MarkKO's Training Log

Woke at 192.3 lbs, looking about the same as yesterday. Not entirely sure WTF is going on, I’m being as critical as I can be when I look in the mirror and I’m not seeing extra blubber.

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Barbell incline press can eat a bag of fat, hairy dicks. First time in fucking ages I’ve cut benching short due to cranky shoulders and the only new pressing I’ve done the last month is incline. At least some military pressing helped fix things.

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I dont get on with BB incline at all, have you tried doing it close grip? Normal grip aggrivates the shit out of my shoulders.

Today’s training

Lazy lifter plus shoulders

CGBP on squat bar

TM is 225 lbs

Work up from bar in 22 lbs x3-5 to 60%, 20 pull aparts between aets

3x165 lbs (forgot squat bar weight again), under 6 rpe
3x181 lbs, under 6 RPE
1x203 lbs, under 6 RPE, felt snappy AF
5x225 lbs, 9-10 RPE - out of my groove

Around now is when I decided my shoulder would benefit from no more benching. Incline has not worked out as a variation, not only are my shoulders cranky but since using incline I actually feel slower off the chest and my leg drive timing seems off. Maybe it’s just correlation, but I doubt it.

Squat bar military press
5xbar

Cuffs on

5x90 lbs
2x5x143 lbs
1x7x143 lbs

OK, pleased with this. Shoulders still achy but feeling happier. Pressing strength doesn’t seem to have suffered too much.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BX3fZk1FBja/

Bodyweight dips, slow eccentric
3x10, first time no need for rest/pause - upper chest and shoulder tie-in feeling tight at bottom which normally never happens

All the ills I’m feeling I can actually remember initially feeling during incline press.

Upper back trashed - actually, it’s been toast since Monday, now everything just came to a head - so at least I know I’m working it. Decided against heavy DB rows.

Single arm DB chest supported rows
3x15x60 lbs - lit up up my upper middle back like nothing else but in a good way.

Decided to reduce pull-up volume a bit, preempting any shit from my elbows

Pull-up ladder
1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 going wide overhand, neutral grip wide, neutral grip narrow - left bicep gave out on rep three of the last round, but major win, no elbow upset, just trashed biceps

Picked up the 20 lbs DBs and did alternating hammer curls until my biceps felt better.

Called it here. I’ve had some really good sessions in the last week and a half or so and they’re just presenting the bill now. I’ll take tomorrow a bit easy, no PR set and just do five or something.

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I considered it but like an idiot decided to see if I could weather six weeks of regular grip. Apparently I can’t, so any BB incline variation can fuck right off for a while.

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Id probably do the same if its any consolation, just to ‘see how things went’

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So we’re inquisitive, but not very smart…

Concerning my scale weight, which has been steadily rising: I thought maybe I should look at my calories and see where they sit in my scale weight and estimated LBM maintenance windows. Let’s say I’m around 190 lbs at around 15% bodyfat, so my LBM is about 161 lbs. That seems reasonable.

Calorie maintenance window for 190 lbs: 2650-3250 cal/day
Calorie maintenance window for 161 lbs: 2250-2750 cal/day

So, I’m well just scraping into the bottom end of my scale weight maintenance window and just above the mid point of my LBM maintenance window. To me, that means added weight shouldn’t really be that much fat - which calipers and mirror seem to bear out. Yesterday I even swore that my right obliques were coming out which is new. Although today my head told me after training that my left obliques had blurred - so I’m saying perception is playing a role here. In terms of macros I’m still sitting around the bodyweight in grams of protein/25% calories from fat/rest carbs split. What I’m not doing is counting veggies like cabbage, capsicum, eggplant, etc. Potato and starchy stuff obviously I do.

@robstein would I be reasonable just sticking with this and not worrying too much about scale weight moving up as long as the mirror generally stays the same or better?

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I do close grip incline and it never bothers me. Do you do bench grip, or close grip? It feels weird doing bench grip. That, and it supposedly carries over better for benching and pressing and hits the pecs better (supposedly, never had experience with normal to compare with).

Bench grip. Until these last weeks, it never bothered me. I did learn, however (by accident), that my press grip is almost identical to my CGBP grip wich may be telling me something.

That’s really common. My close grip, press grip, and jerk grip are all the same. It’s the natural everything kinda stacks on top of each other grip.

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More thinking.

What really jumps out is that I don’t like the idea of having a meet in October. It’s too damn soon.

A couple of things are in play here. Firstly, my bodyweight is going up. Whether it’s fat or water or muscle or inflammation or (most likely) a mix of all of the above it doesn’t matter to an extent, because I’m getting heavier. At the current rate I’ll be anywhere between 194 and 198 lbs come the week of 22 October which is a much bigger cut than 187ish to 181 lbs. My rule has been not to cut unless it’s 10 lbs or under, so that would make a pretty obvious case for competing at 198 lbs.

Here comes the second element: the sole reason I wanted to compete in October was to qualify for 2018 nationals at 181 lbs. If I’m not within an easy cut of 181, why compete so soon? I doubt I’d ever total much over 1400 lbs at 181 simply because it’s too light a class for me, which is barely an improvement on my best total. In October, I might be able to string together 1350 lbs, which would probably get me to nationals, where I might get 1400 lbs. Then what?

Not to mention, by the time nationals in 2018 rolls around I’ll definitely be sitting around 198 lbs, if not higher - even if my weight gain stalls now. I see absolutely no point in cutting back or restricting my calories for an extended period just to be lighter now I’m not fat. All that’ll do is hurt performance.

I’m not talking about getting fat again. Hell no! But, since my body composition seems to be remaining fairly stable while I get heavier I don’t see too much reason for concern. If I started blubbing out, different story but I hope I’m monitoring things closely enough to avoid that.

Anyhow, that’s where my head is at. I view meets as something necessary but also to be implemented sparingly. A meet completely derails training for around three weeks; and halts progression for around eight, since the six weeks leading up to the meet is when I peak, which means I’m bringing strength out that’s already there, not building more of it. So, competing in October means I have one more cycle before I do a short (four to five week) peak. I’m only just picking up momentum now and getting stronger. I don’t fancy putting all that on hold just to maybe qualify in a weight class I only have a fifty/fifty chance of fitting into in mid 2018.

The other option, kind of a middle way, would be to not peak and just compete at 198 lbs for the hell of it. Except what’s the point to that? I could possibly push a 1350ish lbs total out, which almost certainly wouldn’t qualify me for nationals at 198 lbs (1430 lbs would probably be a minimum for that). However, I think I have a decent chance of totalling around 1430 lbs at 198 if I have a good six months or so of solid training.

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Not that any of the above will change next cycle one whit (except maybe the reps on press after bench). Just saying.

TMs will go (there’s a point to this)

Bench
Current 225 lbs
C6 231 lbs
C7 236 lbs
C8 (meet would be end of week two) 242 lbs

DL
451 lbs
462 lbs
473 lbs
484 lbs

CGBP
As for bench

Squat
407 lbs
418 lbs
429 lbs
440 lbs

Those are all still quite low, so I’d be in prime rep PR territory. If I can keep the trend of hitting TMs for between six and 10 by the end of each cycle, I’d be setting myself up veru nicely and my strength would be well on the way back up. If I had a meet, I’d have to start peaking in cycle seven and lose that nice roll of momentum I’ve got going.

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I can definitely see your dilemma. Are there nationals every year? Can you do a meet early next year that will qualify you for nationals next year?

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That’s what I’m looking at. There will be one, probably here in Canberra. If not, Sydney or Melbourne.

Wendler says don’t peak, just train.
I don’t compete, so I really don’t know.
But you could finish C7 as normal. Then one week hitting TM for 1 then a couple of jokers. Deload week 2 compete in the weekend.
Deload a week and then start C8.
Then you will use the meet as a training meet. I guess the more meets you go to, the more comfortable and relaxed you’ll be. You can try something different like other food or warmup. If feeling good go for a massive PR and if it fails well dosen’t really matter. because it’s training.
But again I don’t really know.

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There is considerable merit to what you say @mortdk and I’m considering something similar. I could do something like this:

C5 (currently in week 2)
C6 as normal, equipped DL, raw squat, equipped bench, raw CGBP
C7 as normal, raw squat and DL, equipped bench, raw CGBP
C8 jokers in week one, all raw, reduce volume and intensity (up to single at TM only, minimal assistance) during week two and compete end week two, back to normal week three again reduced volume and assistance if required
C9 back to normal

Geez, @mortdk you’re a clever dude. This works out beautifully.

I’ve got low TMs, so in C8 by just working up to a single only in week two I’m effectively delousing, and I can drop DL day completely just to be sure), and same in week three if I feel the need.

Plus, to make things even easier on my body I could compete in sleeves, which will automatically keep my squat lower. I could shoot for a 500 lbs squat in sleeves or just shoot for a five pound squat PR in wraps which I wouldn’t need to wrap aggressively for, see if I can add five pounds to my bench and have a crack at an all time meet DL PR. To cut or not to cut is a a decision I could make in week two.

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Seconded.

Well i’m not the wizard :slight_smile: Jim is, it was something he wrote among many other things.
Give it a go, I think it’s nice to have something to be thrilled about. If it fails big time, who cares, if it’s just for the fun and learning.
You’ll always take something with you.
And we, your followers, can make the cheering, while we envy your lifts :slight_smile:

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if girls aren’t regularly smacking you on the ass then you don’t train your legs hard enough

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@MarkKO thanks for the tag bro!

How much is your scale weight moving up? Keeping in mind fluctuations in water weight and glycogen, as long as it’s not too substantial and the mirror/progress pics are showing solid conditioning and improvements, IMO you’re good to go and shouldn’t obsess over the scale weight.

Just something else to consider, while your math definitely makes sense, the reality of what you need to accomplish your goal might be different. So, you may need to drop cals or certain macros lower than you think to reach your goal. Assuming you’re still trying to look lean as possible, if the mirror is showing you’re on point, that should be your priority. But, if you do think you have more scale weight to lose, you could always try dropping a little more, or even just having one or two days a week where you drop more than usual, doesn’t have to be a daily thing.

Yes, when you get lean enough you can certainly look different day to day. I always take pictures to be my guide, more-so than the mirror. Mirror is very important but it is near impossible to be objective and get a good read looking at yourself. Taking pics in the same place with the same lighting is a more objective way to see whats up. Lots of times during my prep I’d think I was looking soft that day, or leaner, or whatever, then I look at the pics and realize what I thought looking at the mirror wasn’t totally accurate.

Regarding the not counting certain veggies, do you know roughly how much of these veggies you’re eating throughout the day? While I don’t think cabbage or eggplant will make you fat, it certainly can skew scale weight, especially if you’re eating a lot of it. So, if you’re not counting the cals/carbs from those veggies (I don’t count them either), I do recommend at least weighing/measuring to make sure you’re eating roughly the same amount every day so you can minimize scale weight fluctuations. Towards the end of a prep I eat a LOT of veggies to regulate blood sugar and curb hunger, I just make sure to measure so I eat about the same amount each day.

One day I was at a 1600 calorie day with lots of cardio, was starving, and ate a lot of raw spinach that day in some big salads to curb hunger. It worked, but my scale weight went up 3 pounds from eating the spinach. I didn’t eat 3 pounds of spinach, but it was a lot of water and fiber I wasn’t used to. It was definitely the spinach, it was the only thing that changed in my diet and my scale weight was higher than it had been in weeks. Just something to keep in mind!

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