Quick midnight squat session:
Worked up to 5 x 90kg. Weight felt easy, form felt better but not right still
Then 5 x 10 @ 60kg.
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Midnight? But, why?
My training sessions are seriously limited at the minute. I lift around midnight or 4am (or both, like today) because the rest of my time is taken up by more important stuff. I hope the situation will be easing off again soon, but for now that is what it is.
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Quick session (like pretty much every session at the minute):
Seated press: ~3 x ~10 then one big drop set
Superset with cable rows, lots
So 2 sick kids again, one with slapped cheek syndrome, one with tonsilitis. This year really is turning out to be an arsehole. No training, lots of work stress and minimal sleep. Stuck pretty well to my nutritional plan though, so pretty happy with that. No progress but also no steps backwards like normally happens. Just food prepped for this week and all I can say is Iām glad itās holiday next week, because I donāt think I can face this level of rice and veggies indefinitely.
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It might sound crazy but I mix in potatoes and pasta for my carbs. We cook two boxes of pasta and mix in two jars of sauce and put the whole pot in the fridge. Iāll eat 300g worth which Iāve determined is 10% of the whole batch. It comes out to 300ish calories. I can live with that since it brings variety (and sanity) to the process.
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This is next on my list. I had it in my head that pasta was rammed with sugar but after finally checking it, it was barely worse than rice. Will definitely start making use of that.
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Have you tried whole wheat pasta or brown rice pasta. Both in my opinion are delicious and a little better than plain jane noodles. Just food for thought
Whole wheat was the one I checked the nutrition of, so thatās my go to. Fractionally more sugar than rice but also fractionally more protein so Iāll take that. Opens up a whole new world of possibilities for food prep.
Whatās your thoughts on sugars (bread), directly after heavy workouts? My schedule for work has changed and left me slightly unprepared. Gives me the option of an extra long session, but also means Iām having to rejig my food plans for the day.
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Iād recommend karbolyn post workout after a heavy session. One scoop is 50 grams of quick digesting carbs and no sugars. Add a scoop of whey and your good to go.
But yeah, bread shouldnāt be a problem immediately post workout. Your body will be depleted and process what you give it. Obviously less sugar and lower GI would be better but I donāt think itās a deal breaker
Iām pretty much dealing with what I have in the house or can easily buy tonight for today. Havenāt had a chance to have a proper session for a while so looking forward to hitting itnhas and pigging out a bit afterm
Bread isnāt bad for you. Our body will use anything if we need it. If you eat the bread with something else then you change its impact on your blood sugar anyway.
I believe bread, pasta, rice, fruit, and veggies - pretty much anything thatās fairly natural to produce - are perfectly suitable foods for a cut. I avoid man made stuff the best I can (like the sugar in vending machine style foods).
Blood sugar spikes and the insulin response need to be kept in order but that actually just means we shouldnāt eat a ton of simple (processed) sugars throughout the day. Eating bread and pasta for a total of three times a day wonāt hurt anything.
We really just need to worry about chronically elevated blood sugar. If youāre eating wholesome foods and a variety of things then youāll be fine.
I once read a little bit about the glycemic index and how to reduce a foodās impact on blood sugar. White bread has a GI number of 100 but they found that it goes down (release sugar into the blood stream slower) if itās frozen and then thawed or toasted.
Eating protein first so that your carbs arenāt hitting an empty stomach also lowers or slows the blood sugar spike. If Iām not eating around my workout window then I make sure to eat protein first in my meal. I eat carbs first post-workout because itāll spike my blood sugar and cause insulin to be released. Insulin helps shuttle nutrients to the muscle.
The most basic diet advice is to eat a variety of foods (both in type and color), eat protein first except near training, and donāt overeat.
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I appreciate the detailed response. My nutritional knowledge has always been rudimental at best (maybe ironically for a science grad). Iāve only ever managed to get lean (with any kind of muscle definition) previously by being young, incredibly active and fairly stress free. I think cutting the slightly less obvious sugars from my diet recently has had a noticeable impact, even without much training or sleep, so Iām happy to keep that up most of the time. Itās been a crap week on the tail end of a crap few months though so Iām kinda grateful I can just hit the gym like i used to and eat big to compensate after. Looking forward to it more than a sane person should.
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Iāve recently become aware that Iām thinking about my physique and training way too much. Iām not sure how to shut it off either.
Iāve never done anything for lint (40 days before Easter, I think), but I considered giving up the gym this year because it consumes too much of my brain space. I couldnāt do it because I thought my injuries would get worse from neglect. The more I rest my hip, the worse things seem to get.
Maybe I need to take a break from T-Nation. Iām always on here and it keeps my brain in the āonā mode because Iām constantly thinking about training and food.
This place is great and I enjoy it, but I might be here too muchā¦
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I have similar thoughts. I took a while to dive back in to tnation after I restarted training, for exactly that reason. I do find it a net benefit for me though, as long as I stay away from reading articles and, ideally stay pretty much in the logs section. I think I may well just budget a certain amount of time a day for it and only use it within those timesm
Iām with you guys to an extent. It helps me keep myself accountable, but I open it up for a āquick check-inā several times a day at work, and I really need to just log my weight in the morning, log my food and workouts in the evening, and take a little time to check other peoplesā logs once a day and leave it at that.
Thatās easier said than done when I get boredā¦
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Itās only beneficial to take a break if you fill the time recovered with something productive. For me I interact on t nation when Iād be doing something else mindless like Facebook or some dumb game. Learning about the lifestyle I enjoy with likeminded guys is much better imo
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I agree with this 100% I do none of the other things youāve mentioned, and a lot of my posts are made in the break while Iām waiting for IT to work at work or with sleeping kids on me.
It also became obvious that I miss out on more productive reading on occasions, like those mentioned on robsteins log, to spend time on here. And thatās not cool.
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At last, a proper session. Sort of.
Bench: worked up to 72.5kg x 10.
60kg 5 x 5
Superset all sets with 20 band pull aparts.
Close grip lat pull-downs: 3(?) Sets of 10(?)
Seated press: lots
Rear delt raises: 3 x 35
Squat: worked up to 90kg
Leg extension machine: some.
Notes:
- Bench was technically a rep PR but only because Iāve not done that weight recently. Not very impressed with it as a lift to be honest.
- lat pull downs where just done until the bell end on his phone got out of the only rack with a bench in it. Didnāt really keep track of the number of sets or volume.
- Seated press kinda got away from me a bit. I was stacking rest pause on top of drop sets on top of paused reps. Probably did about 150 reps over the course of about 15mins.
- Rear delt raises are with a fairly limited range of motion, getting much more limited as I approached 35 reps.
- Squats where a bit of a killer. Felt like I was getting cramp in my right shin from the very first warm up set. Was planning some kind of high volume death by squats but by the time in got to my top set it was hurting pretty badly so I had to draw a line under it and move on.
- Leg extensions: felt like I needed something to replace squats and happened to pass this machine so inspired by @jackolee, I decided to give them a go. I can see the use but overall Iām pretty sure they arenāt going to be making there way into my regular workouts any time soon.
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