Natty on Pennies

Training Training Logs
442

I’m finally back in the gym

The ankle and the fever took some time to get rid of but now I’m fine (well, actually the ankle healed up pretty fast but I had fever for a couple of days so that kept me from training - dying doesn’t fit my plans right now)

So I was in the gym today, and I only had 20 minutes to train, start to finish, so nothing fancy here. I just did some snatch grip deadlifts and parillo deadlifts, and man did it feel good. Only thing I wasn’t pleased about was the fact that both of them had dropped almost 40kgs - that’s a lot, but I have been really short on food lately and I was sick. So I’m not too worried about that, as soon as I get some more food in and I get back into training it’ll shoot right up.

I’m predicting some pretty hard hamstring soreness for the days to follow

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That’s really good to hear buddy! How lonng is this army training?

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Nice to hear that bud

I’m gonna guess they don’t allow protein powder in there,do thay?

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9 or 12 months, depending on the choices I make om wether or not I want to get a leadership training

They do, actually. I have whey and tuna in there but the space for your personal stuff is really limited and there are not too many opportunities to eat your own foods during the day. I’ve been eating a ton of tuna and such things every night, it helps a bit.

Last couple of days were just days where we ate on the field, so the portion sizes are really controlled and reduced

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Program design and rational thinking

Some time back I mentioned how my programming has to change as I go in the army - and now that I’m in here I know that was the right choice.

When you are choosing or designing a program, you have to think rationally; what am I able to do at the given time? Sadly, you can’t always go by feel. Case in point: I’m having a terrible urge to do DC training at the moment, but I know it’s not feasible at the moment. Now why is that?

First off: recovery. Let’s think in terms of sleep, nutrition, amount of stress from outside sources.

Sleep:
I’m getting 7-7.5 hours of sleep every night, which is plenty for me, so no real problem there. But as the amount of stress increases (think about long marches and combat practice etc.) seven hours may not be enough. So, in the long run, I won’t be sleeping enough.

Nutrition:
There are four meals that we get every day (+your own food) two of which are more like snacks and two if which are something your mother would cook for you. An integral part of DC training is the diet: lots of food, nutrient pairings, high protein, green tea and so on, I can do none of those at the moment, so diet is a miss.

Amount of outside stress is rather high at the moment, and the fact that there is dedicated sports training makes it difficult to follow a set program. Think about marching in full gear for a long distance, eating on the field (so not a lot of food) and then doing deadlifts at night - that’s not a good idea.

Now we can see that I could not recover from DC training, and that alone is enough for me to not start doing it - if you can’t recover from your training you’ll only be going backwards.

Let’s take a look at the training part too. This is something I consider only after I’ve came to the conclusion that I could recover from the program.

First, safety - can I do the program in a safe manner?
DC is focused around training to failure, and at the moment I do not have a reliable training partner, as everyone is exhausted from the work during the day and thus next to nobody goes to the gym. Another problem is that none of the gyms have safety pins for the squat racks or the benches, and there are no power racks, so heavy barbell pressing (apart from overhead pressing) and heavy squats are out of the question. Yes, I could work around it by using dumbbells and machines, but that brings me to my next point.

Can I progress as intended? With the amount of variety in everyday actions at the moment, no. At the moment trying to follow a linear overload program wouldn’t be a great idea. Instead, I need some leeway.

So yeah, DC is not for me at this point. But after I get out of the army, I’ll probably pick it up again.

Let’s shorten this post up to a single sentence: Before you start a program, take some time to think; can I do the program as intended?

Think about it from all angles, and be sure not to come up with excuses when you come across some problems. Instead, try to solve them.

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General life update

I finished reading “Fortitude training” by Scott Stevenson today. Reading the book felt really odd because apparently Scott and I have very similar approaches to training and especially to nutrition. In fact, I wrote a program that’s nearly identical to his a year ago and I’ve been eating the way he recommends for almost four years! (And I just bought the book last week)

I won’t go into detail about the programming or nutrition because the book is not free (it’s only 20 dollars though, so pretty much anyone can afford it)

I recommend purchasing the book, even if you don’t end up following the program it’ll give you new ideas about programming and nutrition. (For me it was more like a confirmation of my ways, and that makes me feel good)

Other than that, I’ve been reading Dante’s Inferno, I have a really old copy of it that has the original Italian version and an English translation in it. (And comments from people who read it before me, I bought it from an old bookstore in London)

I really like reading, I just haven’t had much time to do it - not that I had it now, but I’m trying to read a bit more nowadays.

Yeah, that’s enough about books. So what have I been up to?

Well, I burned my feet earlier this week. I fell asleep wearing rainboots and my feet were about ten centimetres from a burning hot stove. (We spent a night in a tent) Long story short, walking hurts, running hurts, jumping hurts, god, even pushups hurt like hell. That wouldn’t be an issue if we didn’t have all if our physical tests this week - they did not go too well, the pain set me down about 30-50% on every single event.

Oh well, it’ll get better and there will be more tests - so it doesn’t matter. Yeah it hurts now, but a couple of days from now I’ll be well again. (I’ll still need to be more careful with this stuff, there have been too many accidents lately)

Since the beginning of army I’ve been able to train for five or so times, and it has already been a month, so I’m not too happy about that and I definitely hope that changes soon.

I’ve also been really inactive here, and I’m terribly sorry for that. I could say that I haven’t had time, but that would be lying - I just haven’t had the drive to write about anything because I’ve been out of the gym and in a great deal if pain. So, I haven’t been in the mood, so to say. But it’ll get better when I get back in the gym. I don’t know when that happens, but you’ll notice. (I cannot tell what we are doing here if I don’t want to get into trouble so you’ll need to be patient, if my log is a life and death matter to you just read it and point out the things that don’t make sense or contradict each other so I can clear thing up.)

I’ll be scrolling around for a couple of days, catching up with logs and so on.

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Don’t tell me you have no time to train

I just got back from the gym (my feet are alright again) and I wanted to write something, so here it goes.

You know what’s funny?
The fact that after I got in the army I haven’t spent more than 45 minutes in the gym per workout (warmups included).

There are two reasons for that

  1. Conditioning is a must-have in the army
  2. I just don’t have a lot of time

Now I’m not doing pure strength work at the moment, so my rest periods are shorter just because of that - actually, I don’t rest too much at all. I’ll give you an example.

Today I did lower body, biceps and forearms. The workout went as follows:

  • Non-alternating reverse lunge (constant tension, so no “stepping” here)

1 muscle round (so 6 sets of 4 with 10 seconds of rest - or in this case, no rest except for the time it takes to perform 4 reps with one leg while the other rests.)

After that, with no rest in between

  • Hanging bodyweight leg curls
    1 straight set to failure

hamstring stretch

Just a minute of rest and then

  • Front squats to a box
    One set of ~20, widowmaker style

quad stretch

Gasp for air and move over to forearms and biceps

  • Reverse curl
    One set of 15-25

  • Incline dumbbell curl
    One set of 11-20

bicep stretch
forearm stretch

The whole session took 17 minutes to complete, 30 if we include warm-up time. A couple of months ago I would’ve needed at least an hour to do this workout, maybe even two. Yes, the loads could be maybe 10-20% higher with longer rests, but that’s no good if I don’t have time to do the sets.

So yeah, don’t tell me you don’t have time to train - you’re just resting too much. You can build muscle and gain strength with very short training sessions. It’s just about how hard you are willing to work.

Now before you point out that I’ve lost strength, that’s because I haven’t been able to train and eat enough, not because I have done short workouts with lighter than usual loads. And don’t tell me you can’t get stronger with long sets, as long as you are progressing in weight you are getting bigger and stronger.

So what is the takeaway here?

Work hard and remember that a short workout is better than no workout - and sometimes it’s even better than a long session.

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I dont have any time to train lol :joy::joy:, have you lost much weight as of yet?

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Goddamn you

About 12 pounds/5.5kgs in a bit under four weeks. So, on average I’ve been a bit over 1000 Calories under maintenance every day. (If my maintenance calories weren’t in the neighborhood of 4000 it would be a lot easier to retain mass. (Of course I’ve lost water weight and glycogen, but still, I’ve lost a lot of weight in such short time)

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General life update

So, I’ve been in the army for five weeks now. Really, it doesn’t even feel like it. I feel like I’ve been in there for two weeks tops. I guess time flies when you are having fun.

During these five weeks I’ve lost a total of 8 kilos/18 pounds of bodyweight - that’s a lot. (We spent the last week camping and I lost 2.5kgs during that time only.)

So yeah, the army is not the best place for making gains, but I don’t care. There is nothing I can do about it at the moment so why complain?

Apart from army stuff, nothing much has been going on. In a couple of days it’ll be 3.5 years since my girlfriend and I got together. (I can’t use the phrase “started dating” because we never went on a date.) So that’s nice. I’ve got to say, it feels kind of absurd to think that it’s already been so long. For me it feels like we just met a couple of days ago, but on the other hand it feels like we had known each other forever. Time is a weird thing.

I’m off to the gym now, I’ll try to come up with something to write on later. (Suggestions are welcome)

For those who are interested what my training looks like at the moment, today I’ll be doing this:

For one set of 6-12

  1. Weighted pull-ups with a wide grip
  2. T-Bar rows
  3. Decline bench
  4. Behind the neck press

After that, for one set of 15-25

  1. Leg curls with an exercise ball
  2. Front squats to a box
  3. Seated calf raises

Doesn’t look like a hard session, but believe me, it is. This’ll probably take me about 25 minutes to complete (40 or so if we count warming up)

And yes, it’s a lot different than what I’ve used before, but then again, the circumstances are a lot different too.

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Christ, I just have to get this out if my mind, right now.

In this forum, there is an ad for “Alpha male”

There is a picture of a gorilla on the can, so it looks really badass and all that.

But every time I see that ad, every single time I see that ad I just see a cat that is wearing sunglasses. Not a gorilla, a cat with sunglasses.

This has bothered me for nearly half a year - it took me several months to figure out that it wasn’t a cat that was pictured.

That being said, good night, it’s 11PM

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I think it’s a baboon… Haha

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Got to say, I’ve seen better drawn pictures before…

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https://www.instagram.com/p/BXpd46dBylx/

Here is an interesting summary of a study for you

Jesus I want to get back to DC so hard right now, Dante was right all along - years before anyone else

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That’s a cool study. I’ve been looking at DC Training more and more lately.

Don’t stress about losing those gains mate, you are learning some badass stuff in training that big muscles can never achieve. When you finally do get back to the gym, the muscles will come back quicker than ever with fresh joints and an even stronger mental fortitude. I’m super jealous as my military seems to be taking forever :confused:

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That’s true - throwing grenades and shooting with assault rifles is cool (and apparently I’m quite good with them). And learning a new set if skills is always a great thing.

Apart from the joints, I agree - muscle memory is a powerful thing, and being in the army teaches you discipline. But I have to say - this is not the healthiest stuff for you or your joints. Carrying stuff for longer distances may be good for conditioning, but it makes you vulnerable to injuries such as rolled ankles, because you can’t always look at where you are stepping.

I’ve also noticed two things:

When I’m wearing a combat vest for prolonged periods of time (say, 4-5 hours) I start to experience pain in my traps. It’s not the "“oh, my traps are so tired” - type of pain, it’s more like someone was tearing the skin and the muscles apart. I have no idea of what it is.

In addition to that I’ve noticed that the amount of hamstring cramps I’m having has skyrocketed - before army u had a cramp maybe once in a week, now it’s two or three times every night. Not very nice, but fixable by nutritional changes.

You’ll get there, man. And it’ll be awesome - even though I may be cursing it here, I really like it in the army.

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General life update

So, we said our vows yesterday, and now we have achieved the rank of a private (or Jaeger in my case - but that’s the same thing)

We also got to know where we will be spending the rest of our time in the military. I’m going to stay in the military police (I did my basic training there too)

I chose not to get into leadership training, so I was given guard duty.

At the moment I have 207 days of service left, that’ll probably go past pretty fast.

I got the opportunity to get security guard training for a total of ~280 euros here in the military (normally it would cost 600-1000 euros) so naturally I took it. I view opportunities like these as investments - somebody who can work in three fields is financially in a lot safer place than someone who can only do one job.

And apart from that, nowadays there is a lot more demand for security guards than ever before - there are no certified guards that are unemployed. So if I’m ever in a need for extra money it’ll be easy to earn. (And who doesn’t like extra money?)

Training-wise nothing has changed since the last time. I’ve found that I really enjoy my current training and I probably won’t change it too much whilst I’m in the army.

That’s all for now, I’ll train in a couple of hours from now.

Today will be something like this:

  1. Seated leg curl for one rest-pause set
  2. Front squat for one set of 6-10
  3. Leg press for one set of 15-25
  4. Parillo deadlift for one set of 8-12
  5. Adductor machine for one rest-pause set
  6. Standing calf raise for one rest-pause set and one straight set with focus on the stretch

After that, I’ll do one set of 15-25 for chest, back, shoulders, abs, triceps and biceps.

All of this will take me about 35-40 minutes

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Are you thinking that you will get out as soon as your mandatory service time is up?

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If i haven’t changed my mind about getting leadership training, yes - staying in the army isn’t really even an option here, the amount of professional soldiers is tiny compared to the amount of people who have done their military service. (And if I’ve understood correctly, you have to be at least a sergeant to be able to work in the army, and that requires leadership training and being one of the best there)

When my time is up I’ll go home and start studying for my entrance exams (I’ll get out of the army about a month before the exams), I’ll probably work as a security guard and a personal trainer at the same time too.

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Entrance exams to uni?

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