Maple Syrup Strength (littlesleeper)

After a pukathon or similar I find eating unpleasant so liquid food works well for me. As long as you’re feeling better though, that’s what matters.

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05/08/2017

AM
Woke at 201.0lbs this morning. New weight PR!

I’ve noticed some welcome physique improvements over the last week of loosening up my meal choices. My calories are still in deficit, but I’m eating more fruit, some yogurt, the odd granola bar, a handful of chocolate mini eggs after dinner, etc. I think with these smaller ‘cheats’ I’ve been consuming less overall calories as I’m not trying to fill these cravings with binge eating on healthier foods. Sticking with 1 plate at dinner, knowing I can have a few mini eggs; eating 2 servings of fruit and a piece of toast with breakfast, so I’m not eating 1/2lb of bacon and 5 whole eggs; etc.

I know this seems obvious (calorie balance), but these are factors in diet/nutrition that seem to be very individual. I tried Keto(ish), I tried low carb, and I’ve tried just eating smaller quantities of my typical year-round diet.

With the third option:

PROS

  • Most sustainable
  • Energy is affected the least out of the 3 options
  • You are not required to avoid as many social situations
  • Less feeling flat/run down

CONS

  • Not “EXTREME”
  • MAY not lose weight as quickly as other methods

I’m going to stick around the 2200-2300 cal mark hitting ~180g PRO and then splitting my fat and carbs however the day rolls out. More carbs on workout days, and more fat on rest days. Otherwise, I’m not doing anything crazy.

I’m going to book an appointment with a doc and have a look at my knee. I would hate to ignore this pain and pay for it in the long term if there needs to be something done, better safe than sorry.

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These are certainly very individualized, and the third option clearly seems like the obvious, most sustainable choice. As you said, ultimately cals in/out will determine your success, messing with macros is the very last piece of the puzzle. The most successful nutrition plan is the one you can execute most consistently, and in my off season (which I’m now in, YAY!) I certainly don’t stay strict or extreme with food choices. I eat healthy foods in reasonable quantities, and if I want something tasty, I factor it in. I would imagine you’ve been seeing some additional movement on the scale recently because you’ve been more strict, are loosening up, your body likes it, but you’re still in a deficit, metabolism has probably kicked up a bit. All good stuff!

Don’t let up one bit, you’ve been going at this for months and you’re close to the finish line. Getting under the 200b mark shouldn’t be hard, you may have to dig in harder than usual for a week or something, but you can absolutely do it. No excuses, you’re a BAMF man, GET IT DONE! Looking forward to seeing your continued progress!

3 Likes

Thanks man! I definitely needed that.

I’m probably preaching to the choir but between work be chaotic, recovering from a 24hr flu, and trying to program around a knee injury limiting leg extension I definitely needed a little help to stay motivated. FORTUNATELY, I’m 90% recovered from the flu (still woke up with a slight headache, and stomach isn’t 100%), my workload is slowly normalizing (by the end of this week, I should be back to normal) but my knee isn’t really showing any drastic improvements yet.

I’m really going to try and hit the gym hard this week while minimizing the stress on my knee. 2-3 weeks of no squatting isn’t going to kill me I guess…but it sure feels like it! I’ll take this time to hammer my hamstrings and calves as hard as I’m able to.

I’m also going to be more diligent with my LISS, which has been AirDyne or 50lb weighted vest 1 mile walks.

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Ultimately this is the goal isn’t it? As I said before, I’m bummed I didn’t get involved in this challenge, but I’m living vicariously through your cut (So keep that shit up!) haha

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Haha, thanks man! Glad to have you along for the ride!

05/08/2017

Warmup
Agile 8

Superset 5 Rounds:
40 Jump Rope
5 plyo pushups

Band Pullaparts/Dislocates/Facepulls

Strength:

Assistance:
1-Arm Db Rows:
105lbs x 10reps x 5 sets

Superset:
Wide Grip Pullups (slow controlled reps):
8, 6, 8
Back Extensions (holding a 25lb plate @ chest):
10, 10, 10

Solid workout, good pump. Weight moved well. The OHP 5reps at 205lbs was near a 10RPE though, had to lean back a bit to finish the rep.

Confession: Some mirror posing practice post workout. Holy, I actually barely broke a sweat in my workout until I did this. Out of breath and sweating. Might have to do this a few times a week to sneak in some quick extra work!

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3 whole eggs, egg whites, mushrooms, green onions and turmeric. Whole wheat bagel with herb and garlic cream cheese. Oh carbs, how I’ve missed you in my mornings.

This was prior to smothering my omelette in Sriracha sauce.

5 Likes

05/09/2017

Week 3 - 5/3/1 5’s PRO, BBB
Warmup
Agile 8
A bunch of jumping around like a fool, trying to get primed without bothering my knee too much.

Deadlift - Conventional
135 x 5 (double overhand)
225 x 5 (double overhand)
315 x 3 (double overhand)
365 x 5 (double overhand 1st rep) - @strongmanvinny2’s log inspired me to test out my double overhand ability
435 x 5 (double overhand 1st rep)
485 x 5 (double overhand 1st rep) - Well this went better than anticipated. The first rep came up much easier than the remaining 4 with mixed grip…

I was doing sets of 10 hanging leg raises between sets.

Hey Strongmen/anyone with more knowledge about strongman than me, do competitions always allow straps for deadlift events? Or is there a reason for me to train mixed grip? I’m not worried about grip strength, I can’t see myself ever missing a deadlift due to grip. If that becomes an issue, there are 100 things that can improve grip better than a mixed grip deadlift, IMO.

Squats (1/2 rep)
135 x 10reps x 5 sets

This was demoralizing. I tried to stay in my pain-free ROM, but on each extension my left knee was pissed off. I needed to put a barbell on my back though. A few reps felt pain free, then I realized I was single legging that weight up, as soon as I transferred weight onto my left foot on the concentric, pain. Shit. Booking a Dr. appt tomorrow.

Between sets of squats I did some seated ~80 degree incline press with 50lb dbs. Very slow eccentric, hold in the stretch, explosive concentric. 5 sets of 10 reps. Pretty easy, but was starting to feel a pump near the end of these.

Finished off with a superset of inverted rows and neck harness with a 25lb plate.

Well, this workout and the logging of it was kind of all over the place. Heading out now for the almighty anabolic dog walk.

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Basically, almost all contests will allow the usage of straps on a deadlift event. Almost never, are they not allowed.

Also, mixed grip seems to be dying off these days. The strength world has become rife with the usage of straps and dare I say hook grip. Though more than half the people either don’t do hook because it hurts too much :frowning: or they just don’t have the proper hand physiology to allow it. Have you tried hook? Works like fucking magic for me.

Not a strongman, so not really qualified to weigh in but…

I realised fairly recently that mixed grip is only useful for PL meets and if you don’t compete, there are far better ways to make sure you can hold onto a barbell that will transfer perfectly well to your mixed grip DL. So I use straps for the vast majority of my DL sets.

@strongmanvinny2 - Ok, good to know thanks. I’ve tried it a handful of times with really light weight. The actual pain that my thumb was in was tolerable, but the discomfort of my 2nd knuckle (?) from twisting my thumb seemed to bother it for awhile after the workout. Maybe this is just something you get used to and it stops bothering you the more you do it. Then again, if I’m going to be able to use straps during competition I’m not sure it is worth sacrificing my thumbs for training.

@MarkKO - I think you’re more than qualified to pop in with an opinion! Good to know. I think this definitely confirms my plan to work up to as high as I can with double overhand and then either strap up, or learn some hook grip and give that a go.

Thanks gents!


05/10/2017

AM

Weight Loss PR:
199.8lbs!

I’m not going to lie, I was quite please to see this. Now it is just a matter of holding steady at this weight and seeing if I can drop an extra pound or three in the remaining 3 weeks.

After going low carb for 5-6 weeks and now reintroducing them am seeing the scale moving downwards. Yesterday I consumed over 200g of carbs (Bagel with breakfast, Finibar/Plazma Pre-workout, 3 pieces of whole wheat bread for dinner) and woke up to this weight. I also kept water intake quite high throughout the day/evening.

I was making sausages for lunch prep, and they looked too good to pass up. So I decided to have them on bread as well to spoil myself a little.

Sausages are a go-to for my lunch meal prep because they are delicious cold and leftover. Chicken breast the following day is usually dry and a chore to eat. Chicken is obviously the ‘better’ choice in terms of cals vs protein (less fat), but since I’m loosening up right now, sausages are a perfect compliment to a spinach salad.

This morning I made:

Some minor tweaks to his recipe (just because either I was lazy or didn’t have the ingredient):

STEP 1 - make your proats

  • 1/3 organic quick oats
  • enough unsweetened almond milk to cover
  • leave in fridge overnight

STEP 2 - add the rest when you’re ready to make your meal

  • 1 scoop Metabolic Drive Chocolate (gonna try Vanilla tomorrow)
  • 2tsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1tsp cocoa
  • 1 large whole egg
  • 1/2tsp baking soda
  • (opt.) 0 cal sweetener, I used a stevia packet

STEP 3 - mix and microwave
-Pretty easy here. Mix it all together, mine took 2 minutes in the microwave.

Topped with homemade maple syrup and a small handful of crushed walnuts.

6 Likes
  1. holy sausage plate. How many calories was that?

  2. what do you (or anyone) have against mixed grip for deads?

I switch to mixed grip when I need to but I like not using straps. It’s still my grip strength that’s handling any weight I’ve tried so far and I’m kind of proud of that (granted I haven’t exceeded 500lbs yet). It also lets me know I can lift large objects in the real world when straps aren’t available.

Hooked grip feels like someone is trying to dislocate my thumbs.

Literally the only reason I rarely use mixed grip (typically top sets) is for back development purposes (may be total bullshit haha) so that I have the same grip on both sides, utilizing (in theory) the same muscles and not creating imbalances (I heard read this somewhere a long time ago and for whatever reason it just stuck)

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Damn dude that looks awesome! CONGRATS on the weight loss PR as well bro!

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I work with a former power lifter and one of his regrets is using mixed grip and never alternating his grip. It did create some imbalances.

To me, that’s a simple fix - change the grip. I alternate every set. I’ve always done that. It seemed like common sense when I started.

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@Frank_C -

  1. Sausage plate I think was close to 1000cals!
  2. They throw my entire form out of wack, the bar tends to drift a little and it puts my supinated arm’s elbow, shoulder and wrist in an uncomfortable position.

I really don’t feel like mixed grip does much/anything for my grip. Chinups, CoC grippers, plate pinches and double overhand holds will improve my grip strength significantly better than mixed grip.

@Despade - Yes, unless you’re switching between sets and trying to spread your reps out evenly with each mixed grip.

@robstein - Thanks man! I appreciate you posting the clear recipes for all your creations. My “bookmarks” are starting to get full with your posts!

@Frank_C - I do switch back and forth with my grip. But, for me, there is not a single benefit of it. I can lift more weight if I strap up (not due to grip, just due to being properly setup, better bar path and mechanics), so this seems like the more beneficial way to train the deadlift.

@littlesleeper @Frank_C I’m a special kind of dumb haha I try and switch the grip and my mind just freezes, my body just doesn’t want to do it

@littlesleeper are you doing the semi-sumo or squat stance? That definitely doesn’t allow a mixed grip. I tried that but I feel better with a conventional stance so mixing the grip doesn’t affect my alignment.

As for grip strength I find really use deadlifts for that training. I’ll make it a challenge but it’s not really a goal of the lift for me. I’ll combine ab training with grip training in the form of loaded carries.

@despade thanks for that - - I laughed!

@Despade - I’m kind of the same way. One way, doesn’t feel bad. Then I switch with my right hand supinated and it feels all kinds of wrong.

@Frank_C - This is with all kinds of deads. The bar ‘turning’ doesn’t happen nearly to the extent when using conventional, but it is still a far from perfect bar path. But the entire lift when holding mixed grip feels like I’m pulling on an angle rather than straight back. Plus when I reach the bottom of the rep I really have to focus on leaning a bit to make both ends touch the floor at a similar time, otherwise I tend to hit one side at a time which throws the set out of a comfortable groove.