve needed to work on them to pursue my other fitness passion…crossfit.
I got into crossfit because of Ryan. He introduced me to it when I visited him in California. We did a squat, pull up, push up, sit up workout in his backyard. It was hard and I liked it, but I didn’t fall in love with crossfit until I did the Murph. Yes, I’m a bit sadistic.
The Murph is: Run 1 mile, 100 pull ups, 200 push ups, 300 body-weight squats, run 1 mile. You do it as fast as you can.
That was probably the hardest workout I had ever done before. I got dehydrated and suffered a migraine, but I fell in love with crossfit because of that workout. Is there something wrong with me? Uhm..yes, probably.
But basically to sum up my ramblings today…I just wanted to say a big “THANK YOU” to both Ryan and Brian. Both of you have been such a big support. You two encouraged me to lift and have made me fall in love with heavy weights and grueling workouts. You two have inspired me to try to encourage other women to start lifting heavy weights!
So “Thank You Ryan and Brian, my Man Bicep Males!”
Women’s fitness blogs – where are the weights?
Hmm....
So yesterday I set out to find some fitness blogs by, for and about women. What I found was not what I expected when I typed in “top fitness blogs for women.”
While I did find a few blogs I liked, I found a lot of blogs that really had nothing to do with what I consider “fitness.” There were posts about loving your body; posts about eating well for healthy hair; post about body dysmorphia (which was actually one of my favorites!). BUT there weren’t really any posts about women lifting and working out to develop beautiful lean, toned muscle. There weren’t very many posts about what women did to workout and improve their health.
I found a website called the 100 Must Read Blogs…By Women! and found that of the fitness blogs with descriptions only one had anything about resistance training in the blurb about it (and that blog was almost specifically for athletes). That is sort of sad don’t you think?
What do women have against resistance training? I mean I’ve heard the “I don’t want to get bulky excuse”, which is total BS. I’ve also heard women complain that they feel uncomfortable when they are in the weight room because all of the men are looking at them and judging them. This is BS too. I’ve stood and watched people in the weight room. The people who get looked at are the ones either doing something that looks absolutely silly OR people who lift an incredible amount of weight (which means…MOST OF THE TIME MEN ARE ONLY WATCHING OTHER MEN LIFT!).
Most female trainers who blog should know that women won’t get big from lifting weights. Most female trainers also know correct form so they shouldn’t be intimidated or worried about lifting in front of men or encouraging their clients to do so. So why are so few writing about weight training!?! I mean you female trainers who don’t promote weight training are part of the problem. I mean we can recommend that women experiment with their diet to find out what works for them, but no one seems to recommend that women experiment with all forms of exercise!
We want women to love their bodies and not be discouraged by the women in the magazines. I whole-heartedly believe that if we can get women to see weight training as something beneficial and not something that will make them manly that we will start to chip away at women’s body dysmorphia!
YES! I want this shirt!
I want man biceps…just not man pecs
The other day Candy and I were working out on the weight room floor and Nancy (one of our gym members) said to Nick (one of our trainers) that she wanted to get “man biceps” like the man bicep sisters (me and Candy). Nick didn’t understand the joke (for an explanation of the joke click  “man bicep” ). I had though overheard the comment, and I turned to Nancy and told her that she was well on her way to developing man biceps. She seemed pleased with the comment.
She then complained to Nick that she hated doing push ups (the exercise he was just then telling her to do). I then jokingly said that the push ups would help develop her man biceps and she said, “Yes but I don’t want to develop man pecs!”
It was a funny comment but it also took me back. How could she love the idea of “man” biceps and not the idea of “man” pecs!?! Had we just made lifting weights for your biceps acceptable?
It shocked me how deeply rooted women’s fear of weight lifting is. Even a woman who seems to support our weight lifting is afraid to lift heavy weights herself. It is exactly what the poll from an earlier post said – “it’s not for me but there’s nothing wrong with it.” That honestly seems to be the response I’m getting from most women.
Women’s logic works like this when it comes to weights:
Women don’t want to look manly. Men lift weights to get bigger and more manly. Hence, we see weight lifting as the way to get more “manly.” Of course we don’t consider the fact that weight lifting is only a portion of the equation and that what actually makes men pack on the manly muscle is TESTOSTERONE.
I mean hey I know heavy lifting isn’t for everyone. But try it before you knock it! You never know…you may end up loving the “man” pecs you develop! I know I do!
Man Bicep 