I Hear You Knocking at My Front Door


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Right about this time for the past 13 years I glowingly declare the days are getting longer and spring is around the corner. I lean back as I bedazzle my keyboard and remind us it’s time to ramp up our training and get in shape for the rocking summer ahead. It’s what we do, bombers. We’re musclebuilders and ironheads, lifters of steel and sculptors of bodies.

Having set the stage, I, with contagious excitement, detail a thoughtful menu and a thorough workout to refresh our winter-logged minds and build lean shapely muscle and powerhouse might. Sets would fly and reps would soar while we lifted up the iron and gulped down the protein. Yes, indeedy, that was then.

Today, however, my mind is numb. I can’t think of a meaningful thing to say. Zap. I just deleted another page filled with stale words, sentences and phases. That makes an even bodybuilder’s dozen since starting to write this week’s newsletter. A bodybuilder’s dozen is any number between 8 to 15 repetitions, depending on the pump and burn.

Yeah, right! And when’s the last time you had a pump ’n burn, Mr. Mighty Max Muscle Marvel Man? I thought I was getting a pump last week, but as it turns out I strained a tendon and it was swelling from the injury. Rats!

It gets worse: Due to circumstances beyond my control I missed a workout last week. That was no big deal back in the day when I trained twice a day, six days a week. But nowadays “a” workout is half my workouts for a seven-day period. At that rate I won’t qualify for the Mr. Droopy Drawers finals of 2013. What will my grandkids think?

Odds are I’ll be out of the running for the Most Skin Hanging Loosely Award this year. Heartbreaking! Get this: I have the original I Did It My Way by Sinatra on digital… not to mention my black and white checkered posing trunks… my top hat, bow tie and walking stick.

Note: I don’t compete for the trophy. I confess, I just love the applause.

Another brave confession from the bottom of my open heart: I do not want, need or desire to see the inside of a gym for the rest of my life.

This is my public statement, of course, until I… hand-to-throat gasp… actually miss a training session. Should I in real life skip, omit or otherwise fail to workout, grief commences immediately and severely. My back bows, my knees buckle and I’m suddenly three inches shorter than normal. The world spins, my head cocks to one side, my sopping tongue protrudes from my gaping mouth. I look upward from drowsy eyes, my voice muffled as I search for words. Limp hands reach for support as I haplessly lurch from place to place.

“Hey, buddy… Can you give me a spot?”

… ummm… How about mouth-to-mouth resuscitation (providing you have one of those protective masks handy), a miniature brain transplant, a pair of electrifying backstage passes to the OhBama Pageant, whatever that is.

Two workouts a week seem to do it for me. I’d do more if I could, but I can’t, so I don’t. If I did, I’d be miserable, so I do what I must, can, should and will. Exactly!

It all use to be so easy: Enter gym, see dumbbell, lift dumbbell, go home.

Best Workout:

> Rope tuck, leg raise and free hand squat combinations for 15 inspiring minutes

> Seated dumbbell curl supersetted with low incline dumbbell-fly-to-press (3-4 sets x 10, 8, 6 and 12-15 reps)

> Widegrip pulldowns behind and before the head supersetted with dip machine dips leaning forward and back with bombastic finesse (3-4 sets x 12 reps and 12-15 reps)

> Lying bentbar stiff-arm pullover and triceps extension, a jumbo bombo combo (3-4 sets x 10-12 and 6 reps)

Did Laree mention we have a little fox that visits us mid-day for scraps of food? So cute, about 30 inches long, nose to tail’s end, and 10 pounds soaking wet. I want to be a fox when I grow up.

Fox rocks… Go… Godspeed… D

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