I bore a hole in the rains raking the highway en-route to the iron
mines. Why would I go to the gym on a day when the roads are flooded
and the skies are black? Because it's there, that's why. And, of
course, I can't stand the guilt when I miss a workout... I'm
insecure... I don't have another life... I could lose my pump... I'd
waste away... I'd miss the self-inflicted pain and sacrifice, abuse
and hardship. My nose would grow.

Take me to the rack.

I wasn't alone upon entering the back door. The usual faces, a tad
dour in expression, were there to greet me. Actually, they didn't
greet me; they barely noticed another madman had crossed the
threshold. Just one more shadow was I, emitting a groan and in whose
blue-grey wake plates of iron clanged. Mondays have a quality all
their own.

Here we go again.

The world is a circle of many sharp corners, beyond which are prizes
and surprises amid a few choices. What'll it be today, Draper: chest
and back, and enough gut to keep the pouch away? Sounds familiar...
didn't I just do that stunning combination? What's today? Oh, yeah,
Monday... how could I forget?

Monday, Monday. Look at all the happy faces.

Shoulders and arms have a more appealing ring... some front presses
supersetted with sidearm lateral raises. Not! The shoulders feel less
like cannonballs and more like golf balls this soggy, sunless day.
Maybe arm training only is the solution: biceps, triceps and forearms,
and hanging leg raises just to be sociable.

Any alert bomber has noticed legs are not mentioned in the repertoire
of possible muscle groups to attack. Mondays and legs no longer go
together, a recently established rule... or condition. One does not
attack legs; legs are an attack. Think Tuesday, when the troops are
entrenched; or Wednesday, when reinforcements have arrived; or
Thursday, when there's possible air support; or Friday, maybe there'll
be a truce. Saturdays are, naturally, for recreation, don't forget.
Sundays are for rest.

Arms -- arm workouts -- are tough and mean, but they are not
exhausting. They are precise, interesting, oddly enjoyable and not
ponderous. They are demanding, but not foreboding. They are a
relatively small muscle group -- nothing personal -- requiring less
oxygen and demand less blood flow. Good pump, nice burn, small fatigue
footprint.

Arms it is.

Unloading my gym bag of necessary gear (no small task), I sit near the
glass exit doors and peer at the rain mixed with hail pelting the car
tops. Hypnotic. The shelter that is the gym feels welcome and
comfortable. Let it pour, I say with relief and conviction, we need
it. I'll hoist the iron and build more muscle.

My mind wandered, ever on a journey to seek, discover, uncover and
surpass (delay, procrastinate, daydream and hallucinate).

Hmm... I postulated: When do you, a bodybuilder, know when you've
achieved your maximum muscular bodyweight?

"Never, never, never," was my immediate reaction, "Never, I tell you!
Never!"

My first response was when they roll you into the gym, oxygen mask
affixed to your face and an IV delivering life-sustaining fluids, when
you can't distinguish a barbell from a dumbbell.

A second thought, vaguely related to the first was when the crashing
sound you hear overhead is dirt piling upon your coffin. That's
admittedly kinda grim... a little dark.

The answers kept rolling in: when, at five foot, nine inches and 290
veiny pounds, you can't tie your sneakers cuz your abdominals bundle
against your striated quadriceps, preventing you from reaching their
laces. Don't you hate that?

Finally (promise), when in a pool, should you stop swimming, you sink
to the bottom with such swiftness and force as to shatter the tile,
poke a hole in the earth's surface and cause the water to gush out.

Thinking is getting me nowhere, a fact I've accepted long ago. I'm
stalling, it's obvious. I've already drunk half my post-workout Bomber
Blend and I've yet to lift a weight. That's why God devised wrist
curls. You can do them using a bar left on a bench with no added
plates while you sit with minimum movement and you can call it warming
up. They set the course, start the motion, initiate the blood flow,
produce a pump, excite a burn, exact focus and engender profound
thought -- one, two, three, four... er... five... um... seven... ate.

Grasp, release, extend fingers, stretch, hold briefly, roll up,
contract, hold briefly, release, extend hunky bar and you are on your
way down the tarmac and picking up speed. The sky is before you,
altitude unknown. One rep, one set, one day at a time, as they say at
AA (Altitude Achievers) meeting in hangars across the countryside.

First set completed, you're invested and purpose is defined.
Familiarity takes over and the weights are added systematically. The
next set is tougher (good) and meaner (loving it). During the third
set, the urge to superset is roused as you pull steadily upon the
throttle. The power no longer comes from local sources only, but from
biceps, shoulder and back muscles and distant places -- the temples,
the teeth and bottoms of the feet. The body shudders with strain and
need and urgency.

You're training. Iron and might fuse, sound fades, time ceases, the
day falls away. That's the way it works, bombers. Trust it. When
confronted with trouble, grasp the bar, grip the steel, and push and
pull with growing might. The offender -- disinterest -- vanishes like
heartache when one's true love returns.

"Get the hook," as Zabo would say right about now from the third row
of a Muscle Beach contest, "he's revolting."

Has anyone noticed? The real answer to the very real question -- when
do you, a bodybuilder, know when you've achieved your maximum muscular
bodyweight? -- is yet unanswered and worth recalling.

Perhaps, the answer is after an intense year (or 10) of worthy and
devoted training and eating right. How's that for specific and
scientific and conclusive? We here at the Huge Ripped Raw Muscle
Clinic do not submit truths without thorough research and
understanding.

Another answer, less glib and about as accurate, is when you're mature
in your assessments, have read and applied every solid principle
gleaned from IronOnline over a two-year period and your progress has
come to an apparent halt. Note: Apparent halts have nothing to do with
real halts. Halts in system- and muscle-building do not exist if one
is consistent in his bomber weightlifting.

Progress is forever.

In our healthiest and most productive musclebuilding years we do have
a set-weight that we reach, a bodyweight at which we no longer build
muscle according to our structure and chemistry, genetics and
metabolism. Who knows what this BW is? We push hard, yet we stop
proceeding. That's that. That's it. That's all she wrote.

Or is it? The authentic musclehead pushes harder, longer, smarter,
more, and again. He ekes out muscle like water from the great stones
in the deserts of Moses. Unparalleled faith and hope, courage and
patience hath he.

Little things are happening all the time, a small improvement here, a
minor alteration there, something lost, yet something gained; time
goes by, maturity reaps muscle hardness and increased delineation, age
is acquired, yet under-worked muscles respond to renewed and
deliberate action. Bodyweight is difficult to maintain, up or down;
energy and muscle endurance come and go, but musclebuilding wisdom
rises.

At 100 we'll still be seeking improvement and observing the positive
chaos hither and thither in our wild dreams. Looky here, a new vein
emerging across my lower right intercostal.

It's no dream I fly with the wind. You know that. We share the same
sky; it's written on our wings.

Source: davedraper.com