crime in Albuquerque and it's time to move!

When i retired from the prison i tried to convince my wife to move to Lubbock TX, anywhere in New Hampshire, or Savanna Gorrgia. She desperately wanted to move back to her home town of Albuquerque. Albuquerque is #3 in the nation in auto-thefts, #5 in violent crime, and the sexual assault and rape is %300 higher than the national average. But ultimately I put my wife's wants above my own, like husbands should do. A couple weeks ago my cherished 1996 Chevrolet Suburban was stolen from our driveway. Anyone who knows me knows I love my Suburban. I plan on driving it the rest of my life. I was just going to continue to repair it over and over again. A few days later I found it in an apartment complex. It had $1250 woth of damage to it. It was loaded up with a bunch of home invasion tools. The police said the thieves were probably going to use my vehicle in a few home break ins and then dump it or strip it for parts. Thankfully my wife has realized how dangerous this city is. She's ready to sell the house we bought just 5 short months ago and move. She hasn't decided where she wants to move yet. She said she'd like to see Savanna Georgia. She's never been to that part of the country. It's BEAUTIFUL there! I'm sure she'd move there in a heart beat if she saw it there. So I'm hoping like hell I'm able to qualify for the masters national weightlifting championships which is held in Savanna Georgia. And in the meantime I'm working on our house getting it prepped to sell. There's a lot we're needing to do. I've been working my butt off the last week.

 We're going to knock out this old fashion light box thingy and put recessed lighting in the kitchen, family room, dining room, and both bathrooms.

 As you can see there's no lights in the family room other than lamps. So recessed lighting is desperately needed. We're also going to remove all the carpet and linoleum and put down new tile in the whole house.

We're going to knock out this wall and put in a breakfast bar. We're also going to put in new  kitchen counters so that the breakfast bar and kitchen counters will match. After that I believe we can sell it for a profit so we can have a decent down payment on a new home in a safer city. The housing at all three of the places I'd like to move is significantly cheaper than here in Falujah- er- I mean Albuquerque New Mexico. Plus:

There's no income tax in Texas.

And there's no income tax or sales tax in New Hampshire. 

Savanna Georgia is just about the most beautiful place on earth. Plus they have beaches and an ocean there!

The only thing I'll miss here in Albuquerque is my coach Joaquin Chavez of High Dessert Athletic Club. I love that guy. I don't think I'll ever find another coach as fantastic as he is.

hand tears in weightlifting

I constantly see weightlifters sanding thier calluses to prevent their hands from tearing while weightlifting. I never do that. I was blessesd and got my Dad's bulletproof hands. After almost 4 years of weightlifting I've only had one rip. Last week i had my 2nd. I feel so special. Like I'm part of a member of a secret club or something.

2 weightlifting coaches

Because of my work schedule ive had to lift on my own 2 days a week. And since I despised weightlifting on my own I hired a coach, Vernon Smith, for those days- I'm still trained by Coach Joaquin Chaves on Fridays and Saturdays. I'm damn lucky. Coach Smith has been fantastic. And the longer we're working together the more he's understanding my lifting style and habits, and the more he's able to offer great lofting advice. I've made some fantastic gains with him so far.

Last night after my weightlifting training session I was supposed to start my first day of bench press. But I was out of energy and had no motivation. From the looks of things so far I won't be starting a bench program. So I'll be competing in November in the USPA New Mexico state powerlifting championships with a great squat, and deadlift,  but a horrible bench. But ya know, it's ok. Because there's no state records in the super heavyweight 40-44 age group. So all I have to do is successfully lift a single bench of any weight and it'll be a state record. Being an old fat guy in strength sports is awesome! I'm one of the few left who hasn't been debilitated by heart, knee, or back problems.

resuming bench press

I stopped training bench press after my last powerlifting meet in March so I could concentrate on fully on weightlifting. Now that I've decided to compete in the USPA New Mexico state powerlifting championships I need to start benching again. On Sunday I maxed out. My max is 275lbs. That's a pathetic bench. But I think that's pretty decent considering I haven't benched once in 6 months. So tonight I start training bench again. I have 6 weeks to put on as much strength as possible. I'll also be doing Pendley rows to keep the muscles balanced.

victory through attrition

The USPA, a powerlifting federation is having the New Mexico state championships here in Albuquerque on November 19th, 2016. I train strictly for weightlifting. But I've found weightlifting traning transfers well for powerlifting. I decided, just for fun, to look up the Super heavyweight 40-44 age group state records for the raw and classic raw divisions and there aren't any. All I have to do is show up and successfully lift a single squat, deadlift, and bench and technically I'll be the USPL state champion and state record holder. As I'm continuing this journey into strength athletics I've found there aren't many super heavyweight 40 or older left. They all have bad backs, knees, hearts, etc. I've won almost ever single weightlifting and powerlifting meet ive ever entered, simply because I'm usually the only one in my division. So far I've won 3 New Mexico state weightlifting championships, hold all the of the New Mexico weightlifting state records, won a New Mexico state NASA championship and hold 9 New Mexici state NASA powerlifting records. The owner of Iron Soul Gym tells me I'm earning victories through attrition. I think that's going to be my new motto, "victory through attrition."

I recently made peace with my weight. I'm happy with myself as I am. Well, last week my wife told me she wants me to lose 75 pounds. That she said that she doesn't like the way I look. That hurt. So I asked my sports nutrition coach Barry Schroeder if we could speed up my weight loss, even if it means sacraficing weightlifting performance.

a new protein supplament

On my days off of work I've been doing yard work. I'm taking %100 of the money and putting it in my kids college fund. While working on a ladies yard  a few weeks ago she came out and said she works for a company that makes protein supplaments and she gave me a bag full of samples and a shaker cup. The protein is called Garden of life. It's probably the best tasting protein I've ever tasted in my life. I've been taking it as a post workout supplament. I have no clue if it works or if it's a decent product for weightlifters, but it sure tastes good, and it was FREE!

https://www.gardenoflife.com/content/product/why-choose-raw-protein-and-greens/

I really didn't want to move to Albuquerque adter I retired from the prison. The crime here is unbelievable. Friday night someone stole my 1996 Chevrolet Suburban from my driveway. Thankfully I found it Sunday evening. It cost $850 to repair the damage the thieves caused.

I'm the newest employee at my new job. So consequently I'm always the first one to get called in for the worst duties and posts. My schedule has been chaotic. I'm constantly getting called by my Captain and told, "you need to report to duty at- fill in the blank- in two hours." Because of that I'm having to text or call my weightlifting coach and cancel my training with him and request him to text me a workout on short notice. I think it's starting to piss him off. I'm getting worried he's going to drop me as a client.

powerlifting and a great sports nutrition coach

This December is the Natural Athlete Strength Association Christmas powerlifting classic. Last year I competed in this event and set 9 state records and 4 national records. It was a really great event. I'm going to compete in this one again later this year. I looked up the state records and it looks like if i can drop into the 275-307lb weight class I'll be able to set 8 more state records. Plus my 9 year old wants to start training for powerlifting and go compete with me. He could already break 2 state records of his own in the youth under 100 pounds RAW powerlifting division and the youth under 100 pounds clean division. What a wonderful father/son weekend that would be. We'd both remember that fondly forever.

I rehired my sports nutrition coach. This is the 4th time in the last year I've worked with him. Everytime I start working with him again I get great speed, strength, and explosiveness gains. I should start being more consistent and dedicated to what he's having me do. If I did I know without a doubt I'd make my weightlifting goals. Speaking of that:

I sent my nutrition coach my weekly nutrition report. On one of the days I screwed up big time. I didn't hit any of my goals. Usually he'd send me an email telling me I needed to work on consistency, hit my daily goals, etc and that word have made me stop working the plan and quit. But this time he sent me an email saying "That's a great week." That got me really motivated to do better next week. And that's what made me realize why I struggle so much with online coaching of anykind. I'm hypersensitive. I think the old term for that is a sensitive Sally. And that's not good. Not everyone is willing or able to learn how an athlete responds to situations as quickly as my sports nutrition coach, Barry Schroeder. Most people would have given up on an athlete/client who is as willing to quit as I am when I get my feelings hurt. Not to mention that's piss poor people skills and horible life coping skills on my part. But anyway, he seems to have figured out how best to deal with his most tempermental pain in the ass client. I'm hoping he can get me down to 308lb by December so I can set more stare powerlifting records. Just call me a glory whore. A hypersensitive glory whore.

weightlifting coach talked me off the ledge

I listened to a pod cast by Mark Rippetoe a little over a month ago. He claimed the reason Americans are so poor at Olympic style weightlifting is that they don't do enough deadlifts. He said that American coaches are making a mistake by adopting the European model of weightlifting where they have thier athletes do tons of pulls but very few deadlifts. He was essentially saying anyone training like that isn't strong enough to lift the weights they are capable of. Since listening to that podcast I've been obsessing about doing more deadlifts. I've been contemplating sneaking more deadlifts into my training program. Vernon Smith, one of my two weightlifting coaches, talked me out of it. He said I shouldn't mess with coach Joaquin Chavez training programs. He said that my squat and weightlifting numbers show that I have more than enough strength. That it's my form that's holding me back from lifting more weight.

next weightlifting meet

My coach advised me the next weightlifting meet will be held on October 29th, 2016. That gives me another 6 weeks & 5 days to get my total up. I'm guessing I have 2 attempts to qualify for the masters national weightlifting championships. One in October, and time for one more before the cut off of February 1st of 2017. I'm so excited. I think I have a really good shot at qualifying. Coach Joaquin Chaves told me it may be a pretty good sized meet. It may be big enough to be held at the University of New Mexico weight room. If it's that big of a meet there's a chance my former coach, Shane Miller, will be there with his team. I'd really like to qualify with him present. He was the first one to take me under his weightlifting wing to coach me and guide me along. Accomplishing something like that with him there would be sentimental and the best way I could think of to say thanks to him.

building a home weightlifting gym

I work 12 hour shifts and Iron Soul, one of my gyms, is 30 minutes from my work, and my home is another 30 minutes from the gym. That makes for a long day. More importantly it makes me not get as much sleep as I should. Up until now I didn't mind a little sleep deprivation. But now that I want to focus on qualifying for the masters national weightlifting championships I need to be getting a full nights sleep to get the full benifits of training. Thankfully building a home gym for weightlifting doesn't take a tremendous amount of equipment. Just a platform, drop plates, a squat rack, and a weightlifting bar. The first thing I'll be buying is a bar. I've decided on a California bar by American Barbell. A lot of the reviews of the Ohio bar by Rouge fitness say the bars rust easily.

dry heaving at Albuquerque CrossFit

I decided to train at Albuquerque CrossFit last night. They have olympic weightlifting classes on Tuesday nights. The box (gym) is really close to my house. & They also have a trainer there who's pretty good at coaching weightlifting, Joe Vegil. The only thing I don't like is everyone is in great shape. By great shape I mean crazy hard muscles and unbelievable 6 packs. I'm 5'11" 325 pounds. I'm the total opposite of ever other person in there.
During the warm up I felt very okut of place so i did warm ups behind everyone else in the hope that no one will notice me. Finally we start lifting. I grab a rack in the far corner. I'm trying the "out of sight out of mind" approach. And just my luck, the person who's in the best shape and is the most beautiful in the entire gym sets up right behind me.

She's also strong as heck, she was lifting as much as I am the entire workout. I'm feeling a little inadequate. To make myself feel better I say to myself, "you're an olympic style weightlifter. Let's show all these beautiful people what great weightlifting form looks like." And I do. My form was really good last night. 

As I'm lifting I'm trying to not breath heavily. I'm already imbarrassed by being three times the size of everyone else. I don't want to make it even more obvious that I'm out of shape by gasping for breath in between sets. A little over half way through the workout, I'm adding more weight to the bar and I inhale a bug. I immediately cough and then my cough turns into dry heaving! I'm gagging because I have an insect wiggling around in my lungs, but no one else knows why. I'm sure it appeared that I was dry heaving because I'm in such bad shape. I was hoping she didn't notice. So inbetween dry heaves I glanced out of the corner of my eye to see if she saw me gagging and making a fool out of myself. And she did. She was staring at me with a look of concern on her face. I was so imbarrassed. But, regardless of the humiliation I'll be back on Thursday night. Hopefully this time I won't make an ass out of myself.

the masters national weightlifting championships qualifying totals

Today I got to train at High Dessert Athletic Club for the 2nd time in 3 days, instead of just my usual once a week. It was awesome. I love training there. I'm sure I sound like a commercial singing the praises of HDAC. But the coaching really is that good, and the team really is that wonderful.

Now that I've recovered from my frustration of training on my own and wanting to quit rather than lift by myself, I started thinking about the qualifying totals of the master's national weightlifting championships in March of 2017. The qualifying totals were increased for the 2017 championships. I wasn't willing to look up my totals because of my frustration with not being able to train with my coach and team. But today i went ahead and took a look. 230k! 230k (506lbs) is some pretty big numbers. My lifetime best meet was a 219k.

My team has agreed that we'll all fly there together and rent a house in Savanna for all of the ones who qualify. Now that sounds like fun! Looks like I have some work to do!

I quit weightlifting

A couple weeks ago I became frustrated with training on my own and quit weightlifting. I was planning on going back to weightlifting after my work schedule changed and I can go back to High Dessert Athletic Club. But that won't be until November 1st. So, without weightlifting I kept getting more and more grouchy until this morning my wife demanded I go back to the gym. Turns out as much as I hate training on my own I hate not weightlifting even more. It makes me happy and helps me deal with stress. Without weightlifting I turn into a jerk pretty quick. Man did it ever feel great getting back into weightlifting! And my first day back to weightlifting was at HDAC. It was awesome. I really love it there.

weightlifting gym choices

My work schedule makes it so I'm only able to train at High Dessert Athletic Club with coach Joaquin Chavez on Saturdays. The rest of the week I've been lifting at a powerlifting gym. I'm miserable weightlifting at a powerlifting gym. They're great people there. But I'm the only one doing olympic style. It's not fun by myself.

The only other place I've found that i can fit weightlifting around my work schedule is Albuquerque CrossFit on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. The coaches there aren't real big on correcting form unless someone asks. But even without much guidance it's still better than being the only weightlifter in the entire gym. So starting on Tue I'll be training at both Albuquerque CrossFit and High Dessert Athletic Club.

I post bid and shift bid mid October. I'm hoping I can get a schedule that fits with HDAC. I love it there. And I got the best gains of my life there.