LOL this made me smile
Lol, it was funny. I mean he is right. If I both picked up the pace AND did not stop I could get all 30 done in under 2 mins. I’m just not sure he comprehends the effort required for that.
But it was how he said it JUST after I was so proud of my achievement. It felt like he rained on my parade.
But to be fair that’s he and I all over. “Well done. What’s next?” I said it above - I can’t do maintenance. I need a progressive goal to work towards. He is 100% the same.
In his head - he’s thinking “Well done dad. But you got more in you. Let’s see that as well”. I know this as it is what I do to him.
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Today I feel drained. Big day yesterday - maxed out clean and press and then the sand bag work. I was 100% drained before going to work.
Thinking back I are a high carb breakfast yesterday. I think this might have helped my energy levels. I normally struggle to get exercising before picking the kids up. Much like today. Yesterday I was up and at them. I will try another higher carb feed up next week and see what happens. I do not want to “carb up” for no reason every morning.
Todays work out was a bit more restorative.
EMOM x21
5x pull ups
10x100kg squat
15x press up
Easy enough. Just enough to get the blood moving.
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Weighted in at 105.9kg this morning. Very happy.
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Keep this up and they will stick you on the wing 
I lack the speed and patience to stay on the wing. You’d find me in a ruck after a few phases - just trying to keep warm!
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Looks like you better stay in the centre then mate.
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Centre. 2nd row mate. I’m losing weight so they don’t make me prop.
Today I went to front squat and - well no. Everything hurt. Legs, back, shoulders every thing. I even ate a high carb breakfast to try and get on today. But no.
There are two reasons this might be happening. And to be fair they might not be divorced of each other.
1 - pr on the grace followed by 120 upper body reps there after on Tuesday.
2 - very high volume during a long cut. I might have reached the point where I need a better to factor the in lack of calories. Until now the fact I’ was so fat meant I still had energy to spare. But now I think my body is realising it’s running out of reserves.
And again maybe it’s the two in combination. I have enough to work hard. But PRs are not the goal. Weight (fat) loss is.
I think being more organized will help. So I’m going to hit up a few standard work outs.
Saturday - rugby and then cycling.
Sunday - weights full body pretty hard. Conditioning focus.
Monday - weigh in and minor work out.
Tuesday - lower body strength
Wednesday - upper body strength
Thursday - off
Friday - weigh in and conditioning (Grace or Fran prep)
Starts tomorrow.
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Woke up at 105.9kg again today. That’s good news. I thought yesterday was a fluke.
Grace / Fran prep today. What this means is breaking these two work outs down into components and attacking them. So either like I did with the clean and jerks. Shorter rounds but faster pace. But typically more reps. Today I’m going to do 3x 20 thruster and ring pull up. Lots of rest in there. The idea is over load on volume before trying yo go quick
Managed tjis. It took 20 mums. As I say lots of rest. The idea was 3 quick bouts. Which can be brought together overtime.
I’m still so freaking tired though. Even before hand. Deep down taxed. My whole body feels drained. Like I’ve just finished a a drop set on EVERYTHING. Bench, followed by press, followed by flies, followed by press ups, dips ETC. And then moving to other muscle groups.
@T3hPwnisher - as someone that manages the mix between being hard core and listening to your body - what’s your take? I know you said before that during fat loss you reduce volume. And you don’t try and improve conditioning during a diet down. Where as I’ve done the opposite. Do you think I might just have reached a point where my body has lots that much fat it’s now entering a preservation stage? And my energy levels (which until ow have been good) are taking a hit?
This is my working theory. I gonna try and stay the above course for 4 weeks. See where I get. I can force myself through 4 hard weeks.
I really can’t venture as to what your body is doing: I can only speak to my own experience. In that regard, I don’t tend to go for conditioning PRs during periods of reduced calories. I’m big on g-flux
Such that, when calories are up, I’m pushing hard, because I KNOW I have SO many nutrients going through me that I’m going to recover and be strong. I can do SO much in those periods, but they are brutal and rough on the body. When I’m exhausted, I take breaks, and that means calories go down. My intensity goes up in the weight room, I hit rep or weight PRs, but that’s all single SET work. My volume drops quit a bit to allow for that. For conditioning, I’ll stay the course or allow some backsliding, OR I’ll take on a new/different challenge so I can progress in that without having previous bench marks to compare against.
I tend to feel far more broken in the gaining phases than the losing ones.
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On the way out the door. I’ll read these on tonight. But on the surface - I 100% get what you are saying
I read these and I will be honest. They are a formalisation of what I’ve been trying to say. Along with a guild.
It is best to eat 3000 calories and burn 3500 than eat 2000 and burn 2500.
I need to spend some more time with this info. And see how to apply it. But right now I need more food. This much is clear. I have 90mins of Rugby / running about tomorrow and I will not have time to eat breakfast (I work nights and the rugby is early AM). So I need to fuel up now.
Thank you @T3hPwnisher - very VERY useful links.
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Hell yeah dude! It was one of those things that always made sense to me but I couldn’t put it into words. You eat more food, even if you burn it all off, you STILL get the benefits of the food. To say nothing of the benefits from all that activity. And then, to have such a high metabolic rate makes fat loss WAY too easy.
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Haha, yeah I’ll be honest the first few months have been simple ish of this fat loss period. 11kg / 24lb down. With no real issues. Using this sort of idea. Now some has articulated it and I have a guild I’m hoping the rest falls off as easy.
Still got another 10/11kg. But it’s a long summer. I’ll get there.
The G flux concept is somewhat counter intuitive though. At the moment I’m not eating enough to lose weight. Well I’m not eating enough to lose weight the way I want to.
I’m going to aim for 6h of raised heart rate a week.
1.5 h of touch rugby a week and full on 1h strong man sessions for Sunday. This leaves 3.5h to fill. As a lot of my work outs are REALLY intensive but short this might be hard work to fill. But simple steps like dropping things like short WOD and go for 30 emom. And daily press up and rows. I can do this.
On this note - after rugby today I did 2h of MTB riding. So my weekly total is already at 3.5h. I have an hour tomorrow of strong man. Work up to top set of 3-5 on log. Tire flips and yoke.
I must make sure to get some quality grub in my. Chicken thigh fillets and pasta with mixed veg.
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Rugby season over. Just tided up the last U9 session. And wow. We introduced a new element today. Rucking / competition for the ball at a break down. I had to change the rules. One player in particular won 100% of the balls he competed for. That player was my son. He is amazing. I know all dads want there kid to be good at their sport. But the other coaches were saying stuff like “if you want to do it properly - don’t like him”.
And in the U7 pitch there was a game. There were only 3 tries scored. 2 by my other boy. I’m blessed with athletic kids. I wonder how much is nature. And how much is nurture. But we in my house we value strength. Strength of mind and body. Both of them have from a young age been shown how to run, climb jump etc.
Any way I planned a bigger day than I got. I did log but I felt a bit sick. Lack of sleep and lots of exercise yesterday.
Just worked up to a big log. I say “big”. 100kg. Then drop sets of 8 at 80-70-60.
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Today was a 30 mins of EMOM. It was due to be a rest day but I “rested” yesterday.
I used the sand bag and did press up, row, burpee dead lift. 10 rounds of each. It was never so hard I wanted to give up. But the longevity of it was a new challenge. I think I al safe to say I’m fairly “fit”. My short duration is pretty good. But past 10 mins I get gassed. Time to add this to the tool box.
It will come at the expense of something. My current short duration work will suffer. But I have plans to keep it so so.
My lap top right now won’t load t nation so I cant read the articles above as well as I would like. And I can’t take the time to write down everything I want to say. Aim for 5.5-6h of raised pulse a week.
But in short:
Strength: 1 upper, 1 lower, 1 whole body (3 days) 2 1/2h
Conditioning: 2h Saturday (1 1/2 rugby 
plus bike ride there and back). 2x30min work outs doing EMOM if I can’t find anything else more entertaining. Although MMS has done great complex ideas. And I have the tire and yoke.
To keep things interesting I will also add in middle of work out blitzes. So 1/2 though my EMOMs I will do Tabata front squats for 4 rounds. Or 10 log clean and press asap. Or 60 seconds of thrusters followed by 60 seconds of inverted rows.
I will also commit to 10 mins of burpee deadlifts every am before food. Not for fasted cardio. Just because once I say I’ll do it, I will. And I know the desire to eat will triumph over my laziness very quickly.
Food:
Back to Lent standards to be fair. No really hardship in that any more.
Target:
Holiday in 38 days. I have 6kg to drop. I will not be weighing myself between now and then either.
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10mins of deadlift Burpees before breakfast. 90 reps. This has all the hallmarks of a great routine. I did not press to speed. This is not about setting records. It’s about daily accumulation of exercise and waking my body up.
It is morning - we are awake - start working. No more lethargic starts to the day.
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Leg day. Front squat was 3 sets of failure -2. The first set was okay. But I knew I didn’t have 12 reps in me. So set 2 was only 3 reps. That way there I could monster set 3 and get 4. I do not know why - but I always figured if you’re going to miss reps try not to on your last set.
After this I did my leg day challenge. I had to rack the bar after 9 front squats. My shoulders hurt. But I re racked quickly enough. This is to be expected.
The rest was done with out incident. 13/18/20. I will get my 20/20/20. It’s coming.
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Woke up and did 1 burpee dead lift and my ham strings asked nicly not to. So I stoped doing the dead lifts and just did more burpees.
120 in under 10 mins. Again not pushing the pace. Just moving through the gears.
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