calvin aka p.phresh

sometime early in the month of march i bought a chin up bar. I was told by my friend Kevin, whom i usually go to for fitness tips and exercise questions, to get myself a chin up bar and do chin ups everyday…. as many as i can. And so i listened to him… i thought it’d be a good investment anyways. I went out and purchased one of those P90x Chinup Bars. They don’t require any mounting hardware so they can be mounted on most door frames without any drilling or screwing to the door frame.

Since the beginning of March i’ve been working on doing chinups. Last year at christmas time, about the time when i stopped going to the gym due to christmas holidays, i was able to barely complete 1 unassisted chinup. It was pretty hard for me.

During the time between Decemeber and March i stopped going to the gym on a regular basis… yeah that was a bad move on my part. But i’ve been maintaining my weight thus far. I wasn’t going to the gym but i was still doing push ups every few nights of the week as well as dips. I’d use the kitchen counters where they made a corner and i’d do dips there. Also on a side note… i couldn’t really do dips that well either last year between August and December. But i am able to complete 3 full sets of 10 now… it’s great! I feel great! ….anyways… back to chinups… in the beginning of March i could do maybe 2, 2 and a half. SO great… i’ve progressed since december.

But since the beginning of March i’ve done chinups everyday, as many as i could every morning when i wake up and every night before i go to bed. I got up to about 4.5 chinups about 2 weeks ago. I was barely progressing as fast as i’d hoped… so i went to Kevin.

Kevin told me to start doing negatives. Negative chin ups are chin ups where you start from the top…. where you are already pulled up. But you lower yourself for a count of 3. then you do it again until you can’t do it anymore. He said, “do all your chinups and then do your negatives until you can’t hold yourself up anymore.”

Do i did that, and immediately after 2 days of doing negatives i was able to crank out that 5 chinup. And now i’m progressing nicely. This morning i am up to about 7 chinups already. A pretty amazing feat for someone who could barely do one in december.

some chin up tips can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/c4skt6

This past weekend was really fun. It was such a packed weekend, and it really felt like i made realyl good use of my weekend. There was barely any time to sit around and do nothing. Everyday was go go go!

Friday - DJ Z*Trip
i went to check out DJ Z-Trip at the Republic… this guy is so crazy. He played some really good mashups. I was joined by Lee, Bell, Ivy and Tina. WHOLLY what a good night. The only crappy part about Friday night was that i had to be up at 7 am on Saturday morning. So this made it an “early” night for me. I’m usually out till like 3 or 4 but since i had to be up earlier than normal i went home to bed immediately following the club.

Here’s one of the highlights from the night… (first it needs to be set up. Last Saturday bell and i were talking about her and this guy she’s been seeing, and how she does not want to be in a serious relationship with said guy. She goes on and on about how she just likes to hang out with him, but she’s keeping her options open and he [let's call him John Doe] knows that and will be okay if she drops him for another guy for a serious relationship. Bottom line is… she does not want a boyfriend out of [John].)

me: “how’s it going?”
bell: “Good, i have a boyfriend.”
me: “WHAT?! since when???”
bell: “Since sunday.”
me: “WHAT?! how does [john] feel about that?”
bell: “[John] is my boyfriend.”
me: “WHAT?!”

LOL… i guess you had to be there.

Saturday - MRI, Work, Drinking Games
Saturday morning i ended up sleeping 4 hours before i had to be up for an MRI appointment. They took a scan of my foot that’s been giving me grief since i’ve been back from Tokyo back in October… it’s like on and off… right now it’s okay but it sometimes hurts…. anyways. My appointment was at 8 so i was up at 7 and there by 8. The appointment lasted an hour and i left the pan am clinic at 9. I went for breakfast and grabbed some lunch and a couple energy drinks before heading to work at the library at 10.

Got off work at 5 and went to SuperStore and the LC before going home. I cleaned up the house cause i had planned to have people over at my house. At about 830, alison arrived with a bottle of wine and i helped her drink it until about 10ish when Marek arrived with his bottle of gin. After that a bunch of other people poured in. By the end of the night there were about 15 people in my house sitting on the floor in my living room and we were all playing sociables. Sociables is a drinking game you play where you everyone draws a card from the deck one at a time, each card means something (see the rules for sociables). The most important card is the rule card…. this is the card that really let’s you have some fun! When you draw a 5, you get to make up a new rule. The last time we played, one of the rules i used was “you cannot say ‘I’.” Which is quite funny, cause you’d be surprised to see how often you say ‘I’. it turned into a lot of 3rd person talk. “calvin is enjoying this rule.” Some other rules that came up the last couple times we’ve played were:

“you cannot say ‘I’.”
“you cannot say ‘you’.”
“you cannot say ‘me’.”
“you must drink with your non-dominant hand.”
“every time you take a drink, you must say ‘Joe’.”
“you cannot point.”
“you cannot say ‘drink’.”
“every time i take a drink, [so and so] has to take twice as many.”

lol it’s funny… our last game ended up with a lot of “CONSUME BEVERAGE!!” cause we couldn’t say drink. And this poor girl Candace… i gave her the “every time i drink, Candace has to drink twice as much.” Oh man it was ridiculous. Made it fun though cause she made sure i wasn’t breaking any rules or else she’d have to drink… so she was on the ball for me!

After sociables i was pretty much done. I was thoroughly inebriated. I sat there and watched some others play other games… Indian Poker, and bunch of Chinese drinking games. What a crazy night though. Two people ended up crashing at my place.

Sunday - Recovery, Popping Class
As Sunday rolled I spent the entire morning in bed, and finally got up at about 1 in the afternoon. Thankfully, i drank a lot of water towards the end of the night so i wasn’t all that hungover and i recovered fairly quickly. Me and the last couple of stragglers at my house decided to get some breakfast so we went out to Smitty’s to eat. After having something to eat i felt pretty good. I drove my friends home and then i came home, picked up my other friends, and we went to popping class. I taught waving on sunday, arm waves and body waves. I realized that all those shoulder exercises having been paying off. I was able to keep my arms outstretched for a lot longer than the students in the class. You’d be surprised about how long you can actually keep your arms stretched out like that… it’s not very long at all.

After popping we went out for sushi… i love sushi… i’ve been going to this place a lot lately. “Hanabi” they are on corydon right next to Nikko’s and The Second Cup. Great sushi for a great price. And every wednesday they have half price on rolls! I finally got back home around 10ish and i got to bed and crashed.

Next weekend will begin earlier since it’s good friday… i’m excited! i think i’ll have a BBQ on friday!

on the ipod rotation right now…

usher - something special

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
This one’s for the lovers, follow me

Clearly this is new for me
I get excited when you’re here, my dear
Make no mistake you are all I see, sugar
My vision’s never been so clear

We both know that I’ve been running so long
This time love won’t let me leave
Please be patient, hesitation aside
We’re almost where we need to be

But in the mean time let me say what’s on my mind
Baby, I, I think we’ve got something special
Girl, you and me together we’ll take over the world
You know I love you, I need you so
So happy, I just want to let everybody know

Think back to the time when I was scared to let it show
Having too much fun with this and that or what
Now, that you’re mine
Somewhere along the way everything fell in place

I’m so proud of how you represent me, baby
Whether rockin’ Armani, Dolce&Gabbana
Roberto Cavalli, Louis or Gucci, girl
No matter what you wear, you do your own with it
I feel the same years from year

But in the mean time let me say what’s on my mind, oh
Listen, I think we’ve got something special
Girl, you and me, together we?ll take over the world
You know I love you, I need you so
So happy, I just want to let everybody know

That I think we’ve got something special
Girl, you and me, together we?ll take over the world
You know I love you, I need you so
So happy, I just want to let everybody know

You know I need you, baby
(I love you)
You know I do, I need you, baby
You know I do, I need you, baby
You know I do, I need you, baby

Now, that you?re mine
Somewhere along the way everything fell in place

Hey, hey, I think we got something special
Girl, you and me, together we?ll take over the world
You know I love you, I need you so
So happy, I just want to let everybody know

I think we’ve got something special
Girl, you and me, together we?ll take over the world
You know I love you, girl, I need you so
I’ll never, never let you go, no
You’re so special