Hany's Training Log

Training Training Logs
362

I have to disagree. Unless you’re coming to the last couple of reps of a big rep PR; doing a 20+ rep set; or hitting a true max you shouldn’t be dizzy during training EVER, especially during a deload when everything is backed way off. If you’re in a deficit and get dizzy outside of training, sure, that’s probably OK. It happens to me when I go down in calories until I adjust. During training though, IMO it’s a problem. You can almost always make sure you’re fuelled to train even if it means juggling what you eat and when. Otherwise you’re just compromising performance - which is fine if you’re focused on aesthetics, of course, but I didn’t think you were.

What motivated such a big calorie drop, BTW? I mean, 400-600 is a BIG drop when you aren’t carrying much fat to begin with. Combined with a fat burner that’s going to be giving your system a hell of a jolt. You wouldn’t be above 20% bodyfat at around what, 78 kg if that? It isn’t like you need to shed too much.

Your maintenance window would be around 2400-2900 calories; adjusted to your LBM assuming you’re 20% it’d be 2000-2300 calories. What’s your intake currently? Do you have any room to move down if your fat loss stalls?

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363

@MarkKO I didn’t say I experience dizziness during the deload, I was speaking in general. In the first post, I intended the dizziness outside training. I totally agree with you that dizziness during might occur in the last set of heavy intensity, other than that it is a problem.

Regarding to big calorie drop, In fat I’m not that much lean, my body fat % is more than 20%, maybe 23% to 25% with some subcutaneous fat around belly that make this area jiggly. I can pinch my skin between thumb and index and see the thick layer of flab approx. 1 cm.

I’m sure that my maintenance is around 2200 kcal/day (off days). This is from follow up not by calculations. So, 400 to 600 calories drop is not huge. Also my metabolism is very slow because I’m almost sedentary (office job, car driving, etc.).

My intake now is 1600 to 1800 depends on day activities (training, carrying boxes, etc.) I think I still have 200 kcals to move down if stalls occurs.

This is my photo taken just yesterday, you see how much fat I carry around waist and thighs.

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364

OK, that makes more sense.

You’re not carrying much fat in those area. Check the photos in my log, they’re around the 18% mark and I’d guess you’re there or leaner.

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365

You’re looking good, BTW.

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366

I’ve checked your photo in you log, the one which you were wearing that great African clothes. Your upper body is much developed than me, I mean traps and pecs and front delts. belly I think is the same BF% except I have stretched and jiggly flabs (result of idiot diet I did before). I’m dieting down mainly to lose as much subcutaneous fat as possible, so skin can contract back and get rid of these flabs. As I will not be able to train hard the next few weeks; it is a good chance to diet down and lose some fat, i.e., make any progress in either ways! no iron, no muscles gain, then lose some damn fat. At some BF% I will add collagen supplement which has a good effect regarding skin contraction. My wife used it and had a great results after her second pregnancy.

BTW do you have experience regarding women training? Wife is following 5/3/1 and she did well, except in OHP. If you have time we can discuss her program.

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367

I should have known you’d have it all planned out. That makes a lot of sense.

Honestly, my experience training anyone is extremely limited - I’ve only been training myself for two and a half years, for that matter. From what I’ve seen, women train well the same as men except their pressing of all kinds progresses MUCH more slowly than for men whereas they tend to progress rather fast on lower body lifts.

368

Don’t underestimate yourself. You are good, following up people, giving correct advices, setting and planning templates, etc. I follow your replies across the forum and I confirm your advices are correct. You suck the information from all sources, understand it well and can provide informative output.

Regarding to women, yes, I see good progress in my wife lifts except pressing. Benching stalls sometimes and booms once. I learnt how to avoid her stagnation points and correct the form, for example switching from bench press to floor press for 3 cycles made a huge progress. Before she could bench 35kg for single hardly with very bad form. After switching to floor press (which forced her to improve the form and technique, requite right pec muscles, support with triceps, etc.) her bench jumped to 52.5kg for single rep at 50kg bodyweight. I’ve added to this upper back work for support and some grip drills. The result is she benched more than her body weight. Pressing is another story, we are struggling with stagnation point of 37.5kg for single rep since 5 months, that’s why I lowered TM, added more rear delt work and reduced pressing volume for better recovery. Here are her stats:

Bodyweight: 50kg -+ 2kg (water, food, etc.)

  • Press:
    1RM: 37.5kg
    3RM: 32.kg

  • Bench Press:
    1RM: 52.5kg
    3RM: 42.5kg (without pauses)

  • Squat:
    1RM: 87.5kg
    3RM: 80kg

  • Deadlift:
    1RM: 87.5kg
    3RM: 80kg

These numbers are not calculated but actually done during her 5/3/1 workout. We didn’t went for 1RM check.

369

Her press is fine. It’s 70 per cent of her bench, which is a good ratio. It just seems not much compared to her other lifts (which are pretty good for her size).

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370

Haven’t trained since last Wednesday but doing activities that can be considered as conditioning like carrying boxes (50x50x50 cm, 40kg) dissembling furniture, carrying and moving furniture plates, packing items, climbing stairs many times, etc. I almost do these activities for 5 hours daily after office hours, so there is no time for training.

Two points I want to mention here, first is how much Snatch Grip Deadlift is important. It really helped me too much carrying those heavy boxes without issues, I consider the same position of snatch grip while lifting the box from the ground; straight back, pulled upper back, initiate the lift with my legs first, and so on. It was very easy to accomplish the tasks without any problems. I feel stronger and better person now.

Second point is grip strength. Deads, Krock row, etc. improved my grip strength too much which was one of my weakest points. While moving furniture plates I could now carry some plates in each hand and gripping them easily without wrapping my finger around or need to find part to act as handle.

Also I can’t ignore the importance and result of good morning and deadlift, my lower back improved depicting effective lifting technique when lifting heavy item from the floor; following same good morning form and using lower back to initiate the movement.

It is wonderful feeling when I reap two years of training benefits, and see how much my function improved. Thanks Jim Wendler for the great training program, and thanks @MarkKO for your deep follow up, and thanks to all who gave advice or show motivation.

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371

Who knew, getting stronger is functional! Nothing like finding out you can do things you couldn’t before.

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372

Week two without training, only moving activities like box carrying, stair climbing, heavy objects push and pull, etc.

I weighed myself yesterday and was shocked. My weight is 78.5 I’ve lost 5.5kg, to make it clearer; I was 75kgs after my last dieting cycles (ended by 20-October-2016), then I’d started to eat over my maintenance and increased training volume till 21-February-2017. That’s 4 months of eating and training. My weight at 21-Feb-2017 was 84kg (including water weight, bowel contents, fully loaded glycogen stores). Now lets assume that by end of eating cycle:

1- I was holding around 3kgs of glycogen and water
2- 0.5 kg of bowel contents

That is total of 3.5 kgs

@MarkKO Hence, is it possible that I’ve gained 2.5kgs of muscle mass in only 4 months?

My size didn’t change so much, except in hamstrings, glutes and upper back. I noticed also some gains in traps but can’t judge. Waist is still the same, even less. Delts appear more defined.

I hope it is real gains.

373

I honestly have no idea. Without a before and after DEXA or BIA or caliper measurements it’s hard to say. Have you measured your waist, hip, thigh, neck and upper arms recently? Those would also give some kind of indication.

I wouldn’t overthink it. If you’re looking the same or better than before, scale weight doesn’t matter. You could be very dehydrated, for example, or the scale could be out of whack if it’s been moved and knocked around.

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374

Unfortunately I packed my measurement tape by mistake :slight_smile: and as you know DEXA and BIA are not available in KSA. Regarding dehydration I don’t think I’m dehydrated, I’ve increased my water intake to 4l per day since my last diet cycle, and I’m very accurate regarding to scale position, I marked the floor and always place the scale in the same position (I can’t forget I’m engineer lol).

It may be a dream, but 2 to 2.5 kgs of muscle mass in 4 months looks awesome, even if it was 1.5kg muscle mass and 1 kg of fat is still awesome.

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375

Just want to share this for fun, since I sent my gym to Egypt and have no access to any gym, I’m doing bodyweight workouts until my equipment arrive. Here is short clip for squat, to add some resistance I carry my wife or my kids :slight_smile:

they enjoy playing with me so much

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376

@MarkKO

Hello all again. Finally I’m back. I finished shifting my life back to Egypt. Now I’m located at El Tur, South Sinai Governorate. The place where god spoke to prophet Mosses. The city is wonderful, calm and hosts fresh air as it lies on sea coast and rounded by mountains. A place which is very good for athletes.

I was out of training since last 15 of February as my training tools where in transfer. But although I was out of training, I did more than conditioning. Setting up my new house, loading and unloading furniture and boxes, assembling my furniture were very intense tasks. I lift tons of weight during the last month, and I mean real tons. Total weight of my shipment was 5 tons. I loaded and unloaded the cargo from the truck to transfer car, then from transfer car to my home, and so on, moving it around the house and from the garage to the first floor many times. I had to triple my food intake to meet the high demand and even though I lost 2 kgs. My days were very full, with no space for any programmed training, but anyhow I wasn’t upset because I was doing very hard lifting. I was doing my best to follow the correct form while lifting the boxes and furniture plates as if I was lifting the bar, I even squatted many times while carrying the boxes.

During that period, I made custom built power cage. Now I have a great garage, with adequate space for training, and high roof and good ventilation. My power cage is in its place now, ready to be used. It is equipped with pull up bar with varying grips, great safety pins, two sets of bar pins, and plate rack pins. I also made special dumbbell bar to be used for Kroc Row. Pics are below.

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Yesterday I did my first refreshment session, my plan is two days training for first week, 4 days deload for the second week, 75% of TM for 3rd week, then return back to training template as before.

My numbers for yesterday weren’t bad:

Last set numbers:

Squat: 2 x 110kg
Press: 5 x 55kg

and for today’s workout

Deadlift:
1 x 5 @ 60kg
1 x 5 @ 80 kg
1 x 5 @ 100 kg
1 x 5 @ 120 kg
1 x 5 @ 130 kg

Bench Press:
1 x 10 @ 20kg
1 x 5 @ 40 kg
1 x 5 @ 60 kg
1 x 5 @ 70 kg

Assistance:
4 x 5 @ pull up (neutral, wide, narrow, etc)

I’m also ready for the coming 12 months with 10kgs of Whey Protein, 1kg of Creatine, Iodine and Magnesium supplement in the stash, hence, no excuses, and real pain is coming!!

I wish I return back to my old number soon, and my log will be active again.

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377

Great to see you back and doing well.

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378

Welcome back, cage looks great!

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379

I was wondering where you’d gotten to :slight_smile: welcome back! Cage looks awesome, that’s a very nice setup.

380

Wednesday 12-May-2017
5/3/1 FSL 12 weeks program
Refreshment week

Today was first real session after I set up my new life. Training in power cage is an awesome experience. I’m no more worry about lifting heavy weights or failures as safety pins are always there to catch missing lifts. Squat session went smooth although last set was tough, and I noticed my form is much better than before. I’m tight, and deep as I should be. I didn’t want to push myself too much and prefer to keep progress slowly but perfect and injury free.

Main Lift: Squat
Warm Up:

  • 1 x 10 @ 20kg
  • 1 x 5 @ 40 kg
  • 1 x 5 @ 60 kg
  • 1 x 3 @ 80 kg
  • 1 x 1 @ 100 kg

Work Sets:
1 x 3 @ 115 kg (75% TM of last cycle)
1 x 2 @ 115 kg
1 x 1 @ 115 kg (very tough set, form is good but felt my head will blow up!)

Assistance:

  • Front Squat:
    3 x 8 @ 45 kg (50% TM)

  • Hip Thrusts:
    3 x 8 @ 50kg

  • Rack Pull:
    3 x 8 @ 100 kg (50% TM)

2 Likes
381

Wednesday 13-May-2017
5/3/1 FSL 12 weeks program
Refreshment week

Day 2 and training went smooth, strength is coming back and energy levels are good.

Main Lift: Press

  • Warm Up:
    1 x 10 @ 20 kg
    1 x 5 @ 30 kg
    1 x 5 @ 40 kg
    1 x 3 @ 50 kg
    1 x 1 @ 55 kg
  • Work Sets:
    3 x 5 @ 60 kg (75% TM)

Assistance:

  • Band Pull Apart: 150 reps (seuperset with warm up)
  • Pull Up (neutral grip) 3 x 6
  • BB Shrugs::
    1 x 15 @ 60kg (warm up)
    3 x 8 @ 110 kg
  • Landmine Row:
    1 x 12 @ 30kg (warm Up)
    3 x 8 @ 50 kg
  • DB bentover delt raise: 3 x 20 @ 5kg
  • Triceps kickbacks: 2 x 10 @ 5kg