It’s inevitable. I only took 60-90 seconds rest between sets up til my TM and then I took 2-3 minutes. It took me 30 minutes to get through deadlifts and high pulls. For rows I do the reps for each arm and then rest 60 seconds. It still seems to take forever to get through all 6 sets.
I might switch to 3 sets of 8 for rows and drop the reverse fly’s on Mondays. I’m already splitting my work on Thursdays so I could do my pulls in the morning and run through my bodybuilding superset on my lunch break workout. It’s short and sweet and gets the bodybuilding component taken care of. It’s been nice only doing upper body on my lunch breaks. It doesn’t take as much out of me and I don’t sweat as much so I’m not going back to work soaked.
Some things regarding my goal to hover around 225 for a while then slowly push north towards 230 over the next 12-18 months…
This post includes some mathematical ways to view your potential. They may or may not be reliable but where else can you find a statistical approach? It’s usually all crap. Someone telling a smaller person to eat more, lift more, etc and then they’ll look like them. There’s not qualitative or quantitative information in that; it’s just vague and generic.
But with these equations you can see that if your bone structure is X then you can potentially grow to be ____ lbs at ____ body fat.
I could swear I shared this before but couldn’t find it while scrolling through my log so here it is again:
Using this formula, my max body weight at 11% body fat is 237 and max lean weight is 211. My wrist is 7.5 inches and my ankle is 9.25 inches. If I want to be leaner then I simply drop the body weight down.
The best physique I’ve ever developed was at the USOC in the perfect environment. I dropped from 247 down to 231 (first thing in the morning) and had a body fat between 8-9%. Using that formula I can be 230 at 9% body fat.
The point I’m making is that I believe it’s a reliable approach for most of us. My best physique is right in line with the formula as well. So now I have numbers (which I love) and personal experience telling me that my max potential is in the 230’s with a body fat with which I am happy.
I guess this post is just me kind of justifying why I have selected my goals the way I have… not that I have to, but I want to. This log is partly for my own sake but also for everyone else who reads along. I enjoy seeing how people work through their training and nutrition so I want to share my thought processes as well.
Now I’m going to go make a pot of coffee because I only had about two 16 ounce cups this morning…
I think I have used this formula before, but I completely forget what my calculations were, so I figured to give it another go.
With a height of 69.5 in, wrists of 7.25 in, and ankles 10.0 in, my max lean body mass for 10% body fat was ~185lbs, giving me a max total weight of 205 lbs. Since I’m already at 200 (at the end of the day), it makes me think I should just keep slowly putting on some mass now since I’m still reaping the “benefits” of being a born again noob. At my current composition I probably only have ~160 lbs of lean mass, but have been putting on ~.5lbs per week the past 2 months, I’ve actually been able to lean out a bit, so if I can keep going at a similar rate throughout the rest of the year, it’s feasible that I could get my lean mass up to 168-170. It’s crazy that I’m just 5 lbs from my ideal weight, but since I’m fat as a fudge muffin, I’m more like 25 lbs away, which means I have years ahead of me.
It’s a tough dilemma to eat for muscle gain while trying to cut fat. It’s possible if you go slow. I might try @danteism 's advice on bulking for 6 weeks and then cutting for 1. I won’t bulk drastically but I think this approach could work well with a 5/3/1 plan that deloads every 7th week.
My “bulk” is going to be a little less aggressive than in the past. I think I’m going for 228-230 by the end of the year with clean eating. I could hit that weight in two weeks if I wanted but we all know muscle doesn’t appear that fast.
I’ve never bulked with an intermittent cut mixed in. It’ll be a new/fun experience.
My wife brought home the bioelectrical impedance toy from her school so it doesn’t disappear over the summer. According to it, I’m 13.3% body fat first thing in the morning. I hate that thing.
Just retested myself after a cup of coffee and about 25 ounces of water. 12.6 %! Apparently being hydrated gives more desirable results. If I was a personal trainer I could test a client after a hot and sweaty session for a baseline and then test them pre-workout later and tell them they’ve lost fat without actually having done anything! I bet that’s never happened…
After reading yesterday’s intro article I didn’t know where I fell. This article describes me pretty well. I’m not 100% novelty seeking, but it seems more accurate than not.
I always change my programs, I hate anything over 6 reps on the big movements, and I’ve already become quite fond of wave loading.
The part I’m not sure about is the low carb. I might have to play with that. I tried to stick with 100g carbs per day for a week and hated it.
And I know this isn’t a perfect world where everything will apply to me just the way it’s described. This info is just another tool to consider.
In typical fashion I did WAY too much today considering it’s a “rest day” for lifting. In still sore from this weekend but I went and played basketball for 2.5 hours anyway. I played 7 or 8 games. I’m smoked. On the plus side I’m sure this countered the three gourmet donuts I had for breakfast.
Even though I’ll regret playing, it was fun. It seems that the time away from the court has allowed my body to heal from training because my vertical was better than it’s been all year. On the downside, my jump shot sucked.
I’m not 100% crippled from basketball. I know my legs are tired though. My quads have felt bruised since the 3-on-3 tournament (probably because it was on concrete). They felt worse last night but surprisingly better than expected today.
I’m due for my push workout this morning. I’ll know how much damage I really did after bench. I know my leg training is probably going to suck but if my bench is bad then I’ll know I REALLY wore myself out. I’ll probably start in the basement and finish at the Y so I’ll have more options for shoulders and abs. I’m even considering playing a few games of basketball.
Every heard of over-reaching? I think it’s where you do high intensity and volume leading up to a planned break…like a vacation. You know you’re not going to be doing anything for 7-10 days so you kill yourself beforehand and the break ends up being much needed recovery. Well I feel like I do a mini version of this every week.
Rugby is awesome, watched my first Aussie League Football game about two weeks ago, not sure what I was expecting (someone attempted to say it was more like rugby than not) that is not the case haha but it’s kind of a cool sport, with some really solid athletes, nice little mix of soccer and hitting (reminded me of hot potato, no one wanted to take a shot)
