Be "Ripped"

Its been hot here, so I’ve taken to walking around shirtless. It cuts down on the sweating a bit. I’m getting the occasional smile and even a “hi” or two. I don’t know if this is related or just a new outlook.

Since I’ve been practicing twice a week instead of once this is coming along nicely. I work in push-ups, pull-ups and crunches on off days as well.

I’m getting back on top of things and starting to look awesome. Not quite “ripped” yet, but definitely close.

I had to tone down my exercises a bit because I tweaked my left elbow a bit during Jujutsu practice. I went easy on exercise and now my elbow is working pretty well.

Rather than working on increasing sets and repetitions I’ve been focusing on form and adding a new exercise, one handed pushups.

One handed pushups are much, much harder than regular pushups because of all the extra balancing required. They also work my latissimus dorsi much harder.

I think its time to start working in situps now. Even though pullups are the most difficult part of my routine my abs get just as tired as my arms.

I’ve had the pull-up bar that long, and have worked my way up to 18 pull-ups and 40 push-ups broken into 4 sets (5, 5, 4, 4 for pull-ups, 10 each push-ups).

My arms and back are beginning to look pretty impressive immediately after exercise and I’m getting definition in my abs even though I haven’t started doing sit-ups yet. My chest doesn’t seem to be increasing as rapidly, but pull-ups and push-ups don’t work it out as well as other exercises would.

After I’ve rested enough my muscles don’t look nearly so impressive, but my arms are noticeably larger.

After a week and a half a bit of definition is starting to show up. I’m still switching my grip around on the pull-up bar to work different areas. Most of my post-exercise soreness is in my shoulders and upper back, which feel much more powerful.

It came in on Monday, and I’ve already managed to over-stretch what I think is my latissimus dorsi. Mostly I need to get those muscles loosened up.

I bought the Door-Gym, and it should get to me the 18th.

I’ve been forced to take a break.

First by giving platelets, which hit me extra hard.

Then by hurting my elbow doing Ripped-making pushups.

Then by getting some weird illness.

Maybe next week?

Today I took an intro to rock climbing course through UW with Angi which covered safety instruction and provided a 2 week membership to Vertical World.

It was totally awesome, and I’m glad I have at least some muscle from all my pushups and sit-ups. The wall still totally thrashed me.