Swami Vivekananda:
"Strength is Life. Weakness is Death."

REFEED ME (P3C4T1)

Posted: July 10th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Body | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

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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Almost-Fast Training

Posted: February 8th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Body | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

I have restructured my eating habits once again after an irritating set of circumstances led me to a wasted refeed.

Thursday I refed, Friday I missed my workout, Saturday I fasted, Sunday I worked out and refed again.

Refeeding before a workout has been my intention as I am always strongest the day after a refeed. Furthermore, since I spend most of the day not eating following a workout while I wait to be picked up, I just integrate that as the beginning of my fast. However, this has not proven to be the most flexible way of working things. If I miss a workout, I wind up in caloric excess, as I’ll wind up redoing the refeed. I could just pay better attention (thus solving a variety of problems at once) but I’m trying to condition responses so that I can automate/habitualize this nonsense so I don’t have to think about what I’m doing as often.

I think I’m just going to cut out refeeds from my plan, they are too much of a hassle.

I’ll just re-evaluate my maintenance needs and configure them so that they are more satisfying, and be more vigilant with my dedicated fasting days.

Workout for Sunday, February 7th, 2010

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That’s Intense, Bro

Posted: December 7th, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Body | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »
In case you’re wondering how I’m keeping sane while calculating my macros and calories: I use this spreadsheet. Keep in mind I designed this specifically for my training requirements, and don’t tout it at all as a universally applicable diet.

There are two different calorie columns. The colored one is the amount I’d like to stay below if I have to do things “quick and dirty” while eating out or whatever. The non-colored column states what the calories would be if I met the listed nutrient requirements for a given day, and then that is summed at the bottom.

Onto the log.

The preparations began for today’s workout Saturday evening when I began my fast at 6:30PM. The following morning I thought it’d be a keen idea to take a pic of myself “before and after” a refeed. So this is me 17 hours into my fast:

I loaded 20g creatine leading up to a MUCH larger than necessary fast-breaker:

Calories: 1639
Fat: 74g
Carb: 181g
Protein: 61g

I then passed out.

Woke up at 2AM, didn’t bother trying to get more sleep, had my pre-workout meal at 6AM and set foot in the gym around 9AM. Here’s the pre-workout meal, which was much closer to intentions than my fast-breaker, and the photo to go with it.

Calories: 262
Fat: 6g
Carb: 37g
Protein: 16g (and a teaspoon of creatine)

Listed on the picture are the stats I’ve measured for myself. Surprising to say the least. Reiterating in case the image breaks: Total Weight (157lbs.) Body fat percentage (18.8%) Lean Body Mass (127.484lbs.) Fat Mass (29.516lbs.)

The only slop today on my workout was during deadlifts. True to form the lady contacted me somewhere during my warm-ups. Short story: she dumped me, and I forgot to load the bar for the top set.

I cut the bottom-most set on both Deadlifts and Chins, as well, but this was intentional.

Deadlift:

  1. 1×5 @ 170lbs. (incorrect, should not have been this light for my first working set)
  2. 1×3 @ 200lbs. (proper top set weight, but now I couldn’t do a proper deloaded set, I was fried.)

Chin-Assist:

  1. 1×2 @ 35lbs. offset
  2. 1×4 @ 55lbs. offset (I was really happy with this deload)

Horizontal Row:
3×5 @ 70lbs.

Verdict: Strength has returned. We shall return to our regularly scheduled incremental increases shortly. The mini-refeed had an unexpected whooshy effect which was rather nice, after dreading seeing 170+lbs and 22%+ all weekend.

Also reconnected with a friend from highschool, kind of. There was a girl I was hugbuddies (bad day? find your buddy for a hug! great system) with at school. Her oldest brother was at the gym today. I never met him before, but he was doing his back day too! I asked him half-jokingly, because he followed me from the chinning station to the rowing station. Small world

My Post-workout meal was a Roast Beef sandwich on 7grain bread from Jimmy Johns:

Calories: 425
Fat: 8g
Carb: 64g
Protein: 30g

…I could use a nap.

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