Like reading that, lets keep that momentum
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5/14 Saturday
Last night, 10 minutes lap swim. Wow. Eye-opening.
Today:
Mile walk holding baby.
Hip thrusts 3x10, 145lb. Interesting. Nobody around to judge but the baby 
200lb sandbag:
4 rounds, e2mom, pick and carry length of driveway. Brutal. Planned to do 8 rounds but the baby and my body chose otherwise.
During baby nap,
100lb sandbag.
8 rounds EMOM, shoulder and carry down and up driveway.
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How are you holding the baby when you walk ? If you are carry them on one arm with your arm bent just be careful. This can lead to bicep tendon issues, very frequent with mums and or dads who carry babies a lot.
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@simo74 I think of this during the walks, and try to relax the elbow, clasp my hands, and keep the strain off that joint. I suffered from tendonitis for over a year in my left elbow, and DO NOT want it to come back. But it’s an undeniable fact that (esp on weekends) I carry a baby in my left arm (always left) for many hours. Sometimes for 10 minutes in the middle of the night, trying to get him back to sleep. So I need to be careful.
5/16/2022 Monday SWSP (Simo and Wisey’s Squat Program) W2 day 1
Squat:
4x225
4x4x245
First set was the hardest. Didn’t feel great today but this wasn’t redlining.
SLDL:
8x185, 2x8x225
A wee bit more tonnage than last week here.
BSS
8xBW
8x40
8x60
A wee bit less tonnage than last week. These, as always, are the most brutal things I do, and make me drip sweat like none other.
DB Bench press
10x65s
2x10x75s
10 dips
Couple other things not worth a mention in between sets.
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I really feel for you mate, we went through 12 months of night walking with our middle child and it was not pleasant. Only silver lining I can give is that it is not forever and they do grow up.
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The number of times I’ve said to myself - they won’t be doing this when they are 35. So it wont go on for ever lol.
Lol I feel your pain @jdm135
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Tuesday 5/17
Up at 5:15 with baby again. He kept my wife awake all night so I got to take the morning shift.
Attempted a workout:
Bench press, 3x15 115, 135, 155
Upright rows, 3x10x70
Curls, 3x8x70
That was 3 rounds of a giant set.
Then I couldn’t do any more because baby, so, another 1 mile walk holding baby.
And @simo74 with my renewed focus on the chronic elbow stress, I realized this is worse than I thought. I need to find the baby-wearing-harness or the cloth sling I used to use, and have it on standby for early mornings like this.
3x5 pullups at the office.
Will do 4x4 ab rollouts tonight during family time.
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Separate post for this quick life/non-gym update:
This is a very, very busy and stressful time in my work/career life. I have way too much going on. I said this a few weeks ago, but there’s more going on now than there was then, and it’s too much, but I can’t really back down from any of it.
Is what it is.
On the family front, we have a beach vacation coming up at the end of June. So my power belly may need to flatten out a bit by then. Will need to make some choices. Definitely don’t want to lose any of the hard-gotten gains on squats, but I’ve been artificially holding my BW at 200+lbs for weeks now; by force-feeding extra calories at every turn. It won’t take much to start dropping back down. Just a few less snacks will make a big difference. I want to do this intelligently but I don’t have a lot of mental energy left, after work and family, for what proper body comp control requires. I don’t want to look like a blubbery sack of yogurt next to my gorgeous wife on the beach and in all the photos though. Hmm.
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I finally understood how (relatively) quickly strength and muscle comes back when I went back to the gym after a little over a year of lockdowns. Rebuilding strength is a lot faster than building it from scratch, it appears.
So don’t worry about your gains, they will be there when things quiet down.
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This is life throwing periodization at you. How fantastic! You’ve been in a serious accumulation phase for a while now: it’s time for intensification! We drop the volume, up the weight, and cut the calories.
If you’ve been eyeing conjugate, this would be a fantastic time to start it up. One of the benefits is the constant movement rotation prevents you from getting in your own head about “numbers slipping”. You’ll have no base to compare against. And all that time in super high percentage ranges will help you hold onto/build top end strength.
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I am in full agreement with The Punisher
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@T3hPwnisher Thanks for jumping in, I’d like to ask you if I’ve correctly understood some of your take on fat loss. Can you tell me if I’ve read you wrong?
(a) My intuition says, step one, reduce calorie intake. Step two, increase activity levels, more walks, runs, and use movements like clean-and-press and burpees that incorporate the whole body. Load the movements more lightly so you can do a ton of volume, burn the fat off.
(b) You say to do it the other way around. Step one, reduce activity levels. Fewer sweaty hard conditioning sessions, fewer total reps of anything, and use that reduction to allow yourself to go heavy. Doubles and triples instead of 6s, 8s, or 10s. Step two, this will reduce your appetite, so consequently, eat less.
Have I got this right?
I don’t know what Conjugate is. What’s a good place to look?
Don’t sweat the conjugate thing: for some reason, I thought you were interested in it. Might have confused you with someone else. If you really are curious about it, here are some great articles
Regarding your post
your take on fat loss
It’s already worth addressing that this is not quite the right direction for me. I RARELY have fat loss as a goal. Fat loss is something that occurs when my TRAINING goal changes. Training, in the majority of instances, dictates nutrition for me, rather than the other way around.
Once I have pushed accumulation as hard as I can, training transitions to intensification. When that happens, volume drops. When volume drops, recovery demand drops. When recovery demand drops, less food is consumed TO recover. This means, weight is lost.
ADDING recovery demand and taking away food is how people overreach and burn out. Using activity to "burn calories"is a fool’s errand, as you can undo 60 minutes of activity with 30 seconds of eating. Instead, I like to add activity WHILE calories are high, because it means I can push harder and recover better. What this ALSO does is established a STUPIDLY high basal metabolic rate such that, when the time comes to cut calories because demand has reduced, we are still consuming a great deal of food. This is great, because it means less concern about missing out on valuable nutrients during periods of reduced calories.
It’s not just a matter of reducing reps: volume IN TOTAL comes down. If you were doing 10x10 and decide to start doing 10x3, you’ll still be obliterated. Instead, I would do something like go from 10x10 to 1x20. Something like 5/3/1 with 5s pro and widowmaker supplemental work would be great. When my calories are down, I’m good for like 2-3 hard sets in my training before I have to just cash out and slam volume with small assistance junk.
Can’t speak to the appetite piece: I’ve been full 3 times in my life. I’m ALWAYS hungry, haha. But I try to stay “more busy” when calories are low to keep me distracted.
Hope that helps!
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@T3hPwnisher thanks for your thorough response!
5/19 Thursday
Squat:
4x8x 135, 195, 205, 215. Solid, deep reps.
SS with BTN, 5x10 45, 65, 75, 75, 65.
Deadlift 5x5x245
SS with DB press.
Pullups:
3x2, +35lb
SS with seated (leaning forward) flyes, 3x20, 10lb. Burn!
6 Likes
5/20/2022
An accident of my schedule meant I could hit the gym for a few minutes. Bearing in mind my upcoming beach vacation, I did this:
Clean and Press, 135lb:
EMOM, 11 rounds:
1,2,3,4,5,6,5,4,3,2,1
36 reps total in just over 10 minutes. The 5- and 6- rep rounds took basically the whole minute, so that was absolutely brutal.
Front Squat, EMOM:
2x135
2x155
2x175
2x195 (could that be a PR? It’s been a while since I did these.)
0x205 - went down, couldn’t get up.
Caught my breath and did some makeup work:
Front Squat, EMOM, 8 rounds,
2x135 - Which wasn’t hard. But I’m not gonna feel guilty about not maximizing every second.
I looked back on my log to the last time I was in amazing shape. It was 12 months ago. What was I doing? Lots of stuff like the above. Just then earning my 135lb strict press, hadn’t shifted focus to the squat yet.
I was grabbing extra work every chance I could - 60 swings before bed, for example. Jogging occasionally. 200 pushup challenges. Light weight, high effort, fast paced stuff.
Beach is 35 days away. I don’t want to bail on @simo74 and @wiseman83 's squat program, but I’m not sure how well that will jive with the short-term goal of fat loss and beach prep. Do you guys think if I’m losing a bit of weight, I could still hit the numbers you called for on those sets of 4? I guess I can try and see what happens, if I fail I fail?
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Mate we set up the weights as doable considering your life circumstances. Remember it is training not testing strength. You should be fine to add whatever you want.
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5/22/2022
200lb sandbag, 5 or 6 rounds (lost count):
1 pick
10 burpees.
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5/23/2022, Monday, SWSP week 3.
Squat 4x4x255. Was hard. Very hard. At the bottom I fold forward to avoid lowering my butt any further into the hole, and it’s very good-morning-y on the way up. Hips rise first, then a back extension.
SLDL 3x8x225. (Increase from last week)
BSS 3x8, BW, 40lb, 60lb (same as last week)
DB bench press 3x10, 75lbs. (Increase from last week) Feeling pretty impressed with that.
7 Likes
5/24
Giant set:
Bench 4x135, 3x185, 1x225, 1x225
Upright row 4x12x70
Curls 4x8x70
Then some more biceps and triceps silliness really quick. Just a 15-20 minute session in the early AM.
3 Likes
5/26
Squat
8x 135, 195, 205, 215. Deep, solid. Wasn’t fun but good job.
SS with BTN press
10x45, 5x85, 5x105, 3x115
Deadlift 5x5x245
Ss with db shoulder presses
Pullups 2x+45, 1.6x +70, 2x2x+45
2 Likes