Spent about a year and half in the hospital with cancer. Long story short, received a Bone Marrow Transplant and am good to go now. Just started training consistently again not too long ago and figure by posting a training log I’ll be more motivated and committed to getting er going again.
I’ll be training 2 days on 1 day off. My template will be pretty simple considering I’m basically starting from scratch and probably don’t need much more than a basic game plan for awhile to come. I had been training for about 4-5 years prior to being diagnosed with cancer but after it was all said and done I’m weaker than I was when I first started when I was 14. My template has looked something like the following:
1 O-Lift Exercise
2 Strength or Powerlifting Exercises
2 Hypertrophy based/ Accessory Movements
Day 1 usually looks like
-Snatch
-Squat
-Bench
-Pull ( Pull first on this day because previous exercise is a push)
-Push
Day 2 usually looks like
-Clean
-Front Squat
-Deadlift
-Push ( Push first on this day because previous lift is a pull, although I train the DL with more of a push from my legs, theres still pulling involved regardless)
-Pull
My nutrition will be pretty simple. I started the anabolic diet after New Years, did the 12 day low carb approach to try and trigger the metabolic shift and had my first carb up last Friday. I’ll be having a carb up every Friday , just for the day. I’ve always responded pretty poorly to carbohydrates and can easily live without them. Post transplant I developed a disease known as GVHD which is Graft vs Host Disease. In my case I developed GVHD of the gut which is an inflammatory disease where your graft or donor cells do battle with your host cells or original cells. This prevented me from having anything by mouth for about a month and at one point I could only be supported nutritionally through IV. I’m able to eat now but have had to introduce foods slowly. As for supplements, I’m avoiding them for the time being. I’m still on a pretty substantial amount of medication and don’t need the extra stress on my already destroyed organs or the potential interaction with any medication. Also transplant is based mostly on the art of proper immune suppression and a lot of supplements have potential immune boosting properties that could pose a problem. Not to mention…I think I have enough problems on my hands and could probably do without anymore.
Anyways today went something like this
- Snatch 8x5- 55lbs
- Squat 8x3- 75lbs
- Bench 5x3- 110lbs
- Row 5x5- 45lbs plate
- Press 5x5- 25lbs DB’s
Tomorrow will be
- Clean 8x5- 66lbs
- Front Squat 8x3- 60lbs
- Deadlift 5x3- 145lbs
- Press- 5x10- 20lbs DB’s
- Row- 5x10- 25lbs plate
Rest Intervals will be 2 mins on O-Lifts and 1 min on all others.
Progression with Training - I always want to make progress on what I’m doing so it’s going to work as follows:
(1 cycle is 2 days on, 1 day off, 2 days on, 1 day off, 2 days on, 1 day off) 9 days total
-Cycle 1 - See weight
-Cycle 2 - O-lifts increase by 5lbs and 1 rep is eliminated
-Strength Exercises increase by 5lbs and reps stay the same
-Hypertrophy Exercises increase by the nearest increment and reps stay the same- example DB’s I’ll go from 20’s to 25’s
-Cycle 3 - O-lifts increase by 5lbs and 1 MORE rep is eliminated
-Strength Exercises increase by 5lbs and reps stay the same
-Hypertrophy Exercises increase by the nearest increment and reps stay the same
-Cycle 4 - O-lifts increase by 5lbs and 1 MORE rep is eliminated
-Strength Exercises increase by 10lbs and reps stay the same
-Hypertrophy Exercises increase by 2 increments and reps stay the same
(Cycle 4 should be extremely heavy and all targets might not be hit)
-Cycle 5 - O-lifts- take weight from cycle 2 and perform for reps of cycle 1
-Strength Exercises - use weight from cycle 4 and add if possible
-Hypertrophy Exercises - use weight from cycle 4 and add if possible
-Cycle 6 - O-lifts- take weight from cycle 3 and perform for reps if cycle 2
-Strength Exercises - use weight from cycle 4 and add if possible
-Hypertrophy Exercises - use weight from cycle 4 and add of possible
- I’ve chosen this method of progression for O-lifts because unlike most lifts a 5-10lbs increase can seem huge. I’ve chosen this method of progression for Strength and Hypertrophy exercises because I’m pretty confident that I’ll be able to add that kind of weight and don’t need any more complex methods of progression than additional weight in my case. If I find that I’m not able to add this weight accordingly I’ll have to switch it up for an increase in reps instead. As pathetic as these amounts of weight may seem, they’re fairly heavy for me…BUT not so heavy that I’m not confident that these increases in increments are not possible. I don’t want to “jump the gun” too fast. First of all I’m just getting back into it and secondly I want to be able to make progress on what I’m doing in a logical and consistent way.
-Progression with Diet
- After sitting in a bed for approximately 2 years, along with chemo, radiation, insane amounts of other drugs, crappy nutrition (if any) and transplant itself I’ve lost an INCREDIBLE amount of muscle mass. I pretty much didn’t leave a room the size of my bedroom for 18 months, so you could say getting exercise or any physical activity for that matter was somewhat of an issue. I went from approx 200lbs down to 123lbs with no abs…yes that’s possible…123 with no abs at 5,8". Starting Jan 1st I started the anabolic diet and will continue this diet for 16 weeks and see where it takes me. I’m currently about 175lbs but soft. I’ve accumulated a lot of body fat and am not overly concerned about stripping it off because of my situation but I figure there’s no point in carrying that extra fat around and prefer to eat healthy anyways. I know that by doing this it will only benefit me in the long run and do nothing but make me feel, look and perform a whole lot better. I figure that this reduction in carbs alone will be sufficient in making my dreams of becoming lean come true, but diets tricky and we’ll see how it plays out and adjust accordingly.
