I wanted to do some kind of extra work so I could offset some of those extraneous carbs I’d been eating. I probably put on a legitimate pound or two of fat recently. Not going to know for sure until after I drop all this water weight.

Which I’ll have to do in short order for this modeling audition I have on Saturday. This Sunday, however, marks 15 weeks until my goal date is reached. I have to look my best by this date. For two reasons: it’s the first major event in my town, and it marks the beginning of summer.

I am NOT wasting another summer dieting. Fuck that. I don’t care how awful I think I look on the day: May 30, I stop dieting, and get a loaded fucking hotdog at the flea market.

If I’m still 156lbs. @ 16.8% bodyfat, and all the weight I lose is fat (unlikely, but it’s the numbers I have to work with): I could lose one pound a week and get down to 146lbs. @ 11%BF or so in ten weeks.

If I get to 12% or so, that’s roughly 7-8lbs. lost. That puts me about 5lbs. away from 9% and five weeks to do it.

THE BEST ASSUMPTION: I don’t know where the hell I’m at, but I’m going to diet in a moderate way for ten weeks, then five weeks out from goal I’ll go completely batshit intense and lose as hard as I can.

• February 14 – April 25: 10 weeks of moderate dieting. 10-20% caloric deficit or somesuch; twice weekly workouts.
• April 25 – May 30: 5 weeks of severe dieting. Up to 30% caloric deficit; workouts x5/wk. The same workout setup, but likely to have more cardio involved.

I really highly doubt I’m going to get to single digit before summer hits. Oh well. I think I’ll have to live with getting to 12% and living with it for a while.

Warm-Up: Treadmill for 20min, covering 0.98miles with no incline. Heart rate around 120-130bpm.

Deadlift

1. 70lbs. x 5; from hang, hook-grip, 5min rest
2. 70lbs. x 5; from hang, hook-grip, 5min rest
3. 105lbs. x 3; from hang, hook-grip, 5min rest
4. 150lbs. x 2; from floor, hook-grip (slipped into normal over), 8min rest
5. 185lbs. x 3; right-hand under, 8min rest; stay.
6. 160lbs. x 5; left-hand under; increase.

That second work set is beyond what I’d ordinarily desire for my legs, but I wanted just a SLIGHT bit of extra volume. I’m feeling it. Weird.

Incline Bench

1. 45lbs. x 5; 2min rest
2. 45lbs. x 5; 2min rest
3. 45lbs. x 5; 3min rest
4. 60lbs. x 3; 4min rest
5. 80lbs. x 2; 5min rest
6. 90lbs. x 4; MAYBE could have gotten another, but I’m not training for failure today, 6min rest
7. 80lbs. x 6; plenty more in the tank, 5min rest
8. 70lbs. x 7; this was ridiculously harder than the last set

Incline Bench MACHINE

1. 60lbs. x 2; fried

I should have done some ab work, but I’m really not interested in making my midsection much bigger and I still felt ‘gutty’ from having overeaten recently. Plus I thought I was going to be burning up some glycogen on cardio. WRONG.

Cardio: 7min no incline, 4mph. I made the mistake of training for heart rate, and I won’t be doing that again. My shins are killing me. I also probably won’t go on the treadmill in Chucks again, either. Bike for Chuck days!

Body Weight: 165lbs. (didn’t bother checking body fat; I know it wasn’t all fat, but the monitor would test me as though it was.)

Total Workout Time: roughly 2 hours

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…