Absolutely loving the names you came up with, mate 
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29/03/25 - Morning weight 197.25
Failing the brief in the best possible way:
In all fairness I did limit myself on the sausages! (And I might have been pushing the dates, given how long I’d left them in the fridge, so might have surprise weight loss… sausage roulette).
I’ll probably not be eating again until evening meal
Hit up a longer walk this morning, probably around 3 miles and more hills.
Climbing this afternoon, I think the group we’re going with has booked a package session with pizza for lunch, so my intention is to have this meal and not eat again until evening, or late snack.
Slightly less tired today, despite a wake up via alerter (fortunately not too early), got my first (very short) blue light drive for real, it was pretty mundane, but good to get the first one out of the way without any real pressure.
I have some mad idea about my post cruise programming. I had originally thought about doing RP hypertrophy, and giving bodybuilding another go, but my heart isn’t in it and there are 3 other things I’d rather do first, I’m not sure I even want to voice it here, because at that point it’s nigh on a full commitment, and the thought of it all fills me a little with dread.
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Oh you tease!
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Do all 3 of them. All at once.
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30/03/25 - can’t remember morning weight, nothing shocking clearly.
Did a climbing and bouldering session yesterday and then spent a fair bit of time on the Indo boards, good fun with the family and fostering families.
Today was mother’s day, spent the day with parents on both sides and then went for a walk (they all drove) to the beach, did over 4 miles, in the 10kg weighted vests, also did a fair bit of standing around in it, had it on for over 2 hours. Not really used it much, only got it out to lens to my parents, so won’t see it again for a while, but made use of it for today.
In other news, I decided to take a fully recline and relaxed BP… Might need to up the caffeine intake 
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Solid Seated overhead press 
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Thanks, a fairly new movement for me having done pretty much exclusively standing for all of my training, the back injury came with a silver lining, forcing me to adapt, I really like the seated variation.
Given my recently weight loss in closing in on repping bodyweight!
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Yeah. I also only did it standing, cause it leaves me with the possibility to make it a bit more Push Press like for those last tough reps.
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Okay, time for you to stop this nonsense.
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7 more weeks and then I will!
31/03/25 - 195.5 - I think I’ve been saying I was 197 for the last few days/week but I was actually 196 (had the stones and lbs to lbs conversion wrong, stupid English measurement, but having grown up with it it’s hard not to view bodyweight in it).
3.5 mile walk this morning, done in 53 mins, usually supps and fasted.
Work for this afternoon:
Suitcase farmer shuffles*: 50kg x 30 seconds each side x 3 sets
Paused Zombie squats: 60kg x 5 x 5
A1) Narrow grip swiss bench: 50, 70, 80, 90kg x 8,
70kg x 16 - 5 deep breaths, 7, drop to 50kg immediately repped out I think 10 but I actually can’t remember (and I’m typing this immediately afterwards, needless to say all out effort).
A2) Double paused seated cable rows: 80kg x 8 x 5 sets
Clown curls: 10kg x 15 x 2 sets
Couldn’t be bothered at all today, not necessarily lifting, but that as well, just life, struggling with a general sense of anhedonia. Music wise I couldn’t decide if Biffy Clyro - Machines, or The Plot in You - Feel nothing was more appropriate, both got played.
Throat punching myself on the bar with zombie squats wasn’t fun.
*Making up more names for @Koestrizer’s prescriptions, this is single arm farmers but with limited space inside the garage I can walk about 4ft and rather than turn, I walk/shuffle forward and backwards. They worked well, no back pain and when I focused on squaring myself out and not leaning or resting the bar on my leg I got a solid core engagement.
Squats were fine, just focusing on pausing well and getting some movement in. The pressing felt really strong, happy with that.
Clown curls were a last minute addition, the joy of a home gym, you can do stupid stuff and no one notices…unless you post it online. Yes at this point I am literally just doing random crap I saw on YouTube (blame Dr Mike - from what I gather the internet generally dislikes him these days, but hey a new bicep exercise 
).
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This is what mine was like when I started blacking out in my training. Do you use much salt?
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I salt my cooking, but it’s probably a fair way off from sodium levels when I ate more processed foods.
Fortunately that blood pressure is only when very intentionally relaxing and usually when I’m sat upright and just checking in it’s around 115/110 over 75/70.
Also a big thank you for your blog, re-read this classic:
Thinking I’ll have to commit those scary post cruise programmes to paper/public forum.
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Hell yeah brother: go slay you a Tarrasque!
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Right let’s commit this public record then!
I’ve got 7 weeks of cutting left, my morning weight today was 195. For the sake of ease I’m back to 2 meals a day, and currently only 1 snack (25g whey and 250g FF greek) I’ll stick with the 2 meals and increase to 2 snacks (same thing both times) if needed/desired.
I’d like to think I finish around 190, but might be more like 185, depending how I look…That means I’ll be super skinny and need to spend the rest of the year gaining! Hurrah.
The original plan was a RP hypertrophy app trial run, but that doesn’t excite me and bodybuilding training never has and almost certainly never will, but I still want to get bigger…enter the 3 things I’d rather do more.
Phase 1:
I’ve said for a long time I’d do Building the Monolith again, but this time lock stock, the whole blooming lot. Diet 1.5lb beef and 12 eggs minimum per day, the 3 times per week of lifting and the 3-4 days of cardio.
That’s phase 1, which is in and of itself a fairly big undertaking, but really that’s a prep phase. I re-read the article last night and will do it again before starting.
Phase 2:
Super Squats. I read @simo74 old write up of super squats a little while ago and that just got inside my head. I bought the book, it’s a physical copy so hasn’t arrived yet, but I’ll read it in full before embarking.
I know that the recommended diet includes a gallon of milk, but given that milk doesn’t agree with me, that’s not happening, I’m thinking that if I haven’t got too fat from the BtM diet I might just carry that through, depends how much of an interruption to normal daily life eating that way is.
Phase 3:
Brian’s linear progress. Not much to say here, just a program I wanted to do that injury stopped me from doing, it will be done in a gaining phase, it looks like it will be a very tough program, as Brian’s programs always are.
The general plan is to deload between each program which means, in total, that gives me 26 weeks of programming. Taking me from June to near enough the end of the year.
A few things that currently give me pause for thought/trepidation:
- My current injury was caused by squats, my back is still grumpy, the first two phases are ridiculously heavily squat focused. My hope here is that my back is fully recovered by June and ready to squat big. My other thought being that I shifted my stance inwards and had less of a foot angle - I had originally adopted this position because it was easier on my lower back, I might end up back in this position (I used it during zombie squats yesterday and I’d forgotten how solid it felt). It does make hitting depth harder and it does place a little additional strain on my knees - will have to weigh this up as I go through the programs and for the next 7 weeks.
- Eating: the BtM diet has always been slightly scary, I’m goods at eating big these days, but this is big, restrictive and relentless, and I’m think to do it for 12+ weeks! It won’t be cheap either.
- Squatting - yup it gets a double mention, specifically 20 reppers, honestly looking at BtM I’m thinking my 1rm right now is about 160kg (although maybe optimistic post injury and weight loss) so using the article 85% TM recommendations and starting at 45% means that the BtM 20 reps should start at 62.5kg and end at 95kg, which honestly feels a little low… But that means if I start SS using the BtM end as my start point, 95kg, I’ll end at 140kg which sounds mad (my reading, without having the book is that it’s +5lb/2.5kg per session 3x per week for 6 weeks). Or do I run BtM as prescribed, then SS more in line with the recommendation which is take the 10rm as the starting point (I hit 140kg for 10 on the SSB recently and I’d guess after BtM I could probably be around that on regular squats) but starting at that means I’d be 20 repping 185kg by the end of SS. This seems absurd, very tarrasque territory. Or am I making wrong assumptions about the program? (Book arrives in 2 weeks - coming from the states).
My only other concern is keeping up with the sessions BtM and SS both lend themselves nicely to MWF for the lifting, this might be tricky, but I guess I’ll just have to find a way to make it work.
There it is, that’s my mad thinking.
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I am SO excited about this development and cannot wait to follow it.
It is excellent you are getting the book and definitely be sure to read it 2-3 times, because you’ll pick up stuff as you go, but on THIS, let me save you a little. It’s not a 10rm: it’s a weight you squat for 10 reps. The nuance there needs to be appreciated, as this means it’s the weight you would use for a WORKSET of 10 reps, rather than the absolute most max weight you could possibly squat for 10 reps. This is far more survivable and sustainable.
For the BtM Widowmakers: it’s worth appreciating the context that you’ll hit that set AFTER working up to a heavy set of 5, and, if you really want to, you can do it completely at the end of the whole workout. I prefer doing that, because then you hit your widowmaker and just crawl away, but also, after 10-15 sets of pressing overhead, you’ll have a decent amount of fatigue accumulated.
Keep up the bracing so that you can stay strong on those squats and injury free. Definitely feel free to tag me along the way as your spirit guide.
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Always good to have you following along, particularly when I know those first two phases have been significant programs in your journey.
Yup another thing I’ve got you to thank for, calling me out on skimming and missing the key details (on my first BtM run and on DC!) short-changing myself and my results, for the sake of a couple of hours of reading Vs the many hours of doing it wrong in the gym!
That’s good to hear, I still want to be slightly terrified of the mountain before me, but I need to believe I actually can climb it, and that in doing so I will come out the otherside transformed, not crippled. That probably looks more like 3 plates for 20 reps than 4 plates!
Good point, definitely forgot that!
Absolutely - as already mentioned you’ve been helpful in steering me from silly errors in the past and your experience will no doubt be invaluable again!
What’s your thoughts on the cardio recommendations for BtM, I’m tempted to buy an air assault bike to keep the recommendation, probably overkill, particularly with the concept 2 which I’d guess might fulfill a similar enough function? Thinking to get a heavier weighted vest as well, given walking is now firmly part of the daily life, adding the vest is an easy win. I can actually do a prowler session as well, now I’m typing this out it’s coming together in my head, weighted vest Tuesday, prowler Thursday, cycle/row Saturday and general walking in the other days.
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I thankfully now have some recent exposure with the Concept 2 to say that I feel like it will answer the mark. Non-eccentric load, giving you a chance to recover by getting bloodflow into the area. If you really want an assault bike, it will be different enough that you can switch between the two, but if you’re just looking for BtM appropriate conditioning, I feel like C2 will do the trick. Basically, you look at what Jim wrote from a 10,000 foot view and you can see that his recommendations are all conditioning that do NOT take away from the hard training. Weighted vest walk isn’t intense, the Air Dyne is done to recover form the high rep squats, and the prowler also has no eccentric load to it: all concentric only. All about getting bloodflow and movement through the body to help recover from the hard training.
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Thanks, I had a sense that it would, but I’m trying to be faithful as much as I can, that said:
I’d be keen, but I know myself well enough to know that it will be the same as any other conditioning piece that I’ve bought, not used enough to justify the purchase.
Thanks for the wisdom!
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Yeah, I’ll say, as a FORMER bike owner and home gymer, you may appreciate that, the reason I got rid of mine is because they’re so LOUD. It sounded like I was mowing the lawn inside my garage. Since I train in the morning before everyone else is awake, it was a non-starter. The C2 is far quieter.
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Haha that’s super helpful to know, I’ll stop looking, it’d live in the conservatory, so it would be attached to the house and I can’t imagine the wife, kids, dog or neighbours would appreciate it. Thanks Pwn, you’re such an asset to this forum, really appreciate all the time you (and all the other super helpful members here) give here!
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