Training went well. I put too much weight on the bar for my Incline BB Bench warmup and ended up doing 5 reps at working weight (shoulder/pec felt a bit off) so I struggled with 225 for RP. Everything else went alright, need to increase weights for Nautilus Row and Overhand Lat Pulldown.
Feel like I could handle more volume but going to stick with program as planned for now. Weights will increase a good bit next go around with A1.
1/12/22 - DoggCrapp B1 Slept okay, 8h 36m (interrupted sleep pattern). Cheated on diet yesterday and slammed 20 wings (homemade). Nutrition facts for wings are fucking shit - apparently 20g fat and 18g protein per 4oz? Idk, shit don’t make sense to me but I’ll log it anyways and cut carbs down to compensate.
1/13/22 - Rest (planned)
I know I’m only 2 workouts into the DC programming, and I can certainly see where it would be great to build with.
I’ve weighed in 219, 220, 220lbs for the past 3 days, and I am still at a net deficit - I know I’m reading too much into this already, but I am a little worried that the reduced volume and training frequency is going to have a significant impact on my weight loss plan. Moreover, as intense as these training days are - I can still handle more training frequency than is prescribed. I have a few lifts that will increase in weight next go-round but I cannot fathom that +10-20 lbs on a couple lifts per training day will suddenly impact me so strongly that I cannot handle more volume.
I will stick with the program for the whole 2 week cycle and assess weight loss, but I believe I will need to stick with some form of 5-6x per week training to meet my weight loss goal. Given that I was already doing rest-pause (albeit slightly altered) progression, I don’t see the huge increase in intensity I was expecting.
As I said, I will stick with DC for the whole 2 week cycle and assess how I am doing with my weight loss goal - but my training anxiety/restlessness is causing some doubts in this type of program while intending to lose weight. Simply put - the Mifflin-St Jeor equation specifically states the activity multiplier is directly correlated to training frequency, which I have reduced… This will not help me with my current goal.
I felt the same when I started DC but there are a couple of things just to check.
Firstly the warm up sets, when reading and looking at DC training there is more WU sets than I had previously been using. While I’m sure it does add to overall weekly volume it really helps prime the body for that all out set. I often found if I rushed my WU sets or didn’t do enough priming, then my main set wouldn’t be as intense.
Second thing is to say that DC shouldn’t be used on a calorie deficit according to the DC writings. I think the idea is to stimulate muscle growth and get rest as well. That’s what I read but never tried it myself in a deficit so don’t know anymore than the DC website.
I think if you buy a real steak, there’s no problem at all with weight loss hehe
Yeah I would tend to agree with that. Even if a muscle-building workout is not that expensive (like 300 calories tops) you still have to get there, move around, take weights… it still is work. 300 cals x 7 is better better than 300 cals x 2.
But then if you only do your 2 DCs workouts but walk 12 000 steps a day and have a few cardio sessions per week you’ll shed fat no problemo
My favourite to lose weight are a good Meadows program or customed Conjugate
Also you could check out Athlete lean, Athlete strong on T Nation. A 4 week program for fat loss and performance. Did it thrice and I don’t think anyone ever disliked it
Trudel had a thread about DC during contest prep (as in leaning out) and he basically just said to cut carbs and continue training as usual. When the energy deficit gets too strong, he says to turn it into a 4x per week split with same exercises, just over more days.
His diet info was pretty crude to say the least lol.
Good workout, had to do bodyweight dips because my dip belt hasn’t shown up yet. Did WAY more weight on Nautilus shoulder press than I expected - will need to bump weight
1/15/22 - Rest (planned)
Yesterdays training session kicked my ass but fuck I want to go lift. Idk if I’m patient enough to stick to the true DC template long term. Still going to finish out the 2 week plan but I quite seriously might just bastardize it and run 4-5x per week along the lines of a periodized PPL with Rest-Pause progression style.
Learned a lot already and I’m not discounting any of it, I’m just not sure HIT is going to work with me and my impatient ass.
1/17/22 - Pull -Slept poorly, 4h 31m (couldn’t fall asleep because fuck me right?).
-it’s been a month since my last progress pics and though 2 weeks were at maintenence, I had 2 weeks at a deficit and have only lost about 0.7lbs.
-whether its training anxiety or training ADD, I believe this is due to changing up my training.
-was going to finish out the 2 week ‘cycle’ as written but I don’t see the point right now. I’m going to stick with my PPLx5, swap a couple exercises out and use Rest-Pause progression. Will be doing deadlifts and squats 1x per week each, separated as much as possible.
-TL;DR: going back to PPLx5 for weight loss purposes. May reintroduce DC Training when I’m done with the cut.
This session kicked my ass and felt like shit. I was way too tired to train effectively today, but I’m glad I did so anyways. Will be modifying PPL to look and smell like DoggCrapp (pun intended) but still be PPL. I only intend to do this while during my cut, but we’ll see how it goes once I’m in a maintenence phase.
1/18/22 - DoggCraPPL Push Slept okay, about 6.5hrs - still need to do better. I decided to reprogram my PPL split with more DoggCrapp-esque style (and a little more volume than Trudel would approve of). Haven’t finished it yet, but started with Push today… I shall call it DoggCraPPL training! (Actually renaming my log after it because I find my own jokes hilarious)
Anyways, training!
Incline bench felt a bit off but otherwise okay. I kept weight down because I didn’t think I’d finish 245 in my 5x5. Everything else felt and went great! I like the volume and I like the intensity.
EDIT:
I just realized I put all my push workouts on my pull tab… Editing programming now
1/19/22 - DoggCraPPL Legs I had my whole program formatted and ready yesterday but never sent it to my phone from the work computer so I’m putting it in now. Slept about 6.5hrs yesterday
Called an audible and swapped Back Squats with Clean Carries so I can run Squats and Deads only 1x per week. Can do a good bit more on Clean Carries but IDK if I can actually CLEAN that much weight up lol. Need to go up in weight on almost every exercise, but need to drop weight on RDL so I don’t burn out my lower back pre-squat. Otherwise good training session.
Side note: my weight is still at 220 and not looking like it wants to budge - and I’m not entirely understanding that. I will give it to the end of next week, but if I haven’t lost any weight by that time - I will need to change something up. I still at ~950 calorie deficit daily but not seeing any changes.
That certainly is possible. In hindsight, changing up my HVT to HIT halfway through a cut probably wasn’t the best move I’d ever made lol. I attribute the ‘stall’ to this, but it’s hard to objectively call this a stall - maybe a “pause” more accurately.
It felt like every day I stepped on the scale I saw it go down, and it did this for like a month. Then it stopped and went back up when I hadn’t changed anything… Still, it’s only been “paused” for like 3-4 days so you’re probably right.
On Intense Muscle, there’s a thread titled “ Updated–DC Training Newbies ***read This First And Then Ask Questions Later” that lays out everything super clearly. That’s how I designed my DC routine. DC may be lower volume than what you’ve been doing but it’s very focused volume. For instance, you aren’t going to get very much Intensity out of 5 sets of 5. With the rest-pause system in DC, you’re pushing those 3 “sets” to their limit which really fatigues the muscle past baseline efficiently. For someone on a pretty aggressive cut, the reduction in volume would be very good for recovery. It’s also super easy to progress on DC since you just add weight whenever you get to the top of your rep range for that exercise, so you’re just focusing on adding reps or weight every session. Beating the log book is the most important thing. DC is a great way of cutting out any BS, no junk exercises, no junk volume.
The stretches are also a good foundational piece because they add in a bit more work to “finish off” your muscles. I think they basically work by being a slow negative/weighted isometric. They’re painful but they help give you a better pump and they really helped my flexibility. They also don’t add that much time to the session. I also wasn’t sure about them at first but I ended up loving them. Keep up the good work dawg.
1/21/22 - DoggCraPPL Push Slept well, about 8 hours. Struggling a lot with soreness from yesterday’s session - forearms and biceps are absolutely toasted, hammies still sore from the day before. Will have to play it safe with my Incline BB Bench. Also, loading up a bit on carbs/ground beef for lunch; this will push me over my calorie goal for the day but not by too much (~300 or so) but will be necessary to run leg day tomorrow.
Really wasn’t sure about this training session at first tbh, but gotdamn that was a great session! I PR’d Incline BB Bench at 275 -10(bands) so 265x5. Gonna need some more plates at the home gym for real.
so I’m putting it in now. Slept about 6.5hrs yesterday
