I had heard many a mentions about the most hated, most dreaded guy in the gym but I had not encountered him or his evil ways in my many years of working out in many gyms. I was convinced his story was only a legend.

Today, as if I had recited his name three times in front of the gym’s nasty-ass restroom mirror HE APPEARED. (I had not, I swear!) A terrifying experience it was. He is known as:

~~ THE SQUAT RACK KILLER ~~

I should have seen the signs, the clear, obvious signs: HE PICKED UP THE BAR WITH A SUPPINATED GRIP! Who picks up the bar like that when they are about to place it on their shoulders and squat in the squat rack? WHO?!

In one motion he lifted the bar to the front of his shoulders while keeping his elbows somewhere near his sides. To my utter shock and dismay, I realized HE WAS DOING BICEP CURLS! Just then a black cat ran across the weight room and a large, dark shadow with what appeared to be horns floated upward, hugging the wall, right through the ceiling. At least I’m pretty sure I saw that.

My workout had not started, yet I was sweating. I turned away quickly before he noticed me and made myself busy with forearm curls. I considered singing “La la la” but that would have been too obvious. Same for whistling.

Good thing the squat rack could only take so much, because he finished without notice, without putting the bar away, WITHOUT REMOVING THE FREAKING PLATES from the bar. No surprise there, for someone as evil and sadistic as to do freaking bicep curls in the squat rack would clearly not have the humanity to clean up after himself.

Speaking of cleaning after oneself, (no, I did not shit my pants tho I was close) I could not use the inverted leg press while waiting for the squat rack because someone failed to clean their ball of sweat left on the headrest. It looked like someone threw a grapefruit at the headrest and it exploded, its citrusy juices running down. I’d be a smart man to bet large amounts of money that it was THE SQUAT RACK KILLER who also took out the inverted leg press. Serial killers by definition do not just kill once.

So I carried on with my workout wearing a smile on my face, being glad that the horrific ordeal was over.

Today’s Leg workout:

• Barbell Squats superset with light 75 pound, 12-step walking lunges x3 sets
• Laying Sled Press dropsets – Heavy (fail @ 6reps) then Light (fail @ 12reps) x 3 sets
• Kickboxing heavy bag workout – 10 minutes
• Leg extensions superset with Seated hamstring curls x 2 dropsets each

That is all, my most trusted, honored and beloved friends. That is all.

BE CAREFUL OUT THERE. FOR THE SQUAT RACK KILLER TRAVELS AND HAS MANY FACES.

Do not watch the video with the lights off. You have been warned.

Forever truly yours,

BUM

On fueling your body.

There are many people who are into the whole organic, natural foods thing. I cannot claim I am one of them. How can I not be into organics if I am into fitness and building my body??

Well, I didn’t say I’m against it, I’m just not that into you, Organic food. I choose organic foods sometimes when I see them at the supermarket but most importantly, when they make sense for my goal. For example, my supermarket has organic ground beef, but it is the fat kind. Something like 85% lean. What the hell? I only get the 96% lean. Big difference eh?

If you keep eating the organic but high-in-saturated-fat ground beef you will quickly see a negative effect in your body while I pretty-much guarantee you will not see or feel any positive difference. However, if you have been eating just any ground beef without looking at its fat content you are most likely eating the 85% variety whether organic or not. Switch to the heart-friendly, 96% lean ground beef and you’ll look and feel better quick.

I know this sounds “crazy” and ill informed but I do not notice a difference at all when I buy organic except at the checkstand. However, mess up on eating the right amount of macros, or eat too much sugar or salt or saturated fat and you’ll see the damage in a few days. Then it’s hell trying to undo it. ISN’T IT? You know I’m right! We’ve all been there. This goes back to not losing site of what your goal is when it comes to fueling your body.

You need to get certain macro-nutrients into your body every day to be healthy, and you need more of them and more kinds if your are constantly destroying your body. Yes, if you are bodybuilding you are destroying your muscle cells, but then you are repairing them and getting sexier : ).

Have you seen that guy or girl at work who is always touting how “organic” they are eating? Perhaps opening packages of organic foods during lunch, maybe trying to convince you to eat like them? How do they look? Do you want your physique to resemble theirs? Not necessarily. At least, I have not seen one that looks like they put emphasis on their physique.

The problem with many of them is that they are concentrating on WHAT NOT TO PUT INTO THEIR BODY  instead of WHAT TO PUT INTO THEIR BODY. Scary? That’s because all caps means business! If you are in the process of transforming your body, you need to concentrate on what you are getting into your body and how much of it, more than what not to put into it. Makes sense?

Most of the people I’ve seen that are heavily into eating organic or even worse; eating vegetarian, are not very fit. They are usually skinny. And remember ladies, Skinny is a Bad Word. Skinny means you have very little muscle which means you don’t have many beautiful curves on your strong, lean, sexy body. You know that men certainly do not want to be skinny, but women should not aim to be skinny either! Ever see skinny women with “spaghetti legs”? Basically straight tubes like Olive Oil’s legs? Yeah. Not pretty.

Back on track here. So make sure your number one goal is to put the right amount of protein and carbs into your body every day. Going down in weight? See this. Need to pack on some muscle? See this. And don’t forget fats. You need a certain amount of fats as well. Usually, taking a couple of fish oil pills and maybe some peanut butter, avocato or some tuna will suffice for your fat intake. The most important macro-nutrients THAT YOU SHOULD KEEP TRACK OF are protein and carbs. You can keep track using fatsecret.com.

What about the whole sugar versus artificial sugar debate? You already know not to eat foods with high fructose corn syrup, right? That’s the worst kind of sweetener there is. It is super-processed sugar from corn and it makes you fat, fast. “How about natural, organic sugar?” asks Biff. NO BIFF, natural sugar makes you fat too! Fact is, all sugar is converted to fat by your liver and puts you in the fat storage mode. Even honey!

So we come to artificial, non-sugar sweeteners. You may think artificial sugars like Splenda are bad, but the claims that it might give you cancer and other things are usually extremely rare, only in large doses at a time, and only tested on lab rats. Natural sugar is WAY WORSE since you see the negative results surely and almost immediately. Don’t be fooled by thinking that being fat is just unsightly; it can kill you faster than you think. So instead of concentrating on not eating artificial sugar, remember what your goal is; to put certain macros into your body.

Case in point: Protein shakes.
Both Syntha-6 and MusclePharm’s Combat Powder use Sucralose (splenda) and only have 2g of sugar. Even the most popular protein powder, Gold Standard Whey, uses only 1g of sugar.

They wouldn’t use a ton of sugar like a soft drink or chocolate milk, even “natural organic sugar” because that would defeat the purpose of buying it in the first place; to gain some lean muscle and look good naked! : ) They would not sell very much product because most of the time, you don’t want to eat any sugar. The only exception are post-workout drinks where you actually want to ingest sugars in order to raise your insulin levels at that moment in order to help with the absorption of the very protein you’re drinking.

As a rule of thumb, stay away from eating a lot of sugar of any kind. And no, artificial sweeteners are not actual sugars but they are safe.

PEACE and good luck with your transformation!