Geez… I’ve been doing Wendler 5/3/1 for 12 cycles now… well, about to start my 12th.
I actually will have been doing Wendler for a year come August, and I’ll look back on that year then. But right now I wanted to look at some current things.
My shoulder/upper back/neck feels better since whatever I did to it on Monday. It’s been a lot of stretching, getting Wife to walk on my back, twisting, Aleve, and every so often getting a pop and crack in my upper back or neck and that makes things a little better.
As I start this 12th cycle, I’m going to bump up the assistance volume a bit, adding a 4th set. I am taking a bit more of a bodybuilder type of approach here, dropping weight down but picking reps up and reducing rest. Yes, work for the pump. I feel like 3 sets just gets me started and stopping after the 3rd set isn’t giving me enough, so let’s try adding a 4th and see what happens. And I think dips are doing wonders for my upper body as I’ve seen an increase in upper body mass from the past few weeks. Sweet.
Because… while I enjoy my strength going up and still wish to primarily focus on that, I think for me to go much further I need to do two things: decrease my fat mass and increase my muscle mass. Increase of muscle mass is primary.
I have been thinking about some sort of increased conditioning, especially since I’m only hitting the gym twice a week. I’d love a Prowler, but 1. the cost, 2. I think running it up and down my street will annoy my neighbors a little too much. So a sled would be cheaper, but I think still have the noise. So I’m wondering about getting a used tire and making my own sled from it, which should be less expensive and while making noise I reckon rubber on pavement will be less noise than a steel plate on pavement. I reckon if I could drag a sled a couple of times a week, keep my diet the same, that should be sufficient.
Just need to see where I can get a good tire on the cheap or free.
I have also been thinking longer term, about switching up the program entirely and trying to have a solid focus on things like purely fat loss or purely muscle mass gain. But, I don’t know. I want to get my strength numbers up higher than they are. I would love to join the 1000# club within the next year — I’m close. And I think I need to stay on that course, and just tweak my program to get me there. So fat loss really isn’t in the cards, just managing it so I don’t pack on the fat and if I perhaps shed a couple of pounds of fat a month, awesome, but that’s more residual than direct goal. But I do think adding some muscle mass will help me get there. There’s been some mass gain of course, but no question the strength-oriented program is making me stronger and not much bigger. I’ve been seeing some mass growth since I changed up to the 2x/week program, and it’s hard to say exactly what of that helped me. But… let’s just keep on the course and see where we can go with minor changes and experimentations to get me where I want to go.
Stuff From Hsoi 
I’m curious about the diet component of your program. You don’t talk about it much. Just wondering what works best for you in the nutrition area.
I don’t talk much about my diet because there’s not much to talk about. 🙂 It’s also one area I struggle in and am continually experimenting. The more I look at things I find there may be some general principles out there, but you really have to find what works for you and that will take lots of time, dedication, frustration, and experimentation.
As for what I’m doing now….
I try to take in at least 300g of protein a day. Right now the way it flows is I have 3 meals a day. I’ll take 2 scoops of whey powder and mix it in something, usually milk (whole milk, typically since that’s what the Kiddos drink, but it can whatever milk we have on hand), tho the one I have while at work is mixed with water. That’s about 50g of protein there. Then I try to take in 8-16 oz of “meat” at that meal too. I give that range because it just depends on what I’m eating. If it’s pure meat, like a steak, I’ll try to keep it in the 8-10 oz range. If Wife made something like a casserole, I’ll probably have up to 16 oz of that because it’s hard to weigh out and get an exact meat count, y’know?
Yes, I have a kitchen scale and weigh things. That’s been a big help.
Fats, I don’t care much about. I don’t drink a vat of Crisco, but I also don’t sweat this too much. I try to generally keep lean, but it is what it is.
Carbs is where I flux a lot. On workout days I’ll eat. I don’t gorge or anything, but say I’ll have a cup of brown rice with lunch. Or if I had to buy my lunch at work, I might go to Subway and get a 12″ roast beef with double meat and not be upset about eating the bread. But the day immediately after my workout, I try to keep carbs as close to 0g as possible. Just protein and fat, and on these days I might up the fat a little more to help with appetite, e.g. if I had to choose between skim or whole milk for my whey drink, I’ll choose whole. On the day after that, I’ll up the carbs a bit, but again keep it moderate.
When it comes to fruit/veggies with little carbs, like most veggies, I just eat all I want. We get a veggie CSA box from a local farmer every week, so that’s really good at giving me lots of good things to eat without hurting my diet much.
In terms of supplements: whey powder, creatine (CreaPure) with about 5g every day, NOW Adam gelcaps (2 a day), I’ll take in about 3g extra vitamin C throughout the day, about 6g fish oil throughout the day, I’m experimenting with some green tea extract capsules right now but not sure I’ll keep them, I take some ZMA before bed. And lots of water.
Right now this seems to be working for me, given lifestyle and goals. I am seeing good results with strength and mass, and fat seems to be holding steady. It’s hard on the no-carb or minimal-carb days because I live in a household that can’t always cater to my needs (tho to Wife’s credit she tries her best and I love her for it), and I know when I can’t stick to those they hurt my progress. But this seem to be helping me because I realized going the total “Atkins” or “Paleo” style diet was NOT working for me… my body said “Hell no”. So I strive to follow those methods as I can, but I have to adjust because my body said so, and it seems to be happier for it and progress is better for it.
That help any? If you have specific questions I can answer them. I’m no guru at this… this is just my personal journey.
I’m relieved to know that even on that diet (which is roughly the same as I follow – protein shakes, no carbs, no sugar) you still feel that you haven’t found the right combination to get your weight where you want it. Same here, although the trainer I go to keeps telling me to stop worrying about weight, it’s only body fat % that matters. I seem to find a combination that works for me (no carbs, no sugar, no dairy) and I’ll drop several pounds, then stabilize. Frustrating, but at least we’re fighting the good fight. And congrats on the p.r. Nothing like a personal best to keep you going to the gym.
Note that I’m not really caring about losing weight… I mean, I do in the sense that I don’t want to become a tub of lard, and I would love to shed the muffin top. But I am more interested in strength gains right now and that means I need to eat and if some fat comes along, it does. It’s just the way it goes. But I am trying to keep it at bay… keep the gains reasonable.
I would say that weight matters, but he’s right that fat % matters more. That’s why I don’t pay much attention to the scale because well, my weight’s been pretty steady but I can see I’m gaining muscle mass, thus if the scale value doesn’t change I must also be losing some fat… slowly, but that’s how it goes. So… fine with me.
But that is also how it goes… you move around, you get something that works, then the body hits a plateau, then you have to adjust… it’s just experimenting and time. It’s a slow process, but eventually we get there. 🙂
Good luck!