OK, Let's Lift! And 1 and 2 and 1 and 2

Training Training Logs
241

[quote]Serge A. Storms wrote:
Good points.

I wanted to throw up when I read that article this morning. Clicked over to FB and wasn’t surprised to see that it already had 200 comments or something. I wasn’t surprised - seemed like the only point of this one was to generate clicks.

On a totally unrelated note, I saw your updated pics in RMP - awesome job, I didn’t realize you had made that much progress over the last few years.

Other than lighting, which I know a thing or two about, what do you think has helped improve that vascularity so much - especially in the upper chest/front delt area? Just consistent training and growth and being lean, or have you seen a connection between any certain supplement or supplement category and increased vascularity?

Thanks man.

[/quote]

I appreciate you stopping by, and thanks for the compliments! Your progress is impressive as well, I’d like to eventually approach your level of leanness.

Over the last few years, vascularity, particularly in that area, has sort of just ‘happened’. I’ve been asked about this before, and I attribute it to genetics and leanness for the most part. Not the sexiest or most helpful answer, but it is what it is. I’ve started to get some vascularity in the lower abs, lats, and most recently upper legs. Unfortunately, these things aren’t showing up on my shitty cell phone pics yet… I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I’ve also been eating very clean, and have dropped a point or 2 of bodyfat.

My supplementation is pretty minimal. I don’t take anything daily right now aside from protein powder and creatine, and it’s only in the last few weeks that I’ve actually been making sure to take the creatine every day. Z12 somewhat regularly, brain candy on slow mornings (was every day for a couple years). Plazma for workouts.

Training, by and large, is heavy and simple, as my logs mostly indicate. This year has included some higher volume sets (up to 20 and 30 reps from time to time), and I’ve been pretty consistent in the gym as well. From a strictly bro-science perspective, I would think that training heavy and often over time could have vascularity benefits.

242

[quote]flipcollar wrote:
Today’s article was garbage. I read every article every day, and I have read a large percentage of the archives from the years before I was familiar with this site. I have to say that I can’t think of a single article that struck me as so utterly useless, pompous, humorless, arbitrary and divisive. Controversy is great, and a good example of that is basically everything Bret Contreras puts out. I can’t think of any advice I’ve ever actually implemented from hi. Whenever I see a Contreras article come up, I roll my eyes and think, “Oh great, more glute bridges.” But he’s got a distinct perspective, and he’s pushing what he believes in, and I will always read what he has to say. Whether or not I incorporate that into my own training is irrelevant. I can at least respect what he’s doing. He’s put a ton of work/research into strength training, and anyone should be commended for that. And as a side note, he happens to be stronger and more accomplished than most members here want to give him credit for.
[/quote]

I agree. I’d try to add more details…but honestly, you pretty much said it all here. I’d rather see 2-3 good articles per week that actually offer something productive (as you’ve described here) rather than a new article every day just for the sake of posting a new article.

With that said: one could make the comment that “You don’t HAVE to read the articles” and they would be right. I probably shouldn’t have even bothered once I saw the title.

243

Haven’t made it to the gym In about a week now. My wife had our baby 3 days ago :slight_smile:

244

[quote]flipcollar wrote:
Haven’t made it to the gym In about a week now. My wife had our baby 3 days ago :)[/quote]

Slacker…

Congrats!

245

Got back in the gym Sunday.

I’ve lost a bunch of weight in the last couple weeks, due to… well, not eating. I’m getting back on a reasonable eating schedule now, but that first week after the baby came was tough. Anyway, my weight after my workout was about 181. 7 or 8 lbs down from my last weigh in I think. Strength was in the shitter too. I squatted, bench pressed, and did pull ups, just to get re-acclimated to the lifting. I worked up to a 365 belted squat single, and that felt like hell. Bench press was just as bad. I did 275 for 2, and struggled with the second rep. Conditioning hasn’t changed much at least. I still feel more or less ‘in shape’. Will be hitting it again tonight.

246

[quote]flipcollar wrote:
Got back in the gym Sunday.

I’ve lost a bunch of weight in the last couple weeks, due to… well, not eating. I’m getting back on a reasonable eating schedule now, but that first week after the baby came was tough. Anyway, my weight after my workout was about 181. 7 or 8 lbs down from my last weigh in I think. Strength was in the shitter too. I squatted, bench pressed, and did pull ups, just to get re-acclimated to the lifting. I worked up to a 365 belted squat single, and that felt like hell. Bench press was just as bad. I did 275 for 2, and struggled with the second rep. Conditioning hasn’t changed much at least. I still feel more or less ‘in shape’. Will be hitting it again tonight.[/quote]

I still haven’t gotten mine back yet. Mostly cause I struggled with motivation when I got back because I was so tired. It has taken my body a little bit to adjust to the reorganized sleeping schedule but it seems to finally be balancing back out. The week she was in the hospital and the week after birth, I actually gained nearly 10 lbs. People kept bringing me goody bags and making us meals when we got home. It was wonderful ha.

247

I’ve worked out a few more times since my last post.

I can’t remember exactly what I’ve done, but here are some highlights.

I squatted at least once, and did some sumo deadlifting. Worked up to a couple 435 singles doing sumo, so that’s not so bad I guess. The plate situation at my gym is currently shitty, and I can’t really go over 465 when using non-metal plates, so that sucks. I would expect my top-end strength to be low right now, but I’m at least not failing on conventional with 465.

I had a bench press day and an overhead press day in the last week. Bench press sucked, but part of that was probably due to pre-fatiguing. I started this session with incline dumbbells, and went pretty heavy, wore myself out pretty good. So while I struggled with 225x5, that could be a big reason why. I worked up to 155x4 on the overhead press, so that wasn’t terrible either.

Bodyweight dropped as low as about 178 over the last couple weeks, but it’s back in the low 180’s now, and I’ve strung together about 5 or 6 days of really solid meals. Starting to get my shit back together. My goal is to be approximately back at my maxes from this summer by the end of October.

248

Bench pressed last night. It seems that the incline pressing before flat benching made a HUGE difference last week. After having struggled with 225 last week, I hit 275x3, 295x1, and 305x1, followed by 225x10 this week. W. T. F. When I went into the gym last night, I had it in my head that, given last week’s performance, I wouldn’t even be able to hit 275x1.

Also did pullups, which were awesome. I’m still down about 10 lbs, but my strength is nearly what it was when I weighed 190, so I can rep the shit out of pullups right now. Finished with some band work for triceps, biceps, and shoulders (supersetted).

As a side note, not spending much time in the gym recently has been great for healing my pecs/shoulders. my left elbow still feels awful, but I’m becoming more convinced that that’s related to work (typing at a desk all day) than it is lifting.

249

Deadlifted Saturday.

415x3, 5 sets. Then good mornings, 3x10 at 135. That was all. Not a lot of free time in the schedule yet.

250

A couple sessions to log…

Monday I did OHP. worked up to 155x5 I think. Then 185 for a push press. Dropped back to 135 and did a bunch of sets of 3. Then did several sets of 3 split jerks at that weight. I hadn’t performed a split jerk in awhile, so I was just refreshing myself with those. Followed this up with a few sets of dumbbell rows with the 110’s, no straps, then bicep curls with 30’s, then dips. Didn’t exactly set the world on fire with this workout, but it was good.

Last night was squats. A really good session, definitely feeling my strength come back. Worked up to 385 for a double. This would put my 1rm right about where I left off, so that’s awesome. After that I did front squats, 1 set at 135, and 3 or 4 more at 185.

My training partner hit a 235 deadlift for 2 singles. The first one flew up. He’s making awesome progress. He also squatted 175 for a PR.

251

[quote]flipcollar wrote:
Last night was squats. A really good session, definitely feeling my strength come back. Worked up to 385 for a double. [/quote]
Solid

252

I’ve missed logging quite a few sessions, it seems…

I squatted last night. Worked up to a 385 single. Working on a faster descent, with more bounce out of the hole. I’m doing these high bar style.

After this I did some clean and jerks with 135, mostly for practicing form and muscle memory, since I’m not doing these often.

I finished with KB swings, 53 lbs for 4 sets of 15.

Overhead presses tonight.

253

Also:

I’m starting my ‘winter bulk’ next week, for anyone interested in following that. I believe I’ll have time to get at least 4 gym sessions in per week over the next few months. I’m also going to ensure that I eat enough to maximize growth.

I have fairly specific goals for this bulk.

  1. I will see 200 lbs on the scale for the first time in my life.
  2. I will bench press 385 lbs.
  3. I will squat 495.
  4. I will deadlift 605.

Yes, I realize these are lofty goals. My overall goal is to eventually total 1500 lbs in a meet before I retire from lifting. So that’s why these goals are what they are. This leaves me just short of 1500. I’m not suggesting I’m giving up lifting anytime soon, but I know I won’t be in my physical prime forever. I turn 31 in a month and a half. So the sooner I can hit some legitimately big numbers, the better I’ll feel.

254

What kind of timeframe are you thinking for that?

255

Solid goals what diet looking like now and what you thinking about for the gaining phase

256

the timeframe I’m looking at is about 5 months. I don’t think the deadlift and squat goals are unreasonable, but I may be over-reaching on the bench press. We’ll see. I’d also like to improve my push press substantially, but a lot of that will be about technique. Mid to high 200’s would be ideal.

diet over the last month and a half (since my son was born) has been sporadic. The first 3 weeks were especially bad. Things are settling down now though, and I’ve got a few plans to make my daily caloric intake more consistent.

Since I’ve never been fat in my life, I’m not worried about over-eating at any point. If I do see things getting out of hand, then I’ll adjust accordingly, but for the most part, my diet will be about meeting/exceeding a few minimum parameters.

Protein: 200g per day, every day. I’ll get about 110 from shakes, 40-50 from milk, 40-50 from meat. The shakes and milk are easy for me, the meat is something I’ll have to prepare in advance. My wife doesn’t always cook with a significant amount of protein, so not every dinner will have a considerable amount. To compensate, I’ll be cooking 7 1/2lb burgers every weekend to eat for lunches during the week. So this will ensure my 200g. On days when she does cook meat for dinner, I’ll be hitting more like 230-250g protein. I also eat a lot of eggs on the weekends. My chickens produce 21 eggs throughout the week, and I usually cook them all for my Saturday and Sunday breakfasts.

Carbs: 500 g/day. pop tarts will be involved, as will breakfast cereal, and lots of veggies. I’ll also cook up a bunch of rice once a week to bring to work to snack on.

fats: I don’t have a plan here, they’re unlimited.

So, aside from the protein, not a ton of structure. If I’m not seeing the results I want, I may dial things in a bit more, but this plan, as I have it laid out, is more structure than I’ve had in the past. The key for me is consistency. I have a tendency to skip meals, especially at work. I have to stop doing that.

257

Sounds like a solid plan. 8oz of meat is all that is needed to hit 40g of pro. So not that much.

Like the plan for carbs too

258

Holy shit that seems like a lot of carbs lol

259

Pop tarts and frosted mini wheats for the win!

260

Squats last night

high bar back squats
bar x some
135 x 5
225 x 5
275 x 5
5 sets : 315 x 5

front squats
2 sets : 225 x 5
1 set : 135 x 10

really good session, squat sets actually started to feel easier each set. Left reps in the tank each set. Planning to do 5x5 on my main lifts for the next 6 weeks, then re-test maxes to see how well this works for me.