Question: Could a sudden increase in protein intake be used to increase healing speed of wounds such as cuts or bruises that I incurred through mistakes made while breakdancing?
On Wednesday and Thursday, I ate two chicken breasts on top of what I normally ate.
At about 6 oz chicken in each breast and 9g protein per ounce of chicken, there is 9*6=54g protein per chicken breast.
Thus, in C/P/F, my diet went from 310/150/95 to 310/258/95.
I noticed that my shoulder wound from windmills dried and healed substantially between Wednesday and Saturday, along with my bruises. While the extra chicken probably helped a lot, it did not help as well as I thought it would on paper.
Between Wednesday and Thursday I ate an excess of 216g of protein. At 28.4g = 1 oz, I ingested about 7.6 ounces of straight up amino acids for bodily repair. It probably takes a lot less than 7.6 oz of meat to cover up the square inch boo-boo on my shoulder and repair the small ruptures that resulted in bruises.
So the increased protein intake did help; my bruises faded and my shoulder “wound” dried up and started patching itself up in under 4 days where it took a full week break from windmills last time I tried letting my body heal itself up just to make the shoulder stop bleeding.
But it did not help as much as I thought it would; my shoulder “wound” is still open and I still have the same amount of bruises that I had before, although the shoulder is dry and closing itself up while the bruises are fading out.
So the answer to the question is - It helps. But it isn’t a linear relationship where I could’ve taken down two whole chickens a day on top of everything else, went to bed, and woke up fine. What I’m taking away from this is that I would be better off eating at least 200g protein per day instead of the 150g that I’m able to get right now.
Deadlift
5x140
5x160
14x185 - Demolished the old 11x185. Got to rep 12 and knew I didn’t spend weeks of diet and training just to put one more rep on this lift at this weight.
Power clean
1x6 - 95
2x6 - 105
Good morning - Hesitant about increasing the load on this one even if some reps get cut out.
2x10 - 75
1x10 - 80
Lat pull-down - Back and biceps were dead, so these were a bust. But I pulled (haha) through them anyways.
1x5 - 110
2x5 - 100
Breakdancing practice
Windmills - Did a couple really good ones and nailed down some good technique but it went downhill from there as I started getting tired, then frustrated, then more tired, etc until where I could’ve left triumphant, I left bruised and defeated. I learned a valuable lesson today.
Down - 0 stops
Caught my breath a bit
Back - 2 stops
Breakdancing practice later today. I swore I would NOT be doing ANY windmills until the bruises I got from them are FULLY HEALED.
Breakdancing practice - Started learning a new move today.
Flares
Worked up to getting the lower body drive to do a half-flare.
Extend the right leg to maximize the vertical distance I get
Get acquainted with the yoga-like semi-handstand positions between each individual flare movement
Put the right hand under the body faster for more support/air.
DB bench press
1x6 - 35s
2x6 - 40s - Almost missed the last rep of the last set with 40s, so I took it back down.
2x6 - 35s
Lat pull-down
2x5 - 110
1x5 - 120
Farmer’s walk - 50s
Walked 6x the length of the gym. Was a little over 50 yards.
Left bicep and lower back still sore from deadlift day, so I went into the supermarket woods and hunted down a chicken breast for myself. Don’t want to squat tomorrow with a sore lower back. Hope I won’t need to do this next week.
Breakdancing later tonight to give my legs time to ‘un-pump’.
Strictly flares practice today. I can do a half-flare. I have more explosiveness in the initial leg kick-off. Good progress. Left earlier than I planned to because it puts a serious demand on my right forearm (not the muscle, the bone itself). Hard to explain how this works but it hurt and I remembered how stupid I was with windmills the other day. So I called it a night. Back at it tomorrow.
Overhead press
3x70
3x75 (was stupid and only put on a 10 and a 5 instead of a 10, a 5, and a 2.5)
3x80
10x90 - Broke 8x90. I could really feel myself digging deeper than I ever did before when I was grinding out the 10th rep.
Deadlift
3x155
3x175
12x195 - DEMOLISHED the previous 6x195.
Power clean
3x6 - 105
Good morning
3x10 - 80
Bent-over row
4x6 - 115
DB kroc row
1x25 - 55
Lat pull-down - This lift seems to suffer after doing five pulling/back exercises. Hm, curious.
1x5 - 100
2x5 - 110
Breakdancing practice
Flares - Need more explosive hip/leg power to make the switch and keep coming around while keeping legs wide.
Swirling around with the little idea of testing 1RMs for lifts after this cycle because it looks like all my formula-projected 1RMs are higher than… Yeah, nevermind. I’ll just shut up now, put my head down, and stick with the program.
I don’t regularly post my diet (tedious enough to post workout info), but here’s what I have in a day. You will find that I am not afraid of the controversial fructose, saturated fat, starch, dairy, and gluten. I’m fine with occasionally having a bunch of extra protein because from experience I know it doesn’t affect me negatively. Except for the occasional restaurant outing my diet is consistently 300/150/100 in C/P/F.
You can click on the picture to make it bigger (if you didn’t know that already).
Prowler push
~170 yds (found out that was the distance that I’ve been pushing it all this time)
+90 lbs
Two stops total.
Breakdancing
Flares - Needs more PPPOOOOOWWWWWEEEEEERRRRRRR
Air chairs - I FINALLY figured out how to do these from a chair freeze reasonably quickly.
Hang freeze - I can do these with two hands close together. I don’t have the strength to do it with one hand. Reason I’m working with balance on this is because I have a friend who wants me to do a freeze on his back while he’s doing a freeze on the ground.
Bench press
3x90
3x100
11x115 - Beat 10x115. Was gonna go for another one but my spotter grabbed the bar and racked it. I lost my concentration, got up, and the set was over.
Incline BP
1x6 - 95
4x6 - 100
DB BP
2x6 - 35s
3x6 - 40s
Lat pull-down
2x5 - 120
1x3:F - 130
Farmer’s walk (More of a run than a walk. Is this allowed?)
6 trips (~50 yds)
60s
Squat
3x145
3x165
9x185 - Beat 8x180 and 9x175. Very good.
Front squat
4x6 - 115
Good morning - Had a little trouble with form on these today.
2x10 - 80
1x10 - 85
DB bulgarian squat*
1x5:F - 55s
1x6 - 50s
1x6 - 55s
Lat pull-down
2x5 - 120
1x5 - 130
Tried a pull-up, no dice. Maybe I need less frequency to progress. Gonna see how it works if I take them out of deadlift/squat days of next week.
*1 set of Y reps means I hit each leg for Y reps. If I only accomplish A reps for a certain leg but Y for the other, where A < Y, the set will be counted as 1xA, not 1xY.
I find myself becoming more irritable by little things, jacking off less, momentarily spacing off in the direction of the cardio theater screen, and bruising easily (breakdancing). When week four comes around I’m going to need to deload with a vengeance. I also think the prowler pushing has something to do with feeling more drained.
Breakdancing
Flares - I’m thinking too much on these. Found that just doing 25 attempts in this session helped me find out what I needed to do.
Chair freeze - I can go from a 3rd world squat into one of these, which is pretty good. I need to do it faster, though.
Light breakdancing practice today. I feel that flares are making me slam my forearm against the floor, damaging not the muscle but the bone. Scary.
Flares - Did 16 attempts of them. I can land on my butt with my legs wide so the next goal is to land with my feet switched.
CCW windmills - CW windmills make my still-healing shoulder bleed so I’m practicing them in the other direction, slowly.
Weight: 142 lbs (up by .5)
Waist: 29" (same)
Chest: 36.5" (down by 1/8")
Added an extra 1 T. PB per day not for gaining weight but because I love PB. Looks like it had very little effect. Score!
Took down these pictures.
I’m still small but I got a lot stronger. I hate to seem like one of the kids that wants to ‘slim, rip, and tone’ but the fact of the matter is I’m a 16 year old with parents that would flip if I started doing my own grocery shopping to get bigger even if I could afford it. (they said I was getting fat at 130)
I would like to get bigger later, but for now and forever I’m pretty sure my main goal will be strength. I just have this awesome image in my head of being a mild-mannered 145-lb high school student that can press anyone over his head and throw him across a a class room.
Deadlift
5x160
3x185
13x205 - Tore a hole through previous 12x195. Estimated 1RM is 294. Contemplating spending a week working up to 1RMs after my deload week for this cycle so I can ‘reset’ and use heavier and harder weights. WIll see after this week.
Power clean
2x6 - 105
1x6 - 110
Good morning
1x10 - 80
2x10 - 85 - Form was much better today that last squat day.
Bent-over row
3x6 - 115
1x6 - 120
DB kroc row
1x25 - 60
Breakdancing
Flares - Landed with legs crossed at the shins. Progressing towards my goal of doing one full flare.
Air chairs - Tied them into a routine, with and without the freeze before the kick. Both were smooth and, well, good.
Only one stop instead of last week’s two. Next week will add 10 lbs.
Breakdancing later. Shoulder still not healed from windmills, but I think bruises are. I need more protein, but for that I need more money, but for that I need a job. So I’ve been hunting one of those down for the past couple weeks.
Flares - Getting better at flipping all the way over
Air chairs - Transitioning faster.
1-leg air swipes - BW onto hands, left leg stabilizes
Front handsprings - EXCELLENT
Left hand windmills - Do them faster. Doing these while my right shoulder heals.
Bench press
5x95
3x105
8x120 - Hoped to do 10, but oh well. I think the prowler push yesterday drained me for today’s workout. Next cycle I will experiment with totally removing the prowler push. I looked at my ‘rep records.xls’ spreadsheet and saw that ever since I started doing prowler pushes in cycles 3 and 4, my rep records for the lifts that I do after prowler day (bench and squat) have been dismal in progression at best.
