Revenge of the Sith: AngryVader's Log

Training Training Logs
361

Okay, so it’s time to get my ass back into gear. I pretty much took the last two weeks off as my back was messed up and then I was down in Souther California visiting family for Christmas. I had a good time, but now it’s time to get things back into gear.

Weight: 202
Waist: 37.5" - FUCK!

Okay, I guess it’s time for a cut. Low carbs away! I’m going to do this until the end of January.

I’ve clearly been taking it easy the past month due to all my various ailments, but I’m just going to have to work around anything that’s bothering me still as best as I can. My shoulder is still a little off, but everything else seems to feel fine, so I should be able to train around that.

I’ve clearly lost some size and gained a lot of fat due to poor diet and inactivity, so I’m not worried about the scale weight dropping. I’ll track the weight here weekly, but I’m mainly concerned with getting my waist measurement down.

Here we go…

362

I’ve gotten a few PMs about what supplements I’m using currently, so I figured I should post about that.

At the moment, I’m taking the following:

HOT-ROX Extreme - 2 caps twice a day
Power Drive - pre-workout
Flameout - 4-6 caps a day
Caffeine-Free Spike - 1-2 pills pre-workout
BCAAs - 5-10 grams during the workout
Vinpocetine - 10 mg 2-3 times a day
Coconut Oil - 2.5 Tbsp per day
ALA - 100mg 3 times a day

Then an assortment of various vitamins and minerals (B-complex, Vit C, D3, E, etc)

After this week, I plan on adding Sesamin and Pantethine to the stack. I may also add Leucine as well.

In the past, I’ve had difficulty cutting when using Surge, so I won’t be using Surge for my cut. I may add half a serving post workout once my bodyfat decreases, but I think it’s a bad idea at the moment considering my current bodyfat level. I’m going to try this as my post workout drink.

2 scoops Grow! Whey
10 grams Creatine
10-20 grams Glutamine
5-10 grams Glycine

The Glutamine and Glycine are on their way and are expected to be here by Wednesday. I’ve never used Glutamine or Glycine before and I’ve read that people have had issues with nausea when using them (especially Glycine), so I plan on starting small with those two and ramping up the dosage depending on how I feel.

Also, I’m just trying to get through the week and see if my back doesn’t act up before I go all crazy with the supps. If things go fine this week, then starting Sun or Mon, I’ll add the other supps I mentioned.

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Monday 12/29 - Quads and Calves

This morning I did my usual SMR and 25 minutes of Yoga.

Since this is my first workout in a while, I’m going to take it a little easy this week to ease myself back into it. I’m going to be sore enough as it is.

Music of the day: Anaal Nathrakh - Domine Non Es Dignus. I liked it enough. A few songs will be going into the workout mix.

Pin (Anderson) Front Squats: 135 x 4,4,4

Front Squats: 135 x 4, 155 x 4, 175 x 4 - my back felt a little tight after these, but nothing too bad.

Leg Press: 270 x 2:00 min x 35 reps, 270 x 2:00 x 41 reps

Leg Extension: 120 x 15,12,10

Leg Press Calf Raise: 410 x 6,6,6,6,6,6

Seated Calf Raise: 90 x 21,18,21

Garhammer Raise (slight incline): 8,6 - I planned on doing more, but my abs got a wicked cramp midway through the second set and it kept cramping back up after stretching it out, so I stopped there.

This evening I will do some additional SMR. I normally like to do a short, 15 minute cardio session when I get home from work, but I don’t like doing cardio on my leg day, so I may skip that or just go for a short walk instead.

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Anaal Nathrakh eh?
I never took you to be much into the black metal scene.

365

[quote]Rattler wrote:
Anaal Nathrakh eh?
I never took you to be much into the black metal scene.[/quote]

Ha! Jim Wendler made a post a few weeks ago about music you need to train to and I’m always open to adding new shit to my training mix if I like it enough. Admittedly, it’s not my favorite type of metal, but I’ll give almost anything a try if it comes recommended.

366

Front squats again- sweeet.

I think the time off will serve your joints well. Are you still getting glute pain? Reason I ask is if it went away during the off-time then you may have reason to believe it’s a matter of spinal compression mostly. Maybe something like pull up hangs could get alleviate it here and there after heavy front squats and whatnot.

Just thinking aloud :stuck_out_tongue:

367

[quote]Flow wrote:
Front squats again- sweeet.

I think the time off will serve your joints well. Are you still getting glute pain? Reason I ask is if it went away during the off-time then you may have reason to believe it’s a matter of spinal compression mostly. Maybe something like pull up hangs could get alleviate it here and there after heavy front squats and whatnot.

Just thinking aloud :P[/quote]

Yeah, I’m going to give those pin front squats a shot for a while and see how it goes. I went pretty light with them today since I’d never done them before and I didn’t want to push it too hard yet. I liked them though. I almost preferred them to the regular front squats. Seemed like my form was better overall. We’ll see how they feel when I start bumping the weight up though.

Do you start your set in the bottom position? I’m wondering if that’s going to be an issue once the weight gets up there. I would imagine it might be difficult to get the bar in the right place trying to start at the bottom. Probably makes more sense to unrack the weight normally and then just pause on the pins at the bottom for each rep.

The glute pain pretty much ended around mid to late October I’d say. There’s basically just tightness now, but it’s not painful at all. Just something I need to stretch out more. The tightness didn’t get any better or worsen during the time off though, so I think the back is good. I just had a weird two week period where I was getting back spams and it would tighten up really bad.

The funny thing is that I’ve always employed stuff like pull up hangs after my workouts. I read an old, old article where Arnold talked about hanging from a pull up bar after heavy squat workouts to combat spinal compression. I’ve been doing it ever since. I even bought a pair of gravity boots that I try to use a few times a week.

368

[quote]AngryVader wrote:
pch2 wrote:
AngryVader wrote:
I also have a DARD that I bought a long time ago …

I’ve been reading up on ankle stability and this DARD thing keeps coming up. What’d you think of it?

I like it. I use it one or twice a week intermittently. I probably should attempt to make it more of a regular part of my routine.

http://www.qfac.com/gear/dard.html[/quote]

Do you think there’s a way to rig one up? It’s basically just a weight on your foot - right?

369

[quote]AngryVader wrote:
Flow wrote:
Front squats again- sweeet.

I think the time off will serve your joints well. Are you still getting glute pain? Reason I ask is if it went away during the off-time then you may have reason to believe it’s a matter of spinal compression mostly. Maybe something like pull up hangs could get alleviate it here and there after heavy front squats and whatnot.

Just thinking aloud :stuck_out_tongue:

Yeah, I’m going to give those pin front squats a shot for a while and see how it goes. I went pretty light with them today since I’d never done them before and I didn’t want to push it too hard yet. I liked them though. I almost preferred them to the regular front squats. Seemed like my form was better overall. We’ll see how they feel when I start bumping the weight up though.

Do you start your set in the bottom position? I’m wondering if that’s going to be an issue once the weight gets up there. I would imagine it might be difficult to get the bar in the right place trying to start at the bottom. Probably makes more sense to unrack the weight normally and then just pause on the pins at the bottom for each rep.

The glute pain pretty much ended around mid to late October I’d say. There’s basically just tightness now, but it’s not painful at all. Just something I need to stretch out more. The tightness didn’t get any better or worsen during the time off though, so I think the back is good. I just had a weird two week period where I was getting back spams and it would tighten up really bad.

The funny thing is that I’ve always employed stuff like pull up hangs after my workouts. I read an old, old article where Arnold talked about hanging from a pull up bar after heavy squat workouts to combat spinal compression. I’ve been doing it ever since. I even bought a pair of gravity boots that I try to use a few times a week.[/quote]

I definitely do the pullup hangs between squat sets. My father uses an inversion table to help with his back spasms.

As for the pin squats - when I do them (although I do them with back squats), I start from the bottom and usually have to do a much lower weight because there’s no stretch reflex. I also set the pins a level higher than my normal safety position, because that position is lower than PL-parallel and I can’t really get set up that low for a start. You might look into doing bottom start zerchers or something if you have trouble getting the bar set correctly for a bottom start front squat.

370

[quote]AngryVader wrote:
Yeah, I’m going to give those pin front squats a shot for a while and see how it goes. I went pretty light with them today since I’d never done them before and I didn’t want to push it too hard yet. I liked them though. I almost preferred them to the regular front squats. Seemed like my form was better overall. We’ll see how they feel when I start bumping the weight up though.[/quote]

Yeah, I started mine from the bottom position because that’s where I need the most work. They really worked too. A few days back I did 210X3 easily- on a deload. On top of that my upper body was almost perpendicular to the ground. I was almost perfectly upright. If you check out my previously posted front squat videos you’ll notice I’ve been far from perfectly upright in the past :slight_smile:

On a side note I noticed that the people at Cressey Performance start their anderson front squats from the normal standing position and just pause on the pins after a slow eccentric. I suppose it’s one of those ‘to each their own’ things.

[quote]
The glute pain pretty much ended around mid to late October I’d say. There’s basically just tightness now, but it’s not painful at all. Just something I need to stretch out more. The tightness didn’t get any better or worsen during the time off though, so I think the back is good. I just had a weird two week period where I was getting back spams and it would tighten up really bad.

The funny thing is that I’ve always employed stuff like pull up hangs after my workouts. I read an old, old article where Arnold talked about hanging from a pull up bar after heavy squat workouts to combat spinal compression. I’ve been doing it ever since. I even bought a pair of gravity boots that I try to use a few times a week.[/quote]

That’s great to hear. You have gravity boots? That is so badass. I need to give the pullup hangs a shot. . .

371

[quote]AngryVader wrote:

Ha! Jim Wendler made a post a few weeks ago about music you need to train to and I’m always open to adding new shit to my training mix if I like it enough. Admittedly, it’s not my favorite type of metal, but I’ll give almost anything a try if it comes recommended.[/quote]

I’ve always been pretty fond of black metal, never been that big into Anaal though. Emperor will always do it for me, cheers for the most evil of metals though!

haha

372

[quote]Flow wrote:
AngryVader wrote:
Yeah, I’m going to give those pin front squats a shot for a while and see how it goes. I went pretty light with them today since I’d never done them before and I didn’t want to push it too hard yet. I liked them though. I almost preferred them to the regular front squats. Seemed like my form was better overall. We’ll see how they feel when I start bumping the weight up though.

Do you start your set in the bottom position? I’m wondering if that’s going to be an issue once the weight gets up there. I would imagine it might be difficult to get the bar in the right place trying to start at the bottom. Probably makes more sense to unrack the weight normally and then just pause on the pins at the bottom for each rep.

Yeah, I started mine from the bottom position because that’s where I need the most work. They really worked too. A few days back I did 210X3 easily- on a deload. On top of that my upper body was almost perpendicular to the ground. I was almost perfectly upright. If you check out my previously posted front squat videos you’ll notice I’ve been far from perfectly upright in the past :slight_smile:

On a side note I noticed that the people at Cressey Performance start their anderson front squats from the normal standing position and just pause on the pins after a slow eccentric. I suppose it’s one of those ‘to each their own’ things.

The glute pain pretty much ended around mid to late October I’d say. There’s basically just tightness now, but it’s not painful at all. Just something I need to stretch out more. The tightness didn’t get any better or worsen during the time off though, so I think the back is good. I just had a weird two week period where I was getting back spams and it would tighten up really bad.

The funny thing is that I’ve always employed stuff like pull up hangs after my workouts. I read an old, old article where Arnold talked about hanging from a pull up bar after heavy squat workouts to combat spinal compression. I’ve been doing it ever since. I even bought a pair of gravity boots that I try to use a few times a week.

That’s great to hear. You have gravity boots? That is so badass. I need to give the pullup hangs a shot. . .[/quote]

Based on what you and pushmepullme said, I stick with starting from the bottom for now. I think I’ll get more out of that initially, but I’ll play with both to see if there’s much of a difference. Like I said, I think that once the weight gets up there on the pin squats, I’ll have to start from the top so I can get the weight in the right spot. I would imagine it’s going to be pretty hard to put 225 on my shoulders in the bottom position.

Yeah, you’ll like the pullup hangs if it’s something you haven’t been doing. I’ll do them multiple times per day, especially once I get home from work. As soon as I do the hang, I’ll get those good feeling pops in my back. I do it the in the morning, when I get home from work, at the beginning and end of my workout and as needed throughout the workout. It’s almost an addiction.

The gravity boots are nice though. You get a nice rush of blood to the head, but I can only use them for a few minutes at the most.

373

[quote]pch2 wrote:
AngryVader wrote:
pch2 wrote:
AngryVader wrote:
I also have a DARD that I bought a long time ago …

I’ve been reading up on ankle stability and this DARD thing keeps coming up. What’d you think of it?

I like it. I use it one or twice a week intermittently. I probably should attempt to make it more of a regular part of my routine.

http://www.qfac.com/gear/dard.html

Do you think there’s a way to rig one up? It’s basically just a weight on your foot - right? [/quote]

There are tons of ways to train the tibialis. I’ve seen people simply put a plate in their toes, use the pad on a leg curl, do standing calf raises facing backwards in the machine, looping one of those ankle thingies around the foot, etc.

I just think the DARD is the most effective because of the range of motion and the leverage involved.

374

[quote]Rattler wrote:
AngryVader wrote:

Ha! Jim Wendler made a post a few weeks ago about music you need to train to and I’m always open to adding new shit to my training mix if I like it enough. Admittedly, it’s not my favorite type of metal, but I’ll give almost anything a try if it comes recommended.

I’ve always been pretty fond of black metal, never been that big into Anaal though. Emperor will always do it for me, cheers for the most evil of metals though!

haha[/quote]

Looks like you gave me another one to try. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Emperor, which I guess is ironic…you know…because he’s my master and all.

375

[quote]AngryVader wrote:

Looks like you gave me another one to try. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Emperor, which I guess is ironic…you know…because he’s my master and all.[/quote]

Hahah!

Man you should hear my Palpatine impression, it’s dead on. Anyways, Emperor is one of the oldest BM bands… They helped start the whole thing along with Immortal, Mayhem and other bands.
Awesome stuff, check em’ out. However, as with most BM… the older CDs have pretty sub-standard production quality.

376

Tuesday 12/30 - Chest and Shoulders

Did 25 min of yoga this morning.

Did some various warmup stuff (scap push ups, behind the neck band pull aparts, side external rotation)

Band Push-up: mini band x 8, monster-mini band x 8, light band x 6, 7 - These felt fine
No-Money Drill: 10,10,10,10 - Also felt fine where they used to bother me

DB Press: 70 x 5, 80 x 5, 95 x 5,4,3 - My shoulder didn’t feel right once I got up to 95. I made a mistake trying to go that heavy. Looks like I need to stick to higher reps for a while. Plus, the right shoulder just didn’t feel stable at all.

Incline DB Press: 50 x 10, 60 x 8, 65 x 8, 70 x 8 - These however, felt fine for the most part even as the weight went up. I did a better job of keeping the shoulder stable and worked on ‘pulling’ the dumbbells down with the back. That seemed to help. I’ll have to work on that with other chest exercises.

Javelin Press: 35 x 6, 40 x 6, 6, 45 x 5
DB Iron Cross (hold in seconds): 20 x 10, 15 x 20, 15, 15

DB Lateral Raise: 30 x 10, 25 x 12, 12

I’m pretty disappointed with today’s workout. My shoulder really didn’t feel any better at all, which really shouldn’t be the case in my opinion considering all the work I’ve done for it lately. I guess I’m going to have to keep working on shoulder and scap stability.

The chest and shoulders are still very tight, so I’ll need to work on that as well. Since the push-ups felt fine, I’ll just have to stick with those for a while and see if I can continue to make progress with the incline DB presses.

377

[quote]Rattler wrote:
AngryVader wrote:

Looks like you gave me another one to try. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Emperor, which I guess is ironic…you know…because he’s my master and all.

Hahah!

Man you should hear my Palpatine impression, it’s dead on. Anyways, Emperor is one of the oldest BM bands… They helped start the whole thing along with Immortal, Mayhem and other bands.
Awesome stuff, check em’ out. However, as with most BM… the older CDs have pretty sub-standard production quality.[/quote]

Today, I gave a listen to Anaal Nathrakh’s Eschaton and Hell is Empty and All The Devils Are Here. I liked them both as well.

378

Thursday 1/02 - Hams and Calves

I wasn’t feeling too hot yesterday, so I pushed yesterday’s workout to today. I’m still not feeling all that great. I’ve had a sore throat all week that I just can’t shake and just about everyone that I talked to on Wednesday night at the New Years party I went to was similarly sick, so that didn’t help at all.

Anyway…

RDL: 225 x 4,4,4,4, 245 x 4, 265 x 4 - My back felt kind of weird on these, but I’m writing that off to the time out of the gym.

Lying Leg Curl: 110 x 5, 125 x 5, 140 x 5,5,5

One-legged Back Extension: BW x 8,8,8,8 (8 reps with each leg)

Leg Press Calf Raise: 430 x 6,6,6,6,6,6

Seated Calf Raise: 90 x 26,20,22

At the end of my workout, I experimented with a few quick sets of barbell bench (just using 135) to see how it feels when I really work on tucking my elbows and do more of a powerlifting-style press.

They did feel better than the dumbbell presses and it seems like the tighter I made myself, the better it felt. I’ll have to keep playing with that in my upcoming workout. My chest workout may look more like:

Push-ups
BB Bench
DB Incline or maybe Incline Push-Ups. We’ll see.

Tomorrow I’m going to try to do both Friday’s and Saturday’s workout together, but I might back off on the volume a bit, just so that I’m not in the gym for 3 hours.

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THE RED SHIRTS!

I’ve been meaning to post this, but right now is the best time to bring it up. I can’t stand the gym after New Years because of the influx of New Years resolution dorks taking up space and getting in everyone’s way.

My friend and I have often joked that we need to ‘red shirt’ every new person that starts coming to the gym. For their first 60 visits, not 60 days, they have to wear a bright red shirt that says, “I’m a Gym Noob.”

As long as they are wearing the red shirt, they have to defer to anyone not wearing a red shirt. This means if you need the squat rack and some red shirt is using it, the red shirt has to go do something else.

If the red shirt stops coming to the gym for more than 2 weeks, the counter rests back to zero and they have to start all over again.

Once they hit 60 real visits, they no longer have to wear the shirt and no longer have to give up equipment (but they should still defer to anyone bigger or stronger than them. That’s just common sense though.).

Mind you, these have to be 60 actual visits to work out with weights. If they just come in to do cardio and leave, then that doesn’t count towards their total.

380

[quote]AngryVader wrote:
THE RED SHIRTS!

I’ve been meaning to post this, but right now is the best time to bring it up. I can’t stand the gym after New Years because of the influx of New Years resolution dorks taking up space and getting in everyone’s way.

My friend and I have often joked that we need to ‘red shirt’ every new person that starts coming to the gym. For their first 60 visits, not 60 days, they have to wear a bright red shirt that says, “I’m a Gym Noob.”

As long as they are wearing the red shirt, they have to defer to anyone not wearing a red shirt. This means if you need the squat rack and some red shirt is using it, the red shirt has to go do something else.

If the red shirt stops coming to the gym for more than 2 weeks, they counter rests back to zero and they have to start all over again.

Once they hit 60 real visits, they no longer have to wear the shirt and no longer have to give up equipment (but they should still defer to anyone bigger or stronger than them. That’s just common sense though.).

Mind you, these have to be 60 actual visits to work out with weights. If they just come in to do cardio and leave, then that doesn’t count towards their total.[/quote]

LOLOLOLOLOL

Amen buddy!
I saw a few new people today, but one was a tall slim brunette… so I didn’t mind :slight_smile:

Secondly, I love how we always update our logs within an hour of each other. Don’t ask me why I noticed that, I just did.
Jedi Squats