It was already 6:50 am I should’ve woken up 5:45, that’s what you get when you speak with a talkative friend over the phone. Some people simply like to go on and on. I don’t like being mean to others so I listen to what the have to say. I couldn’t eat my oatmeal and eggs for that reason. So I had to gulp down a protein-carbohydrate mix. I took my meals I pack every three days or so for work, along with my gym bag. I also took a cup of coffee sweetened with honey so that am more alert.

I arrive at the gym later than usual, I check in and its much more crowded. Filled with people who want to socialize instead of actually working out as well as occasional early comers who get boosts of enthusiasm twice a month or so. Well I don’t have time for the chit chat with ladies nor that it interests me.

Vishal comes by and says “You’re Late Bruva” with his thick cockney accent, “You’re getting big” he added. I say “Hey you’re getting back in shape yourself”. Vishal is a truck driver apparently he got laid off for two months for some quarrel he had with his boss, he was having a tough time with cash flow, he wasn’t eating enough and surely it reduced the size of his physique. He plans to be a certified personal trainer soon and quit his baffling job with unfixed time shifts.

I did my warming up and head to the free weights section, Its chest and biceps day, and as I was late I only had time to do chest training. So off I went “hitting the weights” as they say repetition after repetition set after set.

I was almost done, I had two more sets of “Dumbell flyes” to go. That blonde tall woman approached me, “ would you spot me please” she asked. I nodded to her request and walked off behind her to the flat bench press. Its not the first time she asks me. Apparently the bigger you are the more people feel its secure that you are the one to spot them. Well I am not that big but certainly at 248 pounds you seem big to the average person.

She asks me to help her on the 6th repetition as she growls loud trying to push the bar making everyone in the gym look at us. I slightly help her with the seventh repetition and during the 8th I am doing a lot of “spotting” the ninth repetition is actually me doing most of it. She screams “One More!” as I try to make her do most of the pushing I drip a few sweat drops over her face and one catching her eyes.

She screams loudly as she jumps off the bench after I place the barbell back in its place. I was a bit embarrassed sweating over her. “Im really sorry” I mumbled in a shy tone, She laughs and says” don’t worry, it smells nice” and laughs more as I raise my eyebrow thinking what on earth is she thinking. I walk off to finish my 2 sets after her telling me thank you and me replying “any time”.

I manage to make it on time at work. I love my job, well my internship, it could get annoying at times but I still love it. Charles comes closer towards me as I’am sitting on my desk “ don’t tell me its sardines for today” he shouted in his loud thick Nigerian accent. “Yes Charles its sardines today and its gonna smell bad”.

My New Workout Jorunal

AAARRGHHH

I messed up my sleep and when you mess up yr sleep you feel so slugish to go and pump the hell out of your brains.

So I decided to blog about it as am surfing news,, inshaAllah i ll go to the gym in a while..

I decided i ll take a mini notebook with me to write the weights and reps and rate the pump after each work out he3! as geeky and nerdy as it sounds but this way i can improve better inshaAllah so i can keep adding reps or weight, i only keep track of my major motions like bench press and deadlift. keeping journals is what some pros have done.

Today I got shoulders+ traps and triceps inshaAllah..

Off I go.

maybe inshaAllah one day I ll be bigger than that dude!

a bit late I could have been, I was eating..I washed my hands and put on my clothes, I didnt eat much carbs so I decided it would be ok to have some fruit.

I grabbed 2 figs and munched one, and was about to take the next one with me as I opened the door to leave, but a thought rushed through, I always brush my teeth before leaving off to anywhere.

Looking at half of the remianing fig between my fingers, rich in its colour, so sweet and juciy; I sighed since its taste in my mouth was about to go all away after I brush my teeth.

I thought to myself; Subhan Allah,
what is it in this world of any desire that lasts long anyway.

One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.

Learning about Bodybuilding and the "Dog-Crap" Method.

Well “Dog-Crap” is a bit popular. But perhaps in the States. Here in the Arab world hardly anyone knows about anything well least from my encounters in gyms in Kuwait and Egypt.
I remember when I first went to a gym.. I think I was 15.. I use to work out everyday!!! For the first 2 weeks I worked out twice a day everyday except on Fridays.. I was so messed up, my muscles were all sore and cramped that my biceps would bend my arms.. That in order to straighten my arms I would tie plastic bags around my arms with a stick in-between! I later started going once a day except Fridays coz it was too much.

I remember that was about the time where I all of a sudden grew a lot over the summer and with working out I got all huge.. That was between 10th and 11th grade. I got taller than almost all the kids that were taller than me.. Well apart from the fact that I didn’t know anything from working out its still helped a bit.

I would then go in the summer. For a month or 2. I never knew that you had to eat ! To grow muscles.. Not much emphasis was given there.. Neither I knew that you had to rest.. Since if you overwork yourself which I was almost all the time.. It is counterproductive to muscle growth. Only many years later about 2 years ago I started reading about it.. it’s a whole new world..
I was defiantly wasting my time working out on whims and silly instructions by coaches whom never studied what they are telling you . Now I have to cut corners through bad shoulders from working out with bad techniques and I could have been much stronger and bigger now if only I new what I was doing back then..

Going back to Dog-Crap method.. Which includes improving through making slight improvements each workout you go through.. By either increasing your reps (even one rep is enough) or slightly increasing the weight you use.. This way you are constantly improving.

The smaller your goals, the bigger/more improved person you are (depending upon your goals)

He3,, I think I should one day open my own gym,, and employ folks whom actually know what they are doing.

The Fiasco over Omar Al-Bashir, President of Sudan + Jamaat-e-Islami Responds with Protests.

Prosecutors in The International Criminal Court(ICC) wants to issue a warrant to arrest the President of Sudan.. Some sort of joke.. they want to charge him with genocide and crimes against humanity..

Well I have personally met with people from Darfur.. I dont really know what to believe.. different people say different things.. but a theme that keeps coming about is that the issue of racial difference between Arabs and Africans is not really the source of the conflict at all..
it seems though that the government has been seriously mad about the way they deal with things.. From other cases not necessarily Darfur.

Apparently Darfur, use to be where Egyptians got most of there Gold…so it had a lot of gold, ivory and was fertile climate.. Well now it has a lot of Oil, and Uranium too..

Other than that Sudan is one of those countries that stand in the face of the west…
So ICC just happened to forget about Bush and Bliar.. Leading an illegal warfare by the ICC standards.. Not to mention Guantanamo bay and abu ghraib.. No one was issues a warrant against yet even convicted of anything….

Obviously they just setting the ground for any future possibility of invading Sudan… perhaps since Iran seems like a far fetched goal..
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Whats cool however is Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan carried out protests in Lahore chanting ant--American slogans and advocating Jihad against America. They are usually the first to protest for the pains of Muslimeen anywhere around the world.. I googled news on it to give you folks a link.. But didn’t find any it was on aljazeera though..

....

Kiss me..... out of the bearded barley....
Nightly.... beside the green, green grass
Swing.. swing..... swing the spinning step

Oh...... kiss me....... beneath the milky twilight,
Lead me....... out on the moonlit floor.
Lift your open hand,
Strike up the band and make the fire flies dance,
Silver moon's sparkling, so kiss me...................................................