Wednesday - 1600 calories
160 P
150 C
35 F
Thursday Weight = 192.8
Training Thursday - Chest and Triceps
Not sure why, but I figured I would start my workout with some flat barbell bench, just to see what it felt like.
I worked up to 255 and had collected enough data to move on.
My right shoulder is the limiting factor on this one. Not sure how to describe the type of pain - it’s not intense, but it’s definitely an alarming sensation. I can actually feel the joint separating under heavy loads. This is why heavy loads are not great for people like me with lax ligaments/joint hypermobility. It’s probably more dangerous now than ever, because I’ve built lots of strength in the muscles but have not trained the movements. I could probably bench somewhere around 280, but my shoulder would be on the floor.
Also, my right shoulder is not to be fucked with. My entire tennis game depends on it…forehand, backhand, and serve. They all require a nice, healthy shoulder. This is where the hypermobility actually pays off a little bit. I snap the shit out of the ball on my serve.
So I finished the workout with my typical chest isolation stuff and also did a shitload of triceps work.
One jump rope circuit - 4 minutes.
Got some golf coming up this weekend. Looking forward to crushing big drives and working on the short game.
[quote]Serge A. Storms wrote:
My right shoulder is the limiting factor on this one. Not sure how to describe the type of pain - it’s not intense, but it’s definitely an alarming sensation. I can actually feel the joint separating under heavy loads. This is why heavy loads are not great for people like me with lax ligaments/joint hypermobility. It’s probably more dangerous now than ever, because I’ve built lots of strength in the muscles but have not trained the movements. I could probably bench somewhere around 280, but my shoulder would be on the floor.
[/quote]
I’ve largely dropped (heavy) flat bench press from my training of late for the same reason. My shoulder feels wonky before I get to a really challenging weight. I have started using lighter sets of bench press in some push/pull workouts (I really like going back and forth between bench press and pull-ups, as long as I have the weight room to myself and don’t have to worry about some stooge stealing my bench while I’m on the pull-up bar), but rarely have I pushed the weights above 225 recently. Maybe I’ll take another page from your book here.
Also, I think that the value of maintaining full shoulder health so you can enjoy your other activities (tennis and golf) is absolutely acceptable. When the goal is to Just Keep Lifting…for the purposes of being fit, healthy, active…you have to make some calls on whether the risk/benefit ratio is worth it with some movements.
Last week, I ended up averaging about 3,000 calories/day.
Macro split was about 45% C, 30% P, 25% F.
WEIGHT MONDAY AM = 193.8
Targets this week: 2700 calories
60g F
190g P
350g C
Monday AM Training - Back - 60 minutes
Wide grip partial pull-ups
1-arm cable lat contractions
reverse fly
^basically just rotated through those main movements using every apparatus and angle I could think of.
jump rope 1x4 minutes
The combination of weather and big weekend events has really fucked up my efforts to study the effects of a 60g/day fat intake. I’m pretty good through Friday afternoon, and then the gloves come off and the food goes down. And the booze. The last few weeks, I was hitting that 60g/day number going into the weekend and ended up averaging closer to 80 for the week.
The consistency and intensity of my training and my Monday-Thursday diet have kept me looking sharp and fitting into my skinny jeans. However, I really do want to clean these weekends up and I think everything is lined up nicely for a good run through October and maybe even through the end of the year.
Lifting is starting to look like a 3 day split with the option to renew at day 4 or throw in a leg day if my upper body feels too trashed. Shoulders and Arms, Back, Chest, Repeat.
I really think I look, feel, and function optimally at a calorie intake of closer to 2500/day and a stable bodyweight around 190. But there’s not an enormous difference in how I look in clothes when I’m eating 3200/day and weighing around 194. Obviously, 3200/day is a hell of a lot easier for me to execute than 2500, and that’s why I am where I am. I haven’t really flipped the switch to serious fat loss for a significant stretch of weeks since way back in March when I was getting ready for Spring Break. Maybe that’s what I’ll do.
The only time I feel like I want to push for more muscle mass is when I’m actually in the gym lifting - otherwise, I feel like I have plenty of size right now. Then again, my standards for size are obviously much lower than most around here and even lower than the standards in a physique contest. I kind of just want to look like myself, only slightly more shredded and vascular and maybe just a little more shoulders and upper back.
I am about two weeks away from hitting the 1-year mark with this “Just Keep Lifting” goal.
Train those chicken legs champ! Haha.
Still here perving, in your squat rack.
[quote]raven78 wrote:
Train those chicken legs champ! Haha.
Still here perving, in your squat rack.[/quote]
No it’s YOUR squat rack. I’m just borrowing it for triceps kick back work.
If someone in real life ever calls me chicken legs, I promise I will do seven days straight of supersets of front squats and back squats 10x10.
Monday - 2200 cal
145g P
240g C
60g F
Went low today on everything, including sodium.
I’ve been averaging 4,000 mg + for a few weeks. Been waking up with puffy eyes. My wife says I’m just getting old. I think it might just be too much salt. So we’ll see.
Found a new low-fat treat option. Yasso frozen Greek yogurt bars. Amazing for just 100 calories. They must be lying in the label. Check em out.
[quote]Serge A. Storms wrote:
[quote]raven78 wrote:
Train those chicken legs champ! Haha.
Still here perving, in your squat rack.[/quote]
No it’s YOUR squat rack. I’m just borrowing it for triceps kick back work.
If someone in real life ever calls me chicken legs, I promise I will do seven days straight of supersets of front squats and back squats 10x10.
[/quote]
Have fun never walking again 
Ive never seen why you dont train legs? i am broken top to bottom but still really enjoy legs. Its the pain in leg training that is fun. And with your style of training i think legs would be a fun day
He was just giving me shit, I do train legs, just not that often.
Always had beefy legs, so I really don’t need much frequency.
I have some fun with high-rep partials on leg extensions, curls, and glute movements. I also do plenty of strict pistol squats and some other creative bodyweight variations.
I’ll hit the leg press here and there but no squats. No need.
When my arms feel heavy and tired is when I train legs. Maybe once every 7-10 days or so.
Confirming yes I’m just pulling your leg. All puns intended.
Mate, whatever you are doing, keep doing it. It appears to certainly be working.
Please return the squat rack when done. 
haha.
TRAINING TUESDAY AM - 70 MINUTES - AVG HR 110, MAX 168
Neelix - Disco Decay
6:55
Partial single-leg extensions near lockout - intense squeeze
(Yeah, I did leg extensions with constant tension for almost 7 minutes straight to start my workout)
Lindsey Sterling - Moon Trance
3:45
Jump Rope (Max HR 168)
Beat Jockeys - Surreal
3:00
Machine press (horizontal) partials - deep stretch/stretch reflex pulse reps and explosive reps
Lindsey Sterling - Shadows
3:42
Cable pec squeezes - single arm, cross-body, constant tension pulse reps
BREAK - 5 MINUTES - bullshitting with guys in gym, answered questions about HR monitors and diabetes. Note to self, this pre-workout stuff makes me a bit too willing to chat with these guys, I should just keep my head down and headphones on.
CJ Teplykov - And I Want to Play More
5:30
Smith machine drop-and-catch flat bench and DB cross-body pec squeeze supersets
Avicii - Levels
5:40
Single-arm cross body fly on pec dec with intense contractions and holds
Enur - Calabria 2008
3:40
Jump Rope
Tiesto - Theme from Norefjell
3:20
Hydraulic DB Biceps Curls
Deadmau 5 - Moar Ghosts and Stuff - Part 2
5:00
Ab Rocker twitch reps and intense holds/contractions
One super-slow, super-strict pistol squat (30 seconds up/30 seconds down) on each leg
TOTAL - 70 MINUTES
PREWORKOUT INTAKE
1 scoop of Surge Workout Fuel
1 scoop Pre-Workout formula containing CDP Choline, L-Tryptophan, L-Tyrosine, L-Dopa, Theobromine, Creatine HCL, L-Citruline, TMG, B-vitamins, Agmatine, PEA, Beta-Alanine, Caffeine Anhydrous, Beta Vularis.
1 scoop of Pre-Workout formula containing Hydromax Glycerol, Beet Root Extract, and Sodium Nitrate
Tuesday - 2900 calories. Zone Macros.
Wednesday - 2600 calories. 40% F/ 30% P/ 30% C
THURSDAY AM WEIGHT = 190.2
I changed my macro targets after Monday and decided to flex my metabolism a little bit and swap my carbs and fats around.
The great thing about a higher fat target is 85% dark chocolate. And coconut oil.
The tough thing is that I can’t mindlessly munch on stuff all day, because the calories add up so much faster.
Pre-workout, I’ve been just eating a piece of Ezekiel bread with a tablespoon of coconut oil. From a stomach/digestion standpoint, this sits quite well - it doesn’t really even feel like I’ve eaten anything at all.
From a pump and performance standpoint, it’s not the same as a blast of pre or intra carbs.
But on the back-end of the workout, it’s kind of nice to feel that dry-yet-pumped sensation, which pretty much lasts throughout the day when I don’t blast the carbs and sodium early on. It’s also nice to not feel like I’m locked into the carb cravings already at 7:00 am in the morning.
Anyway, the reason for the shift was just to throw my liver and pancreas and other systems a little curve ball and make sure all systems still know how to upregulate and downregulate their machinery appropriately.
It’s nice to get the benefits of slashing carbs without having to go below 200g/day.
Oh - and with a higher percentage of calories coming from sources like coconut oil, butter, dark chocolate, etc, my sodium intake went from the 4,000mg/day range down to below 2,000mg.
The good news there is that I can spark up a vascular pump at a moments notice with such a low baseline of sodium. All it takes is some lunchmeat or some MAG-10. The bad news is that I can feel the effects of a lower baseline sodium intake during my workout.
Trade-offs. Part of the game. Lighter bodyweight means that I can really own things like pull-ups and pistols - a few pounds seems to make a big difference. But for my high-rep stuff, I’m used to stopping when the music changes - I don’t like to have to stop because of burn or fatigue.
Thursday - 2900 calories
215g P
225g C
122g F
WEIGHT = 190.2
TRAINING FRIDAY
Split into two sessions.
AM was 32 minutes of “cardio” or “conditioning” or whatever you want to call it. A few very intense jump rope circuits at a MAX HR of 181, and then some stretching, floor work, pistols, and pull-ups. Average HR 126.
PM was chest and triceps for about 45 minutes.
I’m gonna try this approach for a little while. In the morning, I like doing stuff that doesn’t require a pump like pistols and pull-ups and jump rope. I don’t get an awesome pump first thing in the morning.
But with a lower-carb start to the day, it ends up being super easy to spark up an insane pump in the mid-afternoon. It’s circadian or something, I don’t know. I just hit this peak condition around mid-afternoon where I’m vascular and almost feel like whatever I eat or drink goes straight to my muscles. So I’m just playing around with that for now.
Overall, it ends up adding 10 or 20 minutes of activity per day and giving me two metabolic boosts instead of one. I think it’s a good way to let me keep my intake relatively high but still sharpen up a bit. I also notice that the afternoon sessions keep me energized later in the evening, which is good. Crashing out before the 8:00 TV shows are over is not cool.
This extra fat intake doesn’t seem to be not working.
Let’s see.
Friday was a good day - I had a huge bacon cheeseburger for dinner and later that night had a bit of a mini-binge, but it was just multi-grain peanut butter cheerios, so not bad.
Saturday I had to drink Notre Dame to a victory…it was a close came all the way until the end, so I had to drink kind of a lot of beers. Just Miller Lites, though - no shots or stupid stuff. I did eat an entire frozen pizza for dinner.
This week, I plan to keep on playing around with macros. 210g carbs until I hit a day where my weight is below 190, and then I’ll blast some carbs the next day. I was 193.5 this morning, so it may take all week to get there, or maybe just a few days.
I went to my first bodybuilding show yesterday…just the pre-judging.
Luckily, the men’s masters physique division was the first one up.
I think I would have been in the top 2 or 3 if I was all prepped up the right way.
Open physique was interesting - so many shapes and sizes.
The winner was a freak, and I’m glad he was rewarded for his freakishness because it was impressive. Tall guy with about a 12-inch waist and super big delts - I’ve never seen a taper like that before. There were some guys that were close and a bit thicker from front-to-back, but this guy was so impressive, I think they had to give it to him.
Overall, I did not enjoy the experience all that much. I can’t really put my finger on it. Not much energy from the crowd - maybe just because it was pre-judging, I don’t know. The overall tone seemed kind of just serious and boring. The event just felt trivial and inconsequential…as if I would feel kind of let-down after going through so much to prepare for just a few quarter turns.
After seeing the pics of the female competitors today, I wish I would have stuck around for that. But I was bored, I was there by myself, and I had more fun things to do, so I left pretty early.
Just in case I ever change my mind, though, I did pick up some good knowledge on posing. For example, the straight-on front relaxed is the most important pose and it doesn’t pay to try to trick the judges with even the slightest turning to make the waist look smaller. The head judge (same guy I did a consultation with) called these guys out repeatedly during the front pose to face directly foreward, yet a few of them kept trying to sneak in like a sixteenth of a turn. In the end, you either brought it or you didn’t. If you don’t look good in a perfectly straight-on relaxed front pose, you can bet your ass somebody else does.
The back poses were pretty bad. I could do better already. Most of the guys were posing more like womens bodybuilding or women’s physique competitors with their arms way to far away and leaning way to far back. The best ones knew how to balance muscle tension and hardness with a relaxed and bad-ass posture. That’s the way to do it.
Also, some of these guys were spending all kinds of time doing these complicated transitions between poses. But once the quarter turns started, the judge didn’t have them hold those poses for very long - especially the side ones. So you’ve got a guy doing all sorts of weird shit as he tries to finally land in his side pose, while the winning guy is just finding it and hitting it immediately so the judges have a longer time to see it.
On the other extreme, there was one dude who had a great package but was TOO relaxed. He wasn’t smiling and it seemed like he was just kind of standing there.
One guy had the worst shorts anyone could have ever picked. White plaid, WAY too short, and with a really high waist. They were also too tight on him, and he already had a blocky waist. He wasn’t going to place anyway, but I still don’t know how he missed the mark by so much with those horrible shorts. All that work and preparation, and you go up there looking like you’re wearing a fucking sumo wrestler diaper hiked up to your chest. C’mon, man.
I noticed the biggest and thickest guys did not make it to the center groupings…there is definitely a certain look and too much thickness kind of stands out as bad.
The one area I think I’d be strong in is abs. The most shredded guys had nice lines and good obliques and everything, but just not as much depth as I think I would have. So probably abs and posing would be good for me, and I think I’d be good but wouldn’t really stand out in the back pose. The front relaxed might be tough - I’d have rely on the strength of my posing and abs to make up for the wide hips and bulging obliques, all while making sure I nailed the shoulders so I could be as wide as possible up top.
So, even though I don’t feel a strong pull to compete these days, there I was this morning hammering the absolute shit out of my delts.
Weight = 192.2
Last week average calories = 3160/day
Last week macros average = 290g C - 210g P - 122g F (37/27/36)
MONDAY AM TRAINING - CHEST - 60 MINUTES, AVG HR 116, MAX 164
More cross-body pec squeeze work with some machine press and:
1-arm DB standing cross-body press
this is an amazing new variation that will now be part of my bread-and-butter chest routine
Imagine you are a waiter standing there with your serving tray in the traditional serving-tray position. Now you swivel the elbow in towards the opposite shoulder without changing any other angles. Basically just squeeze the pec as hard as possible. Now push up slightly from that position. The important thing is to initiate by squeezing the pec, not by moving the hand up.
Oh, also replace the serving tray with a dumbbell. Serving trays take up too much space on the dumbbell rack.
All of this work I’m doing on upper chest thickness and upper back thickness is starting to pay off. I’m starting to look like I lift, even in a t-shirt and holy shit…even in a regular button-up casual shirt or dress shirt.
I lifted at a different gym today - the one my wife belongs to. It’s by far the nicest gym around - still only 3 miles from my house. I’ve been holding out because I’m kind of a minimalist and because this gym attracts all the neighborhood douchebags. But it’s just like any other gym around here from 6-7 AM…empty. Which is perfect for me.
It also has an enormous dance studio/group exercise room, which is tucked in the corner and empty in the morning. Bonus - I can leave the lights off in there (light still gets in from the windows). So I can still have my jump-rope dance party without attracting too much attention.
It will take me a few months to cycle through all of the equipment options, and I’m looking forward to the new movement variations I’ll be able to invent.
They have some sort of cross-fit looking cage in there - maybe a Renegade something-or-other. I’m not sure what to do with it, but it seems to be asking me to climb all over it like a spider monkey.
Pool, hot tub, sauna, climbing wall, basketball court, etc. Not to mention that I’ve seen maybe two hot girls at my old gym in the five or so years I’ve been going there. This new one has many…including my wife, of course.
They also have this crazy contraption that seems to be a vibrating platform where you stand and do normal cable exercises, only while you are vibrating. Interesting, but not as effective as making yourself vibrate from within, which is a technique I’ve been developing in my personal lab for quite some time already.
I love and hate access to gyms like that. My workouts get weakly long because I want to use all the new toys everyday
Not many new toys to use this morning - I was doing TRAPS.
Smith machine, low cable, dumbbell. Those are the only tools I needed this morning.
EDIT. Can’t forget the high-cable. Overhead trap retractions with the arm fully extended. Like a face pull, but way up high.
60 minute session, MAX HR 168, AVERAGE 120.
Two quick jump rope sessions.
Got some travel and entertainment going on this week, so we will see where the macros end up falling.
INTAKE MONDAY - 3500 CALORIES - ZONE MACROS
I have a theory on fat intake - I think after a few days of high-fat intake, the fat machinery gets up-regulated. I’m gonna slash it now for a few days and get some rebound fat burning going on.
The end of my one-year of “Just Keep Lifting” is right around the corner. Time to assess and refocus. I’ve spent just about the entire year at a pretty decent level of leanness. I might shoot to maintain an even more impressive level for the next year.
The biggest area for continuous improvement is what I eat and drink between Friday night and Sunday morning.
I’ll continue to play with tweaks within my overall plan for continuous domination, but I don’t need to do anything new or tricky. I need to look at my longest stretch of successful execution and just keep putting together even longer stretches. More consistency x More time. That’s my formula for the next year.
If I had the choice between A) spending the entire next year a little leaner and a little healthier, OR, I could B) END next year with five more pounds of muscle after cycling through some bulking and bloating and softness, I would take option A in a heartbeat.
I’m gonna go with C, of course. Leaner, sharper, healthier, stronger, faster, more flexible, AND a few pounds of strategically placed muscle.
And if none of that happens, I still have a few lighting tricks up my sleeve. My dad was an electrician.
Snap! I reckon this would resonate for most here mate.
Tuesday - 2800 cals
390g C
208g P
60g F
Looking forward to a good session in the morning after all those carbs.
Wednesday 2900 calories
300g C
200g P
60g F
NO TRAINING TODAY
I wasn’t feeling it this morning, so I grabbed an extra hour of sleep instead. This hotel gym is pretty bad, which made it easier to take the day off.
It was not easy to stick to my nutrition plan today. I was in a Six Sigma training class all day. Super boring. Then we had a super late dinner at a great spanish restaurant. Everyone was killing sangria and chorizo and paella like it was the last meal they would ever eat.
I ended up having 3 light beers, some bread without butter, and Branzino (sea bass).
First-world problems, I know, but I absolutely hate super-long, super-late work dinners. Most of my colleagues are still down at the bar right now, but the only thing worse than sitting through a fucking irrelevant training class on statistics is sitting through a fucking irrelevant training class on statistics with a hangover. No thanks. Instead I’ll get up early and turn that shitbox excuse for a gym into my own personal dumbbell disco party.