very good read. When’s the show you are prepping for?
thanks for sharing a bit of you.
it takes alot of discipline to do good work
nice work
Thanks everyone for the encouragement.
nl, nothing firm but next spring/summer for a show depending on where I am physique wise. I’ve already ‘competed’, now I want to WIN.
Great progress, man. You’ve lost a boatload of ass. And by the way, I have that exact same pair of underwear. It must be a bodybuilder thing.
I also have come to realize I’d never be competitive as a powerlifter so I need to stick to bein’ pretty. One of my best pals (who lives across the planet from me) and I worked out together which we almost never get to do. He, quite literally, warms up with my 1 rep max. It’s humbling.
AAnd I also have that same mental argument you did. I have it regularly. ESPECIALLY when I’m in the throes of carb-withdrawl-induced-PMS. Why do we do this? Because at the end of it all we get to claim something only a tiny slice of the population ever gets to experience. We want to live an extreme life, and get the extreme payoff, so we pay extreme prices.
I maintain it is SO worth it. Yeah, you’re in The Grind. So you lean down and grind through it.
What a great post Ddot. My belief is that having a grueling goal such as the one you’ve set yourself keeps you sober and focused and moving forward. At times it may suck and hurt and be hard but ultimately it beats the hell out of sitting in a dark room being self indulgent.
Sorry for taking so long to respond, I was in the dark, self indulgent room. LOL. Just kidding.
Thanks K and O (or is that OK?).
Took a mental break from work yesterday and today and am just trying to destress a little. Been hard at the grind still. AM cardio. PM Weights.
Yesterday was MP + Shoulders.
I kept the wave structure the same for MP as the previous wave as I didn’t make all the prescribed weights. Unfortunately it would seem that I’ve kind of hit the ‘strength’ wall and I might need to look at which goal to chase over the next 6-8 weeks (probably the amount of diet left on the fat loss portion).
Here’s how the session went:
MP
**Warm Up
10 x bar
10 x 65
5 x 95
**Working sets
5 x 100
5 x 115 **bit of a grind for 5
3 x 130 **#3 was failure
Stripped the weight and finished with 7 x 95.
A. Seated HS Press
6 x 6
Weights were pretty decent.
2pps/2x2pps+10’s/3x2pps+25’s
B.Prone Heavy DB Swings
4 x 20 x 35lbs
**always drop setted to 10 x 15lbs
C. Standing DB Laterals
4 x 12 x 25lbs
**wish the gym had 27.5lbs. 25 seems easy, 30 - form slips
D. Seated Machine Laterals
3 x 12
Finished up with some shrugs and abs moving very quickly between sets and/or exercises.
Final thoughts: Sucked that I started off missing the prescribed reps for MP but felt strong on the seated HS which turned the session around.
I’ve now missed the prescribed reps for Bench, DL and MP. Time to back off the strength component I think.
good volume as usual…
re-read your post -and its a great post.
Solitary training is kind of hard to keep at it and stay motivated.
when I competed wrestling+judo It was super hard to get up
do roadwork or get to the gym and then go to work or class or both.
doing what makes you better is hard.
Good work for grinding it out Ddot
I’ve had family members suggest that I must be having an affair – as my training and diet commitment increase. Toxic people.
[quote]ddot76 wrote:
… a failing marriage…[/quote]
Weekend Update:
Friday was Arms. Pretty decent session. Won’t bore with the details but it was moderate volume in the 8-12 rep range. Played ball on Friday night. We lost for the first time in 10.
Saturday was an off day. Went golfing with a buddy which was good stress relief.
Sunday was leg day. Headed to the gym and started with lying ham curls + horizontal calf press. As I neared the end of the 7th set I started to do some walking lunges to warm up the hips/groin. Well, mid stride I felt a nice sharp pain in the upper right groin area. It didn’t go away and basically turfed my whole Sunday and Monday AM. Originally I thought it was my groin but today it’s definitely more prominent in my upper right quad. Anti-inflammatories are the order of the day. Tried cardio this morning but that wasn’t helping so I bailed to fight another day.
We’ll see how I feel tomorrow.
Sorry to hear about the quad strain.
Hope it heals up soon.
Thanks Brett.
Not pushing it Sunday was a real mental moment for me. It certainly prevented me from limping around this week.
I got my AM cardio in this morning and did some light cardio post-workout yesterday so still making forward progress.
Yesterday’s session was Chest/Delt/Tri’s.
I am going to take a break from the Big 4 and hopefully attack them again in 6-8 weeks when my diet starts to move north.
A. Low Incline DB Bench
**warm up sets
6 x 6
B. Seated HS Inc
4 x 8 x 2pps w/ 2 sec negative
C. Bent Over Cable Flyes
3 x 15
D. Standing DB Laterals
8 x 10 w/ 30 sec rest
**this will fry your shoulders
E. V Bar Pushdown
7 x 12 w/ 30 sec rest
F. Seated Machine Dips
4 x 8
Finished with some hanging leg raises + ab wheel supsersets. It seems the O35 group is getting into the HAWT ABZ world so I figure I’d join in.
25 min MI cardio post workout.
[quote]ddot76 wrote:
I am going to take a break from the Big 4 and hopefully attack them again in 6-8 weeks when my diet starts to move north.
[/quote]
Working the big 4 can be a struggle when dieting. It is tough mentally when the numbers don’t keep going up in the logbook.
But, if it was me, and it isn’t obviously, I wouldn’t drop them. They preserve muscle when dieting and you can keep your groove and work on form.
I would suggest keeping them in the mix but, to take the mental piece out, don’t record your numbers. Just go in and do it by feel. Stick with sets of 3 and keep ramping the weight in modest increments until you get to a set that is a reasonable challenge. Just dominate the weight and then move on.
My 2 cents.
[quote]giterdone wrote:
[quote]ddot76 wrote:
I am going to take a break from the Big 4 and hopefully attack them again in 6-8 weeks when my diet starts to move north.
[/quote]
Working the big 4 can be a struggle when dieting. It is tough mentally when the numbers don’t keep going up in the logbook.
But, if it was me, and it isn’t obviously, I wouldn’t drop them. They preserve muscle when dieting and you can keep your groove and work on form.
I would suggest keeping them in the mix but, to take the mental piece out, don’t record your numbers. Just go in and do it by feel. Stick with sets of 3 and keep ramping the weight in modest increments until you get to a set that is a reasonable challenge. Just dominate the weight and then move on.
My 2 cents.
[/quote]
I understand where you’re coming from. I am sure I’ll have some kind of squat in every leg session and I love DL’s too much to completely remove them.
You’ve definitely given me food for thought. I just hate moving backwards in #'s (which is what I am doing). I’ve actually gotten stronger in other movements (Inc DB Press vs Bench for example) which is why the change in focus.
I’m really dialed into getting my physique super lean in the next 6-8 weeks thus a shifting of focus really.
[quote]ddot76 wrote:
[quote]giterdone wrote:
[quote]ddot76 wrote:
I am going to take a break from the Big 4 and hopefully attack them again in 6-8 weeks when my diet starts to move north.
[/quote]
Working the big 4 can be a struggle when dieting. It is tough mentally when the numbers don’t keep going up in the logbook.
But, if it was me, and it isn’t obviously, I wouldn’t drop them. They preserve muscle when dieting and you can keep your groove and work on form.
I would suggest keeping them in the mix but, to take the mental piece out, don’t record your numbers. Just go in and do it by feel. Stick with sets of 3 and keep ramping the weight in modest increments until you get to a set that is a reasonable challenge. Just dominate the weight and then move on.
My 2 cents.
[/quote]
I understand where you’re coming from. I am sure I’ll have some kind of squat in every leg session and I love DL’s too much to completely remove them.
You’ve definitely given me food for thought. I just hate moving backwards in #'s (which is what I am doing). I’ve actually gotten stronger in other movements (Inc DB Press vs Bench for example) which is why the change in focus.
I’m really dialed into getting my physique super lean in the next 6-8 weeks thus a shifting of focus really.
[/quote]
If you can get your head around ignoring the numbers it is probably the way to go. Shelby Starnes was hammering heavy weights all through his contest prep. If you put them at the end of the workout, think of them as an accessory lift, mentally you won’t be expecting to be strong so lower numbers won’t matter as much.
Tuesday - Back + Bi’s
A. Assisted WG Pull Ups
12/10/10/8/6/4
B. Seated HS Row
10 x 3pps/3pps+25/4pps/4pps
C. DL’s w/ bands
10 x 185/235/235
6 x 285
D. Preached DB Hammer Curls --loved this
4 x 10 x 30
E. HS Preacher Curl
3 x 8 x 75
F. Prone BB Curl
2 x 12 x 55
Recently for all curls (hams + bi’s) I have focused on squeezing the shit out of the muscle on contraction and I feel it’s made a HYOOGE difference. Funny how I don’t care about weight on these exercises but I do on the Big 4. Mental shift required.
Got my AM cardio in this morning. Quad feels close to 100% again – no noticable discomfort this morning.
Weight is up from last Thursday from 183.4 to 187. I definitely feel leaner though. The body is a strange machine.
[quote]ddot76 wrote:
I’m really dialed into getting my physique super lean in the next 6-8 weeks thus a shifting of focus really.
[/quote]
i think you hit the nail on the head with the above sentence. While dieting my numbers also dropped on some lifts, yet I was performing better on other lifts, just like yourself. I also continued to keep the big lifts in my setup. The mental aspect of dieting can be brutal.
On another note, while training the other day, the weights were kicking my ass and I felt like throwing in the towel. I reflected on your post above about motivation and why we do this shit, and I thought, would ddot76 throw in the towel right now, fuck no. I pushed on. Thanks.
I relate to your post as I have been through a lot the last couple years, specifically this last year and still wading through it.
It’s ok to falter when the going gets rough, but you’ll get through to the other side and be stronger for it.
Thanks yonkey. Git convinced me to just forget about the numbers but keep the lifts so I threw in some DL’s with Bands yesterday (Meadows would be proud) and just repped the sh%t out of them. I’ll probably do something similar with squats and bench and maybe just do some 5 x 5’s for MP at a reasonable weight. Glad to hear you’re plowing through it as well. You lucky bastard (who gets to eat)!
MiM’s, I think the above pic says a lot. You may get knocked down but you better get your a$$ back up and moving. Monday was one of those days for me and I’m glad I made it through it because I’m good today. I look at things like this: as long as I’m having more good days and less bad days I’m making it through. Does that mean next week won’t have bad days? No. But I know tomorrow is likely going to be better than today.
Took my training partner through a “light” leg workout yesterday. I normally train legs on Sunday and he isn’t around so this was a first.
Setup looked like this
Seated Ham curls 8 x 8
45deg Leg Press w/ bands 8 x 8
Meadows Dead Stop Machine Leg Press 5 x 20
He was limping out of there. Quad feels fine. I’ve been foam rolling the area and doing some light stretching. I have a massage treatment on Saturday and I’ll avoid lunges (or any hip flexor extension type movements this week) and re-evaluate the following Sunday. I had wanted to bring walking lunges back into the fold, so I’ll just need to be patient.
Living in the Southwest Ontario, where the temperature has an 80C window throughout the year (from -40C to 40C), one thing I’ll never understand is my fellow Ontarians.
I made a run to the local Costco last night (8pm-ish) and as I get there, I see some dude in Jeans, a track jacket, work boots and a toque (a beanie for my American friends). Not so odd until you consider the fact that it is 42C/107F with the humidex at the time.
This is probably the same dude who wear shorts and flip flops under his parka in mid-February when it’s -30C/-22F out.
We are ODD folk up here.