Time to Get Serious

Training Training Logs
21

Wt: 181

I am on my deload week. My body is ready for a little break. Did some chest and back yesterday. And some legs today. I have to watch my knees. They tend to give me grief from time to time and lately, they have been telling me to back off.

I find it interesting that I need time off sooner during a volume phase than a stregth phase.

11-9-08
Deload week, volume cut in half, wts kept conservative.

Neutral Grip Pullup 7,5,3 (wt includes bodywt)
230x7, 240x5, 260x3

20 Degree Press 7,5,3
225x7, 245x5, 260x3

DB Row 10,8,6
70x10, 80x8, 90x6
DB Bench 10,8,6
70x10, 80x8, 90x6

Also did one set of 15 for each cable crossovers and pulldowns.

I will try to keep my calories high this week, esp protien. Ate pretty normal yesterday, except went to a grocery store buffet for lunch. Lots of fruit, lots of chicken, beef stew, and a slice of meatlovers.

Last night I did some foam rolling and took an ice bath for my legs. Damn that was cold!

11-10-08
Legs today. Not feeling real up today. Hard to explain, but I’m sure you guys know.

Front Squats
135x6, 185x6, 205x6 sad, sad, sad
RDLs
205x6, 225x6, 225x6

Decided to just go home and rest. Awefully pathetic, even for an easy week, but I know my body and it was telling me to head home.

I think too many guys think they should just push through it, they don’t add it all up. I’m tired, I’m unfocused, and I can still feel some soreness in the joints. Getting pissed and pushing for an injury isn’t going to help today.

On a side note. I had a guy actually come up to me right after a set of front squats. He had just got done with the ab machine and the chest press. He comes up and says, “Man its kickin my ass today!” The guy hadn’t even broken a sweat!! He knocked out another set of ab crunches and headed for the door.

Time to eat, eat, and eat. I’ll also do some more foam roller work and ice my knees some more.

By the way… GO HAWKEYES!! I know some of you are thinking, hey, they are stil just 6-4. But they finally turned the corner and won a close game. This team will be a force again. And for my Chiefs… I don’t know what to say. I would have gone for 2 also.

22

I hate deload weeks…but sometimes you need them. My knees usually give me troubles as well doing fronts but i love them. I recently stopped doing backs and just doing fronts to really strengthen up my core i was getting real good with them but my knees were screaming. One thing that helped my knees/legs was incorporating a lot of posterior work just a thought.

Anyway I think you should buy from sams club, because i literally eat the exact stuff you do baring a few things. I buy frozen tilapia (3lbs?? maybe 2lbs) for $12, 6lbs of chicken for $12 (already trimmed 99%fat free), 3lbs of salmon for about $15, yellow fin tuna steaks $15 for four 6oz steaks, along with various other meats and they have good prices on various berries including blue, and their spinach is great. I dont know what i would do without that place. Just some things to consider. Keep at it man!

23

[quote]MUthrows94 wrote:
I hate deload weeks…but sometimes you need them. My knees usually give me troubles as well doing fronts but i love them. I recently stopped doing backs and just doing fronts to really strengthen up my core i was getting real good with them but my knees were screaming. One thing that helped my knees/legs was incorporating a lot of posterior work just a thought.

Anyway I think you should buy from sams club, because i literally eat the exact stuff you do baring a few things. I buy frozen tilapia (3lbs?? maybe 2lbs) for $12, 6lbs of chicken for $12 (already trimmed 99%fat free), 3lbs of salmon for about $15, yellow fin tuna steaks $15 for four 6oz steaks, along with various other meats and they have good prices on various berries including blue, and their spinach is great. I dont know what i would do without that place. Just some things to consider. Keep at it man! [/quote]

Yeah, usually I do way more Posterior stuff too. This was my first cycle in a while that didn’t focus more on the hams/glutes. Have you tried foam rolling? It sure seems to help. I have tight quads too so I need to stretch more than I do. Have you ever noticed if sprinting makes your knees feel better? I’m talking sprints of 60 meters or more.

I shop at Sams also. The only thing I haven’t seen is the tuna? Is it frozen? That place really is awesome. I get my almonds there as well. They are the Sunkist ones with sea salt. I am always surprised at their fruit as well. Just got some grapes from there yesterday and they are pretty darn good.

24

Yea sams is great, the tuna steaks at my Sams were out in the seafood bins where they keep the fresh salmon, and fake crab meat. I get the same almonds, i bought their bulk pecans and walnuts although the walnuts quite pricey $15 where I was at for 12 cups worth though should last a while.

I have not done either i have read great things about foam rolling i might have to look into it more. I have overactive hip flexors which i beleive is my primary problem. But, they havent been to bad recently. I will have to stop in here again once you come off this deload. Later man!

25

After just two days of low volume and a day off I’m already feeling a lot better! I’ve been trying to eat like a horse too, so that might be helping. I am giong to continue my deload week though. Starting next week I will be switching back to a strength phase. I really liked CTs plan outlined last Monday.

I am giong to give that a shot for 4 weeks followed by a program based off of The New Periodization Bible by Dave Tate. That should get me through around the second week in Jan.

After that I’m thinking maybe a another volume program for a quick 4 weeks and then back to some heavy lifting by around the first of Feb. to get ready for the Meet on March 28th.

At that time I would like to be solidly in the 198lb wt class. If I’m not, I may just take up ballroom dancing.

26

Seabass,

I forgot to ask what are you shooting for as far as macros goes? Also, are you following a TCA, TKD, or just a low carb diet?

27

[quote]MUthrows94 wrote:
Seabass,

I forgot to ask what are you shooting for as far as macros goes? Also, are you following a TCA, TKD, or just a low carb diet? [/quote]

Honestly, I am in kind of an experimental phase with myself. I have always stayed away from lots of carbs, even when trying to gain weight, b/c I don’t like to put on much fat. Now, though, I am going to try to eat about as much whole food as I can handle, something very similar to G-Flux. My only real goal is to keep protien between 270 and 300 grams per day and keep calories at least at 3000.

I will still cycle my carbs days, keep my off days a little lower. I will also still try to center the majority of my carbs around my workouts and breakfast. If a meal is higher in carbs, it will be a little lower in protein. It sounds a lot more complicated than it is.

As I said at the begging on this thread, I am ready to put some weight on, so I’m now willing to see a little fat gain.

28

11-14-08

Today was the start of Holistic Training. Since I just came off of a phase where I wasn’t useing real heavy weights, I kept the volume and intensity both a little loer to see how my body will respond.

A1 Push Press for Speed 3x3-5
125x5, 125x5, 125x5

A2 Chin-ups for Speed 3x3-5
These felt great. I just used my body wt for 3 sets of 5. Figured out that I really need to control the ecentric though.

B1 Bench Press Cluster from Bottom Position, 2 clusters of 5
275x4 (Holy shit that was heavy) 255x5
As you can see I did not realize how heavy these were gonne feel, I hadn’t done them in a long, long time.

B2 Pullup Cluster from Bottom Position, 2 clusters of 5
255x5, 255x5

C1 Functional Isometric Bench, 2 sets 6-9 sec.
255, 255

C2 Isometric Neutral Pullup, 2 sets 15 sec.
360, 360 (It was really cool by the way to have 4 plates hanging from my weight belt.)

All and all it didn’t feel too bad. We’ll see how leg day goes tomorrow and how my joints feel later in the week. I see a lot of foam roller in my future. I may also try some contrast showers. Anyone ever done them?

After the workout, had Surge and an apple.

29

Well I’m back. Got kicked in the nuts by some kind of stomach virus. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back on track soon. I lost 3.5 pounds becuase of the damn thing, but, it could have been worse I suppose.

While I couldn’t really eat too much, I did have shakes and tried to get two solid meals a day. My solid meals were chicken and blueberries. I got hit with a stomach virus about two years ago and lost 10 pounds in 3 days, so I figured this strategy worked pretty good.

Anyway, got back into the gym today.

A1 Speed Bench; 3x2-5
170x5, 170x5, 170x4 with good speed.

A2 Speed 1 Arm row vs band; 3x6
Did three sets vs the black band doubled up

B1 Blast Strap Pushups; 3x10
Holy Hell!! Never did I think these would be so awesome. Did all three sets to 10

B2 Blast Strap Pullupsl 3x10
Again, much harder than regular pullups. Seems odd. Did all three sets to 10

C1 Eccentric Bench; 2x1
385x1, 385x1 No spotter so I just lowered the weight as slowly as I could to the pins.

C2 3 puase seated row; 2x2-3
Another new lift for me. Felt heavy, but great. 260x3, 260x2

I can’t really explain how great it felt to workout again after being sick. I feel 10 times better now than before the workout. On a down note, I AM OUT OF SURGE!!! I totally forgot to order it when I got sick. I am going to try to really up my calories today and tomorow to get my weight back up. I am mostly adding more protien.

30

11-19-08

Well, leg day.

A1 Speed Front Squats w/ bands; 3x2-5
175x3 Knee wasn’t quite warmed up, 175x5, 175x4

A2 Broad Jumps, 3x8-10 jumps
8,8,7 man these are tiring

B Stiff Lunges, 3x20 steps
I didn’t use weight, although I will next time. Way harder than I thought they would be.

C Eccentric Only Back Squat; 2x5-8 sec
405xat least 8 sec, 425x6-8 sec

D Eccenctric Only RDL; 2x5-8 sec
405x8 sec, 405x8 sec, It was hard to keep strict form, I may lower the weight next time

After all that I did 3 sets of MedBall Slams and 3 sets each side of High Pulley woodchops.

My knees were pretty good, although my right knee did feel a little tight

Foam Rolling Lately has been out of this world painfull, esp on my adductors. I am now foam rolling every day trying to get my legs ready for heavier weights. Today was a little disapointing.

One, I didn’t feel like it was all that great of a workout, and two, I wasn’t able to move the weight I thought maybe I could. 405 Eccentric Squat seems a little light to me. Kinda pisses me off.

That, combined with the fact that I was another pound and a half lighter this morning has lead to some… frustrations. I am now adding fruit to pretty much every meal. Even had a piece of bread yesterday, which is rare for me. I know my problems, my problems are the weekends. I do not eat enough.

Going hunting this weekend. Hopefully Iowa will do well, don’t want them to lose while I’m carring a loaded gun.

31

11-24-08

Well its been a heck of a weekend as far as hunting goes. Not so well as far as training goes. I’ve been able to train once over the weekend. Eating has been a lot different than normal as well. I really tried to stay with healthier choices. Ate things like pheasant, stew, and a lot of turkey. But the usual crap was mixed in; chips, cookies, couple of pops, and beer.

Training Saturday was good though. I don’t have my log with me, its in the frozen car so I’ll have to get it later.

32

ok, I got a ton workouts to post here,

11-22-08

A1 Speed Bench; 4x2-5
175x5, 175x4, 165x4, 165x4 ( I think this is right)

A2 Speed Pullups; 4x5
Man I love these! BWx5, Bwx5, BWx4, BWx3

B1 Bench Press Cluster;
265x5, 285x4, 285x5, 285x5

B2 Bent-Over Row; 4x4-6
205x5, 225x4, 225x5, 225x5

C1 Overcoming Isometric Bench; 2x6sec
225+Traing Partner Pressing down, got both for 6 sec

C2 Overcoming Isometric Pulldown; 2x6sec
45 plus traing partner standing on it, 2x6sec

11-24-08

A1 Jump Squats; 4x6-8
80x10, 110x6, 110x6, 110x5

A2 Hang Cleans; 4x2-5
95x5, 115x5, 115x5, 125x4 Hadn’t done these in forever, just wanted to get form down and speed up. I felt really slow.

B1 Front Squats, Starting from bottom; 3x4-6
275x4, 275x4, 285x3

B2 RDL; 3x4-6
275x5, 285x5, 295x5

C1 Overcoming Isometric Squat; 2x6 sec
Set bar at bottom of squat and tried to lift
395x6sec, 395x6sec

C2 Overcoming Isometric DL; 2x6sec
Tried to deadlift the 1000# power rack. Maybe next week I’ll get it.

11-25-08

Arms

A1 DB Curl; 3x4-6
55x6, 60x5, 60x4, 60x4–Alternating on this one

A2 Seated French Press; 4x4-6
80x6, 90x6, 90x6, 100x6

B1 Preacher Curl; 3 Drop sets of 6-8
90x8/70x8, 100x6/80x4, 100x6/70x8

B2 Tricep Pushdowns; 3 Drop sets of 6-8
85x8/67x8, 95x6(too much cheat)/67x8, 85x6/67x8

C1 Lying Cable Curls; 2x10-12
40x10, 40x10

C2 Strict Rope Pressdown; 2x10-12
35x9, 30x10

33

Sea Bass where you at?? I am intrigued by your workouts they are extremely unique, alot of variety in their…did you get your hands on any antelope/deer??

34

[quote]MUthrows94 wrote:
Sea Bass where you at?? I am intrigued by your workouts they are extremely unique, alot of variety in their…did you get your hands on any antelope/deer??[/quote]

Hey man, it’s been crazy at work. Spending a lot of my spare time with my family. Anyway, workouts are going good. Just started getting some tendonitis in my right knee, but hey, like Poliquin says, push until you start to complain about tendonitis and then back off for a week. SO that is where I’m at. I should get the workouts for last week posted today.

35

Alright, time to get with it here.

My last few workouts:

A1 Speed Front Squats; 4x2-5
165x4, 165x4, 165x3, 165x3
A2 DB Swings; same
100x4, 100x4, 100x4, 90x5

B Unstable Lunges; 3x20 steps
40x20, 40x20, 40x20

C1 Super Slow Eccentric Squat; 3x3-5 reps lowering in 8-10 sec.
315x3, 315x3, 315x3 These were INTENSE!

C2 Super Slow Eccentric Goodmoring; same
110x5, 110x5, 110x5 These didn’t feel “right” to me. Don’t know if I’ll do them again. At least not paired with squats.

A few days later:

A1 Lying Medball Throws; 3x8
10x8, 10x8, 10x8
A2 Speed Band Pulldowns; 3x6-8
Blue and Black together x6 three times

B1 Bench Press; 4x4-6
275x4, 285x4, 295x4, 300x4
B2 Pullups; same
240x4(includes bw) 255x4, 265x4, 265x4

C1 Overcoming Isometric Bench x 3
345x3
C2 Overcoming Isometric Cable Row x 3
320x3

A few days after that!

My knee was starting to mention some tendonitis, but I felt great, soo… I pushed it a little

A1 Vertical Jumps
3 sets of 5 and 3 for height

B1 Powerlifting Back Squat; just wanted to see what I had for some sets of 3-5
315x4, 335x4, 365x3, 345x4 Not too bad since I had not done full back squats in oh… 4 months.

C1 Rack Pulls, never done them!!
405x4, 475x4, 505x2 almost lost all my caluses. These need work.

And, I really should have stopped for my knee, but…

D1 Overcoming Isometric Back Squat.
405 at the rock bottom position for 3. It did not budge.

Yesterday:

Some arms, no real plan, just get some arm work in fast before work

A1 Decline Skull Crushers
85x7, 95x8, 95x8, 95x8
A2 Standing EZ curls
85x8, 95x8, 95x8, 95x8
A3 Weighted Abs
3 sets of 8

B1 Seated French PRess
85x6 woops, too heavy 65x10, 65x10
B2 DB Curls
40’sX8, 35sX10, 30sX10