Sci's HST Log

Haha, awesome. Was it warm enough?

Yeah, I did them with a sweater and leather jacket on. This other dad tried to do a pullup on the monkey bars, and got like halfway up. I ended up trying it and managed to get a few sets of 5s in for chinups, then I did like 3 sets of 10 dips on the steel railings....wide-style dips, heavy on the Pecs!!! :)
 
I woke up this morning feeling well rested... and a bit depressed about the rib injury. 4-6 weeks is nothing though in the grand scheme, and the fact that it will heal on its own, and I can still work and lift, is really, really awesome, and I thank God for that. I threw the depression in the garbage straightaway, and decided not to let an injury get me down. I can nurse it both at work and in the gym, as long as I am careful. Actually I am really psyched that I can do all the exercises I like, with the one exception of Leg Press, which is a bummer, but I can work around the problem with deep hip flexion for a weeks. No biggie.

I just went to the gym and did a bunch of lifts, all for 3 sets of 5 reps. I just feel like my training frequency has sucked lately with work and the baby and stuff. And Saturday's workout felt great, so i want to get back to 48 hour breaks as much as possible. I have always, always responded better to higher frequency. As soon as I let frequency drop, strength gains and hypertrophy gains both slow way down for me.

Hack Squat Sled: 360(8 plates+sled) I really don't like this exercise, but because of my rib, its about the only hip movement I can do besides deadlifts that doesn't hurt my rib. At least they hammer the hell out of the quadriceps, which is good, but I like the Leg Press Sled far better because of the deep hip flexion and the natural gluteus and quadriceps working together as in a good squat. But this is better than nothing.

DeadLift: 275 I only did 295 for 2x3 Saturday, and I knew I needed to get more volume in than that, since this is now my primary leg exercise for a few weeks. So I got 275 for 3x5, which I am cool with. I will try to stick with that strength while I am cutting.

Weighted Dips: 235 (bodyweight+35)

Pulldowns: 190 (a bit of pain as the abdominals contracted against the lats, but bearable.)

Incline Press(45 degrees): 165 (a bit more pain in the rib, as the abdominals also have to contract hard for overhead pressing, plus the ribs are being pushed into a bench, I may have to do a substitute for this or just drop it completely.)

DB Upright Rows: 50s (I went up in weight after reading Totentanz's thread, but I just don't have that kind of shoulder strength yet, I ended up kind of cheating with the 50s compared to my usual strict form. I think I will drop the weight back down a little, to focus on form.)

Single Leg Calf Raise: 160

Wow, I never knew how hard chinups, pulldowns and such work the abdominals! Very hard. And also overhead pressing. Those seem to be the peak of abdominal tension during my workout. Surprisingly deadlifts were fine, which I guess makes sense, since most of the tension is on the erector spinae, and not so much the opposing abdominal muscles. I never have felt abs work much during a deadlift. Obviously squats and leg presses work the abs pretty hard, but I couldn't do those today without re-cracking a rib!
 
Good work there. I'm also aware of my abs contracting when doing chins. Not so much with pullups, though.
 
Weight loss has stagnated on my current lazy, crappy diet plan. I am dusting off my Lyle McDonald books...going to read, "Guide to flexible dieting" as that fits my lifestyle right now better than UD2, or PSMF.
 
2/7/13

I tried something fun tonight. A max effort 5 rep set, then a drop set at 85% of the 5rm for 1x10.

Deadlift:0 No dead-lifts today, since I do daily rack pulls at work, not to mention I just did 3x5 for 275 pounds deadlifts on Monday.

Hack Squat: 360x5, 305x10 (substitute for Leg Press while ribs heal)

Chinups: 200x5, 170x10

Dips: 260x4PR, 210x10


Db Upright Rows: 50sx5, 42.5sx10


Machine Flyes: 200x5, 170x10 (substitute for Incline Bench while ribs heal)

The Machine Flyes were totally awesome on the pecs. I really enjoyed these. Of course Benching is better with the deltoids and triceps getting in on the fun. But I mainly want to preserve pectoral mass as much as possible. Once I am done cutting, I will specialize on pecs even more as I want a big chest more than anything.
 
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I assume your cut has begun?

The first set is all your RM for whatever # of reps you did?

Yeah, been cutting for a few weeks, YES, yes my lats are pathetic, if you are referring to the weak chinups poundage, second set was assisted.
 
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Yeah, been cutting for a few weeks, YES, yes my lats are pathetic, if you are referring to the weak chinups poundage, second set was assisted.

Well normally I'd expect back and chest to be roughly equivalent, and 260 <--> 200 isn't REALLY that much, especially when using a genuine system (hint hint, metric ;) :p). Probably just a form or grip width issue. I imagine you can row a lot more than you think you can as well.
 
Well normally I'd expect back and chest to be roughly equivalent, and 260 <--> 200 isn't REALLY that much, especially when using a genuine system (hint hint, metric ;) :p). Probably just a form or grip width issue. I imagine you can row a lot more than you think you can as well.

I am confident that my lats will grow as I get stronger on chinups. Its just a matter of time, and load progression.
 
Obviously, but there's always a chance to optimise.

Which load and grip are you using? I assume palms are facing you, ~ shoulder width apart ("chin ups" rather than 'pull ups' designation). I recommend that you do negatives as well. In an ideal world (ala an almost empty gym room/nicely equipped home gym), I used to do negative chins with that grip and then lat pulldowns, working in the 5-8RM range, which are just fantastic for isolating the lats, using a wider grip, palms facing away (over the bar).

Food for thought.
 
Yeah, you know maybe I'll start doing the closegrip chinups heavy, followed by some wider grip pull downs to really get the lats.
 
Had a long time to workout today.


Warm up to 1x5,
Drop back 85% for 1x10

Quads=Hack Squat: 360/305
Hams=Seated Leg Curl: 135/115
Soleus=Seated Calves: 90x12
Gastroc=S/leg Calves: 80x12

Back=Deadlift:315x3/265x7
Triceps=Dips: 245/210
Chest=Machine Flyes: 200/170
Biceps=CG Pulldowns: 200/170
Lats=WG Pulldowns: 155/130
Shoulders=DBUpRows:50/42.5

Body weight: 196 lb.s. approx 15% bf
 
The scale has crawled to a halt at 195 pounds. My metabolism has gone down, and now I can hardly eat anything and maintain my weight. Time to finish this cut with some hardcore PSMF. That is the only diet that has worked for me to get to lean states before. Its basically a bunch of lean protein and vegetables, and thats about it. It really sucks, and makes you crave carbs like they were crack-cocaine... but it works amazingly, and the fat just drops off, if you can follow it.
 
Really solid plan. I would definitely keep my workouts to one every 3rd day. I don't like to stick to "per week", although obviously some/most like to orientate that way, so it would be like Mon&Thurs, Mon&Thurs etc or Tues&Fri. Any more than that just makes the carb cravings, hell, calorie cravings too strong.

Also, try and do it without whey, if that's financially and practically manageable. It leaves the stomach so quickly, compared to a steak or mince mix with vegies or cottage cheese w/broccoli etc. Doesn't quite trick you into thinking you have enough food when it's all said and done, but they do a much better job of getting you close to that point.
 
Yeah RFL is a hell of a diet. I second the whole idea of only working out every third day or so. I don't do cardio on it, but it's your choice.

I had a recipe for a really nice protein cake that was low carb, had tons of protein although it did have a little fat in it. It was still good for a cheat meal on RFL. I might still have it but it was probably on the laptop that was stolen from me last year.
 
Anyone who does RFL w/cardio is stone cold crazy ... as in, certifiable, Arkham candidate, straight-jacket and padded walls for your birthday crazy ...
 
I did try stubborn fat protocol on it a few times over the course of a couple weeks, years ago. That sucked.
 
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