Minty Fresh

(Title Note: Recently recovered my preference for Linux, on the Ubuntu-based Mint distro. All it really took was having my graphics card driver work NEARLY out-of-the-box for me to come back. Ubuntu was a good run, and Windows 7 went as I expected: nice at first, barely-passable pig-disgusting towards the end. Ah, Windows. Predictable user experience.)

So, I’ve yo-yo’d back once again to pursue strength goals in favor over physique.

There won’t be any dirty-bulking, this time around, however.

According to a trusted source, my present weight at a lower body fat percentage is my genetic muscular potential. This seems to suggest a call for a recomposition: lose fat AND gain muscle.

So because I seem to be behaviorally disinclined to cooperate with my own “lose fat as fast as fucking possible” regimens, I’ve decided instead to focus on increasing my bench and deadlift scores while maintaining vaguely the same amount of weight. I’ll still be keeping composition scores… but I won’t be expecting any radical changes any time soon.

I’m also considering changing my routine more than will be described in this post, but some of the changes will be apparent here and is mostly the reason I’m even logging this workout. I also slightly edged past my 1RM tested earlier, even though this wasn’t a true test for that purpose. Just a failed 10lbs. jump, really.

The biggest change to my routine (meaning the one that will stick even if all the other changes I’m considering do not) is that I’ve moved my incline benching and chinning to the shoulder day I tend to do between deadlift workouts when I have that much time to work out. I actually have a job now, so I get to make excuses.

On to the workout for 5/11/11:

Deadlift

1. 135lbs. x 5 (double-overhand)
2. 155 x 3 (d-o)
3. 220 x 2 (d-o)
4. 260 x miss (straps+left hand over)
5. 260 x miss (s+lhu)
6. 250 x 2 (s+lho)
7. 215 x 1 (s+lhu)

I considered making a third 260lbs. attempt, but I kind of wanted to maintain my hand-switching for top sets… kind of dumb, but not as dumb as throwing out my back. My form was pretty terrible. I could just tell it was. I wasn’t “all there,” due to poor sleep quality. I’m going to try to make the jump to 260 next session, but if I miss it again I’m moving down to 5lbs. jumps.

Bench Press

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 45 x 5
3. 55 x 5
4. 80 x 3
5. 100 x 2
6. 115 x 2 (no change)
7. 105 x 5 (bottom of range)
8. 90 x 2 (stopped because weight felt weird, as though I’d misloaded. I had not.)
9. 90 x 7 (wanted to get at least 8 reps at this weight)

Because of the slightly-pinchy shoulder issue on my first warm-up last time I benched, I possibly over-warmed for this: doing dynamic stretching before most sets, especially the first. Spent five minutes warming up before my first set. The should-have-been-last set caused me to consider doing the dumbbell variation of this exercise to balance out my strength on both sides. It’s something I’ll have to look into: how much total weight ought I drop down to, how to kick up the dumbbells properly, and so on.

Low Cable Rows (narrow grips)

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 45 x 5
3. 60 x 5
4. 75 x 3
5. 105 x 2
6. 120 x 5
7. 120 x 5
8. 120 x 5

I was ready to call it a day by the time I started these, some combination of CNS and “I DINT SLEP SO GUD” fatigue. Going by my last row session (in my notebooks, I’ve been lax about updating on here) I should have ramped up to 150lbs. for a top set of 3. I’m very glad I did not. I’ll just be doing simple straight sets of five here to support my benching efforts, so I’ll be bumping this to 135lbs. x 5 next session. I don’t expect to make all the reps next time, but I’ll just stay at that weight and try to get at least 2 more reps per workout until I get my 3×5 before bumping again.

START: 9AM
STOP: 11:25AM

WEIGHT: 165.5lbs. – 168lbs.*

*I weigh myself before and after my workout.

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Countdown to 21: First Workout (Part Three)

This part of the workout started at 1:45PM.

During my break between sessions I talked to a fella who I’ve seen every day I’ve spent more than two hours at the gym. Easily the leanest motherfucker there year-round (probably to his detriment given his mass goals,) I finally introduced myself and asked him some questions about his methods. In that order, reversed.

Name’s Ryan, turns out he works in a town neighboring mine. Might try to get a job there myself this Spring.

Cool guy.

Leg Press

1. 70lbs. x 10
2. 70 x 10
3. 70 x 10

Leg Curl

1. 40lbs. x 12

Calf Raise

1. 60lbs. x 12
2. 60 x 12

Flat Bench

1. 55lbs. x 12
2. 55 x 12
3. 55 x 12

Wide-Grip Cable Row

1. 60lbs. x 10
2. 60 x 12
3. 60 x 12

Lateral Raise

1. 65lbs. x 10 (stay)

Pulldown

1. 70lbs. x 12
2. 70 x 12

Of note, I did this in a quasi-circuit fashion. There were long rest periods (but less than five minutes if possible) between sets, but I did all the “1″ sets, then all the “2″ sets (so the “2″ didn’t include leg curls or lateral raises, etc.)

BREAK TIME: 3:41PM

Still have a lot of time to kill. I take a twenty-minute break before deciding to work my chest and back with light weights to failure instead of doing cardio. Lol. Again, I’m cycling through the movments, with maybe 2 or 3 minutes of rest between sets. Somewhere in there I had to stop for 8 for a phone call that reminds me that one should never answer one’s phone at the gym under any circumstances.

Bench Press

1. 45lbs. x 20
2. 55 x 20 (slowing down already)
3. 45 x 10
4. 45 x 11
5. 45 x 10

Narrow-Grip Cable Row

1. 10 or 15lbs. x 20 (the lightest isn’t labeled.)
2. 30 x 20
3. 30 x 20
4. 45 x 20
5. 45 x 20

Pulldown

1. 25lbs. x 20 (started with 10 and it was so comically light I’m not going to count it)
2. 40 x 20
3. 55 x 20 (getting tough)
4. 55 x 15
5. 40 x 20
6. 40 x 14
7. 25 x 20
8. 25 x 20
9. 25 x 20
10. 25 x 50

FINISHED: 5:41PM

And that was that.

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Depletion Bump

This workout made me consider the wisdom of increasing the weight on my volume workout.

Even more so now, two days later, with raped hamstrings.

Workout for Thursday, December 2, 2010

Body Weight: 169lbs.
Body Fat Percentage: 16.7%

NOTE: Constipated…

START: 10:08AM
STOP: 1:19PM

Pre-Workout: EC1 (50/200mg) @ 8:15AM

3 x 15, no weight changes between sets but I’ll note what the increase was from previous workouts, as well as changes in rest periods throughout the workout.

• Leg Press (55lbs.; +5) ~ 1 minute rest
• Leg Curl (35lbs.; +5)
• Calf Raise (45lbs.; +15) ~ 1.5 min rest
• Leg Press
• Leg Curl
• Calf Raise ~ 2 min rest
• Leg Press
• Leg Curl
• Leg Press
• Leg Curl
• Calf Raise ~ 2.5 min rest

10 minute break.

• Bench Press (50lbs.; +5) ~ 2 min rest
• Cable Row (45lbs.; +0)
• Bench Press
• Cable Row

EC2 (25/200mg) @ 12:15PM

• DB Incline Press (30lbs.; +0) ~ 2 min rest
• Pulldown (35lbs.; +5)
• Machine Lateral Raise (20lbs.; +0)
• DB Incline Press
• Pulldown
• Machine Lateral Raise

I finish up here. I had to cut things short (heh) because I’d gotten a call from my dad, who wanted to take me out to lunch. Not about to refuse a free ride home,  y’know?

So I just decided to not sweat skipping the arms/abs/cardio on this day.

I did take some time to think about how to increase the poundages for this workout, however.

What I decided on was this:

1. Determine the tonnage for the bottom of the rep range at the new weight. (For example: Cable Rows can only be increased in jumps of 15lbs. The next jump up for me would be 60lbs. 60 x 12 = 720lbs.)
2. Divide the determined tonnage by the present weight. (720lbs./45lbs.)
3. The result is the top of the rep range to work towards (16)

HOWEVER.

The only time I will increase the weight on depletion exercises when I am returning from a diet break. If I hit the ceiling on all my lifts here and I still have three cycles (meaning three more depletion workouts) to go: DEAL WITH IT.

The weight stays the same and I won’t likely go for more reps unless it’s really, mind-numbingly easy to perform them.

I may progress slower even still, such as if I hit the ceiling on ONLY the workout before the break, I may retry at this same weight when I come back from the break. My reasoning is that this was the first break I’ve “come back” from, and there’s a remarkable regression of recoverability. A final-cycle depletion performance bump might just be indicative of a good day or excitement or what-have-you.

This is all conjecture for the moment, but I wasn’t happy with the thought of just leaving one of my workouts exactly the same intensity until MARCH.

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Come Back Crying (P4C5A1D)

UD2 kicks my ass. I just do not have the balls for it.

So I’m going back to the lofty realm of cheesecake and BBQ ribs that is LeanGains. Also less volume work. Today was my last day of volume work. It’s fun, but, I really have no use for the pump.

Heh.

So I went back to my old A1B1 routine, starting with A1 today. Chest/tricep day. Monday. Fuck that worked out horribly.

Not really. I came in early. I finished the heavy portion of this day looong before the benchbros. came to town. I finished up entirely around the same time that Ken11 did. I don’t know if I’ve talked about Ken before or not (I know I’ve cited him as one of the strongest people in my gym) but today we’re christening him because I accurately determined his bodyfat percentage. Woot.

Workout for July 12, 2010

Bench Press

1. 45lbs x 5
2. 60 x 3
3. 80 x 2
4. 100 x 3 ~ increase
5. 90 x 6 ~ increase

This felt really good, honestly. I’m flirting with the idea of increasing the top set by ten pounds instead of five next workout.

Incline Bench

1. 55lbs x 3
2. 70 x 2
3. 90 x 6 ~ increase

This I’ll probably still only bump by five. Too much shoulders, though I found out I can use my legs to help me get to the low pins (failed my seventh rep…)

Horizontal Press, Hammer Grip

1. 65lbs x 3
2. 85 x 2
3. 110 x 1 ~ Actually failed the first attempt but refused to mark down a zero…

I’m ditching these. The machine’s starting to hurt my wrists because of the awkward angle of them to the grips. I could probably fix this. And I am, by switching to close-grip benching.

Pushdown

1. 42.5lbs. x 3
2. 47.5 x 2
3. 52.5 x 5 ~ INCREASE!

Gosh. I almost didn’t EXCITED over this because of the Ryan Reynoldsalike Douchebag who spit LORDLY GOBS OF PHELGM into the water fountain. I wanted to see him fail his 315lbs bench. I didn’t see it from here.

In retrospect: FUCK YEAH! That much closer to lifting the whole stack, HAHAHAHA!

Asschin ~ bodyweight 171.5

1. 51.5lbs x 5
2. 76.5 x 3
3. 101.5 x 2
4. 126.5 x 4 ~ Increase.
5. 61.5 x 6 (misread my log and set the pins to the weight I intended to lift rather than the proper offset, I’m not counting either drop set today)
6. 96.5 x 6

I’ve basically decided that, for top sets, 3-5 will be the rep range of increase. If I get at least three reps at a given weight, I’ll increase it next workout.

Cable Twists

1. 30lbs x 5
2. 40 x 3
3. 60 x 2
4. 80 x 5

Not doing drop sets on core work of any kind.

Weight (preworkout): 169.5
Body Fat %: 17.1%

This is bad. I haven’t been able to properly keep a lid on my appetite following the refeed. I’m going back to UD2, with cardio on off-days to help with the deficit I’m behaviorally incapable of properly achieving through diet.

Start: 10:20AM
Finish: 11:48AM

I took about a half hour break to rest and reflect on my approach (yes, again, another post on planning coming up. Sorry I suck at adhering.) before returning to the floor to do volume-centric work. I cut out some sets based upon the above workout as well. This was from my INTENDED UD2 depletion workout, and I only managed to get one round in before I checked time and blood to decided to do some cardio. Here we go.

Superset: Leg Extension / Leg Curl: 3 x 15 @ 30lbs / 25lbs

Cable Rows: 3 x 15 @ 45lbs

Superset: Lateral Raise / Calf Raise: 3 x 15 @ 30lbs / 45lbs

Dumbbell Curls: 2 x 15 @ 8lbs (no rest, alternating arms)

Pushdown: 2 x 15 @ 27.5lbs (probably should have just skipped these, but I had planned to do the ENTIRE depletion workout, and I cut the extra sets from the back-end.)

Cable Twist: 3 x 15 @ 30lbs (I almost just skipped them because somebody had the pulleys, but he was all “Nah man! I only have one more set on each one!” so I hung out.)

For the single-exercise portions I just waited 2 minutes straight between sets. On the supersets, I did the first exercise, started my timer, walked over and did the second exercise, walked back, and waited for the timer to hit 2 minutes before I did the next set of the first exercise. Seemed to be the least-bothersome way of organizing the rest periods, to me.

Start: 12:35PM
Finish: 1:30PM

I didn’t check time as to when I did the cardio. I think it was around 1:40PM after I called my dad to secure a ride home (I would otherwise be stuck until 7PM, and as I’ve typed this my mom called to tell me she was running late besides… but this was why I figured I’d have time to do the entire depletion routine.) Once sure, I hit the bike for 5 miles in 14 minutes. If I keep biking, I’ll work on speed and try to get to 7.5 miles in 15 minutes, before I work on duration.

Realistically, though, I don’t give a shit about my cardio performance. I’ll probably drop the intensity and go for calories in the future.

I got out of the gym at 2:55PM, after showering/shaving etc.

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REFEED ME (P3C4T1)

My computer has been down for a while.

As such, I’ve totally blanked on all the flavor text I was going to post with this workout.

Tension Workout for Thursday, July 8, 2010

Superset: Leg Extension / Leg Curl

1. 30lbs x 5 / 25lbs x 5
2. 45 x 3 / 40 x 3
3. 60 x 2 / 55 x 2
4. 75 x 6 / 65 x 6
5. 70 x 7 / 60 x 7
6. 65 x 8 / 55 x 8
7. 60 x 9 / 50 x 9

Pretty straightforward superset. Throughout the workout I’d usually rest a minute, so that it would be two minutes of rest for the same exercise (Extension, rest a minute, Curl, rest a minute, Extension, etc.)

Superset: Chest Press Machine / Cable Row

1. 30lbs x 5 / 30lbs x 5
2. 45 x 3 / 45 x 3
3. 60 x 2 / 60 x 2
4. 75 x 6 / 75 x 7
5. 70 x 7 / 75 x 8

The cable row was in 15lbs. jumps so I just… didn’t do a drop set there. I should really look up better form on them as well. This was the first time in a LONG time… I fucking HATE rowing.

Superset: Incline Press Machine / Pulldowns

1. 45lbs x 2 / 50 x 3
2. 60 x 12 / 65 x 2
3. 60 x 6 / 85 x 8
4. NA / 70 x 11

Superset: Calf Raises / Lateral Raises

1. 15lbs x 5 / NA
2. 30 x 3 / NA
3. 45 x 2 / 40 x 3
4. 60 x 6 / 55 x 2
5. 60 x 7 / 65 x 6
6. 60 x 8 / 55 x 8
7. 60 x 9 / 45 x 10

I started the Lateral Raises a little later because my calves recover quickly and because I wanted to end the superset together rather than trailing off with increasing reps on calf raises…

I do a lot of thinking while I’m sitting in the Lateral Raise machine. I decided that if Depletion workouts are going to be against the clock (rather than increasing the weights on them), and the Power workouts are going to be the opposite of that (increasing the weights regardless of how long it takes me), what do I do to mark progress on the Tension workouts?

I’m just going to try to get 12 reps on every movement (the rep range is supposed to be 6-12.) I’m not going to be doing this workout plan for very long, but 12 is where I’m going to go “okay, time to increase the weight a little bit here.”

Training to failure isn’t the point of this workout anyway, it doesn’t NEED to be HEAVY, it just should be challenging.

Superset: Dumbbell Curl / Pushdown

1. 10lbs x 10 / 32.5 x 12
2. 10 x 12 / 32.5 x 12

So, for example, I’m going to bump both of those on my next tension workout and just try for about six reps.

Weight: 160.5lbs
BF%: 16.7%

Those measures were taken before this workout, and will count as my ‘depleted’ scores.

Start: 10AM
End: 11:30AM

OBSERVE THE CARB LOAD

1. Smoothie King’s Strawberry Hulk w/ Muscle Builder (or whatever the creatine+glutamine stuff is), used fat-free yogurt instead of pecan ice cream, sized @ 20oz
2. 3 chocoloate chip cookies from The Chocolate Factory
3. Chicken Chalupa w/ baja sauce + bacon club chalupa and an order of cinnamon crisps at Taco Bell
4. 59g Baby Ruth bar (grabbed it in the gas station when I was buying milk, $0.69!)
5. A gallon of milk and a box of raisin bran crunch, the 56oz box. Whichever one is the bigger one because that happened to be on sale at Sentry. (Didn’t finish the box until Friday’s breakfast, and finished the remaining cup or so of milk after I got home from Friday’s workout.)

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