Diary 24/04/10 - Building a Scene

This was a very interesting week. Training was good and I keep losing fat, although the scale is rather reluctant to show it. Even the bodyfat measuring devices which I have at my disposal deliver values which are all over the place.

The interesting bit was me checking out Oaks Fitness, a very old school gym in Ipswich. Nothing shiny just straight forward iron, and really nice blokes there. Had a great workout, the guys showed me around and spottet - wonderful! The best training I had in a long time. Well, and I think I manged to not embarrass myself.

I talked a bit to one of the big boys and got some really good tips on how to change the split for my training, checked it with hubby and I think I am on my way to develop a really good training plan which will allow for training with my dearest, training at Oaks and fitting in ballet and rowing as well. Will post as soon as I have sorted it completely.

Best of all: This was a brilliant reality check!

See, in the other gym I am the musclyest girl and people either hate me (well at least the muscles) or they love it and they think that I am basically top of the class and already ready to go into competition. I know that this is not true, but where AM I exactly standing. Today I all of a sudden felt a bit like the new kid at school, I was sort of OK but nothing special. The good thing was that this didn't feel depressing at all. It was more reassuring and defining the amount of work that lies ahead. It is always good to know the details of a task.

And hence I am a happy bunny :o))

So that was the real BB scene and then I found a virtual one as well and instantly built me a profile on Bodybuilding.com . Thus settled in all the worlds, I am now closing the day. The lady is a bit knackered now - yesterday legs and shoulders, today chest and back, I need my sleep.

So off we go into a new week tomorrow,
wishing you a fun and successful one!
Rika

Bloody Hell...

Bloody Hell, it seemed such a good idea yesterday. Today is the day after, every muscle is aching and I have another one and a half years of days like this ahead of me.

A quick recap on who I am - the more elaborate story you can read on my personal blog:

• Me, Rika, born in June 1961 and thus age 48,
• started training with weights when I met hubby to be in 1882,
• had a phase some time around ’86 when things went bumpy at university and I thought that I should become a real bodybuilder/trainer instead of a computer scientist,
• although at the moment I am neither, I dug my way through university, trained on and off, and settled into a comfortable life after the exam,
• moved from Germany to England, got house, cats and garden, and became fat while training was more often ‘off’ than ‘on’,
• got severe back pain and migraines and all of a sudden the comfortable life was a bad life,
• went back to the gym regularly from early 2005, age 43, and
• started the Incredible Ladies website as a record of this experience in June 2007 at age 46.

Apparently I am feeling too well now, because yesterday I decided to start a journey paved with pain and sweat: I am going to compete in a Bodybuilding contest in 2011.

Why now?

Well, do the math: firstly I am going to be 50 in 2011, and secondly this idea is bugging me since 35 years and if I don’t do it now, that might well mean ‘never’. I came across this competition for the first time shortly after having started training regularly again, and I have to admit: Even I thought that those competitions have a bit of a dodgy, door bouncer atmosphere about them. Bodybuilding is not a really mainstream sport, is it? And what we see on the telly, on how professional female bodybuilders have to make a living because there is almost no sponsorship in this sport, is not helping either. So hubby and I went to see the show armed with prejudice and mixed feelings: Does one really want to belong to this sort of scene?

But see, one should not judge without having seen it: when we got there we were amazed how professional and fantastically skilled these people were. Nothing dodgy, no door bouncer atmosphere whatsoever, and they put on a great show, it was entertaining and inspiring... and I felt that I could have competed with the lady who came least – well, there were only four ladies anyway. Isn’t it sad that a sport that has so many benefits, especially for women, is not kicking in? It did for the guys. These days almost every guy tries to put on a bit of muscle in the gym, or at least is flirting with the idea.

C’mon guys – don’t lie to mummy! While you are sweating on the treadmill you must be thinking of the one or the other muscle when a well trained guy is passing you by.

For women however, it is out of the question. Oh yes, I see them with 1 kg dumbbells doing a bit of triceps on a stabilizing ball – that is NOT bodybuilding. That is rubbish. Well it is a start... but I so rarely see it taken to the next level. These ladies just vanish from the gym because they never experience the full power this training could give them. Oh I have written piles of pamphlets about why muscles are a good thing. But honestly: Nobody wants to read or hear it!

OK, I am ranting again: So back to my plan. Back then in 2005 the competition bug bit me the second time in my life, but just briefly: I wasn’t confident enough and scared of thousands of things, mainly embarrassment.

And then only two weeks ago the bug bit me again – all good things come in three, apparently – at the whiteboard of my gym there was an advert for a bodybuilding championship - hanging there very innocently. Whoof... this time it hit right into the stomach: I want to do this!

While the stomach was recovering, my brain tried to understand: “No you don’t! You might want to visit it again, but you DO NOT WANT TO COMPETE! You are scared of competitions”.

‘No I’m not! Not anymore, and if I do it next year then I can do it for my 50th and hence I can’t actually lose. It will be fun, and I always wanted to be on a stage and bodybuilding is the only thing I am good at, and hence I am going to do it!’

I checked with the trainers if they would know somebody in the region who could teach me how to pose. I know how to train, but I don’t have a clue how to put on a show. When I got the address of a gym where the head trainer is competing I had to come out of the closet: I just had to tell hubby. And you know what: He loves this idea!

And then we made a deal. This will not be like any other of my projects during which I work, and do, and document, and then see how it goes, and THEN might decide whether or not I will take on the challenge.

This time I will not play it safe. It will be a commitment from the beginning. I herewith declare: If this show is on in 2011, and if I will be fit enough to crawl onto that stage, then I will compete. No matter how I look. I may not be able to get rid of lose skin, I may... oh don’t get me started:

I will look my best, promised!

And with this blog I am inviting you to join me in this journey. Ideas and comments welcome: I will need any help I can get! Oh well, and maybe I see you in mid 2011 in Great Yarmouth!