Woke at 266.5 lbs, looking a bit less bloated. Everything fucking hurts
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What do your next 2.5 weeks look like?
Next week is three singles at 80 per cent (maybe four for bench, I forget). Then Monday of meet week I do something like 5x2 for squat, 5x3 for bench and 6x1 for deadlifts all at 50 per cent. Then nothing except resting and some stretching. Even extra workouts are cut during meet week, apart from maybe some air squats to stay loose.
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Pretty sure I remember you telling me that it is supposed to ! 
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Yes, it is. Swede Burns describes the peak as a death march.
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Extra workout
Two rounds of 25 each of
Pull aparts
Reverse hypers
Air squats
Crunches
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Woke at 265.4 lbs, looking less bloated.
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Woke at 266.1 lbs, looking similar to yesterday.
Let the gains begin !
It’s so odd Mark, I’m sitting here in another part of the world, I don’t know you in person, you’re not a famous maybe soon to be world champion, but every time you’re around here in your peak I can’t wait to watch you perform on the platform.
You’ve been so determined of what to do, what to expect and how to do it, that I feel I’m part of it.
Can’t wait Mate.
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@mortdk you’re one of the nicest guys I know, for sure. You’re also part of this, most definitely.
Two weeks to go my brother
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A few months ago Greg got a nutritionist on the payroll (so now we have a physio and a nutritionist). He’s pretty cool, gave us all a ‘quick and dirty’ guide to athletic nutrition, basically how to get leaner without getting weaker. I had a read through it, and it’s pretty much identical to the Paul Carter article I based my diet on. So that’s cool. The calorie deficit is more aggressive, because he bases it on estimated lean mass and has you working at LBM multiplied by 10 or 11 as a starting point, which you adjust up or down based on how fast you lose weight on a weekly aggregate. Not how I’d do it, but I can see how it works.
Anyhow, I decided to put my last three days of eating into myfitnesspal (guesstimating quantities, which TBH I think I can do with reasonable accuracy after the couple of years of weighing every damn thing). I’m sitting between 3750 and 4250 cal/day, protein around 190-200 grams, fat 125-150 grams and carbs 450-600 grams. So yeah, not far off what I’d want: fat between 25 and 30 per cent, protein around 0.8xbodyweight and the rest carbs.
Because I’m not really gaining weight, and definitely not losing it, I can pretty safely say I’m eating at maintenance - and funnily enough 265x14 is 3710, so it seems like the whole bodyweightx14 really is a decent maintenance estimator.
Body composition wise, I’m going to say I’m somewhere between 25 and 30 per cent bodyfat. Closer to 30, most probably. I mean, I may be over that, I just suspect I’m not. I may get a DEXA scan at some point, just a matter of deciding whether I want to spend the money on it or something else.
I’ll be honest, the main things that are stopping me from making a run to get leaner are that weighing everything is a pain in the backside; and I tend to get caught up with leaning out (although, that’s a much smaller issue because I know what I can get to so the desire to see how far I can push is way lower).
If, and @The_Myth this is a BIG if, I did decide to lean out some this would be my don’t cross line: no leaning out to the point performance is impacted. From memory, last time I didn’t start experiencing an impact until I got to around 200 lbs. That was some 25 lbs down, and since I’m at a similar body composition to when I started my dieting last I think i could safely drop to around 240 lbs.
Here’s the kicker though. I wouldn’t be more competitive at 240 lbs - if anything, the 242s is a more stacked class than the 275s. So in respect of getting a spot at nationals or winning best lifter in a local meet, there is no advantage for me at 240 compared to 265. I also don’t feel bad at this weight. So there’s no push to be lighter in that respect either. I might look better would be the only incentive, except I only stayed noticing physique changes when I was around 190 lbs last time, so most likely I’d need to drop to around 220 lbs to look better - and that’s around where performance would start dropping.
So, all things considered, there is very, very little incentive for me to take on the added work of dieting down.
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Agreed, 100%.
To clarify, the reason I posted the pic was guys were talking about BB’ing and stuff like that. I didn’t want anyone to forget that you know how to train like that as well.
I think you would get small very quickly eating at this level. Assuming you’re 30% BF, that’s less than 1900 calories if I understand correctly.
The only possible advantage I can see at this point as far as leaning out goes, would be to reset your homeostasis of BF at a lower percentage than it is now, and I’m not even sure if that is possible. Clearly, at 265 and 20% you would be carrying more muscle and hopefully have larger lifts. I don’t like the idea of you losing weight now, so perhaps recomping. As it looks now, staying steady around 265 may be your body recomping on its own.
I’m talking out of my ass because my mouth knows better.
Stay the course seems to be the best idea.
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Well, I know how to lean out. The training side, that’s something I’m not so sure about. I think I kind of have an idea what I’d need to do but that’s about it
Pretty much. I think from memory it’s a start point, and then after the first week or two you’d raise it because your weekly loss would be too fast. Still a weird way of doing it IMO, I’d just go with bodyweightx14 and then work down from there.
I think it’s possible but would take a very, very long time. Like, two or three years at essentially the same bodyweight and composition. Not easy to do if you want to have any kind of progress in performance or physique.
I mean, this would be awesome. I don’t plan on pushing to gain much more really. If I can slowly move up, great, but I don’t think pushing hard would be helpful.
Dunno, for a backside it makes a good point.
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Sounds like a good retirement plan for training.
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Pretty much. What you’d do in the the gym would be just there to maintain muscle rather than build it. Which is so counterintuitive for me it isn’t funny. So yeah, definitely something I can see myself doing when I’m done competing and don’t feel the need to gain more size, but not before.
Extra workout which wasnt planned but I’ve been sitting a bunch
Two rounds 25 each of
Pull aparts
Air squats
In regards to being on the platform.
combined with
Makes it a no brainer, you’re build to be freaking big and strong.
You want to perform at the platform and that’s your only goal and you’re pursuing it in a way that a real athlete does.
Compare it to me, whenever I gain weight, yes I’m getting stronger, but my legs and upper body almost looks identical, however midsection is were all the weight sits. I’m looking like a matchstick with the sulfur in the middle.
You just gets bigger overall, and looks great.
You could lean down to 240 - 250 and rebuild after a competition with a long haul to the next one, gives you time to lean out and time to rebuild.
When you’re finished competing and retire, then you could go down to 225 or something thereabouts, I see no reason for you to get ripped again.
But that’s a different chapter of life.
Right now, pull and push some heavy barbells
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Speaking of outside the platform, I should get my blood pressure and basic bloods done. It’s been about six months. Last time BP was 120/75 and bloods were all within normal ranges so it isn’t like I’ve got a cause for concern but I like to keep on top of it.
Cardio isn’t fantastic, but it’s ok. I’m not at the point where I’m running a seven minute mile any more but I can move for a fair while and not suffer. Once peak is over I can start conditioning again.
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This is very close to what I will do most probably. I suspect 225 would be a relatively non-fat weight for me while still carrying reasonable muscle. That’s all years away though.
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