I'm in!

Just in time for the last preseason game the NZRL has responded to my incessant calling by faxing the form for my release to the Queensland Board of Rugby League. Game on!

AN IMPORTANT PART OF ANY CONTACT SPORT IS LIFTING HEAVY OBJECTS, this being a post wherein I do so with little fanfare and large dollops of generosity

The gym, my home away from home, which fortunately is just a stones throw away from my actual home, which is just across the way from centrelink (the place where you sign up for the dole), which somehow attracts the pick of the litter of this generation. I sympathise with their plight, empathise even, I really do. I need a job just as much as the next guy, or I could just morph into a sales champion over night (it's a commission only deal) get good at my present one and all would be right with the world again. With my new found riches from my new found sales savvy I'd do my best Mother Teresa impression showering down free candy, boomerangs, and other assorted goodies on the endless throng of nev'r do wells who pass, like sands through the hour glass so are the Days of Our Lives, through this here region. Yes, my promises of future philanthropy, with cash that in all probability has an extremely strong unlikelihood of materializing, knows no bounds. Yep, I'm feeling pretty good about myself right about now. But enough with the idle chatter, down to brass tacks, and iron knuckles, and other euphemisms for strictly business. Oh yes it's business, it's business time. As I was saying, the gym has carved out a special place in my heart at least the size of one of its four chambers and I couldn't be happier. Here's the workout from today (and another from some other day when I forgot to post), because I know how much you guys love reading about me training sessions mate. I just keep on giving and giving and I don't stop, I don't stop indeed...


lost workout
power C&J 60kgs,70,80,90, 100 (stapled on last)
OHP 60*3,40/2*8

today's workout
DL 180kgs,185,190*5;195*3
Power C&J 100/1*8 (stapled on reps: 1,7,8. I remember when this weight used to be easy)
seated row, small v grip 55,60,65*10

Me and League

I was 10 years old when I was first exposed to rugby league. I was vaguely aware of organized sports as a concept from possibly the age of 5, there was something called soccer were you kicked a ball around, there was running, an activity for which I lacked any natural ability at that early stage, but the thrill of athletic competition wouldn't truly capture me until a few years later where opportunity skipped over preparation, but found luck anyway. My lunch times and play times in those budding years were occupied by wild feats of my own imagination, I'd pretend to be various things, none which included sports stars.

In 1990, my final year of primary (elementary) school, I shifted from the then backsliding, according to my parents, Grey Lynn school (20 years later my youngest sister would finish what I started by once again attending the school I'd been pulled from, proving that either (a) there's never any parenting mistake that you can't fix by having other children or (b) and slightly less believable, government funded institutions, like public schools, can actually improve over time) to Westmere Primary. While there I made friends, broke up with friends and re-befriended them again; I threw a tennis ball like a girl and have done so ever since; I went Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle crazy; I learned from a talking Giraffe about the wonders of puberty; Mike Tyson lost to "Buster" Douglas; New Kids on the Block were the hottest thing out and even then at that tender age I couldn't figure out why. However, the most seminal moment in that pivotal year came when I was invited by my sometimes friends to participate in a lunch time game of rugby league, I had no idea what they were talking about.

During the first few moments Lee received the ball, and perhaps keenly aware of my inexperience, ran directly towards me. Encouraged by the others to smash him, I responded by picking the poor boy up and power slamming him into the turf. The others were impressed informing me that I had "dumped" Lee. In later years "dumped" would take on other definitions with greater impact than this initial tackle, but for that small troop of prepubescent boys only one type of dumping mattered and somehow, inexplicably I was good at it.

heavy(ish) lifting

More transitioning over to 5*5, although from now on I'll probably just try to max out on the Olympic lifts at the beginning of a session and then do whatever else from there.

front squat 80,85,90,95,100*5 (why are these so much harder than back squats?)
hang snatch 50,52.5,55*5 (couldn't hit 5 sets)
n-grip chins me/5*5
inc press 60/2*10

pros and cons

During my legendary journey to the west island I've come across a few things that make me go hmmmm?!?

• Eftpos minimums: what century are we living in again? I feel like buying a chocolate bar and I need to spend ten dollars to do so. So much for the cashless society. Maybe this is one of the economic stimulus plans, I know these shopkeepers wont be going broke anytime soon.
• Internet Banks have weekends and holidays off: Are you kidding me. If you blow ten bucks on an eftpos minimum purchase on the weekend the transaction doesn't show up on your internet bank balance until Monday. I've got a budget to monitor here people, come on. I think someone actually enters all the transactions manually. And I thought we were backwards in New Zealand.
• Monster sized cockroaches: 'nuff said.

(if this is all I can complain about I suppose things aren't too bad) On the plus side...

• For the first time in my life I have a tan.
• There's no fee to put books on hold at the library
• League actually matters here. Wooo!

gymazing update

I tried out a shieko workout this week, big mistake. It looks as if my body isn't made to stand up to the rigours of 2 hour plus workouts, plus league training. I pulled way back on yesterday's installment, opting for a 5x5ish, Bill Starr, old-school, in-season workout. This went down much better. I'm concerned that my oly lifts seem to be super pathetic at the moment, they'll be receiving immediate attention in the coming week. Enjoy my unparalleled amazingness...

DL 120kgs*5,140*5,160*5,180*5 (drank some weak sauce on the 2 hundy, haven't looked in the mirror since)

Power Snatch 60kgs*5 (I convinced myself that the other 4 sets didn't matter)

Power C&J 80kgs*5 (ditto)

Bench 70kgs*5,75*5,80*5,85*5,90*5 (I even paused on the first 4 sets!)

bureaucracy strikes again

Due to a little piece of paper making it's way to NZ, my aspirations to play league have been put on hold temporarily. I can't play until it returns. No nines for me this weekend. I put pen to paper almost a month ago covenanting with the NZ Rugby League that if I make the NRL I will never ever play for the Kangaroos, I should be so lucky. I'm 29 years old I have a greater chance of winning the lottery than making the NRL, let alone being selected to play for the Australian national team. Given, the state of international rugby league where players cycle between teams on a whim I find it difficult to fathom that at the grass roots level the powers-that-be are more stringent in their management of players than the elite level of the game. NZRL and the Richmond Bulldogs, please release me, I've got some people to smash.

welcome to my new place

This is it for the next 6 months, I showed up on a dark and stormy night and surprised my unsuspecting flatmates, Hi I'm Loren and I'll be living here from now on, I said through sheets of water passing over me. This delightful little image fails to capture the gangsta tagging along the outer wall (if you look very closely you can see it), amateurs, probably the most average tagging I've ever seen. So here I am in the hood, living the thug life.