I guess I’m excited for the next 15-ish weeks as I start on a very different program – because all weekend long my dreams were about the gym. ZMA makes for funky dreams. 🙂

I’m starting on 2 things today:

1. Renaissance Periodization Diet Template
2. Renaissance Periodization Physique Template

The diet goal is to shed 10-20 pounds (hopefully closer to 20) over the next 12-ish weeks. Following a fat-loss template from RP, and striving for a few things this time around:

• More front-end meal-prep, to make it easier to get meals in.
• Letting the earlier weeks be more tasty, saving the bland for the later weeks when it’ll be difficult anyways. Thinking here is if I’m eating chicken for 12 weeks, I’m going to quickly be miserable and then the later weeks will be really miserable. So up front, when I could have slightly fattier foods, have those now, like lean beef. That way when the templates basically force me to have to eat really lean and clean, then maybe I won’t be totally sick of the foods yet and there’ll be some novelty to get me through. We’ll see if this works.
• Don’t worry about strength loss — focus on fat loss (and muscle retention).
• Enjoy the process of becoming lighter and leaner (h/t to Shelby Starnes).

And so my gym work is going to be based on the RP Physique Templates. I picked the 4-day, full-body approach, on the novice/intermediate level. I debated if I should have done novice/intermediate vs. advanced, because their criteria was benching 225 for 10 reps — which I can do — so maybe I should have gone for the advanced template. But sometimes when doing something totally new it’s good to start from the beginning to see what you can learn. So here I am.

Of course, today was totally light and easy. It’s the first day of the cycle, where it’s about starting and getting acclimated. So the workload really wasn’t that tough, and it’s not supposed to be.

That said, there was some new stuff to get used to.

First, right now I have to stop about 3 reps from failure. That’s not something I’m used to. I really wanted to keep going, but I had to cut it off when I felt I got to that point. That was novel.

Second, they provide videos to show how you should execute the movements, and some of it was different enough. Like all the bench pressing was more bodybuilder style, with upper arms more perpendicular to the torso. The BB Rows came to the bellybutton, which I normally don’t do (more upper-abdomen), but wow what a difference in the lats engagement. And everything is with a pause to eliminate momentum. Really changes things, and was tough for me to focus on. So of course, this is why you gotta start really light and easy — you gotta get used to everything new. 🙂

I expect the coming weeks will adjust up to being rather difficult. Looking forward to seeing where this goes.

RP Physique, Mesocycle 1, Week 1

• Incline Wide Grip Bench Press
  • bar x 10
  • 95 x 10
  • 135 x 5
  • 165 x 10
  • 165 x 8
  • 165 x 6
• Incline Dumbbell Flye
  • 20e x 20 (too easy)
  • 25e x 20 (too easy)
  • 30e x 13
• Flat Dumbbell Bench Press
  • 80e x 10
  • 80e x 8
• Barbell Bent Over Row
  • bar x 10
  • 95 x 10
  • 115 x 5
  • 130 x 12
  • 130 x 10
  • 130 x 8
• Normal Grip Pulldown
  • 100 x 12
  • 100 x 12
  • 100 x 10
• Dumbbell Side Lateral Raise
  • 20e x 13
  • 20e x 10
  • 20e x 9
• Slant Board Sit-up
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10