Natty on Pennies

Training Training Logs
982

It is, and to think that places like Norway and Switzerland are 20-50% more expensive to live in is crazy

That’s a good idea. I could even attach them to the bigger pulley (which has like 30kgs more stack) and do them standing. I can’t use the bigger pulley seated because the pulley is so low that I end up rowing with the handle at around my crotch level

Funny how this didn’t even cross my mind, thanks man!

Finland actually has surprisingly many guys who have a great physique bodybuilding-wise, it’s just that they usually don’t do that well internationally. Maybe they are a tad too small, a bit too soft or something, but only a handful of guys from here have earned the IFBB pro card. (Most known one would be Marko Savolainen, look that guy up)

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983

Daily log

Weight:
87.3kg/194.5lbs

Slept pretty well again, but as I ate pretty late again my weight was up a bit

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

I’m pretty sure you know my macros by heart by now

Training:
(Squat jumps paired with front squat warmups, 3x2)
1 Front Squat
2x3
increase weight
2x2,5 (amrap)
2a Good morning with a pause on pins (pin 9)
2x8,30 (amrap, no that’s not a spelling error)
2b Weighted sit ups
3x10
3a Leg curl w/exercise ball
4x15
3b Leg press
4x15
3c Calf raise on smith machine
4x12
5 minutes of cardio

Notes:

Front squats felt good, not quite as solid as last time but I did get one extra rep with 2.5 kilos more weight compared to last time.

Good mornings felt really good, so I added 5 kilos from last time, and I ended up doing double the reps on my amrap set (30 compared to last times 15), guess I’ll 've milking this exercise for a long time.

I was a bit rushed so instead of doing two circuits, I just did the most essential stuff from both in one, actually it felt a lot better as there was no fluff and pump in there. I may keep it this way. Increased volume from last time here, kept weights the same.

Overall, a good session.

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984

How do you get so much protein while keeping your other macros low?

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985

Good question

Virtually all my fat comes from eggs and ground beef, both of which are decently high in protein, I get around 80 grams of protein from amino acids and whey on training days (50g on rest days, from whey) and with my carb meals I eat tuna/chicken

Actually, I may as well lay out what I’m eating at the moment

  1. 5 Eggs, Vegetables
  2. 200g 90% lean ground beef, Vegetables
  3. Either my peri-workout protocol* or a whey shake
  4. A can of tuna, 50g of rice, Vegetables
  5. ~275g of chicken breast, 50g of rye meal, couple of fish oil capsules

*my peri-workout protocol consists of 40g whey before training, about 20g of amino acids + 30g maltodextrine during training and 40g whey + 20g maltodextrine post training

In addition to that there is salt, creatine, L-glutamine etc. which I don’t factor in my macros

So a lot of foods that have basically nothing but protein and most of my fat/carb sources have protein as well

I don’t include vegetables in my macros, they would probably add up to about 40-50g of carbs

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986

Daily log:

Morning weight:
86.9kg/193lbs

I’m constantly getting these lower weights this week as I’m sleeping a lot more. Oh, and by the way, the pound measurement is probably off, I’ve just been basing it off of last days pounds for like a week now. I’m pretty sure that 86.9kgs is like 191 pounds, not 193
But most people here understand kilograms so it shouldn’t matter

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

Training:
200 Calories worth of cardio

Post training I went for a walk with an old friend of mine who I haven’t really hanged out in a long time. We live in the same city and train at the same time often but in the last few years we haven’t really done anything together. So we just begun walking and talking about stuff, ended up going on for 2.5 hours and about 15 kilometers.

Today I woke up feeling a bit under the weather, had kind of a sore throat and all that, guess I didn’t heal up completely after all. Usually I’d up my carbs a bit in a situation like this but it’s not so bad that I would be willing to lose diet days. As it is only in the throat I’ll be still training, maybe a tad less intensively so I don’t get even sicker.

Lately I’ve been reading Ben Pakulski’s book The incredible bulk.(I’m like halfway through it) I like the concept, well, because it’s basically what I myself do. More than anything I’ve gotten a confirmation for my methods from reading this. The only complaint I have about the book is that the whole presentation thing is downright stupid. (Sorry Ben) Even the name - incredible bulk, it’s just a play on words that everyone has come up with, and it doesn’t have anything to do with Pakulski. And there is a big green banner on every page with the text. It’s very amateurish. For me, trying too hard like that lowers the value of the book. Now don’t get me wrong, I think Ben is a really smart guy, but he really should fire his graphic designer.

If you wonder why I’m getting frustrated over stuff like this, I’ve studied and done some graphic designing myself, did a couple of commercials when I was around fifteen or so. And really anything that goes along the line of aesthetics, be it a physique, a book or a desk is something I want to be perfect. Big green banners and slogans on every page is torture to me.

But yeah, pretty good book.

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987

About the physical therapy stage 1 entrance exam

Okay, so, stage 1 is an online exam I did ~2 weeks back. Only 1 in 10 get to stage 2. (So, the people with top 10% scores in stage 1)

The problem is that it was a online exam (as stated) and there is no way of supervising that. Every single person I’ve talked to face to face or online has told me that they did it with a friend/a group of friends to help them out. (That’s prohibited but you can’t do anything about it). It was even on the news. And as there is no way to catch these people, guys like me who actually did the test alone and got a bit lower scores are in danger of not getting into phase 2. So I’ll admit, I’m a bit nervous. I attended to three schools and if I don’t clear this, I won’t get to stage 2 on two of them. That’ll leave me with the absolutely hardest thing to get in, sports biology. (Stage 1 test tomorrow)

Rarely do I worry about things, but this is definitely one. Because at this point every year I’m not in school is a year away from earning a better salary and being able to actually advance in life. For me just making money is not advancing. I want to better myself in every way possible. To be working without having a degree or working towards one would make me feel like a failure in a sense. Like, I want to wake up in the morning, go to school, go to the gym, go to work and just repeat that. To me, that’s efficiency. Efficiently is beautiful. If I have too much free time I’ll feel like a sack of shit - hence why I have three jobs at the moment. But if I were to work three jobs that don’t require that much practice and education for the rest of my life I would go nuts. I crave challenge. I want to work in a job or a position that I’ve earned in a sense.

Yeah, late night rambles, blowing off some steam.

988

Anything that’s worth having is never easy to get. Good luck with your exam scores but even if you miss out, there are always other options. With your attitude, there is no way you will be a failure.

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989

Thanks man. I’ll do my best and we’ll see if it’s enough

990

goodluck. im sure you’ll pass

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991

Thanks man

As for the stage one for sports biology (today’s test) it’s really hard to tell how it went. It was 40 multiple choice questions with +1.25 points for correct answers, -1 for for incorrect and -0.5 for not answering. So if you don’t know it’s really risky. The questions were really nitpicky, it would be like
“which of the following is true?”
“a study by Smith and Jameson concluded that this and this happens for this reason”
b would be the exact same thing hut maybe one of the guy’s names was changed or a cause was changed or anything. Four options on every question.

Also there were questions about the methods I’m which specific studies were made, and there were like 8 different studies with different methods about seemingly similar things. It was hard man. But it was hard for everybody so I can’t complain.

Results will come in about one week for physical therapy and three weeks for sports biology

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992

Daily log:

Weight:
86kg/189lbs

New low, gonna keep going for another 4-6kgs

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

Training:

1a Clap pushups
3x3
1b Explosive sternum chins
3x3
2 Close grip bench
2x3
increase weight
2x2,0
decrease weight
A single
3a Bench holds
110,120% of top weight
3b Weighted pull ups w/fat grips
3x5
4a Alternating incline DB Press
2x8/side
4b Single arm low pulley row
2x12/side
5a Seated DB Curl
2x15
5b Rope tricep extension
2x15
5c Lateral raises
2x15

Notes:
The session started really well, but as I was warming up I chatted a bit about the test with my girlfriend (who also took it) and I realized that I had made a couple of mistakes due to not reading the question correctly. Now, we were told that if you see that there are pre than one correct answers to a question, just pick one of them. I read two questions wrong, both of which were “which of these is not correct” - type questions. Missed the 'not" and just thought these were questions that had more than one correct answer.

So I then realized that I lost at least five points doing so, because the things at hand were stuff I know, you know, about glycogen and Golgi tendon organ. So naturally I got pissed about it.

My first four bench sets went very well with the aggression driving me but I should’ve snapped out if it. I ended up being in that state of mind for too long and then when I was supposed to do my amrap I was just exhausted. (Adrenaline production can crash your dopamine). Couldn’t budge it. I even reduced the weight lower than what I was doing triples at and got a single with it.

So at this point I’m just done. I wanted to get out as quickly as possible so I just did some stuff to get some stimulation in order to keep from losing muscle.

Yeah. A session.

Not too hopeful about sports biology anymore but I’m not scrapping it just yet.

993

Daily log:

Weight:
87.1kg/191.5lbs

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

I’m thinking of maybe doing a slight carb load after my next leg session, I feel that I can benefit from it with my level of stress and leanness. Gonna deplete myself a bit for it.

Training:
1 Jump squats 3x2 paired with squat warm-ups
2 HB Squat
2x3
increase weight
2x2,3
3 Squat holds
150,200,225% of top weight
4a Rack pull at mid shin (DOH, no thumbs)
3x5
4b Standing crunch on lat pulldown
3x10
5 Single leg hamstring curl
6x4/side (muscle round, no rest)
hamstring stretch
6 Constant tension lunge
6x4/side (muscle round, no rest)
7 Hamstring curl w/exercise ball
1x20
8 Leg extension
1x10
quad stretch, drop weight
1x8
quad stretch, drop weight
1x6
quad stretch
Seated calf raise, 10 second stretch on every rep
6x4 (muscle round, 15 second rest)
drop weight
1x20
drop into stretch and hold for a minute
5 minutes of cardio

Notes:

On paper, this may seem like a really long session, but it didn’t actually take too much time.

Squats were good, last time I got two doubles with the weight I did triples with today.

On rack pulls I moved from double overhand to double overhand with no thumbs, didn’t actually notice any drop I’m strength.

On assistance stuff I wanted to do something completely different. I’ve ram out of stack on bilateral leg curl and on belt squats I’m facing the problem of not having enough room to add weight. I used a lot of hacks rounds, long sets and intensification techniques here. It felt really good.

Afterwards we went to visit our neighbors house with my girlfriend’s family. Pros: there was a corgi there and she loves them. Cons: a ice hockey game was on and everyone was yelling and cheering the whole time. I do not enjoy ice hockey and I hate yelling.

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994

Damn :frowning_with_open_mouth:

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995

Yeah, tell me about it. I’m really bad at anything that requires meticulousness. I get bored really fast and in a situation like this that means I won’t be reading carefully and I’ll just try and get over with it as fast as I can. I’ve tried to work on it but man, it’s hard. When I was a kid it was suspected that I had ADHD, which, honestly, could be true. But all in all, I should’ve taken more time to read the questions correctly and completely, and I can only blame myself for this.

996

So, in my last daily log I mentioned maybe having a carb load on my next leg day, which I won’t do. I’ll push it back to the next one.

In order to get the maximum benefit out of it I’ll be depleting myself on lower than usual calories.

So, for the next five days my macros will look approximately like this:

Rest days:
1200 Calories
190g Protein
40g Carbs
30g Fat

Training days:
1470 Calories
220g Carbs
80g Carbs
30g Fat

Now, the question is “why would you do that?”

Because I crave experiment. The good thing about this diet is that I’m in a quite large deficit at all times and thus I’m always depleted. That in turn means that I could go and eat way over budget at any given day and I’d get a supercompensation effect out if it. (Given I had 4-6 days between days like that to deplete again)

I want to see what happens when I enter a greater state of depletion and then load with only extra carbs. My body is really quick to use glycogen as it is so it should work pretty well.

Now, I want to have the carb load on my back squat/rack pull day after training. That’s because that is objectively the hardest session of my cycle. Also, as I train upper - lower - rest I want to have the load after my last session before a rest day so I don’t mess up my training. Generally when you do a calorie load and train the next day that workout suffers a bit because you may be bloated or still digesting. By having a rest day after load we avoid that and we’ll be left with no bloating and full glycogen stores for our next upper body session. So, extra recovery for legs and filled glycogen stores for upper body (and lower too really). I think that’s pretty smart.

There’s no way of telling just how my weight will behave during the next five days. It should go down a bit due to lost glycogen (which there isn’t really a lot of), but it may go up as cortisol levels go up. We’ll see.

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997

Daily log

Weight:
87.7kg/193lbs

Nutrition:
1200 Calories
190g Protein
40g Carbs
30g Fat

As mentioned, a bit lower calories than usually. Yeah, I’m hungry.

Training:
200 Calories worth of cardio

Went for a walk in the morning, just listening to a podcast and walking with a decent pace. That took 90 minutes.

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998

Daily log:

Weight:
86.2kg/190lbs

Initial drop in weight as expected, it may go up due to added stress in the following days

Nutrition:
1438 Calories
230g Protein
80g Carbs
22g Fat

In the morning I realized I had ran out of ground beef so I had to resort to my leaner version of beef that has a tad more protein as well.

Training:
Upper body

1A Incline bench
2x3
increase weight
3x1+negative
1B Weighted pull ups w/fat grips
5x6
2A Floor press w/fat grips
5x6
2B Single hand low pulley row (thumbless grip)
5x15/side
3A Rope tricep pushdown
3x12
3B EZ-Bar curl w/Fat grips
3x9
4A Side delt burns
3x15
4B Rear delt pulls on low pulley
3x15
4C Bottom half standing DB Press
3x15
5 Minutes of cardio

Notes:
Forgot the pushups and sternum chins, seems like diet is doing it’s thing.

On incline bench I got the triples I was supposed to do, but instead of doing doubles I did singles and an extra negative. That’s because I had no spotter and as I unracked the bar the rack I was pressing in moved backwards, making a shaky rerack an one way ticket to decapitation town. But I got three singles at my old one rep max while being almost 10kgs lighter, and that’s a win.

Did single arm pulley rows like @duketheslaya suggested, using a thumbless grip it became a pretty good grip exercise in addition to a back exercise.

I’m kind of in between with tricep exercises at the moment. Last time I did skullcrushers, this time pushdowns. I’m just searching for a good movement at the moment.

The delt giant set was really great. All of the movements were chosen so that the tension remains on the delts at all times and the supporting muscle groups rotate. Got an insane pump from that even though I feel quite depleted.

I checked the weight limits for classic bodybuilding today (basically the same thing as natural bodybuilding)

At my height (193-194cm/6’4"ish) your maximum stage weight is 105kgs/231lbs. That’s big. Like, really, really big. To give you perspective, a guy of that size would need to be lean at around 120-125kgs/264-275lbs in the off-season. So it looks like I’m going for a 40kg/88lbs gain in my mass gaining phase after this diet. That’s gonna take a while.

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999

I don’t like skullcrushers, I prefer overhead tricep extensions with a heavy dumbbell.

Haha good luck! What would you guess your Bodyfat is at the moment?

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1000

Heavy skullcrushers bother my elbows, that’s why I’m trying to find something to replace them with

OH extensions with dumbbell would be good but the DBs are so big that I can’t get a full range of motion with them, and if I try them with barbell my elbows are just screaming. I guess a cable version would be viable.

According to the US navy online calculator I’m at -1%, but that may be a bit off

I’m probably around 10%, maybe 9% at the moment. A year ago I was a bit bigger at the same level of leanness, but I’m actually surprised about how little muscle I lost. I’ll probably take 4-5 more kgs off and chase a 6% bf on this diet.

That’s still a long way from stage ready but it’ll serve as a very good starting point for the mass phase. Only rule here is that if I start to see gradual loss of strength or muscle mass I’ll stop and start gaining again. No reason to go backwards on either of those when you are dieting and not going to a show.

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1001

Any chance of pictures when you’re finally done?

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