Natty on Pennies

Training Training Logs
742

Lately I’ve been putting this one guy (the one who did shoulders and arms under my seeing eye a couple of weeks ago) though hellish HIT sessions.

What I’m trying to accomplish at the moment is building toughness. I’m making him do things that are not necessarily the most optimal but they hurt like hell and make him acknowledge what hard work feels like.

I’ve got to say, I’m pretty surprised of how hard he’s working already. Today we did legs and I made him go through leg curls, extensions and hack squats (two sets of each with drops/forced reps/both) the session took about 25 minutes, 15 if which was pure work.

And that’s hard. As hell.

Yesterday we trained twice (as we went to the gym as a part of military training) and today he was, well, a bit restricted mobility wise. I’m pretty sure he won’t walk tomorrow.

I really like training with this dude. He’s rather experienced so he knows how to push it with good form and he’s not afraid to try new things. I’ve also really got to satisfy my needs of training people - and now I want to train even more people.

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743

As a sidenote: you haven’t really lived if you’ve never deadlifted to Sweet home Alabama at 10PM after 12 hours of combat practice having eaten only a can of tuna and a bowl of oats during the entire day.

744

Today I went for a semi-fasted morning walk (this is more of a reminder for myself to try this more extensively later on)

I don’t believe in fasted cardio, not at all. But there may be some merit to doing semi-fasted cardio, for myself at least - mainly because after workouts I want to eat and I’m shot, and in the evening I’m usually busy. So getting it done first thing in the morning seems like a good idea.

Now what’s semi-fasted for me?

I had a couple of things before leaving the house;

For muscle sparing:
EAAs, BCAAs and Glutamine, 5 grams each (this is pretty self-explanatory)

For fat burning:
Green tea and fish oil

Why green tea and fish oil?
Well, both of them are decent fat burners, and when taken together the effect is enchanted. Also both of them promote using stored fat instead of carbs for fuel.

You see, the body feeds on what you give it - eat carbs and it’ll primarily burn carbs, same goes for fat and protein.

After you’ve burned what you are where does your body get more of the macronutrient?

Carbs - Your glycogen stores
Fat - Bodyfat
Protein - Muscle

That’s why I did not want to go for cardio having only eaten amino acids.

Of course during sleep you burn mostly fat and the theory is that if you just go do cardio right after waking up you’ll continue with that.

Yes, that’s going to happen, but you’ll also have higher levels of cortisol and thus you’ll end up burning muscle in addition to fat. We can counter that by having amino acids before cardio and then we’ll counter the continuous usage of protein by having fat and keeping you body into fat-burning mood that way. Also green tea promotes usage of fat for fuel instead of protein or carbs.

Now it’s far too early to say anything about wether or not this would work in the long run, but I’ll probably give it a go when I get out of the army.

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745

I feel like fasted or semi-fasted walking always feels pretty good & gets me amped up for he day. The only thing I really had to be mindful of was mileage. After about 2-3 miles I get a little hungry - which isn’t a big deal of course but may suggest that my body is needing some additional nutrition beyond that point.

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746

Good point, for most folks a 30-45 minute walk will fall somewhere between 2-3.5 miles, which is a pretty good place to be. But if you’re prone to hypoglycemia you should probably be a bit more conservative with the duration of your cardio sessions.

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747

Yesterday my girlfriend and I made a 100 pound/45kg sandbag, it was something I’ve wanted to do for a long time

Today I tried it for conditioning work, holy hell was it good

I did 10 minutes of work with it like this:

  • A minute-or so long sprint with the bag in a zercher or a bear hug position
  • Drop the bag, gasp for air for about 20 seconds, pick it up and continue

Repeat for as many times as possible in 10 minutes

The I tested for about four minutes and did it again (so the while thing took about 25 minutes)

It was hard, especially for my lungs (it’s about -10℃ outside which didn’t help). But really, it taxed the whole body (especially biceps, forearms and lower back/lower traps, but even my chest was feeling it afterwards)

I’ll definitely keep doing that in my free time

3 Likes
748

I got back from a five day combat training camp a couple of hours ago - so a forced week off lifting, average of 3 hours of sleep per night and about 1500 Calories per day

During the camp I learned a couple of important lessons (anyone who plans to join the military hear me out)

  • If your lunch includes quark/other dairy and you take ten of them with you to eat during the week keep them outside (it’s -10℃ here), not in the tent where they constantly freeze and unfreeze, as they may have some uncomfortable side effects if that happens

  • If you buy protein bars on sale check their fiber content before you eat four of them in one day. If it’s 20 grams per bar and there are no restrooms of any kind you’ll be uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable.

  • Don’t annoy your pals if you don’t want to be woken up by being beaten with a bag full of sandwiches. Man I’ve never been so confused

Currently I’m at the gym, just about to go in. A pot of coffee and my tunes are lifesavers.

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749

I don’t know how exactly, but I’ve managed to lose 16 pounds in 4 weeks by accident (and no, that was not all fat.)

That’s 4 pounds a week - an average of 2 000 Calories in deficit per day (granted some of that has to be water but still I’ve lost a fuckload of weight)

At the moment I’m feeling really tiny, as I’m usually 20-30 pounds heavier than this. But I’m not feeling bad from a performance and life standpoint, which is odd in a sense.

Even though I’ve lost lot of weight and some muscle quickly my strength is still increasing, so it’s not all that bad.

Now I gotta go eat.

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750

That sucks mate. I lose weight terrible easily as well if I’m not careful. Muscle comes back quick and easily enough though. Especially by you! Haha

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751

Can’t argue with that :smiley:

I’m really excited to see what happens when I get out of the military - it’s an opportunity to gain size faster than ever

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752

Just came up with a new conditioning circuit/complex (Just call Mr Dr. Complex)

All you need is a sandbag/other heavy thing you can sprint with and load and a place to load it on. I used a five feet tall rock wall, it doesn’t have to be fancy)

It goes like this:

  1. Grab the sandbag/object into a bearhug/zercher grip and spint with it to the loading area (the distance between your starting point and the loading area should be 50-100 meters)

  2. Load the sandbag onto your wall/truck/whatever

  3. Sprint back to the starting point without the sandbag

  4. Do 8 explosive squat jumps

  5. Sprint back to the loading area and grab your sandbag

  6. Sprint back to the starting point with your sandbag

Rest for 45-60 seconds and repeat for as many times as you please.

You should pick the distance and the amount of times you do this complex according to your level of fitness. Someone who’s not conditioned could do 5 rotations with 50 meters between the loading area and the starting point, whereas someone really conditioned could repeat the cycle 10 times with 100 meter distance.

I found this a very fast and fun way to get some high intensity cardio in and it definitely made me cough my lungs out. (It being -15℃ outside may have something to do with this)

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753

You wonder why you are losing weight :joy: :joy: :joy:

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754

Good point

But I gotta get them heart gains in man!

755

I am really enjoying reading your log! I like the ideas I get from you and your military stories. Your stories are much different from mine but still make me laugh. I hope you are doing well.

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756

:astonished: it’s a girl!

It’s ok guys, we have practiced this. Be natural, keep calm and remember to smile :grin:

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757

Nice to hear that you’re enjoying the log!
I’m doing great, hopefully you are as well

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758

Breath, breath, breath

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759

Now what the hell dude? Every time I post everyone’s just like, “Ahhh it’s just PC, no sweat”.

Think I’m probably one of the guys now lol.

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760

Day 287: I’ve been accepted as a member of the herd

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761

Haha nah I’m just too smooth when you are around now, so you don’t see the difference :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

And what a fine looking herd we have become!

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