The biggest thing to keep in mind is that your TM is in no way a reflection of your strength. You can get way stronger with a TM of 400 in the squat vs a TM of 500 in the squat if you’re training correctly. It’s simply a number you use for programming.
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18/09/20
2 workouts due to report. Here’s yesterday’s workout.
Squat
Warmup: 20kgx10, 40x5
Set 1: 64.5x5 (5 @75%)
Set 2: 73x3 (3 @85%)
Set 3: 81.5x5 (1+ @95%)
FSL: 64.5x5x5 (5x5 FSL @75%)
Assistance:
Superset: Dips 7, 5, 5 with chins 6, 4, 4 (narrowed the grip a little on each set)
Superset, 2 rounds: Decline pushups with inverted rows
Pullovers 2 sets
Superset, 3 rounds: BB curls sup. w/ BB PJRs, with max weighted situps
19/09/20
Second workout - this is today’s.
Bench
Warmup: 20kgx15
Set 1: 47.5x5 (5 @75%)
Set 2: 53.5x3 (3 @85%)
Set 3: 60x7 (1+ @95%). Very pleased with this performance. Looks like maybe the bench TM can go up 2.5 kg?
FSL: 47.5x5x5 (5x5 FSL @75%)
Assistance (new and improved - a little less intensive):
Superset: Dips 7, 5, 5 (a little careful today, wanted to watch the shoulder joint) with chins 5, 3, 4 (narrow grip on last set)
Inverted rows, 2 sets
Pullovers, 2 sets
Superset, 2 rounds: BB curls with max weighted situps
I suppose an advantage of dropping the TM for this cycle is that for the next cycle, when I do add weight to my TM, I’ll be back to using the same weight that I am now, which gives me an ideal opportunity to break the PRs I’ve set here.
Something I’ve been thinking about lately @T3hPwnisher @carlbm… Right now I’m at a sort of slightly-built-but-also-slightly-cuddly (to borrow a phrase I once read from Coach Thib) 180lbs or so at 5’8". Not a “fat git” as Carl would say but definitely not particularly lean either. My primary goal is to build muscle, and I don’t really have any burning desire to go too far below 12-15% body fat, at least not until I’m carrying as much muscle mass as I can. That being said, I’m wondering if maybe I should take this cut all the way and go all in, and just cut right until I have proper abs and have leaned out completely so that I can jump straight into a proper mass phase and just focus on gaining like crazy. Alternatively, should I just continue at maintenance or slightly below, keep the protein high, put my head down and just focus on not getting fat? I’m not sure I have enough muscle to cut properly. I’m worried I’ll end up looking like one of those 135 lb kids who thinks they’re “jacked” because they can see their abs…
Sorry if this was a bit of a ramble. But yeah just thinking out loud.
Here is my honest assessment. I apologize if it’s a bit on the nose, but it’s what I would want in your situation.
I’m an inch taller than you, and currently around 3lbs lighter. With you being a 5’8 180lb trainee that is benching 60kg for 7 reps, this puts you at an estimated 1rm of 75kg (rounded up, using Jim Wendler’s formula): a sub bodyweight bench press. This maps on with hitting single digit dips and chins, and similar strength showings in the other lifts.
I genuinely cannot imagine how you could be slightly built with that level of strength. It’s very likely you hold fat well (it does not gravitate toward your midsection, but instead fills out your upper torso).
Were I in such a situation, I’d focus significantly on fat loss and get down to a baseline of lean before I pursued serious muscular gain. This does NOT mean not chasing after strength. It’s why I’ve been harping on using a lower TM: that gives you ROOM to progress. When you start at the very end of your ability and try to lose weight on top of that, you just stall quick. On a program like 5/3/1 for beginners, where you get to set rep PRs each training session, you are set up for a LONG series of success as long as the avenue remains available. Bodyweight assistance work helps there as well, as you’ll be able to crank out MORE reps as bodyweight goes down.
Once leanness is achieved, I’d pursue muscular gain, but ALSO not get stupid about it: it’s not the time to start force feeding. Slowly re-add the calories while following a HARD training program. If you stick with 5/3/1, be a great time to do BBB Beefcake and then maybe Building the Monolith. At that point, your chinning and dips should be on point.
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If this feels like I’m ganging up on you with Pwn I’m not. But he holds a good argument. I’ll focus on the squat - 81.5kg x5. It’s hardly earth shattering. It hard to imagine you holding much quality mass.
The plan he puts forward is a good one. It’s not the one I followed but I’ll be the first to say that was a mistake. See below.
In the past 9 months I’ve learnt you should focus on 1 goal at a time. Doing 531 at a slight calorie deficit to get bigger stronger and leaner all at the same time will not end well.
To know what the next step is there are two choices to reach your goal.
1 - as Pwn says. Lose some lbs before Christmas. And then hit BBB beefcake, BtM, deep water and super squats in the new year. That’s 1/2 a years worth of training. In which you’re eating for gains. After all this you have another small cut and you’re golden. Its Summer 2021 and you look like you lift. All the way through this process you look and feel pretty good. As you’re weight is manageable.
2 - don’t cut but start the gain weight again now. Run BBB Beekcake, BtM, Deep water and SS without a cut and eat for gains. At the end of this you’ll be MY weight. 230+. And a good 4 inchs smaller. You look like shit feel like shit and you have 4 sizes of jeans in the wardrobe. The thought of a big cut from 230 to 180 is too much you don’t even start to and now you’re fat and only moderately strong.
I know this as I did it. It’s a terrible plan. Dont do it.
Lean out a bit. 160lb sounds good (having not seen you it’s a total guess). Then add weight.
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You’ve not posted since dude. You okay?
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Hey, yeah all is well on my end haha, thanks for asking. Sorry for the silence for the last few days, I haven’t had a chance to post on the forums lately - been completely snowed under with work. End of year is exam season so always busy. I really appreciate you and @T3hPwnisher responding though, I need to have a proper read of what you guys have written and then write a more thought-out reply. Will post that and an update on what I’m doing training-wise as soon as I can.
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Okie dokie. Finally got a bit of free time, so welcome back to another episode of Biggest Guy in Class. Let’s start with the workouts, then I’ll post some thoughts. A week has elapsed since I last reported, so I’ve just completed the last workout of the 5+ week. Attached are some images of my training log, followed by a brief summary of the key points of note regarding the decisions re training maxes/programming etc. Apologies for the messiness of the log, usually I’m the only person who has to read it haha.
In summary:
-Training maxes have been dropped 2.5 kg (5lbs) on the press, and 5 kg (10lbs) on the squat and deadlift. Bench TM I decided to keep the same, since I got 10 reps on the 5+ week last time round, so my plan for this cycle is to beat those PRs. Didn’t really see a need to pile on weight when there wasn’t a need to - might as well let the other lifts catch up.
-For the lifts where the TM is now different, I’m using Jim’s formula for comparing rep maxes (Weight x reps x 0.0333 + weight = 1RM) to determine how many reps I need to beat the last performance.
-The results of this: this week, for the 5+ sets, I’ve done 9 reps on the deadlift, 9 on the press, 11 on the squat, and 11 on the bench. These were all at or slightly above the target I needed to beat the last known rep max from the last cycle.
I was shortchanged a bit on the deadlift set I think - I could perhaps have gotten ten, but my shin started to bleed a bit, and I think the blood soaking into the tracksuit leg began to cause excess drag on the bar (seriously, I can’t make this stuff up). I quickly removed my pants to see if I could get rep 10, but alas, to no avail. I train at home alone, so I can do stuff like that.
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@T3hPwnisher and @carlbm I very much appreciate you guys giving me some advice. I’ll address that now.
Nah you guys are cool, don’t worry. Would much rather hear advice that’ll actually help me, however harsh it seems.
I have to agree here. I don’t have that base of solid mass that I need. Your explanation about holding fat in the upper torso and not the midsection is plausible, although I definitely haven’t got the smallest waist in the world to be honest, lol. I think the general point that your point alludes to - that there are several factors that influence your physique apart from amount of muscle mass and fat mass - is definitely applicable regardless.
Lol. Can’t really argue with that!
But, jokes aside, you both make very good points, and I plan to listen. To be honest what you’ve said confirms a nagging suspicion I’ve had growing on me for a while, and hearing it from you guys makes it clear what my next steps need to be. For long-term success, this is the way to go about it.
The goal, then, is to stop being a fat git by the end of the year, hopefully with an eye to starting an intelligent gaining phase from a lean base by early 2021 at the latest, assuming that everything is in order leanness wise.
In the meantime, I’m going to continue running this program. Training maxes have been kept low for this cycle (see previous post), so I’m hoping that this will help me to keep making progress.
Onwards and upwards then.
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Good the hear from you. And to see you’re keeping with it. Some people hear news they dont like and then blam - rage quit.
With 13 weeks till Christmas- and 14 till the new year you could in theory lose 10kg or 22lb relatively easily.
This would put you in a GREAT place to restart.
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Today in the morning I decided to do some running. Number 1, I need some cardio to help the fat loss, and number 2, I wanted to see where my conditioning was at. Sports have all been pretty much non-existent for the past 6 months or so due to the Covid situation so I haven’t been doing a lot of conditioning, and it sort of showed…
I basically did a few AFAP (As Far As Possible) sprints with 2-ish minutes of walking in between. Much much tougher than I expected. I think I tried to go at the sort of pace that I would have been able to do when I was in my in-season shape, and as a result I found it quite difficult.
Hopefully I can rebuild my conditioning again quickly. Not sure if there’s any “muscle memory” phenomenon for conditioning like there is for muscle and strength, but regardless I’m hoping that by the end of the year I can be somewhere close to where I was before.
Additional thoughts to consider -
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Perhaps it would be better to keep sprints for the off days.
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I did them early morning, so fasted sprints essentially. Not sure if this is a good idea, don’t want to go catabolic or anything.
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Following on from the last post - just been digging up some old T-Nation articles on fasted cardio work. It seems that the general consensus is that there’s not much difference in fat-burning between fasted and non-fasted, but fasted may be more catabolic to muscle - perhaps taking a bit of protein powder beforehand would help. I’ll do a bit more reading I think.
Catabolic concern is really inconsequential. It would be one thing if you had been fasting for 24 hours and then did some cardio, but even then not a super big deal. Get it done when you can. Really, cardio is just a small tool for fat loss: diet is the key. Jon Andersen has a good analogy: losing fat is like shoveling your driveway. Cardio is a child’s hand shovel for sand at the beach: diet is a snowblower. They both help: one does a bigger job than the other.
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I can only concur with PWN.
Diet is king when it comes to weight. To follow on the snow blower analogy - your diet will be blowing snow off of or onto your drive. In which case the small shovel is even less significant .
Give me a few days but I’ll post the cardio sprint work I’ve been doing with my rugby team. It’s all very simple. But structurally its sound and provides a fair amount of progress. So you know it’s got a purpose. It might help a bit more that running your self into the ground.
There is. Fairly well documented.
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28/09/20
Workout report first -
Deadlift
Warmup: 60kgx5
Set 1: 79x3 (3 @70%)
Set 2: 90.5x3 (3 @80%)
Set 3: 101.5x8 (3+ @90%) (needed 8).
FSL: 79x5x5 (5x5 FSL @70%)
Assistance -
Superset: dips 7, 6, 5 with chins 5, 4, 3. (My numbers on these have been pretty constant for a while, need to get them up more. Hopefully that’ll happen as I lean out.)
Wide-grip rack pull-ups, 2 sets
Pullovers, 2 sets
Superset 2 rounds: BB curls with weighted situps
My legs are feeling a bit stiff in some odd places from the running today haha. Not in a bad way, but it is a bit surprising.
Yeah this is probably the best way to go about it lol.
That’s a great analogy, and yes I’m definitely going to be watching the diet. Don’t want to make the mistake of trying to outrun bad food choices. If I can burn 100 calories with cardio, that will cover an additional 25 grams of valuable protein. It won’t cover a double cheeseburger with fries, which is also decidedly less valuable.
That would be absolutely fantastic if you could post that. I didn’t really have much of a plan today, as you saw.
Also good to hear that there’s some muscle memory for conditioning. Should make my job a bit easier!
Yesterday’s workout. A fine evening, the sun was low in the sky, so I threw open the doors of the home gym and got some air. Which went great until someone started cooking something rather, ah, fragrant…
Been reading some Ellington Darden stuff lately, and decided to experiment with some HIT - some 30 second negatives on the dips and chins, and a 30-10-30 BB curl set. Side effects included walking around for the next hour feeling like Mike Mentzer.
30/09/20
Press
Warmup: 20kgx7
Set 1: 36x3 (3 @70%)
Set 2: 41x3 (3 @80%)
Set 3: 46.5x7 (3+ @90%) (needed 7)
FSL: 36x5x5 (5x5 FSL @70%)
Assistance:
Superset: Dips 7, 7, 30-second negative dip, with chins 5, 3, 30-second negative chin.
Rack pull-ups 2 sets
Pullovers 2 sets
BB curl 30-10-30 (30 sec eccentric, 10 reps, 30 second eccentric)
Weighted situps 3 sets
Thinking about changing the assistance a bit. Next cycle I’m considering doing a dips-BB row superset, followed by some sets of chins. Or perhaps doing an incline bench-BB row superset? I do quite like BB rowing. Regardless that’s something to decide after I’m done with the next 5/3/1 week.
This morning I did some more cardio - similar format to last time. Just did a few sprints as far as I could, with about 90 seconds of walking in between. Not much of a plan but at least the heart rate got up a bit. Total time about 10 minutes. It seems I’m beginning to adapt to it, I haven’t felt any of that tightness and soreness around the legs and hips that I did last time. However I felt like I pulled something around the hip in one leg, not sure what’s up. It got better after a couple hours or so though, so I dunno.
Physique update: weighed in at 82.6 kg this morning (182.1 lbs), which is about a 1.4kg (3lbs) loss. Waist is coming down slowly but surely, I think we’re hitting the sub-35 inch mark (with the waist and abs relaxed and let out). However I think it’s still too early to tell whether I’m having any significant success. Once the scale/tape measure starts to come down a little more we’ll see whether it’s just water and glycogen or actual fat that’s being lost.
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Additional physique update: weighed in at 82 kg (180.8 lbs) exactly this morning. Apparently have burnt a pound of fat while sleeping 
or perhaps not. One can hope.
However, physique this morning was slap bang in the DYEL zone, at least by my standards. I could swear that I look worse at 82kg now than I did the last time I was this weight a few weeks ago. Perhaps not surprising considering that I’m on a cut phase (it appears to be well documented that this is a universal experience when dieting) but it’s difficult to see how I could look that much worse just because I’m cutting… then again at this point I’m not sure how much I can trust my own assessment of my physique. Best just to stay the course and keep going. We’ll be adding some quality mass before long after all.
When you go from eating a lot to not eating as much, your glycogen stores deplete and muscles look less full, yet not enough fat is lost to have a visual impact so you look worse than when you started. Happens to me each time. Stay the course. Tnation has some articles that talk to that. Can’t find them at the moment, but worth digging through the site.
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I keep meaning to write this. But my laptop is in the shop. So on the phone it is.
To start with there are 2 primary energy system. Aerobic (slower longer) and anaerobic (shorter faster).
Working your aerobic system provides little benefit to you anaerobic. But working your anaerobic provides lots of benefits to you aerobic. So that’s why HiiT - which targets the Anaerobic system is preferred.
To work the anaerobic system we must work at or above our VO2 max. This is the point where our body’s burn as much as we can breath in. At this point our body depletes its oxygen stores and then starts making energy in the absence of oxygen. This is called oxygen debt.
Over time with exercise the body increases O2 stores and increases the ability to recover.
The work to rest ration is important. Shorter work and shorter rests will result in the body creating deeper O2 stores. Longer work longer rest will create a better recovery system.
I will add work length has an inverted relationship to work intensity. Longer work period mean you ease off the gas a bit.
A sample plan for 2xweek running.
Tempo runs.
Get an interval timer. You want 90 sec rounds.
Every 90 run 40-50m. Jog back. 4 runs 1 round. After every round take 3 mins off.
Do 4 rounds - 16 runs. The runs need to be hard enough do that the jog back is hard. But not dreadfully. You should not be able to talk in more than 1-2 words at a time. So 85-95% effort.
As time goes on in increase the length of the run. 75-80m.
At 16 runs you’ll sprint over 1200m. Which is enough.
The other workout is less nice.
100m run at 85-95% every 2mins.
Start with 4. Trust me this will be enough.
Add 1 run per week (if you’re doing both running workouts).
Once your at 10 - add a bit of length to the run. 10m a week. Once youre at 150m runs consider adding 30 seconds to the timer.
If you get to 10x200m in 25 mins that’s a very good workout.
Fyi these are both general fitness runs. Neither is sport specific. The work is hard and fairly long. The rests are also fairly long to allow substantial recovery.
If you’re doing this and want a less nice again I have 1 or 2 that a very unpleasant. But that’s not for now. One of the unspoken issues around HiiT is that once you get to a certain level of tired you’re so all over the place you’re at high risk of injury.
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