Today was generally good, but I need to change things up.
Squat
- 2x5x45
- 1x5x85
- 1x3x125
- 1x2x170
- 3x5x215
I did the same setup as Wednesday’s workout because I wanted to fix my bar speed. It was better this workout, smoother. However, I have this achy pain running down the back-outside-right of my right leg. Not sure what it is nor where it came from, but I do feel it affected my lift. Nevertheless, I feel generally good about this and am going to bump up 5# next workout.
Bench Press
- 2x5x45
- 1x5x80
- 1x3x115
- 1x2x145
- 3x5x165
I felt very strong today. I didn’t need to rest as long between sets, and I was just powering them out. Better form? More leg drive I know. Whatever reason, this felt very good. Another 5#.
Pull-ups
- 1x10xbw
- 1x10xbw
- 1x9xbw
And I could have gotten a 10th out if I cheated on that last rep. Is it odd that I feel stronger on pull-ups than chin-ups? Maybe after next week I’ll be at 3×10 across on both chins and pulls and will start on the assisted/negative real chins/pulls.
Other
Not sure what to classify this as yet… but I did some jump rope Tabata style. I don’t yet have the coordination to do this like a boxer so it’s just simple “double-hop” until I don’t feel as uncoordinated. It’s also far from HIIT, but I have to start somewhere.
Commentary
Overall today was good. Felt strong. Felt good.
I’ve been thinking about changing things up. This marks the end of week 7 on this program. I don’t feel a need to change just because of a time-limit, but I am feeling a need to change due to the packing on of fat. Going along with a desire to shed some of the weight, a program designed to pack on the weight doesn’t really work. But by the same token, I really want to get the rest of my lifts up to the same point as my squat. That is, I’m feeling that my squat is at the limits of what I can really do, so the progress is slow and I can accept that and go with that. Presses feel like I could go with a slow increase too… in fact, if I went to a weekly program I could actually even consider going back to a 5# bump on presses and not feel bad about it, but still slow. However, my deadlift and my bench press still feel like they’re progressing at a pretty decent pace and I’d hate to slow them down.
Besides… I know the real secret to things is getting my diet cleaned up. That’s the hardest part for me.
So here’s my present thinking:
Clean up my diet.
Start adding some HIIT in. Right now I’m going to jump rope and do it just like I mentioned above. As I get more coordinated, I’ll bump up the intensity. I will do this at the end of every workout. Will this be how I continue to do things? I don’t know. I was tossing around the notion of doing something like the Wendler 5/3/1 “boring but big” approach and having the 5×10 assistance set be somehow HIIT-like… maybe doing it 5×10 with 30 seconds of rest, more strict to Wendler’s plan… or maybe doing that exercise but pure Tabata-style. I don’t know… it’s just fresh ideas rolling around in my head, not sure what do to with it yet.
But in general, I know that changing the program is going to be necessary eventually so I can keep up muscular and strength gains, or at least, maintain if not improve… but acknowledge this will slow down if I’m trying to shed fat. My recovery will also be affected, thus a program change. But that alone won’t do it, and changing too much at one time isn’t wise either. Besides, like I said, I want to try to keep my bench press and deadlift gains going as long as I can, even if the other 2 lifts have slowed down.
So, work on my diet, add the jump rope, otherwise keep going, and we’ll see where this goes.
Stuff From Hsoi 
+1 on the “fix your diet” first approach. What you stuff in the pie-hole has an enormous effect on what the body does in terms of storage. Food is a drug. Seriously. It dramatically affects the hormonal balances in the body, and the composition of what you eat will have a huge effect! We still need to talk 🙂 Diet is going to fix the fat gain. You’re right, possibly at some expense in progress – but probably not.
If you have time, check this out: http://journal.crossfit.com/2010/04/insulin-body-weight-and-energy-production.tpl – there are three vids there (access them on the right side). Total of an hour and a half, but can easily be watched in smaller chunks. He gets a couple of minor details a little bit wrong, but by and large, this is good stuff and a reasonable primer on why we store fat 😉 Beware some language…
Incorporating some high intensity stuff at the end of the workout is not a bad way to go, and still keep working strength. Just try to string single unders together first, with the jump rope stuff 🙂 (side note – I’m a bit surprised how inefficient Ross’ double under technique is – look at all that motion in his hands and forearms…). If you like Tabata, you can do mashups, too – keep the work intervals the same, but do two exercises and alternate between them. Say, situps and single unders. Do 20 seconds of situps, rest 10, 20 seconds of SUs, rest 10, repeat appropriately… You an tabata just about anything, or do other intervals. Another good one is sprint intervals – you can tabata, or do interval repeats with short rests, or whatever… Can do the same on the bike or rower. God forbid, you could even do a short CrossFit style workout (which is high intensity, using various exercises with or without added resistance)…
One other thought – you mentioned clothes fit before… An unfortunate side effect of gaining muscle strength is that you usually gain some muscle mass, too. That tends to make clothes fit differently. Keeping it lean will definitely help, obviously – but you may find clothes not fitting anymore in certain places just because you’ve gained muscle mass, too. Not saying that’s going on with you right now, just warning you to be prepared for that possibility. Example – when trying on jeans, I wear a 34″ waist. But, jeans with that waist size don’t fit me through the hips and thighs due to glutes, hams, and quads… even if I get loose fit ones, my pockets are still tight. So, I have to upsize and then possibly wear a belt. Right now, Gap size 35s fit me best… A number of guys I’ve talked to have run into this issue… They don’t generally design clothes with athletes in mind 😉
I KNOW diet fixing is the key… it’s also the hardest part for me. A struggle for sure… lifting weight is easy by comparison. And if it costs me some lifting progress, that’s OK, because ultimately it’s still progress towards my greater goals.
I’ll try to watch the videos as I have time. When I mentioned “I have some questions for you”, a lot was along those lines of the insulin stuff.
I figured when mentioning Tabata that you’d start to figure I was getting some sort of CrossFit bug. 😉 One step at a time. I’ve always thought it’d be cool to jump rope like a boxer, with that sort of intensity and efficiency, plus the improvement on footwork that it brings. Maybe now is finally the time when I’ll see it through. Yes, just doing the simple single-unders with the “double-hop”… the playground technique. Just keeping it simple until I get more coordinated. We’ll see where it goes. The reality is I hate “long slow distance” stuff… the mainstream notion of “aerobic conditioning” just bores the hell out of me (it’s also why I hate bodyweight exercises). So if some sort of HIIT can work for me, I’ll try it.
And as for clothes fit, I do expect things will change as I pack on muscle — that I can accept. But because of fat gain? That I can’t accept. Hell, if I ever want to seriously experiment with appendix carry, I need to lose the gut first. 😉
I watched the videos, and they were dense. I think I’d need to watch them a few times to really digest it all.
Nevertheless, it was interesting to see how weight (fat) gain isn’t just as simple as calories in vs. calories out. Sure that’s part of it (eat 10 cals a day, unlikely to gain weight; eat 10,000 cals a day, unlikely to stay slim), but it’s far more about insulin reaction.
I did like his “200 over/under” approach: 200 grams or more of protein a day, 200 grams or less of carbs in a day. And if I can keep those to “raw plants”, like what we get out of our Johnson’s Backyard Garden box, some fruit, then I’ll be golden. I’m already pretty hip to cutting out grains… pasta never thrilled me much, I’m not much of a bread person any more. But what kills me are sweets, potato chips, and the worst for me: corn chips and salsa. I know what I need to cut out and do, but it’s just hard to do it… especially with my wife being so good in the kitchen, she makes some homemade cookies and man…. that’s when I break down. 🙂 And of course, I do use food in the face of stress… it brings about some pleasure, so when things in life get shitty I’m more apt to have a bowl of ice cream or a couple more cookies. And it all adds up.
Previously I had thought to myself to “aim for 0 carbs” in a day… that I wouldn’t hit it of course, but aiming for it would give me some sort of a guide. For instance, going to a Tex-Mex place and they’ll ask: corn or flour tortillas? neither, none. what kind of beans? none. double rice then? no. and just stick with the meat and basic veggies that come with and be happy. The point is, using “intake zero carbs” as a guide I don’t find myself wheedling or trying to justify a carb here or there (Oh, I can have some chips and salsa….). So I’m going to still stick with this as a GUIDE, but I think add in Dr. Connelly’s 200g or less as an actual measure. Then what carbs come as a result of the green peppers and onions and avacado and a little pico and salsa atop that fajita meat, that’s acceptable and builds towards the 200g, not to be exceeded.
And yes, I’m already striving to eat something every 3-4 hours.
We’ll see how it all goes. Good food for thought. And if you have any other particular recommendations, I’m all ears.
“Metabolic Conditioning” is not a term unique to CrossFit 🙂 In fact, it’s what boxers tend to use jump rope for, in the end… CrossFit prescribes a lot of metabolic conditioning – especially in the anaerobic pathways (there’s a strong reason for that – if you want to go into that, I point you at a couple of other vids on the CrossFit site…). But, yeah, I suspect I’ll eventually convince you to try it out – but that wasn’t the purpose behind giving you the label 🙂
I agree with you – long slow distance sucks. And for more reasons than “boring”… But I can make bodyweight exercises be “non-boring” 😉
Realize that avocado is actually considered to be more of a fat than a carb. Eat avo at will and with gusto! You can pretty much eat as much as you feel like you can (because it’s predominantly fat, it will tend to turn off your appetite much more quickly than carbs for other hormonal reasons – fat and protein both have very high satiety effects).
You have to be a little careful with dairy, FWIW – dairy has all three macronutrients, but tends to elicit a very strong insulin response (think about the purpose of milk in mammals, and it’ll make sense, now that you have a better understanding of the role insulin plays…). Also, if you can confine any carbs you do want to have that aren’t “slow carbs” (veggies, etc) to the period within an hour to an hour and a half after a workout, you’ll tend to stuff that glucose into your muscles instead of into adipose tissue – this is why using whey post-workout is not such a bad thing. The muscles are very insulin sensitive post-workout, and tend to soak up most of the glucose you put in as part of the dairy…
One strategy that I employ is to try to be squeaky clean all week, and then blow it out on a meal or two on Friday or Saturday night. Lots of ways to play with how/when to eat like hell. One of the reasons that you feel better when you eat lots of sugar is that the sugar is actually affecting serotonin levels – you are quite literally getting similar effects out of it that drug addicts get from their drug of choice, and getting similar impulses to use more sugar when your serotonin levels drop post-sugar.
The “200 over/under” approach isn’t bad – If you’re eating entirely (or almost all) your carbs as veggies and just a little fruit, you’ll have trouble getting over 200g of carbs a day. It’s practically impossible to do it that way… You basically don’t even have to count. To put it in real world terms, 200g of carbs requires something like 66 cups of spinach! 200g of protein is 28.5 ounces of most meats (chicken, beef, pork) – if you can pack 200g of carbs alongside that much protein, well… 🙂 Let’s put it this way – you won’t be hungry much… Unless I eat predominantly fruit, I have a hard time getting even 150g of carbs a day – and eating that much fruit is bad mojo, too, so…
Metcon may not be unique to CF, but it’s sure co-opted by them. 🙂
Your paragraph about dairy and slow carbs.. .am I understanding you correctly (or is there a typo)? Are you saying I should consume some “fast carbs” immediately after a workout? I want to burn off fat, thus I’d rather the glucose source NOT be from ingested carbs…. I’m thinking what you typed was missing a “not”… or I’m missing something.
Of course CrossFit uses the term a lot 🙂
I’m not saying you should eat fast carbs post workout. I’m say that, if you you’re going to eat them, the best time is post-workout.
Later on, when you lean out to the point where you want to be, you may find that you need to focus on glycogen repletion post-workout, and the best way to effect that is via some reasonably fast carb. Starchy carbs seem to be most in favor by the CrossFit community for that purpose – sweet potatoes and the like – though you’d find a wide array of post-workout fueling out there if you surveyed a lot of CF folks…
Oh ok, I see what you’re after. What you wrote makes sense, but I was interpreting it in the context of my present goals (fat loss), thus why I didn’t take it as you intended and it seemed like there was a typo. 🙂
But for now no, that isn’t what I’ll be doing… I want my body to replace glycogen stores from fat reserves. 🙂
Oh, BTW… classify the jumprope stuff as “Metabolic Conditioning” 🙂
You’ll make a CrossFitter out of me yet, eh? 😉
When I’m done with SS I’m going to move to 5/3/1 BBB. Eventually I want to start incorporating some LSD work as well on my off days. I’ve also been logging everything on Fitocracy.com to make things a little bit more entertaining; something else you might like. (I think it’s invite only still, but I have extra invites if you want to try it out)
There’s something about 5/3/1 BBB that just holds a lot of appeal. But if you can do LSD stuff, you’re a better man than I — as I commented above, I just can’t stand that stuff, thus my decision to explore HIIT. I’d actually like to consider things like hill sprints, but 1. there’s not much for hills here 2. what hills I can find that might work are all covered in concrete and will kill my shins/knees — the rope jumping has worked for me in the past, since the impact gets absorbed by the balls of my feet and calf muscles (tho in time it too may prove to be painful, we’ll see).
Never heard of that Fitocracy.com before. Tell me more about what it’s like. I’m logging all my stuff in two places: 1. an Excel spreadsheet (helps me do all the calculations and statistics), 2. here on the blog because I believe letting this all be public keeps me honest and accountable in some way.
From the site:
Surpass your fitness goals by turning exercise into a game. Earn points for your workouts, unlock achievements, and tackle special challenges to push yourself forward. Level up in Fitocracy and level up in real life.
My brother in law is also on there so we can keep each other accountable and spurs a little competition. I also like that it has different challenges and achievements that make it a little more fun. A lot of the achievements are geared to the type of lifting we are doing as well. It is in beta right now and invite only, but I have 8 invites and can always get more. I’ll just post the link and you and any of your readers that might want to try can check it out. (I’m not affiliated or gain anything for passing out invites, just like to play around with the service.)
http://ftcy.co/jrsA4O
I just wondered how “gamey” the site was. Is it actually a game? Or more that you just track your progress and it has motivators and rewards and “achievements”, like video games have these days, to help you along and keep you motivated?
I’ll try poking at it. Can’t hurt. 🙂
Thanx!
You track your progress and get achievements and quests like a video game is pretty darn close. They are also working on implementing some stuff to better track your progress with charts and graphs, personal bests and lots of other stuff. They have the potential to make it pretty cool, just have to see where they take it I guess.
I created an account and poked around a bit. Not sure I’ll use it…. not sure if it’ll fit with how I do things. But I do see it having a lot of potential, and certainly it puts a fun twist on things.
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