I am supposed to be getting caught up on my client work after a long weekend but I just have too much on my mind and figured I would vomit my thoughts onto my blog so that one of two things can happen: 1. I can clear my mind and get back to work before having to get into bed or … 2. I can make sense of what happened this last week and move forward. If I am lucky, I can accomplish both. As I usually warn everyone ahead of time ….. this is not going to be terribly structured. I plan to do what I always do and just type what I am thinking….

If you did not know Rick Courchene, I am sorry. Of all the things that were said at his memorial service on Saturday from all of the people that spoke, the one thing that stuck with me and stood out the most was when someone said, “I am a better person for having known Rick”. I was moved by that statement (I was moved by a lot this week and struggled more than I have admitted to this point), as cliche as it sounds, and though there were many things said that were very heartfelt and sincere, I don’t know … that one stuck with me. Funny, too, because you might obviously be thinking that I am simply saying that I feel the same way and that comment summed up my feelings, as well. However, it isn’t just that. Obviously I feel that way but I was moved by that statement because it occurred to me that if anything that had been said at his service that I wanted to be said of me when I pass, it was that. Which brings me to this blog.

I am not going to get into how great of a guy Rick was with this blog. If you knew Rick it was no secret what kind of person he was and it was damned sure no secret to all that attended the service on Saturday to celebrate his life. If you didn’t know him, explaining how great of a person he was isn’t going to do him justice, anyway, and quite frankly you don’t have the time to read everything I would have to say. I am writing this blog because I want to share how profound this last week was to me and how it has affected me. If I can articulate even 10% of this, I will consider it a success because I am truly bothered with my feelings and emotions after Rick’s passing.

I lost my sister 2 years ago, as some of you reading this already know. She passed in May of 07 at only 29 years of age and she passed in the house we grew up in, in Michigan, ironically enough. She feel asleep one night on the couch in the living room and never woke up. Her heart simply stopped at some point early that morning. Why? Because. She wasn’t terribly healthy as she smoked, didn’t eat terribly well and was overweight most of her life. However, I think we all can name several people that fit that description that are 50 or 60 years old and are still living. I am considered “healthy” by most but I chewed tobacco for 14 years (until 04), I have tanned every year for 20 years and I have done other things that I won’t mention that the media says I should have been dead 20 years ago. I don’t know why she didn’t wake up and obviously it was very hard to deal with. I had a strained relationship for several years with her and we had only recently reconciled before she passed and thank God we did, for my sake. However, even though I struggled with my sisters death and the tragic death of my 7 year old nephew, Brady, in 2005, Rick’s death was different. It was different because as much as I felt the pain of losing my sister unexpectedly and the traumatic and tragic loss of my brother’s son, with Rick it was different and it took me all week to figure it out. It hit me at the service on Saturday: I saw my own memorial service.

Before I go any further I have to be VERY clear for the few douchebags that hate my guts out there but insist on reading my blogs, following my posts on IntenseMuscle.com (even though they don’t sign in or admit to reading IM), pay attention to me at shows, etc: I am not saying that I am Rick or I am “exactly like Rick”. I am also not saying that I have even a fraction of the people love me that loved Rick or that the turnout to my service when I pass will be anything of what Rick’s was. What I am going to explain are my feelings as they pertain to my thoughts and emotions around Rick’s passing this last week. I ask the douchebags to keep it in perspective.

Rick was fortunate to have a lot of people that loved him and a lot of people that liked him and respected him. Are there people out there that didn’t like him? I am sure there were but they were very few and far between. He was a very outgoing and funny guy that always was smiling and always would talk to you and ask you how you were doing instead of blowing you off or ever being standoffish with you. He was a bodybuilder since high school and he did well competing but nothing that was going to threaten a win at the national level. He was well known in his home state of Colorado in the bodybuilding world and was an NPC Judge for a long time. Though some would consider him arrogant, that might not know him that well and understand his sense of humor, if you knew him you knew full well he was not at all arrogant. He also was very quiet about his sickness that he dealt with for quite a long time – if my memory serves me correct it was approximately since 03 that he had battled on and off with what he told me was essentially leukemia but that he was never technically diagnosed and he explained it as if you had to have 20 symptoms to be diagnosed but he only had 15 so they wouldn’t diagnose him with it. I have had conversations with my wife where she gets very angry when I tell her that if I was diagnosed with something like cancer or something terminal I might not want to tell anyone about it – including her. Rick kept a lot of these things to himself and I can only speculate it was because of the reasons that I would want it kept quiet: so that people didn’t treat me any differently because they knew I was sick or dying and so that I could continue to just live and enjoy my life without everyone around me constantly worrying or being upset for me. It was the parallels between Rick and I that hit me so hard on Saturday. We had so many things in common including our ages (he passed at 41 and I will turn 40 in the Spring) that my mind started to wander.

As I sat there watching the video-slide shows of his life and his very funny interview at the fire station where he was just being Rick from a couple years ago, I just…. saw myself. If I were on a tape like that I would try to be funny, as well. Our personalities are very similar. Now, this part gets rough for me as I take my time typing this out …. I saw my wife and my children sitting there and how they may be affected. I thought about my mother and my father and how it would impact them. I thought about the music or the song that I would want played during a slide show of my life. I looked around the room, physically turned and looked around the room, to see the very friends that would be sitting there if it were actually MY service. The person that did most of the speaking would refer several times to “Rick’s bodybuilding friends” after referring to his family and his Firefighter friends. There was a large group of people from the local gyms and I recognized and knew most all of them. The more I thought about all of this the more painful it was. I actually had to force myself to remember that I was there to remember Rick, not to torture myself about my own mortality and continue to run down the scenario of the day when I will be memorialized. I even struggled with whether my thoughts were somehow selfish in that I was thinking about “me” at a time that I should only have been focused on my friend. I also pondered the thought of whether I was simply distracting my mind from the painful loss of my friend by changing the focus to myself. I then decided that I shouldn’t overthink it so much and simply enjoy the service. After all, I could of course, figure all of that out later.

I think it is safe to say that people simply grieve differently. After much thought I am ok with my thoughts wandering and I don’t think I was selfish, at all. Rick impacted me and my life off and on for about 10 years. He was always positive and supportive and I doubt there was even ONE time that I interacted with him in those 10 years that we didn’t laugh and laugh hard. However, as much as he impacted me in life, it was his passing that profoundly impacted me. It made me look into myself and ask myself how I will be eulogized, who will show up to my memorial and will people have as kind of things to say about me as they did about Rick? I am a good person, a good friend, a good husband, a good father and I am incredible in bed but I can’t help but want to check myself to make sure that I am living the way I truly want to live and to be remembered. I love what I do for a living and I recognize and remind myself almost daily how blessed I am on many levels. I find myself going to Rick’s page when I log onto facebook and I just stare at his picture and tonight I was doing just that and I thought to myself: It isn’t what you accomplish in this life, really, that is important and yet we stress about the promotions and the recognition that we want from our jobs. It isn’t important whether you got an A or a C in math class or whether you make 80k or 180k yet most of us stress about chasing the next dollar, getting a bigger house and having a nicer car than the next guy. When push comes to shove and you leave this earth be it at 41 or 81, I am convinced that what truly matters is the impact that you had on the people around you during your life and when I say people I am saying your family and friends but also the people that you don’t know but that may know you, as well. In the end, Rick wasn’t remembered for how much he made, how big his house was and as long as I knew him I can’t tell you what he drove. No one mentioned that on Saturday, either. They only spoke about the positive impact that he had on them. I truly hope that I am remembered like that when I go.

Rick, thank you very much and say hi to my sister for me and tell her that I think about her often.

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I have been getting a lot of questions from clients, on the board and even friends asking me my perspective on the Holidays as it relates to their training and nutrition. So, I figured it would be a nice topic for another blog entry as I am short on ideas lately, it seems.

I used to be that guy that wouldn’t eat a bite of anything bad or miss a workout between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I remember getting pissed that the gym would close early on Christmas Eve and that it was closed all day Thanksgiving. Of course, in my mind everyone was a bodybuilder so it made little sense to me. As I grew up my perspective changed and evolved into a more logical approach to such an important time of the year.

As far as I am concerned the Holidays are a time to spend with family where you actually get a chance to slow down and just sit around doing nothing more than being with the people that are important to you. The Holidays traditionally involve the three F’s – a lot of tasty FOOD, FOOTBALL and FAMILY – not necessarily in that order. There are few days during the year where it is ok to throw out your training and diet but the Holidays are the exception. If you are not doing a show and you are worried more about your training and diet than simply spending time with loved ones and enjoying a nice meal, your priorities are out of whack. I think it is commendable that you may want to stay with your routine and stay “on track” but throwing a day or two for Thanksgiving and a couple days for Christmas is hardly going to ruin anyone’s condition or have you detrained any time soon.

I give my clients that aren’t prepping (and very few are at this time of the year, anyway) permission to not even think about their diet for these days. Eat what you want and enjoy the food including desserts. I won’t give up my pecan pie for ANYTHING. If I still want to get my workouts in then I simply change my schedule around for that week to accommodate the extra workout but there are times I won’t even do that and just simply skip the workout.

You can do what you want to but I am here to tell you that I will be loading up my plate with a lot of things from brown sugar-covered sweet potatoes to green bean casserole, ham and pecan pie. We do ham instead of turkey. Why? Because turkey is too damned lean. It is the Holidays and, dammit, I want some fat-assed ham so that I can make ham sandwiches the day after and maybe even put ham in an omelet if I feel like it. Come the first week of January it is game on again and everything can be 100% at that point. It took me a long time but my priorities are straight and nothing matters more to me than spending time with my family during the Holidays and enjoying myself. There are eleven other months to focus on training and diet. I hope you feel the same way, too. Happy Holidays!

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Something struck me as I was thumbing through the latest issue of NPC Newsonline. It is my toilet reading along with things like Men’s Health and 5280 (5280 is the elevation of Denver and the name of the city’s magazine that reviews restaurants, doctors and things of that nature). I pay special attention to Isaac Hinds’ spontaneous photography shots primarily because I know him from here in Denver and he can get some funny shots. I think he was covering the Arnold show from earlier in the year and as I was looking at the pictures I couldn’t help but shake my head as I noticed, what is to me, one of the lamest things that bodybuilders do when they take a photo. It doesn’t matter if it is on Facebook, a pic for a magazine or a pic with their buddies – and it is important to note that the females don’t do it. Nope, we look like complete morons unto ourselves.
Now, you can’t make an excuse for this so don’t try to justify it. If you do it, don’t even TRY to deny it, just laugh at yourself and know it is true. I bet at least a few of you see it coming but I am going to throw it at you, anyway: It is the old tradition of flexing the arm while making some stupid sign with your hand or fingers. We are WAY too cool to just shake someone’s hand and flex our arm for the camera, no, we have to do what I like to refer as the “meathead gang sign”.
It seems there are different gangs due to all of the signs that get thrown.
We have the “V gang” which is simply the first two fingers formed in a V. Another that comes to mind is the “1 gang” which is just the first finger, I think, referring somehow to being number one or something. I can’t forget the “fisted gang” which is simply a clenched fist and there is, of course, the one that I think is some Hawaii sign for surfers but to me looks more like when you signal to someone from across the room to “call me” like you are using a cell phone.
Now, the gang that you belong to isn’t that important. What is important is that you flex the arm so hard that until the picture provides a still image, you were shaking like an epileptic on clen.
I ask you who are reading this: Why is it that we feel we have to do this? Is it some unwritten rule? Do we need to show that we are part of this club or gang? I have never once seen a picture of Kobe Bryant acting like he is shooting an invisible basketball while taking a picture with a fan. I have yet to see A Rod act like he is swinging a bat in a picture nor have I seen a race car driver acting as if he is driving a car. It makes little sense, really. What does it say? Are we saying: You might not know that I am a bodybuilder so I must prove it in this picture? Do we expect that the person who asked to take the picture expects or wants us to do this? I wonder if it is simply because, God forbid, we take a picture with a fan or friend and …. have our arm look….. small. *GASP* The thought of it. I can’t stand the thought of a picture existing that would not show my arm in the best light and looking completely flexed and hard. I certainly don’t want anyone to think that my muscles aren’t always hard and flexed, right? Hell no, can’t have that.
So, the next time you are thumbing through something like the NPC news, see if you don’t notice the same things I do. The next time you take a picture with a pro and they start to flex their arm in some moronic sign, politely tell them that you paid well for the photo op and you don’t want to have your picture taken with a retard. A really BIG retard, at that. There are retards all over the place that would smile from ear to ear (and probably drool) to have you take a picture with them. And if you ever take a picture with me and I do that? Smack the fucking shit out of me. I will understand and I will appreciate it.

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I am a bit hesitant to put this out there but I am pretty excited at the same time so …. I am not going to keep this too hush hush. I am in the process of planning a DVD that will be released sometime in the late Spring of 2010. It will focus on training, nutrition, supplementation for longevity in the sport of bodybuilding. This won’t be the average DVD because I don’t push huge weights, have pro size and I won’t be dressing in flannel to train. We figured that had been done before so we were going to take a different approach and focus on what it takes to train for almost thirty years, remain healthy, as injury free as possible and still continue to train your ass off, grow and compete.
I have a team of people that are invested in this project and believe in it as much as I do. They are very good at the parts that they will be playing so I am excited about starting this project in just a couple weeks. We plan to do most of the shooting in late January with permission from Dylan and Heather to shoot it at Armbrust Pro Gym here in Denver, Colorado. As all projects of this magnitude sometimes take longer than the scheduled time, we are going to work hard within the time frame that we have and we feel that this time frame is doable. I think everyone will find this DVD to be not only informative and providing a lot of insight into the areas of training, nutrition and supplementation but the plan is to be entertaining, as well.
I am looking forward to this project even though I am sure it will be a long and arduous task to get this done the way that we envision the final product.
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