Hello Everybody! I'm back!
I have been lazy and not written anything here for 4 months, although I have been active in the gym - and guess what - I have been taking notes on my progress.
What has happened since the end of december? Well, I got interested in Westside Barbell methods, where strength is premier, rather than hypertrophy. It turned my head towards powerlifting. Then I got bitten by the 'Iron Bug' as they say.
The Westside method was a new insight on concurrent progression of strength and hypertrophy. In HST, we follow traditional periodization where we loose strength during SD and 15s, then regain it during the 10s and 5s in a wavy pattern. To gain strength troughout the cycle without ever loosing it was an eyeopener. Actually I let my eyes wander about - taking in the teachings of the former Soviet union's weightlifting coaches, Pavel Tsatsouline among the most prominent (he is very knowledgeable!). I have also been reading a lot over at EliteLifts. Also, Westside's Dave Tate and Jim Wendler have been inspirational.
My recent reads have been Chad Waterbury's Muscle Revolution (he truly got it right!) and Tom Venturo's Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle (a good read). I blame it on Bill Philips, who wrote Body For Life - the book that first ignited my interest in lifting weights at a ripe age - I reread his book and searched and found some criticism on the book - Tom Venturo criticized it in a blog somewhere, so I read Tom's book to get his view on the topic of cutting.
Most recently I've paid attention to the teachings of SwoleCat (Chris Janusz), a pre-contest and nutrition guru who worked wonders with Christian Thibaudeau (cutting). SwoleCat made me open my eyes a little bit wider as he explained the important aspects of nutrition timing. I will take that to my hearth.
My progress has been mostly in strength. I have not bulked they way I originally planned (it was too hard to eat that much protein, day-after-day), so I'm still at my previous weight. I've been eating very much the same, with similar macronutrient ratios. I didn't do any of the aforementioned PSMF cutting weeks, so the layer of fat has thickened. For a couple of weeks now I have been doing IF rather strictly, but have recently begun a protein sparing cut inspired by Velocity Diet 3.0, although it reminds of Lyle's Rapid Fat Loss recipe (but with more targeted carbs). I have a goal with a deadline - to be as ripped as I can be when I step on the airplane destined for a vacation in the sun - with minimal LBM loss. The deadline is in less than 8 weeks.
Burn the fat, feed the muscle is a good motto. I will stick to it. I hope you all are well too, BTW!
I'll be around. See ya!
