DragnCarry's Hot Abz & Filth Squats

Training Training Logs
1

This is a bit of an experiment, probably not a good idea.

I’ve just cut for my first PL meet, down from 95kg (over 38" waist) to under 90kg (for about 15 minutes). Waist is under 37".

I’m still carrying way too much fat. I honestly thought I would be leaner at this weight, and ready for a bulk but I think that was just wishful thinking. I must have lost quite a lot of muscle during the cut.

I have my next PL meet in late Feb or early March and I want to redeem myself and at least get that 200kg Squat I had planned on attempting at this meet (had 190kg in training, felt easy, but only managed to make my opener, 170kg, in the meet).

When I started cutting for comp, my waist measurement started moving much faster than my scale weight for the first few weeks, but then my scale weight started dropping towards the end. It dropped dramatically in the last few days and I weighed in a little too light and my suit was not tight.

So, the goal for this experiment is to keep my waist measurement dropping faster than my scale weight, and keep gaining strength. There is no easy way to quantify what “dropping faster” means, so I’ll have to go by feel and honest self-evaluation.

The plan is to eat at maintenance and train hard, throwing in some short crash diets. I don’t know what will work best, whether the crash diets are two weeks long or two days long. I will have to experiment a bit.

This week I’m eating more carbs than I normally would, and training in the higher rep range (15-20). This is an attempt to shock my body into growing a bit of muscle by doing something completely different to what I had been doing for a while.

2

Ab Wheel Roll-Outs
3 x 12, kneeling

Front Squat
warm up to
12 x 80kg
18 x 80kg
18 x 60kg+bands

Natural GHR, band assisted (2 bands)
2 x 12

Super-setted with
24kg KB swings, 1x10, then 1x20

Diet, slightly above maintenance

3

What protocol did you follow for cutting?

4

I could have answered this really briefly but seeing as this was my training log I thought I’d go into detail for my own benefit for next time, as much as it was for your benefit.

I find it really easy to diet when I’m at work. I have a small kitchen there with a large fridge and a toasted sandwich maker, so I can cook steak, or the animals off our coat-of-arms in the toasted sandwich maker (surprisingly good if you like your meat medium-rare).

On weekends I went a bit easier, up until the last weekend before the comp where I was really strict on what I ate.

I do a lot of yard-work on weekends. It was my daughter’s 2nd birthday the day before my meet so I built her a cubby house and put up a swing-set, which meant lots of digging, leveling and barrowing wood chip.

I drop the carbs right down, but I doubt I go into ketosis for very long or very often. I have too much fresh fruit and dairy for that.

No bread, no sugar, no desserts, no biscuits.

I make sure I walk the dogs every night for an hour. I also play Touch Football twice a week, which isn’t good for my strength or recovery, but I enjoy it too much to give it up. During the week before the comp I also walked the dogs for 45 min every morning because I wasn’t in the gym.

I eat a lot of cottage cheese. I also had quite a lot of artificially sweetened, low-fat yoghurt in the last couple of weeks where I needed to cut the calories some more. I go through gallons of kefir, which I make myself. I can eat dairy until the cows come home.

Lots of eggs, although I slowed down on eggs when I realised between my daughter and I we ate 5 dozen eggs one week and I figured my 11kg daughter didn’t have any more than half of them on her own. I scramble eggs in the morning using coconut butter to oil the pan. I cut down the amount of coconut butter, and also started using milk instead of cream when mixing the eggs.

Lots of caffeine in the last two weeks. I brew proper coffee. I normally only have one coffee in the morning, then no more for the rest of the day. I started having 3 per day (made me jittery, which I figured was good so long as I was still sleeping properly), now I have to cut back down again.

Two things that are at the top of my list to keep weight down -

  1. walk in the evening instead of sitting down. I sit most of the day, in the office or in the car. I put on weight very quickly when I can’t walk in the evening, and one of my dogs gets into squabbles.
  2. nothing with flour or sugar.
5

Face Pulls
3 x 20xstack

super-setted with
20-25 blue theraband external rotations

Lat Pulldown, wide grip
3 x 15x13plates

super-setted with
15kg Plate raises, 15 reps

DB Shoulder Press
3 x 12x30lb

super-setted with
DB Conc Curls, 8 reps 30lb

Hammer Curls
3 x 12x60lb DBs

One-arm DB Rows
3 x 15x60lb

BB Rows
3 x 8-10x60kg (back tired from front squats)

Seated Cable Row
15xstack, working lower traps

BB Curls
2 x 8x70lb, super-slow eccentric on last rep, drop set to 6x50lb
arms were fried, last set did
8x60lb, slow eccentric on last rep, drop to 6x40lb, then drop again to 6x30lb and went home…

6

Tonight: Touch Football, 40 min

Have decided I need to bring up my biceps and calves. Why I’m thinking like a body-builder I don’t know… perhaps it was my wife’s reaction to someone’s arms on TV recently, or because her friend wanted to feel my biceps and didn’t really care that my triceps were the better option, and glutes better again?

ANyhoo, this is probably a complete waste of time seeing as I’m leaning out, but I’ll give it a go. If nothing else my biceps need to be stronger as my DL goes up, I don’t want a bicep tear.

7

warm up with cable flies, 1 light set

Flat Bench
doubled-up bands on bar
work up to 60kg+bands+20kg chains (spotter had to help)

Lots of sets, hovered around 60kg+bands for 4 reps when spotter not available

Incline Flies
3 x 10x30lb

Tricep Pushdowns
warm up to
2 x 8x36kg+band behind neck no cheating

8

SQuat
warm up to
3 x 3x140kg+bands
2 x 5x140kg+bands
3 x 8x140kg
(with belt, below parallel on most reps, working on exceeding depth)

Calf raises, slow eccentric, explosive concentric
1 x 10xstack
1 x 15xstack

9

Flat Bench
warm up to
4 x 8x50kg BB + 20kg crazy bells
2 x 8x40kg BB + 30kg crazy bells

Overhead DB Reverse Lunges
3 x 6 each side with 30lb DBs

Single Arm Inverted KB Press
3 x 4xeach side with 16kg KB

Tricep Pressdowns
3 x 8x36kg+small bands
finish each set with BB military press 12x20kg

Triceps felt fried today, couldn’t manage any overhead rope extensions at all, pressdowns were hard work.

Crazybells and KBs were difficult, probably should pick one or the other given that I’m using them for rehab.

10

Back Squat, belt
warm up to
5x140kg
5 x 5x150kg (below legal depth, need to work on getting deeper than required to fend off comp nerves)

Front Squat
2 x 8x80kg

Calf Raises
2 x 15xstack

11

Waist still at 37", eating like a pig (must stop that). Not getting enough protein either.

Lat Pulldowns
Not sure how many plates now, about 80kg worth, 1x8, 2x10, wide grip

DB Rows
8x80lb
2 x 10x90lb

BB Curl
3 x 8x80lb, slow eccentric on last
super-set with

Floor Tricep Extensions
3 x 10x80lb

BB Curl drop-sets
12x60lb, 12x40lb, 12x30lb reverse-grip

Ab Wheel Rollouts
got about 12, right forearm hurting so I stopped

Low Cable Rope Shrugs
2 x 10xstack
1 x 12xstack
(shrug up, then back, felt good. Did not want to burn out traps, think I got it right)

DB Hammer Curls
3 x 8x55lb (seated)
1 billion x 25lb (standing)

Standing Cable Abs
3 x 8x9plates (45kg?)

Chest Press Machine
5 x 75kg
6 x 85kg

12

Back Squat
35 Z-suit on, straps down, no knee wraps
warm up to
5x140kg
5x150kg
5x160kg
5 x 3x170kg (first two sets with straps up)
2 x 5x160kg
8x140kg

Calf Raises
3 x 12xstack

13

Bench Press
warm up with 15kg crazy-bells plus weight on bar
Pin-press off top pin
2 x 4x100kg
Pin-press off second pin
4 x 2x100kg

15kg crazy bells + weight to make 80kg
4 x 5x80kg

Bottoms-Up KB Press
5,8,8,10,10

14

Still feeling sick from cold, two weeks now. Sore throat today.

Chin-ups
4 x 5

DB Rows
2 x 8x90lb
1 x 6x90lb

Hammer Curls
2 x 10x50lb
10x60lb

Cable Rows
4 x 15x60kg

BB Curls
4 x 8x70lb
drop-set on last to 8x50lb

Standing Cable Curls
2 x 10x23kg

15

Still feeling unwell, no energy. Took it easy.

Front Squat
10xbar
10x60kg
10x80kg
5 x 3x100kg

Good Morning, arch back, bent knee
3 x 8x90kg

GHR, assisted with small bands
3 x 12

Ab Wheel Rollouts, on knees
3 x 12

Extreme stretch of everything

16

Go you good thing!

You on the east coast i take it? what are you hoping to hit apart from 200kg squat? capo or ipf? i’m doing my first one ever next march/april in ipf (perth). novice so i don’t have your concerns of weight divisions so i’m leting myself become a fat prick, which my girlfriend loves (not). are you box-squatting for finding depth consistently?

anyways, good luck brother, all looks good!

17

Hey Tom, east coast, IPF. I’m revising that 200kg goal for the next meet, see today’s log when it’s up.

I’m not box squatting, I probably go a little deep but with a suit on I just go until I can no longer stand the pain and hope that it was deep enough :wink:

I only made weight so that I could use the meet as a goal. If you want to lose some weight, it’s the best time to do it because you do things you wouldn’t do if you weren’t competing.

Are you competing raw or equipped?

18

Squat
warm up, 35 Z-suit, straps down, beltless
5x140kg
5x150kg
belt on
2 x 5x160kg
3x170kg
3x170kg (straps up, couldn’t breathe or make depth)
straps back down
5x170kg (last rep a bit high)
3 x 6x160kg
10x140kg

Ab Wheel Roll-outs
3 x 12

19

Checked out a new gym today. Guess what they had - monolift!

Not that I get to use a monolift in IPF but it shows the sort of place it is. The owners compete in CAPO (WPC affiliated). There were guys there training for IPF events. They were wearing Centurians and doing box squats…

Oh, and it was exactly half the price of my current gym. And the bars don’t stay bent after a set of heavy squats. There was a chalk bucket beside the monolift.

20

Tues:

Flat Bench
warm up to
5x100kg off top pins
3x110kg " " "
2x120kg " " "
1x125kg " " "
1x120kg off second pin
forget what I did next, maybe 5x110kg?
1x100kg off chest, no pause

Bottoms-up KB Press
3x10 with 16kg KB

DB Bench
3x7 65lb

DB Row
3 x 10x80lb

Overhead Rope Triceps
DC-style set