Solid stuff in here. Your deadlift certainly stands out. Are you still doing the London Open?
Thanks guys, means a lot coming from you two beasts.
Spar4tee, no I’m not doing the London Open. Decided I’m going to go check it out but not compete. I’ve never been to a meet, nor do I know anyone in person who has, so I want to check one out and see how it all goes, talk to some other powerlifters, etc, before I take the plunge, pay membership/meet fees, get good shoes for squattin/deadliftin, a singlet, a good belt, and whatever else I’d need. Plan on competing sometime next year.
Gotcha. It’s pretty fun dude. You might be nervous at first, but at the end of the day, it’s just lifting.
This is definitely the leanest I’ve ever been, but the leaner I get the further I want to take it. Probably end up losing a total of 5-10 more pounds and post more pics.
So, I think those are going to have to serve as “end of diet” pics. I’m pretty much done with the diet because
A) Progress is stalling
B) I’m not dieting for a contest or anything
C) I really don’t want to get any lighter than 170, unless it is contest condition
Now, I do want to stay about this lean for a while, so I’m not going straight gain mode or anything. I’m just going to up the calories a little bit, especially around my workout, and be in kind of a maintenance phase for a bit, transitioning into a very slow bulk (thinking 25-30 pounds over the next 9-10 months). I’m pretty much going to focus on killing it in the gym every day, and kind of earning my calories. For example, today I had one of the best chest/tri workouts I’ve ever had. Seems a waste to be in a caloric deficit after that, so I ate more postworkout than I planned to, and will eat a bit extra the rest of the day. If I have a mediocre day at the gym where I’m just not feeling it (which will hopefully be very rare), I’ll eat less. If I have a really shitty day where I feel run down, I’ll take the next day off of the gym. If I notice I’m gaining much fat at all, or if some of my key lifts aren’t going up to legitimize the weight gain, I’ll scale it back and re-evaluate.
I really think I’m at a point where my training is much better than it has ever been, and I’m going to be much smarter about my diet as well… Hoping after the 9-10 month slow gain I can lose a bit and be similar condition, 10-15 pounds heavier, next year.
Thoughts/comments/anything? (anyone wanna take a guess at my BF%?)
Okay, fark it. Might as well start posting my training here again. Should help keep me honest, motivated, and give me an extra reason to kill it every work out. And hopefully I’ll have some good progress on a few lifts to be writing about.
Current plan for split is:
Chest/tris
Back/Traps/Rear delts
Front/lateral delts/Bis (Switched bis and rear delts because I feel my bis need more work, and it’s really hard to put enough effort into them after doing back, I’m usually quite knackered by then)
Legs/Abs - Alternating squat and deadlift each leg day
Repeat… day off when I feel I need it
A few key exercises (bench press, OHP, squat, deadlift, maybe a couple others) I will be focusing on progression in weight. Most other exercises, I will be focusing on fatiguing the muscles I want to be fatiguing. Don’t really have a plan for progression on squat or deadlift, pretty much go by how I’m feeling. Squat I’m honestly still figuring out the technique. For bench press and OHP, my plan of progression is:
Take a weight (starting with 255 on bench and 125 on OHP)
Workout 1: 6-8 sets of 3 (get used to dominating the weight)
Workout 2: 5-6 sets of 4
Workout 3: 3-4 sets of 5
Workout 4: 2 sets of 6
Workout 5: 1 all-out set of as many as possible, maybe get a spot and do a few forced reps
Workout 6: deload, bunch of light sets
Then add weight (10 pounds to bench, 5 pounds to OHP) and start again. We shall see if this works.
If I’m not at all focusing on weight used in the exercise I just won’t list it, doesn’t matter
Yesterday - Chest/tris
Weight (on gym scale, had only had one meal so far, in my undlewear): 171
Bench press - 45x35, 135x15, 185x10, 225x6, 255 x 8 sets of 3 (nice, last set was probably easier than first)
Incline DB Press - 70x12, 80x10, 90x8, 100x5 (Ouch, haven’t done these in a long time, seems I suck now)
Incline BB Press (VERY wide grip, really slow descent, good pause on chest, explode up) - 3 sets
Slight decline cable fly (squeeze at end, slow negative) - 3 sets
Pushdowns (slow negative, squeeeeeze at end, pre-exhaust ze tris) - 4 sets, ramped up
Rope extension (similar form to pushdowns) - 3 sets, decreasing weight
Cordova extensions - 3 sets
Reverse grip bench press - 3 sets
Chest and tris felt awesooome
Today: Back
Superset straight-arm pulldowns and stretchers, few sets each, pre-exhaust the lats, get them workin, pump em up
Close-grip pulldowns (slow, stretch at top, squeeze at bottom) - 4 sets
Couple sets of dead-hang pullups - don’t love these but I want to be better at them
Seated close-grip cable row - for da lats, low, stretch at end, squeeze like crazy, felt awesome - 4 sets
Wide-grip row - higher, for mid-upper back, still really push elbows back at end but heavier - 3 sets
BB shrug - 135x12, 225x10, 275x8 - all good 3 second squeeze at top
Face pulls
Reverse cable flys
Hanging lat stretch - owie
Amazing back workout, everything felt awesome
My entire back is sore from yesterday. Feelsgoodman.
Shoulders/Bis
OHP - all reps paused, ZERO leg drive - 45x18, 65x12, 95x7, 125 x 8 sets of 3
DB Lateral raise/front raise superset - do the lateral raises very strict, slow up, hold, slow down, then a few reps ‘cheated’, then front raises - 3 sets
Cable lateral raises - 3 sets
Alt DB Curl - 30x14, 40x9, 50x7, 7, 6
All other exercises focusing on feeling my biceps do the work, not on weight
Seated incline curls - Kai Greene style, slow negative, stretch, stretch, squeeeeze up - 5 sets
Preacher curls - 3 sets
Jesus curls (standing cable curls, like doing the front double bi) - 3 sets
2 sets each of hammer curls, pinwheel curls, and reverse curls
- Amazing 3 days of workouts, I am confident my entire upper body got worked well. Legs tomorrowww
I would guess your body fat to be roughly fuckingshredded%
Killing it here man. Strong as hell and shredded to the bone. I’d say after you do you gaining phase, you’ll be pretty damn impressive.
[quote]Jab1 wrote:
I would guess your body fat to be roughly fuckingshredded % [/quote]
Hahahah perfect that’s exactly what I was aiming for.
Thanks for stopping by man I appreciate the compliment
[quote]Spidey22 wrote:
Killing it here man. Strong as hell and shredded to the bone. I’d say after you do you gaining phase, you’ll be pretty damn impressive. [/quote]
Thanks man, hoping that’s the case, and thinking I’m really starting to figure out my body better than I ever have before, so hoping for some nice progress over the next year or so.
Legs
For the past week or so I’ve started working on some hip mobility/squatting stretches/exercises, seems to be helping. Since technique is a major issue for me (haven’t squatted a ton), I do a lot of lighter sets, slowly working my way up.
Squats - bodyweight for a bunch, 45x15, 45x15 to a bench, 135x12, 135x12 to a bench, 185x8, 225x6, 245x5, 275x5, 295x5, 315x5, 335x2,
365x1 - PR! Prior PR was 355 @ 185ish, so this was quite nice. Never squatted double BW before, and this is a good 20-25 pounds above that. Also, the rep was very tough but form did stay solid. 4 plates seems not too far away now.
Then put 415 on and walked it out a few times, to get used to having some heavier weight on my back
Then Widowmaker set of 245x20 - this was literally the hardest set of anything I have ever done. Legs shaking, a little worried about passing out for the last few, sat on the floor for a good 8 mins after and still the rest of my workout I had to take significantly longer rest periods. Form was not textbook for the last few reps but I did make sure every rep was DEEP. Best squatting day I’ve ever had.
Moving on…
Stiff-leg deadlifts - light weight, legs straight, pushin dat ass back, really feeling the stretch in my hamstrings, hits them like no other - 4 sets
Leg press - 3 pps x 20, 4 pps x 15, 5 pps x 10 (fark this was hard after all the squatting)
Calves on leg press - Squeeze at top for a few seconds, really slow descent, streeetch and pause at bottom, explode up
I planned on doing some leg extensions/leg curls here but my legs were brunked. Just did some abz and got outta there. Unreal workout.
Some goals for before I diet down again (Probably around March but we’ll see how everything goes):
Bench 365
Squat 455
Deadlift 565
OHP 185x3
Chest/tris
Picked up some wrist wraps, trying them out on my heavy pressing. I’ve injured my wrist before a couple times, figured it’s about that time to get some wraps.
Bench - 45x35, 135x15, 185x8, 225x6, 255 - 6 sets of 4. Sets 1-4 were awesome, all good strong reps. Set 5 I screwed up, nailed the bar off the pegs, still finished the set, but made set 5 and 6 not great.
Rest of the workout was pretty much the same as last time. Was really good though. Only other thing of note was I used the wrist wraps for Reverse grip bench as well, made it much nicer.
About to head out to check out the London Open
Nice lifting man
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
Nice lifting man[/quote]
Thanks man, doing my best
That’s some great benching and some great goals too.
Thanks fellas, I really do appreciate the comments, especially coming from other guys who are in the gym doin WORK.
Today - Back
Superset straight arm pulldowns and stretchers to pre-exhaust… fire alarm went off in the middle of these. I kept working out for a while but then they said I had to go outside for a bit, packed up my stuff, as I was leaving they said oh it’s fine now you can go back in, so I did, but the alarm kept going off for about half an hour… oh well, cranked the iPod, couldn’t hear it. Couple more sets of the pulldowns/stretchers
Close grip pulldowns - stretch at top, slow, squeeeeze - 4 sets
Few sets of pullups
Weighted hanging lat stretch - ouch
Close-grip cable rows - similar form to the pulldowns, for da lats
Wider grip cable rows - heavier, small amount of body english but still making sure I use my mid-upper back
DB shrugs - up to a couple sets with the 100’s, explode up and squeeze like crazy at the top for a few seconds
Reverse cable flys
Face pulls
Shouldies/Bis
OHP - 45x18, 65x12, 95x6, 125 x 6 sets of 4, all paused
Cable lateral raises - 3 sets
DB lateral raise - really slow, controlled, hold at top, followed by a few reps with some body english, supersetted with front raises - 3 sets each
DB Curl - 30x12, 40x9, 50 - 3 sets of 8
Incline db curl - slow, stretch at bottom, squeeeeze up - 4 sets
Preacher curls - experimenting with close and wide grip, I think I prefer wide - focus on the bottom 2/3rds of the movement - 3 sets
Jesus curls - Focus on the last half of the movement, really flexing at the end - 3 sets
2 sets each of hammers (strict 2 armed then not strict 1-arm at a time), pinwheels, and reverse curls
For anyone wondering about my diet now that I’m not trying to lose any more weight:
Breakfast/pre-workout - 2 scoops protein, creatine, yogurt, banana, granola bar, multivitamin
Post-workout - 2 scoops protein, mixed berries, granola bar
About an hour later - tuner sammy (can tuna, lil bit of olive oil mayo, 2 slices bread)
Couple hours later - 4-5 eggs, 2 caps fish oil
Dinner - Meat and vegetables
Before bed - 1-2 scoops protein, 5 caps fish oil, multivitamin
I’ve also allowed myself to have a little bit of ‘junk’ if I really want it, need to cut that out though, already been eating too much the past couple weeks. I have trouble with that. When I’m not in “diet mode” I always rationalize whatever I eat by wanting to make sure I am getting enough to grow.
Edited because the end of my post got cut off.