Some Other Measures

I was paging through this food log I’ve been writing since I started on Friday.

I don’t have any of the macro information yet (aside for maybe some of the stuff I’ve eaten outside of the house, because I looked it up on my phone so I knew how much insulin to take.)

Apparently the day after my first training session on the fasting scheme of LeanGains, I took some circumference measurements. I really want to make clear that the only portion of his program I’m really aping is his 16 hours of fasting, 8 hours of feeding, roughly the same times every day. My macronutrient splits are nonsense and my calories are not yet in order (look for that post on Friday when I look back on this first week, doing a dietary audit, hah.)

Now, I barely remember doing this. Certainly not what day this all was done, specifically, but I do remember being astounded that my chest was even a quarter of an inch larger than my waist. I intentionally pushed out my gut but relaxed my chest. I wanted to see my absolute worst relative measurements in these regards…

And I definitely remember being irritated that I couldn’t properly measure my shoulders because I didn’t have anyone to help me and my wrists wouldn’t bend enough to do it myself.

As Posted in the Workout Log, July 16, 2010

Weight: 171lbs.
Body Fat Percentage: 17.2%

Fat Weight: 29.241lbs
Lean Body Mass: 141.759lbs

July 17, 2010

Chest: 35.75″
Waist: 35″
Hips: 40″
Thighs: 22.5″ (they’re the same size)
Calf (L): 15″
Calf (R): 14.5″
Neck: 15.25″

And then, Today, because I forgot to do my arms, July 21, 2010

Wrist: 6.25″
Forearm (R): 9.5″
Forearm (L): 9.25″
Upper Arm (R): 13″
Upper Arm (L): 12.5″
Shoulders: 44″

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Progress Excites Me (P1C2WA1)

I just realized I started my second workout cycle yesterday. Awwriiight~

It was a highly unexpected result, my measures, as I still feel like I’m vastly overeating. I’m still recording on paper when and how much of whatever I’m eating, but I’m not tracking the calories on The Daily Plate.

I’m not as anal about how much I’m eating as I used to be. Granted, it has to be less than enough, but what I’m doing now can be best-described as eating until I’m full once a day. If I mysteriously put on weight, I can easily backtrack into my records and tabulate the calories. If the numbers make sense, then I know I ate too much and I’ll have to back off. If they don’t quite, or there’s a lot of carbs in there, well! Water weight.

I’m slowly introducing a little more cardio, here-and-there. I don’t really have a set plan with it. I’m tentatively looking at days that I do yohimbine (fasted-cardio style), or post-workout. Something about fat being released into the bloodstream from the Y or the high-intensity activity, that makes me want to include cardio at those times. More on this in another post. I haven’t been as tenacious in my physiological studies as I used to be.

Saturday Cardio

1. 6:45AM: 15mg Yohimbine HCL + 200mg Caffeine (since I haven’t been posting on this as much, in the future this will be referred to as YC much like the ephedrine+caffeine stack is referred to as EC.)
2. 7:23AM: Slow warm-up. Easy-walking for about 12 minutes.
3. 7:35AM: Speed walking. Just walking quickly enough for it to be uncomfortable, for about 40 minutes.
4. 8:15AM: I didn’t plan my route, so when time was up I had to walk back home. Another 12 minutes.

Something I noted was that I had a really high blood sugar. I should have tested much, much earlier (on the order of around midnight, I’d say) but since I had only just realized it a couple of minutes after taking my YC, I just tested right then, at 380mg/dL. Insulin counteracts the effects of yohimbine, so I just went and did my cardio anyway.

A few minutes after I got home (around 8:30AM) I tested again at 292mg/dL. Still really high, but an 88-point drop is pretty significant. I don’t know if that would have worked from 188 to 100 (I don’t know why it wouldn’t but I’m not going to make that claim), but I think doing cardio with an untested threshold made the higher level of sugar a decent “safety net” though I wouldn’t ordinarily like to be anywhere near that high.

Workout for Sunday, June 6, 2010

Before leaving for the gym: EC1 @ 9:45AM

Bench Press

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 50 x 3
3. 70 x 2
4. 90 x 7 (felt 50/50 on making the 8th rep; I decided not to risk it.)
5. 85 x 9

I’m going to increase this next workout.

Incline Press Machine

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 75 x 3
3. 90 x 2
4. 120 x 4

Okay. Screw this machine. I can’t find a suitable place to set the lever (it’s either too-high to be useful or too low to not be damaging to my shoulders) so I’ll be moving back to the free-weight version.

Hammer-grip Horizontal Press Machine

1. 55lbs. x 3
2. 70 x 2
3. 90 x 8

Shoulders are bugging me now.

Pushdown

1. 32.5lbs. x 5
2. 37.5 x 2
3. 42.5 x 9

I cheated a tenth rep so I’m not counting it, making this fall below my desired range for increase. Next workout I’m dropping the first warm-up set to 3 reps, but keeping everything else. If I make 10 reps on A2 then I can increase the weight.

Pulldown

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 70 x 3
3. 90 x 2
4. 115 x 6

I very nearly almost skipped doing these. I was hearing all sorts of excuses in my head during the tricep exercises. I switched on autopilot and let the excuses fly, hammering out possibly the best-form round of pulldowns I’ve ever done in my life. FUCK YEAH. Increasing the weight next workout.

Weighted Crunch Machine

1. 30lbs. x 5
2. 45 x 3
3. 60 x 2
4. 75 x 5

This isn’t, probably, going to be a regular exercise, but I thought in an effort to combat staleness in my routine I’d stick in a ‘reward’ exercise at the end. I chose crunches over calf raises because I’ve got something nasty happening on my left big toe joint and I’d like to establish that it’s not an infection before I harass it much more than I have.

Body Weight: 160.5lbs

Body Fat Percentage: 13.7% ~ I totally didn’t believe a lick of this, though before I saw it I mistook my BMI for my bodyfat percentage and had a mini-heart attack (23.7!?) I redid this reading multiple times and 13.7 was the first one to show up three times so I took it down. It was also the second-highest in the range (13.8 beat it) so it panders to my inner-pessimist.

Condition: B. ~ I very BARELY made it to the gym today. Had to roll off the couch and run down the parking lot in my underwear to make the ride to the gym, but I DID. So, yeah. I’m probably disproportionately proud of myself for having done that. Screw it.

Time in: 10AM
Time out: 12:35PM

I finished the workout at 12:20 but I sat in the locker room debating cardio for 15 minutes before I decided to leave and, if I started to regret it later… just do it later!

So I Regretted It and Came Back and This Is Treadmill

1. 1:42PM: EC2
2. 2:23PM: back in the gym. Warm-Up: 10 minutes at 2 incline/2mph. Heart Rate 102bpm
3. 2:35PM: HIIT: 5.5 minutes. Started and stopped with jog @ 4.5mph for 1.5min; run @ 6mph for 30sec. Incline set to 3 for both. Heart Rate 178bpm
4. 2:41PM: Rest. Talked to DJ in the locker room about cutting. He’s bulking, but cut for beach season.
5. 2:53PM: Steady State: 40 minutes at 3 incline/3mph. Heart Rate 135bpm
6. 3:35PM: Done.

I cut the HIIT short because I just am not fit enough for it. I was sweating and wheezing and my legs felt like they were going to fail out on me at any moment. (I wanted to total 10 minutes.)

So, then, while doing the steady state stuff I kept trying to convince myself to stop. But there weren’t any physical signs of needing to stop early, and any excuse I could come up with was quite easily squashed with “you’re not going to be burning any more fat than you are right now.”

But man, when 40 hit the clock I was off.

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No Excuse (P1C1WA2)

Week got off to a bit of a crap start.

Sometime over the weekend I had a seizure at my grandmother’s house. Banged up my right elbow, left hand, and both feet (more on the left foot, the right foot just has a cracked nail on the big toe.) It happened the day after training deadlifts, which summed itself as a fried CNS. Limping around, wincing… butthurt doesn’t even begin to cover it.

I wasn’t very motivated to lift on Tuesday, but I had the seizure and the binge working against my morale. So I used those things as encouragement. The unwillingness to let myself be put down by something I have only a limited amount of control over, coupled with the guilt over having let myself gorge so atrociously, lead me into the gym that morning.

Workout A2, June 1, 2010

Incline Bench

1. 45lbs x 3
2. 60 x 2
3. 75 x 8
4. 75 x 8 (too much shoulders)

I kind of forgot that I was supposed to deload on the second work set. Oops. I guess I can be confident in my increase for next workout!

Wide-Grip Horizontal Press

1. 35lbs x 5
2. 50 x 3
3. 65 x 2
4. 85 x 8

Hammer-Grip Horizontal Press

1. 40lbs x 3
2. 50 x 2
3. 65 x 8

Pushdown

1. 27.5lbs x 5
2. 32.5 x 2
3. 37.5 x 12

At this point, I was feeling really fucking accomplished. My chest was the only part of me that WASN’T sore, so getting that little extra from my triceps made me pretty happy overall.

Pulldown

1. 45lbs x 5
2. 65 x 3
3. 85 x 2
4. 110 x 6

I lost a rep. Not cool.

Alternating: Forearm Curl / Reverse Forearm Curl

1. 3lbs / 3lbs x 8
2. 5 / 5 x 8
3. 8 / 8 x 8
4. 12 / 12 x 8
5. 15 x 8 / 15 x 3
6. 20 / 12 x 8 (though I got the reps, 20lbs just felt like too much)
7. 15 / 12 x 8

I’ve just been looking in the mirror and getting sick of the ‘funnel’ look of my growing upper arms and my ain’t-shit forearms. Fixing that with a little volume work, as I don’t want to fail them with high-intensity stuff. I need the grip stamina for pulls.

Cardio: I did 20 minutes at level 2 on a recumbent bike just to… I dunno. Burn something or other. I was thinking carbs when I decided to do it, but after intense lifting I have no idea if there were some free-floating fatty acids to be used, floating about, or what.

Condition: C.

Didn’t get enough sleep, felt bloated. Pretty standard. Feeling sorry for myself counterbalanced by FUCK IT.

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Berkhan Workout A2

Workout for May 5th, 2010

Incline Bench 8RM

1. 45lbs. x 8
2. 55 x 8
3. 60 x 8
4. 65 x 8
5. 70 x 8
6. 75 x 2 (got nauseous, stopped, didn’t muscularly fail though)
7. 60 x 10 (drop set; dropped from the last completed 8-rep set)

Wide-Grip Chest Press Machine, 8RM

1. 30lbs. x 8
2. 45 x 8
3. 65 x 8
4. 80 x 8 (nearly vomited again, blehh)

Rested for about 10 minutes after this. Resumed workout at 10:05AM

Horizontal-Grip Chest Press Machine

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 55 x 2
3. 60 x 8

Since this exercise was consecutive with A1 (as is the rest of the routine) I was able to precalcudict some warm-up sets and a slightly-bumped top set. This one will be bumped for my next workout.

Triceps Pushdown

1. 22.5lbs. x 5
2. 27.5 x 2
3. 32.5 x 12

This exercise will be bumped.

Pulldown

1. 40lbs. x 5
2. 60 x 3
3. 80 x 2
4. 105 x 10 (failed!)

I never actually determined the threshold for pulldowns on the A workouts, since I substituted chins with pulldowns. I think a 8-12 rep range would be appropriate, as the two B-workouts have 4-6 and 6-8 rep ranges. So, this exercise will be bumped!

Body Weight: 161lbs.
Body Fat Percentage: 15.6%

Condition: C+

Again, didn’t sleep well the night before. But I had slept a lot during the day so this was not too surprising. Had a protein bar 60 and my EC stack 30 minutes prior the workout. I just felt ‘ready’ to.

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Regression Depression

Today was Chest Day.

My lifts regressed here as well. I didn’t feel weaker, necessarily, but I wasn’t capable of generating the intensity on a mental level. I’m considering altering my routine to include more machines to have less mental toll derived from form. I don’t really like the way that sounds from a macho standpoint, but it’s going to be kicked around the brainstorm notebook over the weekend and we’ll see where I come out on Monday or Tuesday.

Scheduling-wise, however, this workout played out beautifully. I woke up around 7AM, had two protein bars. I think fasting so much before workouts is what is causing this lull in vigor. My original intent to never fast on workout days was probably the better idea, and the test-fast workouts for me will be seen as workable-in-emergency in the future, but not as something to carry repeatedly long-term.

Got into the gym around 9AM. I don’t know how she does it, but the girlfriend always manages to wake up and text me on my second warm-up set. I’m pretty sure it’s not the same days or times or anything either. Flat Bench warm-ups go fine and I load up my top set. I’m not expecting magic here, though I’ve optimistically penciled in a goal of three reps. I barely manage one rep.

I deload, rest, and again manage only one rep. Now I know something is up, so I empty the bar and go over to the machine chest press. I do three sets here and I’m fried. I rest, manage to move nothing on the incline press machine (making me relieved I didn’t try free weight version) and move over to the dumbbells.

I can’t extend the 20lbs. for flys, so I grab 15 and slow-go three sets of 5. At least, even though I stepped back, I made all three sets all the way through, which is what I have to do before I increase weight with this specific exercise. So I’ll be back on 20s next week.

I shouldn’t have skipped workouts over Thanksgiving.

My quads were itching for some attention, so I tried the StairMaster for the first time. 11 minutes at level 5, burning apparently 100 calories. I didn’t really do this for any other reason than to shut up my quads and put myself back into a positive mood.

Which it did! Post-workout meal at a decent restaurant with my dad afterward. Shrimp and pasta. Yum.

The embarrassing numbers:

Flat Bench

1. 100lbs. x 1
2. 90lbs. x 1

Horizontal Chest Press (I cringed typing this)

1. 100lbs. x 1
2. 90lbs. x 3
3. 80lbs. x 5

Incline Chest Press

1. 75lbs. x lol
2. 65lbs. x wtf
3. 55lbs x gtfo
4. 50lbs x nvm

Incline Fly
3×5 @ 15lbs.

StairMaster: 11 minutes @ level 5

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Nevermind Cardio

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Flying, Rep Ranges, and the Inverse Pyramid

So Thursday was Chest Day.

I’m really thinking about doing a chest/back split and not having a “leg day.” The most leg work I’m going to do are deadlifts on back day and the obligatory cardio work. I have to figure out how to work my squats in, or perhaps I’ll just… abandon it for a while… ugh. Any time I drop squats entirely from my plan is the time I know I’m going to fuck myself. I have to do more thinking/reading on the issue, but for now I just need to log my workout.

It’s pretty low-volume, relative to what I’m used to seeing in local programs, but at the same time relative to my own conditioning this was quite a lot of work outside of my normal rep range. It’s been a while since I last benched, so I decided to work for an additional rep rather than adding weight to the bar. This turned out to work out beautifully.

Flat Bench

1. 95lbs. x 5
2. 65lbs. x 6 (I wasn’t paying attention, this should have been 85lbs.)
3. 75lbs. x 7

Incline Bench – 5RM test

1. 45lbs.
2. 55lbs.
3. 65lbs.
4. 70lbs. (failed at 4 reps)

Incline Fly – 8RM test

1. 5lbs.
2. 10lbs.
3. 12lbs.
4. 15lbs.
5. 20lbs. (failed immediately, couldn’t even hold the bells out)

Here’s what it’s going to look like now that I have definite numbers to play with, next week:

Flat Bench

1. 100lbs. x 3-5
2. 90lbs. x 4-6
3. 80lbs. x 5-7

Incline Bench

1. 65lbs. x 5-8
2. 55lbs. x 6-9
3. 45lbs. x 7-10

Incline Fly

1. 20lbs. x 5-8
2. 15lbs. x 6-9
3. 10lbs. 7-10

I’m basically working strength-volume on flat bench, as it mostly functions to me as a warm up for incline benching. I would just do a max-single and move onto incline, which sounds like a fantastic idea on paper, but I’m too much of a pussy to actually attempt a single. So the volume: is for warming up more, and… balance. I don’t want to really increase the size of my lower pecs but I don’t want it to look neglected, either.

My goal with the chest workouts is firstly strength, of course, but from the standpoint of aesthetics I’m trying to also increase mass of the upper chest to achieve the ‘square pec’ look. Some evidence that I may be on the correct path is the tenderness I feel from armpit to armpit between collarbone and nipples. My lower pecs are not experiencing any soreness whatsoever. The reverse pyramid scheme allows me a set in which I can push the muscle hardest while it’s freshest, and then further volume to fully exhaust the muscle.

My only real concern is that perhaps the incline flies won’t be possible to reverse-pyramid. I don’t really know how to tell the difference between nervous and muscular failure, other than muscular failure is probably when it hurts and nervous is probably when my arms aren’t doing what I tell them to. If this is indeed the case, my failure with 20lbs. dumbbells was a nervous failure, and I may have to approach it with more simple volume than I would originally intend.

Finally, following the lifts, I spent 20 minutes on the treadmill alternating in 30s/90s jog/walk (convenient to have these labeled on the machine at 2 and 4 mph.) Though it was fairly easy, I want to do four more sessions at this intensity before I progress to doing 30/30, as I don’t want to overextend or overtrain myself through overconfidence. Slow progression is all I seek in regards to cardio.

I think next post I’ll detail some of the things I’m considering as far as diet. Right now I’m hovering around 2000 calories and doing a haphazard ephedrine/caffeine stack, which is probably only a 300 daily calorie deficit now that I briefly think about it…

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