Gamechanger: Gain 30, Pull 500.

Just trying to work out what 190-200lbs is in "real" weight. About 85-90kg. You+ll need to get up a picture or two once you´ve cut down. It will be very interesting to see how you´re getting on look-wise.
I start my last mini-cycle tomorrow and looking forward to it. This is the very first cycle where Ive actually been bulking. I was cutting since about february I think! It really makes a difference to strength levels if you eat properly. Im just itching to get up tp 200/210lbs so I can start cutting again though. I was much more alert during the day while intermittent fasting.
 
Sci said:
Strained my right trap again, and the levator muscle on the neck...I may have been overtraining that area again. Did 3 sets of Romanian Deads off a rack with 335x8. That's when I decided to drop the volume to 2 sets. It was just too much volume for my beat up upper back. Especially since I still have sets of cable rows to get through afterward. DB Press, Pulldowns, almost everything is working the upper back and traps in some way. That's the only overlap I didn't program around.

But especially RDL's, doing 335x8 for 3 sets is just overstrained on my upper traps and neck muscles. Basically doing these like straight-leg rack pulls, awesome on the entire posterior chain.
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Can't say the combination of that load (at your relative size-training-state etc.), volume and exercise choice makes me feel great.

My instant reaction is, 'No wonder something strained'. Careful when the neck is involved. If you pull the wrong thing there it will just be an annoying b1tch to turn your head for a while.
 
Yeah, I am going to also cut the frequency of the deads, and alternate them with leg curls. Less is more sometimes in weightlifting. I have to keep reminding myself that though!
 
Injuries are annoying. But it lets me know I was overdoing it. Cutting volume way back, taking another rest day. Hitting reset on this program and making necessary adjustments.

On the positive side, though my upper traps are the injured area, they are also frickin huge! Bigger than ever before for sure. So overtraining traps with rack pulls and deadlifts and rows and on....well it works really great for awhile! :)
 
Down to 215 lbs. hit the gym for fullbody today. Getting psyched for the quest for leanness. For the first time, I feel confident in the lean mass that will be revealed once I trim the fat. I will probably drop down pretty far, and really get some definition pics before I try to bulk up again.
 
My neck/upper back injury has been getting worse all week. It seems one of the vertebrae is "out" of place, and pinching a nerve or a tendon or something...its awful, and unrelenting pain. I have been stretching, and rolling on a baseball and doing everything under the sun to get it to release and go back into place... I really can't afford a chiropractor right now, little kids are eating up all my money...:p
ANyway, today, my wife gave me a quick neck massage and she applied hard pressure with her thumb right where the pinched spot was in my neck, and there was a subtle "pop" and instant relief!!! Awesome!!! the pinched nerve, or tendon is now unpinched and I have almost perfect mobility and the sharp pain is instantly gone!!! Thank God for my wife, she just saved me from taking off of work and spending a bunch of cash for a chiropractor...although, I may see one soon anyway, just to confirm nothing else is out of whack, and the pinched nerve doesn't come back. It was almost debilitating, been laying in bed all weekend.

Also, no more maxing out on deadlifts for me for awhile. I think I will stick with higher reps for deadlifts, shrugs and such, and just stay in the "safe" range of normal hypertrophy reps.
 
Found a great affordable chiropractor, he got my spine back to normal between the shoulder blades, there was still another pinched nerve after my wife relieved one spot, the chiro got the other spots ironed out and I feel like a million bucks.

Hit the gym, returned to Romanian deadlifts, made sure to keep my shoulder blades pinned back during the whole lift, I was unconsciously letting my shoulders sag and that is partly what caused my injury. I didn't lose any strength at all in the RDLs, even with a couple weeks off from them.

All done for 2 sets of 8 reps:
Romanian: 335
Sup. Pulldown: 195
Decline Bench: 200
Cable Row: 180
DB Press: 65s
Leg Press: 500

I switched back to leg press, as hack squats were putting too much downward pressure on my upper back, can't have that right now.
 
Had a "cheat day" today, two birthday parties, didn't count calories, ate a ton of carbs. Probably good though, reset my metabolism, etc... good to have cheat day now and then on a cut. Bodyweight is still steadily dropping on this IF cut.

Romanian Deadlift: 335 2x8

Supinated Pulldowns: 200 2x7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuumGbVQuOw
Decline Bench: 205 2x7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA2g_b7cF7g

High Row: 160 2x8 (one arm twisting cable machine, love it)


DB Press: 65s x8,6

Leg Press: 500 2x8
 
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I experimented with a bit higher volume, just to try it out. Kept the loads the same as the 2x8 setup, but went to 5x5. Kept rest between sets to a minimum and got through the whole workout in an hour.

RDL: 335 5x5. Going to increase the load next workout, getting very strong with these.

DB laterals: 20s 5x5. I really like laterals, I think they are on par with presses, lower loads, but longer lever arms make them equal mass builders, but the laterals have more side deltoids, more supraspinitus and more trapezius involvement than presses, which are very front deltoid dominant.

Decline Bench: 205 5x5. I like these better than dips, for chest. Dips are great, and very similar, but my triceps are overpowering my pectorals, and decline bench seems a bit more chesty, less tricepy.

High Rows: 170 5x5 great overall upper back pump.

WG Hammer Pulldowns: 270 5x5. I can never settle on one type of lat exercise, they are all so fun... Supinated, pronated, wide grip, close grip, cables, bodyweight, machines... All of them are fun.

Leg Press: 450 5x5. I actually dropped the load a bit. 500 pounds was getting me very close to failure and I can't do more than one or two sets at that load before I am exhausted.

Legs are looking great. Still need to lose some bodyfat, but overall I seem to be retaining my muscle mass. Around 212 pounds now.
 
I'm not a huge fan of laterals for mass building.


This doesn't make a lot of sense on the surface, but Rack Pulls have actually given me more mass re: middle delts in the last 3 months than anything else in the last 3 years, frankly.

I imagine it's part of the strain being borne down through the traps to the arms. But along with traps, I'm noticeably wider in just that area.

Regarding DB laterals; incrementation is an issue, I'm a bit sceptical about the lever extension adequately compensating for reduced load, but not against the contention totally.
 
Yeah, lots of guys frown at laterals or isolations in general. I don't see any evidence at all, I think it's just bro-logic that somehow compounds are better. The muscle fibers of the deltoid have to strain to do laterals just as much as doing presses. The muscles don't "care" what kind of movement you are doing, and they don't even "know" how much weight you are holding, they just fire and contract against resistance in order cause movement... Period. Doing laterals with your 8 RM will cause as much recruitment and strain as doing presses with your 8 RM, just slightly different recruitment patterns of course, since they are different movements.

Anyway, I don't care if everyone here thinks laterals are not good for mass. I really like the movement myself, and get heavy strain of both delts and upper traps doing them.

Obviously the load progression is a factor, with such long lever arms, even a tiny increase in weight is a significant increase in loading on the muscle. I have magnetic micro-plates for that though. Also, laterals are a more shoulder-health friendly movement than overhead presses. Lots of guys have torn their rotator cuffs overhead pressing, whereas laterals are often part of the therapy to improve shoulder problems.
 
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It's really got more to do with TUT at a load that is high enough to induce hypertrophy. With lateral raises, the load on the delts is constantly changing as the arm sweeps up to horizontal where it reaches a maximum. If the load is then allowed to fall immediately, maximum tension on the delts is only for a very short time each rep. With an indirect, more isometric movement for delts, such as rack-pulls or deads, the loading on the tissue is pretty much constant the whole time. If the delts are contracting hard as joint stabilisers then they are doing so for the entire duration of the exercise and so the TUT is relatively high. It's really a question of how much strain and for how long? Each will work well depending on the conditioning of the tissue to the loading being applied.

To my knowledge, side delts are penate muscle tissue so there really isn't very much lengthening and shortening gong on each rep. That may also be why indirect stabiliser work, where the contraction seems to be mainly isometric, works pretty well for delts once the loads are high enough.
 
Yeah, laterals are definitely one of those exercises that require perfect form. Probably 80% of the people I see doing them, butcher the form badly. Proper form: Slow, controlled motion, straight arms, hold the contraction at the top for a few seconds and lower the load in a controlled manner.
Yesterday I was doing the 20s in a strict full ROM manner, and a skinny kid next to me was doing them with 20s too, but he had his arms bent at 90 degrees and was ruining the exercise. I guess it makes him feel better using heavy dumbells, but he'd be better off using weights he can actually handle and do them properly!
I've been doing DB presses and machine presses for the past several months, and I honestly think they are not superior to laterals done correctly. Maybe it's because my triceps are big and tend to take over, or maybe it's just the range of motion, but I really like the feel of the lateral movement for overall shoulder work.
Obviously deltoids get a ton of indirect work with benching, rowing, etc., but there is nothing like laterals to really put direct strain on the shoulder muscles.

To each their own.
 
Really sore everywhere already. Especially back and shoulders. I think I'll keep the 5x5 format while I slowly diet down to 10% or so.
 
My upper back/shoulder injury never really recovered and has flared up. There is still a pinched nerve in my vertebrae at the top of the scapula where the right side middle trapezius attaches. My right mid trapezius itself has been spasming for a long while. Today at the gym I was dramatically weaker on the right side in all the back and shoulder movements, basically anything involving upper back was really weak on the right side. :( I am hoping the trapezius is just fatigued from spasming all the time, and not actually torn. Time to get a deep-tissue massage. Also, I was really busy at work this week and accidentally ate really low calories, dropped some belly fat dramatically but might have also caused some lean mass loss. Felt really weak overall tonight, just did upper body, I couldn't even get the energy to do legs. Will have to do an upper/lower split from now on. Physique is looking good. Will probably hit my target bodyfat levels around 190-200 lbs as predicted.
 
The CNS fatigue you're reporting on a 5x5 scheme whilst cutting doesn't surprise me.

Drop it down a bit, you don't need so much volume to retain muscle mass.
 
AlexAustralia said:
The CNS fatigue you're reporting on a 5x5 scheme whilst cutting doesn't surprise me. Drop it down a bit, you don't need so much volume to retain muscle mass.
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Point well taken. I dropped volume down this time. Although it was fun, It's just too much without the fuel of a caloric surplus.

Volume should stay low on a cut anyway. Now I know from experience!
 
Split up my training into two sessions, and scaled volume back to nice middle ground. A strict upper/lower is a little too lower body dominant for my taste. I split it instead into:

A)BACK&SHOULDERS
B)LEGS&CHEST

I picked this split because my trapezius gets hammered for all my back exercises as well as shoulder exercises. Trying to avoid trapezius overlap.

I decided to try squats again. It's been a long time and I always avoided then due to my leg-length discrepancy, but now that I have that fixed with the foot-lift, it's time to squat again!

High bar squats, (breaking parallel): 185x8, 225x8,8 Not bad for not haven squatted for ages! Managed 225 pounds for 8 good reps, then repeated after a short rest, got below parallel, which is DEEP for my lanky frame! I'll slowly bump these up until I find my true max.

Leg Extensions: 180x8,8

Lying Leg Curls: 130x8,8

Uni-Calf Raises: BW+60x12,12

Decline Bench: 205x10,8

Dips: BWx10,8

Bodyweight is stuck around 210-212, time to drop calories a bit more.
 
Hammer Row: 180 x8,8 (weak)
DB Shrugs: 100s x8,8
WG Hammer Pulldown: 180 x8,8 (weak)
DB Press: 60s x8,8 (weak)
DB Laterals: 20s x8,8
DB Side-lying laterals: 10s x10,10
DB Side-lying Rotations: 10s x10,10

Significantly weaker for DB presses and Pulldowns, Rows... pinched nerve in my trapezius area... going to deep-tissue massage tomorrow.
 
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