Tuesday, November 24, 2009

No Pain, No Gain


I'm sitting in my cubicle and trying to type without letting my forearms touch the desk - a nearly impossible task. It feels like the radius and ulna bones of both arms have grown thousands of jagged little spikes. I'm beginning to wonder where the pain from tendonitis ends and the agony of compound fractures begins.

This weightlifting "hobby" has had some surprising results. I find myself reading more Men's Health and Muscle magazine articles. The last thing I want to do is become a gym-rat meathead, but adding a few extra pounds of upper body strength seems like a good idea on a number of different levels.

A couple of weeks ago I learned about doing "negatives" while benchpressing. You can do negatives by having spotters help you lower the weight slowly and then lifting it back up for you, or you can continuously increase the length of your extension while decreasing the weight.

You start by setting the bar about 12 inches below your full extension. You are strongest at the very top of your reach. By the time you finish, the rack is set low enough that you start with the bar practically on your chest.

Today I manged to lift 425 pounds at the top of my extension. Not a full benchpress, just one foot off the rack. But, still, I feel like that is a lot of weight and wanted to brag about it. To give that some perspective, I decided to convert it.

425 pounds equals:

213 Beto's breakfast burritos
1 Female Bengal Tiger
22.36 of those Indonesian 19-pound babies
5 supermodels
1,360 cans of tuna
850 Carl's Jr. Six Dollar Burgers
1/5 of a classic Volkswagen Beetle




1 comment:

  1. Haha! I want to see you lifting those 1360 cans of tuna. That would be HILARIOUS!!! Don't hurt yourself though!!!! I need you strong for the work in the spring ;)

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