Stryka’s BodyBlog

Leg night. I have to say first off why on earth is it that last night the gym was packed. Tonight on leg night, the night when you never have to wait for the squat rack no matter how busy the gym, the gym was a ghost town. What is up with that?

 Anyway, I headed straight to the rack and warmed up with a set of the bar and 70kg. Another 50kg on and the bar felt good. I decide to skip 130 and go straight to 140kg. This set wasn’t as good as I had trouble getting all the way down. No trouble getting the weight up so I decide to stick to 140kg. This time 5 reps went down and up a lot better so I thought why not I did 150kg last week? 5 reps again no problems, lets throw on another 5kg. 155kg x 5 reps it was a fight but got there. Overload sets 15 reps with 120kg and 15 reps with 70kg and over to the leg press.

 200kg x 6, 300kg x 6, 350 x 6, 380 x 6.

One leg now. 100kg x 8 each leg. Left leg was easy, Right was tough. Drop back to 50kg x 20 each leg. And that is closing time. I think I must have taken too long between sets but the main aim was to squat hard and I did that so I am happy with the workout.

Tonight was arm night. I don’t know what it was but tonight I entered the gym with a purpose. I was fired up and ready to train. Maybe it was just a long day at work. I had 4 clients booked in today but only 1 showed up. That is just rude.

But anyway I walked in and it was busy. Summer is here and there is a lot of last minute bicep curls going on in the hope that it will undo a winter of sloth. hmmm.

 No one on the decline bench. Great I start with close grip presses. Warm up with the bar and 60kg then throw on some weight. 90kg x 5, easy 2 sets of 95kg x 5. This was my normal training weight before I focussed on running. Happy to be back there. Lets add another 5kg. I get the first set of 5 but 2nd set was only 4. Room for improvement next time.

Over to the dips. some dudes are using 5kgs of added weight to the parallel bar dips. I line up two 25kg plates and go to fill up the water will I wait. nowhere to be seen when I get back. I wonder why that might be? 4 sets of 5 reps. The last two sets where tough but I get there. Over to the rope pulldown. Work to failure. Pump is pretty good by now.

Biceps. Warm up with 8 reps 35pds dumbells. 2 sets of 8 with 50pds. The great thing about working triceps first is that you get a good pump by the first set. Straight bar curls with 40kgs. 2 sets of 12. I can see veins running all over my arms! 2 sets just the 20kg bar. Really slow and controlled though so that I can get really get intensity into the reps.

FInish up with rope hammer curls to failure. Job done.

Up to 78.2kg after 1 week so that is good progress for me. Had a busy day today trained shoulders in the gym tonight and saw my first client at my new job so I thought I would make a light hearted post with some jokes that have been floating around the internerd. You may have come across them already but they made me chuckle:

What is the definition of optimism?

An investment banker ironing 5 shirts on a sunday.

What is the capital of iceland?

 About 3 pounds sterling.

Why is are the current markets worse than a divorce?

You lose half your money but you still have to keep your wife?

Why did God invent Economists?

In order to make weather forecasters look good.

Please respond with any more… 

My workout:

Dumbell shoulder press: 8 x 35 pds (warmup), 5 sets of 5 x 55pds, 1 set of 3 x 66pds

Shrugs: 60kg x 10, 110kgs x 8, 3 sets x 160kgs x 10 reps, 20 reps x 110kgs.

Lateral raises 2 sets of 5 x 50pds, 2 sets of 15 x 25 pds.

Rear delt raises 3 sets of 15 x 50pds

Finished up with some clean and jerk practice with 40kgs. I am just learning this and want to get the motions right before going to heavy.

Trained chest yesterday. Workout was:

5xbar, 5x 58kg (warmups) 5×88kg, 4sets of 5 x 95.5kg, 1 set of 3 x 98kg Flat bench

3 sets of 10 x 70kgs incline bench

2 sets of 6 x 35pds dumbell incline flys

3 sets of 6 x 80kg pec deck flys

3 sets of 10 x 70kg cable flyes

1 set of rocky situps,

2 sets of windscreen wipers

1 set of round the world leg raises

1 set of weighted oblique crunch

1 set of 20 weighted rope crunch with the stack

Friday nights are the best time ever to train in my gym. After all the afterwork crowd and the pre -night out mirror muscle pumpers are gone there will just be a handful of people there. And you know that they all serious about there training.

There will usually also be one or two brand newbies but they will be newbies that come then because of the lack of crowds and they might be nervous about the gym. Not the newbies that come in jeans and struts around like they are God’s gift to whoever they might be trying to impress but the type that genuinely want to achieve. If this is you (no matter what time of the week you come) Welcome, we hope to see more of you and remember we are all still learning (especially myself).

The rest of the handful were all regulars which meant that the conversation to work ratio does get a bit higher than normal it does make the session more enjoyable. Don’t worry though, the work time still vastly outweighs conversation!

I was running late again. My new job is playing havoc with getting home in time to get some food in and then going. But diet is more important to me than training so if the session has to be shortened so be it.

The plan was to finish the other half of the arm workout from tuesday. I only got in Triceps then so Biceps it would be tonight. I know that sounds a bit weird to only be training the guns but i really enjoy my time in the gym and having lower intensity sessions like arms allows me to get the 5-6 sessions a week in whilst still going hard on leg and back day etc without overtraining.

I did dumbell curls 5×5 50pds,1 x3 55pds,

Straight barbell curls 3 x 12 with 40kg, 3 sets of 21’s with 30kg, 20 reps with 20 kgs.

Hammer rope curls 3/4 sets 10-20 reps (I forget exactly how much weight/reps).

1 set rockys.

2 sets windscreen wipers.

1 set round the worlds.

If you have never been to your gym on friday nights I suggest you give it a go.

Tonight was back day and after warming up with a couple of minutes of cardio and a set of wide grip pull ups I headed over to do some deads which is what I wanted to get some advice from you all on. You see as hard as I try I cannot seem to stop my back from rounding during the lift.

I have tried simply lowering the weight but whilst it helps it means that I am just going through the motions and not actually getting anywhere. I filmed it so I could maybe get some help on any techniques I could try to stop the rounding. I keep my head up through the whole lift and I have tried both straighter legs and bending down more.

I have researched a lot of power lifting vids on this site and youtube and quite a lot of them do have the same rounding I do and I even wonder whether it just looks worse than it is because my back is probably more developed than any other body part. Even still I am concerned and would like to do all I can to remove the rounding.

Now this brings me to something that really pissed me off tonight. There was this older guy pottering about in the gym. He was wearing white shorty shorts and Dunlop Kt-26’s (for those of you who have this misfortune of not being Australian, Kt-26’s are a make of style of sneaker that have been around since the early eighties and cost a whopping $20 a pair) He walks past and the end of the vid below (kinda looks a bit like a poor mans Santa Claus?). He was ambling around with a little bit of this and that, not really achieving anything like I said just pottering around the gym getting in peoples way. Anyway it turns out that he was waiting for his kids to finish a Karate class and as I walked out of the gym he was there with his kids and demonstrating and overexaggerating how bad my rounding is. If I still had the barbell in my hands I would have thrown it at him.

It pissed me off so much. This out of shape tool having a go at my technique. Sure I know my back is rounded but he could of maybe given me some tips to correct it instead of laughing about it with his kids. There is nothing that pisses me off more than some arrogant clown who thinks they know everything but don’t practice what they preach. F$%* him and his stupid white shorty shorts.

 Anyway please give me some tips to help out.

Don’t you just love those sessions where you feel like you have taken to the weights with every ounce of your strength and didn’t back down. You fought for every rep and won.

Tonight was leg day. I felt a little nervous going in as my leg day’s whilst I was away I was down quite a bit on strength only managing to just squat 130kg. Tonight the plan was to do sets of 5 and just keep adding weight. 2 Warmup sets of just the bar and then 70kg felt good. I load on another 25kg plate each side. 120kg. 5 reps. Easily down. Add 10kg Done. 140kg 1,2,3,4,5. Tonight is begining to get good. 150kg and I can now certainly feel the weight. I fight out 5 reps. Not a pr but certainly the most weight since before the race training. Now for Overload. Strip back to 120Kg 15 reps. Down to 70kg and 20 reps. Squats done.

On to the leg press. Start with 200kg plus whatever the sled weighs. 8 reps was easy. 300kgs x 8, Add 50kgs with another 8 reps. Strip back to just 50kgs for single leg presses. Never tried this before. 2 sets of 15 reps each leg without rest. Just the sled now and do another 20 reps each leg.

I hobble over to the leg extension to finish up with 4 sets of 20 reps with just 40kgs. Job done.

Nutrition wise I was a lot better today. I slept in again but because I was better prepared it didn’t throw off the whole day.

Breakfast: 1 Scoop Whey in 1 cup no fat milk

11:30 150gms Chicken Breast with 1 cup Brown Rice

4:30 (late I know, was in a training session) 1 Scoop Whey in 1 cup no fat milk

6:00 400gm lean rump steak with steamed sweet potato, brocolli, carrot and asparagus

7:00 gym

8:30 2 poached eggs on lite ham with wholegrain toast.

10:30 1 Scoop Whey in 1 cup no fat milk

This is a pretty good example of a typical days eating. I would like to maybe swap the afternoon protein some lean meat with veggies but it isn’t always possible. Tommorow it will be Chicken Breast in wholegrain bed sandwhich. I also would like to make my protein smoothie either for breakfast (providing I can drag my ass out of bed) or as a post workout shake.

I am not too fussed as to exact macronutrient ratios or exact calorie intake. I know this is more than what I was taking in as I was running so what I will do instead is that I keep a close eye on my weight and measure bf weekly. If it starts going down then I will eat more. If the bf goes up out of proportion with weight gain then I will cut back. I will attempt to get roughly 30-50 grams of protein per meal which gives me somewhere between 180 - 300gms a day.

You have probably heard that cliche a million times but it was the most fitting thing I could think of today. I was going to write about my nutrition plan for bulking but I couldn’t in good conscience write about that without owning up to the lack of nutrition in my day.

It started by sleeping in this morning so meal 1 became 1 scoop of whey protein in milk and a banana. Not too bad for a quick breakfast but that’s where the trouble started. Because I had no time to prepare meals I didn’t get any more food until 1pm and then because I had to buy my lunch I went for eggs benedict so i could get more protein in. Not exactly the healthiest option.

Meal 3 was a ready to drink protein.

Finished work late so no meat in the house. Chicken Breast Nuggets and Chips with a scoop of whey and milk before training.

Meal 5 was a protein smoothie consisting of: 1 scoop whey, 1/2 cup oats, 1 cup no fat milk, handful of ice cubes and a banana.

Meal 6 I haven’t had yet but will probably be some wholegrain toast and more whey.

All in all I guess I got enough protein in for the day but I would certainly have preffered to not have such a reliance on protein shakes and not to have so much of the carbs be processed.

Training was supposed to be all about the guns tonight but I got to the gym late so only managed to work Triceps.

Warmup Tricep Close grip decline: 5 x bar, 5 x 70kg, 3 sets x 5 x 90 kg, 5 x 95kg, 3×95kg

Weighted Dips, 5 sets x 5 reps with 40kg added weight.

Tricep pulldowns repeated sets of 12-15 reps until failure

One arm pulldowns repeated sets of 6-8 reps until failure.

So all in all let me be an example. Prepare your meals in advance and you will hit your calorie intake for the day. Now If you will excuse me I have some leftover brown rice and chicken breast from last night to put into plastic container servings. Tomorrow I promise I will give a proper rundown of the nutrition plan. And Training is Leg Day!!!!

Well you have to have something to aim for right? Anywho tonight as you may have guessed was shoulder night. And let me tell you - I LOVE SHOULDER NIGHT!

Shoulders are the one session where I never fail to get a good pump going. I think it is because most of the workout is isolation exercises. Tonight was no exception about 15 minutes into the workout I think I was about a foot wider. My routine goes:

Dumbell Shoulder Press: 35pounders x 5,50pounders x5, 3 sets of 55 pds x 5, 50 pounds x 10

Barbell Shrugs, worked up to 160kg’s 3 sets of 8 then drop back to 110Kg x 25 reps

Lateral Raises 3 sets 40 pounders x 8, 2 sets of 20 pounders x 15

Cable rear delts, 20kgs each side 3 sets x 16, 25kgs x 12, 15kgs x 20.

The way I am structuring my training is going to be 5×5 on the main compound lifts in each workout i.e. bench/shoulder press/dead’s/squats etc then higher reps for the rest so that I can focus not only on getting bigger but getting stronger as well.

Tomorrow I will talk about the nutrition levels I will try and eat in order to get bigger.

So now I have completed the point to pinnacle I am really keen to bulk up and add some more muscle to my skinny frame. I am really happy with theresults I have gotten over the last few months, I am leaner than I have ever been, I didn’t lose too much strength doing lots of running. But the whole reason I started training in the first place was that I didn’t like being a skinny little guy and the day after my race I weighed in at 74kg which was the weight I was Jan 1 07 before I got back into lifting (although admittedly at a much lower bf% now).

I am a huge believer in working towards a tangible goal so my immediate goal is now to get back above 80kg by the end of the year and then get back to 85kg by my birthday in mid April.

 I had my first training session back in my home gym today. It was unusually quiet on the weights side of the room. There was an older lady doing tricep pulldowns without moving her forearms but looking more like she was trying to hump the weight stack so that was entertaining.

My session was:

Bench: 6 sets of 5 reps with 60kg warm up then 5 sets of 90kg, 1 set of 3 with 95kg

Incline Bench: 1 set of 15 reps 60 kg, 70kg x 12,10,8 reps

Cable Flys: 3 sets of 12

Pec dec: 2 sets of 21’s with 50kgs.

Thankyou to everyone who reads and especially to those that comment on my blog. It really helps me to keep me accountable in my training and diet and gives me great encouragement.