B Variant

My back is still a little tingly-tender from deadlifts, so I skipped the squats I was initially planning to front-load. I considered doing leg presses or calf raises, but when I got to cardio I was much relieved to have not done any of those three. I thought my back was going to be irritated by the rows, but I must have actually activated the correct muscles for once, because no such problem was had.

B Workout

START: 11AM
Weight: 167lbs.

Flat Bench

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 45 x 5
3. 50 x 5
4. 70 x 3
5. 90 x 2
6. 100 x 8 (+)
7. 90 x 9 (+)
8. 80 x 10 (+)

The (+) is going to be my shorthand that these sets need to be increased next workout. The rep range, respectively, for these sets are: 5-8; 6-9; 7-10

Row

1. 45lbs. x 5
2. 45 x 5
3. 60 x 5
4. 75 x 3
5. 105 x 2
6. 120 x 8 (+)
7. 105 x 9 (+)
8. 90 x 10 (+)

Same rep set-up as the bench. I used a different sort of handle today: close-grip, smooth handles. Black. Didn’t agitate my calluses any, will be using it again.

Lateral Raise

1. 35lbs. x 5
2. 45 x 3
3. 55 x 2
4. 65 x 10 (+)
5. 55 x 11 (+)
6. 50 x 12 (+)

Rep set-up: 8-10; 9-11; 10-12

STOP: 1:30PM
Weight: 173.5lbs.

Cardio

1. Treadmill warm-up: 5 minutes of 2.0 mph/ 2.0 incline for the first two minutes, then 3.0 for the rest.
2. Treadmill intervals: 1′ walk / 1′ run, so that I got off the treadmill immediately after a run. 3.0 incline.
   1. x2 @ 2.0mph/6.0mph
   2. x3 @ 2.0mph/4.0mph
3. 6 minute rest in the locker room.
4. Stationary cycle: 5.52 miles in 37 minutes

Notes:

• I want to replace at least one of the 4.0mph runs with a 6.0, until they’re all 2.0/6.0mph. Then I’ll work on increasing the sprinting speed.
• The slow-and-steady cycling at the end will be increased in terms of duration only.
  • I don’t really have any idea as to how much to increase cardio duration by. I’m tentatively just saying “anything that is more, even just one minute.”
  • Another idea is mileage: I’d like to log 42 miles a week, as in real life I tend to have gone distances of about 20 miles and back.

Diet

Stuff I have to remember:

Maintenance Intake

At Body Weight 169lbs. = 2800kcal.

I’d really like my weigh-ins to be three consecutive days, but that probably isn’t going to happen.

I’m going to recalculate maintenance (for proper deficit purposes) weekly.

I would like to achieve a 1000kcal deficit on rest days, training days are allowed to be at maintenance/slightly over.

Fasting Period

Fast starts: 8-10PM
Feeding begins: 1PM on rest days; as soon as I can after training otherwise.

Protein Multiplier

• Lean Body Mass x 0.9 = Protein on rest days
• LBM x 1.1 = Protein on cardio-only days (not sure if I’m going to have these or not, yet)
• LBM x 1.5 = Protein on weight-training days (if cardio is done after weight training, still use this number)

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Aprun

While I have been keeping a log of my meals and general intake, today I’ve actually plugged those figures into a proper calorie count to see where I stand.

5-Day Average

Calories: 2826
Fat: 98g
CHO: 390g
Protein: 120g

The craziest thing to me: if I were to reduce my average carbohydrate intake by 250g (so, down to 140g) I’d lose 2lbs. of fat that week.

I really just wanted a relevant snapshot to see how much of a fuck-up I’ve been since I’ve stopped being incredibly anal as to what goes into my mouth. I’m just assuming that this is my maintenance intake. If I come in somewhere around 167-173lbs. at tomorrow’s pre-workout weigh-in, then it definitely is. ¹

A pretty fabulous fuck-up, it looks like! I even managed to get weaker, way to go!

I’m pretty much at my last-call to looking good for this summer. I have a convention to attend in June to look my best for. Odds are, if I can’t manage to look cut and inspire envy in the otaku of Texas, I’m going to give up on this venture entirely and fully focus on strength gains for a few years. ²

I’m not entirely sure how I want to set up my workout, though. I’m fairly convinced I want to do “Deadlift + Incline Bench” ONLY, but I want a little more frequency than what that would demand.

I want to work out roughly every four days, but also wouldn’t mind making the “B” workout optional/droppable in the event of a suddenly-busy schedule. I can usually find ONE day a week to exercise, and if I have only that one day I’ll deadlift it.

Initially considering something along the lines of:

A
Deadlift – 1 x 1-3
Incline Bench – 1 x 3-5
[Chin Assist - 1 x 3-5]
[Lateral Raise - 1 x 5-8]

B
Squat – 1 x 3-5
Flat Bench – 1 x 5-8
[Low Row - 1 x 5-8]
[Lateral Raise - 1 x 8-10]

Deadlift + some kind of press is pretty much a full-body workout. If I didn’t have any benches to work with I’d just do a basic military press.

I suspect someday I’ll have such a situation ³ as the incline bench is a vertical push, I feel it has enough synergistic benefit to be applicable. It’s also easy to “save” myself from it if I fail, using my legs.

The bracketed movements are “optional for this workout,” and I chose chin assist as it’s another vertical pull. It’s also something I want to get stronger at, which is the theme here anyway.

The second workout is a little trickier for me. I wanted it to be a lighter workout, one that didn’t demand as much of a strain on CNS but would still force me to focus (this has been a problem for me with the high-rep routines I’ve been trolling myself with lately.)

For the first two movements, I simply threw in the remainder of the Big Three. I’m sure RDLs or power cleans would be more supportive of my deadlifting, but I feel that performing RDLs degrades my DL TECHNIQUE, which I sweat, and that power cleans are too technical for me if I’m to be dieting. If I could achieve passable form of complex moves, I’d be doing Olympic lifts.

And I’m sure it’s weird to be lifting less on Flat Bench than on Incline Bench, but it’ll probably catch-up/exceed it eventually anyway. I don’t mind.

The rows are the plane-opposite of flat benching, so there that is.

I saw no reason to replace Lateral Raises. They’re already optional. If I’m too burnt-out to do lateral raises it’s not as though I’m going to be able/willing to do much anything else. Abs? Curls? Fuck that noise.

Maybe calf raises.

MAYBE.

Probably not.

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The Daily Plate

[Warning: The below is one of those STATEMENT type posts. I try to only write posts for things that I HAVE ALREADY DONE rather than WISHAN, AN HOPEN. This post is an example of the latter/fail.]

I made this for deviantArt when I was a teenager.

You know, it’s really time to stop fucking around.

My diet is crap.

I’m so carb-loaded right now it hurts. Seriously. Nevermind the disgusting bloated look that comes from moderate constipation and carb-load powers combined. My muscles themselves feel overstuffed.

I might managed to knock out a set of chins at LBM tomorrow, lol.

I really want to do a depletion workout tomorrow to prep for tat-support tomorrow (hangings with the gal frand y’know.) But I’m also fuck-awesomely strong right now and I’d like to abuse it before I get into some kind of protein-sparing modified fast of insanity.

Which I full intend to do, starting Thursday, just in case she decides to make a pizza while I’m over. That happened last time. I feel like such a douchebag refusing to eat free pizza, so, JUST IN CASE, I’m saving the crash diet for Thursday.

What I’m probably going to do is the strength workout, rest a bit, depletion workout with lessened/eliminated volume on the body parts already hit.

WHICH REMINDS ME: I’m dropping deadlifts.

Yeah that’s right. I said it. (Please kill me.)

I just know that as soon as I deplete I’m going to be weaker than all hell and I just will not have the form necessary to feel good about myself deadlifting. Wavering deadlift performance has been the single most destructive factor to my dieting efforts, I’m sad to report. It’s my favorite life, but I just cannot be risking my back (literally) deciding between dieting and RAWR. RAWR always wins, but it’s not getting me any closer to my goals other than keeping my posture sexy.

My back is still a little sore from fucking up that ONE REP not too long ago. I was sick, granted, but that’s pretty much how glycogen depletion feels to me. Fucking sick.

Starting today, though, I’m back to legitimately recording my intake. I’ve been writing it down on paper for a long time since I’ve abandoned Windows (and by extension, FitDay) but I’ve not been tracking numbers and is really just a testament to how lax I can really be. I KNOW I’ve been eating to much, no foggy iffy memory about it. I’m fucking up, I’m not losing fat, and I’m only marginally stronger. This amounts to FAIL.

So I’ve signed up at the daily plate.

Today I don’t really care. I’m keeping myself loaded so tomorrow I can put up the biggest numbers on my three most important lifts to me (Pulldown, Incline Press, Lateral Raise) and then keep them there as I lose my artificial benefit. As much as I love carbs, this bloat is disgusting. I feel like a panda. I’m 165-170lbs. right now and I’m really hoping that a lot of that is water weight.

But I’m not retarded, either.

So I’m going to spend two days making sure I can get my calories in order, and then from Thursday on begin stripping carbs. Quicker the better, but I’m hoping by Monday of next week to be on a PSMF cycle and jogging my way to some relief from pandabelly.

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