Lifting Weights on Chemo

Training Training Logs
301

Cycle 6 Week 3 Day 3
Greg Robins Bench 531 5’s Progression
25-07-14

Bench (2 second pause first rep)
3 x 85kg
3 x 85
3 x 85
3 x 85
3 x 85

Bench Row
8 x 60kg
8 x 60
8 x 60
8 x 60

DB OHP
26 x 10kg Pair
20 x 10
18 x 10

Skull Crushers
20 x 10kg Pair
18 x 10
12 x 10

Curls
20 x 10kg Pair
14 x 10
12 x 10

Today wasn’t a bad day at all. My dog is pissed off with me as he didn’t get his walk because I was busy painting a room in my house all day. Have a housemate moving out short notice so I need to tidy up the bedroom a bit.

Really happy with how this cycle is going now - just enough energy to get everything done and I only need one short nap most days.

Happy lifting, everybody.

302

Good work all round.

Glad logging here helps you with your lazy days as it helps those of us reading with ours - win, win!

303

[quote]Lift and Eat wrote:
Good work all round.

Glad logging here helps you with your lazy days as it helps those of us reading with ours - win, win![/quote]

If so, all the more reason for logging! I despise my former lazy self haha. Can’t believe how many workouts I missed through hangovers and being useless, before I got sick.

304

Cycle 6 Week 3 Day 4
Greg Robins Bench + 531 5’s Progression
27-07-14

Bench Press (1s pause all reps)
3 x 85kg
3 x 85
3 x 85
3 x 85

OHP
5 x 40kg
5 x 45
5 x 50

Chins
10 hammer grip
10 overhand
10 underhand

Dips
x 10, 10, 10

BB Curl
15 x 20kg
10 x 20
10 x 20

Pretty happy with the ohp as it puts my E1RM near 60kg, which is a good improvement on recent numbers.
Felt pretty tired today but no major chemo side effects, and have had a godd weekend chilling with my dog and friends.

Watched Pompei last night and thought it was very entertaining if not entirely accurate haha. Tsunami!

305

Glad to see things seem to be going well. Keep it up!

306

[quote]zenontheterrible wrote:
Glad to see things seem to be going well. Keep it up! [/quote]

Will do bro! 1 cycle of 531 + chemo to go. It’s all timed out pretty well.

307

Cycle 6 Week 3 Day 5
Greg Robins Bench + 531 5’s Progression
28-07-14

Squat
3 x 82.5kg
3 x 95
3 x 105

Deadlift
5 x 75kg
5 x 85
5 x 95

Single Leg Calf Raise
15 x 40kg
15 x 40
15 x 40

I felt pretty tired again but managed to get through it and pull the required reps.

Bodyweight 81.2kg.

Probably my biggest issue right now is my appetite is shot. Breakfast is fine, lunch makes me feel fairly sickly, second lunch (calorie shake) goes down fine, dinner is a battle. Probably coming in well under my 3200 target and protein count will definitely not be ideal.

But fuck it; three weeks left and I am free.

Now I must decide what template / arrangement to do for my final cycle of 531 while on chemo! Pretty keen to try and hit some (recent) rep records so I can do a “post surgery and post chemo” compare.

308

Rest day today, and I spent it coming up with my plan for the final 3 weeks of chemo.
I’m going to continue with the Greg Robins bench program, no point ditching it as I really enjoy it and feel I’m getting good strength gains. And I will move to a 3/5/1 Full Body Training template, much like one I used for a year in 2012 with good results.

Day 1
Squat 3/5/1
Bench (Greg Robins)
Bench Row
30 Chins
Tris and Bis (optional)

Day 2
Squat FBT 3,3,3 @ 70/80/90%
Bench (Greg Robins)
Press 3/5/1
30 Chins
Delts (optional)

Day 3
Squat FBT 5,3,1 @ 75/85/95%
Bench (Greg Robins)
Deadlift 3/5/1
30 Chins
Bis and Tris (optional)

Based on prior experience and common sense, this should work pretty well. I decided on the three day template because I’m having real trouble with fatigue and I feel the 4 rest days will be beneficial for me at this stage, compared to 5 and 2.

Looking forward to ripping in tomorrow! :slight_smile:

309

Cycle 7 Week 1 Day 1
Greg Robins Bench with 351 FBT
30-07-14

Squat 351
3 x 85kg
3 x 100
7 x 110

Bench (pause 1st rep 2s)
2 x 90kg
2 x 90
2 x 90

Bench Row
12 x 50kg
12 x 50
10 x 50

30 Chins between sets

DB Curls
18 x 10kg pair
14 x 10
14 x 10

DB Skull Crusher
20 x 10kg
18 x 10
18 x 10

I woke up at 80.4kg today, which sucks. I’m definitely dropping a bit of weight, but with reduced caloric intake what can ya do? Only 3 weeks left and then I should get my eating under control fairly quickly.
Main issue is I really don’t feel like meat or cheese or eggs or any of that awesome protein-rich goodness. Oh and fats make me nauseous haha.

I had my second counselling session today, which was awesome. I left with a great bullet list of things to ponder / work on such as:

-Reducing anxiety and obsessive behaviour, as there’s a strong link between anxiety and low immune system. So looking at allowing for relaxation and meditation time, and quitting my habit of planning every day down to the minute. Apparently anxious people like myself tend to annihilate spontaneity in an attempt to control everything. She did point out my training habits could be defined as obsessive :wink:

-Planning a ritual for finishing chemotherapy. Something like writing a letter “to chemo” about my experience and burning or burying it in some symbolic send-off.

-Not to over burden myself with expectation of what I want to achieve in the time following completion of chemo. IE not to load myself with insane goals then run myself into the ground.

-Work on my relationship and try to distinguish gratitude from love, and find the patience to allow myself to “feel” normally again. Chemo has completely fucked my emotions so it’s been pretty hard on my relationship. I should point out I first was admitted to hospital on our second date, so of course Kat has never known “healthy” Jay.

-Discuss with my Oncologists what my prognosis is, to stop my anxiety defining it for me. Also discuss what to realistically expect as far as how long it takes to recover from chemo and how long I need to keep taking my nausea meds etc.

So as you can see I have a lot to ponder! Counselling was a fucking great decision and I have one more session in a months’ time.

2 weeks and 5 days remaining :).

310

I’m glad to hear the counseling stuff is helping out!

311

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
I’m glad to hear the counseling stuff is helping out![/quote]

Cheers bro. Definitely one of my better decisions of late

312

It occurred to me I have not been deloading at all. This is not because I think I’m smart, just because I am working with weights which fall far below what I was lifting before my operation. Also because I’ve just wanted to slog away and feel like I am expending some energy.

However, as I near the end of chemo and my weights are slowly increasing, I realise it’s time to start deloading again. So I will do that upon conclusion of this cycle.

Also I’m thinking a lot about training post-chemo. I will have a lot more energy available in the months after finishing, though it will return slowly. I need to gradually re-introduce:

-Deloading. While I am still way off my past strength, the weights are getting heavy enough that I should be deloading.
-Mobility work. I currently just foam roll and shoulder dislocate before all sessions. Must bring Agile 8 back. And stretch my shortened quads.
-Cardio. I walk my dog, that’s it. So I will start easing into some treadmill running followed by hill sprints.

I didn’t neglect these things because I think I’m smarter than the experts, simply because I’ve had extremely limited energy resources and I wanted to concentrate on what I considered the most beneficial form expenditure; lifting weights.

I will definitely be continuing on with the Full Body 351 for quite some time. I want to finish this 14 week bench program before bring my bench back to 351, though.

Also I should point out the reason I went away from 531 for bench is not because I don’t rate it, I just really wanted to thrash the shit out of my bench because it’s the one lift I can safely push myself hard with, due to relative lack of core involvement.

313

You can see it’s off-chemo week because my ranting has picked up haha.

314

Sounds like you have a good plan for going forward both inside & outside of the gym. I understand the deload thing because I did that myself when I retuned to deadlifting, I didn’t start deloading until I felt my weights were challenging enough for me to need it.

315

[quote]Lift and Eat wrote:
Sounds like you have a good plan for going forward both inside & outside of the gym. I understand the deload thing because I did that myself when I retuned to deadlifting, I didn’t start deloading until I felt my weights were challenging enough for me to need it.[/quote]

Exactly. I am sure there’s a bit of ego involvement with me, but when I’m throwing around weights which were barely my warm-up 9 months ago, it’s a real head bender to consider deloading. Also I have just wanted to plough through and lose myself in the training.

316

Cycle 7 Week 1 Day 2
Greg Robins Bench with 351 FBT
01-08-14

Squat FBT
3 x 85kg
3 x 100
3 x 110

Bench (pause 1st rep 1s)
3 x 90kg
3 x 90
3 x 90
3 x 90

Press 351
3 x 37.5kg
3 x 45
8 x 50

30 Chins between sets

Front Delts
10 x 10kg pair
10 x 10
6 x 10

Side Delts
20 x 10kg pair
12 x 10
8 x 10

Rear Delts
12 x 10kg pair
15 x 10
10 x 10

I’ve decided I won’t do DB front delts after today. They were already fried from Press, and really if I’m benching 3 x weekly, I don’t think the delts need much more. Side and Rear delts I will probably keep targeting.

Also I discovered something tragic and sad: my arms are 15.5 inches, not 16. Must have measured optimistically last time! Haha. No problem, gives me something to aim for :slight_smile:

Non-chemo week is going great. Loving the lack of poison in my body.

317

Also I am pleased with that final Press set! Puts my E1RM over 62.5kg again.

318

Cycle 7 Week 1 Day 3
Greg Robins Bench with 351 FBT
03-08-14

Squat FBT
5 x 92.5kg
3 x 105
1 x 115

Bench (pause 1st rep 1s)
3 x 90kg
3 x 90
3 x 90

Deadlift 351
3 x 72.5kg
3 x 85
10 x 95

30 Chins between sets

DB Curls
8 x 15kg pair
8 x 15
6 x 15

DB Skull Crusher
10 x 15kg
10 x 15
8 x 15

I am in a foul mood and really lacked motivation for this workout, but I got it done, which pleases me.
Why in a foul mood? Unsure tbh. I think I’m having a frustrating day. Two of my flatmates are in new relationships and I think the happiness and excitement in their lives is making me bitter and twisted.

This is an asshole reaction, I know. But it makes me obsess over the things I feel my life lacks, and the things I wish my life lacked.

But hey - I have life. So I should be thankful, not angry. Tough sometimes!

319

So I had my surgical check-up and final chemotherapy appointment today.

Chemo was straight forward. They said there’s little or no clinical benefit in this cycle, but for my own peace of mind I will see it out the end. They’ve repeated the fact there’s a 50% chance the operation alone completely cured me, and although my cancer was an advanced one, the prognosis is “definitely on the positive side”. So, two weeks to go and after that I have a post-chemo scan and debrief in 8 weeks.

Surgical appointment not so smooth. The abdominal wall has failed to mesh so there’s an approximately 60mm x 20mm open area, which is effectively an open hole covered with skin :-S. This leaves me with an extreme weak area right in my core. So I will need another operation, which they aren’t keen to do for another two years as they want to allow me to recover from cancer first.

Until then… The surgeon said he’d prefer I only did aerobic type exercise but realises he can’t stop me lifting. So he’s said to really limit the weight I use and to stick with higher reps, lower weight type lifting. This of course sucks balls and goes against everything I want to do!

So good news: prognosis looking positive. Bad news: have to think long and hard about how I plan my lifting for the next couple of years. I certainly don’t want to blow my incision out.

320

Great news about the cancer but really disappointing re the lifting. Having had many setbacks in my own training I can totally relate to that feeling of having to rethink all your plans, esp when you’ve been looking fwd to hitting some heavier weights and having those lifting goals to focus on.

As you say though at least you are alive so I guess you have to focus on the big picture and the long term recovery. Waiting to be able to lift heavy in a couple of years will be hella frustrating, but better than ripping your gut open and doing more long term damage. At least you will be able to train free of nausea & fatigue, together with improved appetite & that in itself should help you improve in whatever goals you set.