Lava2007 Training Log

Training Training Logs
661

8 September 2018 - Weak Points Bodyweight: 214.0lbs
Side Plank mountain climbers, 25sec
Knee Clams 1:10 each side
Soft tissue glute & quads

Prone Hamstring Curls 4x8 3 plates + 10lbs (60sec)
Calf Raises 3x10 2 plates, 3-5sec peak contraction (60sec)
Prone Rear Delt Snow Angels (on a bench) 3x15 5lbs each hand (90sec)
Face Pulls 3x20 32.5lbs (60sec)
Close Grip Bench 95x25, 135x15, 185x10, 225x5 (90sec)
Pallof Press w/ Twist 2x10 each side 27.5lbs (6sec per rep) (60sec)
Hammer Curls 3x8 40lbs (60sec)
EZ Bar Curls 1x25 55lbs
1 mile walk/run (10min 45sec)

Notes
214 today on day 3 of the diet. Yesterday was 213.2 I think, and now I’m heavier which is weird because I didn’t eat a lot last night and I only had 3 eggs and 52oz water before my workout. Who knows.

I upped the banded knee clams by 10sec for each side. My gluteus mediuses are growing powerful, but I need to make sure I continue working on my gluteus maximuses. I’ll probably do single leg squats for the gluteus maximus on my deadlift days in place of front squats.

I don’t have a lot to say about today other than everything felt good. My upper back was feeling a little tweaky earlier today so I made sure to hit it hard in the gym and strengthen it up. Close grip bench was easy, I wasn’t worried about fatiguing and failing. 225x5 was RPE 6, I think I could’ve done 245x5 as a top set, but I’m benching on Monday so I didn’t want to take any chances. The whole point was to get some tricep volume today, so that’s what I did.

I felt the Pallof presses with a slow twist hit me deep in my core, which is exactly what I needed. Felt bad in a good way.

I did biceps because even though arm work is boring, I’ve always been proud of my arms and lately I’ve noticed that the bicep definition and vascularity is fleeting at best. It could be attributed to my record-high body fat levels, but I think it also has something to do with me never doing direct arm work. So on days when I feel good and know I’m resting the next day, I’ll probably be hitting arms and hamstrings to keep my physique as well-rounded as possible.

Day 3 of the diet is pretty much in the books. This is easy as hell. Way easier than I anticipated, and I’m well aware that I’m only 3 days in, but come on. The food doesn’t appeal to my taste buds very well, but a little barbecue sauce and a quick glance in the mirror is all I need to throw down the veggies and chicken. I’m starting to think that I should just make this how I eat all the time. Greek yogurt is great, too. 1:1 ratio of protein to carbs because I’m a sane person who enjoys vanilla-flavored yogurt with sugar in it. Skim milk has never been a problem for me because that’s what I drank for the first 18-19 years of my life lol.

The only thing I’m worried about is maybe I’m not eating enough calories. I’ve heard a lot about “the hardest part of being on a diet is accepting the fact that you will be hungry all the time.”

For the second day in a row, I’m sitting here fairly late at night (7:30) with 1,200 calories left. That’s just under half of my daily calories. I’m starting to think that maybe my metabolism is fucked up, because I’m just not hungry. I lift hard fairly often, but for whatever reason my body just isn’t interested in food. As long as I get 200g+ of protein every day and get enough fat from my peanut butter, I’m fine. I can go without carbs pretty easily. Right now I’m at 152g protein, 78g carbs, and 21g fat. Some 2% milk and peanut butter should get me where I want to be. My only concern is that if I don’t eat enough, if I’m only eating 2,000 calories/day, it’ll be very difficult for me to cut. I can do 2,000 and force feed up to 3-4k if I need to, but if I had to be at 1,400 to cut, I’d rather be fat. I’m hoping the cardio kicks my body into a fat-burning/food-wanting gear soon. I’d feel really stupid if I unknowingly fucked up my metabolism.

On the other hand, I could just be full because yesterday and today I’ve eaten 1lb of chicken and a serving of green beans–my body isn’t used to that and those are generally hailed as two pretty satiating foods, especially with that quantity of chicken.

662

I’ve got about six weeks before I even think about a cut. Two weeks left on this cycle of 531 the. The deload and anchor cycle.

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663

Are you gonna start tracking food now, or after 5/3/1?

664

I’ve been trying to “cut back” some and only eat when I’m hungry but game day meals are what you can find when you can find it. Add to that the ice cream summer we have had and I can say my diet has been good.

I’ll clean it up now through the next six weeks and see where I need to get from there

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665

Which one do you use? I’ve been thinking about getting one to help my shoulder heal

666

Intuitive eating. That’s the best way to do it. Eat when you’re hungry, and don’t when you’re not.

The brand is HealthmateForever. I got mine on Amazon for under $30 in the U.S. It’s the same size as a large TV remote, it uses triple A batteries, and comes with 8 electrode things which you can change out when the old ones go bad. I used mine for several hours a day, every day, for like 2 months and the electrodes hadn’t gone bad and the batteries hadn’t run out, but it helped my recovery a lot I think.

There are some that are $100+, but IMO it’s like comparing a flip phone to an iPhone 10. They can both do generally the same things, but the more expensive option comes with some added features (more settings, more power, more electrode outlets, etc.) I don’t think anyone needs their own personal military-grade electric stimulation machine unless you’re planning on torturing someone or something, but that’s just my opinion.

One of my best friends referred me to it, and I recommended it to my old coach and training partner for his pec and shoulder and it helped him out too, he really likes it. So I’ll recommend it to you too. Idk how expensive it would be in Sweden, but I’m sure you can find something of comparable price and quality online.

Bottom line: get one. I figured that at the end of the day, it’s only $30. If it doesn’t work, then I paid $30 to learn that electric stim is a joke. In hindsight, it’s lightyears ahead of any other recovery device/supplement/whatever in terms of usefulness. You can throw it on in the car, before bed, while watching TV, etc. My favorite thing to do is put it on before I take a nap. Go to sleep with an achey or angry nerve, wake up feeling like a million bucks. Go for it.

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667

Cheers mate. Was unable to find a retailer that shipped that one but I found a similar product, same price point. Just 4 electrodes though. Ordered that. Hopefully it will work just as well as yours.

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668

Of course, man. I hope it helps you. In regards to the electrodes; mine has 4 possible outputs for 8 total electrode pads, but I only use 2 at a time. That’s what I meant by that. I only use 2 because I don’t feel like running through 3 Triple A’s every 2 weeks, and I don’t want to be ordering packs of electrode pads to my house. That’d get me on the FBI watchlist somehow.

It should work pretty well. Truth be told, the electrode hasn’t helped me with muscle recovery as much as it has with nerve recovery. I’ve found that drinking as much water and sleeping as much as possible works better for recovering than electricity lol.

Plan for the Week
Monday - Snatch Grip Deads + Bench 10x3 60sec rest
Tuesday - recovery & cardio
Wednesday - Back Squat + OHP 10x3 55sec rest
Thursday - Recovery & Cardio
Friday - Snatch Grip Deads + Bench 10x3 55sec rest
Saturday - Off
Sunday - Back Squat + OHP 10x3 55sec rest, +2% on each lift

I’m working on Saturday all night so I’m going to utilize that as my non-lifting day, like I did today. I’m excited to do my snatch grip deadlifts and bench on a 10x3 scheme. I want to do 225-275 for deadlifts and 225 for bench press. I think it’s doable but it’s going to depend, as usual, on how I feel.

My diet this weekend has been alright. I had one big meal today, comprised mainly of chicken. I had 2 cans of pop as well as half of a waffle. Other than that, just a protein shake. So my protein is probably only around 170g today, but I haven’t had my pre-bedtime peanut butter and milk. I’ll get to 200g. Tomorrow night I’m meeting up with an old friend to get a burger at our favorite restaurant, so that will almost definitely put me over 2,540 calories. (Actually, after looking it up, that meal is 72g protein, 166g carbs, and 57g fat. 1,640 calories. Holy crap.) So all day I’ll probably just have my chicken and green beans and 30-40g of pre workout carbs. The burger and shake should tide me over for the rest of the night presuming I go to bed at a reasonable hour for once… I’ll make that the goal. I only have 900 calories to spare for the rest of the day because of that dinner, but it’s worth it.

It’s also 2am and I’m rambling, sorry. My mind isn’t used to functioning for 18 hours straight. Good night. I hope you all had good weekends

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669

Lmao… :joy:

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670

10 September 2018 - Bench & Deads (man… feels good to write that again)
Bodyweight: 216.6lbs
Warmup:
-Soft tissue work
-30 sec side plank mountain climbers
-55 seconds of knee clams each side

Pause Bench 10x3 225lbs (50-60sec rest)
Conventional Deadlift 2x3 315lbs (60sec)
Squat Stance Deadlift 2x3 315lbs (60sec)
Sumo Deadlift 4x3 315lbs (60sec)
Seated DB OHP 30x10, 50x8, 60x5, 75x15 (PR)
Lat Pulldowns 8x8 130lbs (30sec)
1:15 front plank
0:45 side planks
Tricep Extensions 3x15 42.5lbs

Notes
Deadlifts are officially back. 315 was flying off the floor with all styles but sumo was by far the easiest. Credit that to my glute work I suppose.

Bench was easy and hard simultaneously. 225 does not feel heavy to me anymore, which I realized today. However, it is still heavy enough for me to become fatigued by set 4-5 and really have to dig in to finish all 10 sets. My weak point is off the chest so I figured I’ll just pause it. From now on I’ll probably pause everything that’s 5 reps or less. Anything more than that would take way too long to complete a set IMO.

I PR’d in seated db ohp today. I have no idea how that keeps happening. 75s for 15 reps! I wish that would transfer to my standing barbell OHP better, but oh well. A PR is a PR.

Lat Pulldown Day 13. 419 + 64 = 483 total reps. Looks like I’ll need to do pulldowns for the next 2-3 days in a row if I want to stay ahead of schedule. No issues there, my lats don’t get sore. Maybe it’s time to move on to pull ups for the second half of this challenge.

My diet went a little off track today. 238g protein, 253g carbs, 83g fat. 2700 calories–which, if my maintenance truly is 3,100, is still a deficit. But that’s still 160 calories above my goal. Nothing to freak out about.

My weight today was 216.6lbs which almost 1.5lbs more than I weighed in at last Sunday. Again, I’m not too worried. The only iffy day I’ve had was Sunday at work, where the food we eat is usually carb-heavy. I do think it’s possible that I went over the limit on Sunday. Aside from that, I was at or below 2,540 calories every day this week with my protein always above 200g. I didn’t go over the limit with carbs or fats at all all week, until today, I went over on carbs by 30-40g, which will do nothing but help me with this week of training. I looked a shade leaner than I did last week, in my opinion. I haven’t started to really shed any fat, which is no surprise seeing as it’s only been 7-8 days on this diet.

The only time I’ll be worried is if I’m 4-5 weeks into the diet and I’m not regularly around 210-212. I do have a lot of fat to lose, mainly on my stomach, and I’ll be upset with myself if I see no changes after another month. Being in a ~500-600 calorie deficit every day should put me at 1lb per week. There are lot of negative scenarios swirling around in my head, but I have made a personal resolution that I will think positively about everything that I can, which includes this diet. If worse comes to worst, I’ll try to significantly cut my carbs and drop about 20g of fat to get myself down to 2100 calories.

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671

Take tape measurements, my fellow dieter friend. Scales aren’t as good a gauge of your progress as tape measurements are. As soon as you get some extra carbs in you the scale will report back that you are getting heavier as you’ll retain some extra water.

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672

I’m weighing in every day, and putting it in an app, that way I can see what way my body weight is going. Not paying much attention day to day, but if I weighed in one day a week, then I wouldn’t really know. My weight fluctuates a lot during the week.
Keep up the good work Lava, stick to the plan for at least 3 weeks. If your maintenance before was 3100 then eating 500 or more less will have you loosing weight.

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673

I did take some tape measurements (arms, stomach, butt, chest, thighs) on Day 1. I probably won’t take any measurements for at least another month. I don’t want to dishearten myself unintentionally by seeing little to no progress on the tapes either.

I figured that loading up on carbs would have something to do with it. It also seems to have reinvigorated my appetite, because I’ve been starving all day today. I’m about to have 8oz of chicken and some green beans for lunch. I’ll be home in a few hours and then I’ll treat myself to some eggs and possibly pork and green beans for dinner. I feel like a good way to accelerate this diet is by adding in more servings of vegetables each day. 1 serving per day is still more than I was having before, but I feel like 2+ would be even better.

I weigh in every time I go to the gym after my workout and then putting it at the top of my workout log entries. It’s tough because it’s after a workout pretty much at the end of the day, so depending on how much I ate/drank/used the bathroom throughout the course of the day can definitely create a significant variance in terms of poundage by 8pm. I’ll try to go off of what I see in the mirror and what the tape measures say, though. It’s interesting to see how much I’m weighing on a day-to-day basis, but putting stock in that is a surefire way to lose motivation when you aren’t making “progress.”

Will do mate. I just estimated my maintenance, but if it’s correct, then I should be seeing changes shortly. My forearms are appearing to be more vascular today than they were last week, which is a good sign.

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674

Obviously, you know your psyche better than I do. And, I’m 100% for everyone finding their own way and developing their own methodologies and approaches to both dieting and training; if you think this is what is best for you then power to you. But, I want to weigh in with my 2 cents from my own experience.

Taking measurements that far apart will be uninformative. What if you are progressing the first two weeks but are essentially stalled the latter two? What if your weight loss has stalled, but your measurements have improved, so you are effectively body recomping? You wouldn’t know when you take measurements that rarely, you’d only be guessing.

And,

if so, dust yourself off. Learn from it. Start anew the next week, possibly with some adjustments. If you haven’t progressed and you can’t figure out an obvious culprit such as “Oh, carby thing X was on sale so I bought that and have been having that every morning with breakfast” (I did this literally this week), then it’s time to either up the activity level or decrease calories. But, if there is an obvious culprit, but the measurements are moving in the right direction then don’t change anything.

What? If you add vegetables, what are you removing?

You’ve pretty much identified the problem with this approach. So, buy a scale if you don’t have one and weigh yourself first thing every morning. I keep my scale in the bedroom when I diet, I literally do nothing but get up and weigh myself after the alarm rings. Keeps daily perturbations to a minimum.

Yeah, don’t put stock in what happens between one day and the next, but if the change is + instead of - several days in a row, then you know that going into the next week and can make informed decisions for those days.

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675

That’s a good point. I’ve noticed that you take your measurements fairly often. For me though, I think seeing a 0.5cm difference after an entire week would just annoy me more than anything. The bottom line is that I’m dieting, and I’m doing the right thing. I’m making healthier choices and even if I don’t drop as much fat as I would like, I feel just as good in a caloric deficit as I did at maintenance and in a surplus. I’d like to credit the lean meat and veggies for that.

Nothing. There was only one day in the last 8 days that I came within 200kcal of my calorie limit, and then yesterday I went over by about 140 Calories. So, even if I did add another serving of green beans (1/2 cup amounts to about 30 calories), I could just drink 2oz less of milk in a day. Fairly inconsequential compared to other things that I could try adding to my diet haha. I’d like to add another serving or two of veggies to help keep myself full and get some extra micronutrients without needing to change everything else that I’m eating.

I take care of a family friend’s dog every few months, and I’m going to be staying at their house with their dog from 9/18 until 10/2, which happens to be right smack in the middle of my diet. They have a scale in their bathroom which is no more than a couple meters from the bedroom, so that’s what I would do. Wake up, take a piss, and step on the scale. Always in nothing but my underwear so I can get the best reading possible. I need to look up how much scales cost, because I’d love to have one, but my mom would also kill me if I spent too much on something so frivolous. (I’m imagining that’s the word she would use.)

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676

I think monthly check-ins are sufficient for progress tracking. Get a decent digital scale. It’ll cost like $30, maybe $20. Mine is in the bathroom and I do exactly as you described. I step on it first thing after emptying my bladder. After a while you’ll be able to tell when you’ve eaten too late or had too much salt. It’s interesting to see how food directly affects your morning-after weight.

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677

Yup I do the exact same thing, it’s become a habit, I’ve even started going to the scale in the evenings :slight_smile: looking at it making a guess on what next mornings weight will be.
You’ll come a long way eating healthy, maybe not the big weight loss, but more of a body recomp or what it’s called.
Use the mirror as well.
Wtf this is a mens log, we should be taking beer and barbecue.

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678

I’m totally okay with a body recomp. My issue has never been the number on the scale, just what I see in the mirror. Some people won’t stop until they see the number they want to see… but I’ll stop when I see the body I want to see in the mirror :slight_smile:

I agree. Speaking of beer, do non-light beers have significantly more calories, or is “light beer” just a marketing ploy to get people who would have otherwise quit to continue drinking beer? I’ll be honest, and I will be shamed, but keep in mind I’m 20 years old. My top 3 beers are Busch Light, Coors Light, and Bud Light. In that order. Natty light is a close 4th place. However, at the end of the day, it all tastes vaguely like piss during your first beer and water during your last. That’s how all light beer is IMO.

That’s awesome. That’ll be a really useful tool for me to figure out what I should and shouldn’t be eating, too. I’ll buy one on Amazon after my next paycheck comes in!

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679

12 September 2018 - Legs Bodyweight: 216.0lbs
Warmup: Soft tissue glutes, 1:05 knee clams, 20 side plank mountain climbers, 15 bicycle kicks
Barbell Squats (low/high bar) 135x5, 225 3x3 OUCH
Single Leg DB Goblet Squats 3x10 80lbs (120sec)
OHP 10x3 135lbs (20-30sec)
Narrow Stance Front Squats 3x3 185lbs (60sec)
0.25 miles in 2:45 (first minute walking)
3min stair stepper @ 80 steps/min

Notes
My left hip flexor was screaming at me again today so I couldn’t squat. So I went ahead and hit the glutes. I’m not disheartened, because I haven’t done single leg squats in almost 2 weeks so my glutes must have lost what they gained from that already. That’s not a bad thing, it just means I need to be doing it more often.

OHP was easy, will move the weight up next time. I’m tempted to take 135 for an AMRAP and see how many I can do. I think I got 16 last time, but I really think I could do more. I’m also tempted to do that mantathalon thing again that @Frank_C posted about. I think last time I got 69 reps total (didn’t even plan it lol), and I’d like to get 80. Maybe on Sunday just for fun.

The narrow stance front squats were immediately following my OHP. I just sort of figured that since I had the rack set up, I might as well try it. In February, when my right hip flexor wouldn’t let me squat, I switched to front squats for ~8 weeks and when I came back to back squats the pain was gone. So I may do fronts for the rest of this cut…wouldn’t hurt my progress with getting visible abs either, that’s for sure.

My cardio was half-assed tonight which I’m ashamed to admit. I was planning on running a mile in ~9 minutes but I just didn’t have the juice for it tonight. I was more or less mentally checked out once my back squats went out the window. On the bright side, I ran 0.20 miles in 1min 45sec exactly. If I could keep that pace, that’s an 8min 45 sec mile. Plus my single leg squats and OHP had me breathing harder than normal, so my heart rate was up. That’s the goal for every workout…just get that heart rate up.

Tomorrow will be a nice active rest day. I miiiight go for a walk/jog on the path in my neighborhood, but I might jump rope. I jumped rope yesterday (got 125 or 135 in 60sec) but my head was throbbing from a headache that I carried with me all day, so I packed it up after that 60sec bout. Pathetic, but I wasn’t feeling the jumping motion at all. Then I’ll come downstairs and do some plate slides, which are supposed to help with hip strength. I’ll also do some band work for my arms and rear delts (all boring groups to train) and just try to get a pump.

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680

Nice work man. Hate to hear the hip is still and issue. Watching this rehab process though. And glad I’m gaining on ya😈

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