January 25, 2019 (BTS)
Ramp to 2rm
Back Squat 120 kg
Deadlift, couldn’t even budge 145 or 142.5
Bench 80 kg
January 26, 2019
Planned rest day but I’ve come down with a cold and so I’m not really recovering.
Notes from Week 4, 2019
Observations made during the week
Observation 1: I’ve probably reversed my diet by now and was for a while thinking (and actively trying) to get into a surplus. This proved to be a bit too soon, and it looks like some of my adipocytes have filled right back up.
Since I’m not willing to go back into a diet at the moment there is really nothing to do about it other than learn from the mistake. I.e., coming out of a traditional straight diet it is best to err on the side of modest calorie increases every week as opposed to trying to hurry back to normalcy.
Adjustments to be made with regards to week 5 in this respect is simply try to stay at the weight I’m at.
Observation 2: Eating triggers hunger. For instance, on Tuesday (rest-day) I first walked to the office (fasted) and then I had a big bowl of oatmeal, blueberries and low-fat cottage cheese. Before this, I was not hungry and I was plenty focused. After the meal, I was hungry, jonesing for more food and distracted. Tuesdays is one of those days were I could probably go without food for quite some time and maybe breaking my fast at lunch or perhaps even later.
Adjustments for week 5: skip as many meals as possible on Tuesday, eat something low GI-carby+protein-y before PM climbing, have liquid nutrients during to spare my muscles and then have a big feast afterwards.
Observation 3: Strength training is rough, the numbers I hit on my Sunday workout (the program’s Monday) required an RPE at the upper echelon’s of the scale. The same can be said for the subsequent day, even though I was only lifting at 80% of what I did the previous day. It’s cool how the nervous system works.
In BTS you have a set of lifts that you do for 3 weeks, staring with a 3RM in the first week, then 2RMs in the second and finally a 1RM in the last week before doing another set of lifts for the next three weeks.
Since I’m sick today I might miss my day tomorrow where I’m supposed to set the 1RMs from which to base my numbers for the week. And, I felt that the first week was the best for me personally. 2RMs were somewhat casual in a way (less work per session) but also more draining in a way.
So, what I think I’ll do this week is when I get well I’ll be doing 3RMs and just repeating my numbers from the first week (possibly beating them a little) and after the that for the next mesocycle (I hope I used that word right) I might stick to 3RMs all the way through. In effect, I’d not be doing BTS any longer but a close variant.
It really sucks that once you create fat cells they just stick around forever. It’s always easier to gain fat the second, third, fourth, and so on time around. It’s easier to fill a fat cell than to create new ones. I think a lot of people underestimate this or just flat out don’t know about it. It can be discouraging to see the scale or mirror change in a hurry after a successful weight loss phase.
Here in the US people are so vain (and lazy) that we have “smart lipo” and you can get it done on your lunch break. I’ve been tempted to look into it so it’d be easier to stay lean year round but my pride (and probably pocket book) won’t allow it. I wish I had never let myself get soft. I wasn’t never really big but big enough that it makes it tough to stay lean year round where you can see ab definition. And, of course, my excess goes straight to my sides and back and instantly ruins the V taper.
There was someone on the forums that asked about thermo-sculpting (is this the same thing?) and got torn a new one. While I understand people’s reasoning, they in fact wrote out their arguments for being upset, I would have been interested to know if there was any merit to the method as it is available here albeit it is prohibitively expensive as there isn’t a big market for it (supply/demand).
My guesstimate has always been that the success rate reported by the method is biased because people willing to spend that much money on a procedure are also willing to remain strict with their diet.
If I could afford it, and I could find reputable sources supporting that it indeed does get rid of fat cells, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Why? I’ve earned the right to be lean now, I don’t need to carry those empty fat cells for life, I’ve learned my lesson and paid my dues. Doesn’t make me any less prideful, to my mind. Ever thought about it from that angle?
No, I’m just stubborn. I have the mindset of “I don’t need that stuff. I can handle it myself.”
And I’m talking about liposuction. They literally suck fat out of your gut.
Respectfully, you can absolutely handle yourself. This is not something that lies anathema to that. I’ve seen your pictures (you look great by the way), this would only be a means to not carry the weight of previous dietary mistakes in the sense that your body would be less sensitive to a surplus in the fat gaining sense and so you’d have a wee-bit more leeway in how you eat when building muscle.
If having that leeway makes the process less error-prone and sensitive to fat gain, and furthermore if that at all reduces stress associated with that process then it might be worth momentarily setting pride aside.
I should probably Google this but how is it possible to do so without it having the recovery period associated with an invasive procedure?
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I have no idea. Perhaps there’s a limit to how much they can take out without putting you in a recovery room for days.
Here’s some info from a local place that does it.
From top to bottom and everywhere in between, Smartlipo TriPlexâ„¢ is an advanced laser lipolysis body-sculpting system. Smartlipo Triplex melts away fat while stimulating your collagen to tighten and tone skin.
With Smartlipo, it’s possible to treat areas of fat that are resistant to diet and exercise with greater results, minimal downtime and less pain than traditional liposuction. Smartlipo targets areas include the arms, neck, face and body.
Smartlipo is the most advanced laser assisted lipolysis system available. This unique technology safely delivers the optimal blend of three laser wavelengths for better fat removal and enhanced tissue tightening.
They also do traditional liposuction and it looks to be a bit more drastic.
January 27, 2019
Sick
January 28, 2019
Sick
January 29, 2019
Climbing in the PM, from 15:30-18:30. Nice. Still have a cold though. Ended up doing something nasty to my wrist which turned plenty swollen. Fortunately, a guy I climb with is a doctor and he said he thought it appeared fine but if the swelling continues for two days I’d need an X-ray.
January 30, 2019
Kept with the two reps for this session as I still have a cold and didn’t want to go too out of breath. Basically a repeat of how I performed last week which feels acceptable given the givens.
4x2@ around 90%
A1. Zercher 90 for the first two sets, back felt fucky on the first set, wonky on the second. Dropped down to 80 kilos and had no issues.
A2. Floor Press 67.5
B1. Deficit DL 130
B2. Seated Cable-Row
Swelling is down, no pain
That’s good news. I think with joints like the ankle and wrist the injuries are usually to soft tissue. Fractures are pretty obvious right away. I always chuckle when people want me to get x-rays. I know that I really need an MRI most of the time.
I don’t know, not a medical expert myself but I’d be hard-pressed to counter suggest that you are wrong. With this particular injury though the suspicion was a fracture to either the pisiform or the triquetrum which could show up on an X-ray. However, it was a bit hard for him to tell because I was not really in pain but I was running high on adrenaline. But the way the swelling was suggested soft-tissue damage.
Hopefully my cold continues to improve, and if so I’ll go climbing tomorrow and will be all the wiser from the feedback I get from my body as I attempt to climb 
I’m just speaking from my experiences. Broke both bones in my wrist at the same time. Broke my hand. Broke my fibula. Cracked my talus (part of the ankle joint). I’ve suffered too many ankle sprains to count along with several knee injuries and shoulder injuries LOL
I’m not a medical expert but I have a lot of experience.
January 31, 2019
Repeating last weeks 70% session, this time with three reps.
4x3@70%
Zercher 70
Deficit DL 100
Floor Press 57.5 (because I can’t read apparently)
Climbed in the PM. Had an undeservingly beautiful session as I still have a cold. Climbed a 7A+ broken, I’m betting that before the end of Feb I’ll be climbing 7As unbroken.
February 1-3, 2019
Sick 
Today on February 3rd the idea was to set 3RMs for the week, that’ll have to happen when I can get back to the gym. The way my chest feels, inside of the lungs, I’d say it’s a very clear “no” on physical activity.
Week 5
My diet has been fairly stable recently so I’ve had an easy time noticing when something doesn’t sit well with me. I’ve noticed that I’ll probably have to reserve Ezekiel bread and quark for occassional consumption as opposed to making it part of my mealplans.
The former causes gas and the latter quite some bloat, either one is fine really, but I assume that any such response on behalf of the body is indicative of an issue and means that the nutrient uptake from that, macro/micro-wise, is going to be suboptimal and I don’t see the point in eating something if I’m not getting that much out of it.
Quark is superconvenient after an afternoon climbing session though, so it’ll make an appearence every now and again, I’m sure. I used to eat quark daily during my diet but I suppose I never noticed the bloating as I was always bloated.
Another thing I noticed is that I’ll have to reduce the batches I make when baking as my freezer is too small to fit both that and prepped meals. Another reason to reduce the batch size is so I don’t have to stress-eat it before it spoils. For instance, I made some protein bars and a batch comes out to 20 bars. They last for 3 months in the freezer, which is twelve weeks and since I live alone and am the sole consumer of what I create that means I have to eat a bar twice a week basically to get through it. Better just to make half a batch, and eat it when necessary.
Being sick sucks.
I’m starting to display signs of burnout. Wonder what came first, androgen deficiency or carrying unreasonable amounts of stress inside for a long time.
Sorry to hear about the burnout/illness. I’m guessing the stress was first. We’re all just used to dealing with it so it can go unnoticed.
Thanks man. It’s odd. I wrote “starting to” but, it’s essentially full-blown. Seeking help now, taking some time off of work too.
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February 4, 2019
Sick
February 5, 2019
Sick, but had my lead certification exam anyway and I passed! 
Febuary 6, 2019
Sick, but getting well I think. Did a couple of chin-ups. Feel weak. My back is fucky from living in my sofa. I’m pretty much certain I will be more than well enough physically to climb tomorrow evening and I might be in good enough shape that I can go in and do an oly-session tomorrow morning just to get back to moving weights around. Just have a casual/fun session. Nothing too taxing.
If you put a frog into water and heat it slowly enough the poor thing won’t notice it is in boiling water…
It’ll get better, just take it easy man
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February 7, 2019
Just getting back into the groove after being sick. No real work sets, just ramped up to as heavy as I could and then moved on to the next pairing.
A1. Squat Cleans
A2. Front Squat
B1. Squat Snatch
B2. Deadlift
C. Military Press I think, don’t really remember.
February 8, 2019
Delts+traps workout, so some shrugs and presses with a few intensification techniques thrown in for fun and good measure.
February 9, 2019
Climbing, beautiful session. Throat was a bit scratchy, and performance was so-so but I had a lot of fun. Did some great moves. Twisted my ankle.
February 10, 2019
Climbing in the AM. Skipped gym workout as I was feeling beat up, moving that to the next day
February 11, 2019
Went in to set 3RMs, experimented with having just P+F before the workout as this is a “heavy” day instead of my usual P+C meal. My performance was notably impacted,
Front Squat 80kg (2 reps, ribs on my left side felt fucky)
Rack pull (below the knees) 140kg (I have done deficit deadlifts at this weight)
Incline Bench 60kg, but I think I’ve done 70 kg for 3 reps before
Skipped back work because of climbing.
Not really feeling this Bulgarian thing anymore. Will change it up.
February 12, 2019
Climbed like a demon escaping from hell
February 13, 2019
Push-press 5x3
Behind the neck press 4x8
DB High Incline Press 4x8
Hammer curl 3x10
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General training update
I’m leaving Bulgarian Training Simplified (my modified version) behind now for a while. Just… bored with it or something.
Ideally, I would have liked to go back to,
but it doesn’t mesh too well with the gym I’m currently at. It is very sectioned, so, you can do compound lifts with barbells in one room, and then machines are far away (as are all the dumbbells). This really limits the options for Pairing A. For instance, doing a front squat followed by a lying leg curl is great but it’s not a viable option in that gym.
Another program that I’ve been eyeing is The Vital Whole Human - T NATION and I like the layout, in particular I’m very fond of the minimalism which plays well with the limitation I just described. I normally enjoy supersets plenty, but I’ll have to play the hand as it was dealt instead.
One gripe that I have with it is that I’d prefer to run 5 sessions a week, as I enjoy the routine of getting to the gym to lift. And if I don’t do something often enough, I have an easy time slipping out of the routine.
If I ran that program it would be,
Sunday: Squat
Monday: Bench
Tuesday: Climbing
Wednesday: Deadlift
Thursday: Climbing
Friday: Overhead press
Saturday: Off
The other is that I’m not really interested in being in a surplus at the moment, right now I just want to eat for good health and have that be that. But then again, no-one is stopping me from not being in a surplus while running it. It just seems ill-advised.
Another alternative would be to run something of my own design, that is lift-specific (squat, bench, hinge, overhead, pull). Now, obviously I’m not an expert programmer like CT but it might be fun!
Sunday: Hip-hinge
Monday: Overhead
Tuesday: Pull + climbing (high carb day FTW)
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Squat + climbing (high carb day FTW)
Friday: BP
Saturday: Off
But I haven’t sketched anything up yet…
If I did do that, I should probably revisit the take-aways I made earlier with regards to neurotyping Nordic Blood: Climbing And Lifting / Lifting And Climbing - #522 by Voxel more thoroughly, but it is very easy to run up against the issue I described earlier with the designer of the gym ascribing some sort of anthropomorphic quality to gym equipment and deciding that dumbbells belong far away from barbells, and barbells belong far away from machines. Except barbells for benches, they go everywhere, but the flooring would hate it if you did say an RDL anywhere near a leg press. Kettlebells apparently belong with barbells though.
Tomorrow, I’m doing something lower body oriented. What option I end up running will depend on how much time I have on my hands and how my throat is feeling.
I’ll either re-use one of my old favourites Look Like a Bodybuilder, Perform Like an Athlete (The Vital Whole Human - T NATION),
- Snatch-Grip High Pull
- Muscle Snatch
- Snatch-Grip Deadlift
and just ramp to a 3RM in each lift. This is probably the best option if my throat is still feeling scratchy.
Or, try out the squat workout from The Complete Power Look. The worst option for my throat probably.
Or, maybe,
A. Vertical Jumps (in-place or Box Jumps). 3 sets. Reps by feel, as long as I don't lose the explosive quality.
B. Power Clean. 3 sets. Reps by feel, as long as I don't lose the explosive quality.
C. Front Squat (just started these in BTS, and they need work) 5x5 ? Or ramp to 5RM.
D1. Walking Lunges
D2. Single-leg RDL with kettlebells
E. Aaaaaaabs
If my throat feels at all scratchy I’ll omit A and replace D1 with Bulgarian Split Squat.
Will try to have a plan figured out before Sunday.