Natty on Pennies

Training Training Logs
962

Yeah, they are. I have a bit of swayback (too much lordosis, genetic thing) and I remember when I first tried them my midsection was all over the place. Even nowadays if I have to do really high reps/time for pushups/planks/anything involving the plank position my back starts collapsing first, because I literally can’t get it into an optimal position.

On a plus side I can create a really great arch, which means I can do my hamstring stuff with a great stretch and combined with my large ribcage my bench rom is like six inches if I use a wide grip.

As another negative, the condition makes activating your glutes pretty damn hard. That’s probably why my hamstrings are so dominant. I find it really hard to get glute activation even with stuff like hip thrusts, only way I can get it us if I add an element of abduction to the exercise (think a band between knees), and that’s because hamstrings simply don’t partake in that.

Pulling rambles out of my ass (about my ass) part 178

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963

Oh, by the way. I hit a new low weight in today with 87.5kg/195lbs. Down 1.2kg/~3lbs just from sleeping a bit better for one night. Told ya carbs weren’t needed.

Now I’m wondering, would I have gotten lower had I eaten carbs? Maybe, maybe not. I’ll have to experiment.

I’ll make this a reverse cycle diet.
(Cycle diet in short: eat very little, when you hit a new low weight in, have a cheat day/half a day/1.5 days, get a nice supercompensation effect)

What this will become: eat far too little, don’t sleep and stress your body out, when you hit a new high weight in eat some carbs and have a good nights sleep.

that was sarcasm

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964

Daily log

Weight:
87.5kg/195lbs (as mentioned)

Slept better and it shows immediately.

Nutrition:
2060 Calories
260g Protein
120g Carbs
60g Fat

Training:

1a Clap pushups
3x3
1b Explosive sternum chins
3x3
2a Deadstop pin CGB from chest level
2x3
increase weight
1x2
increase weight
1x2
1x4 (amrap)
2b Weighted pull ups w/fat grips
3x5
3a Incline pin press
5,2x4
3b Seal row
3x15
4a Seated dumbbell curl
2x15
4b Tricep extension
2x15
Rear lateral-lying upright row-cheaty side lateral-lying upright row-rear lateral
10 reps on laterals and 15 on upright rows

Notes:
I was training alone and in a hurry today, as I had to drive about an hour to work at a different location afterwards.

Didn’t want to do traditional close grip bench without a spotter so tried it from pins at chest. Started a tad too light so ended up increasing the weight an extra time there. The lift itself felt pretty good.

Incline pin presses felt like shit today. I suspect it’s because I had already done one exercise where I need to overcome a dead stop, maybe I would’ve had more in me had I done an exercise that allows for elastic energy to be used. Who knows.

Already by the time I had done three sets I had about five minutes of time left so I just hit arms and delts fast and got on my way. (Being in a diet I saw this as more important than doing two extra sets of an exercise I had already exhausted in that session)

I’ve been getting really good pumps despite using mainly low reps and having really low carbs, which is a good thing. Any time you can get a pump with a high weight you’re on the money for hypertrophy. Also after this session I was feeling really thick and dry, not even in the pumped up way, just plain thick. It’s weird if we consider that I weight roughly as much as a bucket halfway full of snails at the moment. Guess that’s a good thing.

Now, to work.

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965

Daily log

Weight:
86.3kg/192lbs

Down another 3 pounds for a total of 2.4kg/5.5lbs in two days with just one modification: better sleep

Nutrition:
Unknown, not done yet. Probably going to be around 2.5K at the end of the day.

We had my birthday/first of May coffees at two different places (my father’s and my mother’s), and I wasn’t gonna come across rude to either if my grandmothers. Cause you know, diets come and go, but you only have a couple of grandmas. So nutrition wise this wasn’t the best day.

Training: (see notes)
1 Squat
2x2 at the weight I was supposed to do triples at
2 Pin 2 rack pull w/fat grips
Just messing around here, feeling things
3a Hamstring curl with exercise ball
3x15
3b Leg extension
3x15
4 Bulgarian split squat
2x15/side
5 Seated calf raise
2x15

Notes:
Now you may think, man what the hell is going on. I’ll tell ya.

My girlfriend has been feeling sick for two days now, and I wasn’t feeling too good going in here either. After my warmups I started getting the fevery hot feeling, hut it wasn’t that intense. You know, my muscles did feel like they were empty and not warm at all but I still felt hot, like heat was pushing through my eyes.

Tried to squat and it did not go well. I was feeling really weak and fevery so I just did two sets with the weight I was supposed to do triples at to keep the movement pattern and the feel to the exercise while avoiding grinding.

Rack pulls below knee (or any Deadlift variation really) are one thing I would never do while sick, so I just wanted to do something light and easy. Worked up to three plates with the fat grips. (Strapless, double overhand of course) it felt pretty good but I didn’t want to push it really.

Then I did some isolation work (ham curls and extensions) for a tiny but if volume just to get a stimulus to avoid possible muscle atrophy.

Lastly for thighs I did Bulgarian split squats as I did want one more overall-ish movement in there. It actually felt really good.

Finished with calves.
I’ve really been liking the fat grips as of late, grip training in itself also fascinates me. I had the opportunity to try Level 2 CoC last week at the gym I went to and it wasn’t too much of a problem to me, and I haven’t really done too much grip work in my life. Maybe I should put more effort into that and see how far I can get.

Afterwards we went to my father’s to have a few cups of coffee and some pastries to go with it. Didn’t really eat that much and only had two cups of coffee but for some reason it really upset my stomach and made me feel like throwing up. Weird. But imma do anything for ma grandma. You got to realize that everyone’s time is limited and your diet is not gonna go to hell for eating few hundred calories of cookies and apple pie your grandmother made for you. If this was a contest prep diet things would of course be different, but then I would’ve informed them about it just so they know I’m not just being rude.

Also, my younger brother has really gotten into geography lately. He’s only ten but can draw all of the Nordic and Baltic countries from memory, place the biggest 10-30 (depending on the country) cities on the map and write their population there as well. That’s just insane.

Gonna go and heat up the sauna tonight, usually that helps with staying healthy.

Now that I mention it, I find it pretty odd that almost every person in Finland has a sauna in their house. Like, we all just have this one room that gets really hot and if you fall asleep there you’ll die. Mind boggling.

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966

Wait, what, why?

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967

P.s hope you feel better soon mate. Burning the wick at both ends comes to mind when I see your lifestyle :joy:

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Extreme dehydration mate, probably should’ve written “if you fall asleep at high temperatures you may die”. That has happened in Finland a few times, you know, we go up to over 100 degrees Celsius in there

Thanks man

I’m already feeling better, the sauna did wonders. Now I’m only having a slight headache, but that’ll pass with a night’s rest. Hopefully I don’t wake up sick tomorrow.

warning - I’m gonna get off track here and ramble

And yeah, my lifestyle is pretty much just that, but I’ve found that my body can actually take quite a bit. I’m rarely really sick (in the military our building was full of mold so that’s a different story) even though I work and train a lot and eat less than a teenage girl on some diets. And when I do get sick it’s one or two days and I’m fine again.

Even now I’ve been feeling great with an average of under 2K calories, 5 hours of sleep per night and ~85 hours of work per week while training with weights on two of every three days and doing conditioning on the remaining one.

That’s actually genetic I think, my mother work a lot too, eats little (pretty much only chicken, eggs and vegetables) and she can train with very high volume and intensity every day if we have the time.

Sometimes I do wonder what would happen if I just tried to overtrain myself. I’ve done full-body training every day with no problems (or sleep or calories) before, so I guess I could really push it pretty far. I remember when I trained with the bodybuilding champ, he though I was on drugs because I recovered in under 24 hours whereas he took three or four days to recover.

But yeah, ramble’s over. You’re right in a sense that I do live a stressful life and it probably isn’t the most optimal choice, but right now it feels like the right one.

Next week is looking pretty empty though, I only have about 50 hours of work, gotta ask for extra.

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969

Daily log

Weight:
Morning weight unknown, spent the night at my father’s place so no scale, after work I was 88kg/195.5kg

Nutrition:
1740 Calories
230g Protein
70g Carbs
60g Fat

Training:
200 Calories worth of cardio

In terms of nutrition, this was a basic day.
As for sleep, got five hours in (yeah, I know, but I had to wake up at 4:30AM to go to work and I stayed up late last night doing stuff for a client)
But what really shines is how I turned an 8-hour day into an 11-hour day and got a bouncing gig for the night (+I trained a client, bu that was something we agreed on a lot earlier) basically I got six extra hours of work in, as the bouncing took three. I like to work really long hours on rest days, it keeps me active and takes my mind off of dieting.

Gonna keep the work stuff on a lower priority from now on, this is not a how I make my living - log

Come Friday I’ll be attending round one (of two) of sports biology entrance exams, man I really want to get into that school. I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard of a more interesting thing to study. (Physical therapy would be pretty damn close though)

Hopefully it goes well.

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Rarely if ever have I had a real audiovisual “what the fuck” moment when seeing pictures of competitive bodybuilders, but look at this

https://www.instagram.com/p/BiNLw9EHILl/

Finnish dude, around 6’1" (185cm) and ~130kg (253lbs)

That is just plain insane midsection to shoulder ratio, and what the hell is going on with the lats?

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rest3
rest3613×611 178 KB

It’s got to be photoshopped! That is incredible.

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Good luck man!

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973

The level #2 is no joke.

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I’ve seen the dude on stage a few years back, he had insane frame even back then, and knowing how the guy is I doubt he would Photoshop his pics. (In Finland we have a lot of people who contribute to making bodybuilding more mainstream by doing YouTube videos and such, there are literally a ton of them online)

But really, in my opinion that is how a bodybuilder should look like. That is freaky.

Thanks man!

What is the level that gives you bragging rights?
But seriously though, if CoCs weren’t so damn expensive I’d have ordered them in a heartbeat.

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2 and above imo.

im closing the no.1 at the moment, started off on the trainer.

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976

email me it’s in my bio, i’ll see if i can order you one if you want man.

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Gotta get to #3 to be sure then

Thanks for the offer man, really appreciate it, but if I feel like I’d use them enough to make the investment I’ll order them myself. (It’s not like they were really that expensive, but 35 euros is 35 euros)

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978

Daily log

Weight:
86.5/192.5lbs

Slept really good, maybe even a but too good. Usually I wake up during the night, take a leak and drink a bit. Now I didn’t wake up, and thus didn’t get to drink. Come morning I was feeling really dehydrated rather than just dry. But hey, a low weight in is a low weight in. (Not that it would matter to me at all)

Nutrition:
2060 Calories
260g Protein
120g Carbs
60g Fat

Training:
AM:
Upper body:

1a Clap pushups
3x3
1b Explosive sternum chins
3x3
2a Incline bench
2x3
increase weight
2x2,3 (amrap)
2b Weighted pull ups w/fat grips
5x6
3a Floor press w/fat grips
5x6
3b Wide grip pulley row from a bit higher
5x15
4a Rolling skullcrusher
3x8
4b EZ-Bar curl w/fat grips
3x8
5a Long ROM side laterals
3x15/12/10
5b Seated face pulls
3x15/12/10
5 minutes of cardio

PM:
1a Board press
4x6,12
1b L-sit pull ups
5x8
2 One armed barbell oly complex thingy (See notes for description)
4x/side

Notes:

AM workout went well.

On incline bench I got that third rep I missed last time, and next time I’ll be tackling my old 1RM for doubles. Cool.

I trained alone so went with floor presses over board presses again, I actually like how the two cycle in and out in the program. Felt good and strong.

With floor presses I did wide grip rows, which I adjusted so it’s more like a high row, sadly I repped the stack again so I have nothing to gain from that. I’m pretty close to being resorted to only seal rows and I don’t like that.

Overall, really solid session. Apart from incline bench I added weight to everything, and on incline I got more reps than before.

Now, the PM session. I was at the gym training my GF (after she got off work, I like to train earlier in the day so I went earlier in the day) and I figured, well, I’m here, why not do something?

I did board presses with the same weight I would’ve used for my sets was it a regular session, and decided to test a bit to see where I’m at. Did 12 reps at around 7 RPE, things seem to be working.

Paired that with L-sit pull ups, nothing special there.

Now, the oly complex. Man, I love one-armed Olympic lifts. So what I did:
With a barbell and one arm (for every single lift) I did snatch into overhead press, drop the bar back to starting position, clean and press into front squat. With front squat I kept my free arm pointed straight forward.

It was a really cool and rather fluid complex that didn’t really tax me that much, it was just something I did for fun.
Sadly one-armed Olympic lifts are not a thing.

The other day I had a discussion with @Irishman92 about how some people handle a lot more stress before being affected by it than the other. Today was a prime example, my girlfriend had am eight hour workday (she doesn’t do anything too physically demanding at there job) and had to lift a bit later than usually. She started off good, hit an incline bench record. But after that everything went to shit. On board presses she got fours intestead of sixes, chinup numbers were pretty much halved and we had to cut the isolation work to a bare minimum. That paired witht he fact that she hates failing is no good thing, after the first board press set she started sobbing and let me say, it can really get in her head and ruin her session. That’s all because she worked eight hours instead of six and got to the gym a but later than usually. Nutrition was good, sleep was really good, she was not sore or anything.

Fascinating, really.

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979

Anyone who can close the #3 has crazy strong grip strength

no worries, stuff is sure expensive where you are though.

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980

What about one arm cable rows if you have this?

download
Repping the whole stack with two arms is good, but imagine building up to repping it with one!

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981

Fantastic physqiue! Dream bod~

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