I realized that I have no idea where my math is.

The 2-rep set is supposed to be 75%, and the AMRAP sets are to be 75%… so why am I using different weights? I have no idea, and I have no idea why I didn’t notice this until now.

I’m going to correct it, but the reality is it doesn’t matter much. I’m planning on sticking with this routine just a few more weeks, then I’m back on cutting… and I’m going to change up my lifting routine to be better suited for that end. So… meh.

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 13 (AMRAP)
  • 115 x 6 (50%)
• Dips (350 Method)
  • BW x 12
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
• Chin-ups
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 4
  • BW x 3
• DB Rows (350 method)
  • 55e x 19
  • 55e x 15
  • 55e x 12
• DB Curl (350 Method)
  • 25e x 17
  • 25e x 13
  • 25e x 11

Not sure what to make of this other than “needs more data”.

The way it should work is that you are recovered — and hopefully supercompensating — before your next workout. If you aren’t yet, then you’re going to eventually go downhill. If you wait too long, you lose the supercompensation benefits.

I’ve been feeling like I’ve not been recovering enough… Monday I squat, Thursday I squat again. I really felt it today, like I wasn’t ready — maybe one more day. I mean, Paul originally laid out this program to be 3x week, so that would be 1 more day of rest and recovery. And I know from past work with 5/3/1 that doing it as laid out 4x/week was too much for me — I’m older, I don’t have the ability to be mega-dedicated to recovery (e.g. sleep 10 hours a day, daily massage, etc.), so I need a little more time. 5/3/1 worked well on a 3x/week rotation. Only reason I’m doing 4x week is beacuse of the diet — more lifting days means more days to eat food and not be hungry, yet still make progress.

But, I did well today. I blew my prior rep PR’s out of the water compared to last time. So maybe I am actually hitting the groove just right? I think in part it’s the ability to eat, plus I’ve been doing a LOT better about rest and sleep.

So I think it may depend on my recovery abilities.

So like when I go back on the cutting diet, I don’t think I can follow this program any more — it’s just going to be too much on too little food. If I want to stick with 4x week, I probably need to hit body parts once a week, like legs/back/chest/arms sort of split. Or if I do a squat/deadlift/bench/press sort of thing, I should go 3x week on a 4-session rotation.

Just interesting things to learn about myself and how to structure stuff.

Still could use more data here, but so far, so interesting.

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

• Front Squat
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 95 x 5
  • 115 x 4
  • 135 x 3
  • 165 x 2
  • 185 x 1
  • 155 x 10 (AMRAP)
  • 155 x 6 (50%)
• Leg Press (350 Method)
  • 315 x 25
  • 315 x 18
  • 315 x 13
• Lunge
  • BW x a bunch — had to bail early, so just did walking lunges as I left the building

Why not. Up the iron.

Went ahead and bumped up my working weight because why not. I’ve only got a few weeks left before I resume the cutting diet, so I might as well take advantage of the food while I can. 🙂

I have to admit as well, that I’m getting tired of “bodybuilding-style” lifting. Yeah, the reps are generally good for me and certainly appropriate for the diet and “body shaping” goals, but I’m really itching to get back to lifting heavier. I keep thinking that, as much as I’m enjoying Paul Carter’s methodologies, that once I can truly start lifting again I’ll just go 5/3/1 for a while… just because. I dunno, in part it’s a longing for something I can’t have, so I’ll see how it actually pans out once I get where I want. I’m just growing tired of lifting how I have to instead of how I want to, y’know?

But that said, it felt good to bench 225 — been a while since I could, either because of programming or because of strength loss. Even cranking out 9 with 200 felt good, and I certainly left a couple in the tank so hey… strength is doing better for sure. It actually makes me want to crank harder on my squats, instead of trying to work up to 20 reps, again get back to 5’s and triples and such.

Ah well… I’ll be there again someday. 🙂

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

• Bench Press
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 105 x 5
  • 135 x 4
  • 160 x 3
  • 200 x 2
  • 225 x 1
  • 200 x 9 (AMRAP)
  • 200 x 5 (50%)
• Incline Press (350 Method)
  • 95 x 22
  • 95 x 17
  • 95 x 10
• BB Row
  • 155 x 8
  • 155 x 8
  • 125 x 12
  • 125 x 10
• Wide Pronated-Grip Pulldown (350 Method)
  • 115 x 17
  • 115 x 13
  • 115 x 10
• BB Curl (350 Method)
  • 45 x 22
  • 45 x 17
  • 45 x 12

Oh man… haven’t felt that “good” in ages.

And by “good” I mean, almost throwing up. 😉

No, I don’t like working out to the point of puking: I don’t see how that’s a positive thing nor what it accomplishes. But sometimes it happens. All through the split squats, I just got more and more nauseous, so I pushed but not too hard because no, I have no desire to throw up.

But it all started with the squats.

I used last week as a deload, lifting lightly and trying to take as much rest/sleep/naps as possible. I feel a lot better. Not out of the woods, but better for sure. And so I continued ignoring how many reps and told myself to just keep going until I can’t go any more — don’t sow any mental limits. 14 reps came pretty easily. Felt good. But then the 7 after started the toll-taking.

And 15 reps of the stiff-legs. I swear, this was the first time I really felt it in my hamstrings and glutes. I truly was burning. It was pretty cool to finally feel that back there from this movement. But yeah, the toll was being taken. And so split squats? Oh… I just did what I could. 🙂

All in all tho, good session. More reps came out, and I just generally feel alright. Weight bloated up over the end of last week, between less work and enjoying myself some over the holiday. But I’m back down to 222 this morning, so I’m in pretty good shape. In discussions with Nick I’m going to work to hold steady now, and come August we’ll start the cut again. I have mixed emotions — I don’t want to go back on the restrictive diet, but I really do want to achieve my goal in the Defattening Project. So, onwards.

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

• Squat
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 125 x 5
  • 155 x 4
  • 185 x 3
  • 235 x 2
  • 265 x 1
  • 215 x 14 (AMRAP)
  • 215 x 7 (50%)
• Stiff Legged Deadlift
  • 145 x 5
  • 175 x 4
  • 215 x 3
  • 265 x 2
  • 305 x 1
  • 245 x 15 (AMRAP)
• Split Squats
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10

Deload continues.

Nothing exciting to report. Just get in, do work, get out. Rest.

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

• Front Squat
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 95 x 5
  • 115 x 4
  • 135 x 3
  • 165 x 2
  • 185 x 1
  • 155 x 5
• Leg Press
  • 315 x 10
  • 315 x 10
  • 315 x 10

More deload.

Opted to do chins instead of rows — more bang for the buck. Started thinking more about chins too. Wasn’t too long ago I couldn’t eek out one. Now I hit 3×5 pretty easily. The goal remains 5×5 before I progress onwards. I started thinking: what will be onwards? Will I go for 5×10? 10×10? Or maybe switch grips and work on pronated (pull-ups)? Dunno. But I’m just thrilled to be progressing. 🙂

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 8
• Chin-ups
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 5
  • BW x 5
• BB Curl
  • 45 x 12
  • 45 x 12
  • 45 x 12

Burnout. I has it.

It’s simple. Too much stress, not enough recovery. Stress isn’t always bad, it’s just stressors — even lifting is a stress. But I know most of my stress is from work, and then not enough sleep. It’s all caught up with me. Heck, last Friday I didn’t go to the gym at all — truly no motivation, felt “crispy”, and figured not adding to the stress load and body breakdown and getting more rest would do me better.

I spent the weekend relaxing. Slept in, napped a bunch. I do feel a lot better today, but certainly not out of the woods. And since I’ll be taking a very long weekend due to the Independency Day holiday, well… I figure why not use this week as a deload. My primary order of business is to destress and un-burnout, so…. deload works well into that since again, lifting is stress and breakdown on the body.

Now I do like taking jack-shit deloads and just doing nothing. But while on this body recomp, Nick prefers I at least do something. So I opted to do my normal session but dropped extra work. For example, I didn’t AMRAP nor 50% set, and I left out the high-rep work. Basically just do the main lifts, work up, and that’s that. It’s pretty much how I’ll arrange the whole week.

That said, it does make me wonder. I’ve been following Paul’s GMM program now for 8 weeks (this is my 8th). Honestly, it’s still hard for me to say if truly it’s been better for me or not — it’s just one iteration. I think I’ll need to try it multiple times with not a lot of other life-variation to see how it goes. I will say tho, while on the one hand I like it, on the other… I don’t. I realize that I sometimes get up and am like “geez… I have to squat, again?” Granted I’ve come a long way and actually enjoy squatting now, and I don’t know if my groaning came from not wanting to do it again OR from all my accumulating burnout. And I also do miss good long working of some bodypart. I find this especially with my back, that just as I start to get a good thing going, back work is done. Is that truly best for growth or just ego satisfaction? I can’t say yet.

But I am wondering… should I spend the next some weeks doing something else? Should I try a Strong-15 Short Cycle? Should I go back to a more traditional bodypart split? Should I maybe drop down to 3x week? All notions being tossed around in my head right now. We’ll see.

I don’t want to make any decisions yet, because I know I’m not in the best mind to make a straight long-term decision here. The burnout would rather me cut back and “do nothing” for a while. So let me try to get over this first… and taking this week as a deload should help.

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

• Squat
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 125 x 5
  • 155 x 4
  • 185 x 3
  • 235 x 2
  • 265 x 1
  • 215 x 6
• Stiff Legged Deadlift
  • 145 x 5
  • 175 x 4
  • 215 x 3
  • 265 x 2
  • 305 x 1

Every day, strive to learn something.

Today I learned that elevating my heels is helpful. I’ve been working on improving my front squat form because I want to get the most benefit out of them. A big part has been working to keep my torso upright, but it’s not just upright, it’s…. out? puffed up? Think trying to push your xiphoid process up towards the ceiling and how that “puffs” the chest out and UP, the shoulders pulled back, the head even goes back a bit, and boy do things stay upright. That sort of thing. Well, I’ve been wanting to try elevating my heels, so today I did so. I put some 5# plates on the ground (so maybe 1/2″ of elevation) and put my heels up there. Between that and the torso work, my form sure was different. I videoed a couple sets and I could tell the difference in terms of my torso angle. I also could feel it… it felt more natural, less fighting to stay upright. Depth tho was interesting, because I found myself feeling not just more natural/normal but I was also going deeper into the hole. So while on paper I hit the same sets/reps as last week, it was a lot more work given the deeper range of motion.

All in all, not too bad.

Interesting note. Then just this morning before writing this I happened to see a video of Dan Green doing some front squats. He had a very wide stance, feet angled maybe 30º-45º, but a very upright torso. Interesting variation, but it obviously works for him (who am I to question an all-time-world-record powerlifter?). Plus he deadlifts sumo, so it probably all plays together.

Anyways, all in all, not bad. I learned something. Will keep elevating the heels because it seems I’ll get more benefit.

Had to cut the session short tho due to scheduling. Did some lunges, but not as many as I normally should. Ah well, life sometimes.

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

• Front Squat
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 95 x 5
  • 110 x 4
  • 135 x 3
  • 165 x 2
  • 185 x 1
  • 155 x 8 (AMRAP)
  • 155 x 5 (50%)
• Leg Press (350 Method)
  • 315 x 17
  • 315 x 15
  • 315 x 12
• Lunge
  • Did some on the way out of the gym… however many that was.

That wasn’t what I expected.

I expected to hit the 15 reps on the AMRAP, but instead… I hit the upright. On the 13th rep I hit the upright, totally threw off the groove — and I had to keep things from falling apart — 14th rep was a mess, and I only got to 14.5 and then had to roll the bar down my chest. I haven’t had to do that in a long time. Upon reflection, I should have stopped after the 13th rep, let things settle, then continue, but I didn’t. I felt “so close” to 15, numerically, and the bump lost my gauge/feel on where I was in terms of ability/effort/gas-in-the-tank. Ah well… I put the bar back on and kept going.

One thing that continues to be reinforced in me is that I get more out of back work when I use moderate weights and really really focus on the back muscles doing the work. I can’t just heave through it, I have to basically think to move from the shoulders/elbows and contract the back muscles. When I do that, I get a lot out of it. That said, I got a fair bit today. I don’t know what happened, but some 10# bumper plates reappeared in the gym, so doing the rows with 125 was able to be done from a reasonable height. That allowed me to rest the bar on the ground between reps and get a start from a dead-stop, which worked better than the hanging stuff I was doing before, likely because I wasn’t letting it go 100% of the way down so as not to annoy my shoulder by the hanging weight.

Anyways, all in all, not a bad day… just not what I expected. But sometimes those are when you learn more. 🙂

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 14 (AMRAP)
  • 190 x 6 (50%)
• Incline Press (350 Method)
  • 95 x 20
  • 95 x 14
  • 95 x 11
• BB Row
  • 155 x 8
  • 155 x 8
  • 125 x 12
  • 125 x 9
• Wide Pronated-Grip Pulldown (350 Method)
  • 110 x 23
  • 110 x 18
  • 110 x 15
• BB Curl (350 Method)
  • 45 x 21
  • 45 x 17
  • 45 x 15

That wasn’t quite what I expected.

Given where my weight is going and how going back to cutting is only weeks away, I kinda want to see about getting my weights up. Yeah I know, reps… but when I’m back to cutting reps will be what it’s all about — whatever burns more energy, whatever helps build muscle mass. But right now as things are feeling stronger, I really wouldn’t mind putting a little more weight on the bar.

I recalculated my numbers. The goal was to put about 10# more on the AMRAP sets, so there’s still some reps being done. And the work-up is adjusted accordingly. I plugged in some numbers, got percentages, and off I went. Funny thing tho was after I got to the gym I had a hard time finding the 2.5# plates and opted to say “screw it” — there seems to be a powerlifter “rule/joke” that the smallest plate you use is the 10# plate. 🙂 Well, I’m still too weak for that, so 5# plates for me… skipping the 2.5’s. I opted to round everything up, so instead of say 260 I did 265.

All in all, it went well. I actually felt I could have done a couple more reps, but things were tiring and I didn’t feel like risking my back given the pains I was feeling last week and that today it’s finally feeling awesome (slept a lot over the weekend). No need to rush back into things, y’know? Still, was happy with 12 reps on 215; in fact, a little surprised. One thing that’s helping is technique for sure, especially really locking up my shoulders and back and arms, then just trying to be in a solid groove… not too fast, not too slow, not rushing, but just having a solid rhythm and ensuring it’s not really 1 set of 12 reps (or whatever), but 12 sets of 1 rep all in a row, y’know? Make every rep solid and unto itself. Form really felt good today.

I even bumped up weights on stiff-legs.

Still tho, when I did a quick volume check, my overall volume and comparisons to last week went down. Not sure how I should feel about that, but not going to sweat it too much. I worked as hard as I could today, so that’s the best I can do.

All in all tho, I’m happy to try to get my weights back up. I swear… once I’m fully done with The Defattening Project, I really do wonder if I might want to do 3 months of 5/3/1 BBB or something similar to just focus on strength. But I dunno… I can tell so much I need to get muscle mass back. I’m just tired of all of this. 🙂 Ah well… it’s all good in the long run.

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

• Squat
  • bar x 5
  • bar x 5
  • 125 x 5
  • 155 x 4
  • 185 x 3
  • 235 x 2
  • 265 x 1
  • 215 x 12 (AMRAP)
  • 215 x 6 (50%)
• Stiff Legged Deadlift
  • 145 x 5
  • 175 x 4
  • 215 x 3
  • 265 x 2
  • 305 x 1
  • 245 x 12 (AMRAP)
• Split Squats
  • BW x 20
  • BW x 20
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10
  • BW x 10