Splattered Angst

Picked a workout this week that would keep me focused flying solo. The workout partner is going to be out of town on business, so something intense is in order: Drop Sets. Going from one set to the next with little to no rest. I’ll be taking each movement to positive failure, starting with what I might consider a good working weight for 15 reps. I’ll drop it a plate or so [10-20 percent] each set for three consecutive sets. Should be cool.

Here is what my diet looks like, for those interested.

I do PLAN a cheat meal every weekend. I’ll either have some kind of restaurant meal [I love Soup Plantation here in CA] or go out for Steak. The usual the last several weeks however has been BBQ steak at home. It is either Sirloin, Tritip or New York and I eat as much as I can hold.

Here is the usual daily fare:

Early AM
1 Cup Low Fat Yogurt
1 Scoop Protein Powder
Juice
Fruit

Mid Workout
Aminos [Higher Power] … I just take a chug from the bottle. Liquid Aminos are  great.

Post workout Meal - Frozen. I make this meal in mass every weekend [8 at a time] and throw it in the freezer. The amounts below are what each serving approximately shakes out to.

1 Cup Goat Milk Yogurt
1/2 Cup Ezekiel Cereal
2 Scoop Protein Powder
1/8 Cup Honey

10:00 AM meal. I also make these 6 at a time and throw them in the fridge. I start with a box of Couscous [8 servings], 2 lbs of ground beef and mix them together after they are cooked. Then I season it with the dressing. Each serving contains approximately what is mentioned below.

1 Cup Couscous
Ground Beef 6 Oz
1/8 Cup Spicy Ranch Dressing

2-3 hours later:

1 Cup Pearl Barley
1 Small Can Tuna
1/8 Cup Asian Sesame Dressing

2-3 hours later:

1 Cup Brown Rice
1/2 Can of Kirkland [Costco] Chicken
1/8 Cup Vidalia Onion Dressing

2 Hours later:
2 Sweet Potatoes
Supp: Animal Flex

Before Bed
1 Cup 4% Cottage  Cheese

Totals: 3670 Cal, Protein: 302g, Carbs: 413g, Fats: 90g
33% Protein, 45% Carbs, 22% Fats

2 1/2 Cup ZipLock Containers are the way to go … You can buy them at WalMart for pretty cheap. I have about 30-40 of them. Making most dishes in advance makes it easy to stay on course and keep the muscle building.

Be as relentless about the diet as you are about the workouts and you’ll get there, eh?

Set some new goals with a group of very cool folks on a forum called C4. Here is the link:

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?p=185197301#post185197301

My goal in this next three month Challenge is keep thing on course to continue to put on muscle: 5 more lbs of mass/muscle by the end of September. Doable and easy to track. I’ll stay the course with the current diet which I have been at now for nearly two months:

Calories: 3627
Protein: 302g
Carbs: 409g
Fats: 87g
33% Protein, 45% Carbs and 22% Fats.

I might add more carbs a bit later and back off on the protein, but I am hanging with it as is for the next few weeks.

This week’s workout is below. My workouts are brief, but intense. I have a workout partner and we are generally done with weight training in 40-60 minutes. The briefer the better. "Weight training is just like getting a sun tan." Short brief exposures and then get out of there and then give yourself a chance to grow. Long workouts result in over training just like staying in the sun too long can result in a burn. I do not do generally more than 5 movements in a weight training session. I pick them carefully and mix them up regularly. I would rather have a 30 minute workout that torches the muscle group I am working than a 90 minute workout that feels like a marathon. I have discovered that more is not better when it comes to this, but exactly the opposite. I also make sure that momentum is not in on what I am doing. Reps are slow and controlled so that ALL the muscle fibers are recruited for the movement and the joints and ligaments are not being bounced on. Momentum is not my friend [thanks for that advice Mark Mentzer, and Markus Reinhardt - HIT Training]:

Monday
Abs and Core/Major Aerobics
[4 Sets of each]
Oblique Plank vs Flat Plank
Hanging Crunch vs Oblique Crunch
Ball Crunches
[30 minutes of shirt soaking aerobics, Run, Stair Mill or Recumbent Bike on a high setting]

Tuesday
Chest and Biceps 2 x 15
Dips
Preacher Curls
Decline DB Press
Seated DB Curl
DB Incline Press
[20 minutes light aerobics, i.e. eliptical, stair mill at a low setting]

Wednesday
Legs:  2 x 1 5
Weighted Walking Lunges [2 Warm up ? no weight]
Leg Extensions
Seated Calve Raises
Bar Bell Squat [1 Warm up set]
Leg Press
20 minutes light aerobics [as mentioned above]

Thursday
Back and Triceps 2 x 15
Close Grip, Palms Forward, Pull Ups
Cable Push Down
Wide Grip Chest Supported Row
DB Pull Over
Weighted Bench Dips
20 minutes light aerobics [as mentioned above]

Friday
Abs and Core/Major Aerobics
3 Sets
Floor Wipes [165lbs]
Decline Set Ups [Weighted] vs Ball Crunches
Oblique Plank vs Flat Plank
30 minutes of shirt soaking aerobics [as mentioned above]

Saturday
Push Pull: Shoulders/Traps:
HIT 2 x 15
Smith Machine Behind the Neck Mil Press [1 Warm Up]
Incline Rear Delt Cable
Upright Rows
DB Seated Side to Front Lateral
DB Shrug
20 minutes light aerobics [as mentioned above]

Sunday
Stretching/ More Shirt Soaking Cardio [generally an outdoor run of about 3 miles] See the video clip on my bodyspace page for an idea about what I do for a the stretching routine … I do more than what is there, but the bulk of the movements I got from that video.

I put on 7 lbs over the last three months, so we’ll see how this goes the next three months …

Measured myself there yesterday and was quite pleased to see that the waist and hips are the same as they have been in previous weeks and the arms, shoulders, chest and thighs are sprouting. Pretty crazy, eh? A guy in his mid 40s putting on muscle?!! I have been gaining about a pound a week and at this point I am growing convinced that it is the right kind of weight. The diet has been steady now for the last several weeks in the neighborhood of 3600 calories a day: 33% Protein, 45% carbs and 22% fats. Staying the course …

I surprised myself with the tough guy statements coming out of my mouth this morning when my workout partner and I were on the patio area of the gym doing walking lunges. Yeah … he was not going all the way down and I thought tossing that turd would motivate! Such tongue in cheek comments certainly keep things entertaining. Things with the new workout partner are going well and he is keeping with it.

I’m currently being careful when it comes to movements that engage the low back … strained it some a couple of weeks ago. As long as I can feel in the right places the next day that I worked it [i.e., its SORE on some level], I figuring it was a workout that was worth it. I am switching things are around regularly. I might go as far was swapping out exercises every week.

Here is the current workout:

Monday
Abs and Core/Major Aerobics [4 Sets of each]

Hanging Crunch vs Oblique Crunch
Ball Crunches
Oblique Plank vs Flat Plank

Tuesday
Chest and Triceps 2 x 15
Dips
Tricep Push Down
Incline DB Press
DB Behind the head Tri Press
DB Bench Press

Wednesday
Legs:  2 x 1 5
Leg Extensions [1 Warm up set]
Bar Bell Squat [1 Warm up set]
Leg Press
Weighted Walking Lunges
Calves:
Smith Machine Calve Raises

Thursday
Back and Bicep 2 x 15
Close Grip, Palms Forward, Pull Ups
Seated Bicep Curl
Wide Grip Chest Supported Row
DB Pull Over
Preacher Curl

Friday
Abs and Core/Major Aerobics
3 Sets
Decline Set Ups [Weighted] vs Ball Crunch
Floor Wipes [155lbs]
Oblique Plank vs Flat Plank

Saturday
Push Pull: Shoulders/Traps:
HIT 2 x 15
Smith Machine Behind the Neck Mil Press [1 Warm Up]
Incline Rear Delt Cable
Upright Rows
DB Seated Side to Front Lateral
DB Shrug

Sunday
Stretching/Major Cardio
Hanging pull for Back and Chest
Bicep stretch
Truck Hang Downs
Cats and Dogs
Dirty Dogs [Individual Leg Lifts]
Hip Extensions w/ Leg Lifts
Quad Stretch
No Weight Squats w/Hold
Rotator Cuff Stretch [Front of hand on Lat, Pull Elbow Forward]
Bird Dogs [opposing arm and leg – up]
Downward Facing Dog [Butt up; head down]

Continue to be relentless out there …

In a previous post I mentioned that I had bumped the diet up a couple hundred calories by beefing up the protein content [literally – there is more BEEF consumed]. It is working. I have been gaining about a pound a week. I am at 200 lbs right now – started at 195 – and my pants continue to fit the same as they did previously, so it appears that the weight I am adding is the right kind – very cool. I’ll keep this going.

There have been a few changes this week: I have swapped out workout partners for a time. The new guy is not really new. I have worked out when I first started the transformation over a year ago. We unplugged before due to some intense work commitments and travel that he had that made the flow of out getting together difficult, but that appears to have changed. So we chatted about doing a bit of a “Challenge” where we set a workout and commit to a certain number of weeks [6 at this point] of working out together. We got started on Wednesday and the coming workouts are dialed. Jess is his name and he is a guy with frame that could hold quite a bit of muscle. He has dove into the 5 x 5 workout I have been doing and has been orienting him self and it is going well. One thing that I appear to be successful at getting his attention about is slowing down the speed of repetitions way down – a couple of seconds for the lift and a couple of seconds for the negative. Being 30 and 40 something guys, rocking on joints and “throwing” weight is a really bad idea. “It is weight lifting not weight throwing …” is a comment that I have lobbed in his direction a few times. Slowing the reps down engages a great deal more muscle fiber to do the work and is a hell of a lot less stressful on connective tissues too. Workouts do not generally last more than hour. I have got Mike Mentzer and Markus Reinhardt to thank for those tips.

The previous workout partner may hop back in later in the summer. David is in the middle of a rather serious female relationship that appears to be moving in the direction of marriage. The prospective spousal unit started coming into the gym during the time that he and I had been working out that was my queue to make some other arrangements. It’s cool … she is prettier than I am. I’ll give him that, eh?

I started running on Sunday mornings a couple of weeks back and it is getting easier and easier. It is about 3 miles from the gym down to the High School here in town and back. It initially took me about 35 minutes, but every week I appear to have shaved a minute or two off the time. This morning it was about 23 minutes.

Continue to be relentless …

Realized I had not posted much about what the diet has been. The latest addition to the daily fare is couscous and ground beef dish. I make it in mass like the others. I  cook a whole box of plain couscous [it says it is about 10 servings on the box] and mix in two lbs of ground beef. I take one cup of that mixture and put it in 7 containers for the week and top each one with about 1/8 of a cup a Mexican flavored Ranch Dressing [Yum!]. Beef is something I have come to discover my body responds well too. That would be the daily dose. I also have a generous portion of grilled steak every weekend. The recent purchase of a particularly nice BBQ will make that staple easy to pull off. The post workout Goat Milk Yogurt dish is mixed together and frozen. It is kinda like a hardy ice cream. The Spartans consumed a lot of goat milk in their day … so I figured a couple of containers of that a week makes it worth the expense. It also makes for a good variety in the protein department. Here is how it all flows:

1st Meal
1 Cup Low Fat Yogurt
1 Scoop Protein Powder
Juice
Fruit

Mid Workout:
Liquid Aminos [Higher Power]

Post Workout:
1 Cup Goat Milk Yogurt
1/2 Cup Ezekiel Cereal
2 Scoops Protein Powder
1/8 Cup Honey

Mid Morning:
1 Cup Couscous
Ground Beef [about 5 Oz]
Spicy Ranch Dressing [1/8 cup]

Noon:
1 Cup Brown Rice
1/2 Can Costco Chicken
Balsamic Dressing

Early Afternoon:
1 Cup Pearl Barley
1 Can Tuna
1/8 Cup Asian Sesame Dressing

Late Afternoon
2 Cooked Sweet Potatoes

Before Bed:
1 Cup 4% Cottage  Cheese

Totals: Calories: 3627, Protein: 302g, Carbs: 409g, Fats: 87g
Protein: 33%, Carbs: 45%, Fats:22%

This is the workout for this week and the couple coming. The back and chest, push-pull, was pretty intense this morning!

My diet has been bumped up some and I feel like I might be gather a touch more adipose, but I certainly am feeling stronger with the extra calories in the gym.
Monday
Push Pull: – Back/Chest:
5 x 5
Close Grip Pull Ups
Dips
Bench Press
Oly Bar Rows
Single DB Pull Over

Tuesday
Abs and Core/Major Aerobics
[3 Sets of each]
Decline Set Ups [Weighted] vs Ball Crunch
Floor Wipes [155lbs]
Oblique Plank vs Flat Plank

Wednesday
Push Pull: Shoulders/Traps:  5 x 5
DB Mil Press
Incline Rear Delt Cable
Shrugs: Side Held Bar
Upright Rows
DB Seated Side to Front Latls

Thursday
Abs and Core/Major Aerobics
[3 Sets of each]
Hanging Crunch vs Oblique Crunch
Side to Side Leg Lifts [Oblique]
Oblique Plank vs Flat Plank

Friday
Push Pull:
Bi/Tris: 5 x 5
Straight Bar Curl Standing
Skull Crushers
Kick Backs vs Concentration Curls
Tri Push Downs

Saturday
Legs:  5 x 5
Leg Extensions [2 Warm up set]
Smith Machine Squat
Leg Press
DB Lunges
Bulgarian Split Squats
Calves:
Seated Calves
Smith Machine Calve Raises

It has been a few months since I did my last cycle and with my diet hovering around 3700 calories a day, it seems like good time to Animal Test back in the mix and see what happens. I’ll keep you posted … progress pics next week end. NICE!

Been out of town for little over a week and only had a couple of chances to look at e-mail and the internet while I was away. Mt father in law passed away week before last and there were some family matters to attend to up in Roseville.

It is an interesting old town … lots of railroad tracks. It was one of those places where where you sit on the front porch and hear discordant horns churn out melancholy whines that echo across the landscape for miles.

I scouted around during a previous visit for a gym and found a club to workout if I was ever there long enough to need a place … "Fitness 180". Got a week long pass. An employee said they only have about 300 members. I wondered how they were keeping the place a float. It was adequate. It had a bit of musky smell to it and an "old school" feel: stained carpet, magazine posters of the Arnie and Culter on the wall, but I didn’t really see anyone among the members that could appreciate what "old school" meant really. I could tell they didn’t see too many folks there that would categorize themselves as "bodybuilders" just by some of wide-eyed looks I got. The equipment was decades old.
When I got back into my own gym Thursday I was surprised to hear a previous workout partner, Dave, wanted to pick things back up after a hiatus attempting to help his brother get into shape. That was cool. We’ll see how things go over the coming weeks plugging him back in.

That is all that’s news at this point … got a new device for roasting flesh [aka: Blue Ember BBQ] to assemble this weekend. I see more steak in my future. NICE!

Continue to be relentless … Brian