Just. Don't. Suck (Part 1)

Training Training Logs
1072

Training at Home After Work

Pull-ups
10 regular
2 x 8 neutral grip

Power Clean
135 x 5
165 x 3
185 x 3
205 x 1

Deadlift
265 x 5
305 x 3
335 x 1
superset with
Squat
135 x 5
185 x 5
210 x 3
235 x 1

That’s right, I’ve been supersetting squats and deads on Fridays.

So it turns out that my “warm-up” could have been a workout by itself. This Full Boring thing is no joke. Squat felt okay, but the power clean and deadlift reps felt kind of hard. I’ve implemented them to increase my frequency but I kind of considered it light work. Wrong!

Bench (5/3/1)
135 x 5
165 x 5
190 x 3
210 x 10
superset with
DB Row
100 x 10 x 4 sets each

I looked at my bench workouts and it made me laugh. 190 x 14, 200 x 12, 210 x 10. Their e1RM’s were 278.578, 279.92, and 279.93 today. Oh, yeah, baby! Beat last week’s work by .01 lbs!

Lateral Plate Raise
10 lbs x 10 full/10 top half x 2 sets
superset with
Face Pull
Black Band x 15 x 2 sets

It turns out that I recruit my upper traps on lateral raises. The face pulls were a beast right after the raises.

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1074

12.16.17

Woke at 219.6 lbs.

Yesterday’s Nutrition
2850 calories, 236g carbs, 96g fat, 196g protein.

I looked back at my nutrition for March and April because I was curious. As I suspected, I was eating more than now and looked better. I’m not going to beat myself up too bad because I wasn’t cutting then. I ate an average of 2900 to 3200 calories each week and my macros were usually close to 300g carbs, 100g fat, and 200g of protein.

I’m a bit frustrated at the moment. I managed to hit my goal of 5 plates on deadlift but I haven’t made any progress on bench or squat. I’m actually weaker now than in the past. I’m not quite sure how to proceed next year. I want to add muscle, obviously, but I also want to stay under 15% body fat.

I think I push myself in my workouts; I don’t grind out reps every day but I don’t go in and stay in my comfort zone. I don’t really understand my lack of progress in terms of strength. I think the number one culprit is my priorities. I have failed to consistently push the big three lifts. I go through phases of not doing the lifts in my training. This year it was due to my hip and biceps tendinitis. I think I need to keep them in every single program regardless of how I’m feeling. I don’t have to push PR sets or hurt myself but I can keep doing the lifts with lighter weight if I’m having aches and pains.

The other possibility is nutrition. I like seeing my abs. And if you’ve been following me then you can see how much it bothers me when I lose that. I don’t really know what happened in September but I gained 10-12 lbs almost overnight and hated it. I tried to roll with it but I just couldn’t. I’ve been cutting since the start of November and I think I’ve undone the damage I caused then but I’m still not happy.

One thing I’ve noticed is that there are some former power lifters who used to be fat and strong who have crossed over to the bodybuilding world (not necessarily competing, just focusing on physique). The end result is guys who have lots of muscle, decent body fat percentages, and much more strength than the average bodybuilder. This has me wondering if getting fatter helps with the strength and muscle development portion of things.

If you compared a dedicated bodybuilder and power lifter turned bodybuilder then would they end up in the same place after 10 years? Even professional bodybuilders have a tendency to get soft and puffy in the off season.

So that challenges the question: is lean bulking really possible? I know I can add a few pounds of muscle over time but would it be better to push lean bulking a bit and allow a bit more fat? I’ve read lots of articles on the topic and I still don’t know the best answer. Recently I adopted the approach of an article here at T-Nation that suggested starting lean, bulking until not as lean, cutting back to lean, bulking again, and so on.

I’m still favoring that path but I’m curious if my fondness for my abs and being lean has actually been what’s holding me back…

It’s like that old commercial: How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

The world may never know.

1075

I read your log pretty consistently, but notice you lack a few key components of those that are successful in their endeavors (strength/physique in this case).

Concise goal setting and the will to follow through on your set goals. When I set goals, that’s it. There’s no flip flopping to popular trends or what I do or don’t like in the mirror. It’s a process that you set out, piece by piece if you need to (which I think you need to). Some people can get away with just setting a goal, then forget about it until they get there. You’re not one of those. You need to consistently remind yourself what your goal is.

I like my abs too. But I have goals set that may mean I lose them. That’s ok. It’s so easy to lean down. It’s NOT easy to put on muscle. You know this.

You put on weight way too fast during your ‘bulk’. Terrible idea in the first place, but even worse for someone like you or me that cares about the way they look. You should have kept your diet the same, and just add a meal, or a few bowls of oats and a couple pieces of fruit.

Also, it’s not a lost year for you. You can’t say that when you’ve been injured. It’s not fair to yourself.

Start thinking about your post surgery goals for 2018. Make them attainable but challenging. And DONT CHANGE THEM. It’s very rewarding meeting goals, try it out.

Hope the surgery and recovery goes well.

5 Likes
1076

Thanks for the pep talk! Sometimes, the truth hurts.

In the past (and it’s been a reoccurring thing for me) I’ve set out to improve X lift and shortly after I start the pursuit I run into something that makes me second guess myself. For bench it’s usually shoulder pain. For squats it’s been my low back or hip (injuries to both). When I meet those obstacles I bail on the strength pursuit, substitute exercises and keep training (but with new goals or no goals). When joints start to hurt I always end up asking myself “Is it really worth it to bench 3 plates or squat 4 plates? Who cares? Will it improve your lift?”

The answer to those ends up being no, but there’s still that nagging voice in the back of my head that wants to do it. So perhaps it is important, even if it’s just important to me. I can’t explain why, either. But I guess that could be said for a lot of things in the gym.

In regards to gaining too fast in September, that’s an understatement! I had no intention of gaining at the time–at least not like that. I started loading creatine and went out of town for the weekend. I didn’t track my food and I had Arby’s for lunch one day and Braum’s the next, but I did not eat 10 lbs worth of food lol! I stopped the creatine thinking it was just water bloating but the weight stayed. Sept 13th I weighed 220.8. I went out of town on the 16th and 17th and weighed 229.8 lbs on Sept 18th. You would’ve thought I hit the all you can eat buffet three times a day over that period.

My plan for adding muscle is to find a new maintenance once I’m back 100% from surgery and add 100 calories per day. If I could add half a pound of muscle per month then I’d be winning the bulking battle.

For my strength goals I just need to do the lifts. 5/3/1 for the main lifts needs to stay in my programming. Even if I want to do some more hypertrophy work I need to keep 5/3/1 at the beginning of the sessions. I’m not going to improve my squat but taking two months off from squatting and doing lunges or leg press. The past proves this.

Thanks again for the advice and support!

3 Likes
1077

I struggle with the injury bug too. Whenever I get close to PR territory, BAM, overuse injury.

We just have to get smarter, especially as we age (I’m 35), you are in your 30s right? Shit ain’t the same at our training age (15 years for me).

By smarter, I mean, you may not want to follow structured programs. You may want to look into programming yourself. Smaller weight jumps, own weight before moving up, etc. I like to use similar weight for consecutive weeks. You can tell easily if your sets were quicker and owned better. That’s progress.

I’m pretty much dedicating ALL of 2018 to gaining muscle. Now, I can’t let my running goals slide so that’ll keep me in check, but I do foresee myself being 10-15lbs heavier by the end of the year. Goals man, goals.

1 Like
1078

I’m 33. I do a lot of my own programming but I change it too much as mentioned above. At least with 5/3/1 I’ll always have that PR set. And there’s also the Training Maximally version where you just build up to a heavy single with your TM. Then you can do a PR set with that weight, continue adding 5-10% and doing singles, or just call it a day.

1079

I’m off to a Christmas party, but i’ll throw in some thoughts.
I read that article about leaning out, bulking leaning out. It makes some sence.
But I too have a hard time seeing the scale go up to quickly.
What IronOne said about the goal, that is in my view very important.
So if getting strong is important I think you’ll have to loose some abs by gaining some weight. If looking good is the goal, well then lean bulk and put on some muscles.
Injury is a sign of wrong programming, I think.
5/3/1 is very hard, especially doing PR sets every time.
Back a bit up, take it slow, cap the sets before techniqe fails. Do some volume on the FSL og SSL.
Maybe do 3/5/1 capping the 5 week at 5 as a mini deload.
But post surgery, pick a goal. Put it on top of the log, so you’ll always be reminded.
And keep the nutrition right.
Good luck man. You’ll be back… Strong

2 Likes
1080

Thanks, @mortdk!

Some silver lining to having surgery this week is that I get to think about all of this stuff and make a plan for 2018 without being able to actually implement anything. That means that I won’t be able to impulsively do something because it’s a new thought or plan. I’ll have time to sit and think about all of it and actually settle on a solid approach.

I’m going to rely on the machines and cables for my lifting after surgery but I’m not certain what my restrictions will be so I can’t really plan anything yet. I like the plate loaded hammer machines for bench, rows, incline, OHP, etc but the seats might be too low for my hip. I’ve heard that one of the restrictions is flexion past 90 degrees. That might force me to just use the cables while standing. Luckily the ones they have at the Y have an arm with a pad that you can raise up and use as a back support while pressing and doing fly’s.

I’m going to try to have some sort of plan in place but I could just end up working the muscles and getting out each day. Training post-surgery is usually just damage control. No reason to let my three healthy limbs fall apart too.

1 Like
1081

12.17.17

Yesterday’s Nutrition
2408 calories, 261g carbs, 82g fat, 185g protein.

Took measurements today as my pre-op baselines.

34
34774×675 97.3 KB

1083

Full Body Day 1 of 3

3 lap dynamic warm-up
RDLs
135 x 15

Power Clean
135 x 3
165 x 3
205 x 2
225 x 1
245 x 1 - - - felt slow
245 x 1 - - - better
255 x 1
265 x 0 x 2

Lying DL Hams
170 x 6 x 2
90 x 20 bottom half thanks to the article about hitting hams before squats.

Squat
135 x 5
185 x 3
225 x 2
255 x 1
275 x 1
295 x 1
315 x 0 - - - this was a controlled eccentric right to the safety bars. FML

Cable Row
180 x 10 x 5
superset with
Incline
135 x 10 x 5

Underhand Pull-down
120 x 10F/10B/10T

Hammer OHP
90 x 8F/8T/8B

Reverse Cable Curl
60 x 10F/10T/10B

Today has been a bad mental day. I’ve been having that conversation about whether or not I should allow myself to get bigger and fatter overall or stick with the lean approach. I’ve been thinking back to the days where I was 240 lbs. I was stronger. I wasn’t shredded or lean. I was probably around 13-15% body fat.

Why am I not ok with that? But then I remember that I can’t gain weight quickly like I did in those days. I need to stick to my plan of slowly adding mass.

I’ve also already changed the workout that I wrote two nights ago. I remembered a 6 week power clean plan that I modified to last 10 weeks leading up to my lifetime PR of 315 lbs. I’ll be running that for power clean and just following the 6 week version. It has a day for cleans and a second day for doing clean pulls. I’ll be doing those on Monday and Friday while deadlifting Wednesdays.

I might move the squat 5/3/1 day to Friday but I’m not sure.

I’m also considering running this for squat, bench, and deadlifts too.

We’ll see. I have plenty of time to write programs over the next few months.

1 Like
1084

You’re being a bit hard on yourself. I’d say your physique is really proportionate. You’re also really pretty damn lean.

1 Like
1085

I’m always hard on myself, and so are you! :wink:

I can fix my legs once I’ve recovered from surgery. I really haven’t been doing much with them compared to my old workouts. I’ll just add some extra isolation movements to target specific muscles. I used to do more single leg work and isolation work. I’ve kind of slowly drifted to my current style of training where leg training comes from squats, deads, and cleans.

Those all hit the legs but it’s nothing like squats + lunges + leg press + leg curls.

On the plus side of things I want to add quality muscle and get stronger. As long as I’m patient and stay conservative with my diet then I can work towards those simultaneously and improving one will help the other. The only trouble I’ll run into would be if I gained too fast and had to cut some fluff.

Did you read the article about weight loss that used the approach of being restricted for two weeks and then switching to maintenence for two weeks and repeating that cycle?

I wonder if that would be a good approach for gaining…

1086

Haven’t read the article, no. I’m not sure how well it’d work compared to a slower, steadier gaining period.

What seems to have worked reasonably well for me is gradually adding calories until things got a little too fluffy and then reigning back in. We’re talking 100 extra calories every four weeks or so, with what I guess could be called strategic carb binges. I mean, I’ve added some fat along with muscle, but of the 10 or so pounds of weight I’ve added over the last nine weeks I’d estimate that at least 75 per cent is lean mass.

1087

I’d call that a win.

1088

So would I. That’s why I don’t really see how two weeks in a surplus followed by two weeks in a deficit (however slight each may be) is really necessary. I mean, surr, it’s probably going to work but it also probably isn’t the simplest way of going about it.

1089

Probably not - what are you achieving with a 2 week maintenance on a bulk?
On a cur it lets your body and rest you can fill up your glycogen stores and thus you end up with a more sustainable (yet longer) diet and less muscle loss, but on a bulk you only get a break from eating - there’s no fat loss or insulin sensitivity increase, both of which could be achieved by a 1-2 week mini cut during the bulk.

That’s why bulking for 6-8 weeks and then cutting for 1-2 weeks makes much more sense to me at least.

1 Like
1090

That’s another approach. The reason for considering a cyclical approach is to hopefully avoid adding too much fat…which is obviously what I fear.

Since I’m hungry at the moment there’s a part of me that wants to binge eat and dirty bulk but I know I’d hate myself when I looked in the mirror lol

1 Like
1091

Weekly Averages

Weight: 219.6 lbs
Calories: 2969
Carbs: 299g
Fat: 99g
Protein: 192g

Sadly, Yesterday’s dinner was horrible enough to raise the averages quite a bit for the whole week. I actually didn’t track dinner but to get a somewhat accurate representation of the week I went back and ball parked everything.

I’m not upset. After looking back at my nutrition from earlier in the year when I looked better I’ve kind of settled on hitting 300/100/200g for carbs/fat/protein. Hopefully that can be my maintenence level and I can adjust from there.

1092

12.18.17

Woke at 222.2 lbs after Christmas dinner at my grandma’s.

Yesterday’s Nutrition (guesstimates)
4838 calories, 501g carbs, 209g fat, 206g protein.

As you can see I hit the desserts hard again. Lots of extra calories but no extra protein. Oh, well. I actually looked decent in the mirror this morning.

I’m also fasting/punishing myself by not eating this morning. I’ll try to hold off until it’s time for my pre-workout meal.

1093

Training Full Body Day 2 of 3

Surprisingly I felt pretty good lifting today even though I did a full body session yesterday. There’s something about the stiffness/tension in the muscles that actually makes my lifts feel better.

3 lap dynamic warm-up
Deadlift
135 x 5 + 10 RDL’s
225 x 3
225 x 3 squat stance (everything squat stance from here on)
275 x 1
315 x 1
365 x 1
395 x 1
425 x 1
455 x 0 — I broke it loose from the floor but my right arm began to pull from the socket. I used to sublux it frequently. I dropped it due to that. I might’ve lost tightness or I never had it. To be honest I wasn’t really focusing on that part of the lift since I was trying a new stance and grip. I used hook grip up til 365 and then I had to get out the straps. I was also using the deadlift bar.

Squat
225 x 5 x 3 — felt better than any of my squats yesterday.

Hammer OHP
140 x 10 x 5 sets
superset with
Lat Pull-Down
180 x 10 x 5

Machine Fly
120 x 10 x 2
90 x 10F/10T/10B
superset with
Machine Rear Delt/Rev Fly
90 x 10 x 2
70 x 10F/10T/10B

Reverse Press-Down
115 x 10F/10B/10T
115 x 10T/10B/10F with some upper arm swing to get the weight moving

1 Like