Back to the Drawing Board
As another eight week block comes to an end, it is time to review and reflect. There have been some progress in certain areas, and seemingly none in others. But I am learning how to not be down about it, but rather see this as a huge construction project, where progress must be measured one brick at a time.
One experiment I tried was Tabata training, an ultra-intense approach which breaks up 6 exercise into 8 sets each; each set being 20 sec. of work then 10 sec. rest. It seemed promising, as my goal was to add leg size and increase deadlift/squat lifts. In theory the overload along w/ adequate nutrition would cause growth. However, i am not seeing progress there…HOWEVER, another look at it I can say that it has improved conditioning and kept me lean, which can only help with whatever path I choose next training lowerbody. So, while the goal I was aiming for wasn’t acheived, another benefit came from it.
One area of definate progress was adding 7lbs of mass, mostly upperbody it would seem. Also, adding 10lbs to my bench, which I WAS going for! And this is why I keep a training log!!! When something works, you want to have that recorded…while it is good to try different things it is nice to be able to look at the log and go back to something that you know your body responded well to. There was a period where my deadlift was climbing up every week; as I go back to the drawing board and come up w/ something aimed for that purpose I can check the rep scheme and % of 1RM max was using at that time and pick up on it again.
Bottom line, that powerlifting/bodybuilding takes enormous patience. Sure, there are the adds in Muscle & Fitness saying "build 8lbs of muscle in 14 days!" I am sure these products work, but I approach that w/ skepticism….I think you lose something when you accelerate your growth through all these products…something that we get from strength and conditioning training that goes beyond crafting a great body. Building patience, learning to cope with failure, learning to find success at unexpected angles…Stuff like that is what makes this such a great sport!
