Bench Workout

BENCH

Barx10

40kgx10

50kgx8

60kgx5

70kgx5

70kgx5

70kgx8

WORKOUT NOTES: All is not lost. I've been terribly tired and one-track minded as of late, so to get this relatively easy workout out of the way was a good choice. Not much can be said except that 70kgx8 (over BW, I weigh a shocking 69kg right now) is a pretty decent result for someone who has only benched twice in the last 3 months.

The next step will be to find an easy routine that will allow me to workout twice a week while making some sort of attempt at periodic or linear progress. I think my 'routine' from now on should look like this:

DAY 1: Pendlay Row, Squat

Day 2: Bench, Deadlift

I really see no other options here, other than throwing in OHP and front squats as a 3rd day if it comes to that. So yeah, this is me actually making plans in the future to workout on a consistent basis, which is incredibly uplifting and liberating. I need weights to de-stress as well as feel physically worthy of having over 1.5K of equipment behind a door in my home. Not only that, but lifting consistently always pushes me to take better care of myself in general and get some much-needed discipline into multiple facets of my life, most of all my nutrition. 

Even though in reality all I did was lie down on a bench for 15 minutes on a Wednesday night trying to get up a sweat and not embarrass myself, I can say that it was a start, which as we can all attest to is the most important thing.

Madcows - Week 3, Day 2

SQUAT

Barx10

40kgx5

60kgx5

70kgx5

80kgx5

80kgx5

NOTES: These felt like shit the first few sets, still really sore from 7 games of ultimate last Saturday. The 70 and 80kg sets felt great, nice and slow but strong. I like these recovery squat sets.

OVERHEAD PRESS

Barx10

35kgx5

42.5kgx5

50kgx5

55kgx5

DEADLIFT

60kgx5 

NOPE

NOTES: 50kgx5 was tougher than it should have been, but 55kgx5 was simple enough (probably had another 1-2 reps in me). Really good form today even though strength wasn't the best.

STANDING DB PRESS

22kgx5 PR

16kgx10

16kgx8

16kgx8

NOTES: These messed me up something good. Need to remember to not fully lockout and keep tension on the lateral delts, as well as not instinctively push me chest up as I would in regular OHP.

DB ROWS

36kgx8

38.5kgx6

38.5kgx6

38.5kgx10 PR

NOTES: These feel more locked in every time, the last set was touch and go until rep 8, great mind-muscle connection on these with my lats; now just need to engage my traps more.

WORKOUT NOTES: I wasn't feeling very strong because my hamstrings were sore from ultimate. The right one felt terrible just warming up for deadlifts, so I didn't see the point in attempting 130kgx5 and hurting myself. 

Actually most exercises went well, the standing DB press needs some form work but apart from that squats were smooth, OHP was solid and I went quite heavy on the rows and still smashed it so a good day overall. 

Time to start eating more carbs and stop this recomp silliness.

Upkeep

Madcows is a pretty brutal routine in terms of its longevity and the toll it takes on your body. The routine is set up so that you set your starting 5RM low (10kg lower than usual), and building up over 4-5 weeks eventually overtake them by adding 2.5kg a week to your lifts. Yes it's more complicated than that but you can find the routine explained in depth in yesterday's post. 

Essentially, the point is that Madcows is a routine that doesn't really start to pay any sort of reward until at least a month in. This means that it is a long term routine (as far as linear progression is concerned, with the other long-term LP routines being Starting Strength, 5/3/1, GreySkulls LP, The Texas Method and a few other less known ones), with it lasting anywhere between 8-16 weeks or more. If you think about it, if you're on the program successfully for 8 weeks, you've exceeded your previous PRs (personal record) by around 10kg, so by week 16 you may have put 20kg on your squat and much the same on your other lifts. I'm aiming for around 15kg on my squat, so hopefully by the end I might be at around 125kgx3 or so. 

However, the fact is that Madcows is a more demanding program the deeper you get into it (the difference in intensity between week 1 of the program and week 10 is unfathomable) means that if you don't recover properly you are done and dusted. When this happens you start getting things like:

• injuries
• muscle tightness
• tendon & joint pain

As well as general fatigue, these are bad for your progression. What if I get to week 7, have put 5kg on my previous squat PR, and then have to quit while I'm on a roll because I've got lower back pain or even elbow tendonitis that makes squatting impossible? I would end up losing that momentum, as well as the foundation laid for sustainable gains from the first 4 weeks of the program. 

So, I've decided to put some effort into the upkeep of my body. Not just eating right (I am now having a shake with breakfast that is 45g Protein, 15g Carbs and 2g Fat, come at me), but also supplementing and doing active recovery. I'm taking my fish oil and magnesium, which definitely help the joint and muscle pains a lot, but I've also decided to do 2 days a week of 1/2 an hour of foam rolling. I do some stretches during lunchtime at work, but the active release from foam rolling will be the real helper. I did a nice session last night, rolling my hip flexors, quads, ITB, back, lats and pec minor (which is a big problem in terms of holding back my thoracic mobility), and I felt much better after doing it. 

Hopefully I can stay niggle free until I've made my progress on this routine, stay tuned for bigweights in week 6 of the program.

Nutrition 03/09/12 - 04/09/12

Monday 04/09/12

1750 Calories

220g Protein
130g Carbohydrate (poor effort)
45g Fat

Tuesday 05/09/12

2000 Calories

235g Protein
180g Carbohydrates
50g Fat

So obviously the thing I need to work on a little bit more is simply getting up my protein and carbohydrate intake to reach 250P/200CHO/50F consistently. I'll simply add in another shake with water I think, because at the moment I'm not even feeling that hungry or getting cravings like I was before.

I'm going to put my 60kgx6 PR on press down to increased carb intake recently, which has obviously made a big difference in my day-to-day and ongoing energy reserves. 

Just a quick cut update too: I only lost 200g in the past week, which I'm fine with because obviously increased glycogen and subsequent water retention is a big factor in that from my upped carbohydrate intake. That puts me at 77.2kg, and so I'll be aiming to continue on my weekly losses of around 400-500g from next week onwards. 

Nutrition: 31/08/12 - 02/09/12

Friday 31/08/12

245g Protein
180g Carbohydrate
45g Fat

Saturday 01/09/12

180g Protein
230g Carbohydrate
75g Fat

Sunday 02/09/12 (Fathers Day, go easy on me)

190g Protein
180g Carbohydrate
75g Fat

Ok, so these last few days of properly outlining everything I eat tells me a few things (keeping in mind I'm aiming to hit 250gP/200gC/50gF each day):

1. I need to get more protein in. 
2. Fats need to be kept in check.
3. Until now, I was not getting in 200g of carbohydrates a day, no wonder my workouts have gone the way of the sewer rat.

I'll put this in perspective by saying that yesterday was Fathers Day, so I realised I was not going to hit the appropriate macros. I had eggs benedict for breakfast, roast beef and roast potatoes and sweet potatoes for lunch, and a chicken paella for dinner. Not bad for a 'falling off the bandwagon' day. The day before that I screwed up my fat intake by having 40g of fat in one meal, will not let that happen again. So in the end my only obstacle is getting in enough protein, which I can fix by upping my nightly intake. Apart from that, I was rather pleased with these results considering I'm still fine-tuning my necessary diet. Onwards and upwards

A NEW PROGRAM

I'm a pretty big advocate of letting others take care of your training for you. Sometimes we lose sight of the forest for the trees and can no longer see what is actually good for us. I managed to convince a very clever guy to check out my current status and write me up a program to take me to that next level while I'm still in the midst of my cut. He's also thankfully advised me on what macronutrient levels are ideal at this stage and what to be eating. I'm very excited to leave my training in the lap of the gods in a sense and give up some control to keep progressing. Without further ado, here's the program:

Day 1

Bench x5-5-5-5-5+ {Press on alternating weeks}
Flyes 2x15-25 (each set to failure) {Lateral raises on alternating weeks}
Chin ups x max reps x 3 sets (sets across ie 3xBWx20)
Squats x5-5-5-5-5+
Curls 2x12-15

Day 2

Press x5-5-5-5-5+ {Bench on alternating weeks}
Power Clean - working up to heavy doubles
Deadlift x5+ (working up to a max set of 5+)
BB Row 4x8

Day 3

Bench x4-6 PR, 12-15 PR {Press on alternating weeks}
Chin ups 3x6-8
Squat x4-6 PR, 12-15 PR {Front squat on alternating weeks}
Curls 2x12-15

The next question is: What's with the x5-5-5-5-5+ rep scheme?

The concept is pretty straightforward. On either the first or second set (your choice) you're aiming to get a top set of 5 (close to your 5RM but not a PR), and the remaining sets are 10% below that, with the final set (5+) aiming to get to 8-10. So any exercise with the x5-5-5-5-5+ tag will look like this:

Squats:

Warm ups

90kgx5

100kgx5

90kgx5

90kgx5

90kgx5+ (aiming for 8-10)

Pretty simple right? I hope so, I'm very excited to try it out and see how I fair, the volume will make it a very intense program but I'm looking forward to that. The macros he's suggesting is 250g Protein/200g Carb/ 50g Fat. I'm quite close to that level as is but I will need to up my protein by about 50g a day to reach it. He's keen for me to continue to eat lean meats (tuna, chicken etc) and good carbs (potatoes, rice, oats), trying to minimise fat intake obviously and cutting down on poorer carbs like breads and sugars.


He's also suggested 3 days of conditioning, one long and one short. For the short day I'll be doing barbell complexes in an intense fashion, and it's yet to be seen what I'll do for the long day, I'll work it out though. 


LET'S DO THIS 

Cut update - Week 6

Been trying to stick to my plan more stringently the past week, as I felt my motivation and strict diet starting to wane in the two weeks preceding that. This week that paid dividends, with more weight loss than expected. I'm also starting to see some more physical manifestations, including separation through my quads as well as my obliques starting to come through just a tad. Still far from satisfied, so I may extend the cut from the 8 weeks planned to 9-10 weeks. This is simply because I don't seem to be at the stage I thought I would be at by this weight, so instead of going down to 76kg I may keep going until I'm satisfied.

Starting: 82.0kg

Week 1: 80.6kg

Week 2: 79.8kg

Week 3: 79.1kg

Week 4: 78.5kg

Week 5: 78.0kg

Week 6: 77.3kg

So this is a big bump in weight loss, which I cannot complain about at all. At this stage of the game a 700g loss is pretty massive, which dispels my idea that I would need to start adding in cardio 3 times a week.

Overall I'm more lethargic than I wish I was, but nothing that can't be fixed with some water and a long coffee. Can't wait to finish up on this, look good and start smashing out PRs like there's no tomorrow. 

Cut update - Week 5

So after 5 weeks of cutting things are starting to settle in. The cravings for high carb foods are still pretty strong, but I can resist for the most part. My guilty pleasure are some beers on the weekend. I feel like for the last couple of weeks I've been getting a tiny bit lax, so I should be thankful that I have continued to lose weight:

Start: 82.0kg

Week 1: 80.6kg

Week 2: 79.8kg

Week 3: 79.1kg

Week 4: 78.5kg

Week 5: 78.0kg

So it's steadily going down. The only thing that's irking me is that even though my weight is dropping, I'm looking no different than I did a week or two ago. I know better than to throw the baby out with the bathwater, as I'm sure that one day I'll wake up and start looking way leaner and cut up. It's just a bit hard to stick to the gameplan when it feels like I'm not coming out on top.

My diet is pretty much the same, I'm eating 4 eggs/ 3 quiches (bacon, potato, pumpkin, cheese, onion, egg) for breakfast (30g protein), 300g of tuna for a snack (50g protein), and chicken for lunch (50g protein), then whatever is going for dinner to get in some carbs and fats (last night was roast and veg). Still hitting around the 2200 cals mark, sometimes on the weekends going over (going to Montville and eating awesome cheeses and other foods did not help).

I feel much weaker during training, it seems like after squatting I'm tired for bench, and the same with my deadlifts last week; though my pressing and pull ups didn't suffer. On another note, I'm going to start doing OHP twice a week to get it up, going to do some after my bench today. Exciting!

Cut update - Week 4

So I've now been cutting for 4 weeks, and things are going exactly to plan. I thought I had fallen off the wagon when I had 4 beers on Friday and a bit too much to eat on Monday, but today's weigh-in told a different story. 

Start: 82.0kg

Week 1: 80.6kg

Week 2: 79.8kg
Week 3: 79.1kg
Week 4: 78.5kg

So I'm consistently losing over 0.5kg a week, and even though the trend seems to be that the loss is slowing down, I don't think it's a continuing pattern and will probably settle at around 0.5kg a week from now on. This means that I am probably at the halfway point of my cut, so I'm hoping that by mid-September I will be sitting at around 77kg and looking bigger than I did at 82kg.

I was feeling a bit discouraged in the past week because I haven't seen any physical changes, but I should know by now that changes are cyclical. Probably in the next two weeks is when I will really start to see some definitive changes, and will start looking bigger and bigger. I'm pretty melancholy about cutting, but it isn't as ball-breaking as I had heard. Probably sitting at around 14% right now, maybe less. 

Will probably post some pictures next week, prepare for the obligatory NO HOMO. 

Cutting - 3 week update

I started cutting 3 weeks ago, and here are my results so far. 

Start: 82.0kg

Week 1: 80.6kg 

Week 2: 79.8kg

Week 3: 79.1kg

So that means over the past 3 weeks I've lost 2.9kg, with the bulk lost in the first week as expected (from lowered glycogen stores from lack of carbs and subsequent dropped water weight). 

So, by my calculations I should only be cutting for another 5 weeks before I reach a level of leanness which I will be happy to maintain for a while and still improve my strength on a weekly basis. 

This means that in 5 weeks I should hopefully have lost another 3kg, as I will be happy to take a 500g loss every week if it means keeping my strength on upper body lifts and marginally increasing lower body ones. 

Also, I made a whole heap of mini quiches for breakfasts, it turned out to be a great idea because I just grab 3 and eat them cold with a coffee in the morning, saves time and regulates my breakfast intake. Made a batch of 18 with 12 eggs, cheese, corn, 100g ham and red onion. Delicious. 

Which means I'm having eggs for breakfast, tuna for a snack, and 3/8 of a chicken for lunch. Not feeling too much weaker either.

Recipes - Bacon & Egg Pie

Ingredients:

• 2 sheets of puff pastry
• 10-12 eggs
• 1 diced onion
• 5 rashers of bacon (200g), trimmed and rough cut
• 1 ½ cups of grated cheese
• 1 sliced tomato
• 2 tbl spoons of seeded mustard
• Salt and pepper to taste

           

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C or 160 fan forced
2. Grease a pie dish and line with a sheet of pastry
3. Sauté onion and bacon for 3 minutes in a saucepan, then evenly spread over the pastry with cheese and tomato slices
4. Crack salt and pepper to taste
5. Evenly spread the seeded mustard over the top
6. Crack eggs whole on top of the bacon, cheese, onion, mustard and tomato, keeping the yolks intact if you can
7. Place second layer of pastry over the top, trimming around the edges
8. Lightly beat an egg in a small bowl, adding a dash of milk before brushing the top of the pie with the mixture
9. Cook for 35-45 minutes or until golden brown





After step iii



Right before putting the top layer of puff pastry on 






Hot from the oven!





Cuts into 6 perfectly, and works well as a 'between meals meal'

Nutritional Information:

• 5 Bacon rashers/ 8 short cut bacon rashers (200g) – 600 cals; 40g protein, 3g carbohydrates, 30g fat

• 10 Eggs (500-550g) – 700 cals; 70g protein, 0g carbohydrates, 60g fat

• 1 ½ cups of grated cheese (150g) – 600 cals; 45g protein, 5g carbohydrates, 50g fat

• 2 sheets of Puff Pastry – 1000 cals; 20g protein, 140g carbohydrates, 50g fat

• 1 Onion (100g+) – 50 cals; 1g protein, 10g carbohydrates, 0g fat

• 1 Tomato (150g) – 30 cals; 2g protein, 7g carbohydrates, 0g fat

TOTAL: 2980 cals; 180g protein, 170g carbohydrates, 190g fat

Per serving: 500 cals; 30g protein, 28g carbs, 32g fat

Friday Food iii

I'm sure we all love breakfast here, and this is then one of my greatest loves. This was from a cafe at the Gold Coast for $6. Three rashers of bacon, four eggs, and two pieces of doorstop toast. Probs around 800 cals with at least 40g of protein. Best hangover cure ever

Friday Food ii

This was Monday night's dinner. 6 lamb mince tacos, with sour cream, cheese, taco sauce, tomato and lettuce, and a protein shake on the side.

All up comes to around 1400-1500 calories, with 100g protein, 160g carbs, and 80g fat. Not bad for half a taco kit and a milk drink...

Nutrition - the missing link to success?

I can guarantee that 9 out of 10 guys who train using SS or a similar full-body routine (Madcows 5x5, Stronglifts, Texas Method etcetera) train hard. Yet so often their gains stall at around the same mark, their progress slowing to a snails pace or even worse, they quit. Training intensity is not the issue for most people, and I can say with utmost confidence that recovery (sleep) isn't a problem either for young guys hitting the gym. More than likely it is their nutrition letting them down, and I definitely count myself among this crowd.

When I was training at an even more amateur level than I am now (squatting my BW, benching 75% BW, not deadlifting) I would not make sure of my macronutrient intake, I would occasionally skip meals (thinking I would make gains after not eating breakfast was Three Stooges material), and I would eat a lot of carbs but not get in the required 1g of protein per pound of BW for actually building muscle. I'm glad to say that those days are well and truly behind me, and I'm hoping my commitment to nutrition will pay dividends in the future.

This isn't to say that you can't get stronger with a slightly sub-par attention to what you put into your body, but once you reach a certain level of strength (1.5xBW squat, over BW bench, 2xBW deadlift) extra macronutrients and recovery efforts are needed to maintain the aggressive overload of linear progression. I've seen this done to the point of a 4 plate squat (180kg), and it made me think to myself 'Why am I struggling with 2.5kg increases when I'm not even squatting 2 plates (100kg)?' The reason was obviously nutrition, and so after I broke my hand I started scheming (as you do when you can't actually LIFT weights) my rise to glory when I was healed up. This involved upping my calories from the get-go, so I would be best prepared to continue my progression well past my previous PRs.

I'm happy to say that I currently have a great nutrition plan in place that is easy to follow and gives me a pretty fool-proof blueprint for gains, both in BW and in strength. Here is my general outline:

Breakfast and morning snack:

6:00am - Wake up, cereal for breakfast: 300-400 cals (20g protein, 35g carbs, 15g fat)

7:00am - Drive to work protein shake: Musashi Mass Gain, 600mL milk with 60g powder (600 cals, 45g protein, 55g carbs, 30g fat)

9:30am-10:00am - Trail mix: sultanas, apricot, cashews, walnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds (400 cals, 20g protein, 40g carbs, 30g fat) I eat this every day without fail now.

So before 10am I've consumed 1300-1500 calories, with 85g protein, 130g carbs, 75g fat. Fairing well so far.

Lunch & afternoon snack:

12:00pm-2:00pm - Adding up to 1000 cals, normally leftovers or sandwiches. Today I have 2 big turkey, cheese & mayo sandwiches.

3:00pm - Cheese, crackers and kabana,

Food over this period should add up to 1200 cals at least with 40g+ of protein, 130g of carbs and who knows how much fat, probs around 40g.

Dinner:

This is the toughest one to count on because as we all know, meal sizes and macronutrient content varies widely depending on whether you're eating a steak and roast potato to pasta carbonara (both of which I love).

6:30pm-7:00pm - Adding up to 800-1000 cals, really making an effort to get a decent portion of meat in to any and every evening meal.

8:00pm - Protein shake (600 cals, 45g protein, 55g carbs, 30g fat)

Over the course of the day that means over 4000 calories, and:

• 180g-200g+ Protein
• 350-400g Carbohydrates
• 150g-200g Fat

The proof is in the pudding, so I won't go crowing about this until I'm at at least a 120kg squat, but the weights don't feel heavier each session, and I'm feeling less cautious of reaching a 2 plate bench too, so that's a good sign. When I get to the latter weeks and months of the program, I will most likely need to bump up my carbs to help recovery, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Friday Food i

For one of my birthday's my friend Taylor made this for me, it's steak stuffed with 3 types of cheese, wrapped in bacon, with onion sauteed with blue cheese on the side. This was one of the most delicious meals I've ever eaten, and there had to be 150g+ of protein in it, this thing was massive. Good times.

Chicken tenders with a side of chips

Ate this last night for dinner, it's just some chicken tenderloins with caramelised onion, chips and mayo. Comes to around 1100 calories, with 60g protein, 100g carbs and 50g fat.  I want to aim to get at least 1 meal a day that has over 50g of protein in it, if not then I'm definitely not getting in enough of the muscle-making macronutrient. I'm aiming for the general rule of 1-1.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight per day to make sure that I'm building muscle at the best rate possible. So because I weigh 72kg (160lb) right now, that equates to 160g-220g of protein per day. Sounds easy enough