I think it may be time for a ramble/rant. Because, you know, I haven’t done one in a while.
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It seems like having taken a full week off training made me pretty rusty without really making me feel particularly great. This pisses me off a bit, but on the other hand it shows that I probably don’t need to completely deload and that every fourth week at lighter loads and lower volume is perfectly fine. Which is kind of a bonus.
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I actually kept my weight/body comp just fine during the break despite travelling a bit and not training. This is pretty cool.
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Following on from that last point, I might need to adjust my calories down slightly to keep leaning out. I’ve been sitting around 204 lbs for almost two weeks now, so I think if by the end of the week I’m not seeing a downward trend I’ll probably drop my calories a bit. That bit would be to 2300, so my macros would be:
Protein (815 cal) - 205 g
Carbs (1035 cal) - 260 g
Fat (20%) (450 cal) - 50 g
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Adding on to the last point again, I’m getting antsy to lean out because for the first time I can see hints of what the finished product will look like and I’m excited AF. I do want to delay dropping my calories for as long as possible though. Looking back, I was on 2700 cal/day from May to mid October 2016 (which at five and a half months is longer than I thought) and then from mid October 2016 onwards on 2500 cal/day actually counting macros as well. That’s two and a half months, which isn’t long - and I lost pretty much bang on 10 lbs in that period. Anyway, TL;DR I should probably stick it out at 2500 cal/day for at least another month or so to see how it goes not least because during this leader phase my training volume is quite high, definitely higher than what I’ve been doing in the last quarter of 2016. That, and 2500 cal/day is right in the mid-range of maintenance for my LBM. In other words, patience.
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So far the two training sessions I’ve had since the break had sucky parts, both times the main lifts. I want to put it down to being rusty, and I think I can for bench because by the last couple of work sets things felt just about normal again. Deadlift is different, and I alluded to what I think the problem is. It’s annoying, but I can’t get away from the fact that the last two times I did DL pretty much as soon as I started using mixed grip I fell right out of my groove and couldn’t stay in a good starting position which made the rest of the lift way harder than it should be. I haven’t really had this problem before, so I can only put it down to not being able to swap hands for mixed grip each set. Since my left bicep strain, it feels really unpleasant around the elbow to grip underhand with my left. I figure my best option is to pull overhand until it gets too heavy and then go either hook grip or straps.
I think that’s me about done, so maybe this was more of a ramble. I’m not particularly annoyed about anything at the minute that isn’t directly to do with me.
