Other than the RDLs I pushed to about 90% today, next session will be to failure. For the RDLs I felt a pull where my glute meets my hamstring and shut it down straight away - no pain at all now or then but some tightness, I think just from the DOMS. It’s upsetting how weak I am right now but I need to stop trying to compare myself to my PRs.
Curiosity got the better of me. I just had a proper look at my old PRs vs what I have done this week and nearly everything I can compare I’m moving about half as much weight for similar reps. It’s actually had a good effect though because now I’m eager to get back there and want to do everything I can to do so. Shouldn’t take me long.
Diet so far this week has been pretty bad - for dinner the Monday, Tuesday Wednesday I’ve had a Chinese takeaway, a McDonald’s and a takeaway pizza. Why? My girlfriend has been super busy at work basically working 7am to 10pm each day and she wanted something quick and easy each night. I don’t take much convincing anyway but I also didn’t want to have a normal dinner when she had takeaway and make her feel bad about it.
On the plus side, if there’s a week I needed extra calories recently it’s this week. I’ll eat a little less the rest of the week but honestly I’m quite happy if I just maintain my weight this week. It gives my body a bit of a break before the final push and improves my chance of being recovered from all this new stimulus.
Finally, also because of how busy my girlfriend is we’ve decided to only commit to two runs a week - on Wednesday and Saturday when she should have more time. If we miss one day like today we will try to catch up but they’re not a huge contributor to improving my cardio or burning calories so I’m not going to stress about them.
Could feel the fatigue in my legs a bit but still managed to go pretty fast and I’m happy with myself. I’ve updated my profile to include my bike weight so now my power is a bit more accurate too.
To make sure my legs are as fresh as possible for my club ride on Sunday I’ve decided to modify my training plan again and I’m going to skip legs on Friday sessions. To keep weekly volume the same I’ll do two sets on Monday sessions instead.
Cable Y raise superset with cable lateral raise:
14/5x5 (+2 reps)
12/3x5
Close grip bench: 9x50 (-4 reps, +20kg)
Hammer pull-down:
13x60 (-2 reps, +20kg)
8x50
Hammer low to high row: 14x40 (+2 reps, +10kg)
Hammer curl: 11x12s (-6 reps, +4.5kg)
Decline crunch:
13xBW (+3 reps)
6xBW
First proper session and some huge improvements on last time - I’m very happy with this. The information in the italic brackets after the top sets is how it compared to last session.
This was a pretty big ride with multiple PRs broken. It’s the furthest I’ve ridden, the fastest I’ve ridden and the most hilly route I’ve ridden. Also had a max HR PR with 190bpm.
I’m really enjoying seeing where I can take this and pushing myself in a new way. I’m still getting better seemingly every ride with no sign of it slowing. I also feel like my training is balanced for once. I’m no longer just lifting weights and ignoring cardio and I’m in the best shape I’ve probably ever been in, certainly as an adult.
As I mentioned in another post, diet hasn’t been amazing this week. After a choppy start I decided to give myself a bit of a break and only tracked a few days. I ate pretty much the same as always during the daytime but showed a little less restraint at dinner time. Was nice to have a week ‘off’ and I feel like it was a good time to do so with the extra calories helping me recover from the gym and all the DOMS I had. My plan now is to go hard at the weight loss for the remaining six weeks of the T-ransformation and I may even keep dieting for a few weeks extra depending how I look at the end.
Going to go back to my old calories for next week but obviously with the addition of gym sessions now. Should put me in a solid deficit and will evaluate as I go along. Cardio will probably be down a bit because these next few weeks with university will be busy.
Targets for this week:
Calories: 1714
Protein: 180g
Carbs: 149g
Fats: 44g
Calories burnt: 2800
15 Week Comparison
Here’s a comparison picture from the start vs yesterday.
Big improvements across the board again so very happy with my performance. The only thing which didn’t improve were the curls but my biceps were trashed already by the time I got to them. I think since last time I didn’t push the other stuff as hard they were a lot fresher.
In general, I felt pretty run down this morning when I woke up but gradually felt better as the morning went on and feel normal now. Another thing to note: my appetite is through the roof and has been for basically the last week. I’m always hungry whereas before last week I didn’t experience much hunger at all. Not sure if it’s from the restarting lifting or a week or more eating but that’s what’s changed. Hopefully it means my metabolism is firing on full cylinders and the fat will melt off.
Cable Y raise superset with cable lateral raise:
5x10/10x5 (-9 reps, +5kg)
10/4x5
Close grip bench: 7x60 (-2 reps, +10kg)
Hammer pull-down:
11x70 (-2 reps, +10kg)
9x60
Hammer low to high row: 11x50 (-3 reps, +10kg)
Hammer curl:
12x12s (+1 rep)
7x10s
Decline crunch:
14xBW (+1 rep)
4xBW
Dumbbell bench PR is an all-time PR. Managed to progress on everything again but a bit less than between the previous sessions, as would be expected as my body gets used to lifting again. Squats were a bit heavy still and I don’t feel comfortable with my technique enough to keep pushing it right now. Instead I’ll lower the weight a bit, stay further from failure and do two sets instead of one.
Hanging leg raise:
13xBW (-4 reps, slower tempo)
10xBW
Still making good progress and feel like I’m really hitting my stride in the gym. Elsewhere though I think I’m walking a very fine line between recovering and not. I want to write out/discuss some stuff related to this, mostly for my own thoughts but also so anyone reading along gets a good picture of how things are going. Since it’s going to be long I’ll do it in the next post so I can keep this one focussed on the training session.
