It's my Birthday - Turning 49 with Posing

49 and 215 Pounds

This will be my last birthday in my 40's. I'm now 49 and only have a year left before I hit the big "Five Oh"! To be honest it doesn't really bother me since I am proud of my age and where I am in life and how I look.

I have been taking some yearly birthday photos over the last few years and it's kind of nice to go back and compare how I look moving forward as I age and I'm not going to lie... I was for sure leaner the last couple of years weighing in at around 195 pounds both years and looking pretty good I feel.

48 and 195 Pounds

This year on my birthday I am right at the tail end of my bulk and weighing in at a solid 215 pounds so 20 pounds up over my last two birthdays. There's going to be a little bit of fat gain on a bulk so I am looking much softer this year. However I for sure added some muscle during my bulk which when I get into my cut will be worth the uncombable plump stage. I don't really like not being lean so I am truly looking forward to starting the cutting stages of my contest prep.

Make sure to watch my entire YouTube video for some up to date posing in my Classic Physique shorts.

Get Fit Over 40 Update Video - Cold - Back Injury - Body Fat at 217 Pounds

I have been a bit under the weather lately, well for the last couple of weeks, had a bad cold that restricted me to at home workouts last week and even this week I am not 100% but at least I am making it to my regular gym.

To add injury to insult literally I pulled my lower back yesterday doing some deadlifts, I thought everything was going well and even completed a pretty easy set of 10 reps at 405 pounds but my back had a different idea when I went to pull 405 again for my last set. Looking back I didn't take into account that even though my legs and glutes have gotten stronger my lower back may have been lagging since I do not hit it as often. The weakest link is always the first to break and that's exactly what happened here.

I am planning on making a video on how to avoid injuries since I feel I have made enough mistakes to be a bit of an expert on the issue. For the most part I have been pretty injury free but when you lift heavy you are always taking some chances.

As many of you know I am in a bit of a bulk trying to get to around 220 pounds before cutting down for my upcoming show in July, the Vancouver Pro Am. I will also be competing in Classic Physique so I need to put on some muscle and get up to as close to a stage weight of 210 pounds as I can to be competitive with the other competitor.

For over a year now my Skulpt Aim has been dead to me as the internal batteries gave it up but recently I did some at home electronics repair and swapped out the batteries. This operation was a success and now my Skulpt Aim is back in business which allowed me to see how I am doing in this much heavier and a bit fluffier condition. I was actually really surprised to see that I am only up about 1-1.5% body fat over when I was about 20 pounds lighter so that's good news.

I plan to keep utilizing my Skulpt Aim While I cut to see how my body fat changes.

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I Just Don't Have Time to go to the Gym

I hear this comment from people all the time... "I Just Don't Have Time to go to the Gym" or some variation of it. Like... "There's just not enough time in the day to exercise or "I'm too busy to workout"and my personal favorite... "I don't have as much free time as you do to get to the gym".

Of course there are people out there that simply are booked to the max, perhaps single parents or someone with two jobs just managing to get by but for most everyone else it really comes down to priority.

I will be the first person to admit I like to get some "me time"or what I call "down time" in that is all about relaxing and winding down, I do this at the end of the day before bed. It can be watching some shows, surfing the internet, catching up on some social media, playing a video game...

This is all fine and dandy but it you're going to tell me you don't have time for even 30-45 minutes of exercise 4-5 days per week but you can watch 2-3 show every night then perhaps your priorities could be reevaluated.

I also get that family time is a big priority but again, how much of this family time is productive? Are there healthy activities you could be doing as a family rather than playing video games or watching a movie together?

I can not tell you how to priorities your life, all I can suggest is to take a good look at where you are spending your time and figure out if there are better and more healthy things you could be doing.

You Are Not Born Strong - You Must Become Strong

I always find it funny when people assume that a person is just born a certain way. Sometimes we just assume a person is naturally lean because they are lean most of the time, or they are naturally strong because they lift a lot of weight in the gym, or they can eat a lot of food because they have a fast metabolism.

People make these judgements or assumptions because they only see part of the picture which is the final result, they don't see how that picture became what it is, what was involved in the making of that final result.

I stay under 10% body fat all year round but that does not make me naturally lean. It takes commitment to my diet and making sure I burn plenty of calories each day with exercise. I can get fat just like anyone else.

People tell me my strength is only because I have a lot of muscle on me, did they stop to think where I got the muscle from. Was this muscle always there? Did it just magically appear overnight? Or maybe it has taken years of pushing myself at the gym way beyond where most people are comfortable to venture. Muscle is a byproduct of strength, strength is a byproduct of effort.