Long time no see!!🙂

Lost my first draft of this entry when I got distracted and closed up my phone without saving what I had written into a draft file! UGH! Let's try this again, shall we....
                                    My last entry was 4 long years ago and I had to read over it after so much time has passed, I kind of forgot what I wrote about! Ha! Well, first off it was kind of like reading an obituary for my powerlifting and bodybuilding careers. It was, needless to say,  boring! I can remember what state of mind I was in that day and for many, many days afterwards, in a word, depressed. Not sure if my full personality and mental capabilities are on display enough in my writings to give the reader a little insight into myself, mentally as well as physically. Never forget this game we call weightlifting IS a mental game, as much,  if not more so than, a physical one.
                                     Quick insight into yours truly; I am one who, when it is decided that I will take on a goal, no matter the game or sport, I go in full throttle, full stroke, mentally as well as physically. I don't know any other way! And trust me when I tell you, i will go and research the activity, if I'm unfamiliar with it, and still do some research, if I am familiar with the activity. I'm not and I was taught this young, I'm not going out and trying to beat others or try and make someone feel bad when they lose, cause I end up feeling a little sad for them myself. No one likes a sore winner, or loser for that matter. My main goal is to be the best that my body and mind will allow me to be at any given activity. In essence, I am, and always have been driven to beat my own self. Over the years I've read many, many books on the topics of visualization, mind over body and took Arnold's advice from one of his books where Arnold explains visualization and how he learned to be proficient at it and how it pertains to weightlifting. Not to mention the pile of nutrition books I have stacked to the ceiling in the basement, that reminds me, I have to put those somewhere or else the wife will, undoubtedly, follow through with her "threat" or shall I say friendly warning. Yeah, she's Sicilian, so her friendly warnings are like something out of the movie, The Godfather, when the mob sends someone to pick up money you owe, you better have it!! They may say sure see ya next week but I wouldn't start my car until after they got their money back!!😉
                                     Visualization led me to psychology which led me to wonder about the brain and how it is made up. If you are not Into neuroscience, those books are a little difficult to read and if you don't read other books leading up to the latest book, you'll have a hard time understanding what the hell is going on. I pushed through and learned what I wanted and needed to learn, then I got the hell outta there!
                                      Psychology led me to meditation books and I tried to incorporate my little world of knowledge about the mind and the brain into, not only the gym, but everyday life as well. I did notice a big difference in myself and it is hard work retraining or should I say it is hard work to train your brain, but soo worth it in the end, physical and mental. Meditation books led me out Into left field, as I refer to it, heading down a dark path littered with books about authors and doctors that were trying to get inside the minds of serial killers, to see, for lack of a better phrase, " To see what makes serial killers tick". In other words they were studying and interviewing the most prolific and infamous serial killers to,  not only try to find out why these serial killers did what they did, but they hoped their scratching of the surface of this type of psychological undertaking, never before attempted, would shed some light on how to profile a current serial killer and to a much lesser extent, maybe this research would help,  in some small way, in the future, to identify children with these same traits and get them help,  if possible.
After the dark path was left behind I found myself lost for a moment, I consumed every book worth reading, in my opinion, about the aforementioned subjects and I was still out in left field so I remember thinking to myself, "I've read the neuroscience books but what if I drifted away from weightlifting and the physical and just dive into the mental". Not sure how or who or what Intrigued me enough to go get a book about physics. I suck at math, I don't like it so I don't try and don't need much math at my job, pointed that out to demonstrate that you do not have to be a math genius to read books about physics or quantum mechanics. Well, I guess I spoiled this first line with my previous line, yes, from physics I naturally gravitated towards quantum mechanics. There are some excellent writers who are physicists, extremely smart, yet they are not soooooo smart that they don't have a personality and these gentlemen do, in real life as well as their writing. They take an extremely difficult subject or topic and first write out what it is, what it means and what it's all about. Then on the following pages, they explain the topic in such a way that it is not easy, but easier to understand.
                                     From quantum mechanics I went back to psychology and a little foray Into physiology, kinesiology, and studied the superficial muscles of the human body, just to round myself out. I had such good results with the visualization and mediation practices that I wanted to incorporate even more into my workout routine, especially, but apply them to everyday life as well. I believe then and I still do, if you can't handle stress, setbacks and obstacles at work or at home, that's not a good recipe but it is a good indicator of how your workouts will be. If you are stressed and agitated all the time, imagine what that is doing to your body and mind. You will get a workout done but how good can the workouts really be if your system is chock full of stress hormones and your mind is not fully focused on the task at hand.

                                            I will delve deeper in future posts, so I hope you come back, thanks for reading, see ya soon but until then......train hard and smart!