http://bodybypt.com

No the title has nothing ot do with Eddie Murphy or Nick Nolte…who rememebers this movie?

Classic!

Last week I was fortunate enough to be invited on the largest passenger cruise ship ever made, the Oasis of the Seas, before it opened to the public!

My adventure began on Saturday night, I was up until 2am working on a diets for a couple of clients (you’re welcome Sandra & Kristen!), my flight was for 7:15. So I was suppose to be at the airport at 5am!

I set my alarm for 4am. However I didn’t wake up till 6am! Arrived at the airport at 6:45am. Needless to say I missed my flight!

I had to wait 3 hours before the next flight out.

Eventually made it on that flight and landed in Fort Lauderdale at 4:30 after a lengthy layover in Atlanta.

When I met up with my group of friends they wanted to go to Miami Beach. A place I’ve always wanted to visit!

For dinner we went to the Fountainebleau. This place looked like something out of  CSI: Miami.

A little peice of heaven fell to earth appearently!

Audi was having a function there that night, there must have been  20 Audi SUV’s there. A high up in the company was also there he had his own special parking spot for his R8.

Looks fast standing still!

After dinner we went down to South Beach, in particular Ocean Dr. I absolutely fell in love with the place. There was a guy walking around with a white albino python, and of course it ended up on my neck! It was quite and experience. (when I get the pictures I’ll post them)

The following day we ate breakfast on the beach front in Fort Lauderdale, and once again it was perfect weather and picturesque.

I think I'm in love with this place!

After breakfast it was time to board the Oasis. Just sit back and take in the view!

Approaching the Oasis

 When I first got onto the ship, it felt like I was in a mall. I thought to myself, when do we go on the ship?! 

Looking down into central park

Free booze and food, this was going to be fun! After a couple drinks I decided to jump on the Flow Rider! The first video was my first time a little shakey to say the lest, the second I was actually on for a decent amount of time before the recording started, I was feeling quite comfortable, so then he told me to try a 360!? You can see the results!

Ascending the wall

Carasile

High above was the zipline

Solarium was beautiful

Real ice! Yes I'm still on board the ship!

Am I the boy toy or are they the harem? LOL- haha

Strutting on the redcarpet, I could get use to this!

Gloria Estefan was amazing!

Keshia Knight Pulliam- RUDY HUXTABLE!!!

I didn't know who this was but everyone was getting a picture with her! Turns out she's Karina Smirnoff, from Dancing with the Stars

The current winner of Dancing with the Stars, Shawn Johnson (former gold medal gymnast)- picture came out great, but this was after a night of dancing in the club, we're both actually soaking in sweat, I swear she left a sweat mark on my cheek! LOL

I wish I could get into all that happened, but suffice to say it was the most fun I’ve had over a 48 hour period! (free food & liquor may have helped!) What do you guys think, trade snow for hurricanes?!

I told him about this elite power lifting group down in Columbus, Ohio, called Westside Barbell. I said he may need someone from there to help us bust this plateau.

He thought it would be cool go down for a day and train, I agreed. Then he started talking about taking a da trip down to train with them. I figured he was just talking. Sure Bruce whatever.

However the next day he calls me and says, he spoke to Louie Simmons (the owner and inventor of their training system.) And that he was going to book a flight and hotel for us to go down and train.

WHAT?!

I was very surprised and pretty pumped to go at the same time!

For those that don’t know powerlifting consists of lifting 3 lifts, the squat, bench press & deadlift- whoever totals the most wins their weight class. The Westside barbell club has the most record holders of any gym in the world. And Louie Simmons is the mad scientist who through years of reading has developed the system that has made the men and women who go there lift superhuman weights!

So Tuesday night we flew down to Columbus, and stayed the night at a hotel. That day I had purposely woken up early so I’d be able to fall asleep and get up early, since we had to meet Louie at 6:30 for breakfast and we would train at 8.

Around 10 I started to feel sleepy, and was just about to turn the TV off, then the fire alarm went off!

Now the adrenalin was pumping! Looked out the window, looked out in the hall, false alarm. So now i had to calm myself down again, eventually fell asleep.

Around 11:30, the alarm goes off again! Took two sniffs, i didn’t smell any smoke, so figured i was fine.

But now I could hear every little peep. I swear I heard a feather land on a pillow 100 yards away!

So needless to say it was an awful nights sleep.

The following morning we met Louie for breakfast at a Bob Evans restaurant. Joining us was one of the strongest bench pressers in the world, this dude must have weighted 300lbs. I couldn’t wait to see how much food this guy was going to pack away.

As it turns out ate the most food out of everyone! whats up with that?

Louie was very slow to warm up to us, that is until we started talking training and he saw that I knew my stuff.

After eating we then followed him to the gym, located in an industrial area, with no signage.  This was not a “fitness centre” this was a training facility. No change rooms, no cross trainers or bikes, just lots of weights!

There was an aggressive attitude in the air, coming from the other lifters and definitely from the hardcore rap and rock came through the speakers…it felt primal, it felt animalistic, it felt like i wanted to lift something heavy!

Louie’s personality really came out once in the gym, you could tell he enjoyed teaching. I think he saw some potential in me.

But then I almost got myself killed! Forgetting I was in the heart of Ohio, and the amount of love they have for their Ohio State buckeyes, I took off my hoodie as I was getting hot and underneath I was wearing a Michigan Wolverines shirt.

Don't wear the Blue in Ohio!

The wolverines are considered enemy! After seeing that he said he was going to make me hurt the next day. In actuality I hurt for about 3 days after.

Generally the work outs are only an hour, but Louie kept wanting to show me all different things so we were there for two hours (probably because of the shirt!)

He made me do 200 reps, ya I was sore the next day!

It was quite a learning experience. Heck by the end of breakfast he had already changed some of lifting beliefs.

I hope to visit Louie and the Westside gang again some time in the near future, he said that was fine as long as I change my shirt.

I think this is how I want to spend all future vacations, why lay on a beach when you can work out with the best of the best!

With the man himself!

There have been many times when my own insecurities take over and I wonder if what I’m doing is correct or if I have what it takes to succeed.

But, every now and then, someone takes you aside and basically gives you a pat on the back or something happens that validates what you are doing. And it feels great!

Well all of those things happened for me on Saturday night. A friend of mine (Nikki) who I had basically one of my training partners decided to enter a fitness show.

This would be her second show ever and of 2009. For the first show she had worked with another trainer for about 9 months, she was cardio-ed to death, and she placed 7th out of 12 girls.

When we started we only had 6 weeks to make some magic happen! It was at times an emotional 6 weeks, but we pushed through, BIG thanks to Darrin for the nutrition, and tanning guidance.

Saturday was show time. The afternoon show is where the judges really make most of their decision about who they like. So it was important to make a good impression. Darrin, her sister and I helped critique her before going on, she was looking better as time went on. As her category drew near the three of us went to our seats.

the money shot... you should have seen me demonstrating this to her back stage!

They came out in groups of 7. Nikki was last to hit the stage in her group. And she looked nervous (was it just because I know her, or was it apparent to everyone?)! Her presentation was a little off, but physically she was the best amongst her group. Now it was a waiting game until the evening show, which was 3 hours away.

Darrin wouldn’t be there for that so I was going to have to reapply tan and add glaze. Something I had never done before.

Applying some glaze on her butt. It's a tough job but I'm a trooper!

Once the evening show started we heard that her category wouldn’t be on stage until 8. So another 3 hours of waiting! Her sister, a friend and I, basically just sat around doing nothing.

Then more drama, because the show was moving slowly they changed how they wanted the girls to walk on stage, which meant we had to change our posing.

This is where I became a chorographer, changing her routine and her moves.

Then once again it was time to watch. They brought all the girls out, and lined them up like cattle, 28 in total, it was a tough field.
Then they started calling out the top 10. As I scanned her competition I knew she MUST be in the top ten. The girl who I thought had a good chance of winning it was called out in 6th. That made me nervous. If they only give her 6th did my girl not even make the top ten?
Doubt was setting in. Had I failed her?

However then they called out a girl who had a very similar body type to Nikki’s, and hope was back, because I knew Nikki had her beat. They finally called 713 in second, Nikki’s number, she was second!

The top 3

I jumped out of my seat I was so happy. The weight of the world felt lifted off of my shoulders, and it was replaced with a gentle pat on the back.

It’s so much better than what I’ll be experiencing 10 years down the road from now when all the songs will remind of me of drunken nights at the clubs! ha ha

What do these songs do for you?

Here is a sample of the songs on this playlist I recently made…
Madonna- Justify My Love (tidbit, did you know it was written by Lenny Kravitz?)

Michael Jackson- Human Nature

There were about 4 other MJ songs but I’ll spread around some of the other artists…

PM Dawn (remember them!?) – Die Without You

PM Dawn also did an amazing mix of George Michael’s “Father Figure” taking the original song and vocals and adding in their back ground vocals and beat…I’m man enough to say that this mix is even sexier than the original!

ENJOY

Nothing quite like smelling burning eyeball!

And on September 3rd, the dream became reality. The good people over at Lasik MD made it happen.

After only a week I was better than 20/20 in one eye, the other eye was just behind and still healing.

Sure better than 20/20 is good, but this is what i want!

Stomped on them!

I was always we behind in the fashion of my glasses so now I wont have to worry about it!

This past week I’ve had two people say they’ve seen me on television which is pretty cool!

Here is commercial one. If you look closely near the end you can totally tell I’m flexing!

I wish they had kept the cameras rolling between takes, because just before the trainers had to go on, we all made a mad dash to the dumbbells to pump up!

For some reason I can’t get the second commercial to upload, when I figure it out I’ll be sure to post.

On a slightly different note, here is my favorite gym commercial of all time;

So the other day  I was at the grocery store, I happened to be wearing my shirt from the gym i work at. I saw this guy walk past me a few times and my spidey senses started tingling. But ignored it.

I started making my way around the store and as I was about to go around a corner that guy stopped me.

So I obviously thought he was going to ask me about my gym or about working out. Instead he starts talking about “manscaping!”

Manscaping, here are a few definitions from Urban Dictionary;

-A term used to define male grooming below the belt. A male can use both an electric razor or a regular razor. A Mach 3 is preferable with the ladies on the testicular area.

“He is so hairy…he needs some education on manscaping.”

-A fine artform exclusive to men; the continued upkeep of exceptional hygeine and strategic hair removal as they pertain to the male body.

“I have a big date tonight I should do some manscaping.”

So this dude starts talking to me about manscaping in the middle of the grocery store! He said he’s worked with a couple of mulatto guys multiple times during the conversaion, still not sure why.

He then pulled out one of his cards, but as he did this flyer fell out of his pocket which he quickly picked up and stuffed into his pocket, but as he did I noticed the picture on it. I was similar to the picture below, but went down a little lower!

He showed me his arm pits and told me how well it worked. (Remember this is still in the middle of the store!) He finished off by saying he normally doesn’t work Wednesdays but would come in for me to try it out!

I’m not sure what point the idea came into my head but I started questioning his motives…Is he hitting on me!? He’s got balls if he is!

Oh well complement is a complement!

S o what do you think, was he sincere or was he trying to pick me up?

I started driving up to the theater, the highway was moving very slowly. So I decided to try and cut across the city using the Red Hill Valley Park way.

You know the one they spent $220 million dollars to construct. well that was a huge mistake.

After exiting the on ramp for the Parkway almost immediately it came to a stand still. It was so bad people turned off their cars and started walking around.

Over the past few days it had been raining in buckets. Today was no exception. So I figured it was an accident. However it turns out it had rained so heavily that the dip in the Parkway had accumulated so much water it was flowing over the median. Traffic was backed up for miles! No exaggeration.

There was only two ways we were going to move.

1-we wait for the sun to come and evaporate the water.

2- we start turning around on the highway.

Being that it was the coldest July on record, we’d be stuck there till October for that to happen. So I said to people walking around this (option 2) can only work if everyone is co-operating.

Driving on the shoulder against traffic, it was fun!

Fortunately everyone was just as annoyed with sitting in traffic as I was and everything went smoothly.

But by this time the movie was well underway so I drove back home.

Maybe next time Bruno, maybe next time.

This weather is starting to get to me! It’s like winter but rain instead of snow…where is my sunshine?