If you come here for the not-workout articles, leave now. 🙂  If you read the workout stuff, read on.

So my primary goal has been trying to shed the fat. I managed to drop 10# and plateaued. The fat loss work was driving me crazy. Too little to eat, stress of job and life, and it just drove me batty. I tried various adjustments of diet and plan to make it a little more manageable. For example, instead of spreading it out over 5 meals, try 4, or try 3. That helped to a degree, because I could have a meal and feel better in that meal… felt more satisfied, not so much like I was denying myself.

Still, I stagnated. I probably needed to drop my calories even more. But I am really hating that because I’m losing too much strength. My workouts are becoming less fun. But I am liking my switch back to a simpler workout program, basically the Wendler 5/3/1 program Boring But Big template. I cannot deny how much I like that program.

I also opted to start to find a different route to caloric and thus flab-reduction goals. I learned that I do need carbs to some extent. I cannot cut them out like I was doing when I was striving to be paleo — my body just won’t function well without some carbs. By my carb choices have changed a lot, settling on things like Ezekiel bread and brown rice, maybe some more carb-heavy veggies like squashes and whatever comes in our CSA box. I’m still toying with my macros, and currently leaning towards something like 1.0 to 1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight, and then maybe 0.5 or so grams of carbs per pound with fats being as minimal as possible but not sweating it too much. Basically, keep protein high and carbs low, giving me what I need to get through but no more. I’m still working to find where that exact balance is.

Then I want to change up my workout.

I’m going to stick primarily with Wendler 5/3/1 and BBB, but I’m thinking about some minor modifications. I’ve been reading a lot about powerbuilding, with guys like Josh Bryant and Metroflex. Trouble is, I’m trying to glean principles — what is it that makes it not powerlifting, not bodybuilding, but this new thing “powerbuilding”. Well, it’s not really new… but just like with 5/3/1 you can look at a lot of specifics but also fall back to see what Jim’s guiding principles are, I’ve been trying to glean out some principles in powerbuilding. I may not be on the exact right course, but I have some ideas of things I’d like to try throwing in.

One thing I’m thinking about is changing the movement assistance work. That is, BBB says to take your main lift, drop the weight to 50-60%, then go 5×10 across. Well, when you do that, if you want rep 10 of set 5 to be tough then rep 10 of set 1 is pretty easy. Or if you make rep 10 of set 1 really easy, then it’s tough to get all 10 reps out of set 5. Well, what if instead every set and every rep was tough to get 10 reps? The way to do that is vary the weight. So set 1 uses X amount of weight, and set 5 uses Y, with Y < X. In essense, you’re doing drop sets, or rest-pause, just that the rest might be a little longer (60-90 seconds).

Another thing is what I just did on the bench press 14-3 workout, throwing in some “pump sets” at the end. In that workout I did all my work, then did a set of flies with light weight and high reps to failure; immediately followed by rope-handle triceps pushdowns with light weight high reps to failure, dropping the weight, and continuing to failure; immediately followed by barbell curls with light weight and high reps to failure, dropping the weight and continuing to failure. Basically, just get a pump. I didn’t do much this first workout because I knew doing just a little bit would be enough to make me sore… work up to more sets of this.

Exactly what I’ll do, I’m not sure. But basically I want to lift more… heavier, more reps, more volume. Keep 5/3/1 for a core strength foundation, but do a little more work to get me pumped both in terms of muscle growth and my heart rate. I’m continuing to pour over the powerbuilding documents that I can find, to see what I can glean.

As an interesting aside… one thing I opted to get back to doing is pull-up/chin-up work. I considered buying a set of bands to assist me, but while searching around I stumbled upon this video from Scooby:

I might see about adding that in. I’ve read all the various ways to get your chin-up reps up, but stagnated in my progress. He’s laying out a nice progression here using all those same sorts of steps (negatives, holds, assistance, etc.), so it seems like a program worth trying. I’d probably start with his step 3 or 4. Not sure where or how I’d work this in, but it does fit nicely with my 2x week workout.

The other thing I need to do is get back to conditioning work. My ankle is just going to be what it’s going to be. Oddly, the more I’m getting back on it, the better it feels. It actually makes sense, and as long as I’m careful about it I should be OK. I’ll probably start out just doing some brisk walks. Once things are really feeling better, I hope to get back to dragging that tire sled.

I’m hoping these things will help me get closer to my goals. Yeah, I won’t shed the fat as fast, but you know what? If it takes me 6-9 months, if I’m working hard, if I’m feeling good, then so what? I can live with that. Hell… if it basically allows me to drop 1-2# a week and not be miserable, still feel like I’m making progress in all desired areas… heck, I’ll be OK with that sort of results. I’d rather be in this for the long haul.

I’ve got a bunch to still think about in terms of exactly how to mesh this all together, but these are the thoughts going through my head right now.