What's Going on with Me Right Now? (Thib's Training, Nutrition, Supplementation, Life)

Things are moving quite a bit in my life at the moment. New training plan, family news and professional “changes”.

Here’s how it’s going for Thib right now.

BUT BEFORE WE GO ON…

Did you know that “Thib” has never been my nickname? Really, the only place where people call me that is online. Ever since I was a kid, my nickname has always been “Bodo”, which, when you think of it, would have been a lot better for my brand… I can see it: Bodobuilding, or “Body by Bodo” sounds pretty awesone… but I guess Thib it is!

TRAINING

With my shoulder feeling better (still have some nagging elbow issues once in a while, but it is typically fine if I grab the bar properly) I am continuing on with my focus on strength.

But with everything that has been happening in my life (more on that later) I decided to follow someone else’s program. Kinda like a lot of CEOs from big companies who always dress the same way, this just make one less decision to make in my life and makes it less stressful. Plus, I like to use other coaches’ plans to learn a few new things.

So what plan am I doing? I’m using a Boris Sheiko plan. Not the free excel programs that you find for free on the internet (most of them are either very old programs from 7-10 years ago or copycats). I actually bought a 26 weeks plan from Kizen Training and the plan was recently designed by Sheiko himself.

I’ve been on it for 2 weeks (well, I have one workout left on the 2nd week). And I really enjoy it so far.

Here’s what I like about it:

  1. It has a “weightlifting feel” (olympic lifting) with the high frequency and focus on technique, Something that feels like home as weightlifting was my love and main focus for almost 10 years.

  2. There is a lot of variation. This is not commonly associated with Russian powerlifting programing which tend to pretty much focus exclusively on the competitive lifts. So far (in 2 weeks, or 10 workout including the one I’ll do today) I’ve had 7 different variations of. the bench (including some with chains, board, pauses, etc.), 5 types of deadlifts and 3 types of squats. In 10 workouts so far, and I can include the 3rd week (so 15 total sessions) no two workouts were the same.

  3. Focus on quality reps with manageable weights. That may sound weird considering that I want to lift bigger weights, but I like that the program uses manageable/submaximal loads for submaximal reps on the main lifts. Typically 5 work sets of 2-3 reps with 75-85%. In the past this would have annoyed me because I was impatient to see the weight on the barbell go up, but now I actually love it because it allows me to completely change my lifting technique. I actually never really focused on my lifting technique and was able to bench and squat big weights mostly because I have great leverage for these lifts. But it made my lifting inefficient and led to nagging aches, pains and compensations. And nobody ever corrected me because of who I was. Anyway, now, because the planned weights are “easy” it made me shift my focus on mastering the technique. The weights will get heavier, that’s the way the plan is built. But it’s really about technique mastery and patience. Something that Sheiko obviously learned from first being a weighlifting coach.

  4. There is a lot of total weekly volume. Both by having a large volume per exercise (typically 5-8 work sets of 2-5 reps on the competition and competition-like lifts) and assistance work (typically 5 sets of 6-8 reps). While the number of assistance exercises in a session is not “bodybuilding level”, because each muscle is trained very frequently (at least the key muscles involved in the power lifts) the overall volume piles up pretty fast. For example, in the first 2 weeks there was 19 and 25 sets of assistance work for the pectorals (not counting all the bench press sets). My chest has already improved in those first 2 weeks (my change in bench press technique also played a role there). With the actual bench press work that gave me 43 and 49 sets for the “pecs” in those first two weeks.

I’m not gonna lie, the first week I was sore. It was actually the first time I had been significantly sore in more than 10 years!

My body weight has been up: I went from 215 to 222 in those two weeks. Not all muscle, obviously, some was glycogen/water, and some might be fat. But I can definitely see differences in muscle mass.

NUTRITION

I want to start by saying one thing: I have NEVER been a good example to follow as far as nutrition is concerned. I DO NOT recommend doing what I do.

When I’m not preparing for a photoshoot or. a beach vacation, I pretty much eat whatever I want (not pure crap but not a typical bodybuilder/fitness diet either), the only thing I focus on is getting enough protein.

And when I do diet down for a photoshoot, I’m WAY too excessive and aggressive with my calories restriction and suffer like hell for 5-6 weeks but get in solid shape.

At the moment, for some reason, I have an aversion to meat. Maybe eating carnivore for 8 weeks made me sick of the taste, I just don’t want to eat it. I’m sure it will com back eventually. So most of my protein comes from Fairlife skim (0%) milk. I like the Fairlife brand because it has 18g of protein per 250ml and only 4g of carbs (and no fat). Which is important for me as I drink a gallon of it per day. I also eat a lot of fat-free sliced cheese on flatbreads. For carbs (beside the flatbreads) I eat a lot of fruits (raspberries, blueberries, clementines, pineapple, mostly) and some rice cakes.

I don’t know my caloric intake, but it is definitely a surplus since my weight is going up. Protein is around 215g from the milk, 50-60g from the cheese, and 60g from MAG-10 (3 servings per day) for a total of around 325g per day. Maybe a tad high. But really it’s because I’m someone who loves to drink, I must drink a good 5 liters of fluids per day, sometimes more. I used to be a Diet 7up addict, I stopped taking that but I’m drinking more milk just because I like it and drink a lot.

SUPPLEMENTATION

I’m using a minimalist approach at the moment, mostly because I don’t have a specific issue to fix.

  • MAG-10: I have 3 servings per day. One, first thing in the morning (15-20 min before breakfast), one 15 min prior to training (mixed in with Surge Workout Fuel) and a 3rd serving post-workout, 15-20 minutes prior to my post-workout solid meal.

  • SURGE WORKOUT FUEL: One serving (with MAG-10) pre-workout

  • FLAMEOUT: One serving per day as “health insurance”

  • SERRAPEPTASE AND NATTOKINASE MIX: First, for cardiovascular health (it can break down the plaque in the arteries) but also as a COVID/spike protein defense (some studies have shown that both products/enzymes can break down the spike protein from the virus and vaccine, which is responsible for heart damage that can lead to low-grade myocarditis (thanks to Dr. Ken Kinakin for the research/tip).

PHARMACEUTICAL

I’m using a mix of BPC-157 and TB500 3x per week (I sometimes do high doses blitzes for a few weeks with a daily intake). This was originally used to help with my shoulder, elbow, and adductors issue. It completely fixed the shoulder and adductors, elbow is still a bit problematic but that’s because there is a calcium deposit in there which causes inflammation. But I found out that this combo, at high doses, can heal organs. Having developed kidney issues I’m now doing it for that purpose too.

I’m also on TRT. By the way, true TRT is up to 1mg/kg of bodyweight… when someone says that they are on 300mg of testosterone and claim to be on TRT, they are actually on a mild cycle. I started out at 70mg/week and now I’m up to 100mg/week. I might go up to “sports TRT” if I find myself not recovering properly from training. “Sport TRT” is 2-3mg/kg. Which would be 200-300mg for me. But that would be only for a few weeks, and only if recovery suffers. And when I say recovery, I mean my training affecting my life negatively. Note that I’ve used “sport TRT” two years ago for 6 weeks when I dieted down for a photoshoot. It helped me not crash when I used an excessively restrictive caloric restriction.

LIFE

Things were tough for a few weeks. My wife has been dealing with anxiety/depresson issues on and off. We’ve been trying for a 3rd kid, she got pregnant and stopped taking her meds for fear that it would hurt the pregnancy. She had a miscarriage (which happened both times before Jayden and Madyson were conceived). The combo of miscarriage and stopping her meds let to a serious crash. For 10 days she could not sleep AT ALL. So for those 10 days I was essentially taking care of the kids by myself. She even got hospitalized. But all is back on track now.

Professionally, things are going well. Got a few seminars coming up. Lots of new online courses too.

We are working on the editing of a “Barbell Course” which will go into great details on everything barbell related. Technique on the powerlifts and overhead press as well as snatch, clean and jerk. It also includes the best assistance exercises to fix every weaknesses on the lifts, weightlifting barbell complexes for conditioning, hypertrophy and technical learning. There will also be a section on specialty bars and workout prep. The course will be almost 12 hours long and includes work by myself, Dave Tate, Tom Sheppard (T-nation author) and Mai-Linh Dovan of Rehab-U.

I also began filming an online course on hypertrophy.

Plus, I am getting back to coaching high school football, which excites me very much. I started working for a high school that has a sport-school program by being the master strength coach and they asked me to coach defensive line for the high school team (which plays in the best league in the province). I might get to coach against both my neighbor and brother!

I’m also super excited for the upcoming T-Nation + , I have several ideas to make. it awesome like live Q&As and live webinars.

That’s pretty much it for now, hope everything is going well for you guys.

13 Likes

I too rely heavily on lactose-free milk. Costly, but still cheaper than beer! (which it has essentially 100% replaced for the last 5 years).

It’s interesting that even as a top coach, you fully immerse yourself in the program of another - especially when there’s enough proof in the pudding of your own methods. To stay free of hubris and continue on the path of learning despite the level you’ve got to is super admirable.

Not at a good level at any stretch of the imagination, but I coach young soccer players and it’s super rewarding. With all the little connections between the different schools and parents, the rivalry is awesome. I can see why you’d be excited to get back to coaching young people.

My biggest problem is that I always want to come up with new ways of doing things. I guess that’s good to produce material but for my own training it has always been an issue because I when I design my own training, I see it as much as an experimentation than training. So after a few weeks, even if it’s working, I get bored and want to “discover” something else.

But if I put myself in the mindset of doing someone’s plan I’m a lot better at being disciplined and get better results.

2 Likes

Oh 100%. Coaching high school football (for 11 years) gave me some of my best memories ever. Really looking forward to getting back to it (tonight is our first practice).

3 Likes

CT, thank you for all that you do and share with us here. Just wanted to say that I’m glad everything is back on track with your wife, and I’m sorry to hear about everything that you two have gone through recently. All of the positive thoughts for the two of you.

Have fun coaching again! My kid is about to start playing hockey, so I’m getting antsy to do the coaching thing.

3 Likes

I decided to take out the TRT-related posts. It is really. NOT a subject I want to personally discuss. It’s not about hiding anything (I DID include it in the original post) it’s as simple as it is a touchy subject that I do not wish to share in public to any greater length than previously mentioned.

Thank you

2 Likes

Coach, sorry to hear about some of the things you are going through.
And I appreciate all the other updates.

Side note: I thought I saw a thread on here that was specific to the Train Heroic app? I sent an email to Thib Army (for some reason it wouldn’t go through), but in any event, do you have any sample workouts from the app/program? I believe that was the question posted here (same I sent through to Thib Army)

its on the product page

1 Like

I was specifically told there would be no thinking this morning. Thank you, found it.