Evolution

I’m starting to follow this months M&F "cut down" meal plan, starting tomorrow. I haven’t seen much progress lately and am hoping following this will spark new fat loss. I’ve also started flax oil, caffeine(pre am cardio), and CLA sups today. I haven’t been doing too bad nutrirtion wise I just wanted a change, so theres my reasoning for the "diet." I’m also considering changing up my routine to a basic pyramid scheme followed by a pyramid/rest-pause hybrid(also from the new M&F) I haven’t trained with a pyramid style routine before and that’s why I want to start with the basic routine. I haven’t had a response in my journal (surprise, suprise) so haven’t really been keeping that up to date either. oh, and cardio wise Im going to keep the am sessions(35-45mins), with a short (10-20 mins) post workout session, and the occasional night session(10-15mins).

Jex 

Summer’s sneaking up and I’ve completely been messing up gym time. I only made 3 of 4 trips last week and 1 of 4 this week!! In my defense it is the final week of school… 4 exams, three of them tomorrow… and I’ve been looking for a job. I have been getting in cardio on the home bike so I’m not doing Nothing but I’m not where I should be. I have more job stuff I have to get done thru saturday, but Sunday I"m back to the gym and Hittin it HARD!!! going to cut my sets down from volume to a heavier workload for a couple weeks, I’m thinking from 8-12 reps 5 sets to a 6-8, 3 sets scheme, maybe a fourth "pump" set for good measure, we’ll see…until then, its back to school!!!

Jex

Today I picked up a little exercise bike, to make sure I got my cardio in. I sometimes run out of time at the gym and end up cutting cardio short, so I got this bike, and am going to try to get in two sessions a day. I ll shoot for around 30 - 45 mins each session, one in the am and one early evening. I’m hoping if I can keep this up I’ll drop some excess BF..and keep my muscles the same size (or somehow bigger : ) ) by the beach season. My weight routine will stay as a 4 day split sun-wed. with a light cardio warmup. and I’ll keep cals around 2600-2900 in 5-6 meals. I want some reuslts!!!

 Jex

Since the last post on here, I’ve decided to mak a slight alteration to my routine. Each week I’m going to reverse the rouitne so week 1 i went days 1,2,3,4 and this week I’m going to go in the order of Days 4,3,2,1 then switch back again next week. I think this’ll keep my body guessing and keep me fom getting bored. I change my routine too often and want to stick to this for a while. I’m thinking four weeks like this and then I’ll just change the rep scheme for a couple weeks.

It’s been a while since posting in here so I figured I throw in a quick update of my routine… I’m on a four day split right now with number of sets in brackets:

day 1-shoulders(9)/light chest(4)/tris(9), day2- back(15)/bis(5), day 3- legs(15)/calves(5)/light shoulders(4), day 4- bis(5)/tris(10)/traps(5)

mosty exercises are done in sets of five, 2 heavy, 6-8 reps, 2 med., 8-12 reps, and one for pump 15+ reps I increase or decrease weight lifted based on how I’m feeling that day, trying for an increase every week. I’m also hitting 8 sets for abs each day: 2 sets upper, 2 sets lower, 2 sets mid, and 2 sets obliques. This has seemed to be working for me so far, alot better progress than I’ve had before. I’m doing 250-450 cals in cardio each workout, as well, as extra jogging on non-training days. I’ve been keeping calorie intake close to 500-550 per meal 5 meals per day, about 2800 cals total. I’m going to keep this training routine for at least four weeks, and then adjust nutrition, and cardio as needed….  

On march 3rd I wrote a blog about being on march break and therfore being able to do a 5 day split, I measured myself that day to compare to today’s(last day of the 5 day split) measurement. My stats have been input on my page progress over the week:

Chest:+2.8", waist -0.2", shoulders: +0.8", Quads: +0.1", calves: N/A, Arms: +.4", forearm: -0.1", weight: + 0.4lbs.

I know these are mostly just weekly fluctuations but still alot bigger change than I anticipated!!!

I’ve also started measuring my BF% again, I have a scale that does it, as well as calipers. These both vary quite a bit from each other(3% today) and are a far from the # I got when a trainer did it at the gym. I’m just going to take the average of the calipers and the scale just to keep an eye on any fluctuations…I want to get it done at he gym again but they charge an arm and a leg for it.

Way back in November I was on a rant about "flexed" stats on this site and my goals related to flexed stats; To spare you having to find and read that ish I’ll do a quick overview here:

flexed goals:

Chest 46" , arms(keep dreamin’) 18.5",  waist 31" , forearms 14.5", shoulders 53"

Becuse I was merely bitching, I didn’t even measure some of the parts I was complaing about ( apparantly, I really go on tangents once in a while !!) I only measured chest, waist, and arms flexed they were 43.5", 35.5", and 14.9" respectively

I totally forgot about this until now and figured "hey why not go on another senseless rant??" so here it goes… New Flexed stats/ change from old flexed stats:

Chest 44"/0.5"

arms:14.3"/-0.6"

Waist: 35.2"/-0.4"

Shoulders are 51" and forarms are 11.6"(just incase I actually remember about this and decide to babble about nothing later down the road)

I really don’t know what to make of this…My arms dropped but so did my gut, and I was bulking(dirty) for the first set of measurements as well…not surprisingly (but dissapointingly)my arms dropped more than my waist… damn arms!!!

Thank you(and sorry) to any one who took the time to read this waste of time post

Jex

I’ve said this to myself at least 2 years now, but I really feel I can reach my goals come this summer!! I feel I’ve made pretty good progress in the last little while; I could see a little more definition in my abs this morning(when flexed) and my tri’s are starting to grow a bit too, I’m not bulking or anything right now (just maintaining) so I’m definitely happy about this. I need to start monitoring my cals a little more closely as we start getting closer to summer. I have quite a bit  o.k. a lot of fat to lose of the gutt so will probably get started  on that pretty soon. I’m not really sure how I should be training during this, last year I brought the weights down, and I made o.k. progress on my stomache but lost about half an inch from my arms as well, thery’re already small and I can’t afford to lose ANYTHING!! 

I’ll probably post some progress pics soon, but I dunno I kinda want to surprise myself with the pics like 2 months later or something….

Jex

I’m going to do a little experiment this week. Since I’m on march break this week, and therefore able to train harder/longer, and on a five day split opposed to my usual three day split, I took my measurements this morning, and am going to compare those to the measurements I get this coming saturday morning. I really should have taken my measurements on Sunday but just thought of doing this now. I’m not expecting any change over 4-5 days time, but I’m just curious if there will be a change…gotta keep the brain semi-active : )

This weekend was a disaster nutritionally, I went out with friends on friday, felt like crap saturday and ate garbage all day saturday and sunday!! uuggghhh…. Was back in the gym this morning and it felt good, I’m on  march break and so can afford to do a five day split. I miss being able to train like this all the time : (   I’ll enjoy it while it lasts…. maybe when summer comes…. need to find a job though….we’ll see…