Pulling and some Forearm Pain

Alright.  I worked a little late last night, but made it to the gym.  Here are my sets.  Keep in mind that these are working sets.  I warm up first with a set of lighter weight to get things going.

10/11/11
1 Hand Dumbbell Rows - 3 Sets
95x8
95x7
95x6

Felt a slight shooting pain in my right forearm during the 2nd set.  I rested a solid 5-6 minutes before doing my 3rd set.  The weight became difficult to grip in my right hand, but I managed to pull 6 reps.

Bodyweight Pullups - 5 Sets
32 total reps, broken out across 5 sets.  I used the smith machine for these b/c it has a wide bar.  I just raised the bar up to the top rack and did my pullups there.  I still felt some strain in my forearm, but it wasn't enough to have a significant impact on my work.

I get to add another complaint about my gym: The weight belt is often either missing or broken.  Couldn't do weighted chins b/c there was no weight belt available.  Hence the bodyweight pullups.

Upright Rows - 3 Sets
80x8
80x8
80x8

This time I felt the strain in my right forearm the moment I picked up the weight.  Took this one a little lighter b/c of this.  Afterwards I actually felt like this whole exercise was a waste of time.

Dumbbell Bicep Curls - 1 Set
35x8

At this point, my forearm really tightened up.  Figured I shouldn't press my luck, and called it a night.

Overall, I'm not particularly happy with how it went last night.  Today I don't feel anything in my forearm, so I hope it was just a little twinge.

Soreness - and why I hate my gym

"Holy fuck I am sore."  That's the first thought that popped into my head when I tried to get out of bed this morning.  Soreness is strange for me.  There are times where I work my ass of at the gym, but don't get sore.  Other times I feel like I had a shitty workout, yet the next day I can't walk without limping.  Today is one of those days. 

On Sunday, all I did were 5 sets of squats, 5 reps each.  Yes, the lifts were decently heavy, but today I'm literally limping around my office.  Stairs are a mini nightmare.  What doesn't help is that A) I sit at a desk all day, and B) If I don't lift after work, I usually just go home and sit while eating dinner, and then sit some more while either watching TV or playing some gears of war before going to bed.  And that's exactly what I did last night. Ate some meatza for dinner (pizza without the bread), and then planted my lazy ass in front of the xbox for the rest of the night.

I'm doing some "pull" at the gym today.  No deadlifts today, just some dumbbell rows, some weighted chins, and maybe some shrugs or upright rows.  I might throw 2 sets of biceps in there depending on how packed the place is, and how much time I've spent there. 

The gym I go to kind of sucks.  It's within walking distance from my house, which is fantastic, but the facility is mediocre at best.  You take a slow elevator to the 2nd floor, which opens up into an enormous space to workout in.  The "space" is filled with the usual treadmills, bikes, elipticals... which is expected.  But it's also filled with rows of chest, back, and shoulder machines that are duplicates of one another.  There are something like 4 different "chest press" machines.  This does not include the 3 different "incline chest press" and 2 "decline chest press" machines. The same goes for the shoulder machines.  It's overkill, and over half of them rarely get used.  There are only 2 squat racks, but thankfully they're usually open.  The worst thing is that they don't have 2 1/2 lb weights.  This means that when I want to increase my bench, my only option is to put an additional 5 lbs on each side.  A 10lb jump is pretty huge on bench press.  It's difficult to make and track tangible progress.

Anyway.. there's more that I hate about my gym, but I've been ranting for a while.  I'll post up my sets tomorrow.

Blogging

I'm Chris, and I have one goal: Get bigger and stronger.  I've been lifting for about a year and a half now, and while I've seen some pretty significant gains in some areas, I've completely leveled off in others.  I want this blog to be a way to keep myself honest in continually increasing my strength.  Whether it's an increase in reps or weight from week to week, I need to track my progress.

10/9/11
Squats - 5 sets
225x5
225x5
235x5
235x5
235x5

That's all I did on Sunday.  What a weak day at the gym.  And on the last set, I couldn't even go all the way down.  Exactly why I'm starting this fucking blog.  Time to man up on Tuesday and kick some ass.