Multi-day update: Thursday, 7 December
Missed updates this week. I had my work Christmas party on Friday, which was alright, then flew to Dublin Saturday morning. Stayed in a shitty Air BNB then met up with the Missus’ sister for Japanese (beef donburi and a few bits of sushi) before heading out for pints with a couple of my old Dublin colleagues.
On Sunday, I hit the gym in Dublin for a bare minimum session of 5x squats at 67.5kg, 75kg and 80kg then 3x5 at 67.5kg, followed by 5x5 bench at 50kg and some misc. rows and pulldowns. We then met up with some of the girlfriends’ friends and had Lebanese (beef shwarma for me).
Monday was graduation day and the Missus didn’t trip up on stage or anything and is now an official Master of History <3 Went out for steaks with her parents that night.
We flew back early on Tuesday which was awful (only a 40m flight, but following a 90m bus ride to the airport and general longness). I only got back into my local gym today.
Woke up at 217.8, which after four meals out and umpteen pints is hardly a surprise.
Workout
Warmup
Flexible Five
Swings and jumps
Deadlift
5x90kg
5x95kg
10x107.5kg
Smoothest deads I’ve ever done. Rest-paused the last pair but really felt like proper deadlifts.
Three rounds of:
5x90kg
Press
5x35kg
5x37.5kg
7x42.5kg
Disappointing, though the last time I got 7 reps was the 1+ set last cycle, which was standing.
10x35kg
10x35kg
8x35kg
Thought I’d change things up and go for the BBB FSL rather than FSL widowmaker. Mistake, haha. I can see why BBB starts at 50%. I might just go for the good ol’ 3x5 FSL in future.
Accessories
Facepulls: 100 reps @20kg (4x25)
Lat Pulldowns: 50 reps @55kg (20/20/10)
DB Rows: 50 reps @25kg (15/15/15/5)
DB Curls: 50 reps @10kg (5x10)
Situps: 50 reps @BW (10/10/10/8/6/6)
Diet
I’ve decided to add a bowl of cereal to the mix before a workout as I’ve noticed I get kinda tired (squatting at 6.40am, go figure) and this may help.
I’ve been hovering around 217.5lbs since I got back from Dublin but my waistline hasn’t grown, so if I’m putting on weight (could easily just be retaining water from four restaurant meals in as many days) it seems to be the good kind.
That said I’m going to make life easier by eating the same thing each day, save for dinners. My girlfriend is somewhat calorie-conscious so dinner will rarely be insane.
I’m not actually counting calories, but a quick totting up says that everything before dinner puts me around 1500kcal and 180g protein, which means I can essentially have whatever I like for dinner… within reason; obviously I won’t be eating a tub of Ben & Jerry’s and a pound of ground beef. Usually the Missus eats 5-600kcal meals so I’ll just have 1.5-2x what she does.
This should be enough to drop some fat and maintain strength (200-250g protein a day) without thinking about it too much. If I find this does somehow make me too fat I can just drop the peanuts.
This
Pre-workout
Special K original w/semi-skimmed milk
Post-workout
2 scoops Gold Standard
AM snack
Banana and raisins
Lunch
There is, 95% of the time, an option for just getting some lean meat (usually chicken breast or fish) and a pile of veggies and salad. I’ll be doing this.
Today is chicken masala, but the way they make it here is like they’ve packed a slow cooker full of chicken and tikka sauce; in other words, it’s basically a plate of saucey chicken chunks rather than chicken in sauce, if that makes sense. It doesn’t taste amazing but it is a lot of protein.
PM snack
2 scoops Gold Standard, 50g peanuts
Dinner
Today it’s spaghetti and meatballs.
On Conditioning
The astute reader will notice I haven’t mentioned any conditioning work in this update. Well the astute reader can stop judging me.
I’ve always slacked with conditioning and I’m hoping to change that. I think part of it is not having pre-set routines or quantifiable progression, as well as obviously part of it being that conditioning sucks (because my conditioning sucks haha).
I’ve gone through Tactical Barbell, some old blogs, Brian Alsruhe’s logs and whatnot and come up with a list of conditioning routines. I can track improvement on these and know what I’m doing when I wake up, which should help motivate me a little. All in all though I obviously just need to nut up and actually do it so we’ll see if this helps.
