Looks like you have lit a fire up under your metabolism with your effort and consistent eating. Time to keep reaping the benefits.
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Which is awesome. I have to admit I never really quite believed this actually happens, but then I’ve never tried properly before. Sounds stupid when I say it out loud.
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Anchor, cycle one, week one
So I was so excited to be training again I built up how awesome today was going to be and of course it couldn’t quite live up to expectations, particularly that I was going to annihilate an easy capped set of eight on bench. That over the deload I lost (unless I’m much mistaken) almost four pounds didn’t occur to me right up until I was heading to the gym from work and, as I have the past few days at that time of day, thought: I’m hungry AF.
Today’s training
Lazy lifter plus shoulders
Bench press
35 pull aparts between first three warmup sets
5x159 lbs, under 6 RPE - leg drive felt a tad late
5x187 lbs, under 6 RPE
7x214 lbs, 10 RPE - missed the eighth despite a decent fight. This aggravated my left bicep at the shoulder, which annoyed me more than the miss. It’s calmed down since though.
8x159 lbs, 7 RPE
2x6x159 lbs, 8 and 8-9 RPE
Took short breaks between all the sets, and while I didn’t get to my plus set cap I did get a righteous pump.
Supersetted DB military/DB chest supported row
Press 50 total reps at 40 lbs: I forget but five sets, all above 10 except the last. I think 12, 10, 10, 11, 8
Rows 50 total reps at 60 lbs: 13, 12, 13, 10, 7 or something
Felt drained by this point.
Supsertted BB curls/rope tricep pushdowns
Curls 50 total reps at 60 lbs: 13, 12, 14, 11
Triceps 50 total reps at 27 lbs: 28, 28, 23, 21
The curls felt amazing. Replacing hammer curls.
Stationary bike sprints 10 x 40 sec off/20 sec on
Wished for the sweet embrace of death in the second half of the sprints.
EDIT forgot to note that from the first work set on bench to the last set of bis/tris took me just over an hour. By my usual standards that’s very fast.
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Woke at 187.9 lbs. It may sound odd, but I find that small increase reassuring in the sense that I know weight fluctuates a bit here and there, and this is a small jump - so yesterday’s weight seems not to have been a one off. Make sense?
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Makes perfect sense to me, I thought the same the other day when my weight came in at 82.9 day 1 and 83.1 day two… the only problem was it jumped back up to 83.9 yesterday… damn that big pizza and pasta pig out on Saturday night !!
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Felt more energetic going in today, although the extra coffees during work may have had something to do with this.
Today’s training
Lazy lifter
Stiff bar DL
8 neutral grip pull-ups between first three warmup sets - first set felt like I had another two left, last set last rep was just there. Very pleased though.
5x341 lbs, under 6 RPE, straps
5x390 lbs, 6 RPE, straps - belt felt loose
8x440 lbs, 8 RPE, mixed grip - one rep above previous rep PR. Felt glutes and hams a bunch. Seems that’s a thing now, and I’m not complaining. Tightened belt to last hole.
1x495 lbs, 8 RPE - hamstrings felt strained so left it at one. Going to try and incorporate joker sets like this a bit more as anchor proceeds.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSK6AdvlxwR/
Paused front squat
2x2x264 lbs
1x2x308 lbs because apparently Kaye thought the first sets looked too easy
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSK88CrlZKm/
45 degree back raises 100 total reps: 50, 50
These are easy at bodyweight now.
Supersetted ab wheel/RDFs
Ab wheel 50 total reps: 10, 10 from knees, 20, 20 from feet
RDFs 100 total reps with 25 lbs: 30, 30, 22, 18
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Woke at 188.1 lbs. First time in the last fortnight I’ve seen two consecutive days of increase: 187.4 to 187.9 to 188.1 lbs. This may be the push back I’ve been expecting, although 0.7 lbs over three days isn’t much and could be normal fluctuation. We shall see. I’m going to make a cautious assumption that I’m somewhere between 187 and 189.2 lbs. Happy with my appearance.
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I’d say 80% sounds good if you haven’t close gripped consistently. My close grip was like 90-95ish% of my max, but I did lots of close grip, had strong triceps, had probably a good build to use a close/narrow grip, (had lots of success with it for awhile too) and never benched that wide anyway.
Anyway, I am sure you’ll have a great time with close grip benching. I feel like it helps a good percentage of issues you can have for benching.
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I’m looking to fix the issue of my bench being piss weak.
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TL;DR spent about an hour with Jeremy. Only two real changes he suggested were upping protein to 200 g without dropping anything to make calorie room; and limiting carb intake to immediately pre and post workout and two meals per day only, but without cutting the total amount. Basically keep going as I have been otherwise. Skinfolds were pretty good, with stubborn fat on low back and sub scap. I’ll post them tomorrow.
Here comes the TL part. @BOTSLAYER I’d value your take on this if you wouldn’t mind. @littlesleeper and @The_Myth too
This sounds terrible, but managing the carb timing in terms of planning looks to be real a pain, for what I think would be a disproportionately small reward. Right now, I pretty can set my meals up every day in my sleep and it has minimal impact on anything because how I do it evolved organically to be as easy as I could make it. Working with carb timing completely fucks that, because I’d have to figure out how to fit everything else into the non carb meals. I’m also super skeptical about how beneficial adding protein would be, because my best progress has been since I dropped it to current levels.
I have a gut feeling that my initial plan to stick with my current intake and macro split and add cardio when absolutely necessary is more feasible. Right now things are going well, so there’s no impetus yet to actually make any change in that regard. Jeremy had no concern about my metabolic state or health, bar saying he wouldn’t advise dropping calories (which I wasn’t planning on anyway).
The bottom line from where I’m seeing it now is that what I’m doing is working, and I’m in the latter, harder stages as my body gets rid of the last bits of blubber. I started this, and I’ve had an easy run so far. Now I need to suck it up and push to the end.
When my skinfolds and BIA are where I want, I’ll need to decide how to proceed. Right now, my best guess is see where my LBM maintenance window is and start at the low end (depending where it sits relating to 2300 cal/day) and gradually add calories as my system adjusts, but we’re talking over months for the.
I’m absolutely no expert, but my thoughts are that if what you are doing currently is getting you results and fits better with your life you should definitely stick with it. You always have the option of changing to this new advice if things begin to plateau later - it’s not wasted information.
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What is your current protein intake? I typically like staying around my body weight for protein, but that is just because I love eating protein, and eating 200+g of it for me is very satisfying.
So this would essentially be upping your cals with an increase in protein, right?
I’ve now been doing this for quite some time. I also typically eat a few carbs with my first meal of the day as well. Then the rest pre/post workout. I can’t say that this particular change resulted in any sort of magic, but I did seem to have better energy in the gym and a better pump when I had taken a good amount of carbs before the workout.
I think this is your ultimate goal, so I tend to lean towards the “If it aint broke, don’t fix it”.
I don’t think the information you’ve been given is incorrect, but I think until you really find that what you’re doing isn’t workout anymore, this would be your next step.
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I think it’s a good thing to keep a few bullets for an emergency, and you are not having an emergency. I would stay the course and if you get stuck, then consider your options. If it ain’t broke. . .
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1st, Copy and paste what everybody else said 
This is what breaks most diets imo. People over reach or over complicate or over cut calories. By people I mean me hahahaa…and other people too.
Also, you are physically active outside the gym so spreading out the carbs I think is even less of an issue.
And to plagiarize, save the info/bullet for a plateau.
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Thank you gentlemen. You are awesome.
Nice to have my ideas confirmed. I’ll definitely keep all the possibilities in mind and apply as and when needed. For example, when I do eventually up calories, doing it by adding protein may be the best way to go.
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Woke up at 187 lbs on the button. Garbage sleep too.
Going to squat and bench today, and do the abs/RDFs abs bis/tris and then do all the other assistance on Saturday. Friday I have to do other stuff that would mean I have a small training window, so it seemed best to arrange things this way.
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Had a moderate brainwave, and only really because that consult with Jeremy made me think hard about what I’ll need to do.
Currently, as I said keep going with what I’m doing until I reach the body comp I want. Add cardio if/when necessary. That’s that sorted, end phase one.
Phase two: in three month blocks work up to my top end LBM maintenance calories. So, if my LBM low end maintenance at end of phase one is 2100 cal/day and top end is 2600 cal/day, I’d start with 2400 cal/day for three months; then 2500 cal/day for three months; and finally 2600 cal/day for three months, which would be the tentative end of phase two. Obviously I’d keep a close eye on bodyfat over that period, and if it looked like increasing I’d drop calories slightly and start again at the most recent point. In terms of macros, that’s probably where I’d add protein instead of carbs and possibly pay more attention to carb timing.
For reference, at 187 lbs my scale weight low end maintenance is 2600 cal/day; assuming I’m sitting around 16.5% bodyfat, that puts my LBM at 156 lbs with a maintenance window of 2200 cal/day to 2650 cal/day. I think I’ll start doing a six weekly BIA from now on too as things seem to be moving faster. I’ll book in for one next week as that’ll be six weeks since my last one. Especially during phase two this will give me much more up to date estimates to allow me to make any necessary adjustments.
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Writing this the next day
Booked a BIA for next Thursday. Felt pretty average going in, although extra coffee throughout the day seems to help.
Today’s training
Lazy lifter plus shoulders
Squat
15 TRX fatman pull-ups between first three warmup sets
5x308 lbs, under 6 RPE - lever belt is going to need adjusting soon
5x357 lbs, under 6 RPE
8x407 lbs, 7-8 RPE
1x451 lbs, 10 RPE - cursed be the spotter for touching me as I slowed down because it made me question
1x451 lbs, 10 RPE - different spotter, no questions and actually felt better
3x8x308 lbs, under 6 RPE, short breaks
Holy leg pump. I’m noticing with squats at least that above about 400 lbs I’ve probably lost a little rep capacity, but below 400 lbs everything feels lighter.
By this point it became obvious I wouldn’t be able to train bench usefully, so I decided to finish the day as normal for squats. I’ll do full bench on Saturday morning. This is what my log looks like, BTW.
SSB lunges 50 total reps: 15xbar, 10x110 lbs, 10x132 lbs, 15x110 lbs
Ouch. Although, balance and general ability to do these is way improved after three months of split squats. Split squats tax my quads. Lunges tax fucking everything.
GHR 50 total reps: 15, 15, 10, 12
Supersetted RDFs/GHR sit-ups
RDFs 100 total reps at 20 lbs (25s in use): 30, 30, 22, 20
Sit-ups 50 total reps with 22 lbs: 15, 15, 10, 10
I’ve noticed this week that a) anchor sessions are quicker and b) feel almost easier because I’m doing less stuff even though it’s heavier
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Woke at 187 lbs on the nose again. Below the waist is twinned with DOMSville, mostly in glutes and hams and that’s what I want (not DOMS, stimulus in that area).
Skinfolds are as follows
Chest 3 mm
Abs 8 mm
Thigh 7 mm
Bi 2 mm
Tri 7 mm
Sub scap 12 mm
Supra iliac 9 mm
Lower back 28 mm
Calf 5 mm
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Your log made me giggle…if my logs were on paper every day would be a phone book of scratched out plans diagrams and graphs hahaha
Nice work here btw!!!
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