Mattjp's Training Log

I was thinking of replacing squats with barbell curls, throwing in some hammer curls instead of deadlifting, maybe do some reverse grip curls in place of benching and maybe a few sets of preacher curls instead of OHP.

Curls.

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Lol. Maybe not take it that far.

Poker and Lifting are both easier when youā€™re in good position!

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Monday, 23 October

Wasnā€™t able to update over the weekend as my laptop charger has shat the bed. At least I hope itā€™s that, or else my laptop is broken. A new one should be arriving tomorrow, so we shall seeā€¦

This week Iā€™m going to have to change things up a smidge as itā€™s my girlfriendā€™s sisterā€™s wedding on Friday, which means Iā€™m flying out to Ireland tomorrow afternoon. Iā€™ve snagged a day pass for a nearby gym in Dublin, where Iā€™m staying to meet some friends before heading to the wedding on Thurs. Iā€™ll probably do my deadlift/bench 5/3/1 sets on Weds and sack off the pressing, which gives me 2xlifting and 2xconditioning sessions this week.

Anyway, on to today.

Warmup
Flexible Five
Three rounds of 8x16kg swings/8xsquat jumps superset

Squat/Leg Raise/Row
Squat: 5x67.5kg
Lying Leg Raise: 10xknee-to-chest
DB Row: 15x22.5kg

Squat: 3x75kg
Lying Leg Raise: 10xknee-to-chest
DB Row: 12x22.5kg

Squat: 5x80kg
Lying Leg Raise: 10xknee-to-chest
DB Row: 12x22.5kg

Three rounds of:
Squat: 5x67.5kg
Lying Leg Raise: 10xknee-to-chest
DB Row: 10x22.5kg

NB: I must find a proper progression for leg raises for someone who is incapable and inflexible. Iā€™d like to develop them into knee-to-bar hanging leg raises at some stage.

Bench/Pulldown/Curl
Three rounds of:
Bench: 5x55kg
LPD: 15x55kg
Curl: 10x20kg

Bench felt good today; felt like I had a fairly solid bar path. Hopeful for a good-sized PR on Wednesday (he said, jinxing it completely).

Woke up fat today, and given Iā€™ve an Irish wedding this coming weekend and Iā€™m meeting my Dublin friends for drinks on Wednesday, Iā€™m not hopeful of major steps towards leanness this week. Come November, though, I really need to sort the diet out.

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Wednesday, 25 October

Woke up at an unknown weight after playing Omaha until 3am. It did not go well.

Was in a rush to get stuff sorted today so I just swung by the gym for another Iā€™m Not Doing Jack Shit day. Most important thing is I have now completed a full 5/3/1 cycle on all four lifts (sort of, see deadlift).

Warmup
Nothing

Bench
5x50kg
3x55kg
6x60kg
12x50kg
Disappointing given I hit 60x7 last month but this was different equipment and I didnā€™t warm up properly today. Whatever; Iā€™ll smash this in three weeks.

Deadlift
3 rounds of:
5x100
The deadlift platform at this gym was shocking. The weight rolled around like it was on a fucking mountain, so I didnā€™t want to do any higher weights on such an unstable surface. I suspect my deadlift TM was a tad high anyway so this is a good excuse to keep it the same for my next cycle.

Press
5x35kg
3x40kg
6x45kg
Standing this time. Annoyingly the rack had a weird semi-roof about 7ft off the ground so I had to walk the weight back three steps before pressing. Pleased with this top set anyway.

Misc
3x10 lat pulldowns @50kg
3x10 DB curls @10kg

Cycle Summary

Enjoyed these workouts. Iā€™ll keep my deadlift TM the same for the next cycle and increase everything else. So my next cycle TMs will be:

Squat: 90kg
Bench: 65kg
Deadlift: 115kg
Press: 50kg

Iā€™ll continue running this template until the end of the year for four cycles total and then will look to something else. Iā€™m leaning towards Full Body Full Boring or Boring But Big at the moment.

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Monday, 30 October

General

Woke up at 214.1. Hardly surprising given the past week included two days of wedding celebration and a Dublin pub meetup. Expect to drop a bit of that this week, however. Actually, both my girlfriendā€™s sisters apparently commented on how I look like Iā€™ve lost weight. I know thatā€™s just a nice thing women say without actually meaning it but Iā€™ll take it anyway.

Workout

Felt pretty drained today, probably because Iā€™ve still got a decent amount of Smithwicks and Jameson coursing through my veins. However, I got 'er done.

Warmup
Flexible Five
Swings/Jumps Supersets

Squats/Leg Raises/Rows
Squat: 5x67.5kg
Leg Raise: 10x lying, bent-knee
DB Row: 12x 22.5kg

Squat: 5x72.5kg
Leg Raise: 10x lying, bent-knee
DB Row: 12x 22.5kg

Squat: 7x77.5kg
Leg Raise: 10x lying, bent-knee
DB Row: 12x 22.5kg

Three rounds of:
Squat: 5x67.5kg
Leg Raise: 10x lying, bent-knee
DB Row: 12x 22.5kg

This top set felt like RPE 9, which means it was probably RPE 8. Pretty happy with it considering last cycleā€™s 5+ set was 72.5kg for the same amount of reps.

Bench/Lat Pulldown/Curl
Three rounds of:
Bench: 5x50kg
Lat Pulldown: 12x60kg
Curl: 15x20kg

Used an empty barbell rather than a preloaded bar or EZ bar for curls and it felt a good bit harder. Bench is feeling good, though; I think Iā€™m getting to the point of having a decent setup.

NB: Captains of Crush training grippers came today. Hopefully I wonā€™t be totally shamed by them and can order the Level Ones sooner rather than later.

Diet

Decided to add a new section now that Iā€™ve discovered how to do subheadings.

So Mon-Fri my diet is going to be pretty similar in the morning. I train fasted, then have a water-based shake (I know, but Iā€™m fat, remember) with two scoops of whey, then walk to work. I also take a multivit and fish oils.

Mid-morning Iā€™ll have another shake, then I get a mostly-free lunch at work. This usually gives me the option to have just meat/fish and veg, and they tend to rotate the same kinds of food.

Dinner is pretty varied, but Iā€™ll be including carbs in it and seeing how that affects my morning workouts.

Iā€™m not going to count calories. It hasnā€™t worked well for me in the past. Iā€™m just going to eat meat, vegetables, eggs and whey and adjust as needed. If I get too fat Iā€™ll drop the dinner carbs. If I get too weak Iā€™ll add an afternoon meal.

Iā€™m giving myself a three-hour window each week to eat whatever I like. This is usually going to coincide with Date Night for obvious reasons.

So, without further ado, todayā€™s food was/will be:

Breakfast
2 scoops Gold Standard

Pre-lunch
2 scoops Gold Standard

Lunch
Beef Goulash (no rice) and a broccoli/carrot/green beans medley

Post-lunch
A big plate of discipline aka nothing

Dinner
Sea Bass fillets fried with chorizo plus boiled potatoes and a pile of mixed vegetables. Iā€™d prefer a higher-calorie dinner but my girlfriend wonā€™t eat the sea bass so someone has toā€¦

Evening
2 scoops Gold Standard
EDIT: and a small bowl of beef curry

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Tuesday, 31 October

General

Woke up at 213.4. Last night I was up pretty late making a big batch of Burmese Beef Curry as well as some Chicken & Vegetable Curry. I also had a sneaky half-bowl of the beef before bed because I wound up with 4.5 bowls of food and Iā€™m hardly just going to put half a bowl in the freezer.

I felt like I half-arsed todayā€™s workout but Iā€™m usually shit for doing conditioning work so anything is a victory at this stage.

Workout

Warmup
Flexible Five
800m jog

Workout
Tabata intervals of bodyweight exercises

Diet

Breakfast
2 scoops Gold Standard

Pre-lunch
2 scoops Gold Standard

Lunch
BBQ chicken breast and veg

Post-lunch
2 scoops Gold Standard
New Yorker foccacia sandwich

Dinner
Spanish omelette: 5 eggs, potatoes, chorizo, peas

Misc

I can almost close the CoC Trainer which is a bit embarrassing but at least it gives me something to work on rather than having to immediately buy #1.

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Wednesday, 1 November

General

Woke up at 213.0. Happy for weight to remain stable if the lifts keep going up, but I should probably start measuring my waistline if Iā€™m not tracking calories #gottatracksomething

I got some caffeine pills to shave some time off my morning. Who can wait for coffee to cool to drinkable temperature? Not this guy.

Workout

Warmup
Flexible Five
Swings/jumps superset

Deadlift/Abs/Curls
What a bro giant set this is.

Deadlift: 5x85kg
Leg Raises: 10x lying, bent-knee
DB Hammer Curls: 15x10kg

Deadlift: 5x92.5kg
Leg Raises: 10x lying, bent-knee
DB Hammer Curls: 15x10kg

Deadlift: 8x100kg
Leg Raises: 10x lying, bent-knee
DB Hammer Curls: 15x10kg
Had to rest-pause the last couple but mostly for gripā€™s sake. Best-feeling deadlifts Iā€™ve done in a while.

Three rounds of:
Deadlift: 5x85kg
Leg Raises: 10x lying, bent-knee
DB Hammer Curls: 15x10kg

Press/LPD/Hyperextensions
Press: 5x35kg
Lat Pulldown (wide): 20x50kg
Hyperextension: 15x5kg

Press: 5x37.5kg
Lat Pulldown (wide): 20x50kg
Hyperextension: 15x5kg

Press: 8x42.5kg
Lat Pulldown (wide): 20x50kg
Hyperextension: 15x5kg
Called 8 in my head but unracked it weirdly and it felt unbalanced the whole set. Could have got 10 if Iā€™d set up properly. Press overall is weird since Iā€™m doing it on a flat bench facing the bench uprights - no chance of standing press in this gym and thereā€™s no proper station for seated press.

Press: 11x35kg
Lat Pulldown (wide): 20x50kg
Hyperextension: 15x5kg
Tried pretty hard for a 12th but it wasnā€™t happening.

Diet

Breakfast
2 scoops Gold Standard

Pre-lunch
2 scoops Gold Standard

Lunch
Chicken in parmesan sauce with mixed veg.

Post-lunch
Probably nothing in anticipation of a gluttonous dinner.

Dinner
Double cheeseburgers. I fucking love homemade burgers. I hope I have gherkins. Edit: I didnā€™t.

This meal was too calorific by far so I skipped the evening shake. Seemed unnecessary after eating a pound of ground beef. I might just have to do Building the Monolith so I can eat as I normally do.

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Hello. Iā€™m Yogi. Pleased to make your internet acquaintance.

I have some suggestions regarding your workout. Feel free to disregardā€¦

-Donā€™t superset your deadlifts/squats with abs/core work, or risk spinal inconvenience.
-I also wouldnā€™t superset deadlifts with biceps work either as I think itā€™ll make you more likely to pull with your arms, thus risking biceps tendon inconvenience.
-Wide lat pulldowns, although the coolest looking variation, are murder on the shoulders and do nothing more for lat activation than medium or narrow grip (in fact, narrow grip has been shown to have the highest lat activation).
-Donā€™t superset pulldowns with curls, as biceps fatigueā€™ll stop you maximally training your lats. Youā€™re essentially pre-exhausting your biceps and turning the pulldown into a biceps exercise (like pre-exhausting your chest with flyes before benching to make your chest work harder).

Just some thoughts with which you may or may not agree.

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Hey Yogi, just creeped your post history and you seem to know what youā€™re talking about so the advice is welcome :slight_smile:

These are the only two I donā€™t 100% agree with. I get your point re: ab work between squats but despite being very weak I donā€™t think a set of 10 bent-knee leg raises is going to have too much of a negative impact on my squats and deads! This being said I was considering moving my ab work to my conditioning days just to save time, anyway.

For deads, I just wanted to find an exercise that wouldnā€™t overly hamper my next set of deads, and biceps are one of the only muscles I could think of not playing an active role in deads. And, again, the accessory work is just light pump work and I donā€™t think it would have a major impact.

Youā€™re right about the pulldown stuff for sure, though I donā€™t often do wide-grip - it just happened to be on the bar and I thought fuck it, why not. Happy to hear your suggestions for how to change up my giant sets in future workouts if you have any?

Thanks for dropping by and imparting some wisdom; always welcome!

Thursday, 2 November

Woke up at 212.3 which is frankly baffling after last nightā€™s dinner but hey whatever Iā€™ll take it.

I cannot express in words* how close I was to not getting up and doing conditioning work today after an awful nightā€™s sleep. However, I did.

Workout

Warmup
Flexible Five and clearing leaves off the path in the square outside my house

Conditioning
100m sprint, 300m walk - 7x rounds
Distances are approximate. My pedometer has it a little lower than 100m per side of the square while Google Maps has it a little higher. I called six rounds and then at the end of the sixth gave myself another one to punish myself.

Diet

The usual. Plan to make a beef and ale stew tonight which will be fun.

Breakfast
2 scoops Gold Standard

Pre-lunch
2 scoops Gold Standard

Lunch
Cod with chorizo and beans plus mixed veg

Post-lunch
Likely nothing

Dinner
Beef and ale stew with potatoes, turnips, carrots, onions, dumplings

Evening
2 scoops Gold Standard

Misc

Sprints are awful. Despite my lengthy legs I am not built for it. Or anything.

*Which, as a professional writer, is probably not good.

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you say that, but as you get stronger then ab strength (think bracing) becomes hugely important on these lifts, so Iā€™d not want to compromise that by fatiguing them more than is necessary. Just my opinion though, mate, and itā€™s always a try-it-and-see type thing with these issues.

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Oh yeah I totally get that, but the ab work currently is just a light accumulation rather than anything overly taxing. I may wind up just making my conditioning days a combo conditioning/ab day anyway but weā€™ll see how it goes. Cheers!

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Friday, 3 November

Woke up at 213.1. Another poor night of sleep.

Workout

Warmup
Flexibile Five
Swings/jumps supersets

Bench/Pulldown/Hyperextension
Bench: 5x50kg
Lat Pulldown: 15x60kg
Hyperextension: 15x5kg

Bench: 5x52.5kg
Lat Pulldown: 15x60kg
Hyperextension: 15x5kg

Bench: 10x55kg
Lat Pulldown: 15x60kg
Hyperextension: 15x5kg
Probably could have got 12 but I hit the rack on the ninth and it threw me off.

Three rounds of:
Bench: 5x50kg
Lat Pulldown: 15x60kg
Hyperextension: 15x5kg

Squat/Leg Raise/Row
N/A - the gymā€™s sole squat rack (lol yes I know) was taken when I arrived. Usually Iā€™d squat first, and by the time it was free Iā€™d already done all the hypers and didnā€™t fancy loading my spine even lightly.

Diet

GGG (Gains Goblin Girlfriend) thought I was out of whey and threw the tub out. There was probably only 2-3 scoops in there but still - good job I donā€™t believe in the anabolic window.

Breakfast
Banana and two shortbread fingers. There arenā€™t a lot of reasonable food options in the office.

Pre-lunch
2 scoops Gold Standard yes I keep a tub under my desk and what of it?

Lunch
Kielbasa, sauerkraut and veggies
EDIT: the fuckers put Yank mustard on it.

Post-lunch
Nada

Dinner
Chilli and rice

Evening
Cheat meal was another hot dog and a dozen mini doughnuts while watching the fireworks.

Misc

Overall Iā€™m quite happy with this approach of not counting calories but simply eating proper food (save todayā€™s shortbread) and my weight is pretty stable this week. Iā€™ll measure my waistline on Sunday and then every 2-3 weeks after that and see if anything needs adjusting. That said, if the weight remains stable and the projected 1RM on lifts keeps on increasing then everything is hunky dory in my book.

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Fuck that I would have gone full psycho batman on her arse!

She did make a banging beef and ale stew that I had two bowls of last night so in terms of protein delivery sheā€™s probably around even.

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Saturday, 4 November

Woke up at 213.4. No gym today but I am going to hit a rep goal of 50 chins across the day. Iā€™m 12/51 at the time of writing. Sets are of 3, hence the off number.

Diet

Breakfast
Sleep

Pre-lunch
Three sausages, two eggs, half a tin of beans and a slice of buttered toast.

Lunch
2 scoops Gold Standard

Post-lunch
Chicken, bacon and avocado sandwich

Dinner
Indian food of some description

Evening
2 scoops Gold Standard

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Monday, 6 November

Woke up at 214.8; bit of post-weekend bloat that should drop off shortly.

Todayā€™s workout ruined me for some reason. Iā€™m writing this at work extremely tired. Probably just the Monday of it all.

Took some advice from Yogi and shifted some movements around today.

Workout

Warmup
Flexible Five
Jumps/throws

Squat/Row
Squat: 3x72.5kg
Row: 10x25kg

Squat: 3x77.5kg
Row: 10x25kg

Squat: 6x80kg
Row: 10x25kg
This was a bit shit. I knew I had to get 6 to beat my projected 1RM and previous rep record and just auto-racked it after 6 when I probably could have got another 1-2.

Three rounds of:
Squat: 3x72.5kg
Row: 10x25kg

Bench/Pulldown
Three rounds of:
Bench: 5x52.5kg
Lat Pulldown: 15x60kg

Misc
Three rounds of:
DB hammer curl: 10x10kg
Lateral raise: 10x5kg

Diet

Had too much sugar on Sunday and ate a fair bit of curry on Saturday but nothing too egregious. That being said if the weight doesnā€™t drop back down to the 213 region this week Iā€™ll have to tone down the next weekend.

Breakfast
2 scoops Gold Standard

Pre-lunch
2 scoops Gold Standard

Lunch
Chicken pie and mixed vegetables

Post-lunch
Nada

Dinner
Half a roast chicken and roasted vegetables

Evening
2 scoops Gold Standard

Tuesday, 7 November

Woke up at 212.9 which is more like it. Not a huge amount of working out this morning as I have Spanish class after work on Tuesday, which means I wind up walking ~5k extra compared to normal days (in which my average steps are ~13k anyway, not bad for an office worker imo).

That said I did do a little at home before heading to work.

Workout

Warmup
Flexible Five

Conditioning
10x3 chins/10x5 pushups EMOM supersets

Diet

Breakfast
2 scoops Gold Standard

Pre-lunch
Handful of raisins and shamefully two chocolate Hobnobs

Lunch
Chicken breast w/sun-dried tomatoes and veg plus 50g peanuts

Post-lunch
New York style foccacia, 2 scoops Gold Standard

Dinner
Peppered chicken breast and creamed spinach

More of a bodybuilderish day than I planned for. Probably have to make the sandwich a beef one to make up for it.

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Friday, 10 November

Life really threw a spanner in the works this past week. Didnā€™t get the chance to do more than a couple of Jack Shit workouts and totally forgot to update here. Also ate too much shit but the weight is still around ~214lbs.

On diet

Iā€™m happy enough to maintain weight and build strength at the moment but Iā€™ve signed up for T-ransformation 2018 so I need to actually lose some fat at some stage. Thatā€™s Future Mattā€™s problem I suppose!

Iā€™m going to continue with the plan of not counting calories and just eating proper food 95% of the time. Iā€™ll be eating out once a week, and every other week Iā€™ll make that a proper Cheat Meal; the weeks in between Iā€™ll try to be somewhat sensible with it.

Iā€™ll measure my waistline every few weeks and my weight daily, averaging out week-to-week. Iā€™m really torn between wanting to get leaner and wanting to get stronger, though.

On training

Iā€™ll just reset this cycle and start again after a quick bout of gymming this weekend. That actually works OK, as it means I can run two more cycles and then my deload week will be the week of Christmas.

So Mondayā€™s workout will be the start of a new cycle at:

Squat: 90kg TM
Bench: 65kg TM
Deadlift: 115kg TM
Press: 50kg TM

Iā€™ll run that twice, take it easy over the Christmas week, then move on to Full Body, Full Boring during the New Year. My bench and squat have been really enjoying the frequency of 5/3/1 for a Beginner so hopefully my deadlift will see some good things happen from being trained 3x a week.

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