Feeling dejected, but hopeful.

I’ve been sitting at a bodyweight of 216 for a few weeks now. I should be down, not steady. The things we changed up didn’t seem to have effect, so we’re upping the ante. Pretty much no more fat in my life, and I’m now hitting the gym 4x/week instead of 3. The gym sessions will be more or less the same as I have been, just minor mods.

I am still following a Base Building philosophy. With 4 days it’ll be: squat, bench, deadlift, press. I’ll give the main work in a Base Building style, then the assistance work will try to inverse pyramid. That is, start with good assistance exercises that are more compound, heavier weight, fewer reps, then progress to more isolated stuff (tho not entirely — no concentration curls here) with lighter weight and more reps. The lighter stuff can go closer to failure, but no pushing past it (e.g. drop sets, rest-pause, etc.). Keeping rest times to about 60 seconds. And just try to move move move.

Thus today’s squat session wasn’t much different than last week, but I did change up a few things.

First, I am thinking if things keep up as they are, I’ll probably bump it to model 2 as the work sets here are already pretty easy. I’d rather try going to model 2 before I increase the weight. I’ll see how next week goes, then judge from there.

Leg presses continue to use a narrower, lower stance. To help with that pressing motion, instead of pushing through my heels I remembered a better tip: lift the big toe. That keeps things “flat” and oh that seemed to hit everything just right. I’m also upping the weight a little bit, wanting to keep the leg presses more on the heavier side. I do hope this will be effective in bringing up my quad strength as for sure that’s my weak point.

Then the lunges… oh dear lord. I hate lunges, but I do them because there’s no question they help my knee. If I keep doing them, over time it’s been a huge help. So I need to keep doing them. Today for variety I opted to do walking lunges instead of in-place stepping out and back lunges. Geez… that sucked. 🙂 I also work to keep good posture, no leaning forward, very upright. That helps the hurt. Yeah, I should keep these up.

Now, I had planned to throw in some light leg extensions at the end, again towards helping my knee. But I couldn’t. My quads were trashed after the lunges. So I did leg curls instead. First, I think that may be a better option overall. Second, what hurt more was my quads! The physical pressure of resting on my aching, pumped quads, the simple pressure against them… that hurt more than anything. 🙂

So, we’ll see how all this goes and where it takes me.

• Squat (Base Building model 1)
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 140 x 5
  • 165 x 4
  • 195 x 3
  • 215 x 2
  • 240 x 1
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
• Leg Press
  • 345 x 10
  • 345 x 10
  • 345 x 9
  • 345 x 6
• Walking Lunges
  • BW x 12
  • BW x 12
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 8
• Leg Curls
  • 40 x 12
  • 40 x 12
  • 40 x 8

Well, it was fun while it lasted. 🙂

I am NOT making progress on the fat loss. It’s actually really mystifying to me because after over a year of doing this I have a pretty good handle on my body rhythms and flow of how the weight fluxes happen, and I just haven’t been seeing that same pattern. It’s quite strange and I don’t know what to make of it.

And frankly, I’m annoyed. I was aiming to be maybe 210 by now but I’m not…. 216 still…. still… still. grr….

So yes, going to drop the food intake, and up the work. I have a new plan set up that I’ll start on Monday, so today ends the 3x/week Base Building. The plan is my own, but still trying to be in the mold of Base Building. That type of work, that sort of focus, but 4x/week. Monday bench/chest, Tuesday squat/legs, Thursday deadlift/back/biceps, Friday shoulders/triceps. We will see how long I can keep it up, because with the reduction in food and increase in work (and stress), recovery needs to be on-point. So… we’ll see.

That said tho, today went well. Every deadlift rep I worked that new approach I stumbled into for my setup, to help ease the knee issues. It worked quite well, especially the warmer I got. I shall keep working on that.

And the v-bar pulldowns. Man, I like. Never really done them, and the chins just didn’t happen… but here on pulldowns? I can have less weight, fuller range of motion, and really work the back… I felt muscles working and getting worked in ways I hadn’t before. It was quite cool.

Otherwise, a good day. And while I’m annoyed at my lack of progress, I’m looking forward to where things will go.

Base Building Traditional Split

• Deadlift (model 1)
  • 185 x 5
  • 210 x 4
  • 250 x 3
  • 275 x 2
  • 290 x 3
  • 290 x 3
  • 290 x 3
  • 290 x 3
  • 290 x 3
• Barbell Rows
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 8
  • 135 x 7
• V-bar Pull-Downs
  • 100 x 10
  • 100 x 10
  • 100 x 10
  • 100 x 10
  • 100 x 8
• BB Curls
  • 20 x 100

Not a bad day…. but I don’t think these days are going to last.

Overall, today was fine. But what isn’t fine is the rate of my fat loss. It’s just not happening. After some discussions with Nick, we’re seeing how the rest of this week goes, and if there’s not sufficient reduction then we’re going to drop the food down a little more, and I need to pick it up in the gym — 4x week.

I’m totally down with that — I have to remember that, no matter what other goals I may have, the #1 goal right now is The Defattening Project. So all work must be chosen, selected, and done to support that goal.

That said then, I’m not sure what I will do. Will I keep on a Base Building-like approach? or will I adopt a more bodybuilding-like approach? I like the heavier, more reps, approach in Base Building… but it also lacks things like going to failure and other intensity techniques that are good for building (retaining) muscle, which is rather important. Plus with the reduction in food, better is to continue to up the workload, so that even means things like reducing rest, but Base Building supports that too. Plus there’s a level of work I get out of Base Building approaches that I just don’t get from more bodybuilding-like approaches.

So… I don’t know. I’m mulling things over. The bottom line: support Defattening.

Base Building Traditional Split

• Bench Press (model 1)
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 135 x 4
  • 155 x 3
  • 170 x 2
  • 195 x 1
  • 170 x 8
  • 170 x 8
  • 170 x 8
  • 170 x 4
  • 170 x 3
• Incline
  • 115 x 8
  • 115 x 8
  • 115 x 7
• Side Laterals
  • 20e x 10
  • 20e x 10
  • 20e x 9
  • 20e x 6
• Lying Triceps Extension (EZ-Bar)
  • 35 x 20
  • 35 x 18
  • 35 x 15
  • 35 x 12

A little change-up, but I think it’ll be good.

So squatting itself went fine. In fact, I was feeling good so I worked up to my EDM; still keeping 1 minute of rest between all sets. It was a wee bit slow at the sticking point (about 2/3 way up), but not too bad. It did a couple things: 1. it gave me a good measure of things so next time I try the EDM if it goes up faster then I’ve gotten stronger; 2. it reinforced the need to really push the work sets with C.A.T., especially as I transition through the sticking point. So it was productive, I think.

The work sets tho feel easy. I am hitting the same bar speed and such on that 5th rep of the 5th set. I’m not sure what I’ll do here… I may keep at it another week or two then switch up to model 2, instead of upping the weights. We’ll see how it goes.

Then I tried to change up a few things. I can feel my knee not being happy, so I want to continue to work on strengthening it. As much as I hate the unilateral work, I do believe it has really helped in the past, so I want to stick with it. But one interesting thing is that the other day I was just stretching in my chair and basically did a leg extension. The way things felt lead me to wonder if doing some light, higher-rep leg extensions might be good for me. So I’m going to adjust things slightly to put those in and see how it goes.

I also did split squats today instead of lunges, just for variety. IMHO either split squats or lunges, whichever… just do one of them, whatever keeps me from hating the work too much. 🙂

Another change up was my foot positioning on the leg press. Now when I started doing leg presses again some long time ago I was keeping a “stance” that was trying to replicate my squat stance as much as the press machine would allow. Then some months ago I was reading about going narrower as a better way to target the quads. But tho I did that, I didn’t feel I was getting the work. This past weekend I was reading something that made me think about trying to go a little more narrow and positioning my feet a little lower as well. So I did that. Feet were a few inches closer together, plus I moved them down a couple inches. No impact to range of motion, feet were still fully in contact with the plate. I also made an effort to push through my heels. It’s really easy in that position to have the direction of force basically go through the balls of the feet, but that’s not how it should be. Granted it shouldn’t be all through the heels, but rather evenly spread, just like the bar was over the middle of the foot (in a squat). Still, if I think to press through my heels, that ensures a “whole foot” engagement in the pressing motion, not just the balls of my feet. And so the result? Man, I really felt it in my quads, more than I ever have. That little bit more in, that little bit further down, ensuring a good full-foot press… oh yeah. So that was better than upping the weight for sure. 🙂

Anyways, all generally good.

But what isn’t good? I don’t know what gives with my weight loss. It’s not progressing at the rate it should be. Nick @ RP and I are going to watch things this week. If the rate doesn’t pick up properly then we’re going to drop intake yet again (yes, so soon after the last drop) and I’m also going to up the gym sessions to 4x week. I’m going to stick with Base Building tho, just some minor rearranging of the work. We’ll see how this week goes.

Base Building Traditional Split

• Squat (model 1)
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 140 x 5
  • 165 x 4
  • 195 x 3
  • 215 x 2
  • 240 x 1
  • 285 x 1
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
• Leg Press
  • 315 x 10
  • 315 x 10
  • 315 x 10
  • 315 x 10
• Split Squats
  • BW x 10e
  • BW x 10e
  • BW x 10e
  • BW x 10e
• Leg Extensions
  • 40 x 10
  • 40 x 10
  • 40 x 10

Going to need to make some modifications.

Deadlifting was fine. Actually, I may have accidentally stumbled into a setup that helps manage my knee. Basically, bend over, grab the bar and put some tension into it, then slowly lower my hips into position. Basically it allows me to counterbalance my bodyweight going down against the pull of the bar, thus relieving some pressure from my knee going down. I didn’t intend to do this, but it happened and it sure seemed useful in my warmups. I’m going to keep trying it and see how it goes.

But all in all, deadlifting felt like where it needed to be. Going to keep focusing on getting that bar speed really up. It’s actually not too bad, but I certainly don’t think now is the time to up anything.

The problems then started with the accessory work.

I need to put chin-/pull-ups on the shelf for a while. No question they are aggravating my elbow. I had to cut things short due to the issues, and I am NOT going to have my elbows suffer for this. So I swiched to pull-downs, which aren’t as awesome but I can do less weight for more reps and not kill my elbows. Going to stick with the close-grip-v-bar tho, which really felt so different than the wide-grip stuff. It made me have to drop more weight on rows too. So I’m going to rearrange some things for next week. No big deal, really.

All in all tho, not too bad.

My current weight is 216, so I’m back on the loser train. I can’t wait to see what 200 looks like. It’ll be a nice Christmas present to myself. 🙂

Base Building Traditional Split

• Deadlift (model 1)
  • 185 x 5
  • 210 x 4
  • 250 x 3
  • 275 x 2
  • 290 x 3
  • 290 x 3
  • 290 x 3
  • 290 x 3
  • 290 x 3
• V-bar Pull-ups
  • BW x 4
  • BW x 4
• V-bar pull-downs
  • 120 x 10
  • 120 x 8
  • 120 x 6
• Barbell Rows
  • 135 x 5
  • 125 x 8
  • 125 x 6
• BB Curls
  • 20 x 100

That went well.

Really, not a lot to say. The programming all felt right and where things should be for this first Base Building Model 1 bench press session. Hopefully this will continue. 🙂

One comment is regarding triceps work. I opted to do lying triceps extensions (ez-bar). I can’t recall the last time I did these, and while they can be famous for being elbow wreckers, I thought I’d give it a shot because they also are famed for producing results. I’m not going heavy — it’s 4×20 — and I’m trying to milk the movement for all I can. For example, it’s not a skull-crusher just bending elbow and coming to my face somewhere, but going all the way over the top of my head and the bar breaks the plane with the back of my head. I did realize I wasn’t being strict enough, with a little elbow flare at the end, so I tightened up that form as I went along and will continue to do that. Basically, milk the movement and avoid heavy weight. We’ll see where it gets me.

Otherwise, feeling good. 🙂 I’m glad I didn’t change things too radically yet. This is a step up from what I was doing, and the right way to have gone.

I also am liking the faster pace. Every set, even between exercises, is only about 1 minute of rest. It’s just move move move. That helps to bring up the intensity without abusing my body (joints, esp.).

Base Building Traditional Split

• Bench Press (model 1)
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 115 x 5
  • 135 x 4
  • 155 x 3
  • 170 x 2
  • 195 x 1
  • 170 x 8
  • 170 x 8
  • 170 x 8
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 4
• Incline
  • 115 x 8
  • 115 x 8
  • 115 x 5
• Side Laterals
  • 20e x 10
  • 20e x 10
  • 20e x 8
  • 20e x 6
• Lying Triceps Extension
  • 35 x 20
  • 35 x 20
  • 35 x 20
  • 35 x 10

Time to change things up.

Coming off the Strong-15 Short cycle for a little strength peaking, which I consider a success given I met goals on squat (315#) and deadlift (405#) and while I didn’t meet my bench goal (265#) I did match the lifetime PR from before the cycle (255#), I’m starting a 4-6 week cycle of Base Building. The intent is to cement the strength gains, and increase the workload to better support the Defattening Project.

We’ll see what happens to my strength. But certainly today demonstrated increased workload — enough to put me right.

See, over the weekend I got pissed. I’m not losing fat at my desired rate, so that means I need to 1. adjust the diet downward, 2. increase the workload upward. No question the Strong-15 cycle was NOT a lot of work, which is the point to be low-volume. But I need more volume, more “work” to do because of course to fuel that work you burn calories. So it’s generally all as it should be, it’s just not where I want to be. So I actually became hell bent yesterday morning to radically change my gym work, going 4- or maybe even 5-day split, lots of volume. Thing is, the more I lift, the less cardio I have to do and the more food I get to eat. Win-win! But as I started down my path of planning a new program, I realized I was being driven by being upset and not by rational thinking.

It’s pretty evident that the Base Building models here will put me through a lot more work:

• there’s more volume
• there’s less rest (generally 1 minute between sets, at most)
• it’s just going to work you more

And after today, it’s pretty evident my conditioning levels are down. Not in the shitter, but not where they have been. But that all stands to reason given how I’ve been working the past some weeks. So as it is, this is going to be enough work for me. I don’t need to dive in from that Short-Cycle and go 5x week with tons of volume — that’s too much too fast, changing too many variables at once. I need to ramp up to it. My diet already has been adjusted to cut back, and just going to this 3x/week Base Building approach adds in more work. That’s enough for now. After 4-6 weeks on this, I can add a 4th day, plus change the session work again to be more bodybuilding-like (more reps, more volume, more intensity techniques like drop sets, etc.). One change at a time.

I’m glad I didn’t let my emotions get the better of me. Trust the programming.

That said, all in all today was ok for a first session. Squats went well. Not too hard, but not too easy either. Really working on driving the bar up (that whole Compensatory Acceleration Training). For sure, it’s work. I reckon with only 4-6 weeks on this that I will not be changing weights, but hopefully I can change the intensity. For example, once 5×5 is stupid easy, consider going to model 2, or maybe I’ll try less rest (45 seconds instead of 60). And so on. It’s only 4-6 weeks so I can’t see any need to change weights.

Anyways, I’ll see how things look in a week.

Base Building Traditional Split

• Squat (model 1)
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 140 x 5
  • 165 x 4
  • 195 x 3
  • 215 x 2
  • 240 x 1
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
  • 170 x 5
• Leg Press
  • 315 x 10
  • 315 x 10
  • 315 x 10
  • 315 x 10
• Lunges
  • 45 x 10
  • 45 x 10
  • 45 x 10
  • 45 x 10

405 felt good to hit again.

I remember the first time I deadlifted 405 lb. and what an awesome feeling it was. Today came pretty close to that feeling again. I lost a bunch of strength on the cut diet and have been working to get it back. My squat is just shy of my prior lifetime PR, I set a new lifetime PR in bench (tho only tied it at the end of this short-cycle), and while I’m nowhere near my best in deadlift, I did hit my goal for this short-cycle and am happy. It felt good to lift 4 plates again.

So I’d say this Strong-15 Short Cycle was a success. Pick your (reasonable) goals, put in the work, and it happens. Amazing, that.

I will say I wasn’t sure I’d hit the 405 today. On the 200 set my knee acted up. Same knee that always gives me trouble, and it was not good. I struggled with the 200 lb. because of it, but finished that set, shook it off, and just kept going. It’s a matter of how deep I go, and for sure it turned the rest of my stuff into a little more stiff-leg than I wanted, but still pretty close to a proper conventional deadlift. Bummer, but hey, the 405 went up so I’m ok with it.

Oh, and after I did that, I opted to just cut the session short. Good enough end to it all.

I will keep doing conventionals during the next 4-6 weeks as I do a short cycle of Base Building to work to cement the strength gains. If there are knee problems tho, I’ll switch up. But certainly after the BB cycle, I’ll put conventionals on the shelf, at most I’d do stiff-legged deadlifts, and then lighter for reps. I don’t need to make a situation worse, but I do think some of the lighter sets could be good to continue strengthening the knee area.

I am looking forward to starting the Base Building cycle next week. I’ll also be cutting back on my food intake… first true cutback in my cut diet. I’m hanging at 217 right now, which isn’t where I wanted to be (wanted to be at least 215 by end of August), so yeah… it’s time to pull back a little more on the food.

Strong-15 Short Cycle, from LRB365

• Deadlift (goal: 405)
  • 160 x 5
  • 200 x 4
  • 245 x 3
  • 285 x 2
  • 355 x 1
  • 385 x 1
  • 405 x 1
• V-bar Pull-ups
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 4
  • BW x 3
• BB Curls
  • 30 x 100’s

The mind is a powerful determiner of your success or failure.

I know this, but I’m obviously not yet a master of it.

Monday’s squat session was in part due to feeling physically great, but also having a killer mindset that I was going to squat that 315. But today? If I’m honest with myself I know that I’ve had doubts about hitting the 265 all this time. In general I don’t know why as the cycle went well, but I think it’s just general trepidation about benching my max. I work out alone, and the gym doesn’t have the best setup for failing on bench press. There is something I can do, but the metrics of it are off by just enough that it actually makes things worse in their own way. I don’t want to fail (and risk bad injury), and so I psyche myself out.

I was to go 235, 240, 245. I thought I’d try the 265, but I could tell I was doubting. The 235 went up fine. I figured go for 245, but then half-way through the rest period I bumped it to 250 because I felt 250 would give me a better gauge if I could hit the 265 (a 15# jump instead of a 20#). The 250 went up hard; I totally lost my leg drive because I was so focused on pressing. And so, 255 was my top for today and it was an ugly grinder, but I got it. It matches my previous lifetime PR set just a few weeks ago, so it’s not all bad, but I also know this went up harder than that prior 255.

I could say it’s a matter of other things… I was mentally distracted by other life things. Diet, rest, etc…. and yeah, maybe the played a part. But I doubt it. I’m pretty sure it was all in my head. I approached it like it was going to be heavy, and it was. I just didn’t have the mindset that it was “Ronnie Coleman light weight”, just enough doubt… and nope.

Ah well.

Strong-15 Short Cycle, from LRB365

• Bench (goal: 265)
  • bar x 5 x 2
  • 135 x 5
  • 155 x 4
  • 180 x 3
  • 200 x 2
  • 235 x 1
  • 245 x 1
  • 255 x 1
  • 215 x 5 (AMRAP)
• Incline Press
  • 105 x 15
  • 105 x 15
• Dips
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 5

A +10% day, so I went for it. Got it. It’s awesome when you reach your goals, isn’t it? 🙂

This is my last week of the Strong-15 Short Cycle. Again, I opted to NOT do the deload then testing weeks because I really need to focus on the fat loss — that’s truly my main and proper goal. But the whole reason I did this short cycle was because I needed it. And being honest with myself, tho I shouldn’t feed my ego, I’m still human and if you starve the ego it doesn’t really help you either. So while I’m getting off the peaking cycle and onto a plan that’s better suited to support the fat loss efforts, man… I still wanted to finish strong because that’s the whole point of this effort.

I went in today planning to work up to 295 because that’s what I was supposed to do. But I felt so good. I’ve been getting more sleep. Work has been calming down and I’m a lot less stressed. I barely thought about anything today other than the lift before me. I kept with my mantra of “tight, go down, come up”. The warm-ups felt a little heavy, but they always do — it’s warming up. Then the 275 felt really good… and while I was supposed to then go 285 then 295, I said “screw it” and put 295 on. It went up, a little grind, but still easy enough that told me I had more in me. I put 315 on the bar. Rested up. Grabbed the bar so hard that the steel oozed from between my fingers, tight tight tight, went down, came up. And frankly, it felt easier than the 295.

Damn, that felt good. I’m still smiling. 🙂

See, my best squat ever is 325, which I set a little over a year ago, just before I started The Defattening Project. Now I’m 45-50 lb. lighter and within 10 lb. of that best-ever. In fact, after I squatted the 315 I felt like I had more in me, but I didn’t do it because I still had the rest of the session to go and frankly 315 was my goal so be happy with it. I lost a lot of strength over the past year, but spending the past 3-ish months bulking up and lifting in a mass-building and then strength-peaking way? Yeah, it’s coming back. Heck, I set a lifetime PR on bench just before I started this peaking cycle so shit… this isn’t too bad. 🙂

Will I try for my goal weights on Wednesday (bench) and Friday (deadlift)? I don’t know. The only reason I did today was because I felt damn good, so I reckon it’ll just depend how I’m feeling and how the weights move.

But for now, I’m still smiling and happy that things are coming back. Yeah, I expect I may well lose some over the next couple months while I continue my cut cycle, but that’s how it goes. I am planning next week to start on a Base Building Model 1 for 4-6 weeks (at least) in an effort to solidify the strength gains and start transitioning to rep work; this should hopefully work out alright for me in terms of trying to preserve what I have, support the fat-loss diet, and set me up for later success as the diet cycle progresses.

Onwards.

Strong-15 Short Cycle, from LRB365

• Squat (goal: 315)
  • bar x 5 x 2
  • 155 x 5
  • 185 x 4
  • 215 x 3
  • 235 x 2
  • 275 x 1
  • 295 x 1
  • 315 x 1
• Pause Squat
  • 250 x 3
  • 250 x 3
• Leg Press
  • 315 x 20
  • 315 x 15
• Leg Curls
  • 40 x 15
  • 40 x 12
  • 40 x 8
• Calf Raises
  • 110 x 10
  • 110 x 10
  • 110 x 10