Week 3 - Cruise Control

Day 1 - 16/01/2012

Motivation Level: High
Energy Levels: High
Sleep: 7hrs 10min

Recovery
Not alcohol free over the weekend but was extremely responsible, the first for this year. Timing was perfect considering how fucked (and still are) my legs are after Fridays routine, sleep was plentiful and nutrition was more than sufficient.

Routine - AM
Fasted (IF): 12hrs
Routine: Analogue stationary bike 20min (9min hill climb @ 3min intervals)
Duration: 20min

Notes - AM
Breakfast, awesomesauce MIIT as usual.

Routine - PM
Fasted (IF): 16hrs
Routine: Back
Duration: 1hr 30min

• 5min Treadmill LISS warm up, incline
• Cable row: 8x50kg 8x50kg 6x75kg 6x75kg 6x100kg 7x130kg 6x130kg 6x130kg 6x100kg 6x100kg (PB-RS)
• Cable wide grip lat pull down: 8x30kg 8x30kg 6x60kg 6x60kg 6x100kg 5x100kg 4x100kg 6x80kg 6x80kg 6x80kg (PB-S)
• Barbell shrug: 8x70kg 8x70kg 6x120kg 6x170kg 6x200kg 6x170kg 6x170kg 10x120kg 10x120kg 15x120kg

Notes - PM
So far so good. Strength is slowly on the rise and the numbers are synchronized with my current weight-in status. I am purposely holding back on PBs because I don’t want to fatigue myself out but I am ensuring I have significant increases in numbers in either repetition and/or set counts. Every routine here saw a minor improvement from last week. Including cleanliness on the working sets.

It was also interesting to note that upon chatting to Coach J, she said “I took your advise over the weekend” (I didn’t give her advice but we usually talk about our approaches etc), and took a relax approach to nutrition. The end result: she feels like a fucking champion today, with strength on the high. And, she doesn’t look like she put anything on over the weekend. BOOOYAAAH to fucking flexibility.

This now marks the second week of my trials. Next week will be interesting because there’s a public holiday up, but the intention regardless is now to still go out and replace key routines that I’ve done the past fortnight and give them a ninja-style deload without actually going through a deloading phase.

Nutrition
Total: 3,600 calories
Protein: 380g
Fat: 110g
Carbohydrates: 250g
Meals: N/A

Notes
This is the third week since I made adjustments to my nutrition and I’m very happy with the direction of where everything is heading. This also marks my second week in a row where weight-in is in it’s high 75s, this mornings number was 75.7kg. I find that the strength will catch up once the new baseline weight (mass volume) has been established for several weeks.

Damage Control

• N/A

Notes
Right injured/healing tricep tendon loading, back and pec stretches were only maintained half the time over the weekend. Quads and glutes are the only ones sore, still at fuck-me-dead levels, 4th day since training them last week. They were pretty fucked up throughout the weekend. I had a funny moment on Friday afternoon. Straight from work, I drive into my driveway, get out of the car and I was literally grounded/stuck for a good few minutes. Both my quads, the teardrop shape thingois cramped up and I absolutely could not move. I couldn’t stop laughing because it was so painful. The routine I did on Friday, that’s a fucking keeper. My quads and glutes have never been worked out like this before, that session itself has had the greatest impact (from feel) and I didn’t hold back on eating like a king and a half and sleeping like a baby over the weekend to complete the formula.

Day 2 - 17/01/2012

Motivation Level: High
Energy Levels: High
Sleep: 6hrs 40min

Recovery
Consistently getting 8hrs of sleep under my belt every night is posing to be a challenge recently. My schedule seems to be getting busier and busier and at times I get home later than expected that I find myself chowing down on whatever calories I need to cram in at 11PM. I wouldn’t mind sleeping immediately after some calorie chowing but it’s not that easy. Next week will be more challenging as I’m looking at once again, for social reasons, heading out of town starting from Wednesday with a Saturday/Sunday return. My liver loves me.

Routine - AM
Fasted (IF): 9hrs 30min
Routine: Analogue stationary bike 20min (9min hill climb @ 3min intervals)
Duration: 20min

Notes - AM
Solid as usual. Highly anticipating this afternoon’s simple but butt-fucking session. I wonder if I will superset some standing crunches again.

Routine - PM
Fasted (IF): 14hrs
Routine: Random Shit - Metabolic
Duration: 40min

• 5min jogging/skipping warm up, 2x around the track
• 4x Field length sprints @ 75% 15 seconds - 16 seconds range sprint duration + 60s walk (from one edge of field to the other)
• 5x FF (Fat Fuck - 10x2 on the last stretches) tyre flips SUPERSET 20x push up, entire field length and a half+: Totals: 80 flips + 300 push up

Notes - PM
FUCK ME FUCK ME FUCK ME FUCK ME! Well that summarises it. I love training (nothing new there) and this session provided an even higher and all sorts of levels of awesomesauce. Every time I needed a breather/in between sets, I was either walking or dancing to some Tinie Tempah (been getting into some of his tunes lately). This session was adjusted slightly. One, I reduced the sprint run count from 5 to 4 only to cut down on time but it seems I didn’t need to because I finished this session in less time when compared to the last weeks routine. In saying that, I did 50% more flips compared to last week, which automatically means more push ups since I superset’ed both. Last session saw me totalling 55 flips and 200 push ups. Today saw 80 flips and 300 push ups, flipping the fat fuck tyre an entire field length and a half. Massive fucking sweat fest and it is evident that by not unintentionally doing any standing crunches (vomiting) like I did last week on a lighter routine, that my fitness levels continue to improve.

Nutrition
Total: 2,400
Protein: 262g
Fat: 120
Carbohydrates: 31g
Meals: 1

Notes
No change, just the usual non-heavy template. Two things though I’d like to put up. I’m going through nearly 1.4kg of peanut butter a week. And an update for my weekend dessert mash ups: 200g peanut butter, 4x scoops of choc whey, 5 tablespoons of Milo, a crap load of milk. Mixed that all up into a thick sludge then dumped 2 180g bags of Milkybar buttons in there and mixed them up again. Fuck I miss white chocolate.

Damage Control

• N/A

Notes
Mid and upper back are sore at moderate levels, beauty! Glutes are clear! Quads are still sore, it rapidly reduced overnight from fuck-me-dead levels to mild-caressing levels, now onto day 5 of soreness (this is why I do legs on Fridays). I’ve been good with the usual daily recovery loading of my right tricep, back and pec stretches. My ankle tenderness from front squats I mentioned last year is also nearly cleared. Right elbow lateral epicondylitis is also undergoing a significant improvement. And the past three weeks of sprinting also has not aggravated the mild abdominal wall issue which I’m convinced is now gone. Things are clearing up, good fucking shit I say.

Day 3 - 18/01/2012

Motivation Level: High
Energy Levels: High
Sleep: 7hrs+

Recovery
Slept like a baby, top stuff! Tiredness finally kicked in last night and I was forced to hit bed at a decent time. I’m not sure why, despite cycling 16hrs to 24hrs of fasting periods, I’m still finding it a challenge to go to bed at a decent time. I’ve been limited to two coffees a day max, sometimes just one.

Routine - AM
Fasted (IF): 10hrs
Routine: Analogue stationary bike 20min (9min hill climb @ 3min intervals)
Duration: 20min

Notes - AM
Early morning MIIT breakfast pre-workout workout for today’s lunchtime heavy workout, awesomesauce as always.

Routine - PM
Fasted (IF): 15hrs
Routine: Chest/Shoulders
Duration: 1hr 40min

• 5min Treadmill incline LISS warm up
• Incline dumbbell press (45 degrees): 10x30kg 10x30kg 6x40kg 6x50kg 8x70kg 5x70kg 6x50kg 6x50kg 6x50kg 6x50kg (PB-R)
• Seated barbell military press: 6xBar 6xBar 7x40kg 6x40kg 6x40kg 5x40kg 5x40kg 8xBar (PB-RS)
• Dumbbell isolated side lateral raise: 6x15kg 6x25kg 6x30kg 10x37.5kg 6x25kg 6x25kg 6x25kg 6x25kg (PB-R)
• Dumbbell reverse flye: 6x30kg 6x40kg 7x70kg 6x45kg 6x45kg 6x45kg 6x30kg 6x30kg (PB-R)

Notes - PM
Top session with minor improvements on all routines. Whether it’d be repetition or set count based, improvements are evident. Incline dumbbell presses are very close to hitting two solid sets of 8 repetitions at 70kg, next increment will be 75kg. But this marks the second week of my trials so an ‘sneaky’ deload for my incline dumbbell presses starts next week to be replaced by another pectoral primary: dips (body weight and weighted). Seated barbell military presses also went great and now hit a 7 repetition based set. An extra set was added as I fatigued early on this one. Isolated lateral (supported on non-working arm) also went great. The left arm is noticeably dirtier during the working set of 37.5kg, a minor improvement nonetheless. The reverse flyes also saw a minor improvement.

I feel like these Day 3s (chest and shoulders) can be tweaked some more. I feel I’m still doing too much. I will have to remove a routine here and squeeze it in elsewhere. Another option is to dedicate another day for shoulders and concentrate on chest (triceps as secondary) on another day but then again, that’s too much lifting for me since I’m already three days of heavies during the 7 day week, make that four since my tricep conditional and broxperimentals can be considered heavies which I do on Saturdays. The balance might be broken in regards to heavy, non-heavies, and rest days. Investimagation towards tweaking and possible options in my head in progress.

Nutrition
Total: 3,600 calories
Protein: 380g
Fat: 110g
Carbohydrates: 250g
Meals: N/A

Notes
Bob’s your fucking uncle. All is well. Looking soft, but abs are visible, strength is up and I’m still a 32” waist. Leaning up as usual as I progress through the week and numbers dipped below 75kg today in their high 74s this morning. All good on all fronts. I’ve got approval at work to take Wednesday off until the rest of the week next week which will give me a 4.5 day weekend. Possibly watching Soundgarden in Sydney, drinking pretty much every day throughout except for Sunday. That means calories would probably be out of whack, most likely over maintenance with the wrong macro-nutrients, more importantly, not enough protein. I’ll play it by ear, I haven’t been able to source a babysitter so far to look after Maxximus (my 6+ year old 55kg Alaskan Malamute) and the house.

Damage Control

• N/A

Notes
Everything maintained. 1hr of injury loading on right tricep tendon, back and pectoral stretches, all completed with no issues. Mid and upper back are still fucked, feeling awesomesauce. Everything waist and below are now clear. Sprints, flips, and other body weight stuff yesterday, all non-heavies, do a brilliant job with recovery.

Day 4 - 19/01/2012

Motivation Level: High
Energy Levels: High
Sleep: 6hrs 30min

Recovery
Bed-to-KO was a little challenging due to the heat/humidity but I eventually got there. The fact that a fan was directed at my balls made me sleep like a baby though, a tip for you hot blooded mangs out there, OK mang?

Routine - AM
Fasted (IF): 10hrs 30min
Routine: Analogue stationary bike 20min (9min hill climb @ 3min intervals)
Duration: 20min

Notes - AM
Fanfuckingtastic.

Routine - PM
Fasted (IF): 15hrs
Routine: Metabolic/Non-heavy/Randoms
Duration: 40min

• 5min jogging/skipping warm up, 2x around the track
• 5x Field length sprints @ 75% 15/16 seconds range sprint duration + 60s walk (from one edge of field to the other)
• 5x FF (Fat Fuck - 10x2 on the last stretches) tyre flips SUPERSET 20x push up, 2x field lengths!!!!: Totals: 110 flips + 400 push ups

Notes - PM
Mind over body. That’s what fucking happened. What a milestone. Continuous improvement: fucking evident. What a session, the feeling is abso-fucking-lutely incredible. I planned on merely repeating this weeks Day 2 routine by going through the same flip/push up protocol of 1.5 field length with 80 flips and 100 push up totals. I didn’t want to get carried away. As soon as I was done, the first words I could hear inside me said “Well done. Great work. Mishun akomplisht!”. Then I heard another one (fuck me dead I must be going crazy. Seriously though this is just my thoughts being voiced inside my head....) say “You know, if you were to do 2x field lengths that would be a nice improvement. I mean, you’ve essentially just done 75% already, just fucking do it”. I looked at the time and said to myself: “Why the fuck not. Let’s rock!”. BOOM! Done and fucking dusted! I’m very surprised that my chest held up, considering yesterday was a chest (and shoulder day), I was still able to pull 400 push ups. Form was kept clean throughout the flips (thanks to Mr. Track and Field athlete/coach’s observation not long ago when he trained with me) and the sprints did not aggravate the mild abdominal strain, which at some point this week I was so convinced was gone, but it’s all good no stress. Both the ring and middle fingers on both my left and right hands are burnt from doing the push ups. There were the occasional breeze (relieving and beautiful) but it is a fucking hot day. And those synthetic grass radiates the heat nicely. The standing crunches were a bonus one for shits and giggles... just kidding. I vomited again 25% of the way through the flipping bonanza.

Nutrition
Total: 2,400
Protein: 262g
Fat: 120
Carbohydrates: 31g
Meals: 1

Notes
The usual non-heavy single meal day applies today. When I got out of bed this morning I said to myself “Hrmmm, I feel leaner (and look it too - water drop) and lighter. I must have dropped 1.5kg compared the start of this weeks weight in, Day 1 @ 75.7kg. The actual weight in however indicates my weight-in from yesterday was bumped up and I’m smack bang on 75kg. Things are going great. My body is going through a slow but progressive change as intended and the consistency, despite it’s variation of its rate (depending on certain situations), indicates that a slow mass gain cycle is still under way.

Damage Control

• Push up (400 total) on hot synthetic grass (superset with fat fuck tyre flips) - 4 burnt fingers (2 on each hand, ring and middle fingers on each hand)

Notes
Mid and upper back soreness have been reduced to mild levels. Chest soreness are at mild levels. Daily recovery loading on injured right tricep maintained as well as back and chest stretches lasting one hour. I felt some mild abdominal strain this morning by accident while doing my tricep loading lying on my back on a bench and also conducted some physiotherapy prescribed exercises. The strain however did not affect my sprints this afternoon.

Day 5 - 20/01/2012

Motivation Level: High
Energy Levels: High
Sleep: 6hrs 30min

Recovery
Great sleep, fan on balls, but daily average needs a major improvement. With social events and other miscellaneous things I find myself coming home later than usual, cooking later than usual, eating later than usual, and sleeping later than usual.

Routine - AM
Fasted (IF): 9hrs
Routine: Analogue stationary bike 20min (9min hill climb @ 3min intervals)
Duration: 20min

Notes - AM
Fantastic, no change. Awesome as usual. I had two swimmers on the spin next to me and since I get along well with the swimming coach we were just all there chatting and laughing about random stuff.

Routine - PM
Fasted (IF): 14hrs
Routine: Waist down
Duration: 1hr 30min

• 5min Treadmill incline LISS warm up
• Barbell squat to box (35cm: Parallel for 168cm vertical height): 10xBar 10xBar 5x60kg 5x60kg 5x80kg 5x80kg 5x110kg 4x110kg 3x110kg 5x100kg 5x100kg 4x100kg 10x80kg 10x80kg 5x80kg 10x80kg 4x100kg 7x80kg 5x80kg 5x80kg 12x60kg 15x60kg 10x60kg 5x60kg 5x60kg (PB-RS)
• Dip: 20xBW 20xBW

Notes - PM
Fantastic session for a Friday afternoon. I aimed to actually hit 30 sets today but see I did not want to exceed 90mins of total training time, 25 sets in total, still 5 sets better than last week. The dips in the end were “I just want to divert the pain away...”, LULZ. Total tonnage on squats: 11.5 tonnes. A coach suggested to try and measure my leg days this way so I can use this number and better it for the next routine. I got some more awesome tips from coach I and comments from another athlete and coach J such as “....great depth....” and “....looking good, depth is good....”. The grinding high volume but simplistic sessions in an attempt to break my weak squat barrier/imbalance as well as my experimentation/trails are both going great. Quote of the day in the gym goes to coach J: “You know, we all think you’re crazy right?”. What a compliment, LULZ I’m merely being my own lab rat.

Also, I confused these squats for box squats until I got edumacated by coach I, thanks champ! So correction, these are squat to box. I would go ATG for now but as mentioned not long ago, upon reviewing my ATG movement my arse curls back on the lowest part of the movement, but at this height I find (coaches and athletes believe I am getting good depth on the 35cm box) the depth to be sufficient, effective enough whilst avoiding that ass curl.

Nutrition
Total: 3,600 calories
Protein: 380g
Fat: 110g
Carbohydrates: 250g
Meals: N/A

Notes
Today’s intake is probably not going to be accurate. Estimate: more carbs, less protein (but not significant enough to affect recover from training), and a shit load of alcomaholz.

Damage Control

• N/A

Notes
Everything is clear from the past few days of training. Nothing is sore. Even post leg session, I don’t sense the two tear-drop shaped things rendering me immobilised on my own fucking driveway by entering a fucktarded matrix-style spasming mode. I’ve got an “appointment” shortly after work, so no stretches will be missed. That applies for tomorrow and most probably the entire weekend.

Weekend Outlook going Into Week 4

Training
Fucking mermaids at the beach, thanks T-Pain.

Nutrition
Flexible. Lots of drinking and zero counting. Flexibility, fucking try it. It does wonders. I’ll be out tonight and then I head off to the coast early in the morning (fucking not sure how the two are going to work) for beach camping, so naturally: BBQ, fishing, and mermaid watching.... Yes, that’s right.

Tweet