A look into Drewan's mind

Today at the gym was both a great day, and a not-so-good day.

Good: I managed to do single max rep of 165 pounds, which is my own body weight. This was a goal I didn't expect to reach for another week or two, so both the trainer and I were very happy to achieve it today.

Bad: Near the end of our session, the trainer had be doing these crouching jumps, and my back spasmed during the third jump. I tried one more jump to see if it was real, and it was! So we stopped the jumps and moved on to some skull crushes on the bench so I could lay down.

I went home for a while, instead of going back to work, and laid down with an ice back for a while. Then I showered and applied some Icy Hot, which I've never used before. Wow, that stuff is fun!

Now I'm back at work for a little while. I'm feeling just okay, but good enough to keep going. I have a busy weekend coming up, with the MN Storm Patrol run happening over in St. Paul, and the Atons' EROS party tomorrow night. I'm going to have to be a little careful for the weekend, but I should be ok.

Things are moving ahead pretty well with my trainer. My strength levels have been slowly increasing and I'm been gaining muscle.

I ran into one problem over the last week or two. When I was at GNC a couple of weeks ago to pickup from Muscle Milk Lite protein powder (yummy chocolate!), I picked up some Arsenal-X dietary supplement on a whim. My reasoning was that the Arsenal X would help me keep my energy levels up during my work out. This supplement contains 100 mcg of Vitamin B12 and 188 mg of caffeine, plus an "arsenal-x blend" of ingredients like Zhi Shi, Paullina cupana, St. John's wort extract, and more. The GNC sales person suggested taking the supplement about 1 to 2 hours before the workout.

The first couple of times that I used the Arsenal-X I was ok. I took it about 3 to 4 hours before working out. The last two times I've taken it I took it about 2.5 hours before working out, but then I felt very nauseous during my workout. The trainer and I are suspecting that it might be the supplement that is causing the nausea. He suggested I not take it before my workout tomorrow and see how I feel.

Anyone have any good experience and suggestions for a supplement that would benefit my workouts?

I have one more month of trainer sessions scheduled. The plan after that is for me to try working out on my own for a while, maybe with the occasional trainer session to check-in and reinforce the original training.

The trainer suggested a good goal for this upcoming month would be to increase my bench press up to my own body weight, which is about 165 pounds. I am bench pressing 135-145 pounds now, so 165 doesn't seem to far off. This doesn't have to mean that I'd do 8 reps of 165#, but to just get to one bench press at that weight.

Tomorrow is our first session in May, so it will be time to be weighed and measured again. It's nice to have numbers that support the changes that I'm feeling.

I had my first lunch time training session today. Ugh... he really kick my ass.

The whole point of a trainer for me is that he doesn't let me stop when I feel like stopping. He keeps me going with firm encouragement, and occasionally lends a helping hand to get me to the goal.

Last week during my first training session, I was recovering from some kind of stomach bug issue. So, during the workout I was feeling nauseous, which wasn't good. I continued to have episodes of nausia off and on for a few more days, but I've been feeling pretty good since Saturday.

Well, again I was feeling a tiny bit nauseous during my workout today. I'm not sure if it was just a reaction to pushing my body that hard, or that I had eaten a banana on the way to the gym, or that I had a mug and a half of coffee in the morning. My plan for the future is to not eat anything in the hour before working out, and to not drink coffee in the four hours before a session (which means no coffee in the morning before lunch time workouts, and not afternoon coffee when I'm working out after work).

Andrew, the trainer, gave me some hamstring streching homework to do. Maybe I'll get Joe to help with the stretches.

Since I mentioned his name, I should describe Andrew the trainer. He is about 6'2", thin, dark hair, and British. He's probably in his late 20's. He mentioned today that he is a rower. We chatted a lot today about British tv shows, especially Doctor Who, which he's a fan of. He was telling me about two other series, Spooks and another series which I'm misremembering as "Raise the Dead." He said that I need to see these shows. I think we'll have plenty to talk about next week when Torchwood starts back up.