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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Ow, My Everything (P3C4D1)

Tuesday I decided to run a depletion workout to “make up” for the Independence Day Eat Like a Moronathon.

And, well… holy fucking ow.

The routine I’m following for this cycle is based off of Lyle McDonald’s Ultimate Diet 2. The nomenclature for the, uh, callsign stuff, is changed as follows:

• Phase and Cycle numbering will press on linearly. It’s a different diet set-up, and the workout is different, but it’s still “the next in line.”
• The workout LETTERING, however, will change. A and B will be reserved for when I return to a LeanGains-inspired routine. For Lyle, I’m using D, T, and P: Depletion, Tension, and Power workouts as inspired by him.

I’m not actually running UD2, because I lack the autism for that. But a lot of the principles will be recognizable to those who have read it, and utter nonsense to those who have not.

If you haven’t read it, tough. I’m not going to go out of my way explaining what I’m doing beyond this: the depletion workout day(s) are exactly as it sounds. It’s high-volume, low-nutrition (specifically carbs), and murders my muscles. The tension workout primes me for a carb refeed, which in turn fuels me for a power (strength-retention) workout. I only plan for the poundages to go up on the power workouts and POSSIBLY tension (meaning: I’ll decide when I get there.)

The marker for improvement with the depletion workouts will be that I get them done faster.

I wasn’t used to such high volume, and I found myself winded and needing to rest way more than I would have liked with this type of workout. I had to drop poundages several times to be able to continue working. I’m going to use the lowest numbers that I found in this workout in the next depletion workout to be the weight across all sets in the next attempt at this workout. I was time-restricted to begin with, taking so long get through this workout had an exaggerated annoyance factor for this reason as well (I need to be done by 11:30AM to have time to shower and be on a bus to visit a friend an hour-and-a-half away, on time.)

So, not having time for the full four-hour workout I would have “liked,” I did two rounds, one of each depletion. The distinction between the two is purely hitting chest, back, and midsection from different angles. This will be obvious when you look at the routine itself.

Depletion Workout for July 6, 2010

Round One

• Leg Extension / Leg Curl Superset (no rest)
  • 65lbs x 15 / 55lbs x 15
  • 50 x 13 / 45 x 15
  • 30 x 15 / 25 x 15
• Chest Press / Row Superset (no rest, except *five minute break)
  • 75lbs x 12 / 75lbs x 12
  • 65 x 12 / 60 x 6*
  • 50 x 15 / 45 x 15
• Lateral Raise / Calf Raise Superset (no rest, except *five minute break)
  • 50lbs x 12 / 45lbs x 15
  • 35 x 15* / 45 x 15
  • 35 x 15 / 45 x 15
• Dumbbell Curl / Cable Pushdown Superset (no rest)
  • 10lbs x 15 / 27.5lbs x 15
  • 10 x 15 / 27.5 x 15
• Cable Torso Twist
  • 30lbs x 15
  • 30lbs x 15

Ten minute break, then on to the next round.

Round Two

• Leg Extension / Leg Curl Superset (no rest)
  • 30lbs x 15 / 25lbs x 15
  • 30 x 13 / 25 x 15
  • 30 x 15 / 25 x 15
• Incline Press / Pulldown Superset (no rest, except *five minute break)
  • 45lbs x 15 / 75lbs x 15
  • 45 x 15 / 75 x 12*
  • (should have done a third set, but I didn’t)
• Lateral Raise / Calf Raise Superset (no rest)
  • 35lbs x 15 / 45lbs x 15
  • 35 x 12 / 45 x 15
  • (only two sets on shoulders, did the third set of Calf Raises later)
• Dumbbell Curl / Cable Pushdown Superset (no rest)
  • 8lbs x 15 / 27.5lbs x 15
  • 8 x 15 / 27.5 x 15 ~ really had to push for the last couple reps on the left arm curls
• Crunch Machine
  • 30lbs x 15
• Calf Raise
  • 45lbs x 15
• Crunch Machine
  • 30lbs x 15
  • 30 x 15
  • 30 x 15

While I never sat around and ‘rested’ like I ordinarily would, I certainly didn’t make any effort to rush from one machine to the next. The extent of my rest periods would probably be the 20 seconds or so it takes walking from one machine to the next.

Workout Start: 9:05AM
Round 1 Finish: 10AM
Workout End: 11:20AM

Weight: 169.5lbs
Body Fat Percentage: 16.9%

I ate somewhere in the neighborhood of 175g protein since that workout. Presently fasting until pre-workout tomorrow barring any wonky blood sugar issues or free lean protein.

Seeya then!

Popularity: 5% [?]

Pretty Fast (P1C1WB1)

Yeah, I settled on the silly notation.

I spent most of the day extremely pissed off because I was without a ride to the gym. Typically, when my mom goes to work, I go with because my gym is literally across the street from where she works. I had taken my now-typical preworkout power nap… and she left without me. It wasn’t a matter of fatigue, though. While I did sleep two hours past when I was supposed to be awake, I was ready to workout when I laid down. There was certainly no lack of motivation… just a lack of communication.

Anyway, she made up for it (kinda) by taking me to the gym an hour and a half before close.

This meant two things:

1. I hadn’t eaten since roughly 7AM by the time I got to the gym. I don’t know how long I have to go without eating to become fasted (makes me want to re-read Eat Stop Eat, though) but it’s been at least 12 hours since my last meal. (Had I been there on time, this meal would have been just about three hours prior to workout.)
2. I didn’t get to enjoy gratuitous amounts of rest between sets. In this whole workout, I essentially skipped rest for warm-ups (taking only time to change the weight or catch my breath) and only took a full 5 minutes of rest in preparation for deadlifts. I lingered a bit on the last warm-up and work set of pulldowns, just because I wasn’t in any danger of missing a lift due to closure. (Just gimme one more set, bro!) That also turned out to be, as expected, the hardest lift, and the only one I didn’t meet my rep goal for.

Workout B1 for Friday, May 27, 2010

Romanian Deadlift

1. 60lbs x 5
2. 90 x 3
3. 120 x 2

Deadlift (overhand grip)

1. 150lbs x 3
2. 150 x 3 (If one thing made me happy this workout, it was this.)

This exercise took me 33 minutes (remember that I use RDL as warm-up for DL.)

Lateral Raise Machine

1. 35lbs x 5
2. 50 x 3
3. 70 x 2
4. 85 x 6 (Had to really grit my teeth and push for the last couple reps.)

This exercise took 8 minutes.

Leg Curl

1. 25lbs. x 5
2. 40 x 3
3. 50 x 2
4. 65 x 10

8 minutes again.

Leg Extension

1. 30lbs x 5
2. 45 x 3
3. 60 x 2
4. 75 x 10

10 minutes.

Pulldown

1. 45lbs x 5
2. 65 x 3
3. 85 x 2
4. 110 x 7 (FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF)

Missed a rep. 16 minutes for this exercise. I zoned out before the third set. Wasn’t TIRED, just had trouble SEEING THINGS.

Nevertheless, I’m going to increase all lifts for next B1. I had no reason to miss that 8th rep and I was very close, but very close doesn’t count.

Workout Time: 75 minutes (budgeted for 90, so I was happy with this)

Body Weight: 164.5lbs
Body Fat Percentage: Didn’t have time.

Condition: B-. Smoldering, smoldering rage.

Timing of Stuff
7AM – Last meal. PB&J sammich (and a peanut butter one on one slice), some organic corn chips and salsa.
12:40PM – EC1
5:20PM – EC2
7:50PM – EC3
8:27PM – Workout
10:30PM – 2 scoops EAS Premium Protein (in water)
11:45PM – 2 scoops EAS Premium Protein (in water)

I just really do not feel like stuffing myself full of carbs… yet.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Berkhan Workout B1

Q: Why did Bruce Lee do wrist curls?
A: It was a Good Morning.

Hah hah. That never gets old.

So today was THE deadlift day of the program. I aspired to a measly 135lbs. because the 45lbs. plates are the standardized height for a plain-ol’ deadlift. I logicalled to myself that at LEAST the work sets ought to be for-serious deadlifts, so if I could manage THAT, then this workout would be labeled a success for me.

Workout for May 1, 2010

Romanian Deadlift

1. 45lbs x 5
2. 55 x 5
3. 80 x 3
4. 100 x 2

RDLs for warm-up, you see.

Deadlift

1. 135lbs x 3
2. 135lbs x 3

I’m only working these to sets of three. Probably could have done more: no reason to.

Lateral Raise

1. 30lbs. x 5
2. 50 x 3
3. 60 x 2
4. 80 x 8

Perfect. Set to increase linearly.

Leg Curl

1. 20lbs x 10
2. 30 x 10
3. 40 x 10
4. 45 x 10
5. 50 x 10
6. 55 x 10

I was just testing for 10RM here, so this went perfectly as well. I felt COOKED after that last set though, I walked around a bit and got a few slurps of water before I moved on. I took really long rests for this exercise, too. I’ve not done these since my first days (around the time I was doing pushdowns regularly, actually) not really enjoying the feel of lying down to work hamstrings. However, the seat leg curl feels like I’m working WITH gravity instead of AGAINST it, and the poundages seem less intense/real.

This shit is not about to get less real.

Leg Extension

1. 30lbs. x 10
2. 40 x 10
3. 60 x 10
4. 65 x 10

I went through these a little quicker because I just know my quads are stronger than my hams, so I made slightly more-drastic increases than I did on Leg Curls, which were essentially blind, by-feel increases. These were by-feel too, but… I don’t know how to explain it. I just KNEW I could handle more than my leg curl poundages with my quads when I loaded 40 and it was just SO MUCH EASIER than 40 on leg curl.

Pulldown

1. 45lbs x 5
2. 45 x 5
3. 50 x 5
4. 70 x 3
5. 90 x 2
6. 105 x 8

Super-win. Great form, just felt great to do. I love pulldowns. All things considered, they’re probably my favorite exercise now, and I’m really happy that they’re so common in this program.

Body Weight: 163lbs.
Body Fat Percentage: 16.4%

Condition: C.

I was restless most of the night. Did too much writing and had too much on my mind. Was a bit groggy going into the workout, even after my pre-workout ephedrine/caffeine.

My weight actually made me extremely happy. I’ve been recording amounts-of-what I’ve been eating, but not calories or the like. I just ate ‘until satisfaction’ and I think one fasting partial-day or so. I’ve essentially maintained my body weight with 0.1% difference in body fat. So I’ve gone back and tallied everything.

I totaled 11906kcal for the four days prior this day of training. Averaged out, that’s 2976kcal MAINTENANCE.

My ‘maintenance multiplier’ is then 18.

I rounded stuff down to account for shit like activity and my obstinate fat-loss goal. Slower weight loss means a great percentage of it is from fat, right? So yeah. Super slow…

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10-20 Depletion

Stats
Weight: 164lbs.
Body Fat Percentage: 15.6%

This was a rather simple workout. High volume, high reps, lots of misery, low weights. Everything listed is machines, except for bicep curls. Those are dumbbells.

Mostly to shuffle out a lot of water weight. I took some pictures of myself at “full-bloat” post-birthday gorging. Later this week I’ll upload those in comparison to ones of full depletion.

The major thing about this workout was discovering the weight to use for each life. Once upon a time, I used whacks of calculators and attempts to extrapolate isolation lift estimations from muscular contribution in compound exercises. Fuck that, I just tried shit.

Workout for Monday, February 1, 2010

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