Jettisoned Ponderings

Hit quads good and hard late last night. Already feeling it a bit I arrived to work (my part time one at a gym) to find that I was recruited to be the muscle to start rearranging machines. So shuffling around about 50 pieces of cardio equipment back and forth wasn’t difficult, but I know this is going to make my legs sore even more. Heh, perfect!

For last night’s workouts, still in the 10-20 rep range for the most part throwing in a drop set typically for the final set once I can only get the minimum reps. I’m finding straight sets are working best then increasing the weight a small amount week to week.

Back Squats: 135×20, 225 x20,20,16,12-drop to 135×10
Leg Press (Close Stance): 180×20, 270×20,x20,17,20 rest-paused drop to 180 hitting partials to failure
Lunges: 15-20 per leg 30s, 25s, 25s
Extensions: (10 reps, 10 second rest, repeat to 100 reps) Started 90lbs, finished 35lbs. 1-2 second squeeze final 10 reps.

Good and torn down by the end. Myself and the two other guys I was lifting with all had a rough time with the stair case after the workout. Felt very good though, sweating hard, that good-nausea feeling. Just can’t beat it!

This week things have really begun to turn around. Weight is progressing up slowly, and depending on food/water intake I’m anywhere from 202-206lbs on average. I’m going to have to go shopping very soon for some new jeans soon and already had to get some new XXL shirts. (The ironly is that next year I’ll need to go back down in size when I diet down). Strength in the gym is on a steady incline and overall fullness is noticeably increasing.

Diet wise I’ve had to increase my simple carbs and am having to get more of my calories in shakes and fluids just because pushing the clean food is getting difficult to do. Having more simple sugars is also keeping my energy up more throughout the day and a good kick come workout time. Still aiming for around 4500 calories a day, but soon will be pushing that up to 5000. The main change from past bulks is that I’ve eliminated most all dairy instead of using it in shakes to up the calories. As a result I’m retaining a lot of my vascularity and a drier thin skin look.

The rest of the year I’m going to be upping the volume aiming for 4×12 on just about everything. Legs will have to be split up into two days again to fit the volume in.

That’s about it for now. Let’s see how this plays out!

Having committed myself to doing a show in 19 weeks now I’m finding myself more driven than ever to make the most of the time between then and now. I’ve recovered the last few days and am ready to hit things hard again Monday. I’m trying new approaches and especially a change in mindset with how I take it on. What I’ve done up until now has been great and plenty of progress has been made, but now its time to cross new lines and push the limits out further. I know where I want to go forward from here, so there’s no turning back now. I want to hit that stage in April knowing I did everything I could have to be at my best. Its a new challenge, and that’s what I really needed.

I’ve been heavily re-evaluating a lot of my past training and looking at what has really been the most effective. When I think on what I would typically say "worked" I have to look closer at what that actually meant. As strength improves, size will as well. Though now as I find myself not much larger than I was eight months ago, but moving more weight, I have to ask myself where the size is? Many of my programs were great for getting my strength up, but not hypertrophy. Why is that? All of my recent routines have been a bit less structured and moving toward listening to my body more. I read an article just now that describes this as "auto-regulation". I’m always impressed how T-Nation seems to come up with the articles I need at all the right moments. This one is no exception. It illustrates why I’m such a fan of Christian as a trainer. The last couple lines in the article drive home the point better than I could ever hope to. Give this a read for some fuel for thought.

http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/thibaudeau_talks_training

Looks like I’ll be doing a portfolio building shoot in 2-3 weeks. I don’t need to be in contest shape for it, but I need to try and get down below 10% bodyfat or so and quickly. I’ll still keep the training the same, but my macros have been shifted. I’ve found going with roughly a 50/20/30 split that I get quick results without getting gaunt and still have functional energy and enough for workouts with the carbs timed appropriately. I really needed to get some sort of deadline to get my motivation back.

My new workout program is based on the 8×8 principles of Vince Gironda. I don’t prescribe 100% to everything he did, but I agree with many principles. This past week I’ve been toying with some things to find the right volume and am pretty pleased with what I’ve been seeing thus far. All compound exercises have 30-45 second rest times. Isolation exercises are 15-30 second rest times.

Back/Triceps:
-Close Grip Seated Rows
-Straight Arm Lat Pulldowns
-Assisted Pull-Ups
-EZ Bar French Presses (Full stretch!)
-Rope Pushdowns

Chest/Biceps
-Flat or Incline Bench Press
-Mid-Pulley Cable Flies
-Preacher Curls (Wide Grip, Elbows In)
-Incline DB Hammer Curls

Upper Legs:
-Back Squats or Front Squats (Medium Stance)
-Narrow Stance Leg Press
-Prone Curls

Delts/Traps/Calves:
-Wide Grip High Rows
-DB Lateral Raises
-1 Leg Standing Calf Raises (15 sec rest after both)
-Seated Calves

Got a call from a guy who’s a customer at our shop and I’ve lifted with him before. Good guy, and today Court worked late so when I got a text asking if I was lifting I decided it would be a good idea. The next lift in my rotation would be Legs, but I wanted to do that with Court. He wanted to do Chest, and considering that’s my area I need the most improvement in (I say this knowing that legs ALWAYS need improvement) I went for it. Instead of doing the HIT style we’ve been working on, he said he was up for whatever and to "do my worst!" Well, my worst is overkill just to feel sore, but for a good hard lift I threw a few things at him and the end result was the best full chest pump and overall worked feeling I’ve had since last year. It consisted of:

Flat bench:
Warm-Ups: 1×15, 1×10, 1×8
Heavy Set: 1×3-6 (225×4. I need to bring this up…)
Pump Set: 1×15-20

Low Incline Smith Power Press
Drop Sets (No Rest through all 6 movements): 3xFail (180/135/90), 10 stretch w/10lb weights after each set

3 Supersets (No Rest through all 6 movements): Machine Vertical Chest / Pec Fly
-Vertical Chest (Drop Sets): 1 Isometric rep to failure (Machine Max Weight)
-Pec Fly (Drop Sets/Rest Pause): 15 reps, hold last rep to failure on 3rd set

Medicine Ball Push-Ups: 1xFail (I got 6 )

I really liked this lift a lot and may try something similar for other body parts down the road. It was a good change of pace and I’d suggest it to anyone looking to mix things up for a day.

Things have been fairly dynamic for me the past month. After finishing my last bulking cycle I tapered down into a maintenance phase and aimed to shed off some of the bodyfat I’d put on the two months prior. This eventually turned into me getting completely off track, not adhering to a consistent meal schedule, and on top of that I lost one of my part time jobs adding more stress to the situation. I have additional employment now, but it is a ground level company that I’m helping start and 100% commission based, so it has yet to generate any sort of real income. Thankfully I still have my job at Max Muscle and am able to remain at least somewhat grounded in the industry I love and interacting with my peers during the week. Things finally began to get back on track at the beginning of this month after taking care of more persistent chiropractic issues I will be dealing with the rest of my life. Court and I are now following Dorian Yates’ HIT workouts and both loving what we’re seeing from them. Even coming off the last prohormone run my strength hasn’t really receded at all. Between the first and second week on the lifts I’m already improving endurance and strength, which bodes very well for me in that most of the recent gains were from hypertrophy and not strength increase through other mechanisms or just CNS adaptation.

Last night to finish off the end of my lift, I went for one max out set on Deadlifts. I didn’t aim to match my past record as its been seven months since I last did heavy floor deads, not to mention I was on the tail end of another cycle at the time also. I was happy to knock out 3 reps at 405lbs, considering I’m not taking much at all except for the basic supps right now and it was also the end of my lift and the end of the day. Not too bad. I’ll be backing the weight down more to hit a higher target rep of 8 for the coming weeks, but I believe it will translate into better and more rapid gains as a result. I would be cool to join the 500lb deadlift club by the end of the year… My main concern is still whatever will put on the most size. I am holding steady at 199-203lbs and know that once I get my act fully back in gear and have the diet back on track I’ll make the progress I’m looking for. Its not likely I’ll hit 220 by my birthday, but who knows. Even if I miss it, I still need to pursue the goal fully on.

Nutrition wise, the new rice cooker and food steamer have proven themselves indispensable! Its made meal preps far faster than even the Foreman grill, and even easier clean up. Plus my energy is much higher now that I’ve switched to white (the non-enriched kind from the Asian section) instead of brown. I’m switching back to eating more red meat also. I truly find it more anabolic than poultry, and don’t need to eat as much volume to get the necessary nutrition from it. My next bulk will most likely be little to no chicken. I had very good luck with that beginning of 2008 and am going to revisit that approach.

The next two days I’ll be taking a short road trip with my boss to attend another Max Muscle store’s event in Nebraska. Not really a thrill, but its a break from the monotony here and will be good for me to reset a little bit and come back refreshed and ready to go next week.

Wanna know why the supplement industry has taken a hit and so many supplements, like prohormones, are being banned? Blame this jackass.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with where this problem started, this may help:

Initially I attempted 720, but after getting 13 reps on it I found that my dearest wife hadn’t actually hit the record button on the camera. Oh well, so I turned that into an excuse to max out the machine with 810lbs and give it another try. This is how it ended up (and yes, I’m quite sore this morning!):