Yes, I took yesterday off. I had a long weekend, exhausted. The best thing was to not lift but instead to sleep.

Today went quite well.

I upped my bench weight. I was calculating off an EDM of 240, and since I hit the 15 rep mark on the AMRAP set it was time to up the weight and go back to around 8 reps on AMRAP. I recalculated the EDM at 255 and off I went. I was surprised that the 215 felt so easy, and I cranked the 190 for 12 reps. I am not sure what to attribute it to. Did I recalculate wrong? Is my body still ramping up after being deprived for so long? finally food (carbs!), creatine, etc.? Hard to say, but here I am. I see no reason to adjust, just hopefully means progress will continue.

And everything else went up too. More reps on everything. I simply cannot complain. Again, it feels good to be making forward progress in the gym again.

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Bench Press
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 100 x 5
  • 125 x 4
  • 155 x 3
  • 190 x 2
  • 215 x 1
  • 190 x 12 (AMRAP)
  • 190 x 6 (50%)
• Incline Press (350 Method)
  • 95 x 22
  • 95 x 14
  • 95 x 12
• BB Row
  • 155 x 8
  • 155 x 8
  • 125 x 12
  • 125 x 8
• Wide Pronated-Grip Pulldown (350 Method)
  • 110 x 20
  • 110 x 16
  • 110 x 12
• BB Curl (350 Method)
  • 40 x 25
  • 40 x 18
  • 40 x 15

Biggest thing I can say about today is that I don’t think I push bodyweight exercises as much as I should.

I tend to move steady with them, not explosive. Nor do I always push them as much as I should.

For example, that last dip rep… I was almost failing and did NOT want to do fewer reps that I did last week, so I just put more explosive into the movement and cranked it out. I bet I could have done another one that way. So… why aren’t I? Why aren’t I pushing this more?

Which leads to the next issue, that I really should push my bodyweight works (dips, chins, etc.) further. Why am I caring to save one for later? Why not push it all the way? So I only get a half-rep out… fine… count it as a half-rep, especially if I ensure I don’t drop it but then take the half-rep, the few seconds of struggle “holding” it, then ensure I let down slowly. That’s how you get more chins eventually, and that’s how I’ll break through the plateau.

I really need to push myself more… not sure why I treat the bodyweight stuff differently, but here’s to breaking that treatment.

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Overhead Press
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 60 x 5
  • 75 x 4
  • 90 x 3
  • 110 x 2
  • 125 x 1
  • 115 x 12 (AMRAP)
  • 115 x 6 (50%)
• Dips (350 Method)
  • BW x 16
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 8
• Chin-ups
  • BW x REP
  • BW x REP
  • BW x REP
  • BW x REP
  • BW x REP
• DB Rows (350 method)
  • 50e x 23
  • 50e x 18
  • 50e x 15
• DB Curl (350 Method)
  • 25e x 21
  • 25e x 15
  • 25e x 12

Today was another brief day.

I had to get on the road… but also sleep continues to be deprived, but getting better. So I left out the lunges to avoid digging too deep into recovery needs as I’m deep enough. But that said, on my way out I did a bunch of walking lunges until I couldn’t do any more. So, something. 🙂

I must admit that leg presses are becoming something I can deal with more, because I cannot deny that the higher-rep work, with the narrower, more “forward” stance, just really kills my quads. I dig that.

Still trying to work on my front squat form. Always improving, but still a long way to go. I still think I’m getting too deep… probably be useful if I could have someone actively watching me and calling. But alas, I train alone. I’ll get there.

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Front Squat
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 85 x 5
  • 105 x 4
  • 135 x 3
  • 155 x 2
  • 175 x 1
  • 145 x 11 (AMRAP)
  • 145 x 6 (50%)
• Leg Press (350 Method)
  • 275 x 25
  • 275 x 20
  • 275 x 15

Things held, and in fact progressed a little bit. So, time to up the numbers!

With the way Paul’s programming works, now that I’m hitting 15 reps on the bench AMRAP it’s time to up the weight. While I hit the number last week, I opted to try it again this week because, coming off the fat-loss diet, I’m still getting my legs under me — did I just have a good day? or did I actually go up? Well, hitting things again with the bench and then everything else going up as well? Yeah, time to up the weight.

That feels so good! To be making forward progress like this again. Oh I know… I was also making forward progress in the fat-loss area, so all is good. But the ultimate goal is getting stronger, and that only happens if the weights and reps are increasing. 🙂

So next week, I’ll up things. I’ve been using 240# as my EDM for calculations. Fiddling with numbers a bit, I’m going to go 255#, which after doing the number crunching winds up being either a 5# or 10# increase each set. I think that should suffice and get the AMRAP sets back down to about 8 reps. I’ll adjust as needed.

One thing it made me think about was the whole “getting bigger” or “getting stronger”. My goal, post-fat-loss, is to get my strength back AND the big goal being 3/4/5 (300 or 3 wheels bench, 400 or 4 wheels squat, 500 or 5 wheels deadlift). So of course, that’s all about strength. But I’ve lost some muscle mass, and some strength too. So I’ve been wondering really what will I do once I’m totally done with the fat-loss? Honestly, I’m starting to lean towards building muscle, because I think that will be the immediate need post-defattening. But here’s the kick. I really want to keep trying Pauls’ protocols, but I keep floating back to 5/3/1 because I know that’s a very logical progression that will get me stronger (and a little bigger). Paul’s protocols don’t feel as straightforward, and on paper it feels like following his approach would make for solid – but slower – progress. But here’s what hit me today. If progress can be maintained on this “massing” program like this… like 1 more AMRAP rep each week, that’s about 8 weeks or so per “cycle” before you’d bump weight. And if when bumping weight you’re going to go up 10-15-20#, gee… isn’t that a rate of progress about the same as 5/3/1? So gee… of course, this program isn’t geared towards “stronger”, it’s geared towards “bigger”, but in part the two go hand-in-hand. And if I can focus on bigger but strength comes along at a reasonable rate… well gee, I could be alright with this. Because again, Paul’s programming seems to give me solid progress AND beat me up a lot less, so it’s great.

It makes me think that it might wind up being some sort of cycle, of like 2-3 months of his massing approach followed by 6 weeks of a Strong-15 short cycle, then back to 2-3 months of massing, Strong-15 short, etc. And cycle that way. I wonder what that might do for me.

I don’t know. Just thinking out loud, because well… happy to be back on the upward trend. 🙂

Oh… and it really sucks to get 2 reps into what you know will be 15 reps… and have to fart. What DO you do? Other than struggle to maintain focus instead of losing tightness because you either let the fart out or want to start laughing. 🙂

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Bench Press
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 95 x 5
  • 120 x 4
  • 145 x 3
  • 180 x 2
  • 205 x 1
  • 180 x 15 (AMRAP)
  • 180 x 7 (50%)
• Incline Press (350 Method)
  • 95 x 18
  • 95 x 14
  • 95 x 12
• BB Row
  • 155 x 8
  • 155 x 8
  • 125 x 12
  • 125 x 8
• Wide Pronated-Grip Pulldown (350 Method)
  • 110 x 20
  • 110 x 14
  • 110 x 12
• BB Curl (350 Method)
  • 40 x 23
  • 40 x 16
  • 40 x 13

Today was kinda cool.

I am very mentally distracted — some big life stuff weighing on me. So I really didn’t pay much attention to things… no idea how many reps to hit, just figured I knew the goal is 18-20 reps and I wasn’t anywhere near that yet so, just keep going until you either hit those reps or hit failure.

And… I got a few more reps than last week. So I do hope this means that things are on an upward trend for me now. 🙂 Still not enough data points to truly say, but so far so good.

One thing on the stiff-legs was (almost) forgetting to mix-grip the AMRAP set. Last week it was my grip that gave out before everything else, so halfway through I remembered and switched my grip. It was a good thing, but threw off my groove… meh. No complaints really. I still cranked out more than last week, I just need to remember before I start.

But that’s all I did. I didn’t do the splits squats. Again, with all the life stuff weighing on me, the poor sleep I’ve been getting as a result… well… if I’m not able to recover as well as I need to, there’s no point in digging my hole deeper right now. Did the main work, that was enough.

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Squat
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 145 x 4
  • 175 x 3
  • 225 x 2
  • 250 x 1
  • 205 x 14 (AMRAP)
  • 205 x 7 (50%)
• Stiff Legged Deadlift
  • 135 x 5
  • 165 x 4
  • 200 x 3
  • 250 x 2
  • 285 x 1
  • 235 x 13 (AMRAP)

The mind matters.

I’ve got some heavy shit on my mind, so I’m not sleeping well. Then about half-way through I was just so distracted I wanted to just call it and go home. But no… am I going to let this issues own me, or do I own them? So I pushed through, had a reasonable session all things considered. It wasn’t great, but given the mental state of things… I’ll take it.

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Overhead Press
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 60 x 5
  • 75 x 4
  • 90 x 3
  • 110 x 2
  • 125 x 1
  • 115 x 11 (AMRAP)
  • 115 x 5 (50%)
• Dips (350 Method)
  • BW x 15
  • BW x 11
  • BW x 8
• Chin-ups
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 4
  • BW x 4
  • BW x 3
  • BW x 3
• DB Rows (350 method)
  • 50 x 20
  • 50 x 15
  • 50 x 13
• DB Curl (350 Method)
  • 25e x 20
  • 25e x 13
  • 25e x 10

Don’t know what to make of today.

My head was elsewhere… just some things about life. So I wasn’t into things. But even still, I thought the session was generaly OK.

When front squatting, I’m trying to work on technique, but I was focusing so much on upright that I totally missed depth. Rather, I was hitting too much depth, going WAY below parallel. I noticed that what feels normal depth from all the back squatting, that same feeling is WAY deep for front squats; I have to feel like I’m cutting depth really short and THAT is parallel for front squats. Well… I was going WAY deep, which I noticed because everything felt normal (bad sign) and then I only hit 10 on the AMRAP set before I started falling forward and losing the bar. I videoed the 50% set and sure enough I was WAY down in the hole… which of course isn’t horrible, but isn’t really what I want.

So is this progress?

In a way, yes, because I hit the same reps as last week but doing something harder. But I don’t like it because it wasn’t more reps (plain and simple) AND because I was slipping on technique. But then, I was trying to work on fixing upper-body issues and well… you can only focus on so much. So… whatever. It was what it was; learn from it, move on.

Leg presses then certainly went up in weight, and oddly hit almost the same reps as last week (just a couple shy). I’ll stay at this weight tho and really crank out more reps before I go up again. But taking the narrower “higher” stance is really doing a number on my quads. I dig it.

And lunges… I just hate them. 😉

So, despite being out of it, it wasn’t a bad session.

Oh, and I’m STILL at 217 lbs. Been almost 2 weeks at this weight, so… i can haz moar füd now? plez, Nick? 🙂

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Front Squat
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 85 x 5
  • 105 x 4
  • 135 x 3
  • 155 x 2
  • 175 x 1
  • 145 x 10 (AMRAP)
  • 145 x 6 (50%)
• Leg Press (350 Method)
  • 275 x 20
  • 275 x 18
  • 275 x 15
• Lunge
  • 45 x 12
  • 45 x 12
  • 45 x 12
  • 45 x 10
  • 45 x 10

Gettin’ better.

Man, this feels a lot better than the past many months. I am making forward progress. Right now it’s just more reps, but that’s progress! It feels good physically but more so mentally. This is really the sort of break I needed.

Benching went fine. I was surprised I got 15 on the AMRAP set. That is the signal to add more weight, but given how transitional everything is right now, I’m going to stick at these weights at least 1 more week to see how things go.

Rows were… different. Because I dropped below 135 that meant I used the 25# plates. The gym used to have some 10 kilo bumpers, and I also recall a set of 35’s, but they are no where to be found. Thus the range of motion was greater. Instead of touching ground tho, I just let my arms extend as much as I was willing (didn’t want to go slack with the weight in my hands and thus pulling on my shoulders), and just rowed. That kept tension the whole time, which I’ll take.

Oh, and I weighed 216 this morning, which surprised me given how I ate yesterday. I’m good with this tho… because I wouldn’t expect to bloat up today, tomorrow is a rest day, so I do hope this means moar food! 😉

As well, I was NOT as sore today as I was same time last week. Body is getting used to this. Huzzah.

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Bench Press
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 95 x 5
  • 120 x 4
  • 145 x 3
  • 180 x 2
  • 205 x 1
  • 180 x 15 (AMRAP)
  • 180 x 7 (50%)
• Incline Press (350 Method)
  • 95 x 19
  • 95 x 12
  • 95 x 1
• BB Row
  • 155 x 8
  • 155 x 8
  • 125 x 12
  • 125 x 7
• Wide Pronated-Grip Pulldown (350 Method)
  • 110 x 18
  • 110 x 14
  • 110 x 12
• BB Curl (350 Method)
  • 40 x 20
  • 40 x 15
  • 40 x 12

Better. Not sure why, but better.

Today went better than last week, which is great! I’d like to attribute it to MOAR FOOD, but it’s hard to tell.

Is it because more food (well, more carbs) and so I have more energy? Is it because of the creatine? Is it because my priority this weekend has been to nap every chance I get (and I’ve been doing so)? Is it because I just felt good today? It is because my body is more used to the workout and thus just worked better at it? Combination? Something else? Hard to say.

But whatever the exact reason, to see increase over last week is such a refreshing change from the months of stagnation due to the Defattening Project. My body is feeling so much better, I can’t begin to tell you.

And I’ve been holding weight. I’ve been 217 for a little over a week now, tho I was actually 216 even this morning, so I lost some yesterday (an off/rest day, so not many carbs consumed). The plan is if I stay here at 217 a little longer that we’ll bump up my food intake a bit more. Frankly, I am going to work hard to say at 217 until the next weigh-in so I can get my food bumped. 😉

And with gym sessions like this? I reckon it’ll happen. Man, again it doesn’t look like much on paper, but it sure does work you. Those split squats are deceptive….

Squats overall felt better. I still am bummed that I appear to have lost so much squat strength, but I am feeling better under the bar so I’ll just go with it. It’ll be a while at this weight since the plan is the AMRAP’s should work up to about 18-20 reps before you increase the weight. So it just means I gotta crank on the AMRAP. I think that will go a little slower tho, because I have to get used to higher reps like that. I peed out more from “too many reps”. 🙂 Tho on that 6th of the 50% I could have done 1-2 more, I racked it. It was a very solid 6th rep (last week’s 6th was kinda slow). So, tho it’s only a little increase, it’s still an increase. Awesome.

Stiffs ended at 12 reps because I was losing grip. I know I could have gone longer if not for grip. So I think I need to start using mixed grip on the AMRAP set, or look into straps. I’ll go mixed-first. I just have to remember to do it.

And split squats. Geez…. I hate doing so many reps, and it’s really double since it’s 20 reps per set each leg (so really 40 reps per set). But damn it hurts. 🙂 This is totally where the soreness comes from.

So yeah… I’m digging this new setup. It’s only the start of week 2 on it, but so far so good.

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Squat
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 145 x 4
  • 175 x 3
  • 225 x 2
  • 250 x 1
  • 205 x 12 (AMRAP)
  • 205 x 6 (50%)
• Stiff Legged Deadlift
  • 135 x 5
  • 165 x 4
  • 200 x 3
  • 250 x 2
  • 285 x 1
  • 235 x 12 (AMRAP)
• Split Squats
  • BW x 20
  • BW x 20
  • BW x 20
  • BW x 16
  • BW x 13

First true week down, and I’m doing well.

I do like the change of pace. I do like the simpler approach. And I do feel worked by the end of it. I certainly feel more worked on the lower days than upper days, because well, focus and volume. But again this is an experiment to see how such a program might work for me. And I gotta admit, as much as I’m enjoying Paul Carter’s methodologies, part of me is wanting to get back to 5/3/1 I think because of the “rapid” pace of strength gains. I’m sure I could actually run Paul’s Strong-15 for a few cycles in a row, but that’s not really what it’s about. So I dunno. But it doesn’t matter — until I’m done defatting myself, gym time is basically bodybuilding oriented.

I am happier to see more reps, better performance. Hooray for food! 😉 Next week will be the telling week tho. I expect to increase, like at least 1 rep on the AMRAP sets.

I’m also really happy with something. Dips. I used to not be able to do any. Now I crank out 15 and that’s 15 after a bunch of pressing. In the grand scheme it’s nothing, but it’s significant for me. I’ll be happy when I get 10 chin-ups. While it seems like I’ve regressed on those I really haven’t; I’ve gotten stricter, especially about getting into the bottom position. I used to cut it a little short because of shoulder issues, but my shoulders have been feeling so much better and I’ve just naturally been allowing myself to get lower and be at almost a dead hang (I don’t go fully dead, fully limp, but I’m pretty much all the way down). And other things like really clearing the chin over the bar (not just “reaching” the chin to the bar), that there’s no relief in the bottom position (I might touch my toe to the ground briefly to stop any swaying, but I try to avoid allowing the foot to support anything). So, on paper I haven’t progressed, but they are more quality chin-ups. I’m good with that.

I tried rotating DB curls today. Technically Paul’s program is “Dumbbell Curls”. I thought, for a giggle, try rotating. So that’s where in the bottom position the hand is pronated, and at the top it’s supinated. I don’t think I’ll do that again. I never felt like I got anything out of the rotation. Pick a position (pronated, neutral, supinated) and just stick with it. Hell, I think I’d get more out of reverse grip curls for that matter. Ah well.

Based on Paul Carter’s “Guaranteed Muscle Mass” article.

• Overhead Press
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 60 x 5
  • 75 x 4
  • 90 x 3
  • 110 x 2
  • 125 x 1
  • 115 x 10 (AMRAP)
  • 115 x 5 (50%)
• Dips (350 Method)
  • BW x 15
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 9
• Chin-ups
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 4
  • BW x 4
  • BW x 3
  • BW x 3
• DB Rows (350 method)
  • 45e x 25
  • 45e x 19
  • 45e x 15
• DB Curl (350 Method)
  • 25e x 15
  • 25e x 14
  • 25e x 12