Old-School Iron

What’s this?? Could it-? Yes, I think it is!! An update!

I’ve been promising myself among others that I’d write this post since the VirtualMeet Gathering this past summer, and I know this update is looong overdue. My apologies. Partly this is due to the fact that at my current place of employment there’s no practical internet access as far as blogging and net-smurfing is concerned.

Anyhow, the year started off quite nicely, training was relatively good, although I had some cases of the flu, but all in all even the meet-prep, if it can be called that with a clear conscience, went quite well considering.

Still, the year had plenty more surprises for me.
First off, the Gathering went well for me, even surprisingly well. I was half expecting to bomb out on each of my last lifts, but they were really a breeze compared to what I thought they’d be. Maybe it was the ambiance of Kris’ outdoor gym, the cottage neighbors watching us lift, or the mere thought of actually lifting alongside Christian Burger and Alberto Caraballo that was the kicker. All I know is; my meet was great..! Check out the pics on Virtualmeet’s facebook page.

Later in the year, I found I had the H1N1 swine flu. Probably. I mean Emma had it, my mom had it most certainly and so I figure I have to have had the same, right? I had a weird version, though. I mean, no fever, no aches, no pains, not even a runny nose.
Consistent with my overall immune response, I gather. Usually any bug I pick up is mild at best.
BUT, as soon as I got off the couch and walked for a bit (2-3 dog walks a day are mandatory, rain or shine), my chest felt constricted, and there was this nasty pressure on my lungs and heart. It was like ‘If I had to run for my life right now, it’d be a really short run’. Nasty feeling, that.
It’s like you’re suddenly 100 years old, and in dire need of a walker (aka walking frame) or a bench every few minutes, just so you can sit and rest before going on. I just walked really slowly, much to our doggy’s dismay.

So, after that had cleared, I went to see the doctor for an overall health checkup, and to make sure I hadn’t any residual problems from the flu. Also I figured that at this ripe old age of 34, things like hereditary heart problems and type-II diabetes ought to show some early signs.
Besides, I had my last near-decent physical when in the military (1995). Yeah, no kidding. It was about time for a good look-see by the good doc. Good thing I went, too.

Turned out, all the fatigue I was feeling, and had been feeling for the past couple of years, was not due to bad sleeping patterns or some such. At least, not entirely. What I had was not something I could have pegged without the complete bloodworks: low testosterone levels.
Nothing else, just low test levels. Everything else was fine, which, considering my feeding habits is something of a miracle. Alberto would likely agree with this, methinks.

So, before talking to the doc about the results, I was a little perturbed and anxious.
What if they prescribe me steroids? What then? First, I couldn’t really call myself a natural lifter anymore, even if the usage would be purely medical. Add to that the fact that had I told the mythical Average Man (you know, him, with the mouse-like appearance and arms so thin you couldn’t hide a pencil behind them) on the street that a doctor gave me steroids, ’cause my levels are so low’, I’d first get a stare at my build and then the inevitable ‘Yeah, right, says the 200-pound bodybuilder.’
Lucky they gave me something else: gonadotropins. Yes, it’s still a prescription hormone, but in doses so weak, it’d only boost my own production instead of being just replacement therapy. Seems to have worked, too. And yes, I am aware of it’s use as a fertility drug and no, we’re not trying to have kids.

Business has also been good to me this year.
My work has changed a bit, so that now I work 2-3 days a week at my own business and the other 2-3 at my “old” salary job.
Although not the soaring success one always dreams of and works towards, it’s been steadily growing and I’m quite confident that a business that can grow in a recession has to be a good and viable concept even in the long term. I am lucky in the sense that I’m basically working shorter hours but still getting paid essentially the same amount of money. Now to increase the customer-base to achieve slightly, but not too much, longer days. I’m getting accustomed to the nice, under six-hour days… So basically, I’m a happier camper due to more leisure time. All in all, I’d definitely call that a win.

Training has been relatively good, too.
I’m regaining my former glory, as it were. At the next summers Gathering, I hope I can weigh in closer to 95kg / 210lbs (or more, hopefully). And stronger, too, naturally so that I can be stronger not just weight-wise but also coefficient-wise. If I get heavier, I’ll need to be that much stronger still to get a better result than last year.

All in all, it has been an interesting year, this. And next year is setting up to be even more interesting. It may be that a certain someone may become a gym owner… We’ll see.

A happy new year to you all!

Well, post-meet training has got off pretty well.

I returned to Bill Pearl’s program from where I left off; month 3. I have to say that it seems this type of training suits me quite well, actually. I know I’ve said this before, but I would never have thought this whole-body routine training would bring any results. Should’ve known better I guess.
Anyway, combating an oncoming flu, I did just one set of each exercise the first time, then two sets and today it’s gonna be three sets each. Looking forward to it; the sun is shining today and it’s perfect weather to go outing with the doggy.

In other developments, I was thinking I might begin showcasing some real old-school exercises, with photos and explanations. What do you guys think? I have a whole bunch of these old, very effective (and sometimes highly technical) exercises that really kick ass, sometimes making the very thought of adding resistance quite impossible. Humbling, to say the least, when even an empty bar or one of those embarrassing chrome dumbbells way on the beginning end of the rack is too heavy to lift…

Feedback is always welcome! Send your comments, or email me at: mans @ mansrinne.com (be sure to remove the spaces before you hit send).

Happy training!

Well, the meet came and went (7-9.th of march).

As the final results aren’t in yet, I’m not sure how I did, but I’m pretty confident that I did alright.

- My squats went well, and I lifted what I assumed I would, which is 160kgs / 352lbs.
- My bench wasn’t as strong, but I still lifted 120kgs / 264lbs, which is okay in my opinion, and at my current strength (weakness?) level.
- But the surprise of the meet were my deadlifts. It seems less practice is better, as I rocketed through both 150kgs and 160kgs (330 and 352lbs, respectively). Kris suggested I try 165kgs / 363lbs next, but as the 160 felt really easy for some reason, I thought I’d go for broke and loaded 170kgs / 374lbs on the bar, half expecting to fail. But lo and behold, I actually did it! And what’s more, I may have had another lift in me..!

So, almost whatever the judges say, my total this meet was 450kgs / 992lbs, with a bodyweight of 87,2kgs / 192lbs. Comparing this to the inaugural meet a year ago, I weighed nearly 5 kgs less this time and lifted roughly the same total, which is of course fine by me…

Now let’s concentrate on regaining some muscle mass again. These powerlifting events always make me lose weight, which tells me it isn’t “heavy enough”, or stressful enough, to be conducive for massbuilding. Mass comes from reps, not the amount of weight you’re using.

Yes, I decided to join the meet some time ago, and also decided it might be a good idea to do some prepping as well…

SO, to make a long story a bit shorter;

-I started by doing 5×5’s the first week, and also did my regular training alongside. It took me roughly 90minutes to get through the workouts. I did two of them that week. Tough? Oh yes.
-Next week I did 4×4’s, but having gotten through my squats and benching, I noticed I was already 97minutes into the workout! So I split the work, doing deadlifts and “accessories” as powerlifters call what I refer to as normal training on the second workout. This worked okay, as deads aren’t that tough when done alone, and thus I was able to do some pumping as well.
-Then, you guessed it: 3×3’s the week after that and 2×2’s this week. I still have my second workout to do.

It’s going pretty well, considering once again that I’ve not done a full meetprep training cycle but instead something wildly different. Yesterday, I was able to pull off the 2×2’s on the squat with 150kgs/330lbs, which went quite well, even though on the second set the weights touched the damned rack as I walked out, causing a potentially disastrous twisting to occur. I was able to stabilize and do the reps, although to be quite honest, I had my doubts. The benching didn’t go as well; only could do 2×1 with 120kgs/264lbs.
Oh well, live and grow.

I’m considering doing the singles next week, a week before the actual meet (march 7-9th, 2008). The other option is to do a week of regular pumping, light weights and “grooving” it. We’ll see what I decide, several days to go before that…

Yes, I know. I’ve been skipping on my blogging…again.

Anyhow, here’s what I’ve been doing for the past month or so, training-wise.

I started on Bill Pearl’s program again. However, those of you who’ve been reading my archives while I’ve been lazying will notice a marked difference this time. This time, I opted to begin at Beginner level, from month 1. From scratch, you might even say.

Why on earth would a guy who’s been weight-training since the early ’90s want to do that?
Well, this system is the pretty much the same as what is nowadays called by a new catch-phrase, “HST” (Hypertrophy specific training), which is in my opinion just a fancy new name for a very old method. Ancient, in fact. It’s more or less the same kind of training Sandow and his peers did, basically. The basic gist is that you train your entire body on every workout and that you train 2-3 times per week. That is, you train your whole body 2-3 times a week.

Sounds like a lot of volume at first, and trust me; the last time (spring ‘07) I did this I started at month 8 and I had a tough time coping. I changed almost overnight from a powerlifting routine to this high-volume bodybuilding and it was a bit too much, I am able to state with my 20-20 hindsight.

This time, I figured since I am a beginner for a system such as this, I’d better start at the bottom. Back to basics, if you will. And yes, it seems to be working.
I’m gaining weight quite nicely, muscle memory taking me up by roughly a kg (2,2lbs) per month again. Some of the weight gain most likely comes from my rekindled creatine use as well.

Other than that, my year thus far has seen another major change; morning walks.
I must admit that I’m lazy and like to sleep late, so if we hadn’t gotten the dog, this would likely never had happened. I do 3-4 morning walks (gasp: aerobics!) a week with our Devil, a nearly 4-month old male Malamute puppy. And I must say I feel much healthier because of it. Also, according to my new-years resolution as well as a few documentaries on TV about the benefits of more veggies in one’s diet, I will attempt to eat more raw veggies and fruits on a daily basis.

The third Full VirtualMeet is approaching, and I’m having a debate with myself over the kind of training I should do for it. On the one hand, I’d want to continue the current training regimen because it’s working real well. However, it contains neither benching, squatting or deadlifting at present and is less than optimal therefore for meetprep.
However, if I do a shorter than short meetprep like last time, I might send myself losing musclemass once again. Hmm, choices choices… :/

We’ll see what happens, although I’ll have to decide within a week or so as to which road to take. I suppose I could always add the required 3 to the current curriculum and do the rest of the bodyparts as sort of accesories. I’ll keep you posted.

Check this out… Even I wanna join that class!

Picture copied with much delight from www.engrish.com! Go there for some serious laughs! Highly recommended..!

Time for a news flash..!

My training is running relatively smoothly now, with me actually training in the mornings sometimes! Almost unheard of, this isn’t something that happens way early though, but rather around 10 am, before going to the evening shift at work from 12 onwards.
The training is centered around good old powerbuilding with a 4-day split, and my results are going up all the time. However, I can’t seem to get my weight up, but that may be due to several factors. Anyway, I content myself with getting my strength up overall as of now, the size will follow. Perhaps I should eat more, and more often? Yeah, that’s probably it.

Another piece of news is that at the end of this month, we’ll be the owners of a 7-week old Alaskan Malamute puppy..! It’s a pretty large breed (the size and looks of a wolf, really), and some dog-books site it as being demanding, but we think we can handle it, and so does our breeder. The breeder also told us that any “strange behavior” that they exhibit that isn’t found in dog books will be explained once one reads a book on how wolves behave in similar situations… So, a pretty old breed. Oh, and they don’t bark all that much. Instead, they howl and “talk” a great deal. The youngest of the breeder’s dogs keeps growling all the time, but it’s the way he talks and reacts to most anything and you can tell from the way he moves that he’s actually happy.

Both Emma and I have previous experience with raising and schooling dogs, so even though our “mute” may prove a touch challenging at times, we think we’ll do a pretty good job. I’ve had a finnish lapphund before, which is a small to medium sized dog, but also one of the earliest of dog breeds, and which also speak wolf, so to say. There are two types of lapphund; the “official” kind which you can take to shows, and the “working type”, which we had, that looks a bit different and is bred for qualities, not looks.

A dog the size of a Malamute just has to be trained properly! It may be funny to have a pup chewing on your pant-lapels but it ain’t funny when he’s fully grown, weighing around 50kgs (110lbs)!
There’s no way the neighborhood kids will be going on walks with him anytime soon… I was thinking we might let my nephew walk him alone in oh, ten or so years, once he’s big enough to handle a Mute.

I wish to extend public congratulations to Kris, my long-time friend and training buddy!

The family Lindqvist/Karjalainen was extended by an additional member yesterday, see.
A cute baby girl, who in Kris’ words: “seems calm, but looks can be deceiving…”.

Anyhow, congrats again and the best of health to all four of you!

I recently found a very “new” gym, located in the heart of our nation’s capital; Helsinki.
Or, more to the point, new for me.

This gym, aptly named Punttis (”Gym” in colloquial Finnish), has been around for a long time, as evidenced by their machines. Some of them look as if they’re from the late 70’s, early 80’s. But: this is as old-school as you can get.
The walls are covered in inspirational posters, the mirrors have a text on them saying “keep your mittens off the mirrors!” (Näpit irti peileistä!)
Everything works great, the cables are actually ropes (yeah, beat that!) and give really good and smooth resistance on any movement you care to do on any cable apparatus. There are plates up to 50kgs each (wrought iron), the dumbells go up to 130kgs (286 lbs!!), there are all the grippers on the market there (Captains of Crush too), and some other freaky equipment I’ve just seen in shows at Fitness Expos.
Very impressed I was.

And the location? Why, under a church, of course!
This church is something unique in Finland, built almost entirely of dry-laid stone (no mortar used between the stones)! It’s referred to as Rock Church in English, known only as Temppeliaukion Kirkko in Finnish, which loosely translated means The Church of the Temple Plaza.

And it gets cooler in my opinion because of it’s… um, well, location in another respect as well.
It’s situated in a WWII bomb shelter built in 1943. I actually refer to this place as the “Bunker of Fitness under the Anti-Devil Bunker”, as churches are called here.

It’s sort of odd, you enter through a metal door leading underground next to some steps, then walk a good 20 meters (I think maybe a hundred feet or something), through four or so blast doors to get to a small, narrow staircase of concrete. One floor down and you’re in a quaint gym reception area.
The gym is basically a one-man operation, owned and run as it is by Pentti Lahtinen, who is in absolutely terrific shape for his age. I mean, the man looks like he’s approaching his 60’s, but he is actually approaching his 70th!! He’s got bigger arms than me, for crying out loud! And I bet he’s stronger too. Dammit, I need to train harder!

But yeah, I think Mr. Lahtinen and his Gym are the embodiment of healthy and sound old-school fitness practices. He’s even got a plaque on the wall from the Finnish Antidoping Agency for his efforts in keeping the Gym clean of any doping. This fact is also mentioned in the gym rules. No Roids. Fine by me..!

Another thing that makes this place so cool is the fact it’s 24h. But not like usual these days with some keycard or something, but you get an actual key to the place when you join. And the price is very right for Finnish standards anyways; just 35€ a month! When your card is running out, no sweat: just make a payment onto the bank-account. Easy.

Enjoy the pics! Click to view. They’re rather large, so be patient… I thought I’d let you have a better look and not make them smaller.

The Dumbell rack
The free weights area
The free weights area from another angle
An overview of the Gym from the front desk

Well, the VirtualMeet went by with a swoosh…

I have to say it was an experience, mostly due to Kris’ outdoor gym at his family’s summer cottage in Vaasa.

My training has returned to more mass-building oriented stuff than powerlifting. I can’t seem to maintain my mass with that kind of training, and so I must instead pump on. Not that I mind, I can’t seem to get my head around the fact that only three lifts are ever really trained. Must get boring, I’d think… Variations aren’t really allowed to any greater extent in the competitions, and for good reason, don’t get me wrong. But still… Nah.

I’ll stick to powerbuilding for at least a year now. My current weight is around 90kgs, and my goal is to break 100kgs (lean or leanish, no more flab thank you) by this time next year. That’s only about 800g per month, 200g per week and 28,58g per day in added muscle mass… Hmm. Doable? Perhaps, if I get everything in order training-wise and start eating like I know I should. Natural, naturally. I don’t think I’ll ever chemically enhance my training, because I don’t know enough about those substances and could really mess myself up with those, so no thanks.
———

A lot of stuff other has been happening too; I’ve joined forces with a couple of guys and we’re setting up a supplement and sports apparel store this fall. It will have a webstore (stay tuned) as well as a physical store in Espoo (a suburb of Helsinki), where I live.
We’re going to have some well-known brands for sale, such as Optimum Nutrition, ABB, BioTech as well as a couple of not-so well-known brands such as SELF nutrition from Sweden, and Force from our beloved Finland.

Also, and this is what I’ve been doing with my time lately, I’ve “been put” in charge of our own product line, which will be appearing on the market hopefully very soon. Basically, this means that I’m in charge of what products our company will manufacture. I won’t give any specific details about them yet, as nothing is yet canned so to speak, but we do have a pretty decent idea on where we are going with them and what kinds of products they’ll be. They’re definitely going to be worth the wait, I can tell you…
We have already been getting questions about them from a gym we happened to mention our venture to, and they can’t wait is what they told us.
They’re not going to be your average, basic yadda yadda that everyone else has, too. Our products will have a point to existing, and they’re going to work a bit differently than the stuff we’re used to at our local supp’s store. Also, our energy drink powder is gonna KICK - ASS!! No kidding, it’ll rock our socks off. Just wait and see…

Oh, if someone wants to step up now to maybe import these to somewhere in the world (we have the US covered already, sorry), or want more info about our coming product line, I’d love to hear from you! Send an email to: mans at mansrinne.com and ask some more. Of course, business opportunities will be announced at the new site as soon as it opens (this year).

The webstore will be open internationally, in at least Finnish and English for starters, but with Swedish most likely following very close by if not released at the same time.