Lower
Squat
140kg x 3, x 4, x 4
Wasn’t really feeling up to working out today, but glad I did.
Hello. I am also trying to go for “an all-round health of mind and body” if my approach to training. I consider what I do now as a “yin and yang” style of training. “Yang” being high intensity exercise such as weight training or calisthenics…and “Yin” being low-intensity “recovery” style exercise such as walking, yoga, or tai-chi.
Personally, I think you just need to do what works best for you. I took notice of your post because you structure your training similarly to mine.
Hi Mr Cappello.
Thanks for your response. I do a bit of dog-walking, as a duty more than anything. So a bit of yin, stuff, I guess.
Upper
Rows
Bench - 145kg x 0, x 0
120kg x 4.5, x 5, x4
The 145 was so close. Literally got the bar 3/4 of the way up and just couldn’t quite extend that last 1/4. Second time, not so close.
It’s going to be a grind getting back to where I was. But I’m ready for the grind.
I must say that I definitely love just going on nature walks for my “yin” training. I would like to find some good trails to walk as I think that nature is healing.
Lower
Deadlift 162.5kg x 5, x 6, x 5, x 4
Felt pretty strong on these - maybe I benefitted from the day break yesterday.
Upper
Rows
Bench - 145kg x 1, 100kg x 12, x 10, x 7
145 felt good. Just grinding away till I’m back where I was.
Lower
Squat - 145kg x 5, x 5, x 4, x 4
Pretty pleased with this result. Before the illness hit I was doing 150kg for 4, so I can’t be far off that now with 145 for 5.
So I guess bench has been hit the hardest out of the big 3 and the squat and deadlift haven’t been as badly affected.
I saw somebody I know on instagram hit 60kg for 16 on the OHP. Very impressive. I’m wondering whether I should start building in a bit more overhead work and maybe sacrificing the bench a little.
Just done a weigh-in.
I’m 219lb on the nose.
Waist up to 39.75"
Arm down to 16.375"
Height 5’8
I need to do something about this. I’m going to cut out the milk and sugar coffees and have green tea instead. And I need to get in the habit of having carrots, if I’m still feeling hungry after a meal, rather than cheesecake. I ought to start counting calories, too, so I know where I’m at.
I’m in two minds about peri-workout nutrition. I’ve been drinking an oat drink, watered down during the workout, and then having a scoop of whey after. John Meadows is a big advocate of the during-workout nutrition. Apparently having something stops during cortisol levels going so high. And in a study the dudes that had workout nutrition gained twice as much muscle.
But then you can factor that against the fact that I’m prone to having a bit of a belly, my Dad has quite a large one. And I put on weight easily. Hmmmm. The solution isn’t obvious. Thank God I’m not a bodybuilder. I’m quite good at putting on muscle, but I’m no good at losing fat.
I need to start getting up at a reasonable time. Yesterday I was up a 11am and today it was 10. Maybe I should get one of those fitness watches and monitor how many steps I do. I’m not sure if that’s me or not.
Upper
Bench - 146kg x 1, 110kg x 10, x 7, x 7
Rows
So I did something slightly differently today. I didn’t warm up the rows at the same time as the bench - I separated the exercises completely. I was wondering how it would change things, whether having less blood flow in the bicep would make for a harder bench. I know this is not a controlled experiment, but 146 was a success and moved easier than I was expecting. I debated doing another set on 147, because I felt like I had it in me, but I thought I would save myself for another day. I then proceeded to hit 110kg for 10, which is a rep-maximum for me at this weight. So the signs are good. I know that you seem to keep endurance more though. It seems that the 1RM strength you lose the quickest and the most of when you have a break. I’ve always found this. I’ve even hit some rep PRs after a break, but I never would hit 1RM PRs after a break.
Another thing that might have made a difference today was that I got up promptly for once, when my alarm went off at 7.45am, and had a productive morning. I did 20 minutes on the cross-trainer, had a good breakfast, walked the dog, and did a 90 minute math paper. I’m going to concentrate on doing this as a routine in the mornings, because I feel so much better when I’m not being lazy. I feel if I have a productive morning, I’ve earned an early afternoon nap. I don’t envy people who work 9-5s, whereas I used to. But I’m quite happy as I am. I’m more free to do other things, like working out, which I know I wouldn’t be doing if I was doing the 9-5. At the moment I’ve got 4 hours of work a week tutoring. It’s not much, but it’s a start, and I’m hopeful it’ll build up. In the past I have had 20 hours’ worth a week, so maybe I’ll be able to get it back to that.
So yeah, I’m mourning slightly the fact I coulda had 147, but it was only recently that I jumped up from 144 to 145, and failed at that, so I should be happy with the 1 kg increment today.
Gosh darn it, I’m looking forward to getting back to PR territory. It’s been two weeks back working out, and I suspect it’ll be another 2 weeks before I’m back to where I’m at, meaning I’ve lost about 4 weeks’ worth of progress, but there you are.
I need to look at the number of calories I’m consuming; I think I should be trying to drop it down slightly. So starting from today, my lunch is just gonna be the calories I consume around the workout - the oat milk and the whey protein. I know I try a lot of things and it doesn’t always work, but I’ll give this a go. I might try and estimate what an average day of eating would be in terms of calories in the next post.
So I’ve done a calorie analysis for a slightly unhealthy, care free day, like what I’ve been having recently. Will write that up in a second, let me just post my workout log:
Lower
Deadlift - 180kg x 4, x 4, x 4
Front planks 3 sets
Left Side planks 2 sets
Right side planks 2 sets
I was feeling a bit jaded today, and half wondered about resting instead of working out, but thought I’d better carry through with the plan. I might rest Sunday, anyway…
So today I thought I’d been pussyfooting around on the deadlift for too long, so I thought I’d put some real weight on the bar and see how I got on. Across three sets at 190kg I managed 11 reps (4,4,3) before my little excursion of not lifting two weeks. So I kinda replicated that with the 180kg today, obviously a slightly lighter weight, but one more rep (4,4,4). It felt good to go heavy. Won’t be too long before I’m back to where I was, I’d imagine. I’ve done a plot for bench press of weight versus maximum repetitions. It’s a nice, basically quadratic curve. I want to do the same thing for my deadlift. I have a suspicion that, for me, 190kg for 4 is more than a 1RM of 225kg, but we’ll have to see. At the heaviest weights on my 1RM deadlift my form breaks down a bit, so that’s something I want to improve.
So that’s a workout on 15 of the 16 days back. It’s good stuff.
So here’s the breakdown of what I have on a day when I’m not being careful. It’s a lot!
So I’ve done a calorie analysis for a slightly unhealthy, care free day, like what I’ve been having recently:
Breakfast
1 protein brownie – 245
Toast – 2 slices each with 5g butter and 29g peanut butter – 554
Breakfast total 800
Lunch
2 Bacon rashers 156
5g butter 35
2 wraps 186
Ketchup 34
Yoghurt 144
Lunch calories 575
Tea/coffee
79g semi-skimmed milk 40
7g sugar 28
Infusion 2
7 or 8 a day
500 calories
Snacks
1 brownie 248
2 biscuits 76
1 easy peeler 28
1 pack crisps 120
472 calories
Periworkout
Oat drink 550ml 220
Proten 140
360
Dinner
2 x cod fillet 468
2 x waffle 188
Carrot large 40
Ketchup 23
Cheesecake 328
1047 calories
Late night
300 ml milk 150
Totals
800
575
500
472
360
1047
150
3904
I’ve looked at a calorie calculator, and if I input my weight (219), height (5,8) and choose ‘active’, not ‘very active’ it gives my maintenance at 2,980 calories. At an undecated guess I’d say that’s about right. It’ll be interesting to see if I put myself in a deficit, which I’ve started doing, how much weight I will lose in a week, and see if the numbers stack up. According to this assumption I put myself in a 565 calorie deficit yesterday. I expect I will manage something similar today. And if I keep that up for a week, it’s a theoretical 1lb weight loss. If I lose more than that then my maintenance calories must be slightly more than 3,000, less and it’ll be less. But I’m aware 1 lb is not much at all - if you neglect to go for a pee before you weigh in, you could add 1lb on to your bodyweight. I guess a month is a better time frame to gauge these things. 500 calorie deficit a day, for four weeks should equate to 4 lbs lost. I’d like to lose weight a bit quicker than that though. I’d still liked to get ripped for summer, haha.
I reckon my lean body mass is about 166lb, assuming I’m 24% bf at 219 now. If I got down to 200 I’d be 17% bodyfat. 190 12%. I really reckon that’d be my limit. I naturally carry a bit of fat, particularly around my waist. Visible abs would be cool, but hard to achieve.
Upper
Clean and strict OHP
20kg x 10,
25 x 5,
30 x 4
35 x 3
40 x 3,
45 x 3,
50 x 2,
55 x 1,
60,
65,
67.5,
70,
72.5,
75,
77.5,
80,
82,
83.5,
85 x 0,
70 x 3, x4, x3, x3
23 sets
So yeah, I thought I would go ham on my OHP and see the results. I haven’t done the OHP since coming back, and I was doing it not very often, and after bench before. It was nice to focus on it exclusively for a workout.
I have been wondering if only benching is at all optimal. At night my shoulders often feel a bit tight. So I researched it on the internet a little. I saw the odd comment that some people were having problems before, but when they added the OHP, they went away.
Looking at my physique, my shoulders do probably lag a bit behind my chest.
So with a bench of (currently) 146 and an OHP of 83.5 my bench to OHP ratio is 1.75. Not too bad, I suppose, but I’m anticipating I can change that a bit by bringing my OHP up.
I saw an impressive reddit thread of a guy who had his home setup, was natural, and had been working out ages. Like literally training consistently for years. I think he was strict OHP about 150kg and benching 230kg. The impression was that he was giving equal emphasis to both these lifts in his training, probably a 1:1 ratio. It’s a huge OHP and a big bench, very impressive.
So I think I am going to change my routine slightly. I’ll do upper and then lower, alternating. But for upper I’m going to do C&P day 1, bench and row day 2, dips and chins day 3. So routine will look like
Day 1 Deadlift
Day 2 C&P
Day 3 Squat
Day 4 Bench and Row
Day 5 Deadlift
Day 6 Dips and Chins
Day 7 Squat
Day 8 C&P
Day 9 Deadlift
Day 10 Bench and Row
Day 11 Squat
Day 12 Dips and Chins
So in a 14 day period (if I take Sundays off), I’ll be hitting Deadlifts 3 times, Squats 3 times, C&P for 2, Bench and Row 2, and Dips and Chins 2.
It’ll be quite a big change, from benching 3 times a week to once a week, but it’ll probably be a healthier setup. I did something very similar before. Of course, I still hope to make good progress in the bench, but overall body and shoulder health should come first. It’ll be interesting to see how the bench does. But I do have an exceptionally strong bench compared to my other lifts at the moment, which is probably a symptom of training it too much, but also the fact that as you get a bit older your upper body develops at a greater rate.
I’ve only put on a poultry 5 kilos on my deadlift since uni days, 20kg on my squat, and 32kg on my bench. You’d think those numbers should be the other way round!
The attempt at 85kg was a bit wobbly, I half fell over. A bit dangerous, really, so I didn’t attempt it again. When I go heavy next time I will focus on getting the weight stable before I press.
It sounds a bit silly, but I was doing a few Ronnie Coleman-esque ‘Yeahh Buddy!!!s’ before the heavy stuff, and it seemed to help, it seemed to make the weights move easier.
It’d be cool to hit 100kg on the OHP. I’m gonna set this as a goal.
So, I’ve started counting every calorie I consume…
I thought this was a bit ridiculous at first, but now I can see its advantage.
I’m not tracking individual macros, just calories really, although I’m keeping an eye on protein. I’ve been in a deficit the last three days. The first two days I was at about 2400, which I reckon is a deficit of about 500 below maintenance. Today I’m at about 1900 and I’m waiting to see if my body asks me for a bit more food with a hunger signal. I ate at 5pm and it’s 8.30 now and I still feel full. I had a load of celery, carrots and broccoli, chicken soup and a couple chicken wraps. Basically my eating strategy is to eat a lot of raw veg, to increase the feeling of satiety as much as I can. I like feeling full, and I don’t like feeling hungry. I’ve been a little more frequent with my bowel movements and my shits are smelling super fragrant! I think it’s all the fibre. But it feels like it’s cleansed my body. I’m down from 219 to 215 in three days so I think I was probably retaining/bloated beforehand.
I’m just mad keen to see what kind of weight loss I get by tracking my calories and putting myself in a deficit. Of course, there’s some natural fluctation going on so I don’t think I’ve actually lost 4lbs of flab in three days, as that would be ridiculous. I probably just weighed myself at an inconvenient time. Steady progress is what I’m after.
So I’m feeling quite good and optimistic about the future at the moment. What I love about this game is that you get the feedback from your body. You ask it to do something, and with enough effort and concentrated power of will, it does.
Lower body and core
Squat - 8 warmup sets, 145 x 3^6
Front plank - 3 sets
Right plank - 3 sets
Left plank - 3 sets
600ml oat with 1200ml water consumed during the workout.
2 x scoop whey protein after.
Good workout, about 1hr 45 minutes, 23 sets total. I’m glad I’ve added in the core stuff, I got a bit of a pump or just strong feeling going in the core today, and it feels right to challenge that area of the body. I think you should probably train it as hard as you train the other lifts - I haven’t really up till now - I would do one set, sometimes two, but today I did three working sets.
I’m thinking about opening my gym’s doors to anyone that’s keen to train. So far I’ve got 200+kg of weights, a bar, a power rack and a slightly defunct cross-trainer. When I get rid of old furniture, there will definitely be space for a further squat rack and maybe one rower or treadmill. And I could get some dumbbells. It seems a pity to have the equipment and it not be used much of the time. I could do with a bit more company which would be an added bonus. I love the convenience of having home gym.
I could also get a PT qualification.
It’s just an idea at this stage. There are other ideas too. Like trading forex. I’ve experiment with a virtual account and done ok. I do need to make some more money in my life, although it depends how ambitious I want to be. My low key life now suits me quite well, but I might want to do a bit more in future.
Had a sort-of eating relapse - had 100 grams of beef - jerky! I suppose it’s natural for the appetite to come and go in circles. So I’m at about 2,500 calories for the day, which still is about a 500 calorie deficit I reckon. So it’s like a cheat, but not a bad one.
I just ate pretty much a whole tub of ice cream!!!
So now today I’m in a small surplus. 3245 calories consumed total.
I did feel weak on the squats today. I’m keen to see how strong I am tomorrow although I’m programmed to do dips and chins which I haven’t for a long time. My thinking is that the carbs will benefit the muscle. I’m quite confident I can go back on a 5-600 calorie deficit for a few days. But I needed this today. I’ve been working hard for it.
Upper
Pullups
1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 4, 4, 4, 4, 6
Dips
1, 3, 5, 10, 14, 7, 7, 7, 7, 20
20 sets total. 11-12 60 minutes.
I switched to chins on about the sixth or seventh set. It felt ok, but a bit of a stretch actually. I’m not too flexible and I’m a bit bigger now. I wonder if bodybuilders get bothered by the lack of mobility as their muscles get bigger?
I’m pursuing both strength and size at the moment with a mixture of rep ranges.
I used to be all about strength, but as I’ve got older I like getting bigger, too. I know his physique is extreme, but in a video of Ronnie Coleman as a cop I thought the bulges in his muscles looked awesome. I don’t think I’m going to start taking steroids, though. I’m doing really well naturally. I have very little commitments, so I’m able to focus 100% on my training, and lately on my diet. Steroids are a shortcut. I’m with Eric Bugenhagen, stay natty bros, stay natty.
So yeah I was trying out the ‘training’ style of workout - a few more sets, but a few less reps. Actually looking at it I didn’t do that many more sets - oh well!
John Meadows talks about keeping reps in the tank but then going to failure on the last set at least. On the dips today I obviously kept a few too many reps in the tank! Haha. It’s been a while since I’ve done them, so I wasn’t really sure what I was capable of.
I wish there was a clear way of converting between the all-out reps vs the training style, keep a few reps back style of training, but I guess they are just a bit different, and all I can do is experiment, and see how I feel with both types of training. As I get a bit more advanced, they probably both have their uses to the advanced lifter.
I slept really well last night, was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I’d had a night where I couldn’t get off the night before so the good night last night was a relief.
I find sometimes milk helps, although I worry about the calories a little bit.
So since the break I have worked out every day apart from one. I’m feeling ok, I don’t feel burned out at all. Although I’m keeping an eye on things just in case I decide I need a break. But I’m getting used to working out every day, and I look forward to it, so why should I stop? I don’t feel that sore either.
48 hours feels like the right rest time for my muscles.
Few minutes on the elliptical
Early morning workout with a liquid breakfast
Lower and core
Deadlifts
15 warmup sets
200kg x 1
180kg x 5, x 4, x 4
Front plank
3 sets average 56s
Right plank
3 sets average 42s
Left plank
3 sets average 48s
28 sets total
7.46am-9.20am
1 hr 34m = 94m
3.36 minutes/set
Workout nutrition 800ml oats no sugars 1600ml water
PWO 30g scoop whey in 300ml water
It seems like I’m now recording absolutely everything. I woke at 7am today, which is quite early for me, especially given the hour change. It was lovely. It felt like a gift from God. It really feels like He is revealing things to me, in waking hours and in dreams. Maybe more on that later.
I have been curious about morning workouts for a while. I tried it once, but I felt dizzy. I took this as a sign that I wouldn’t be very strong in the fasted state and it could even be a bit dangerous. But what I have been doing recently is to have my workout around lunchtime, and have a liquid lunch - made up of oat milk and whey protein afterwards. So I thought today, why not try doing the same thing at breakfast time? Maybe those liquid carbs will keep the dizziness at bay?
It’s early to judge it’s impact, but the advantages I can think of at least 3 types of benefit from a morning workout. Physical, physiological, psychological, practical benefits. The physical: it could be a disadvantage that the muscles are in a fasted state, this is the most obvious drawback and I know it’s not and advantage, at least in terms of initial strength, but by the time you’ve finished your warm up 30-35 minutes have passed and you’ve been sippin’ carbs all that time. All the while you’re telling your body to send the energy straight to the muscles. How much of a difference this makes time will tell. But I added a rep to my first working set - I did 4 reps at 180kg last time, today I did 5, so judging from that I’m no weaker at this time. Although I didn’t go for a 1RM this morning. I didn’t experience any light-headedness - so the oat drink did ameliorate that. Also in terms of the physical, you’ve got the rest of the day to recover from the workout, which can only be a good thing. That gives your body time to signal to you what nutrients it needs to recover… One period of my life that I look back on with fondness was when I starting running in the morning first thing. I got kind of hooked on it, and was waking at like 4 am, naturally, to go for my early morning run. And damn it felt good getting up at that time. Who knows, maybe the same thing will happen with the weight workouts. I need to be careful of my mental health though, as I had a breakdown after doing that for a while. It might be that it was something else that was the reason for that, though. Maybe I could allow myself a few day deload once in a while and let my body sleep in. The more I learn about the body, the more that I see it’s not a machine, and you can’t keep doing the same thing all the time; it needs the occasional rest. I learnt recently after I started tracking my macros - after 4 days of a deficit, I needed my icecream bad!
Physiological advantage: testosterone is highest in the morning.
Practical advantage: it gets the workout over and done, and out the way, and leaves you feeling ready for the day and as though you’ve put the work in on your physical health.
Anyway that’s a few of the advantages I can think of now. I’m going to walk the dog, it’s a lovely sunny day!
So I hardly uploaded a pic before, but I thought this thread could use more pictures, so here ya go. I’ve been working hard, counting calories.
So I’ve had 3 days of a deficit, followed by one day of a small surplus, followed by two days of deficit.
So I’m 6 days in. The scales suggests something is starting to happen. I’m eager to collect more data points though, so we’ll see what the picture looks like after week 2.
My protein intake is 1.0g/lb lean body mass, which is probably about right for a cut. The deficit was about 5-600 a day, more recently it’s been as high as 1100. I don’t feel too beat up. I’m looking forward to doing another first-thing workout tomorrow and seeing if I wake up early again…
It’s taking a long time monitoring all these numbers, but I feel like the effort will eventually pay off. Hell, it’s paying off already, because I’m learning so much.
One cool thing I learned today was about the difference between free sugars and the sugars in plants and vegetables that are inside the cell. Apparently in fruit juice the sugar has been liberated from the cell. This probably is a cause of fatty liver. I’ve been learning recently that the ‘bloated stomach’ look, which I definitely have, is a symptom of fatty liver. Apparently Vitamin E helps so I’ve added some of that into my routine. Dandelion and milk thistle are also good but I’m yet to try those.
So I’m having 40% fats, 32% protein and 27% protein (with a little rounding error thrown in!)
I’ve been eating a lot of eggs because they got compared to Dbol on t-nation 
but they are very convenient, actually, I’ve found. Well I’m eating them raw. Great source of protein, cholesterol (from which testosterone is synthesised) and fat-soluble vitamins.
Hit some balls at the golf range. Think I have discovered something about my swing that’s made a major improvement, so I’m happy. You can feel the stretch on your pecs, which is great, I need stretching!
Discovered Convolk recently. I’ve never like instantly liked so many songs at once. His/their stuff is great!
Upper
Bench - 10 warmup sets
140kg x 1, 100kg x 6, 147kg x 0
110kg x 9.5, x 7, x 6
Pressups, one handed and regular
Rows
8.30 - 9.48am
78m
So getting that last rep felt difficult today. I think it’s the cuttin’.
Not much sleep last night. Kept having ideas that I needed to write down.
Felt unstable on the bench. I think the program needs to change. I need to do some lateral pressing every upper body workout, really. Not the primary focus on the two workouts where I workout the other planes, but enough to give a stimulus to the mid part of the chest which is so important for benching…
Morning weight 213.6. I was 219 before starting to track my calories! Some progress. A fair bit of that is probably water. I’ve tracked my calories pretty carefully and since I started that I have a cumulative deficit of 3,000 calories which equates to 1 lb of fat.
I’m really enjoying being precise with everything. Who knows, perhaps there will be some kind of way to make my hobby a living?
I wondered after the workout, where my bench had felt a bit wobbly, if I should do some core exercise with every workout. You hear the phrase ‘activate the core’ a lot, and probably for good reason. I do feel a lot tighter in my mid-section since I started training that more.