Personal best today regarding resting heart rate. Last year I had 42 beats per minute, but today I reached a new all time low: 41! great!

Today is my day off and I’m exhausted, It’s always like that when you don’t have to go work out. I feel like I’m rolling around, heavy, out of place…

Tomorrow is monday and new training week. I’m going to outperform myself in the chest presses. I’m working on not being afraid of the weight. Come on, I tell myself, the weights won’t kill me, just press them! And when I get scared of “what happens if I cannot make it” I convince myself “what the heck, failure doesn’t killya”!  You gotta try or you won’t win.

My training extremely well, my diet is perfect, I feel strong, but I cannot tell from what I weigh! I’m not kidding but my body has taken some sort of vacation or I don’t know what. it’s like it doesn’t matter how disciplined I am, my body has its own life. I guess it’s sick of not having a bodily mental chillout time. It has performed and been good to me for eleven months and every time it has delivered what I’ve asked from it. Now though, when I have no commitments where I need to be x-lean, my weight fluctuates with pounds a day. It looks good in the mirror, but the scale and measure tape says something else! It drives me crazy and I often find myself thinking “what if my body has just rebelled for good”. That is baloney. It’s not the first time this happens. My body just wants to be mooshy (in my eyes).

The only good thing with this is my body is smart enough to take a break when it can, not when it just wants to like for a show or something. It feels like I could as well had blown my diet for days and look like this, so now it’s like I had no cheat but got the symptoms from it anyway. How unfair, huh?

I’m just gonna let it be, let my body rebel and play daredevil. I’m watching it, there ain’t no chocolate coming in here!:-) Sooner or later my little body must see there will be no feasting. Yes, it can hold this great water retention for a while and try to tell me it’s just hormones fluctuating but I know better….

Well, I hope my experiences helps someone out there who feels they have no control over their body no matter what they do.

cheers

check out dana:

http://www.danalynnfit.com/EDFrame.html

HOW TO GET A LEAN BODY
-Let’s kill the myths!

Why on earth is it so hard to get that lean body when you watch your diet and exercise regularly? Why don’t YOU have a chiseled midsection and shapely arms?
Let me tell you this once and for all: you cannot listen to all those myths about how to get in shape! And you must get serious big times! When you want extreme results and improvements you bet you’re going to work hard to get them.
So, let’s do really take a closer look at those myths that prevent you from obtaining your fitness goals…

Big weights and low reps make you look chubby
No, no no. You know why you are afraid that heavy hardcore strength training will lead to a puffy and bloated appearance? Because that’s what most bodybuilders look like most time of the year. The bloat is not due to the serious business-training. It’s because they’re ”trying to add mass” so they indulge in fast food and so many calories that they gain as much fat as they gain muscle.

When you want to look thin and firm you will have to build muscle! It’s true! The muscle you add to your frame will eat the bodyfat away. You see, muscle burn calories all day long even when you sleep. Bodyfat on the other hand doesn’t need energy to survive in your fat cells: it can just BE without getting new energy from food.

Heavy training (low reps) is tough on your muscles and that’s the reason heavy training burns more calories than does high rep ”burn” training. The burn you feel from doing many repetitions and no rest in between sets is not the sensation of you burning fat! It’s only a build-up of lactic acid in your muscles that makes you feel pumped and ”on a burn”.

A lot of people tell me they don’t want to get too big, that’s why they don’t work hard with weights in the gym. Well, good luck to get lean I say! We have so much less muscle mass than we all want to believe we have. I promise you’ll end up with nothing but a tiny jiggly body if you don’t pay attention to keep those muscles.

More to read in my new ebook!

You know exactly what supermarkets carry your precious wheat bran, your favourite sugarfree chewing gum and you know all the prices on frozen vegetables. As a matter of fact you make a perfect fit being the manager at your local ralph’s or Albertson’s since you know the whole assortment 100%.

You cannot resist reading the label on every diet coke you buy: you never know if they’ve added some physique-disastrous high fructose corn syrup…

You avoid extra activities like walking to the store since you don’t exercise in your free time.

You don’t want to carrry bags back home from the supermarket since you might get tired which will affect your afternoon workout.

Your sheets are never white-color since your self-tanner stains it every night and if someone took a look at it, that person would believe you never shower!

You stink from tuna and broccoli on the airplane but don’t care about it.

You feel miserable when the scale shows a lower digit: is it due to muscle loss?
You feel miserable when the scale shows a higher digit: what if it’s a gain in fat?

You carry a plastic fork and a can-opener in your first-aid kit.

You don’t rely on the label on tuna and chicken cans so you weigh it just in case it’s incorrect.

Since you fear the liquid eggwhites are diluted with water and thus have less protein you stick to the original real eggs.

You would never miss a leg workout with heavy squats: not even when you have the flu and run to the restroom after every set.

You really feel that you have more right to be in the power rack because you do squats than does the trainer doing barbell curls in the same spot.

When you do a new personal best you suspect your training partner spotted you a little too much and that’s why you made it. That leads to arguments and you get pissed off.

You cannot work out with a training partner since you refuse follow someone elses routine not even for one day.

Running out of protein powder feels as bad and stressful as not having money for the rent.

You eat cat food tuna rather than having to miss a meal due to bad planning.

Your biggest concern when staying at a hotel is wether or not it has a microwave in your room. Five star hotel for you is when the complex has a real gym, oatmeal and a refrigerator.

I as a trainer have one golden rule: never comment on anyone’s training methods unless it looks like they are gonna kill themselves. I do this out of respect because you NEVER know why a person performs exercises in what I believe looks weird.He or she could do it purposely and even when an exercise is done in a nontraditional/not conventionally approven manner.

So, this respect I wish comes back to me and most of the time it does. Today though I was happy doing heavy legpresses. I don’t have a bad technique, I’m strong for my size and I’m not afraid of loading up the platform. I have never injured myself nor felt any pain from executing the leg presses MY way.

Ok, then after one of my set this “trainer” approaches me asking me if it’s ok to ask me something. He then says I push my abs out. Pause. So? I ask.

He then starts this whole seminar about the inner unit, distended abs etc that I know all about. I reply with what I know and think is right and he keeps on arguing that what I do is PLAIN wrong. Do I need to tell he doesn’t look like he even trains himself? He didn’t want to ask me a question, he just wanted to put me down! I was so pissed, come on does it look like I don’t know how to train?

I approached my favourite trainer Danny the olympic weightlifter and told him about this guy’s attitude. Ofcourse he told me not to bother.

I have researched this before since I’ve noticed my abdomen moves out when doing deadlifts and legpresses and squats. I thought I had a bad TVA (transversus abdominalis, a core stabilizing ab muscle) and checked it up. The answer I found in the following link. And I was happy.

This trainer warned me that what I did was plain wrong and I was gonna get distended abs. I told him he should take a look at some pictures and see my 23 inch contest waist is anything but distended! Just remember the ironman cover! distended abs? Yeah sure and I’m a panther too….And I also told him I do these BAD and PLAIN wrong legpressing with my gut coming out up to the very last week before every show. WHO CARES!!!!

So basically what I want to say with this post is:

Don’t ask about people’s training if they don’t ask for it. And don’t believe what people tell you. Just look up by doing research and ask more experienced and well-knowledgeable people around you that are clever and wise enough not to tell you the truth until you ask for it.

Check out this article for the “abs in or out”:

http://www.chekinstitute.com/articles.cfm?select=24

Written By Mother Teresa:

“People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of being selfish with ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis of your life, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway!”

I did deadlifts yesterday without hamstring pain! YEAH!!!!! YES!!!!!! I was so happy as I’m soon back to my love 4-ever, the deadlift. This made my day! Smile, smile, smile! I increased my weighted pull-ups with 5 more pounds so now I’m able to do them in my special Pauline fashion way with 80lbs around my waist! My goal is to be able to do it with my own bodyweight so, I have 35 more lbs to add…:-)

I also have some other goals regarding strength. Before 2007 comes to an end I want to do1 good rep with:
Barbell press 150 lbs
Incline barbell press 125 lbs

Deadlifts 260lbs
squats 240 lbs

Seated shoulder db presses 4 reps with 55

Clean n jerk 125 lbs

Regarding cardio I’ll keep on. I mostly do short workouts where I keep my pace at 85% mhr for about 15 minutes and then do intervals every time it drops down below 170 for ten minutes. I track how many calories my heart rate monitor tells me I’ve burned and then I try to outperform myself.

It’s everyday life now. Grocery shopping, working, training. For once I don’t reply to the question “are you prepping for a show?” with a YES, but with a NO. One big part of me wanted to give it another shot, try once again this year to break into the top five, butI wouldn’t have done it for the right reason. I’m a chronic goal-hunter which is both good and bad, but it has a tendency to take too much energy out of me. Instead of being happy and content with my accomplishments, the closer I get to reach a goal the more impatient and discontent I become.

I don’t know what’s the driving force, I’ve never known why I am so restless. It’s a shame of myself, but my worst nightmare is waking up being sixty years old and have accomplished nothing. That my whole life was a long sleep and I just forgot to wake up.

I have some kind of piece missing somewhere in my soul that I try to fill with whatever I don’t know what. And I don’t know how. I just know that when I reach one goal at a time I feel a bit more at ease for a while but I have a hard time enjoying the moment, I just want to move on, reach higher and higher.

Regarding my training: it goes great. I have been less good with stretching so I have to get that into my program again. I also noticed I had some kind of a trigger point in one of my abdominal muscles so I’m stretching and put pressure on it regularly now. It must have something with my hip wanting to tilt forward all the time. it’s on the same side too. I also need to stop running. This lady was not made for jogging.:-) When I run on asphalt, the knee and ankle killer #1 in the western world, one of my knees gets hurt. And that ruins my weight training. So no more of that. I also have less problem with my glutes and hams when I don’t run/do sprints.

Well, that’s all from me.

Hello, Hello! what are the most popular dumbbells in the gym? the 25’s. Always on the run.

In Sweden we have toilet paper that is unbleached to save the environment. Why don’t I see any here in the US? Or is there a secret way of giving the toilet paper, or let me say it with a nicer word, bathroom tissue, that white look…

Worst excuse ever was made of a pee-***hole urinating on our garbage can the other day: oh sorry Miss, I’m in post-cancer therapy and need to pee. Yeah right, but how do you argue with him considering the benefit of the doubt. Liar.

Thou shall never work out when being sick. Yeah, yeah, that wat they say and that what I tell my clients. Do I follow that rule? No. Is it good? No. Do my strength decrease when I’m sick? NO. That’s why I train anyway. I’m sick twice a year and right now I’m on the second one. Fever, couching, hard breathing and a stuffy nose, but what a workout I had yesterday! I guess my CNS was so occupied with battling the bacteria/virus it forgot to say “hold your horses” to my muscles because I was STRONG!!! yeah!

I got a nice package from Sweden yesterday: mackerel in tomato sauce and läkerol! My two favourites!

Ok, back home from the Olympia weekend. it was a busy weekend and I got to meet many nice people in the business. I watched the figure and was stunned by Jenny Lynn and Christine Pomponio-pate. I have never had these two as my favourites but now, seeing them from the audience in real life they just were amazing! I wish Christine will take the title in the near future.

I had a wonderful leg workout in vegas in the sunday morning before heading back to LA. Great equipment and great performance. It felt good to do some lifting before sitting in traffic jam for 8 hours…

This morning I made my debut in working with a trainer! never have had one before. I did Olympic weight-lifting and oh boy was it fun! This was so cool and different from what I do. The trainer danny was fantastic and very motivational. I like it a lot!