That puts it into perspective. Bodybuilding sounds more interesting.
Well, you could be a bodybuilder Strongman. Years ago bodybuilders used to compete in Strongman like Lou Ferrigno, Franco Columbu etc
I think you definitely would make a decent competitor
Yeah your work capacity and ability to adapt is crazy. Such a shame you cant do strongman.
Is strongman popular in finnish land compared to bodybuilding?
It’s not popular if we think in absolutes, but compared to other countries I’d guess we have a bigger strongman to bodybuilder ratio here. If we think in terms of accomplishments in world class competition, then strongman may actually even win. Twenty years ago strongman was a pretty big deal and we were pretty competitive in the world’s strongest man competition.
Haha i wonder why, given that you’re in kindergarden if you weigh less than 220 lbs. It’s no surprise finland would be competitive at strongman
It seems like Nordic countries in general do well in strongman (nowadays only Iceland remains really), probably because by default people are a bit taller/bigger here and there is a certain culture that idolizes strength
Yeah that’s true, at school there’s this dude and i think he’s from a nordic country or something like russia, but anyway i arm wrestled him at school and he nearly broke my arm (accident,he’s just really strong and his arm slipped and yeah) he does zero training. He’s massive.
Why does Iceland mainly remain? What happened to the others? Like 20-50 years ago it was alot more nordic dominant from what I’ve seen and now their isn’t as much
I don’t actually know, maybe they’ve taken strongman more into their culture and traditions than the other countries or something. They definitely are the most competitive nation when we look at world-class achievements in relation to population. Maybe they just won the genetic lottery and added hard work to it. Like, Haftor is one in a billion type of deal in terms of genetics and the dude works hard as hell too, how can you beat that?
I think he’s definitely going to be dominating strongman for a while haha
And I may or may not have hurt my back again. I’m not saying anything for sure before I’ve slept a night, but it sure is painful now.
Just so there are no cliffhangers here; I tried behind the back rack pulls with light weight, the set felt good but immediately after I got a terrible lower back pump followed by pain in the area.
Fuuuucck man. Don’t try to be overly bull headed and keep smashing it. You don’t want to be forever nursing a bad back just because you couldn’t back off for a month when you were young.
Yeah man, I was just feeling really good and thought that I could do a bit more of a compound movement in there if I kept it on the safer side… Apparently I was wrong. After that set I’ve been using about 95% of my time to help my back recover. I did some leg raises and upside down hangs, went into a sauna and now I’m laying on frozen vegetables.
If I got lucky again and didn’t do more than tweak it again I’ll be very thankful, but I also aknowledge that it won’t probably happen for a third time - next time I tweak it it’s gonna snap, I’m pretty sure of it.
We’ll see, if it’s really bad I’ll have to resort to training upper body with low-low back stress movements and only do isolation stuff that doesn’t hurt for the legs.
Hopefully that won’t be the case, and if it will, I hope it won’t last. Because let’s face it - if I cannot train legs with full on intensity I won’t ever be competitive in any physique or strength sport. (No, I’m not going to go men’s physique and hide in broad shorts) My single biggest weak point both strength and muscle mass wise is the glutes, and those are pretty hard to train with a busted lower back. Lower body in general is pretty hard to grow with back pain.
Daily log:
Weight:
82.2kgs/181.3lbs
Nutrition:
1470 Calories
220g Protein
80g Carbs
30g Fat
Training:
Lower body:
lower back stuff
1a Hip thrust
4x12
increasing weight slightly with every set
1b Hanging leg curl
4x15
2a Behind the back rack pull
1x8
motherfucker
2b Hanging leg raise
3x8
2c Seated leg curl
3x10
3 Bottom half leg extensions
9x30-10-30
Changing weights and reps every set
lower back stuff, a lot of it
Notes:
I felt really good going in. First movement pairing felt great.
On rack pulls I hurt my back and the rest of the session was spent dealing with that
Did bottom half leg extensions for quads as I wanted to get some work in for them and full reps hurt my back. On every set I added a plate and reduced five reps until I was down to ten reps, from which I reversed the progress reducing a plate and adding five reps every set. Rested about 15-20 seconds between sets.
I wanted to do this session in the morning before work but my girlfriend wanted to do it after work (we had the same working hours today, doesn’t usually happen). So naturally we went after work.
That’s not just a joke, there’s some logic behind it:
But this time I was right, we shiukdve gone in the morning. It’s always the same thing for her - if she has worked for 8+ hours she won’t have enough energy to do a proper session and we have to resort to her doing lighter variations. Next time I’m gonna stand my ground and we’ll go in the morning.
and that’s the last time you ever heard of me
But yeah, late night session, my weight may be up a tad bit tomorrow because of it.
Update on the back:
It got worse during the night. I’d say it’s at the worst it has really ever been. I can’t walk properly and sitting down, I can feel it tighten up. Right now I’m in a hot bath (so don’t be surprised when I hit a new low tomorrow) as this helped a ton last time. Called into work and got my hours reduced by a whole lot, I’m only going to do 20 hours + my PT trainees this week (so about 30 hours in total) I don’t know what my training will be like but I’ll figure it out as we go
Shit man. Time for the doctors?
I’ll see how this week goes, if it’s still bad afterwards I’ll probably go and get it checked out
Daily log:
Weight:
82kgs/181lbs
.2 kilos from my lowest weight which was the one a day after a long-ass bath. So really this is kind of a new low
Nutrition:
1200 Calories
190g Protein
40g Carbs
30g Fat
Training:
No training, did back rehab and took a hot bath at home.
In the morning I was a push away from calling into work and telling them I’m paralyzed from waist down, the back was the worst it has been.
After the bath it has gotten better as the day has went on, now its feeling pretty good. Last night I tried cold exposure but it only seemed to make it worse, heat is the thing that has helped me, don’t know why really but that’s the case and thus I’m using heat to heal up.
I’ll keep you updated, hopefully it gets better from here.
Got the rest of my diet and the beginning of my bulk figured out for the most part, here’s what gonna happen:
I’m going to push the “relaxed eating day” back to Saturday but I’m Friday we’ll visit my mother because it’s her birthday, gonna eat some cake and grill a bit there, so the total calories for Friday will be around 2500-3000 and for Saturday probably around 4.5K-5K, not gonna do anything crazy there. After Saturday I’ll have 2-3 days with my current macros so I’m in a more accurate place weight-wise fo start the mass phase.
Before I get to gaining weight I’ll have this transition phase where I’m (hopefully) in a small deficit for a while as I try to figure out my maintenance. After the first bump in calories my training day macros will be:
2160 Calories
230g Protein
185g Carbs
52g Fat
On rest days protein and carbs will come down a but and fat will go up a bit.
Training-wise, I’ll switch to what I had planned for the mass gaining season which is a three-way split using the rep goal system if my back feels good enough to give legs their own day, in that case it’ll be:
1: Chest, Back, Shoulders, Calves
2: Thighs, midsection
3: Arms, Shoulders, Calves
4: Rest
repeat
If I’m limited to isolation stuff for legs I’ll use it as an opportunity to have more rest and do:
1: Chest, Back, Shoulders, Calves, Quads
2: Rest
3: Arms, Shoulders, Calves, Glutes and Hamstrings
4: Rest
We’ll see about that.
What I’ve been doing now with the longer sets has worked as a bridge from phase 3 to the new program, which is something I didn’t plan to do originally but was probably a good thing to have. I didn’t get to test phase 3 out completely which is kind of a let down as I, for once, stuck with a program for a long time.
But I’m the bright side, I only have 5-6 more days of this diet left.
What does the whole of phase 3 look like if you don’t mind? I have 1&2 written up.
Hmm hopefully it stays on the healing road
Remember that I never tested this out as I planned it to be, I really only got to test out the rep scheme for the main lift.
Phase 3 is the phase where you’ll no longer be guided so closely on what to do, but rather you have to learn to read your body and pick your spots. The base rep scheme for your first lift is:
2 triples
increase weight
A double
increase weight
A single
decrease Back to what you did your double with
A smooth amrap
What a smooth amrap means is simply just leaving a rep in the tank, there should be no grinders here. Usually you’ll get 3-5 reps with that.
Percentage-wise, do your first sessions with about
85% for triples
90% for the double and amrap
95% for the single
That’s taken from your estimated max, now if it is way high, feel free to bring it down a bit.
Now, picking your spots; if you are feeling good, feel free to go for a higher single, but you only get one attempt there. Wether you hit or miss, don’t try it again or go up again because there is a risk that you’ll create too much fatigue.
You do your optional higher single after your first one, before the amrap. If you do a higher single your amrap weight will still stay the same.
Now I’d try to push the weights linearly every time I train, just increasing 2.5 kilos on every set, every time. This should be possible as the phase 3 isn’t planned to be a long phase. (Think 4-6 weeks max) if you can’t push every set, try adding weight to one or two sets, starting from the heavier ones.
So if you did, say, on bench:
2x3x85kg
2x90kg
1x95kg
3x90kg
Next time do:
2x3x85kg
2x90kg
1x97.5kg
3-4x90kg
Then
2x3x85kg
2x92.5kg
1x97.5kg
3-4x92.5kg
Then
2x3x87.5kg
2x92.5kg
1x97.5kg
3-4x92.5kg
And repeat
If the weight just feels too damn heavy, you can do a variation; do a pause or take a different grip. That way you won’t burn out so fast.
After your main lift, you’ll do an assistance lift for it. Here you have to pick something that benefits the lift for you: bar feels heavy on a bench? Pick a overloading movement. Can’t keep your positioning on deads? Maybe do a pause one inch off the ground.
Pick one or two exercises depending on your training age. (Newer lifters can get away with one) and stick with it.
If you have the intra-workout recovery rate that I have you can use the same weight for all of the sets, but if not, build up a one smooth set of 3-6 reps (that depends on what us comfortable for you on the exercise, I’d stick to the lower end of this spectrum)
Again, smooth set, no grinders.
After that, drop the weight by 8-12% and then do as many smooth sets of the same length as the first one was as you can before it starts to feels notably heavier than the first one.
So if you did board press you would do, say,
5x100kgs
decrease 10%
as many as possible x 5x90kgs
After that’s done, you’ll move to the other main lift and you’ll do 3-5 sets of 4-6 reps, once you can do 5x6, add weight. This means that if you hit bench first you’ll do chins here, if you hit Deadlift first, this’ll be squat and vice versa.
I’ll lay the program out here as well, using the same lifts as before:
1:
Close grip bench
2x3
increase weight
A double
increase weight
A single (+possible second single)
decrease weight
A smooth amrap
Board press
Build to a smooth set of 5
decrease weight by 8-12%
As many sets of 5 as possible
Chin up
3-5x4-6
max 2 assistance exercises of choice
2:
Deadlift
2x3
increase weight
A double
increase weight
A single (+possible second single)
decrease weight
A smooth amrap
Paused Deadlift
Build to a smooth set of 5
decrease weight by 8-12%
As many sets of 5 as possible
Front squat
3-5x4-6
max 2 assistance exercises of choice
rest day
3:
Chin up
2x3
increase weight
A double
increase weight
A single (+possible second single)
decrease weight
A smooth amrap
Negative chins (overload)
Build to a smooth set of 5
decrease weight by 8-12%
As many sets of 5 as possible
Close grip bench
3-5x4-6
max 2 assistance exercises of choice
4:
Front squat
2x3
increase weight
A double
increase weight
A single (+possible second single)
decrease weight
A smooth amrap
Front squat with pause on pins
Build to a smooth set of 5
decrease weight by 8-12%
As many sets of 5 as possible
Deadlift
3-5x4-6
max 2 assistance exercises of choice
rest day
Repeat
On optional assistance exercises just do 2-3 sets per exercise and pick your rep ranges according to the exercise, just stay away form really short and long sets. 8-12 is a pretty good range to be in
As you see, it’s really barebones stuff and hard work as before. Only exception being you should not push too hard here and you have a bit more freedom.
Ask questions if you got any, I wrote this in kind of a hurry so I probably missed something.
I hope so too, it actually feels pretty good at the moment
Daily log
Weight:
81.2kgs/179lbs
New low, going under 180lbs for the first time
Nutrition:
1470 Calories
220g Protein
80g Carbs
30g Fat
Training:
Upper body
1a Low incline bench
4x8,13
1b Weighted pull ups w/fat grips
5x6
2a Seal row
5x8
2b Chest press machine
3x8-10
3a Cable tricep extension
4x15
3b Cable Scott curl
4x15
4a Band pull apart
4b Band over and backs
4c Band Upright row
just pumping it out here
Notes:
Trained with a friend today, his first comment was “you’re definitely leaner than last time we saw”, which was two weeks ago, so that was nice
On low incline I got 3 extra reps on my last set compared to last time and I used more weight, so that’s definitely some progress right there.
Pull ups were pretty easy too, being lighter than usually really helps.
Now seal rows. I hurt my back once again in this session. Not during the rows but as I was picking up a dumbbell from the rack. All I’m saying is god fucking damn it. It’s not even like I was taking it off the rack carelessly, I especially tried to lift it in a way that would have no chance to hurt me. Yeah, great.
On the other hand, cable Scott curls are pretty neat.
At the moment I’m just thinking of calling into work and telling them I can’t make it tomorrow, because I would need to lift some pretty heavy boxes there and I don’t known if I can do that.
Edit: Called into work and I’ll probably go to the doc this week, I’m tired of being a cripple
Edit 2: Gonna go visit the doctor tomorrow morning
According to the doctor I do not have a slipped disk, and the pain stems from my muscles trying to protect themselves by contracting, and it should go away once they can relax and act normally again. I kinda thought that would be the case as heat really helped me (making muscles relax you know) but I didn’t want to make claims about things I can’t be sure of. (And I didn’t have any wood to knock on) of course I did also worry about what if it is the worst case scenario.
I should be completely back to normal in 1-2 weeks, I got a weeks worth of pain medicine (which I’m always hesitant to take but maybe I’ll do it this time) and a time for a physical therapist in two weeks. (Hopefully I won’t need it anymore by then)
I guess I’m a lucky bastard after all