Serge Storms: Training Log

My momma’s a tough critic! Better bring it!

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So you had 3 Friday? What beer?

I do enjoy golf and beer though. I’d say 10 times a year I drink 8-9 beers on the golf course. Maybe 1-2 times a year I get close to hammered. Never blackout though.

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Actually, I was just using the “neighbor bringing a six pack” over as a general example. But something close to that did happen Saturday. We had some neighbors over on the driveway and I had two Beck’s lights.

I am normally a fan of dark beers like porters and stouts. I am a huge fan of coffee beers - anything from a dark, sweet coffee stout to a lighter, drinkable coffee porter or ale.

In my current endeavor, I’m looking at alcohol in a bit of a different way, so I’m choosing the lowest-alcohol, lowest-calorie option. Beck’s light doesn’t light up the reward circuits like espresso martinis, or coffee liqueur-based cocktails. It has hardly enough alcohol to effect much of anything. It’s actually more like drinking non-alcoholic beer without the associated stigma. Fore me, Beck’s light doesn’t have the malty, shitty, pissy taste of Miller Lite, Bud Light, or any of the other light beers.

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Monday

1630 calories
230g C
100g P
40g F

Those are low. My general target right now is 2400/day.

If my eating strategy during the first half of the day sets me up to finish a day like the way I did today, I go with it. I don’t always have command of my appetite like I do right now, so it’s a good time to observe the effect of low days when I can execute them without effort.

I had a flight break up my day at just the right time today so that I basically skipped dinner.

LIFTING

Today I graduated to the 30lb DB as the lightest one I’ll be using. So what was once 20 was 25 for a while and is now 30. I also shifted more time to work with the 50.

I added more strict pull-ups and some flexed-arm hangs.

45 minutes total - focus on upper back thickness and some basic strength grooving to help get my body used to doing more work with the heavier dumbbells.

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AM lift - CHEST!

To kick off my new push for some front-to back upper back and upper chest thickness, I did CHEST today, bro.

Started with horizontal pressing on a machine. Ramped up to a weight that felt heavy but didn’t stress the joints or ligaments too much.

My primary reason for avoiding heavy pressing is that I have a history of AC joint issues and in general, just very lax ligaments and a structure that doesn’t lend itself to things like heavy barbell bench pressing.

I get around it by using lower weights, but also by just being extremely aware of my angles and tuned-in to what I’m feeling.

Between sets, I was doing a shitload of band pull-apart and face-pulls on the high cable with rope.

Then I did some flat DB presses. Light-ish weight for now, but we will see how fast (or not) my joints allow me to progress to some heavier bells. I need to ease myself into this a bit. First I need to find angles, hand positions, and ranges that offer the right feel of stimulation, leverage, and range of motion. That might take a few weeks, but I’ll obviously still be reaping benefits of new stimulation along the way.

Once I find the grooves, I can start to grease them a bit just through repetition and improvement in the quality of reps and with increased work capacity.

Finally, if I navigate this curve successfully, I can play the progressive resistance card and start pushing the loads a bit higher and then reaping the gainzes.

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Tuesday - 1950 calories
250g C
145g P
47g F

Wednesday - LIFT

Today’s focus was on upper back thickness.

Lots of horizontal pulling.

I did a TON of work this morning. Mix of moderate and heavier loads.

The bread and butter moves were smith machine shrugs, bent row partials, seated row partials, and low cable row partials.

One hour of lifting only. I left the jump rope in the car and didn’t set foot in the group exercise studio at all.

I am such a bodybuilder. I even brought my oversized jug to the gym. I even added some intra-workout carbs and Mag-10 this morning!

Maybe I should move my log to the bodybuilding section. No? Too soon? Yeah, maybe.

189 this morning.

I did some analysis of my bodyweight trend over the last five years and realized that the longest stretch I’ve ever gone without my weight popping above the 189 line is only seven days!!

So even just staying where I am right now for longer than seven days is good. And I might need to be okay with that, because the dramatic shift in training style is most definitely going to put me into a nice little recomp zone…based on past experience.

I’ve got some awesome chest soreness going on today. The sound of my chest growing actually woke me up in the middle of the night, that’s how swole I’m getting.

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I hear that bringing an oversized jug into the gym yields 10 percent better gainz.

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Wednesday 2300 Calories
250 C, 215 P, 60 F

Thursday 2200
200 C, 180 P, 70 F

Thursday LIFT

AM chest machine horizontal press
Band pull-aparts

PM chest machine press
Seated machine horizontal pulling

Two sessions. Because bodybuilder.

I’m starting to come around to the Serge A. Storms way of dietary control.

Having everything mapped and planned and accounted for is way more fun than I thought it’d be. Turns everything you eat into a science experiment with measurable results.

I’m doing it slightly different to you though, in that instead of logging everything I eat I am planning everything meticulously. I know exactly what I will eat every day and when.

And it works! Holy shit it works. I seem to have, almost by accident, found a sweet spot where my body composition is improving and my lifts are going up.

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Cool. I’ve tried planning in advance a few times. Definitely interesting and effective.

So…I’m curious…where is this sweet spot? Calories? Macros?

Sunday 2100 calories
245g P
170g C
60g F

I’ve been lifting my ass off.

Horizontal pushing and pulling and shrugging. I’m definitely in an overreached state right now, but it’s by design.

I’m a bodybuilder now, so I went grocery shopping today and stocked up on chicken breasts, tuna, egg whites, yogurt, fruit, and vegetables.

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It helps when you eat the exact same shit every day apart from when you go for dinner with the mrs.

Calories/macros aren’t anything groundbreaking:

-BW x 18 cals
-220g protein
-320g carbs
-rest from fat

The interesting thing is that the BWx18 cals must be putting me at an ever-so-slight calorie deficit (enough to keep getting stronger but slowly lose fat) which I’m a little surprised about. I thought living as a semi-fat guy for the last year and a half might have damaged my once stellar metabolism but it doesn’t appear that it has.

Ideally I’d lower my fat a little and bump up my carbs but my eating schedule is such that eating more carbs than that is pretty much impossible.

Mad jelly brah. Oh, to have the metabolism of a youngster again…

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Haha, mate you’re a thousand times more shredded than I am.

I’ve pretty much given up on trying to be a “big” dude, and am going to embrace the rippedness once and for all.

Yogi and EyeDentist embracing (rippedness) in my log, what more could I ask for!

LAST WEEK NUTRITION SUMMARY

Average calories:
Goal - 2350
Actual - 2370

Average macros:
Goal - CPF 45/30/25
Actual - 45/30/25

So…pretty much nailed it.

Which is impressive, because I wasn’t really trying to hit those numbers on the head on any given day. In fact, I had a few days under 2,000 calories and one day at 4,000. The 4,000 calorie day was Saturday, and included plenty of cocktails.

So I guess when something is working perfectly, it’s time to look for things to tweak.

Last week, I included some carbs before a few of my morning workouts and I was reminded of why I don’t love that approach. I end up fighting back a lot of carb cravings when I start the carb train that early in the day. Waiting to take in any calories until after my workout seems to keep my appetite at bay, and going nearly zero-carb until my second meal seems to be even better for the appetite.

Obviously, I miss “the window”, but in the big picture, the trade-off always seems to favor a later start for my carbs, especially when I’m focused on fat loss.

I also had cereal a few times last week…honey nut cheerios, to be specific. This was generally at night when I had calories left to play around with. Nothing super wrong with it, but from a behavioral standpoint, that kind of thing can be a slippery slope for me.

I get into these internal dialogues where I’m justifying cheerios over strawberries because, well, because glycogen. But again, it’s about trade-offs, and a general shift back to more fruit, oats, vegetables and less bread and cereal is a shift in the right direction.

LIFTING MONDAY AM

Horizontal pressing and pulling.

Since I’ve recently shifted my focus to upper back and chest thickness, I’ve been exploring all kinds of machines, free weight movements, band configurations, and cable angles.

Sometimes, though, I just find one machine and use it as close as to how it is intended to be used as I can. Just bang out all kinds of sets and reps and load ranges. That way, I can feel where the soreness is the next day and see what I can learn.

I’ve been doing this with the basic horizontal chest press machine and with the horizontal row machine.

I think I’ve accidentally learned that I can go pretty high-frequency with chest and upper back. I keep expecting to wake up one day and not be able to move, but instead my chest and back feel better and better. I think the continuous pump and low-level inflammation probably factor in somehow. I’m also using lots of partials, which I know for sure is easier on the elbows and shoulders.

I’d like to try some rack-pull variations just to add that layer of neuro stimulation to the picture. I also notice that any movements that involve holding heavy weights earns a really nice shoulder and trap pump. I just need to ease into this stuff so I don’t end up snapping my ever-so-delicate clavicles.

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Monday 2450 calories
250g C
290g P
50g F

Monday Lifting
2 sessions
Gym - pressing/pulling
Home - heavy DB deadlifts, shrugs. Band pull-aparts

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Tuesday 2100 cal
225g C
195g P
58g F

Nailed. It.

Lift AM - Shoulders and arms
PM - Hot Vinyasa Flow Yoga class 75 minutes

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Any spontaneous “fittest dad” comps pop up recently?

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Until now I forgot this is actually on my bucket list!!!

Also neat log, cool to see the dancing and such. I am incapable hahaha

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heh, if I ever meet the guy in real life it’ll be like a scene in a black and white film where they run towards each other in slow motion.

Question: are you cutting in general just now or maintaining? How lean are you currently?