Alex_uk: 40 years in the making

Training Training Logs
4113

Thanks QQ, it definitely seems the logical place to land, I predominantly chase strength goals (which doesn’t feel very successful!) but I was trying to determine my primary goal for this season, my strength goals at the moment are 5/4/3/2, some of those are pretty much there (squat and bench) deads and ohp much further away, deads if my form comes good and I can really nail technique might not be that far away, might be this year, OHP is probably hiding behind a significant weight gain and a focused period of training (like many, many, many months…years?).

Given this, I think I can achieve the squat and bench, even if I spent a few more months than I originally intended this year, cutting, particularly if it’s slow and I don’t lose strength. Who knows what deadlifts will do if I prolong the cut, too many variables there.

I’m leaning (pun) towards the longer slower cut, because if I magically hit 5/4/3/2 tomorrow, no one cares, not my wife, not my kids, only me and that’s fine, but if I really lean out then my wife will have an upgraded eye candy and my kids always get a kick out of me looking strong (my daughter last year at a parents evening, came out and said dad - you were the biggest guy there, there was probably 250+ adults there, I mean the bars pretty low but they notice, which is nice), and it’s a win that sticks around for me.

If I hit 5/4/3/2 one day and then I hurt myself the next, I’m no longer capable of that and just have “oh I used to be able to…” Whereas if I get real lean and don’t bulk like a moron I’ll probably hold lean for a significantly longer period of time…

Ok decision made, long slow cut from now to end of May cruise (you know unless I go through this whole thought process again and change my mind!).

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4114

20/01/25 - AM

45M W2 B5 D21 (make up time)

Farmers:
50kg x 20m up, drop, pick & return x 11 EMOM

Loading:
75kg sandbags to 48" (ish) platform x 4 x 10 EMOM

Ring pull-ups:
4 x 10 EMOM
S/s
5 ab rollout outs x 5 sets

Farmers went lighter, tried a warm up set, having felt a little stiff, and felt about right so just jumped in from there, went fast.

In a change to schedule went loading second which meant way less rest, went for the heavier sandbag to get some heavier work in after lighter farmers, blowing real hard by the end of that.

Ring pull-ups feel freaking awesome (started pull with pronated grip and ended up more neutral by the end of each rep but that was lovely). Did ab rollouts until they started affecting recovery for the main movement then dropped them.

Procrastinated this session for way too long, I’ll be honest it’s hard and apparently I don’t like doing hard things.

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4115

This^^^^^^^^^^^

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4116

Best decision ever!!

I just read an article summing up a bunch of recent research and the end conclusions and recommendations for the best diet approach for fat loss and muscle gain ended up being:

*Weekly weight loss rates should be kept to 0.5 – 0.7% of body weight
*Protein intake should be between 1 – 1.4 g/pound of body weight/day
*Carb intake should be between 0.9 – 2.3 g/pound of body weight/day
*Fat intake should be between 0.23 – .45 g/pound of body weight/day
*Training volume should be between 20-30 sets per muscle group/week
*Cardiovascular training should be no more then 480 min/week
*Creatine is best used at 3-10 g/day
*Caffeine can be ingested at 0.5- 2.7 mg / pound/day

Stick with it for the long(er) haul and you’ll be successful!

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4117

Thanks, was the original plan - so I’m happy to revert to it, particularly having thrashed out the logic, strength goals have no time constraints, looking like the ancient Greek Hercules statues, could do with happening before May (that dude would totally get accused of being juiced).

Check to the weight loss speed and almost certainly the protein, but I’m not tracking anything at all apart from weight. Diet really is just natural foods (notable exception in protein powder, use whey during the day and around training and casein at night) generally aiming for meals that are either high protein, higher carb, low fat, or high protein, medium fat, low carb (or just protein occasionally). I’d say I try and time the meals so carbs mostly work around training, but I’m not big on planning which meal fits where and as long as I’m eating within the above guidelines I’m not going to worry if all I eat pre or post pwo is eggs, or if I eat sweet potatoes and don’t train that day.

Probably way under this, my training is so stripped back, particularly if we’re talking “working” sets (not including warm ups so no working sets until they maybe penultimate, depends on how much effort it really took).

:rofl: You’ve got a great sense of humour! Probably closer to 8 mins than 8 hours of cardio, got a lot of leeway there.

Haven’t used creatine in a fair while, never noticed the benefit, despite on and off use over the years. Caffeine is still maximum of two cups of coffee a day (cafetiere - probably around 100mg caffeine per cup, so right around the 1mg/lb)

I know this was the broad conclusions rather than specifically targeted advice but nice to know I’m hitting most of it already, with some extra levers to pull when things stall.

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4118

21/01/25 - AM - 204lbs

45M W2 B5 D25

Strength
Swiss bench: 50, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110, 120kg x 4
S/s
Hanging leg raises: 5 x 7 sets

Volume
Swiss bench: 80kg x 5 x 10 sets EMOM

Assistance finisher
A) chin up (variations): 8
B) dips: 12
C) 24kg KB swings: 12
D) Ab rollout: 5

3 times through.

Pretty sure that swiss bench is a PR, but if not then I haven’t pressed it that heavy for a long time and I’m fasted first thing training so under those circumstances almost certainly. Mind you it wouldn’t have passed a meet on the last couple of reps! That final rep felt like an eternity stuck with no movement…video shows it wasn’t long.

Volume was perfect last two sets felt close to maximum.

Finisher went for unloaded work, elbow still hurt on chins, worst was proper chins, easier on neutral and best on angled grips - so annoying.

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4119

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In other news BP is doing great (a lot further to go on RHR) so I celebrated with PWO bacon:

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(Sorry @Brant_Drake - reinforcing British cooking stereotypes in both food choices and cooking methods, I used a poaching pan!).

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4120

No judgment here - It looks good to me.

English breakfasts are underrated.

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4121

Excellent news and excellent celebration.

looking like the ancient Greek Hercules statues, could do with happening before May (that dude would totally get accused of being juiced).

It’s STILL such a powerful look, and you’re absolutely right: natty or not would already know his exact stack, haha.

Excited to see you are pursuing the prolonged weight cut approach. I think employing that right before a cruise is going to be a fantastic strategy. Your body will be primed for growth and sensitive to the foods you consume.

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4122

There is enough room in my heart to say that this meal is both very sad, but also that I would eat the shit out of it.

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4123

pretty sure you cant use a swiss bar in a powerlifting meet, so not sure any of those reps count. LOL Nice pressing mate.

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4124

just too many things to say and all of them from the gutter.

4125

Does this seem like a ton of sets to anyone else? Especially on the high side. If I hit 20 sets of chest in a week, I’m feeling smoked!

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4126

Yes mate this is heaps. I would need to split the body into upper and lower to hit those sort of volumes.

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4127

I mean I get it if we’re saying “20 sets of push a week.”

But if you say “20 sets chest” “20 sets triceps” “20 sets shoulders” that would get nuts quick lol

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4128

It does say muscle group so maybe thats what it means, push / pull / lower ?

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4129

I could see that, seems a lot more reasonable.

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4130

I interpret it like Simo here, but even with that it’s still high. Super Squats is only 3 sets of squats and 3 sets of stiff leg deads, and no one is asking for more volume on that, lol. If Alex is doing at least 3 of those Alsruhe sessions a week, I have little doubt he is hitting enough volume.

Speaking of that, @alex_uk, have you done any other of his programs? I’m leaning towards a block of doing someone else’s programming after my current cycle is over, just to give my brain a break, and I like the 45M you’ve been doing, but wonder if you have any insights on others? Thanks

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4131

Thanks, it’s another new experiment for me, which I always enjoy, I’ve never really done long and slow (I get to about 4-6 weeks in feel emaciated and bail), I’m really trying to walk the tight rope here - by losing slowly and not counting cals/macros, I’ve got enough time to do this properly and by feel, so this will be interesting. I employed a trick you’ve mentioned before (Mark Bell I believe), felt hungry late last night, wanted to eat something so just ate some boiled eggs (not quite just egg whites but they were already cooked and it’s close enough for me at this point). Did the trick I ate two and was done, turns out I was a bit hungry, not just bored.

I do hope so!

If you’re ever in the UK I’d happily cook it for you (well I’d go for the full English).

Good point and thanks!

I’m so hilariously unaware of my own training I couldn’t tell you how many sets I’m doing, per muscle or even how sets of push, how many sets of pull etc. Watching a Meadows vid the other day where he talked about sets and what he counted towards working sets, I realised I just pick a program, commit and outsource all of those considerations to the program, my only concern at that point is: does the program achieve the expected results?

Yup, I intend to run more, he’s got a new one launching any day. My first and favourite of his is Dark Horse, it’s an absolute killer, it’s conjugate dialed up, you do the usual elements ME and DE but you do both, every session, in a giant set format. The sessions are long (like 75-90 mins, longer in the earlier session if your conditioning is still building). It runs in the format of:

10 mins intense conditioning

1 giant set:

  • Antagonist mover for upper body or explosive movement for lower body movements.
  • Main mover (a variant of the big 4 targeting weakness - essentially like I’m doing in 45M)
  • Core work
  • 60 secs of something to get your heart rate up, Burpees, sandbag over shoulder, jumping jacks etc

Rest 60-90 secs repeat, working up to a top set for prescribed reps on the main movement.

GS2
As above but a back off weight for the main mover (something like 80-85% of the weight you used for the top set of the above set) do three giant sets here, first one is AMRAP for main mover and then the back off is prescribed reps.

DE:
10 sets of 3 reps of the opposite movement from main movement (i.e. squats if you did deads) usually against bands or chains, at about 60% of 1rm (increasing load throughout the weeks) using contest form, not a variant. With the sole aim of moving the weight as fast as humanly possible, with pristine form.

Assistance work:
In his video Brian describes this as optional if you’re feeling beat - I think over two runs of this program I did assistance work maybe 2 or 3 times. If you do the above work with the intensity and rest times prescribed, you’re dying in a pool of your own sweat by this point. It never felt worth it.

It’s a 12 week program, and tends to work best outside of the commercial gym setting because you end up using a fair bit of kit, easy enough to run in my garage though!

Man this is making me want to run it again - but it would be foolishness to run this in a deficit, particularly hard to do if you’re struggling for time as well. I’m hoping and praying for a significant change in circumstances this year, if it happens I’ll have more time and space for training, at that point this might well be my way of celebrating!

That was way more than you asked for, but I actually have only run those two programs… definitely time to try another one soon!

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4132

22/01/25 - 203.75

Fasted walk - 1.7 miles, 4mph pace.

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