Penultimate day of Wave 1 today. Overall this hasn’t been quite as terrible as I thought (I’ve only been utterly broken by a couple of the sessions as opposed to every last one) but nine weeks of this is going to really crush me.
Workout
Warmup
200 pullaparts
100 dislocates
Flexible Five
Glute drills
Main Giant Set
10 squats @ 65kg
10 med ball squat jumps
30s side plank each side
8 squats @ 80kg
10 med ball squat jumps
30s side plank each side
7 squats @ 90kg
10 med ball squat jumps
30s side plank each side
Assistance Giant Set
Four rounds of:
5x front squats
8x DB step-ups
10x hanging knee crunch things
Conditioning
Bring Sally Up Squats @ 30kg Awful. Made it about 90s in. No human can do this. All videos of it are faked.
Up to 207.0 today after a quasi-cheat yesterday. Had a bit of a dinner disaster and forced to get chips. Wasn’t the worst outcome tbh.
Wave 1 completed now. Didn’t die.
Workout
Warmup
200 pullaparts
100 dislocates
Flexible Five
Main Giant Set Experimenting with bench grip width at the moment. Almost took my right pinky off reracking! Tweaked my back a bit on the second set of rows but no biggie.
8x Yates rows @ 50kg
8x bench @ 50kg
30s flutter kicks
Assistance Giant Set
Four rounds of:
5x chest-supported rows
20 pullovers
5x incline DB bench
Metcon
400m bike sprint, 20 lat pulldowns, 400m bike sprint, 20 chest presses
400m bike sprint, 15 lat pulldowns, 400m bike sprint, 15 chest presses
400m bike sprint, 10 lat pulldowns, 400m bike sprint, 10 chest presses Quads were raging after this especially given a squatty day yesterday.
Said YOLO and had a full-on cheat yesterday with a Thai takeaway and some ice-cream. Surprised to see I’m only 207.8 today.
Workout
Did some grip stuff then some bro stuff because I had time.
Four rounds of:
Weight plate pinch holds (each hand)
15x finger curls
15x wrist curls
15x reverse wrist curls
2x25 lat raise machine
2x15 butterfly machine
2x20 curl machine
Flying home this evening and then to Vegas on Thursday morning. Had to be in work early to sort life out so didn’t train today. I woke up at 7.45 and had a leisurely shower and left for work. As always I am taunted by the fact that this is how mornings would be if I didn’t care about my strength.
I’ll be hitting the gym tomorrow, probably doing deadlifts and pulling three-plate rep topsets because I’ll be training with my brother and he can’t lift that much so I need to assert my dominance.
I’m staying at the Bellagio, which has a fitness centre, so I’ll probably get a couple of quick top-up sessions in over the course of the weekend but it’s not going to be a healthy time.
Once I get back it’s a serious restart of @Alpha’s program. I know now which sorts of weights I’m using on assistance and I have some conditioning goals to beat for the first wave.
Think I’ll add a few calories to my daily intake though as I’ve been pretty run-down these past few weeks. Half an avocado with lunch and an extra egg before the gym will do to start with; that should still have me dropping some blubber but hopefully the extra fat will help recovery.
Back from Vegas. Didn’t die. Weighed in at 205.8 this morning which is cool; I wasn’t eating a lot over there so I guess constant streams of vodka and Red Bull are a legit weight loss program.
Wound up only losing something in the region of $300, but kind of annoying given that a) I finished 4th in a poker tournament with a first prize of $1.5K and b) I was up $700 until the final day. I brought $500 to lose though so anything less than that is a plus.
I won’t have the time for a full workout today but I’m going to pop to the gym and move some stuff around. I’ll pick up Brian’s program with W1D2 because that makes scheduling easier. Since I did a deadlift workout last week and have done W1D1 twice now I think I can probably get away with this without losing the gainz.
7x squats @ 85kg
12x standing crunches
6x burpees Was very disappointed to not match the 8x I did last time, until I realised I’d misloaded the bar and this was 90kg.
Assistance Giant Set
Three rounds of:
12x good mornings
12x leg curls
10x DB lunges
Metcon
Deck of cards workout for 10 minutes Ran pretty well here and only got a couple of cards above a 9.
10x deadlifts @ 115kg
10x situps w/5kg plate
AMRAP 30s KB swings These deads were rest-paused to hell and each rep felt like it was going to tear my glutes in half, not to mention my still-sore-from-squats quads hating it. Really wanted the eleventh but it wasn’t happening. Bit sad.
Assistance Giant Set
AMRAP in 12m:
10x deficit deadlifts
10x weighted hyperextensions
10x Yates rows
Metcon Mile-long odd object carry pencilled in for today, but I had to switch my driving lessons and didn’t have time. Can’t say I’m upset about that since I wanted to puke after the AGS. I can do this on Wednesday morning instead.
205.9 today. Small PR vs last time on the seated press and some major improvement on the bodyweight movements/conditioning compared to the last time I did this day.
Workout
Warmup
Flexible Five
200 pullaparts
100 dislocates
Main Giant Set
10x chinups*
10x seated press @ 30kg
6x BW halos (each way)
5x Turkish getups (each side)**
Weighed in at 206.5. Weight has been pretty static but my average calories have been up around 2750 so it’s to be expected. Going forward I can reduce them a bit; I’ve been consistently losing a little over .5lbs a week for a while now although it doesn’t feel consistent!
The first time I did this day I said it was the worst one yet. It still is, but this edition was notably improved from the last time I did it four weeks ago today.
Workout
Warmup
Flexible Five
200 pullaparts
100 dislocates
Glute drills
Main Giant Set
8x burpees
8x squats @ 70kg
30s hollow rocks
8x burpees
6x squats @ 82.5kg
30s hollow rocks
8x burpees
6x squats @ 95kg
30s hollow rocks +1 from the last time. Was sucking a lot less wind from the burpees today. Hollow rocks are still awful.
Assistance Giant Set
Four rounds of:
8x Bulgarian split squats (each leg)
16x DB lunges
8x DB romanian deadlifts Last time I got through almost three rounds; today I did all four - and with heavier weight on the lunges.
Conditioning
Still think that the AGS is conditioning enough. Goal for Wave 2 is to actually have the energy to do conditioning after the main work! I just had to lie down for a little bit instead today.
Poor start to the week as it seems that work has blocked the Spotify web player. Pretty pathetic to even have a web filter in that sense (obviously blocking dangerous sites is sensible) when you employ adults but whatever.
Main Giant Set
8x good mornings @ 40kg
8x deadlifts @ 100kg (did 10 by mistake)
15x V sit-ups
8x good mornings @ 50kg
6x deadlifts @ 115kg
15x V sit-ups
8x good mornings @ 55kg
5x deadlifts @ 130kg
15x V sit-ups Needed 6 for a rep PR and didn’t get it because I’m a little bitch. Did match last time after heavier good mornings, though, so I’ll take what I can get.
Strongman Conditioning
60ft loaded carry w/40kg power bag
Assistance Giant Set
8x Romanian deadlifts @ 80kg
30s back extension holds w/10kg plate
8x good mornings to pins @ 40kg
8x Romanian deadlifts @ 85kg
30s back extension holds w/10kg plate
8x good mornings to pins @ 50kg
8x Romanian deadlifts @ 90kg
30s back extension holds w/10kg plate
8x good mornings to pins @ 60kg
@losthog yeah they’re on the sore side; two days between lower-body-focused sessions though so shouldn’t be too bad.
Didn’t PR main lift today (equalled it, though) but conditioning was once again substantially and noticeably better than the first time I did this day.
Tuesday, 11 September
Up to 207.1 today. I’m going to assume that I’m rapidly building muscle at a higher rate than I’m burning fat because I’m a special snowflake.
Workout
Warmup
Skipped. Awful night’s sleep meant I was running late and first giant set wasn’t super-taxing so thought this could be left out.
Main Giant Set
12x inverted rows
12x Z press @ 27.5kg
45s weighted plank
10x med ball throws
10x inverted rows
10x Z press @ 32.5kg
45s weighted plank
10x med ball throws
8x inverted rows
8x Z press @ 37.5kg
45s weighted plank
10x med ball throws
Assistance Giant Set
Four rounds:
60s Z press @ 3kg each hand
10x bottom-up KB presses
15x rotator cuff stuff
Conditioning
AMRAP burpees/thrusters in 3m/90s/45s
Recovery/Conditioning
Skipped the grip and just did a 1.5m run at a woeful pace of around 10:34.
Potentially stupid idea
All my friends back home have signed up for a trail run 10K in 9 weeks.
I hate running and I’m very bad at it, as evidenced by the 10:34 time above. However, I am considering this for four reasons:
All my friends are doing it and it would be cool to do it with them
It would be nice to have something to train for, even if it’s something (distance running) that I don’t really care about
I am very bad at running, so I should probably get better at it for the sake of being an overall well-rounded athlete
I am still fat and if I move more I will be less fat #science
However, there are four equally valid reasons to not do it:
I’m still very honed in on completing this 12-week program from Brian and would rather focus on that
I have never run more than 5K in my life and would probably struggle to do so now
I hate running
No seriously I really hate running it’s so boring why would you do this to yourself
So I’m in a quandary here.
I’m going to add in some evening runs, see how it goes and then depending on whether or not I die/I am too far gone to even begin thinking about a 10k I’ll determine whether or not I’m going to do this stupid fucking thing.
Main Giant Set
10x squats @ 65kg
10x med ball squat jumps
30s side plank each side
8x squats @ 77.5kg
10x med ball squat jumps
30s side plank each side
7x squats @ 90kg
10x med ball squat jumps
30s side plank each side Barely made it through these. Gave me a revelation. See below.
Assistance Giant Set
Three rounds:
5x front squats @ 45kg (clean grip; tough but better)
8x DB step-ups each leg
8x crunches
Metcon
Skipped for time.
Future training
Snapped some progress pics last week:
I’m still in the 18-22% BF range but I don’t have much to cut down to. What am I going to do, lose 20lbs and be a 185lb skeleton at 6’3"?
This, coupled with the 10k plans and my desire to get stronger (haven’t PR’d anything in ages) means that I’m just going to start eating. Fuck it, it’s winter. Let’s just get big.