Training Log: Upper Body

Warm Up:

Shoulder Traction
Band Extensions
Wall Pec Stretch
Band Curls
Band Pull Aparts

Lifting:

Hammer Chins: BW+45×5, BW+25x5x4

Dips: BW+115×5, BW+90×8

DB Shoulder Press: 55×16, 55×8

One Arm Machine Reverse Flyes: 100x15x3

V-Handle Band Ext: dbled,old#1x15x3

Rehab:

Band RC Internal Rotation
Band RC External Rotation
Lacrosse Ball: Pecs, Rhomboids

Conditioning: 

BB Complex (RDL, Rows, Hang Cleans, OHP, Sq): 65x8x2

– Finally back in the gym and stunningly I didn’t feel weak as shit. I am going to be really sore tomorrow though.

– Only wanted 3 for dips and got 5 with +125. Awesome considering the weight gain and lack of gym time the last 3+ weeks.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Review

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Whenever you make a sequel, especially a sequel to a good movie, it is automatically going to be compared to its predecessor from the get go. And when compared to the first Sherlock Holmes, A Game of Shadows fell flat and short. It wasn’t nearly as witty and light-hearted as the first one and even some moments it felt like they were trying to force the funniness into the movie that seemed to come so naturally in the first one. There were many moments towards the beginning of the movie that I felt were supposed to be funny that just wasn’t.

But..

that does NOT mean this movie wasn’t good. It just wasn’t AS good, which is true of most sequels. Off the top of my head, only X-men II and Spider-Man II were better than the originals. And Sherlock Holmes to me is a 10/10 movie… for Game of Shadows to match that would have been insane.

This movie is good. It has a much darker tone to it as the mystery of Professor Moriarty is much more wide scale than Lord Blackwood in the first movie. Moriarty is Blackwood enhanced 10 times. He is 10 times smarter and 10 times more sadistic and diabolical and 10 times as cocky and 10 times as rich. Moriarty is an awesome villain and has a unnerving, scariness about him on screen. You can tell just be looking at him and how he acts that there is a psychopath underneath the calm and cool professor. Every time Moriarty and Holmes are on screen together they steal the show.

Speaking of Holmes, he is played just as well as the first one by Downy Jr. The same can be said for Watson, who seems to take on a more prominent role in this movie. We get appearances from Holmes’ brother who is about what you would expect. Adler is in the movie as well but the primary female role is filled by a gypsy who to be honest, is just a background character that shows up constantly lol. I can’t even remember her name.

There is a lot more action in this movie and a lot more explosions. Whether that is good or bad would be according to your taste in movies.

If you really enjoyed the first Sherlock Holmes, you will like this movie as well. Just don’t expect it to match the first movie or you will be disappointed. Enjoy what is there (especially Moriarty) instead.

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Rotten Tomatoe’s Rating: 59% Audience: 85%

Shadow’s Rating: 8/10— Just because it isn’t as good as the first, doesn’t mean it was a bad movie. This movie is still well above average.

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After the jump, pros, cons, and MAJOR SPOILERS.

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Dissecting the Hobbit Trailer

Trailers really don’t mean much. They are just meant to get the casual people (aka the important people) interested in a movie. People like me don’t really buy movies based on trailers. Plus, no trailer is going to show the shitty parts of a movie. All trailers are different degrees of awesome.

Time to over analyze the trailer for the Hobbit, a movie that is over a year away from being in theaters. This is also only part one as they are splitting the movie in half. In fact, I am over analyzing a teaser trailer lol. Can’t help it, too excited for this movie.

Click here for the trailer

After the jump in case you want to go into the movie without knowing anything. Possible huge spoilers, especially if you have never read the book. There isn’t much because it is just a tease but you have been warned.

– I understand why they did it, but I don’t like the look of some of the dwarves, especially Thorin. The basically king dwarf having a puny beard just seems odd. I know they did it so we could tell 13 dwarves apart but if any of them should have had a long beard, it should have been him.

– This feels just like LotR. Feels like we are being teleported right back to Middle Earth. Love it.

– I really hope they don’t make the Hobbit too dark. Especially not the first half of the book. You have to remember, no one had any clue this ring was the One Ring… not even Gandolf. The Hobbit was much more of a children’s book and not nearly as dark as LotR. So I hope they don’t foreshadow too much with the One Ring.

– Lady Galadriel is NOT in the Hobbit book. But, the whole White Council and such is mentioned in various books and in the appendices. This means, not only is Jackson using the Hobbit for source material, he is using things mentioned that happened in the same time period but were mentioned in over books. This. Is. Awesome. Hopefully we see the fight against the Necromancer and such.

Dissecting The Dark Knight Rises Trailer

Trailers really don’t mean much. They are just meant to get the casual people (aka the important people) interested in a movie. People like me don’t really buy movies based on trailers. Plus, no trailer is going to show the shitty parts of a movie. All trailers are different degrees of awesome.

But, I am going to dissect the new Batman: The Dark Knight Rises trailer anyway just for fun. Let’s see how much I can overanalyze 2 minutes worth a clips from a 2+ hour long movie. I have also seen the prolong once although the picture sucked.

Click here for the trailer.

After the jump in case you want to go into the movie without knowing anything. Possible huge spoilers.

– Bane is hard for me to understand. He has some weird accent thing going on (I have trouble with accents) and he sounds muffled on top of that. Hopefully this is just a “listening on the computer” problem but people are complaining about it all over the internet as well. Hopefully they tweak it a bit so I can understand what he is saying a little better.

– Bale has lost every once of mass he had in Batman Begins.

– There wasn’t a lot of Batman in the trailer. I hope Nolan doesn’t forget that this movie is a BATMAN movie. The Dark Knight focused a ton on the Joker and Batman seemed almost like an afterthought (IMHO) I hope this one is more balanced.

– The Batcopter looks… interesting.

– Bane isn’t going to be the hulking beast he was in the comics. Disappointing as it was part of his appeal.

– This movie could get political on us and I really hope it won’t. Catwoman bringing up the 1% and the 99% crap. I hope the politics are left out of the movie.

– There are at least two Bane/Batman hand to hand fights judging from the two trailers. Let us home Nolan has improved on the stunts and choreography of the hand to hand fights. They are not his strong suits.

– We see Bruce stuck in some sort of a prison. The question is: is this a flashback to his pre-League of Shadows/Batman days? Or is it current and due to Bane? Both are interesting scenarios. If it is a flashback, then it probably means Bruce has heard of Bane before in one of the prison systems. If it is current… how the hell did Batman get caught and do they know they caught Batman at that time?

– We see Bruce with a cane and we see him on the ground at one point. We can probably assume Bane caused it but we have to wonder if the beatdown was a “true” breaking of the bat (aka broke his back) or was it just a above average beatdown? And… did Bane figure out who Batman was before hand or did he unmask him after beating him down or none of the above and it is a just a mirage from the trailers?

– We do know that there as been no major super villains since the Joker. Nolan has said it has been 8 years since TDK and it mentions in the trailers that it was a peace time. So has Batman been fighting crime still or did he disappear altogether? We also know that Gordon is being pushed out.

– What role is Gordon-Levitt playing in this movie? You don’t hire a named actor for a bit part.

– This movie could be downright epic. That is for sure.

Thinking Out Loud For 2012- Injury Review

I have not sat down and wrote down exactly what is wrong with my body on the blog, so I thought I would instead of just alluding to it in my training log posts. Allude = bitch about it.

I am no Dave Tate or Wesley that is for sure. Aka I haven’t ripped anything off the bone. But what I have done gets in the way big time and has really hindered my progress. That biggest thing is that I cannot injure myself to the point where it will effect my future career. I need my wrists, knees, and shoulders or I can’t do my job.

Lower Back

– This is the big one. I believe it is a really chronic facet issue and SI issue at this point. Really limits what I can do. The pain can be as mild as a slight ache and as bad as shooting pain down my ass that forces me to lie down.

Exercises This Eliminates: goblet/split squats, 45* back extensions, heavy goodmornings, decline sit ups, standing military presses, heavy BB SLDL/RDL/Dimels,

Exercises This Limits: any deadlift or squat variation not mentioned above, any lower back exercise, any compound leg exercise, any Olympic lift

Solution: Training around it as best as I can. Listen to my body and back off when the pain starts instead of grunting my way through it and hurting myself long term. Strengthen my ab and lower back musculature any way possible. Get chiropractic adjustments (good ones only) when needed.

Right Shoulder

– This is the other big one. Best guess without imaging is that my labrum is slightly torn. This scares me because shoulder injuries suck. I am really babying it right now and hoping for the best. I will quit lifting before I risk fucking my shoulder up worse.

Exercises This Eliminates: all barbell bench pressing of any type or angle

Exercises This Limits: DB bench pressing, all pressing exercises due to fear

Solution: keep hitting the exercises that cause zero pain as hard as possible, stretching and soft tissue work on the pecs, rotator cuff prehab, increase the amount of upper back, rear delt, and lat exercises, high rep DB work, stop at the first sign of any pain or weakness in the shoulder, posture

Left Knee

– This is a pain around the fibular head that varies in strength. This one doesn’t seem lifting related and I am not sure what the fuck is going on. Sometimes it seems like a hamstring issue, other times calf, and other times IT band. This one doesn’t effect my lifting too much and grunting through the pain doesn’t make it any worse.

Exercises This Eliminates: leg curls

Exercises This Limits: squats (on the descent), lunges

Solution: stretch and soft tissue work on the calves and hamstrings, grunt through it

Right Knee

– Just wear and tear. This is the knee I had surgery on in high school. Rarely a limiting factor

Exercises This Eliminates: none

Exercises This Limits: leg exercises occasionally

Solution: wear knee sleeves, warm up properly, grunt through it

Left Piriformis

– This is a side effect of my back issues. My left piriformis is stupid tight and loves to cramp up. When it starts spazzing, the only relief is lying down.

Exercises This Eliminates: anything that hurts the lower back will eventually cause my piriformis to go haywire

Exercises This Limits: same as lower back

Solution: stretch, soft tissue work, proper warm up, strengthen my abductors and glute max

Morning Musings #12: Back in Town

– Finally back in good ol’ Florida. I love seeing family and all that jazz, but nothing is more relaxing for me that sitting home. I hate traveling and I hate sleeping in beds that are not my own. And I hate the cold. Luckily we left the day it snowed 2 inches. The weather wasn’t THAT bad at home but it wasn’t 80 degrees like it was in Florida.

– Of course, I got sick immediately when I went home. I have been back home 3x and I have gotten sick three times. I hate getting sick and it pisses me off. Luckily I get sick very infrequently.

– So, I put on 15 pounds due to the holidays and finals. So I am back to 230. Pretty embarrassing and I look and feel like shit. I haven’t looked and felt this bad in a LONG time. Definitely getting to the gym today. I need to sweat something fierce.

– My dog picks up horrible habits when it is around other dogs who are idiots. She stayed with 2 little yap yap, crazy dogs and started acting just like them. Of course, they are 10 lbs and she is 60 lol. That didn’t work out so well. She should be back to normal in a day or two now that she is back in isolation at home.

– Of course, the week I have limited computer use, 10,000 trailers come off. I am gonna have posts dissecting all the major ones coming your way soon. I also still need to go see Sherlock Holmes. I really want to see that movie.

– My father-in-law was getting rid of a bunch of DVD’s and gave me a whole box of them. Some of them are crap but some of them I needed to add to my collection. I picked up stuff like Star Trek and Spider-Man 3 and Man of Fire. The ones I don’t want I am just going to sell back to Amazon or MovieStop and get some credit to buy some movies I need like Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Conan, and Green Lantern.

– You know what is better than being able to sit around the house and do what you what? Nothing… 1.5 weeks left of complete FREEEEEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!

I Cannot Figure out Prometheus

Another teaser trailer came out for Prometheus, yet I still can’t figure out what the hell this movie is about.

Here is the trailer…

Here is the “synopsis…”

Ridley Scott, director of “Alien” and “Blade Runner,” returns to the genre he helped define. With PROMETHEUS, he creates a groundbreaking mythology, in which a team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a thrilling journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.

The trailer is extremely vague. The synopsis is extremely vague. I guess this is some sort of Alien prequel although not a direct prequel just set in the same “movie universe” and happened before Alien. Hell, the trailer models the Alien trailer almost shot for shot. It is the exact some style. No one is sure as everything about this movie is vague.

The movie is so vague that I thought maybe it didn’t come out until next Fall or Winter. Nope… it comes out in June. Yikes. I know some directors (like Nolan) love to keep the audience in the dark, but after the last few Alien movies (the third one, AvP, AvP II) it is going to take more than “oh it is an Alien movie” to get people to show up and I would think the trailer would be a little more in depth at this point.

[Editor’s Note: Sorry about the short posts recently. I am out of town and it is much easier to copy and paste a trailer(s) or a fish picture than actually right something. Won’t be back in town until Wednesday. I plan on breaking down the big important trailers that came out the last two weeks and I have some other stuff written. And I also need to see and write the review for Sherlock Holmles II. Just letting you know.]

Merry Christmas

Why I Don't Post a Lot of Lifting Articles

I actually have like two articles halfway done, but just haven’t gotten around to it. The reasons why are pretty simple to be honest.

I don’t think anyone gives two shits what I have to say about weightlifting.

I am not a trainer. I have lifted with or trained two people my entire life. One was my brother who I had tons of success with and one was a friend who couldn’t keep up. So I don’t have that experience to offer wise advice from. I don’t lift with a “super team” like Westside or BIG or Glen Pendlay or something like that. And I am not super strong myself. Sure, my lifts in my prime could smash 99% of the people you see in a normal gym but who gives a shit when you can go online and get advice from people who make my best lifts look like child’s play?

Do I know some things? Sure. Can I offer advice based on my experiences? Sure. And my experiences could actually help people as I have had some success while never touching any sort of legal or illegal anabolic (hell I can barely afford creatine and take it irregularly) and I am not a super genetic freak (although my genetics are above average). And because of this I may post a thing or two that has helped me.

But in my opinion, if you want to learn something about lifting, you should go to the best. You should go to Elitefts and see how those guys train (just realize those people probably are not like you). You should go to Strength By Design and read the articles Joe posts or read the logs of president fad or B.money. You should go to Lucharilla and reads posts by Sandblaster/Scott and 0311/Dan. You should go to Ironaddicts and learn from Ex/John and his mod crew. You should go to Intensemuscle and read Dante’s or Skip’s posts if you are into hardcore bodybuilding. You should go wherever you can to read Wesley/Ironaddict’s posts and articles.

These are the people I learned from. And these are the people you should learn from as well.

Me? I am just a broken down, injured, 25 year old who can move some weight every once in awhile. Read my logs, laugh at my failures, applaud my successes, and learn what you can from what I put up. But don’t expect me to post up lots of articles. That isn’t my place at this time.

But I AM THE authority on action movies. So listen to me always lol ;-).

Movie Quick Shots: Trailer Edition Part 3- Saving the Best for Last!

So I keep putting these up and the trailer Gods keep putting them out!

And they are saving the best for last. The MOTHERFUCKING HOBBIT!!!