volume def too high for some readers.
great progress, and crazee work.
ddot I think you are a rep and band whore.
nice work
I’m not one for high rep stuff but once in a while I enjoy the switch up. I usually keep the high reps for my non-competitive lifts.
diet sounds brutal but results are oviously showing. I like your latest pair of briefs 
Interesting to see the changes on photo–looks like a lot of the above hip fat is disappearing there.
This is something i really must start doing.
That’s really fast progress. You have my admiration for sticking with the diet. However, since you’ve done a show before this can’t be new for you. You must have known had badly the diet would suck and that you could do it anyway.
Nice job.
nl, I’ll try and keep the briefs interesting…LOL
nurse, thanks, patience and practice buddy. That’s what gets you there.
o, yeah, having done this once definitely makes it easier but it’s a bit of a different road this time so it’s a new challenge in that sense. Thanks for checking in though. Actually going to see you lift on the 18th and seeing that guy squat 680lbs at 181 made me realize I’ll never win at powerlifting so I better focus on bodybuilding. 
Food Porn
LOL
Tonight’s cheat meal (a bit cleaner than normal)
T-Bone steak
3/4 cup of rice
10 jumbo shrimp in butter
1 cup of ezekiel cereal with 2 scoops of whey + 1 cup of skim milk
2 caramilk bars
Consumed in 39 minutes.
Followed by 30 minutes of groaning on the couch about how bad an idea that was.
it was good while it last though, no?
[quote]ddot76 wrote:
Food Porn
LOL
Tonight’s cheat meal (a bit cleaner than normal)
T-Bone steak
3/4 cup of rice
10 jumbo shrimp in butter
1 cup of ezekiel cereal with 2 scoops of whey + 1 cup of skim milk
2 caramilk bars
Consumed in 39 minutes.
Followed by 30 minutes of groaning on the couch about how bad an idea that was.[/quote]
Your progess is awesome. Keep up the hard work. Shelby will not let you down. I must say I am a little disappointed that it appears that you left 6 minutes on the table. lol. I’ll be following your journey.
Thanks Yonkey! I’m getting closer every day to where I need to be to start the journey back UP!
Shelby has been great and it’s clear from all his client photo’s that he knows how to dial everyone in.
Weekend Update
The weekend flew by.
Saturday began with some 8am fasted cardio (bike + step mill) followed by eating and errands mixed in between each other. A early afternoon Arm session was in store and had the following included:
A. V Grip Pushdowns
8 x 8 w/ flex on every rep
B. SM JM Presses
6 x 8 x 145 **these were tough.
C. HS Machine Dips
15 x 2pps
12 x 2pps
6 x 3pps
8 x 2pps+25
D. Pinwheel DB Curls
3 x 8 x 35lbs
6 x 40lbs
E. Strict as Shit Fat Bar Curls (used Fat Gripz on straight bar)
10 x 55
3 x 10 x 65
F. Seated Machine Preacher
4 x 8 **30 sec rest between sets
Had a huge cheat meal (as posted above) Saturday night. Didn’t sleep well because of that.
Sunday began the torture on my legs. Started with approximately 35 minutes on outdoor stair “climbing”. I sometimes ran, sometimes walked.
If you’re bored, here’s a link to someone’s vid on the stairs.
Came home and ate. Ran some more errands, ate some more and then hit the gym for a leg session.
A. Leg Press Calf Press
8 sets of 8 reps
Started out at 2pps and worked up to 5pps where 8 reps felt good. I’m a STRONG believer in NEVER bouncing reps with calves so my reps are always pause at stretch and contraction.
B. Seated Leg Curls
8 x 8 reps
**Weights were basically
80/90/95/100/100/100/105/100/110
C. Leg Press w/ 3 sec negative
8 x 5pps
8 x 6pps
8 x 7pps
8 x 8pps
6 x 8pps+25
**Drop set
7 x 8pps
8 x 6pps
10 x 4pps
**Feet close, toes pointed out
25 x 2pps
At this point I was chatting with some friends who were training legs as well and we decided to finish the workout together. Yikes!
I had planned on doing walking lunges (because I HATE them and NEVER do them) but I probably wouldn’t have killed myself like I did if it were not for two training partners.
D. Walking Lunges
10 steps each leg w/ 135lbs **total failure. I bet 1/3 of my reps were garbage. When I was done, I couldn’t push press the bar off my neck and when I tried I gave myself a nice rash down the back of my neck before I basically GM’ed the bar off my neck.
2 x 10 steps each leg w/ 125lbs
Although only 10lbs lighter, this was a MUCH better weight for me. 2 tough sets.
E. DB Stair Climbs
grab a pair of DB’s, climb stairs 2 at a time, walk down, repeat.
3 x 3 x 16 stairs w/ 40lb DB’s
**what this means is that each set was 3 climbs
F. Finished with some Machine Hack Squats + Extensions.
My legs were trashed!! TRASHED!!
Home for Post-WO shake followed quickly by another meal.
Played baseball at 6pm. Another shake after baseball and then 4 whole eggs + 1/2 cup of egg whites pre-bed.
Woke up this AM and my hips and glutes (especially my glutes) were SCREAMING at me. Did 45 minutes of fasted cardio (low incline treadmill at 3.5) and then stretched and foam rolled the CRAP out of my hips and glutes. I’m still pretty stiff though.
Going to have to make sure to get up and move at work today.
Solid work. Really solid work.
james
I was wondering how you balance following your strict diet and eating with your partner and family.
Is your partner just very understanding and supportive of your goals or does it create problems?
My wife likes us to eat the same meal at the same time which makes it harder for me to make changes.
[quote]FarmerBrett wrote:
I was wondering how you balance following your strict diet and eating with your partner and family.
Is your partner just very understanding and supportive of your goals or does it create problems?
My wife likes us to eat the same meal at the same time which makes it harder for me to make changes. [/quote]
Well, I kinda have to answer two fold.
Right now, it’s not an issue as we’ve recently separated. The last six months of my life have been a bit of a shit storm to say the least.
That said, she was a healthy eater to begin with so when I did my show she would eat relatively clean and have certain “extra’s” that I couldn’t have. It never bothered me. She actually lost 8lbs during MY diet. There’s a way to sell it to your partner. LOL
When I diet, food is nothing but part of training. It’s fuel. There’s no emotional attachment so it makes it easy for eating to become part of the process.
If we ever disagreed on things, it was more on the amount of time in the gym than the food.
Here’s an example I can remember.
I got chicken and asparagus, she got chicken with asparagus drizzled in oil and parmesan cheese with raisins and almonds. The whole meal could be prepared as chicken and asparagus and she just added the ‘fixins’.
New lifting schedule begins this week. Focus is on Delts/Arms for 7 weeks (2 waves).
Monday - BP/Chest/Shoulder/Tri’s
BP
**scarecrows to warm up
**bunch of reps at bar, 5, 95 and 135 (probably too many reps)
**Working sets
5 x 160
5 x 185
4 x 210 --5th rep had some assistance
Grip was still narrower than normal. Chalking this failure up to a combination of jumping weights too fast (+10 on BP this wave) and tri’s still a little tired from Saturday. We’ll see how the 3 x 3 goes next week.
A. SM Low Incline (no lockout)
6 x 6 x 165
B1. Machine Flyes
3 x 12
B2. Band Shoulder Dislocations
3 x 15
**great pump in chest after these
C1. Standing DB Laterals
4 x 12 x 25
C2. Reverse Machine Flyes
4 x 20 x 85
D. V Bar Pushdowns
8 x 8 reps
**very little rest between sets. 40 secs tops
E.Rope French Press
3 x AMAP
Good solid session. Definitely felt fuller through shoulders + arms. As I get leaner, I’m liking my shoulders and arms a bit more. I definitely want/need to ‘cap’ my shoulders though.
Played baseball last night as well. Caught a full game which I think loosened some of the tightness in my hams/glutes. I did foam roll twice yesterday as well.
Body felt beat up this morning and suggested I skip AM cardio (since I’m already down 2lbs for the week) but my mind convinced it otherwise and we did 30min MI on the bike + 20min Interval’s on the step mill.
Back/Bi’s/Calves tonight.
I think I need to buy my foam roller dinner… or at least pay for the cab ride home…
Hams, glutes and hips are still not happy which doesn’t make for a good deadlifting session but I gave it a go anyway.
Got to the gym and warmed up with some calf presses waiting for my lifting partner.
DL’s
**warm up sets
2 x 5 x 135
5 x 185
5 x 225
warm up sets FLEW up… thought it might be a good one
***working sets
5 x 260 --easy
5 x 310 --easy
3 x 365 --wtf!!!
Form was shit, felt heavier than shit, etc. Not worth risking injury.
A. SM Pendlay Rows
6 x 6 x 145/165/165/175/175/175
B. Neutral Grip Assisted Chins
6 x 8
C. Reverse EZ Bar Curls
5 x 10 x 50lbs w/ 15-20sec rest between sets
**this will FRY your forearms and brachio which makes for a great start to a bicep workout
D. HS Preacher Curl
4 x 8 x 70/70/80/80
Finished with some hanging leg raises (4 sets to failure). Down 3.5lbs this week already.
5:05am and the alarm goes off again. My hips are screaming at me, it feels like somebody stabbed my glutes and my hamstrings are tighter than a nun’s nasty! Every part of me just wants to turn my alarm off and grab another 2 hours of sleep and rest. I mean I earned it, right? My body needs rest, right?
I slither out of bed and I can feel the tightness in the arch of my feet. My left thumb, the thumb pad and my left index finger hurt from catching that 23yr old’s 85mph fastball for 5 innings on Monday. My brachioradialis are definitely sore from yesterday’s pulling and bicep work. My body is essentially pleading with me to just give up and go back to bed.
I concede for 10 more minutes until the beeping of the alarm clock begins yet again. This debate isn’t over.
Tomorrow will be seventeen weeks worth of dieting, early morning cardio and after work lifting sessions. One hundred nineteen days. When I competed back in 2008 my journey began in January and went to the end of October; but it was staggered. I dieted hard for six weeks, resumed ‘normalcy’ for another six. Dieted again for eight. Normal for eight. Then a final twelve to the end. It didn’t seem nearly as hard as this week has felt.
Mind you I didn’t have the mental drain of increased work responsibility, a failing marriage, a house sale and closing and starting again on my own. I keep thinking to K’s log title; The Grind. That’s where I am right now. In the deep grip of the Grind.
Seventeen weeks. Basically ten days where I haven’t risen early to get my cardio done. Substantial progress none the less; but it’s been a journey.
So as I lay in bed, my head soundly fighting my body and it’s arguments I ask myself ‘Why I do this?’. Why not just lay down, sleep and rest? I’m sure it might make me feel better for those two hours, but what’s the overall goal?
I want to look and feel better than I did in 2008.
I need to look and feel better than I did in 2008.
I write all this because I NEED to now. I look back on the past six months of my life and say ‘Holy Shit, what happened?’. How did I survive all that?
The answer, I think, is doing something I love.
My lifting partner, who is not as die hard as you or I, was mentioning yesterday that it was good to be back lifting again. He had missed three weeks with other commitments (he runs his own company, so that’s obviously priority for him) but being back at the gym lifting clears his head. I remarked that had I not began lifting again I don’t know where I’d be right now. I could’ve buried myself in work, and perhaps exceeded some expectations there but I’d probably be burnt out and terribly miserable at work. It could have gotten ugly and I could’ve eaten or drank my way to false happiness; that would be tragic. Instead I focused on when I felt best and that’s when I was lifting.
So here I am, 5:15am and I’ve just had an epic discussion between brain and body on why I should do cardio this morning. My brain won. You can’t stand between something that helps get you to where you want to be just because you hurt and ache (physically or mentally). It’s standing still on the road of life and when you do that, you find your goals are further from your reach.
Sorry for the “deep” thoughts on a glorious HUMP day, but I just felt it was time to outwardly express some things I’ve been experiencing the last little while.
Maybe it makes sense to you; maybe it doesn’t.
PS: I also found this little blurb from Dave Tate’s latest article rather poignant:
“The ability to deal with pain is not unique to the weight room. It is the same quality that will make us better in business, as employees, friends, fathers, mothers, husbands, and wives. Those who have the ability and the will to deal with all the pain life tosses their way and still keep pressing ahead are the ones who will be happiest. Non-physical pain, I think, is much like the physical pain presented above. As you deal with things you feel are major issues, the minor issues tend to matter less. How many times have you spoken to someone who has serious problems or read a story about loss and said to yourself, ?Wow, that really puts things in perspective?? This is what I?m talking about. When your perspective of what pain truly is begins to change, that?s when we begin to get strong(er). We you begin to truly understand that pain is ?part of the game,? you learn to ignore most of it. When we see pain as something to strive for and embrace instead of something to avoid at all costs we become stronger physically and mentally. Most people fear the pain they are suffering and are scared of any potentially negative outcomes. This is normal. The ones who move forward through the pain see the positives of what it can bring.” – Dave Tate
nice write-up ddot!
much admiration to you for your perseverance
It’s log and you can write deep thoughts if you want to. You’ll look back and read this log in six months or a year and be amazed at how far you’ve come.
Divorce sucks but you’ll get through it and you’ll know yourself a lot better than you ever did. Stick with it, you’re doing really well and you’re seeing great results.
james
WOW ddot! Extemely sobering post, thanks for sharing and keeping it real. That quote from Tate is exactly how I felt reading through your latest log entry.
It takes a special individual indeed to willingly endure what we do under the bar day in and day out. Thanks for reminding me with respect to “the why” and giving me inspration to keep moving forward!
[quote]soldog wrote:
nice write-up ddot!
much admiration to you for your perseverance [/quote]
x2