Natty on Pennies

Training Training Logs
1102

God Damn! That is one of the most unbelievable feats of strength I’ve ever heard of. I have a one arm pullup on my strength bucket list but with one finger is a level I don’t think I had ever even considered.

I remember reading an article on here about doing like a deadlift ramp starting with two fingers and adding one every couple sets as you added weight and when I tried it I remember clearly the feeling that felt like my fingers were gonna fall off completely. I cant imagine hanging my whole bodyweight just on one hanging from a bar.

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1103

I want a video of that…

I agree. Supremacy of the pull bar master. Game over…

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1104

A one arm pull up would be a really cool feat of strength to achieve, so far I’ve only seen one person perform it. (In the real world, that is, on the YouTube I’ve seen a couple of guys who can do it) that dude was a friend of mine who is world class wrestler and really proficient with bodyweight movements.

A single finger pull up I’ve never seen performed live. Only heard of it and seen it done in YouTube videos. So it’s definitely not something casual.

It’s funny how if you have the right leverages you may be able to do pistol squats with no training whatsoever. I have a friend who’s like 5’5", never trained and can just bang them out, whereas I can’t do a single one even though in theory I should be. I still do think that being able to do pistol squats is very impressive.

But with one arm chins you just have to work. Of course it helps if you are short and have a smaller build but it still isn’t something you can be born with.

Think of the grip strength of old-time strongmen who could deadlift like 500 pounds with only one finger per hand. Back when strongman sports were more of a circus act there was a lot more of these odd and impressive feats of strength. Now it’s just who can load the stones the fastest or pull the most reps with this weight on deadlift.

One finger pull up is really the point where you can say you’ve mastered the pull up. Its just strength out of this world.

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1105

I’m not particularly excited for today’s training session; my lower back is not feeling good at all and it’s lower body day. Yesterday my back was pretty much fine, maybe a slight amount of discomfort, today it’s not so slight anymore. It’s not really painful, hut I’d rather live without it.

I’m not going to be stupid with this, if I fele that I need to switch up the exercises or stop a bit short in order to not get hurt I’ll do so.

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1106

Daily log:

Weight:
84.6kg/185.7lbs

Up .1 kgs from yesterday, my wild guess would be that the fact I slept for 4 non-consecutive hours has something to do with this.

Nutrition:
1470 Calories
220g Protein
80g Carbs
30g Fat

Training:
Lower body

1a Smith machine front squat
3 ramping sets of 6
2x6 with top weight
1b Leg extension
5x10
2a Good morning with a pause on pins
3x8
2b Makeshift reverse hypers
3x12
2c Reverse crunches
3x15
3a Horizontal leg press
2x50
3b Seated leg curl
2x30
4 Quad blast
2 rounds
5 Sissy squat
1 rest pause set of 30 reps
6 Single-leg calf raise
30 reps/side
5 minutes of cardio

Notes:
4 hours of sleep, 12 hours of work today followed by two hours of putting stuff up for my gf’s graduation party after that I was clear to hit the gym. Lower back was pretty iffy too, so not the best conditions for a workout.

I did this whole workout with practically no rest.

Zigzagging between smith machine front squats and leg extensions was a great idea - the squat load were limited and I was able to really feel the quads working. I’ve noticed that any time I do a movement where the movement pattern is fixed (think Smith squat, hack squat etc.) I lose a ton of power compared to free weight variations. I’m pretty sure that’s because my quads have to actually work and I have god awful quad strength.

Good mornings didn’t feel quite right with my back, so I did some reverse hyperspace and reverse crunches s th them to get some blood flowing and a bit of a stretch in the low back. Also I didn’t push the last set but instead left it at eight reps.

Leg press was in use and the horizontal one has a stack instead of being plate loaded, so I went with the whole stack. Had to do one pause with the first set and two with the second, and man did I have a pump after those.

From there I went into two sets of quad blasts, felt good as ever.

Now sissy squats for a long rest-pause set. Jesus. My quads were so pumped that the sheer amount of blood in there was resisting the stretch. Funny thing is that during the set my vastus medialis (the quad teardrop) was just full of veins. Imagine a thick spider web over that specific part of the quad. It looked really odd as the rest of the quad wasn’t nearly as vascular, just a couple of veins here and there.

Overall, from a bodybuilding perspective, a very productive and surprisingly good session.

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1107

Daily log:

Weight:
85.5kgs/187.7lbs
Slept well, woke up with actual pain in my lower back, so it may be that that has caused some water retention, don’t know.

Nutrition:
About 4000 Calories worth of food.

Training:
Nope

It was my girlfriend’s graduation party today, and that’s why I didn’t eat according to the diet. Basically today I ate some eggs, potatoes, meat, bread and a slice of cake. Graduation parties here are nothing wild, add a corpse and it could be a funeral. For anyone wondering if I had alcohol, I didn’t. I’ve actually never drank anything with alcohol in it apart from one sip of wine or something at my own graduation party.

My back was not happy at all today. Standing is tolerable, lying down feels good but sitting down is downright impossible. I’ll have to think twice about continuing the diet - if I need to start making compromises with my leg training I’ll probably add calories and maybe even go into a surplus just to avoid losing leg mass.

Oh, one funny thing that happened today was that my father’s current partner got a bit too drunk and told me that my father pretty much despises me and thinks I’m a failure. He hasn’t said it to my face ever but I’ve suspected thatbim not the favourite child for some time. She told me that it’s mainly because I’m lazy compared to my brother who studies all the time. (He’s 2 years younger than me and still in upper secondary -for anyone asking, I graduated with above average grades, not perfect but pretty good). He also thinks I’ve had it too easy in life. Now this may sound like whining and bitter (which I kind of am), but really, if we think of the fact that I moved out at 15 and ever since I’ve supported myself by working when one, when two or maybe three jobs it’s kind of unfair to compare me to my little brother who still lives at home and hasn’t worked a day in his life. It’s not that I don’t respect him, I do, but the circumstances for studying are a lot different with him than they were for me. But having your father talking down on you behind your back, that doesn’t feel good.

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1108

No, it doesn’t. People can be arseholes. You just worry about you mate, don’t let anyone else talk you down. Family or not.

Just try not to let it affect you and your brothers relationship.

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1109

Maybe you need a break from stuff for a few days, i find when i get stuff all sleep and things are just exhausting me mentally my back acts up.

That sucks man but don’t worry too much, you know you work hard for what you want in life so stuff what anyone else thinks.

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1110

I’m pretty sure just taking a break from stuff that puts a lot of loading on my spine will help, waking up today I felt a lot better, and earlier it really acted up after training legs

I’ll try doing low-impact stuff for a couple of days, if it doesn’t help I’ll take a few days off. After that we can think about wether or not I’ll have to stop the diet

Thanks guys, yeah, life goes on.

It won’t, in my mind my brother hasn’t done anything wrong, he’s just something my father compares me to. It ain’t his fault

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1111

Update on my back and future plans regarding diet and training

So, as you know I’ve tweaked my back. I wouldn’t classify it as an injury, but it certainly is an injury waiting to happen.

So with that in mind I’m ditching the idea of a Bulgarian cycle. In general I’ll have to eliminate or at the very least lighten up my training on stuff that places stress on the spine. This means mainly heavier squats and hamstring movements, but also stuff like bench pressing with a bigger arch. Also one thing I think I’ll be better without at the moment is seated and high incline presses because sitting down in general is the most painful position for me at the moment

So, you’ll see me performing actual sets for a while now, and if I go heavier it’ll be on a safer and probably a harder variation of a lift. I’ll probably need to stop free squatting for a while, I may try front squats or some sort of heel-elevated high bar squats on my next leg day but I’m not too hopeful about them.

For how long am I going to train like this?
Until my back is better again or I come to the conclusion that this isn’t helping/is making it worse, in which case I’ll need to make a new plan. I may also just take a few days off completely at some point to see if that helps (if it starts to look like I can’t get it better and train at the same time)

I’ll be doing a lot of hanging, traction work and stuff to get blood flowing in the lower back with low weights (think BW hypers and reverse hypers etc. You’ll see) It’ll be all good in a while.

Diet wise, I’ll stay on my diet for now. If I start to lose a lot leg mass/mass in general or take time off I’ll either up the calories to maintenance (for time off) or enter a surplus if I continue training.

So that’s that, I already hanged once today, in the afternoon I’ll be doing upper body and more hanging + some pump/rehab stuff for the back.

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1112

Daily log:

Weight:
86.3kgs/189.5lbs
I expected my weight to stay the same or go up slightly after yesterday and it did, from here I’ll try to get to 80kgs with no refeeds at all, should be manageable because as long as I’m over my lowest weight thus far (which was 81 something if I remember correctly) I still have some extra glycogen in there.

Nutrition:
1470 Calories
220g Protein
80g Carbs
30g Fat

Back on the diet, feels good.

Training:
Upper body:

1a Lat pulldown
3x10
1b Hanging leg raise
3x10
2a Makeshift reverse hyper
3x10
2b Clap pushups
3x3
2b Explosive chins w/fat grips
3x3
3a Bench press w/smaller than usual arch
4x8,10
3b Weighted pull ups w/fat grips
3x5
decrease weight
2x8
4a Low incline dumbbell press
5x12
chest stretch after last set
4b Seal row
5x12
5 DB Pullover
1x15
Back stretch
6a Standing DB Curl w/back support
4x15,20
bicep stretch after last set
6b Lying skullcrusher
5x15
tricep stretch
7a Lying rear laterals
3x10-15
7b Side-ish laterals
3x15-20
8a Lat pulldown
2x10
8b Hanging leg raise
2x10
8c Makeshift reverse hyper
2x10

Spread throughout the day:
Reverse hypers
Hanging
Stretches
A walk

Notes:
On paper this looks like a very long workout, but in reality it wasn’t

The lat pulldowns, hanging leg raises and reverse hypers as well as the pullover (and the back stretch too really) are there for the sole purpose of helping my lower back heal. With those movements I’m getting a good amount of traction, flexion and stretch in there as well as getting blood and fluids flowing into the area. I’m also doing reverse hypers, upside down hangs (thanks superD), walks and stretched all throughout the day, usually 3-5 times a day. (I just pick one or two of those and spend 5-10 minutes doing them. For walking I like to take a good 20-40 minutes, but with my work schedule I’m lucky to get one 20 minute walk in) If you wonder how to do reverse hypers without the machine at home/work, the kitchen table is your answer. If you do that at work just make sure nobody walks in on you.

But back to the training session.

Chins with fat grips felt decent, but I still like pull ups more. I promised @duketheslaya to test them out and so I did. One thing I noticed is that by pulling further down and essentially doing sternum chins instead of regular ones it felt a lot better.

Bench felt good, doing reps instead of just singles, doubles and triples is pretty nice.

Fat grips pull ups progressed as per usual, did two extra sets with lighter weight so that I could get a set in after each set of bench.

I did low incline dumbbell press instead of a higher incline one because sitting down hurts, but I still want to get my upper chest work in. They didn’t feel bad on my back at all really. Paired it with seal rows, which literally don’t load your lower back at all.

After that I did some longer sets for arms, pretty much just trying to get some blood flowing and a pump going on, and I managed to get a pretty sweet pump there.

One thing I’m really liking is the fact that I’m able to get better shoulder pumps with bigger weights, shorter sets and less focus than before, to me, that’s significant progress in terms of how productive my training is.

One thing I didn’t particularly enjoy was that I accidentally put 10 grams of salt in my intra workout drink instead of my usual 5 grams (I couldn’t remember wether or not I had put it in so I put it in again to be sure). It was pretty delightful taking a sip of my shake and then going to the bathroom to get a mouthful of water to battle the saltiness.

Tomorrow I’ll be doing lower body, and to be honest, I haven’t even decided on what I’ll be doing yet. I’ll probably try to do some smith machine front squats and maybe single leg SLDLs to see if I can have any kind of weighted hip hinge in at the moment. One thing is for certain; there will be a lot of long sets and short rests. It’s lovely.

Oh, I also called one of my employers (the one at the store) and told them I’m having some back issues. Got myself some shorter shifts and a couple of days off, which I feel will help in terms of healing up, because that job involves a lot of sitting down and awkward positions. I’ll be working a but more on the personal training and bouncing fields to make up for the loss of income but I’ll make sure not to overdo it.

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1113

Daily log:

Weight:
84.3kgs/185lbs

Down 2kgs from yesterday, I knew it would come down but this was a surprise

Nutrition:
1470 Calories
220g Protein
80g Carbs
30g Fat

Training:
Lower body:
1a Lat pulldown
2x10
1b Hanging leg raise
2x10
1c Makeshift reverse hyper
2x10
2a Hip thrust
increase weight slightly every set
4x12
2b Hamstring curl w/ exercise ball
4x15
3a Half reps on leg press + Quad burns on leg press
3x10+20
3b Hanging leg raise
3x12
4 Single leg DB SLDL
3x15/side
5 Seated calf raise
2x15
6 Quad blast
2 rounds
7 Sissy squat
1 rest-pause set of 35 reps
8a Lat pulldown
2x10
8b Hanging leg raise
2x10
8c Makeshift reverse hyper
2x10

Spread throughout the day:
Stretches
Hanging leg raises
Reverse hypers

Notes:

I tried both front and back squats with a free barbell, it’s a no-go for now.
Just like yesterday, I did lat pulldowns, hanging leg raises and reverse hypers to help my lower back both before and after my actual session.

Hip thrusts felt pretty good, having a weight on your lap that stretches the lower back out a bit feels almost therapeutic. Granted I wasn’t using a lot of weight here (or anywhere really) but it’s something.

On leg press I could feel discomfort in my back if I went all the way down, so I didn’t. And I paired the half reps with quad burns, which are essentially quarter reps with a closer foot positioning.

Single leg SLDLs felt decent, there was no back pain and I could get a good hamstring stretch with them. The weight was a bit lighter than with my regular SLDLs (naturally). The dumbbell I used was about 1/3rd of my latest load on barbell SLDLs, so we can make the assumption that my hamstrings were receiving about 2/3 of their usual loading as the movement is unilateral. That doesn’t really say anything as we can’t know just how much work my lower back and glutes were doing now in comparison to barbell SLDL.

My calves are not feeling fucky anymore so I’m starting to actually work them again. Now I feel that doing standing calf raises and thus having load on my back wouldn’t be the smartest thing now so I went with the seated variation, and as it is really uncomfortable to do with a quad pump I did it before quad blasts and sissy squats. (Also after those two I just want to get out of the gym so that’s two birds with one stone)

Finished up with quad blasts and sissy squats. On sissy squats I did 5 more reps in total than last time and needed less breaks, which was nice. On one of the sets I went into it a bit carelessly and I could feel this odd stretchy kind of feeling in my teardrop/knee, and even now - an hour later - it feels weird. It’s not pain or anything, it just feels like I had an uneven quad pump. Got to be careful with that.

Skipped cardio as I was in a rush, a store nearby had ground beef on a 30% discount and it was just about to close. Managed to get in on time and got me 8 kilos of that stuff. I’ll go back tomorrow to get some more if they still have it.

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1114

Daily log

Weight:
83.8kgs/184lbs

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

Training:
200 Calories worth of cardio
Hanging leg raises
Planks
Lat pulldown abs
Hanging upside down

Also took a long hot bath, I feel like it helped, at least for a couple of hours. But the real benefit of doing that was that I accidentally fell asleep there for like 45 minutes and woke up dry as hell with some all-new vascularity that I got to enjoy for about 15 minutes. It was pretty cool though.

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1115

Daily log

Weight:
81.8kgs/180bs

Got a new low and I’m just about to break 180lbs. Also I dropped 4.5kgs/10lbs in three days - it’s time to start marketing this magical diet.

This morning weight is a bit skewed because I took that bath yesterday and due to that I woke up very dry. To quote my girlfriend “what the fuck happened to you last night” that’s pretty much what I thought when I looked into the mirror in the morning

Nutrition:
1470 Calories
220g Protein
80g Carbs
30g Fat

Training:
AM:
Upper body
lat pulldowns, hanging leg raises, reverse hypers, clapping pushups and explosive sternum chins
1a Low incline bench
4x8,10
1b Weighted pullup w/fat grips
5x6
2a Floor press w/Dumbbells
4x12,16
2b Chest supported smith row
5x8
3a Standing cable skullcrusher
3x12,9
3b EZ-Bar curl w/fat grips
2x12
decrease weight
2x10
4a Lateral raises with back support
3x15-20
4b Face pull
3x15
5 Side to front laterals
1x50
more lower back stuff

PM:
Conditioning:
200 Calories worth of cardio
3 rounds of:
10 Pullups
15 Pushups
5 DB Snatches/side
Plank
after that
100 Calories worth of cardio

Notes:
It feels like a mental break to just do reps of 8-10 with weights I’d usually warm up with leading to my sets of 1-3. Also, the improved pump is a nice plus.

The pull ups are starting to feel a bit heavy, soon I may come to a point where I need to rotate them with another exercise.

I’m floor presses I warmed up with a barbell but it felt off so I decided to try dumbbells, much better. It was a really natural and even a bit therapeutic feeling exercise.

Chest supported smith rows were a mistake. Because I had to elevate the bench I was using with plates and both the plates and the bottom of the bench’s feet were smooth metal it would move a lot just from the smallest bump. Not going to do those again.

On bicep curls after the second set I felt that I could keep on going with the same weight by doing the movement without thinking too much, but my biceps wouldn’t benefit from it, so I dropped the weight a bit and only went as far as I could while keeping the tension on the muscle.

After the session I was looking pretty dry and I had a decent pump so I was happy. In the morning I had the driest and hardest look I’ve ever had, after training it wasn’t quite as good but I still had some of it.

Didn’t have time for cardio in the morning, so I did it and some more in the evening. I went to oversee my gf’s session and figured what the hell, I’ll do some conditioning work here. It was supposed to be just 100 Calories of cardio but it kinda got out of hand. I may start doing these when I have free time (so like once a year), we’ll see. But it’s strictly a diet thing.

Overall, this was a really good day.

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1116

How’s the back?

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1117

It’s better, thanks for asking.

I can now do most daily things with zero to minimal discomfort. Only thing that I try to avoid because of the back are long periods of sitting and being in a car. It does tighten up a bit later in the day so at night I still have some discomfort doing everyday stuff but it’s not nearly as bad as it was, say, two days ago.

I’m training I’m still avoiding putting pressure on it, my only squat variation as of now is smith front squat and the only Deadlift I do is single leg SLDL. I also still avoid high inclines and seated presses. Today I felt it a bit on BW squats during quad blast, which was odd.

I feel that fat loss wise this may even have been a good thing, as I was forced to lighten the loads, which I’m compensating for with added volume and training density.

1118

Daily log

Weight:
82.6kgs/182lbs

This is what I meant when I said my weight was skewed yesterday - it was due to being dry from the bath. Now the water is coming back and my weight will rise a bit. Not necessarily more than this but it’s possible.

Nutrition:
1470 Calories
220g Protein
80g Carbs
30g Fat

Training:
Lower body:
the same lower back stuff as before
1a Smith front squat
2 ramping sets of 6
3x6
1b Leg extension
5x10
2 Single leg leg curl
5x4,1 (muscle round)
3 Horizontal leg press
4x6 (15s rests)
4 Seated calf raise
3x6,8 (15s rests)
5 Quad blast holding the Smith bar
2 rounds
6 Sissy squat
1 rest pause set of 40 reps
10 Minutes of cardio

Notes:
The Smith front squat/leg extension combo feels pretty good.

The leg curl felt pretty good too, surprisingly I couldn’t do the last set completely, I just hit a brick wall after rep one.

I used a ton of cluster sets in this session, and it made for quite a quick workout. The whole lifting portion took 30 minutes to complete.

On quad blasts I could feel my back on the first round’s squats so I decided to grab the smtih bar for some support (to keep more upright) it made it a lot better in terms of back comfort and it made the quad blast itself a bit easier, which isn’t really a good thing.

On sissy squats I was extra careful, which paid off as no strange feeling around the knee.

Finished with ten minutes of cardio. Now usually I track cardio by calories because that is more accurate to in my mind. In the beginning of this diet 10 minutes if cardio was about 105 calories, now it’s only 80. That’s a rather big difference. Today I had limited time so I just jumped on and went on for 10 minutes. Then I went and grabbed myself 25 pounds of ground beef, the store had an extra discount for a total of 50% off. (I’ve probably bought over 50 pounds of discounted ground beef in the last three days)

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1119

You must have a massive freezer lol

That’s good my friend. It’ll be back to 100% in no time!

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1120

I actually have two freezers (well, three if we count the small one connected to my fridge) so I’m not exactly going to run out of space there :smiley:

Every day it’s feeling just better and better, but man I got to bulletproof my lower back after this, I don’t want this to happen again.

1121

Future plans; ending the diet and beginning to bulk

I’ve now set an ending date for my diet, which is a week from now (either Thursday or Friday next week) I chose that date just because at that point the diet has lasted for three months.

Why, you may ask?
Well, I did some thinking yesterday and today, and I came to the conclusion that whatever marginal benefit I could gain from going further into this cut does not outweigh the negatives. Because let’s be honest here; I’m not going to compete so really me chasing that conditioning is just vain. It would be a experience of what a contest prep at ~4 weeks out would be but I don’t think I need that just yet. Secondly, it’s not like I was the dude who went from 25% bf to 20% and decided that this was enough - at the moment I’m rather lean and not even in the double digits with my bf%.

Thirdly, I’ve been feeling not so well for a couple of days now, I have this constant feeling of overhydration even though I’m not drinking more than usually (so no idea why that is) and I’m constantly cold, which tells me my metabolism is slowing down.

So, a week from here I’ll stop the diet and have one relaxed day of eating. (I promised my girlfriend we’d do that once the diet is over) Simply put, that means just eating without weighting anything or thinking too much about what it is we are eating. Only rule is that if it happens to be a training day the time before the post-workout shake is downed is controlled - no breakfast carbs (but the breakfast doesn’t have to be ground beef as it usually is), peri-workout stuff is weighted.

The next day from that I’ll start reversing back into a surplus carefully. At first I’ll add about 700 Calories to each day, so I’m going to be in the 1900-2200 calorie range at that point. (You’ll see my meal plan later on)

Why not just go straight to 3500 or 4000?

Because I don’t know how much my energy expenditure is at the moment. If I’m still losing weight after the first bump in calories for, say, two week I’ll add some more. And then when I’m gaining just a bit I’ll hold it there until I’m not gaining anymore. At that point I’ll add again.

Now, my bulk will have a meal plan that I’ll adhere to. But if someone offers me food that I can substitute in and thus save money (or there is a good deal out there) I’ll take the chance.

Also, I may take my girlfriend out for a coffee or go eat out with friends from time to time, that won’t be weekly (I do that stuff like every other month or so). I’m just saying, this isn’t going to be a “I can only eat rice and chicken” type of deal at all times, just 95% of the time.

So yeah, 7 days of diet remaining.

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