AndyJ's Body Enhancement Thread

That’s not real common, but I’ve seen it. A friend had blond hair, but a dark moustache and his beard looks orange to me.

I was talking to a guy the other day, mid 60’s, who claimed he had returned his hair color with a boron supplement. I’ve known him my whole life and he was going gray at one point, full dark head of hair again.

I’m nearing 40 and I’ve been completely gray for almost 10 years. I started losing my color with white hair first showing up at about 25. Took about 5 years and I’m all salt, no pepper. At least it matches my attitude most of the time.

I do see some dudes, usually at the gym, who should clearly have gray/white hair with the telltale dye marks on their scalp and zero color variation, cringeworthy if you ask me.

I’ve pretty much accepted my color is gone. Getting a little pepper back wouldn’t hurt though.

You could rock the Peter Graves look.

I’m still running the jelq-pump-clamp-pump protocol. Some minor edema, but very firm inside. EQ is still way up, as is flaccid hang.

Pumping first, with the heating pad wrapped around the tube, lets me put a significant amount of heat into my shaft, and makes it noticeably stretchier. I was able to do pump-jelq-clamp-pump the first few days, but after a few days I started getting edema while jelquing. The crappy needle valve makes adjusting the vacuum a pain in the ass, but I probably out to drop some time and vacuum so the first "pump" session is just a "heating" session.

Clamping was uncomfortable for me before, and as most people do, I managed to injure myself doing it, so I dropped clamping out of my routine. I was also trying to avoid increasing girth. Re-starting, clamping is actually pleasurable now.

I’ve been using some of the longer walking trails in the area, often accompanied by Gym Buddy. A few days ago we went a couple of towns over to a trail that runs across the top of a quarry that faces a river; quite a good view from up there. We found the trailhead hidden behind a school, parked, and started off.

The trail forked a short way in. We went left, mostly uphill. GB hasn’t been walking as much as I have, so I kept asking him if he was OK, and reminding him to leave some gas in the tank to make it back.

Like talking to a wall. About two miles out we got to the end of the trail, which was at a road. No place to park, even if you could make it through the ditch and a knee-high stone wall. Several of the trails are like that. GB declared he couldn’t make it back to the car, whipped out his phone, and the map told him if he followed the road downhill it would take him to a small park; he would walk down there if I’d go back to the car and pick him up.

Sure. We split up and I headed back to the car. That made it a four mile round trip; the most I had ever walked before was 3.6 miles and it wrecked me for days. I’ve replaced the longer walks with bicycling, and apparently there’s a useful amount of crossover between the two. I’m pretty sure I could have walked back to where we split up, which would have been six miles. I don’t think I could have made it back without a lot of rests, though.

Anyway, picked GB up - took 25 minutes to drive 8 miles in city traffic - and it turned out that his shortcut was exactly the length of the walk back to the car: 1.95 miles. He had been waiting for… 25 minutes, while I was in traffic.

Feh. Another win for electronic maps.

My knees have gotten slowly better. A year ago I was still gimping about painfully. Finishing the walk day before yesterday, they felt a bit tight and hot, but didn’t actually hurt. Yesterday, everything was fine. No pain at all, which is "the new normal." I’m really happy with that.

I haven’t been doing squats for the last five weeks. I started building a barbell rack because the trap bar and safety squat bars were trip hazards when on the floor, and standing them up against the wall didn’t look too safe either. The only flat place to build the rack was on the floor in front of the power rack, which blocked several things from use, including that. (not a lot of space where I’m exercising) I finished the rack, which is very nice if I say so myself, stood it up, and hung the trap bar and SSB in it. Due to the shape of the bars, the rack is seven feet tall and almost four feet wide, which is why it was in the way when on the floor.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon I resumed squats. 1x5 with the bare bar, which is 50#. 1x5 at 60#. 1x5 at 70#. 1x5 at 80#. I figured that was enough after a 5-week layoff. No knee pain at all. Some twinges in my lower back; from experience, those are just minor bone spurs complaining.

My knees are a bit sting-y this morning. The walking has helped mitigate the bone spurs there, until I don’t even notice them when walking now. But squats bend my legs more than anything else I do, and put more load on them; I figure I aggravated some spurs that are outside my normal motion range.

I’m thinking about just staying with the bare bar for a while. Light weight with lots of reps fixed my shoulder, and fixed it again when I found out the bone spurs will grow back if you stop.

RE: squats. I’m at the point where 90-degrees is my rule for any joint. Even with bar dips lately, bending my elbows under* 90 results in pain. Which sucks, because that’s where you get the real stretch.

* or over, however you view angles

I had a lot of problems with curls when I started; even a few reps with 10# dumbbells or the bare 22# EZ curl bar made the tendon inside my right elbow sing, and the left one wasn’t happy either. I’m up to 55# now on the bar, and I only have problems if I don’t rest long enough between sets.

Strength isn’t the issue, it’s the right elbow that limits things. I’ve been making slow progress by working up in small increments and not rushing things.

Did 3 sets of 5 "hang snatches" yesterday. There are apparently several variations. I’m using the Crossfit one: start at the knees, basically a Romanian deadlift, except you drop your butt down as the bar goes up and then shrug the bar up like an overhead press.

It has been a while since I’ve done those, since I had to get the bar rack out of the way first. I apparently did enough to set the basic motions before the pause, because it’s working okay. I’m sure my form is poor, but you have to be able to complete the motion before you can work on form.

My knees and lower back definitely knew they’d been worked, but no problems. I’ve been doing mostly upper-body stuff while the lifting space has been occupied, my shoulders didn’t notice anything at all.

Did one set of bench presses at full weight, then backed off to 45 pounds doing 5 sets of 10. Next time I’ll do 5 sets of 20, like I do with the butterflies.

The barbell curls are getting easier, and not as stressful on my right elbow. I’ll continue with what I’m doing, and maybe bump the wait up a tad later. I think the hammer and Zottman curls are helping.

I’ve maxed out the machine on lateral pulldowns. I’ll have to go for more reps.

The sitting dumbbell presses aren’t a problem. Arnold presses - where you twist the dumbbell 180 degrees between full-low and full-high positions - put a lot of stress on my elbows, and I can’t always get a full 180. Today, it’s running about 165-170 degrees. From what I gather I should be able to to more than 180, so it’s a mobility issue, not a weight issue. So I’ve been doing more Arnolds than ordinary presses.

I did light squats today. 5 sets of 5 with the bare bar, which is 50 pounds. Next time I’ll go to 7 reps, and see if I can work up to 20 like I do with butterflies. Rippetoe is adamant about doing parallel because it’s repeatable. He makes a good point, but I can’t really tell when I’m parallel, and still fat enough that the camera isn’t all that useful.

The safety squat bar has handles sticking out front, which puts my elbows forward. I can put my elbows firmly to my knees at the bottom of the squat. I’m fairly sure it’s a bit above parallel, but funny bones-to-kneecaps is dead-nuts repeatable.

I need to get some deadlifts in before I freeze. The thermometer says its 57F in here, but my ears are going numb. I got used to working out in 100+F temperatures, and I haven’t acclimated to the sudden drop yet.

Will be joining you on the ramp up soon!

Slowly getting that way over here as well.
I’m now a bit more dressed during my workout now instead of just some compression shorts.
I need to start looking for a heater other than my salamander, will go electric this go around.

What’s wrong with the salamander? Did you get the optional thermostatic controller?

BTW, if yours uses kerosene, it might be cheaper to use Diesel. In my area, it’s less than half the price. Flip side, there’s a short puff of smoke when the heater lights up, but once going, road Diesel probably has a bit less odor than kerosene.

Monday morning I did cable machine, dumbbell, and EZ-curl upper body work. Instead of topping it off with overhead presses, I used hang snatches instead.

The hang snatch is a "whole body" movement, starting low, then using the leg muscles to start the bar up, shrugging the bar up when that fails, and then doing a small partial squat to get under the bar and shove it overhead. My form is getting much better.

I felt a twinge or two in my stomach, as I often do, from the umbulical hernia, but it went away quickly, as it always does.

Or "did".

[compressing the next four days]

Tue: misery

Wed: felt better until I started vomiting up bloody bile.

Wed midnight/0000 Thursday: went to ER. They did a CAT scan that showed a strangulated hernia. I was still puking up bile, and that if they stuck a tube up my nose and down into my stomach that they could suction the bile out and I’d feel better. The nurse warned me that the tube itself would be unpleasant. She was right, but they got a couple of liters of bile and blood out in just a few minutes, and I did feel better.

The ER doc said they didn’t have the equipment to do more than that, and he wanted to transfer me to one of the bigger hospitals. No problem. They called an patient transfer ambulance and we went into the Capitol along with the 7AM rush.

At the bigger hospital I saw several doctors in a row. The first one said he was going to pass me to another doctor who was more familiar with that kind of hernia. Doctor #2 walked in, took a look, and said Doctor #3 was coming to take a look too, and he’s probably think he could massage it all back in, but that would never work.

Doctor #3 showed up and gently massaged it all back in within 60 seconds, including the part that has been sticking out for a decade. He said it wouldn’t hold for too long, but should give me time for a gastro specialist appointment and surgery. Or if they could get me a bed by 3PM or so, he could do the surgery himself. And both ERs and the surgery would be all part of the same insurance claim, deductible, and co-pay.

Sounded fine to me, I told him to set it up. At 1500 they wheeled me into OR. The surgery took about an hour; #3 put a palm-sized mesh patch over the hole and said it should hold, even for weightlifting.

They kept me overnight and today; I didn’t escape until 1800 when Gym Buddy got off work and picked me up.

I’m back home at my computer with a drainage hose and blood bag stitched to my side for a while. I have a follow-up visit with the doc in two weeks, presumably they’ll remove the hardware then.

Restictions: no weights for six weeks. 30 pound limit on other objects. Driving and walking are OK, but no bicycling for three weeks since that uses abs on the upstroke. I can take the abdominal binder off, though it might be more comfortable with it. I’ve been using one for ten years. This one, they cinched my size 44 waist down to probably a size 34, though it felt like a 14. I’m going to loosen it up a bit before going to bed tonight.

Several doctors and RNs seemed impressed that I take almost no meds and look to be in pretty good shape for my age. My blood pressure dropped from 155 before the surgery to its 108-112 in recovery, which surprised them. They also seemed impressed that I was familiar with my previous labs, and could discuss how CREAT and CR-P are linked to various things, and that my White Blood Cell count has always been just past the top of the "normal" scale.

One of the reasons I’d been putting off the hernia surgery was that I know several people who had it done, including Mrs. Andy and my Dad, and they all for the full-size "place mat" mesh, which both of them hated. I didn’t know they could just patch the bad spots. I was hoping to find a doc to do it the old-fashioned way by debriding some of the abdominal muscles and stitching them together, but laying there on the gurney yesterday, I just wanted the damned thing fixed.

Damn, you make it interesting.

Sounds like #3 was the guy to have, glad it went well, at least so far.