Demian Seale

I’ve seen a lot of different ‘types’ in the gym. At UVic I mostly see the ‘bros’ who want the Italianate puffy pecs, and bloated bi’s. That’s valid. If that’s your goal, go for it! Bite life in the ass, bro! Spider curl and pec dec your way to bar bliss. The club shirts will festoon your fleshly apparel.

I also see a damned lot of serious athletes. I envy them: 20-something year-old dudes, focussed, intense, supplementing properly, training hard, dieting hard; they have a valid goal too: the development of functional muscle. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind looking great (I see them scurry off surreptitiously post-deadlifts, to the preacher bench for a good 3 sets of bi blasting) but their ultimate goal seems to be the development of muscle that will improve their performance. As a result, they seem more focussed, more intense, because what they are doing has a definite END; and what they apply as energy in iron is simply a MEANS.

Bodybuilders are a different breed, of course; our purlieu is a graveyard: the resting place of the fallen athlete. “Failed athletes” is the brutal euphemism for most bodybuilders. I hope that isn’t the case for me; it might be. However, I resolutely maintain — and always will — that bodybuilding, for me, is not athletic. It is scientific. It is artistic. It therefore recruits upon both the analytic and rational, as well as the imaginative and creative. Furthermore, I bend the limb as I reach its snapping point, and claim it spiritual.

Why spiritual? It’s a strange confluence of the mental and physical that brings about a huge demand on the spirit: the discipline, focus, and intelligence necessary to design and implement a good training and dietary programme, and the will to stick with it; the physical capability to endure unbelievable suffering — and when I say suffering, I mean both purely intense physiological strain, and the pains of deprivation (of friends, of family, of things you enjoy eating, etc.). It becomes, after some time of practice, to be both the existence of an ascetic and warrior.

These demands simply test you. And they tested me. And I admit, before I conquer these demands — and I still have much work to do — I have to learn how to remain human despite the abjuration of friends and family (love), of food, of sexual intimacy, intense loneliness, overfeeding, underfeeding, and pain. How do you remain human? How do you keep balance? How do you avoid becoming a narcissist, a solipsist, a depressive — an asshole, essentially?

You MUST realise you are a spiritual being. How ironic is that? In what the public perceives is a purely narcissistic, megalomaniacal activity, men oiled and tanned in speedos, flexed grotesques, granite unfeeling statuaries: purely physical, surface, material. When you do find that soul, and you must to survive, I believe; you pass into this rhythm of diet, training, isolation with ease; you seek out balance in other activities. You find your friends and family again, you learn to establish boundaries with them (no, I can’t eat that carrot cake!), you survive the jests; and you know what, you earn their respect.

But more importantly, you earn your respect. You come to love yourself, not for your pec depth, your ‘christmas tree’ latissimus, your ‘boulder shoulders’, but because if you CAN DO THIS, you CAN DO ANYTHING. Furthermore, you learn you are not your body; that physiology emerges from the soul; it’s an expression of that warrior spirit.

For me, then, bodybuilding is a lesson. It’s a life lesson: a subject lesson in existence — a life well-lived. It’s about love, ultimately. If you live it right, it becomes less and less about yourself, as you come to love yourself more from within to without, and more about service to others. Anything that can crack you like that, anything that pushes you to that limit forces this upon you. I believe it is the shadow of your own mortality creeping up on you, ultimately. You overtrain, you push to exhaustive limits you can’t find elsewhere (or haven’t, they do of course exist in many other disciplines and endeavours), and, man, in that crucible, your soul is tested and hopefully brought forth.

I’ve seen the narcissists in the gym: the ones whose polished and sinewy exterior is cloaked in self-loathing; the ones who haven’t seen this end. They’re the sad ones, and they go on like robots, with a ‘thousand yard stare’ at each machine, repping, repping, repping…You may win, you may get that trophy; but in the end, mortis triumphus. You can’t take it with you, bro.

That doesn’t mean that God/the All Soul doesn’t want each and every one of us to achieve our best. But I truly believe that we need to divert that energy, like a prism, refracting that divine love, to others. Whatever milieu we choose, we have to convert that power to empowerment. Love is the only power. Love is the only salvation in this existence.

/pedantry

Yours irroneously,

Sexton Hardcastle

It IS a bodybuilding blog after all…priceless vanities bought with sweat, bloodshot eyes, nosebleeds, bashed shins, swearing…

Anyway that’s about the state of things. The illusion in bodybuilding is that, once your water is dropped, and every last molecule of fat is jettisoned, excised, annihilated, scorned, dispatched…you may drop up to 30 lbs or more; however, you actually appear ‘larger’; the illusion is created largely by the dissipation at the middle: the hips and waist vacuum in so drastically that it creates a real “V-taper” to the upper body; and if you are blessed with great legs (which I am not), your entire frame should appear as an “X”. So those are the only two letters in the bodybuilder’s vocabular, “V” and “X”: and now you know why.

My last two workouts have been fantastic, which is unusual, as I went into them a bit apprehensive, having not rested properly; however, I have been eating more, in the attempt to gain overall bulk; and I believe the extra glycogen deposited as a result of more carbs has given me that extra punch. I’ve also begun to understand bodybuilding a lot better.

What I mean by that is largely a matter of technique and focus. I believe there are three components to the actual workout (apart from the dieting, sleep, supplementation, etc. that precede and succeed a workout): technique, focus, and intensity. I post them seriatim like that because I prioritise them so. First, you must have thorough knowledge of proper exercise technique. While it helps to have a thorough knowledge of physiology, and what each muscle is responsible for, it is not necessary to proper technique. There are many youtube videos to be scoured for learning the essentials to each movement. This is especially important in the gross movements, like deadlift, squat, bench press, military press, etc.

Once you have perfected these movements, you can focus your mind intently on the movement itself, and on the targeted muscle. You must forget that you owe Telus Mobility 88.13$; you must forget that your dog will need to be walked in half an hour; you must forget the awkward argument that went unresolved this morning; you must forget everything but the weight and your body. Lock in on your muscles. Specifically, the target muscle. Feel it stretch, and contract; if you cannot stretch or contract that muscle, adjust the movement slightly — only slightly. Try various positions. Move slowly in this phase, experimenting, until you feel the pinch distinctly, right where it should be. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Now technique is a means, and not an end. The end is total stimulation of the muscle.

Once you’ve gone through this phase, INTENSITY must be added to the movement. Now that you can stimulate the muscle, annihilate it with intensity. How much intensity you are probably wondering? Intensity must be parcelled out intelligently. I see all too much very low intensity. Rarely do you see the opposite: the summoning of too much force, fury, willpower; those who truly overtrain are exceptional people! I will, however, deal with my ideas about overtraining another time.

I prefer doing 5 sets of a particular exercise. The first set is merely what I call a “tracking” set. Even if you’re the most experienced muscle practitioner, you need to kind of find the groove of every movement you do. Now a tracking set is not a warmup. Warmup precedes all workouts and should combine cardio with stretching and very light weight. Tracking sets are actual work sets of the particular movement one is preparing to do. You simply use a weight about 50% of your maximum (for 8-10 reps) and you perform the movement until you feel that stretch and contraction. Now, you are “tracked”, you are in the groove.

I believe that each set should be about 8 to 10 repetitions; this has been proven as the best range for muscle hypertrophy (gaining muscle size, apart from strength, though they are related of course). On your first set, go until you think you could do perhaps 3 more repetitions with proper technique (75%). On your next set, pull up 2 reps short (85%). On your third set you are now doing what i call a “working” set; you go until you could only do one more repetition with proper form (no body english!), or 90%. Your last set should be to temporary muscular “failure”: without assistance, you could not perform any more reptitions of the movement.

Muscular failure is maximum intensity. Now this is where it gets really interesting. What is maximum? How do you know, THAT was my maximum? Let’s say I put you in a puce-coloured dress, in a room painted baby-blue, and gave you a barbell, told you to curl it as many times as you could, and left the room, and piped in Enya. Could you achieve maximum? Now let’s say I put you in a hardcore, concrete-walled subterranean gym, with half-clothed crazed shrieking bodybuilders everywhere, acrid smells of sweat wafting about, and Rammstein blasting. Now could you do maximum? What if you were in this gym, Rammstein going, and I loaded you up on caffeine AND had the biggest, meanest guy in the gym swearing at you and cussing you out as loud as he could while you did your reps?

I assume if you’re like me you will get more repetitions in the latter scenario! But that scenario is not readily available to most, nor particularly alluring. There are many mental exercises you can try to achieve intensity. If you’re like me, you’re likely angry about a few things — we all are. On your last set, near your last rep, as you’ve been focussing intently on the muscle being fired, you switch mental gears and summon the image or idea that angers you. Or frustrates you. Whatever works. Use it.

Some days you won’t be able to summon that furious intensity; on those days just revert to the second phase, focus. Just focus intently. Bodybuilding is a marathon, and not a sprint.

Yours irroneously,

Sexton Hardcastle

Occasionally you have these very odd days in the gym, where you FEEL as if you are simply unstoppable, a juggernaut, a muscle missile headed to irondoom! And then, pow, you just deflate after your first set. The pump won’t come, you can’t hit failure; your weights and lifts are down. What’s the problem? I feel great!

The truth is, I believe, it lies in the CNS (the central nervous system). It’s not just muscle recovery that occurs in the gym; the central nervous system is supremely taxed; and it takes much longer to recover than muscles. You can repeat hard training for only so long before the CNS collapses; you’ll know! Because you become somewhat depressed, insomnia visits you, irritability (more than normal, lol), your immune system is compromised — and all sorts of other things.

So I have planned more rest in the next few days. For example, tomorrow I will do a chest workout (perhaps my favourite these days), and then take Thursday completely off, and visit my local food bank to do some volunteering before work.

I suppose the salient point here is that bodybuilding, or any other sporting activity, is both physical and mental. The mind, in fact, is what controls the body, of course. But it is overly optimistic, I have found, to say that ‘bodybuilding is entirely mental’. I have discovered that there are physical limits, and that the mind must run in pursuit at times, just as at others, it must lead. It must follow the body’s direction. If the body is ready, however (i.e. if your training and diet are both spot-on), then bodybuilding is entirely mental. Whatever you conceive, you can create.

I hope to post more soon on this interesting topic, and also on Bulgarian motorsports. I know, I know, you ladies all want pics. Forthcoming!

Yours irroneously,

Sexton Hardcastle

A new programme! God it is awesome. I am so delighted. I am not sure why my coach conceded to my wishes, but he has allowed me to pursue both high-volume training, as well as a new training technique known as “FST” – or ‘fascia-stretch-training’.

The way this works is you finish your workout, and then your final exercise is 7 sets long! You rest 30 seconds between sets, and use a weight that is still fairly heavy, permitting you 10 repetitions to failure. That is 70 repetitions to finish your workout! The concept, and the provenance of the designation ‘FST’, is that the fascia surrounding the muscle is ’stretched’ by the enormous amount of blood ‘pumped’ into the muscle. This stretching of the fascia then allows the muscle to expand (grow) into the room accommodated by the stretching.

I really don’t think this is anything new, and in fact, the old-school euphemism for this type of training is simply ‘the pump’ — which was popularised by Arnold & co. The originator of FST, Hany Rambod (preparatore of Olympia champion Jay Cutler, as well as ‘the Gift’ Phil Heath), has simply codified the sensation that Arnold was seeking, and established a rigid training protocol which involves 7 sets, 10 repetitions, and 30 seconds rest.

Rambod advises using this to bring up weak body parts only; so, if you are perhaps lagging in the shoulders (deltoids) compared to your chest and Arms, Hany would advise tagging on 7 sets of Machine Lateral Raises at the end of your deltoid workout. It doesn’t appear to be much, but with just 30 seconds rest, and using perhaps 90% of your failure weight at 10 repetitions, the suffering is unreal. I love it!

So I am quite enthusiastic about my new protocol, and I am finally eating to match my training. Therefore, I am recovering well, and each workout is at a furious intensity. For example, I shambled out of the gym today with legs locked at the knees, like Frankenstein. I simply could not bend my knees or I would have collapsed. I did commit the peccadillo of not stretching afterward, which is also one of Hany’s injunctions; however, I had a job interview to make after my workout. Also, I hate stretching. Oh, how we rationalise our irrational behaviours…

Yours ironneously,

Sexton Hardcastle

I receive my new programme from my coach tomorrow. I am somewhat concerned, not because of him, but because of ME: my tendency toward overtraining might lead me to ahem ‘veer’ again. If I do, I have outlined boundaries for myself, and have promised myself to adhere to his dietary regimen. I am sure that if I am ‘on diet’, I will track incredible progress.

I’m really looking forward to the change though, and I expect that I will feel a lot better if more recovered; and to recover that eager attitude to succeed and progress. I’ll post my workouts here and how I am feeling, and recovering.

I have a new training programme coming, and I see it as solace, finally. My high volume training has been both a blessing and a curse. High volume is something to be preserved for pre-contest preparation, when the marbled flesh, the exoteric layers of fat and water are stripped down to reveal the grainy, dense muscle and vascularity hidden beneath. It’s a magician’s trick, really; and for a bodybuilding neophyte like me, whose image of the practicing bodybuilder is inculcated through magazines and youtubes which portray professionals in a perpetual state of freakish conditioning, the misconception is that these athletes MAINTAIN that type of physique year-round.

The truth is that these shots and videos are taken immediately post-contest, when the athletes are at their leanest; it’s basic Capitalism 101: to arouse feelings of insufficiency in the reader, whose physique is doubtless far inferior to those quilted glossies dressing the pages of their favourite muscle-building mags; and, of course, once that sort of negative self-regard is enkindled, the muscle-making supplements endorsed by these freaky pros can be hawked in plenty – a muscle brobdignag in which the athletes are prostituted by the pimpery of Joe Weider et al.

What they don’t tell you is these guys, these superfreaked musclemasters, some coming up close to 300 lbs (think of that, a defensive lineman in the NFL is on par there, but likely carrying another 20 to 30 lbs of fat and water, at about 10% body fat), criss-crossed with a ropy veinature not unlike the Nile estuary graphed on skin, are on a veritable pharmacopia of drugs; on top of that, they lead an absolutely ascetic lifestyle, asocial in the extreme: eating 6 to 7 meals per day, of lean meat, complex carbohydrate, and mild amounts of healthy fats; sleeping 10 to 12 hours per day; minimizing all stressful situations, often isolating themselves from family and friends; meditating, visualizing; stretching; posing: this is life boiled-down, reduced; this is focus, determination and sacrifice in the extreme.

It’s really unlike any other sport, and the more I pursue it, the more the dedication and sacrifice of these individuals impresses me, and, of course, fills me with doubt: can I gently ease my lifestyle into this 24/7 succession of cyclic sacrifice? More importantly, can I abjure this erroneous image of “the bodybuilder” as this perpetually “ripped” super-creature of muscular declivity, whose diaphanous skin is near transluscent enough to pass sunlight and permit the sight of viscera?

You know, I think I can. The focus has to shift; desire has to move to a new goal: size and strength. And that reward I think is much more gratifying than merely the narcissism of being superlean, or “peeled”. lol. My coach referred to it as ‘narcissism’ today (isn’t this what bodybuilding is about?); however, in my case, I disagree: I believe it has to do with a deep self-loathing: the achievement of a really lean physique is the byproduct (and not the aim) of a destructive training pattern — I overtrain, and undereat. It’s in part my education as an endurance athlete, in which the goal really was to achieve some catabolism (loss of mass) and to be nearly as lean as possible, relying on glycogen stores, and not fat stores, for energy.

For a bodybuilder, however, periodization in mass is very important. In the “off season” one must raise body fat and water levels for many reasons, not the least of which is to prevent injury. A better hydrated body, and a body with some fat preserves connective tissue; also, most importantly, the psychological pressure to maintain ‘contest condition’ year-round WHILE gaining muscle is absurd; it brings about severe anxiety, and radical overtraining. The athlete loses rationality, because the body image becomes the entire goal, whereas the goal should be squarely on mass and strength increases. Strength increase is almost a guarantee of muscular gain.

And so my focus must shift. I won’t beat myself up if I struggle at first. But I will follow through with the training plan and with the diet. On Monday I will post them both here as a template. It will help keep me accountable!

One thing’s for sure, I’ll have a heck of a lot more spare time, and energy, which will expose just how empty my life truly is! Perhaps this will galvanize me to pursue some of my other interests, particularly intellectual and creative.

I also seem to need a second job…lol

Yours irroneously,

Sexton Hardcastle

Still not recovered from the squirrel flu I caught in Toronto. I’ve never had chest congestion before and this slight death rattle I have in the morning and evening is worrying me. It was the best of my intentions to see the doctor today, but, from the response I’ve had from co-workers, there seems a general consensus that I’ve merely caught what was making the rounds – albeit at a late stage. I must say it’s a grim little bug, a real fighter, clings like a fattened leech gorged on my life energy.

Taken the sting you might expect out of my training. I’ve trained through it mostly and really nothing affected. Perhaps a slight drop off after one hour, which is unusual for me. I’ve been rethinking volume anyway, and also caloric intake. I think what would be ideal for me is a double split of one hour in the AM and one in the PM. There seems to be a pretty ubiquitous consensus on the net that catabolism rises after about an hour.

The smartest trainers seem to stick to an hour per day total; however, I think part of the equation is personal happiness, since none of us are going to become Mr. Olympia anyway. I think it would be difficult for me to enjoy a one hour workout — I would feel rushed, and would not be able to achieve focus or the mind-muscle connection in such a harried state (I have 4 more sets to do in 3 minutes! etc.).

Time spent, rest intervals, rep tempo, exercise selection, exercise order, pre-workout nutrition, post-workout nutrition, general diet, rest, sleep, supplementation. It’s easily the most difficult “sport” I’ve engaged, if not activity. It really demands a ‘whole-being’ involvement; or, one is merely a ‘dabbler’ or ‘gym rat’. In the end, with so many variables that need to be fine tuned, independently, and one-against-the-other, it’s not the guy with the best genetics, but the guy with the greatest discipline, who has made allt he sacrifices — he is the champion.

And I suppose when I confront this fact, the fact that bodybuilding presents itself as purely physical, as a physical specimen, a human sculpture in flesh, but really is entirely mental, having to do with discipline, desire, and focus, I do get excited. Because I know that I can make sacrifices where others cannot. Perhaps not with chocolate…lol.

It will play out as it will. I have vowed to do my best, and I will. I meet with my coach on Friday and we’ll hash out a new, sane plan for training and nutrition. I have to accept that my body will change negatively, before it makes a sudden, metabolic dive toward being ‘ripped’; but this time with 10 lbs more muscle (we hope). Until then, remember that whatever you dream you can achieve; that whatever you are able to imagine, that picture of yourself, if you can conceive it, you can create it.

Yours irroneously,

Sexton Hardcastle

Recovering from the lost wallet today, and the workout yesterday. Decided to throw together shoulders and biceps today. I really detest training shoulders, I don’t know why. I think it’s because the workout is usually rather simple and hard to make interesting. Also I don’t really feel a huge pump from it as the muscles are small and rather fragile.

Biceps are of course another story: they swell and pump almost within the first few reps. And for some reason the pump lasts almost forever; one could go on with various biceps moves almost ad-infinitum and still feel the pump.

Lately I’ve really been trying to work on the mental game. I have technique and intensity down finally (I hope), and with technique comes the ability to really focus on the muscle as it works. The infamous “mind-muscle” connection that is so hyped in bodybuilding. But for bodybuilders this really is of vital importance. If you don’t really concentrate on stretching and contracting, you will never move that fascia out to open room for hypertrophy; you’re just going through the motions, waiting for the workout to end.

Really it’s just another variation on the trendy new age ‘be here now’ platitude. Don’t let your mind wander, don’t think about your lost wallet, your lost love, your groceries, laundry, dirty bathroom. That’s all later. In fact, it’s all imaginary: it’s imagination. Be in the real. Get the most out of each rep through total focus. Some muscles respond better to this injunction: the ones I’ve developed enough to really feel them squeeze. Others really you know, I’m just pumping the weight up and down. Shoulders can be like that. It’s only after when I feel them hurt, when I can’t raise my arm, that I realise I did a good job. But it’s nothing like chest, arms, or back. Or even legs.

Let’s not talk about legs though.

Well I must get to the bank before it closes so I can retrieve the rest of my cash and get a new debit card. The process of replacing all my ID cards is going to be such joy I can’t wait!

Yours in iron,

Sexton Hardcastle

Well, lost my wallet today. Wouldn’t have been too bad, but I had taken out my rent money and it went with my wallet. I hope my landlord will be understanding, yet it is a debt that can’t be overlooked. I’m hoping I dropped it somewhere in my house, although that hope is fleeting, since I’ve overturned just about every object, and even looked in the fridge, thinking my hasty unloading of groceries might have coincided with a mindfart deposit of the wallet in the icebox.

I even chased down the particular bus on which I thought perhaps the wallet might have slipped free from my pants. No such luck. I’m hoping for karma, but with that much money packed in there, some slime might have just pocketed it. I’ll try the bus company again tomorrow and then the police station. I’ve pretty much given up hope, and am prepared now to take on a second job to make up the deficit. Things have a way of working out.

Speaking of working out, today was scheduled for an Arnold Blast — chest and arms. I jammed the brakes on at Chest & Tris, leaving biceps tomorrow to pair with back. Chest and triceps make an excellent pair because one really has to work to isolate one without recruiting the other: both tend to work in tandem. I did a morning chest workout (then lost my wallet), and returned in the evening to work out my frustrations on my triceps.

I’m currently attempting to get my weight up to 225 or 230 and eventually diet down <198, to make light heavyweight. I feel I will look a bit thin in this weight class, given my height; however, from the side I do have fairly good thickness in my chest and arms, which gives the poses 'side triceps' and 'side chest' a nice look as long as I submerge my hamstring far enough so I squat down to the height of most of my competitors, who will be probably 5 foot 8 or so. Put it this way, I don't stand a chance. But eventually, if I persist, I can hit 280 to 300 in the offseason, and compete around 240 or so, and will look balanced and worthy in the heavyweight class.

I returned from Toronto with a cold, which is very unusual for me. It's just a head cold, and feels awful in the morning, but after my wakeup shake (9 ice cubes, 2 scoops whey, ground oats, frozen strawberries, and, yes, copious amounts of coffee grinds) I am absolutely bouncing off the walls.

Even with this rocket launcher, I can't hit the intensities I would like, given the little flu bug I have, but I'm doing all right. Next week I get a new programme, and new diet. There'll probably be an aggressive increase in calories, however I'm not sure what my coach has in mind for training. I hope it will be intense, but I doubt it. He seems to like refining moves for me whereas I feel I need really hard, compound, whole-body movements to really bring up huge muscle gains; I can see how this would lead to imbalances without isolation moves. We are just not on the same page here, but he is my coach, and so I will listen to him as to incorporate two differing philosophies would be chaos, and only result in failure.

Tomorrow I'm on to back and biceps. Two of my favourites really. I'm putting off legs until I'm completely recovered from this cold.

Yours in iron,

Hardcastle

Two more days in Toronto. Today I go to see Avatar in 3D. Should be mind-numbingly dumb! But in 3D in the Imax the “special” effects might just overpower that part of my brain responsible for cognition and critique….probably not, but I’m willing to lay down 25 dollars to find out, just like all the millions of other dumbasses out there.

Physique is not coming along properly. Here are a couple of shots post-workout at Uptown Fitness.

Size is coming slowly but much more effort to limit workout volume is required. I almost got sick today in fact, only a Xyience drink could save me!

I am incorporating “Giant Sets” now in my routine. This is where you line up 4 different exercise stations for the same muscle group and you simply rotate through them 3 or 4 (or if you’re me, 6 or 7 times). IT really helps to alleviate boredom and also keep tempo high; and if you’re a bodybuilder and have ZERO CARDIO, it does help with that as well. Not moving between machines, but taking no rest.

At any rate all this experimentation will come to an end soon as Jed, my trainer, will have a new programme for me soon, and this time I intend to follow it without thinking. After all, if one gains fat and water, one also gains tonnes of muscle. Which is what I want.

Until next time,

Yours in iron,

Sexton