Well, only 10 more weeks to go for my Wichita Highland Games training. Â But, I’ve already broke one of my personal records, which means I already have achieved one of my goals, about 5 – 7 weeks earlier than planned. Â In a way, it’s a bit of a vanity thing – my previous record for arm size, I believe, 16″ (I think I had hit 16 1/4th” at one point.) Â Now? Â I’m at just slightly above 17″.
I hadn’t been watching my arm size – it’s fairy irrelevant in many ways. Â Most of the strength I’ll need for the Wichita Highland Games comes from the core, not big biceps, and most of my workout is geared that way. Â No matter what you do, though, you’ll end up working the arms at the same time, just to varying degrees – it’s just a thing. Â And, for what I’m going to do, tricep is probably more important than bicep.
I was chatting with The Plumber and decided to do a week centered around super-sets (in fact, I picked a ridiculously grueling variation. Â Lat pulldowns, for instance, is 50-40-30-20-10-20-30-40-50 reps. Â That means by the time I was done with the lat pulldowns, I had done 290 of ’em. Â Now, repeat that sort of uglyness across the rest of the workout. Â And that whole thing takes quite a while to get through.
About half-way through my workout on Friday, I looked in the mirror, and realized – my arms were bigger than I thought they were. Â I sort of had a wild whim moment, and grabbed a tape measure, and wrapped it around carefully (metal tape measures suck at this), and came up with around 17 inches. Â That can’t be right, if I had 17″ arms, I wouldn’t be able to do this (tries touching left fingertips to left shoulder.) Â Wait… I can’t do that.
Still not believing it, I went to Walmart and picked up a $1.40 fabric tape, and tonight I measured it up (and shot a picture.) Â During a workout, all hot flexed, yeah, I’m 17″. Â The day before I measured in, having not worked out (I took an extra day off for shoulder healing) I measured in at 16 1/2″. Â And then I took a picture of the 17″ biceps (you’ll notice mine aren’t “peaked”, nor do they look that great – I still have extra fat in the flexing areas, which actually makes them look a bit smaller than they are, since they don’t bulge out as much as someone who’s leaner than I am.)
I figured, given how hard I was going to be pushing, about the end of my 15 week workout run, I’d probably pull off something like 17″ arms – I succeeded much earlier than I planned 🙂
But, it still doesn’t matter – this is still all about raw, brute strength, mainly in the core. Â After the Wichita Highland Games are over, I’ll look at going a completely different route for a while, do a lot more cardio (too bad I no longer have DDR pads 🙂 ) and controlled diet, and see if I can’t rip off more of the fat so I can highlight the muscles better, just for the heck of it. Â Maybe train up and run a marathon next.
How goes it otherwise? Â Slowly, but surely, I’m gaining upper body mass, and I can see more and more muscle in my guts and chest. Â So, I’m still gonna continue to call it a win 😉 Â For only being 5 weeks worth of workouts, I’m more than happy with the results. Â I’m becoming excited to see what week 15 looks like!
