[quote]bugeishaAD wrote:
Killing it man. The leanness is improving and the weights are staying high. Great job. You are one thick SOB. Mirin.[/quote]
Thanks man. Quite the compliment coming from the master of walking around stupid lean haha
Today’s Workout:
Today’s Workout: Mobility/Activation Work
Agile 8
A1. Weighted Jumps 4x1
A2. One Arm DB Snatch From Floor 4x1 LR
B1. NG DB OHP 8x1
B2. Vertical Jumps 8x1
Notes:
Pledges have my car on campus and I getting to campus will be a pain in the dick, so I’m just doing what I did yesterday workout-wise.
Nutrition will be a bit different. The chicken I had for today is just overcooked and shitty. Not happy. I managed to put down a good amount of it, but it just sucked too bad to finish. Substituting a few Twix bars and some extra Humapro for the bad chicken. Should still be at least 500 cals under maintenance, if not more.
Also, got my second law school acceptance today. Still waiting to hear back on the top 3.
Bigmac, nice PR on the DL and iron cross is coming in really well. gotta get myself a pair of rings sometime. Just fyi I’ll be at the gym tomorrow morning at 10:00am when it opens so if you have time and wanna swing by and get in a good workout that’d be cool. i know today’s st. patty’s day so i’m not expecting the gym will be very packed tomorrow morning. anyway, hope all is well, hopefully see you around there soon and congrats on your second law school acceptance.
[quote]bhopki01 wrote:
Bigmac, nice PR on the DL and iron cross is coming in really well. gotta get myself a pair of rings sometime. Just fyi I’ll be at the gym tomorrow morning at 10:00am when it opens so if you have time and wanna swing by and get in a good workout that’d be cool. i know today’s st. patty’s day so i’m not expecting the gym will be very packed tomorrow morning. anyway, hope all is well, hopefully see you around there soon and congrats on your second law school acceptance.[/quote]
Thanks man
Rings are awesome for sure- you’re more than welcome to give them a try if we end up in the gym at the same time at some point. Unfortunately I will probably not be making an appearance tomorrow- I’ve been in Philly bars all day and am heading out on the main line tonight, so I will likely be less than functional in the AM. You’re a better man than me lol. Have a good workout though and I’ll try to catch up with you sometime soon.
Well, I somehow made it through last week’s bender/assholery in one piece. I’ve definitely had my fill of being ‘college’ for awhile. I’m going to try to go out a lot but DD because I’m at the point where I still have fun being out with friends but am pretty bored with the whole drinking thing.
Alcohol really fucks with my water retention (if I have a handful of beers, the next day I’ll look like I downed a salt shaker or something). I also ate a good amount between Saturday and yesterday because I was already feeling very depleted by Friday and didn’t want to undersell myself on the recovery front prior to a peak performance week. Between eating a lot of not-too-clean food over the past couple of days and going out four nights in a row, I’m obviously holding a shitload of water. Even so, I look substantially better than I did even a few weeks ago. I was holding physically uncomfortable levels of water by last night, but I’ve been drinking a lot of water since and it’s starting to subside. I think I can have water levels under control by tomorrow or Wednesday for sure.
I cut all stims yesterday and just zombied out/got a million hours of sleep, so I’m feeling pretty good. I made sure to get in my explosive work each day over the weekend, so I assume my explosiveness will be good when I hit the gym tonight.
Keeping the food very clean today- only rice, Brazil nuts, and Humapro. I’ll have 1/4 cup rice and the 8 Brazil nuts before going to the gym, then another 2 cups of rice afterwards. Humapro will be in at about 8 servings today. The Humapro thing isn’t necessarily ideal, but I won’t be free today during any of the times when I could actually get rotisserie chickens at BJ’s, so it’s the cleanest alternative I have. I’m hoping that dropping the cals while still keeping the macros pretty high will do good things for cleaning up the water retention.
3/19 Workout: Power Work Week 3
Forgot the Agile 8 
Activation:
A1. Overhead Med Ball Throws 4x1
A2. Weighted Jumps* 4x1
A3. Ring Dip Catches 4x3
A4. BPA’s** 4x1
HFSW:
B1. STC (advanced tuck)
3x3
B2. Box Jumps
3x1
B3. Low-High BPA’s
3x1
C1. Heels-Elevated Front Squats
3x185x3
C2. BPA’s
3x1
C3. Ring Dips
3x3
C4. Heels-Elevated Front Squats
3x225x1
C5. One-Arm DB Snatch From Floor
3x1 LR
D1. Deadlift
3x225x3
D2. Low-High BPA’s
3x1
D3. Iron Cross Partials (just hitting whatever depth felt comfortable on each rep)
3x3
D4. Deadlift
3x275x1
D5. Box Jumps
3x1
E1. Low Incline Pin Press (low pins)
3x135x3
E2. Low-High BPA’s
3x1
E3. BPA’s
3x1
E4. Low Incline Pin Press (low pins)
3x185x1
E5. Box Jumps 3x1
Rehab:
F. Hammer Curls (light, super slow) x 20
*I typically do these by holding a dumbbell in each hand, then dipping down and jumping explosively. I switched it up due to DB availability and set a single DB on end on the floor, then dipped down and picked it up/jumped as quickly/explosively as possible. Activation from this was fucking insane, so I’ll be doing them like that from now on
**I’m now doing the BPA’s for super-slow singles only
Notes:
I’m a dickhead and forgot to get the mobility work in. Joints still felt good, but I’ll make sure to hit that today.
I went moderate effort on the ringz. Biceps held up fine, which is good. I threw in a set of really light hammer curls at the end and that seemed to help. When I was going heaviest on rings, I just so happened to be hitting arms lightly every day (or close to it) and it wasn’t until I stopped doing so that the discomfort started. Hopefully adding some light curls every day will keep me in good working order.
Slowing down the BPA’s was just awesome. I think the TUT was probably the same on the day, but I was actually hitting micro-oscillation with the really slow singles and that just wasn’t happening before with the higher/faster reps. I also played with angles for the first time and tried to hit traps/upper back more than mid back. Doing these low-high (starting just below the waist) gave me a pump/feel in the traps that I’ve never had before. I cut the high pulls because these did a way better job of getting the upper back and I’d rather do more of the really effective stuff.
Shoulder felt pretty good on the pin pressing. I think I might just get mad weird brooo today and try to get back to flat bench and some very light MP from pins.
I ended up eating a bit more intended. I didn’t want to drop cals too hard at the beginning of the week, so I threw some sour cream, cheese, and salsa into the rice to pick up some extras. I was still relatively low on the day.
[quote]bigmac73nh wrote:
I’m a dickhead[/quote]
Is that why you wear a beanie?
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]bigmac73nh wrote:
I’m a dickhead[/quote]
Is that why you wear a beanie?[/quote]
I can neither confirm nor deny this.
And thanks for making me laugh while my professor was watching mofo
[quote]bigmac73nh wrote:
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]bigmac73nh wrote:
I’m a dickhead[/quote]
Is that why you wear a beanie?[/quote]
I can neither confirm nor deny this.
And thanks for making me laugh while my professor was watching mofo[/quote]
iaim2please.jpg
Today’s Workout:
AM: Agile 8
PM: Power Work Week 3
Activation:
A1. Overhead Med Ball Throws 4x1
A2. Low-High BPA’s 4x1
A3. Weighted Jumps 4x1
A4. Ring Dip Catches 4x1
A5. BPA’s 4x1
HFSW:
B1. Bench Press
225x3
245x3
225x3
B2. Low-High BPA’s
3x1
B3. Bench Press
275x1
295x1
275x1
B4. BPA’s
3x1
B5. Box Jumps
3x1
C1. Heels-Elevated Front Squats
3x185x3
C2. Band Straight Arm Pulldown
3x1
C3. Heels-Elevated Front Squats
3x225x1
C4. Ring Dips
3x3
C5. One-Arm DB Snatch From Floor
3x1 LR
D1. STC (advanced tuck)
3x3
D2. Box Jumps
3x1
E1. Deadlift
3x225x3
E2. Straight Arm Band Lat Pulldowns
3x1
E3. Deadlift
3x275x1
E4. Iron Cross Partials
3x3
E5. Box Jumps
3x1
Rehab:
F. Hammer Curls (as slow as possible) x 20
Notes:
Amazing workout today. Explosiveness was crazy, bench press was pain free, and I hit lats about as well as I ever have for a crazy pump.
I put a significant amount of effort into setting up for the bench press and staying seriously tight through every rep. I went a little heavier than I needed, but it felt great and I’ll back it off tomorrow. It was refreshing to get up near 300 without any shoulder pain at all. I actually felt stronger than usual, though I need to get back in the groove and rebuild my neural efficiency on the movement.
I worked on engaging the abs and pulling myself down more/staying tight through all the reps, and explosiveness out of the hole was great.
Hitting the slow band pulldowns along with rings did some crazy things for lat activation and I was stupidly pumped by the end of this.
Also, I modified my hand position on ring work (no rotation on dips and rings parallel to the body on STC) and this seems to put much less stress on the biceps.
3/21 Workout:
AM: Agile 8
PM: Power Work Week 3 (Heavy Day 1)
Activation:
A1. Overhead Med Ball Throws 4x1
A2. Low-High BPAs 4x1
A3. Weighted Jumps 4x1
A4. Ring Dip Catches 4x3
A5. BPAs 4x1
A6. Box Jumps 4x1
HFSW:
B1. Bench Press
225x3
245x3
275x3
B2. Low-High BPAs
3x1
B3. Bench Press
275x1
295x1
315x1
B4. BPAs
3x1
B5. Box Jumps
3x1
C1. Deadlift
365x3
405x3
455x3 (PR I think)
C2. Band Lat Pulldowns
3x1
C3. Deadlift
405x1
455x1
475xNo (Bagged it, wasn’t explosive enough off the floor)… dropped down for 405x1
C4. Band Lat Pulldowns
3x1
C5. Box Jumps
3x1
Rehab:
D. Hammer Curls x 20 slooow
E. Hyperextensions x 25
Notes:
I was feeling all kinds of amped up to lift (not even stimmed lol) so I caught the first half of my heavy work for the week. I didn’t have much work, so I opted to subdivide my heavy work into two sessions: yesterday was bench/deads, tomorrow will be front squats/rings.
I went into this using the candy bar-related periworkout protocol I’ve mentioned before, but subbed a couple Hershey bars and a small cookie that I got in my last class for the Twix bars.
Bench was feeling good. Explosiveness was there, and it was nice to hit 3 plates for at least one crisp rep. I probably had at least 335, but I was working very quickly and without a spotter, so I decided to take it easy. I’m feeling very strong on the pressing, but I won’t push the heavy weight too often. I think I’ll be able to crush some real weight once I get back in the groove and rebuild my neural efficiency on the lift. Most of my work in the near future will be directed toward form and explosiveness, so I’ll probably be working between 185-225 most of the time.
Deads were pretty nice. I’m getting pretty good at really tearing the bar off the floor. 405 felt like nothing. As far as I remember, I’ve never gone over 455x2, so the 455x3 was a rep PR. I knew I didn’t have a 495 single in me after that, so I tried to play it a bit conservative. Just wasn’t feeling the heavy single after no real rest though, so I decided to take it easy and drop down to 405 rather than straining like hell on 475. Oh well, I’ll make sure to rest a bit more next time I go heavy on these.
Hopped on the scale postworkout for shits n giggles. 198. Lol. Getting lean and muscularity seems to be improving too, so I’ll let it happen.
Today’s Workout:
AM: Off Day Explosive Work
A1. Weighted Jumps 4x1
A2. One Arm DB Snatch From Floor 4x1 LR
B1. DB OHP 8x1
B2. Vertical Jumps 8x1
C. Knee Jumps 2x1
PM: Going to hit the Agile 8 before bed
Notes:
Pretty standard here. I tried out a couple of knee jumps because I saw a vid in the spill a day or two ago and they looked really fucking cool. Fun stuff. I’m not sure what level CT would classify them at, so I just counted them as Level 5 (limit 0-2 per day) to be safe. I won’t bother with them on real workout days, but I don’t see much harm in throwing a couple in on off day explosive workouts.
I’m planning to catch an AM workout tomorrow around 9 with a couple of the guys who actually work out at my gym lol. I’ll be fasting through today until then since it works well with my schedule and I’m not really doing much. Had a couple scoops of Humapro earlier around my workout, and I’ll be putting down 4-6 5 tab doses throughout the day. I’ll cut the fast about 40 minutes before the workout tomorrow and have some candy bars or poptarts 4 insulin spikez/lulz.
3/23 Workout: Power Work Week 3- Heavy Day 2
Last round of FS circuit:
Lulz @ first rep in 275x3 set… felt lighter than expected so I ended up dipping down too fast and nailing the safety pin
Part of the last round of iron cross work:
-Agile 8 at home before heading to the gym
Prehab:
A. More outer quad rolling
B. Hyperextensions x 20
Activation:
C1. Overhead Med Ball Throw 4x1
C2. Low-High BPA’s 4x1
C3. Weighted Jump 4x1
C4. Ring Dip Catches 4x3
C5. BPA’s 4x1
C6. Box Jumps 4x1
HFSW:
D1. Heels-Elevated Front Squat
225x3
245x3
275x3 (belt)
D2. Band Straight Arm Pulldowns
3x1
D3. Heels-Elevated Front Squat
275x1
295x1 (belt from here on)
305x1 (PR with this stance)
D4. Ring Dips
3x3
D5. One Arm DB Snatch From Floor
3x1 LR
E1. STC (Advanced Tuck)
3x3
E2. BPA’s
3x1
E3. STC (Full Lever Attempt)
3x1
E4. Band Straight Arm Pulldown
3x1
E5. Box Jump
3x1
F1. Iron Cross Partials
3x3
F2. Low-High BPA’s
3x1
F3. Full Iron Cross Attempt
3x1
F4. Band Straight Arm Pulldown
3x1
F5. Box Jumps/Knee Jump on Last Set
2x1/1x1
G1. Reactive Military Press From Pins (pins at eyes, pull downward for a 2 count then explode up for rep)
45x3
95x3
135x3
G2. Low-High BPA’s
3x1
Rehab:
H. Hammer Curls x 20 (slow, to the ears)
I. Hyperextensions x 20
Notes:
Lower back was a little stiff going into this, so I tried to really loosen it up while also paying attention to some other lower body tightness that would lead to me putting my back into stupid positions. Seems like it worked pretty well, since the lower back was feeling pretty good afterwards.
I completely trashed my back and biceps. The bi’s were a new kind of sore for a whole day after this workout. I’m really liking the bands/rings for back work, especially on days when I get to have some fun and attempt full ROM ring moves. Lat width seems like it’s finally starting to suck less, though I still have a lot of work to do if I want to actually have a good v-taper because of my stupid thick waist/rib cage.
I’m starting to feel better using heavier weights on the front squats. It’s still pretty awkward once I get near 300, but I’m getting better at it. Focusing a lot on staying super-tight with the lower weights seems to be helping.
The military press from pins was just a bit of playing around at the end. I’m going to be adding in the reactive pin press as an accessory move to work on lat tightness during pressing, so I wanted to try some light weights and see how it felt. I’ll probably work with 115-135 on those since I really don’t care about weight on them.
3/24 Workout: Agile 8 only
General Training/Nutrition Update:
Eating has been really fucking silly over the past few days. I hopped on the scale on Friday 3/23 and my BW was right around 195.5. That was a bit lighter than I was looking for, so I spent the rest of Friday and all of Saturday carbing up hard and just slamming a ton of cals to make sure my body was adequately recovered from Friday’s workout.
I did the candy bar protocol as planned for Friday’s workout, then ended up having a second candy bar about 20 minutes after an extra hit of Humapro postworkout (had to go run errands and I was starving).
Over the past two days I’ve had like 15 cheezburgaz, a few hot dogs, and four shakes. It took me until last night to start holding excess water, so I guess I needed the food. I’m holding a good amount of water today, but my muscles are significantly fuller as well so I’ll take it.
This week will be a deload week for me. Workouts will look pretty similar, but I’ll be working exclusively in doubles and using the same (light) weights. I’ll more or less be doing the following for each HFS move:
4 rounds of
- HFS Move x 2
- Band Move x 1
- HFS Move x 2
- Ring or Band Move x 1-3
- Explosive Move x 1
I’ll really just be working explosiveness while giving the joints a break from heavy loading and volume for a week. During that time I’ll be slashing nutrient intake significantly and working on leanness as well, since recovery shouldn’t be a problem.
Love checking your log. Everything is so detailed. lol. Congrats on the accidental recomp, is kind of happening to me as well. It feels good when you find that perfect balance to gain some strength and muscle but getting leaner as well.
You ever plan on competing in BB’ing or PL’ing or anything??
Today’s Workout: Power Work Week 4
Activation: no racks available at this point in the WO
A1. Overhead Med Ball Throws 4x1
A2. Low-High BPA’s 4x1
A3. Weighted Jumps 4x1
A4. BPA’s 4x1
A5. One Arm DB Power Snatch From Floor 4x1 LR
HFSW:
B1. Bench Press
4x185x2
B2. Low-High BPA’s
4x1
B3. Bench Press
4x185x2
B4. BPA’s
4x1
B5. Box Jump
4x1
C1. Heels-Elevated Front Squats*
4x185x2
C2. Band Straight Arm Pulldowns
4x1
C3. Heels-Elevated Front Squats
4x185x2
C4. Ring Dips
4x5
C5. One Arm DB Snatch From Floor
4x1 LR
D1. Reactive Military Press From Pins
4x115x2
D2. Low-High BPA’s/BPA’s (alternating with each set)
2x1/2x1
D3. Reactive Military Press From Pins
4x115x2
D4. STC (advanced tuck)
4x3
D5. Box Jumps/One Arm DB Snatch From Floor
2x1/2x1 LR
E1. Deadlift
4x245x2
E2. Band Straight Arm Pulldowns
4x1
E3. Deadlift
2x245x2
E4. Iron Cross Partials (deep as I felt comfortable going… some were close to full)
4x3
E5. Box Jumps (sets 1+2)/Knee Jumps (sets 3 + 4)
2x1/2x1
Rehab:
F. Hammer Curls (super slow to the ears) x 20
G. Hyperextensions x 25
*Performed ring dip catches for 2x5 during feeler sets for heels-elevated front squats
Notes:
Going to perform the Agile 8 now, will update with workout notes later on.
Hey there Bigmac,
Are you using a false-grip for Iron Cross Partials?
Never got around to dropping the workout notes for yesterday’s workout because I had a fraternity meeting and then a serious Mad Men viewing session with the roommates, so here’s what I’ve got:
I’m starting to really push tension on the big lifts. I feel stronger when I emphasize it to a greater extent, and I also get awesome pumps and feel from it.
On bench press, I’m working on keeping the lats tight while unracking the bar, then tightening up the lats as I pull the bar down. When the bar hits my chest, I’m holding it down forcefully for a two second pause, then exploding up.
On the Heels-Elevated Front Squat, I’m engaging abs and pulling myself down forcefully, squeezing hard in the hole for a second, then exploding up.
No real changes to the way deads are performed (they inherently require a lot of tension), and the reactive military press from pins is performed as I described before.
The workout yesterday ended up being a pretty high volume, but I let it happen because I was trying to clean up by raising the work volume rather than doing anything drastic on the nutrition front. I had a chicken and some Brazil nuts early on and tried to make it through the rest of the day on only that, but I was starving by the early evening so I ate some carbs/fats in the form of silly shit like ice cream and a few hot dogs while I was watching the Mad Men premiere lol.
That left me about 350-500 cals under supposed maintenance, but was at least a 1500-2000cal drop from Saturday. I cleaned up pretty well actually and am holding a reasonable (aka not physically uncomfortable) amount of water. I’m going to start getting weird today. My goal is to keep it to just a chicken and Brazil nuts. I’ll continue with the same work volume for tonight, then begin to ratchet it down as needed over the course of the week (will probably go for 3 rounds of all circuits starting tomorrow).
For the rest of the week, I plan to run full protein replacement with Humapro (3 x 10 tabs plus 2 scoops around workouts) and limit my substantial caloric intake to plain rice. This should allow me to keep my macros in a good place while seriously dumping cals. Curious to see how this will work with IF/Indigo.
@spidey Thanks man, glad you enjoy it. And yeah, gotta love hitting that balance and getting recomp and strength gains at the same time!
As of now I’m planning to enter a natty BBing show within the next year or so. I still need to work on the X frame a bit before I’m ready to compete. I also don’t want to be dieting down during my first semester of law school so I’m thinking I’ll take the remainder of this year to make improvements and then look into show next summer.
I’m very open to giving PLing a shot as well, but as of now I can’t back squat without messing up my knees, so that’s what’s holding me back from just jumping in. I may look into a push/pull meet over the summer if I can find something close to home.
@howie I definitely don’t put enough thought into my grip on ring work. I’m pretty sure that I’m NOT false-gripping on the iron cross, though to be honest I’m not 100% sure lol.
Been dumping a shitload of water today without doing anything too extreme. Score. I’m going to ease up slightly from what I was initially planning and throw in a Reese’s Fast Break preworkout. Nutrition will look like:
WO-90: 4 Indigo-3G
WO-60: 10 Tabs Humapro
WO-40: Reese’s Fast Break, 5g BCAA structured peptides
Pre-WO: 2.5g creatine monohydrate
30 minutes into WO: 1 scoop Humapro
WO+20: 2.5g creatine monohydrate
WO+30-60: 1 rotisserie chicken, 8 Brazil nuts
Other supplementation standard for the day. Got a class canceled, so I’ll be hitting the gym earlier than planned.
Edited.