gymrat7125’s BodyBlog

So I started back at lifting this week, it was supposed to be easy maintenance but that didn’t happen. Monday I did a chest and shoulder workout followed by 30min on the spin bike. Tuesday was going to be an easy high rep leg day finished by time on the stairmaster. It started as expected with 3 sets of high rep leg extensions. Following I started to do some explosive front squat only working up to 225lbs to keep it light. While doing this I was next to a couple football players who were doing cleans and high pulls. We all finished at the same time and walked over to the legpress where we agreed to working in with each other. The bigger of the 2 (Connor) kept adding plates to try to 1 up me because he outweighed me by about 40 or 50lbs and didnt want me goin rep for rep with him. This bein the shit I live for I called him on it and we went rep for rep over 5 sets workin up to 18 plates. On the final set, exhausted and way above the amount of work I was planning, I beat the guy by 1 rep. It was one of the best workouts I’ve had in recent memory the problem was I now had hack squats, and leg curls left, not to mention the cardio. I did it all and did 100 floors on the stairmaster. I then did just 30 min on the spin bike on Wednesday, a back workout with no cardio on Thursday and a 10km run on Friday. Needless to say my legs are fried so this weekend was rest and recovery. All I can hope is that next week I give just as much if not more. God I love destroying legs - the harder I hit them the just they keep comin back begging for more!

So after my last heavy leg day i took the weekend off and immediately came back into a week long cardio plan Monday 7km run - Tuesday 30 km on the spin bike - Wednesday 6km on a rowing machine - Thursday 210 floors in 45 min on the stairmaster - Friday 10km run. This is not necessarily gonna be my future workouts as I have to raise my amount of running add swimming and have 3 days of lifting worked into it. Dont know how I’m gonna do it but I’ll keep updating as my training changes and adjusts.

I know its been a long time since I blogged last been really busy lately plus my diet has been on and off and I dont like putin out there that Im slackin. Since the summer is my race season for cycling running and triathalon I cant really do any bodybuilding/powerlifting style training then. Basically from Sept. to March is my only chance to lift heavy and build my foundation of strength for the coming summer. Well my last heavy leg day was this past Friday and it was… well, good and bad. My back wasnt feelin 100% so I couldnt shoot for the goal of 405lbs which I was aiming for. I started with some leg extensions for warm up, the usual 3 sets of 20. I decided to keep it lighter on the following squats instead of shooting for a 1 rep max I only went as heavy as a triple. That ended up being 365 for a pretty easy 3 reps but far short of my expectations. I followed this up with leg press where I was feelin stronger than usual as my back had been taken out of the equation. after 3 warm up sets I hit 1050lbs for 6 full deep reps. It was a new PB and was even better than usual since my foot placement was more narrow than usual. All in all I was satisfied and am prepared to switch over to some serious cardio training. And I better get to it quick as I have less than 7 weeks until the marathon Im racing in. Ill try to keep blogging in the future good luck to everyone else and they’re goals.

3 weeks in and the slow progressive weight loss plan is working. Yet to have a cheat meal which I believe is is very important. Since I’m not lowering my calorie intake a large amount one simple cheat meal could put me back a few days. Most importantly so far is that I’ve seen no difference in strength that I can attribute directly to diet. This was my biggest concern as this is my off season and only chance to put significant strength gains into my foundation.

Work has been tough recently everyone knows how the economy is and in the collections world when the economy is bad theres twice as much work for us. Been stuck doing overtime and have more to come this week. Work lucky hasnt affected training or nutrition but sleep and recovery has taken a hit. Hopefully wont have to work saturday or sunday so i’ll catch up on some much needed rest then.

My last 2 weeks of training have been good. Last week I took off time from lifting and concentrated on just cardio. I cant get enough of the stair master. I have been sticking to a basic desending interval plan. 10 min warm up on a recumbent bike followed by 5 min easy on stairclimber leading into the first interval set. Intervals are 1 min hard - 2min easy - 1 min hard - 1min easy - 1min hard - 30sec easy - 1 min hard. I do about 4 set with 5 min easy between sets. I have also been keeping up with my cycling and rowing as well. Lifting started again this week and all my joints are feelin great.

Last thing I wanna mention is that my little brother is playing his first gig in a band so I’m flyin back to toronto. Cant wait its gonna be great I just know it. They’re a blues rock sound and hes the guitarist. Its the only thing I can think of that may affect my training but I’ll do my best to stick with the diet.

Ok so I updated my weight and pics yesterday but didnt get the time to write any comments. So what the hell happened? I was on my diet for the last week and I’m 4 pounds heavier. I believe there are multiple reasons for this 1) my first weigh in was after I was getting over an illness. This left me dehydrated and underfed. 2) My first weigh in was early in the day while my most recent weigh in was in the evening after a day of eating.

So I guess its understandable my weight went up instead of down. My diet is pretty basic I’ve only cut out all junk. 1st meal - protein shake and a small fruit smootie. 2nd meal - extra lean ground beef and egg whit noodles with fruit on the side. 3rd meal - extra lean ground beef, a salad and some yogurt. 4th meal - extra lean ground beef, egg noodles and a piece of fruit. 5th meal (post workout) - protein shake and a fruit smootie. 6th meal - can of tuna

Now I do mix up the extra lean ground beef with ground turkey and chicken breast but this is the basic plan. Its alot of food but I plan on losing weight slow to avoid muscle loss. My most recent heavy squat workout shows a slight drop on 1 rep max but this I believe is attributed to my lifting cycle. I have been on a 5 week progressing weight cycle with 1 week off to recover. Lately it seems my heaviest week I have been run down so moving forward I will be switching to a 4 week cycle. Thats about it I’ll keep posting with updates, hopefully next week I’ll see a drop in weight.

So I’m now on body space and lovin it. To give you some history I was never really athletic growing up. I was hospitalized multiple times a year due to asthma related complications as a kid. Not a good start for an aspiring athelete. This slowly ended as I hit my teens which as the idiot all kids are I then took up smoking for 5 years and ate about as much crap as any kid could eat. Finally at the age of 17 I hit rock bottom, I went to give blood at a charity drive and was told I couldnt because of my resting heart rate. Seems after walking from the car to the building pushed my heart rate up over 100 beats per minute. Ok so thats bad right, it gets worse. I was offered a seat and asked to wait for 30 min to let my heart rate slow down. After sitting for half an hour relaxing my heart rate was still close 110 beats per minutes, at the age of 17 are you kidding me.

So that was it, I decided on a cycling event because my dad was a cyclist and we decided to enter it together. I started working out new years 2000 and never looked back. I went from 180lbs to 140lbs and raced in North Americas hardest hillclimd race "Mt Washingtons race to the clouds". I stayed under 150lbs for 2 years then started eating more, lifting heavier and and cutting back on th bike racing. I have slowly but steadly gained a few pounds each year since then as I still race in the summer so adding 50lbs of muscle is out of the question. This year I have a marathon in May, a triathlon in June, a 10k run for charity in July and the track cycling provincials in August. Damn it’s gonna be a packed year!

 I spend my off season (winter) building as much lower body strength as possible. Now this may seem contradictory as I dont get much bigger but he fact is thats mostly genetics so I deal with it. My little brother has a larger frame than me and even with his potbelly he weighs under 140lbs. This isnt me bitching and saying I cant gain weight it just takes serious time which I dont really have since I need to spend the summer months away from the gym. So during winter I squat like its a religion. The squat rack is my alter and each plate and rep pays hommage to my religion. I’m constanly switching up my routines trying to get info from bodybuilding, powerlifting and olympics style lifting (those guys I honestly believe are pound for pound the strongest ****ers on earth).

 My current routine is legs on tuesday and friday. Tuesday is squats working up to a triple, followed by leg press which I work up to 5-6 reps with heavy weight (I’m not gonna add my weights as different machines you can lift different amounts and I dont need anyone questioning my strength, so I go to whats heavy for me). I finish quads with a very light hack squat that I do 5 sets of 10 reps going very slow and contracting hard at the top. This finishes my quads off the I do a light set of lying hamstring curls just to get a pump. On friday I start with cleans only doing 2 reps sets with explosive speed. I follow that with front squats also 2 rep set with explosive speed. I then move to heavy romainian deadlifts, followed by lying leg curls and standing leg curls.

I’d give you my upper body routine but I would spend more time writing it up then I do actually executing it. Basically I do chest followed by some shoulders and arms 1 day and back followed by some shoulders and arms 1day. Thats all who need great biceps when all that really matters is leg power anyways.

My diet is pretty basic get 300 grams of protein in a day and whatever else I come across pasta, fruits maybe some bread. I’m starting to make changes as I want to get much leaner than usual this year. Most years I fear losing muscle because I spend time off the gym in the summer but we’ll see what happens. Well thats the basics for now, I’ll keep writing in the future as hopefully it will keep more on track than previous years.