Month: October 2017

Sun 15/10: Squat

Food yesterday: 2388 kcal

Activity yesterday: 9.8k steps

Sleep last night: 8 hrs 59 mins – 52 mins awake

AM BW: 73.9kg (-0.9kg from yesterday)

Low Bar Back Squat:
2×5 @ 20kg
1×5 @ 50kg
1×5 @ 70kg
— Belt on (5th hole) —
1×5 @ 90kg
1×2 @ 110kg was supposed to be a triple
1xF @ 130kg Gah
1xF @ 125kg FFS
3×2 @ 120kg

Narrow Stance High Bar Back Squat:
3×10 @ 80kg (beltless)

Weighted Step Ups:
3×10 / side @ 50lbs (25lb dumbbells)

Work sets, including fails:

So for the past few days I’ve just been trying to hit my protein target but reduce carbs/fat from what I had been eating before we went overseas. I was aiming for about 2500-2600kcal. Unfortunately I was lazy and just relied on the calorie number that MFP spat out (it showed 2550kcal yesterday) but if I actually add up the macros it was a couple of hundred calories lower. Seeing as I’ve dropped 1.7kg in 3 days, I’ve definitely been in a bigger deficit than I intended and lost too much too quick. Anyway, turned Avatar on to fast fat loss this morning and got some macros to aim for – 305C / 197P / 74F for 2674 calories. It wants me to lose 0.9kg a week, which would get me back to around 70kg or so if I manage to do it for 4 weeks straight. Definitely don’t want to go any longer than that. Going to attempt it with no more than one cardio session a week (other than walking). Then I’ll start bulking again at a more realistic pace.

Felt like shit this morning, probably partly due to the weight loss. Mentally and physically not in a great place to train, but gotta be done.

Session notes:
– Low bar squats sucked. I really shouldn’t have even gone for the 130kg but I squatted it for singles a few weeks ago, figured I might be able to get doubles now. Maybe I could have if I’d kept eating for performance. Anyway, failed it, then basically gave up on 125kg in the hole and didn’t even try – think it had me beat psychologically before I even started. Dropped back to 120kg and did doubles there, and they were freaking tough. Even with long breaks. And without quite hitting depth. And especially when the bar got forward. FFS.
– The high bar squats were a pleasant surprise after that. Added 5kg to the weight I did for 10s last session, didn’t hurt my neck like last time (thanks to ithryn’s thread elsewhere, I racked it a little lower). Was supposed to be descending sets but the first one was not challenging enough so I did sets across instead. Definitely need to add maybe 10-15kg for the top set next time especially if I’m in better shape nutritionally.
– I don’t think step ups do much except pump some blood into the legs and help with conditioning. As if they weren’t tired already 🙂
– I was due a shitty workout, but even this wasn’t that bad in the end and at least it’s explainable. Took 1hr 15 mins all up.

Sadly, holidays are over and it’s back to the work grind tomorrow. At least my sleep debt is wiped out, for now…. Have a great day people of the interwebs!

Got back yesterday. Horribly jet lagged – got close to 12 hours sleep but still tired. Wife and daughter stayed in bed until almost 3pm, something like 16 or 17 hours!!

Disappointed to have gained so much weight while we were gone. I made a real effort to eat sensibly and not binge on shit food, and thought I’d done a pretty decent job until the final 24 hours – went pretty badly on the plane (it didn’t help that my daughter wouldn’t eat much of her food, and I couldn’t avoid the temptation of having it sitting in front of me to help dispose of it), and had a bit of a binge on chocolate and biscuits before bed last night. Tiredness and stress got to me. Anyway, at least some of it is lean mass, I think. Going to just track and let things level out for a few days, on Sunday I’ll flick Avatar back on and do a 4 week mini cut just to get things back under control.

That was one of the reasons I forced myself to train tonight, also the fact that the sooner I get back into a normal routine the sooner my body clock will sort itself out. Might be able to squeeze this week’s 3 sessions into 4 days, we’ll see how things go…..

Thu 12/10: Deadlift

Food yesterday: No idea. Did not track. But it was lots….

Activity yesterday: 7.3k steps, on planes and stuff

Sleep last night: 11 hrs 45 mins – 1 hr 40 mins awake, eww

AM BW: 75.6kg – yikes. Up 2.8kg from before we left

Deadlift:
1×5 @ 90kg
1×5 @ 105kg
1×3 @ 120kg
3×5 @ 135kg (new PR, +2.5kg)

Paused Box Squats:
2×5 @ 20kg
1×5 @ 45kg
1×5 @ 70kg
1×5 @ 80kg
— Belt on — (still managed 5th hole… just…. yay!)
1×5 @ 90kg
1×5 @ 100kg
1×2 @ 107.5 (bah – it’s a PR, but was supposed to be five, damnit)
1×3 @ 105kg

Kettlebell Swings (with dumbbell):
5×15 @ 47.5lbs

Ab Roller:
3×15

Videos are back:

Session notes:
– The deadlifting was a pleasant surprise, didn’t feel awful, and managed sets across, but I think it took a bit out of me.
– Was always feeling a bit ominous about the pause squats, went for a conservative PR, but the second rep was a max effort jobbie so I pulled out of it and took a little weight off to finish. Having reviewed the video from this session and the last time I did them, I think the setups are slightly different – looks like this time the seat is set slightly lower, though the bench might not be quite as vertical which compensates a bit. I definitely think there’s an inch or two more ROM this time though.
– I liked kettlebell swings when I did them the other day but they were upsetting my janky shoulder using the dumbbell. May have already been sore from deadlifting too.
– Almost bailed on the ab work, since I did some situps on Tuesday (and the kettlebell swings work the core to a certain extent anyway). But they were only sets of 15 so did ’em while I edited the video.
– I knew this was gonna be a bitch of a session, especially in my current state. But got it done anyway in 1hr 28 minutes and as usual, felt much better afterwards than before. I’m back, baby!

Happy training everyone!

Tue 10/10: Something something posterior chain / press / abs

Food yesterday: No idea. Did not track.

Activity yesterday: 8.2k steps, but screwed up cos timezone changes

Sleep last night: 3 hrs 15 mins – 20 mins awake – but again timezone blah

AM BW: NFI

Bulgarian Split Squats (dumbbell):
4×10 @ 20kg/side

Dumbbell RDLs:
3×20 @ 20kg/side

Seated Dumbbell Press:
1×12 @ 15kg/side (33.06lbs)
1×10, 2×9 @ 17.5kg/side (38.58lbs)

Incline Bench Press (dumbbell):
1×3 @ 20kg/side (44.09lbs) – felt too heavy and I was tired
1×10, 2×12 @ 17.5kg/side (38.58lbs)

Decline Situps:
3×20

Session notes:
– In the hotel gym at Changi, while the wife and daughter are sleeping off the timezone change. Dumbbells up to 20kg, an adjustable bench, a spin bike and an (out of order) treadmill. So this was kinda just to get a pump and work off some of the bloat from sitting on a plane for 12 hours doing nothing but eating shit food and binge watching The Sopranos.
– Its fairly warm and humid here. Pushing 30deg C in the gym.
– 52 minutes. Like it. The pool looks inviting now. Have a fantastic day!

It’s been an epic couple of days.

Big deadlift training session yesterday, followed by a busy day doing touristy stuff – visited Kensington Palace, the Natural History Museum, Harrods, had dinner in our hotel room, went to bed.

Today was full on – slept poorly again, woke up at 5am or so, as did the child so we had a nice breakfast together and let a Clare get some sleep.

Went out, and since the attractions we wanted to visit didn’t open til 10, went to Maplin and bought some new Bluetooth headphones so I can hand my ‘cheapo’ set down to Emilia, they kept her pretty amused on the flight over watching Peppa Pig and The Wiggles on Clare’s tablet. New ones actually have active noise cancelling (which works surprisingly well) and come with a plane adapter so I can use them with the aircraft screens too. I started watching The Sopranos on the way over and can see myself binge watching some more on the way home, and the plane earbuds are annoying.

Emilia fell asleep at that point. Then it was the Lego store in Leicester Square, and the M&M World store across the way. We woke her up for this since she loves M&Ms and we bought her some personalised ones. Maybe this was a bad idea as of course she started on the choccies fairly early in the day.

Off to the London Eye after that, by the time we queued up three times (long story) and got on the thing, she was fairly hyper, but I think she enjoyed it. I didn’t, so much, as due to copious coffee and my prostate issues I was a bit preoccupied but there was nothing to be done once we were in the queue. I fair dinkum nearly bowled some people over running down the stairs to the loo as soon as we got off….. oh well, I’ve been on it before anyway.

Then it was late lunchtime, I had a slight meltdown dealing with Emmy as she was getting pretty hyper by this point, it was her normal nap time. Ate something, went and got another coffee, while her and Clare played with some tame squirrels in the park and got some amazing photos.

The weather started looking ominous at this point but we decided to stick with the original plan and get on the boat to Greenwich so we headed over there. Emmy wanted to go on a seesaw so we went to the children’s playground but she was too shy and tired to play, and even ice cream couldn’t save us from a minor meltdown. We headed back to the boat and managed to keep her occupied (or was it the other way round?) all the way back to Embankment and our hotel.

Then it was off to pick up some groceries and have Pizza Hut for dinner. I had mixed feelings about this, but made a virtuous choice of pizza (a ‘feel good flatbread’) and filled up on salad – so while I ate plenty of volume, don’t think I overate too much, calorie wise. Back to the hotel, bathe the child and put to bed, she was out like a light in 5 minutes flat – let’s hope she doesn’t wake up too early so I can watch the F1 in peace!

End result, 20k+ steps today, we are all knackered, and looking forward to hopefully a quieter day tomorow!