Mike Arnesen's blog

Hey guys,

I'm moving to Portland, Oregon at the beginning of next year and was wondering if anyone new of good gyms up there. I know there's a lot and if someone had a good experience with a particular one, that would make it a lot easier to decide! It'd also be cool to see who's up there.

Thinking about trying a new protein powder supplement. It's not whey protein or even casein, so I know it's not the most popular here at the Tribe. This one's made from fermented whole grain brown rice and it's vegan. ;-)
Here is it's amino acid profile:
Alonine 872 mg
Arginirte 1463 mg
Aspartale 1376 mg
Cystine 388 mg
Glutamate 2752 mg
Glycine 678 mg
Histidine 339 mg
isoleucine 707 mg
Leucine 1328 mg
Lysine 543 mg
Methionine 504 mg
Phenylolonine 872 mg
Prolirie 795 mg
Serine 766 mg
Threonine 601 mg

So I'm in Las Vegas right now for Mr. Olympia. Already have spent a lot of time with a bunch of great fitness and health people. It's very inspiring to be around people who talk about and want to live fitness even more than I do. It's really nice cause aside from my girlfriend, most of the people I see on a daily basis have no concern for their health and fitness. Tomorrow I'll be hanging out, going to the O, and checking out a photo shoot. I'm going to try to bring back lots of stories, try to keep a daily blog, and record some videos.

I'm going to check out Mr. Olympia. Leaving today and I'm really stoked. This is gonna be crazy. I don't really even know what to expect. I'm hoping to meet a lot of people in the fitness and health industry. Other than that, gonna have fun hanging out in Vegas.

Hey guys, this is less of a blog and more of a request for advice. I'm want to start a training program that will help me gain muscle mass. Thing is, I don't have a good program. I'll probably just have to make it up myself using all the knowledge I've learned from the Tribe. The funny thing is though, it seems that when most people are working out no matter if it's to gain muscle or just get fit, they're also trying to lose weight. Well, I have 5% body fat (seriously) so it'll be a challenge. I've heard a lot that in order to put on muscle I need to do a low reps at a high weight.

Why? I'm finally getting a set of VEGAS pro straps! Don't know what they are?

Three and a half months flew by faster than I ever thought it could. When I first picked up Victoria Boutenko’s “12 Steps to Being Raw”, I had no idea what I was getting into. Nonetheless, a dynamic change has come over my life and I’m thankful for it everyday.

Up until now, I've associated the term "six-pack" more with the Black Flag song than a physical feature. However, I think I'm close to actually getting one now. I have a disciplined and healthy diet (with under 5% body fat), so all I need are some good ab exercises to bring it home. If anyone out there has any ab routines that they'd recommend or some favorite ab videos here on MFT, share them with me. Thanks!

I really could have posted this as a comment on Reaching Your Goals, where I talked about hitting my old old goal of doing 40 push ups in one set, but I decided to post a whole new blog. When I first joined MFT, I put that one of my fitness goals was to do 50 push ups in one set. I did it today!

The other day I saw my friend who I hadn't seen in long while and we were cruising around in just gym shorts, cause it was insanely hot. It's seriously about 110 everyday where I live. Anyway, out of nowhere he just says "Hey, you look pretty ripped." I really didn't know what to say, because I'm nowhere near reaching my goals but I still thought it was cool, or hilarious. Haha. Good to know that I'm getting results, even if I don't see them myself yet!

Reaching you goals is great. Exactly one week ago I did my first set of 40 push ups. That's probably not much for some people, most notably Sonny "Push Up Freak" Pecora, but it's my personal best (well, it became 41 yesterday). I used to work in an office and had little time for fitness, and while I was there I was always thinking that someday I'd be able to get 40 push ups (my best back then was 20 in one go). So now I finally got 40 and I'm pretty stoked.

So, I started this new work at home job, and now I finally have time to get in more exercise. I'm taking a class at the local community college on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and I've started riding my bike to it. It's about 3.8 miles each way and I really like having a workout like that to start my day. This is the only reason why I'm bummed that today is my last day of class until Fall. Damn, I'll need to think of other places to ride my bike to.