nkl's training log II

N

nkl

Member
2010-09-23
What has happened since my last log entry?
First of all, my mindset towards training and nutrition have changed. I realized that being obsessive with nutrition and training had a negative impact on my life in general, becoming a burden socially and taking too much time from those things essential in life. I realized I had become a slave to the servant. The obsession to measure everything I ate, the supplement craze, the constant need to keeping notes on progress had to stop. So I stopped.

Without quitting training on a regular basis and eating healthy food and have done this for 4-5 months and I feel good. It has been a liberation of sorts. I have no desire to keep close track of body composition stats. I go by feel and that is enough for me.

I've been following Jim Wendlers 5/3/1 system for quite a while. The strength gains have been modest. I've been brushing up on my HST experience, going back to the original articles and re-read the FAQ, all the relevant stickies, Borge (Blades) Fagerli's myoreps-articles, and a lot of other stuff (Lyle McDonald's and Martin Berkhans's sites, Mike T's RPE/autregulation stuff, Wernbom's study, etc., etc.). I feel that I'm ready to switch back to HST and stay on track. The circle is complete. Somehow.

My new routine is based on an A/B scheme, alternating key compound exercises to get full body workouts with standard HST frequency. As an experiment I'm going to do a DUP (Daily Undulating Periodization) progression, mostly to get good strength gains. As been discussed on this forum previously, there should be no negative effects on the rate of RBE. My plan is to rotate myoreps, max stim, and negatives/partials/isometrics on a weekly basis (read Wernbom's study). I think key is to manage fatigue by autoregulation and progress loads linearly. This will ensure that tendons and other tissues will be given time to adapt and that progress will not be hampered by excessive fatigue/overtraining. It's mostly a matter of keeping volume at bay as loads get heavier. I will also make sure to do proper SDs. They are essential to progress.

As I have put on a thicker layer of fat than I am comfortable with I will try to diet down some, without measuring anything. I think I can manage by feel by now.

What to expect here? I will get at least some measurements to compare with. And I will report on how my HST hybrid DUP system develops.

I have previously done a two week SD (while tending a cold). I have begun a new cycle (one session so far), and will be ramping up volume as my work capacity returns.

I will return shortly with updates.

Best Regards,
nkl
 
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Here are some stats from last week:

BW: 71 Kg [~156 lbs]
BF: ~15%

Monday 20th
Inverted Row (IR) BW+2,5 Kg/60 Myo-reps (MR) [~161 lbs]
Military Press (MP) 35 Kg/30 MR [77 lbs]

Tuesday 21st
Squat (SQ) 70 Kg/30 MR [154 lbs]
Bench Press (BP) 57,5 Kg/30 MR [126 lbs]

Wednesday 22nd
All day long running a wheelbarrow with macadam sub-base filling. I'm building a little cabin to put my home gym in.
Similar to a whole body workout, shoveling macadam and running with a heavy wheelbarrow. Phew!

Friday 24th
SQ 90 Kg/20 MS reps [198 lbs]
BP 72,5 Kg/20 MS reps [160lbs]
IR BW+15 Kg/46 MS reps [~190 lbs]

Saturday 25th
All day long shoveling macadam (a neighbour helped me out with his dumper) and putting the footing (pre-formed blocks of concrete) in place and using a laser guide for leveling out the groundwork. It was roughly 10 hours of work non stop. I was totally fried when the work day was over.

Rested on Sunday. Still dranied.

This weeks volume and weights were low, but after the SD that is fine. And with the amount of GPP work that was my salvation.
 
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Monday 27th
Deadlift (DL) 80 Kg/46 MR (5-6 reps) [176 lbs]
BP 90 Kg/13 partials MR [198 lbs]; drop set 57,5 Kg/41 MR [126 lbs]
Chin-ups (CH) BW/38 MS [~156 lbs]

Ate roughly at maintenance. Hit the sack at 8 PM. Slept until 5.30 AM

Tuesday, lowered calories.
Some general DOMS from monday's WO. Feels good - haven't had DOMS for months.
 
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hey mate, sounds interesting. sounds like you've done your homework. i'll be following your log for sure. i'm about to start my first cycle of HST next week. how many cycles have you done?
 
Vanilla HST, not many cycles, but tweaked ones, a lot of them. I'm usually bad at SD'ing (skipping it) so my progress haven't been stellar. Neither have I been eating enough to grow, but in 2008 I got my head together and followed a strict regimen until I ended up becoming obsessive, which was bad at the other end. Long story short, I've been treading water a lot hyperthropy wise, but my strength have increased, and my mass gains are in the intermediate state. I strongly believe in load progression until you can't progress further, and then doing proper SDs, reset the starting weights, and run another cycle. Also, a key ingredience is volume (that is, I haven't done enough). If I could have redone my training years, I would have followed HST more to the letter, but it's human nature to tweak things.

The DUP HST scheme I'm doing now is targeted at greater strength gains than the linear HST approach. I base my thinking on the reasoning of Aaron F's posts (here and here), Dan's (here) and Bryan's (here), to name a few. The training methods are based on Wernbom's study, where Rafeii's protocol scored highest (very similar protocol compared with MaxStim, but higher volume) and negatives scored very high (lower volume). I'm also using myo-reps (Wernbom had a finger in there too). So my scheme is a combining DUP with a mix of training methods, with higher volume (also top score in Wernbom's study). End rant.
 
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cool thanks for the info. i've been training for years, but not to any great effect. got a lot stronger, and a bit bigger, but i guess i'm like a lot of guys that hit a plateau and didn't know why, but are too stubborn to change anything. i'm keen to give HST a go. i'll just do vanilla for one cycle and see how it goes. i want to bulk as much as i can and actually see it on the scales for once, although i am keen to get my legs stronger as i pretty much neglected them for upper body. i had a quick read of blade's myo-reps and it sounds like something i might try after getting used to HST. I know what you mean about SD. i'm 5 days into it after finding my RMs last week and i hate it! but i can see how it applies, plus it gives me time to do other stuff i neglect. it sounds like we've got similar goals so it will be cool to follow your progress. i'm going to start a log as well as it seems like great motivation.
 
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Wednesday 29th
SQ 110 Kg/13 Negs; drop 70/30 MR [242 lbs/174 lbs]
IR 1/2BW+15 Kg/29 MS; drop 1/2BW+5 Kg/22 MR [110/88 lbs]
MP -/- Run out of time...

On Inverted rows I calculate 1/2 of my BW due to having two points of support (feets on bench, hands on bar in power rack). Naturally the weight is placed on my stomach as it's the only way to keep it in place. Inverted rows are perfect for rest pause sets.

Friday October 1st
DL 102,5 Kg/21 MS; drop 80 Kg/41 MR [226/176 lbs]
BP 57,5 Kg/50 [126 lbs]
CH BW/30 MS -- Run out of time!

I feel a bit drained by the lowered calorie/low carb diet. Friday is my refeed day so I'll restock my glocogen stores and give the metabolic rate a bump.

One thing I have noticed in this scheme is that the workouts take a lot of time, and thus some body parts gets less frequent stimulation when I have to cut the training short due to time constraints. I'm planning of doing lower volume training for legs (SQ and DL). This will free up more time for upper body exercises and the workouts will induce less fatigue.
 
nkl said:
Vanilla HST, not many cycles, but tweaked ones, a lot of them. I'm usually bad at SD'ing (skipping it) so my progress haven't been stellar. Neither have I been eating enough to grow, but in 2008 I got my head together and followed a strict regimen until I ended up becoming obsessive, which was bad at the other end.
Click to expand...
Being strict with workout and diet is a good thing, but being obsessive takes all the fun out of it.

I've got just the opposite problem with SDing -- mine are usually unplanned and for longer periods than I'd like.
 
Monday 4th
Worked hard all day with the cabin (basic carpentry work: swinging a hammer and a sledgehammer, carrying lumber, etc.)

Tuesday 5th
SQ 72,5/3 [156 lbs]
IR BW+25/13 MS; drop BW+5/51 MR [132/88 lbs]
MP 45/29 MS; 35/30 MR [100/77 lbs]

After 3 reps into the squat I felt that the CNS was so badly recovered I had to rerack despite the 'easy' load. It was too heavy. My back and my legs were simply too tired from yesterday's work.
 
Another study looking at why some strength athletes are stronger than others shed some light on why mass is a must. Our fellow HST citizen Anoop gives us a to the point summary (here).
 
Thursday 7th
DL 125/5 Negs; drop 80/10 MR [275 lbs/176 lbs] I pulled a single at 125 Kg which is a new PR for me.
BP 75/15 MS; drop 57,5/30 MR [165 lbs/127 lbs]
CH BW/40 MS [154 lbs]

Sunday 10th
IR BW+7,5/50 MR [94 lbs]
Dips BW/50; Pushups BW/12
No leg work...
Worked with a sledgehammer for hours, carried lumber... etc. Soon I'll have an indoor gym. Soon...
 
Thanks! I have not lifted a max in a while, but according to the 1RM-calculator my max should be ~130+ for the deadlift. I havn't tried it yet though.

Monday 11th and Tuesday 12th
Worked on the cabin. My hands are aching today. It should be worse in my left thumb as I hit it with the sledgehammer on monday. Luckily for me I didn't put much force into the blow as the angle was weird and I had bad leverage (standing on the top pin of a ladder, hanging onto the cabins top outer corner). The thumb is swollen and a little miscolored but not crushed. I might get in workouts on thursday and friday anyhow, but probably I'll go easy on pulling movements.

I'm soo tired... I have too much stressors in my life right now. I seriously need some rest so I won't do more work than the scheduled workouts (without heavy leg exercises). The work on the cabin will have to wait, but I really need to have a roof put in place before the winter arrives. I might have some weeks left to do it before the first snow. Stressful.
 
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Lyle recently published an article on his website, discussing the ingredients neccesary to induce muscle hyperthropy (here). Lyle concludes:
Ultimately, the three stimuli discussed above, tension overload, damage and metabolic stress (fatigue) seem to be the primary factors at this point.* And I think if you look at most successful training programs, they tend to have some combination of all three of these.
Click to expand...
I feel that the mix of MyoReps, Max Stim and Negatives (eccentrics) in my scheme provides the three types of stimuli Lyle mentions above. Nice timing of his article.

Thursday 14th
BP 90/13 Negs; drop 57,5/26 MR [198 lbs/127 lbs]
CH BW+10/36 MS; BW/12 MR [176 lbs/154 lbs]
Since my general fatigue is high the workout was harder. I felt weak in the bench. I tried to do one full rep but failed. Last time I did the same weight I did partials in MR-style.
 
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Friday 15th
SQ 92,5/20 MS; drop 70/13+4+4+4 MR [204 lbs/154 lbs]
IR BW+5/56 MR [88 LBS]
Squatting felt fine today with generous M-time between reps. Didn't induce overly much fatigue. As the MyoRep count shows, I was good for a drop set of 13 reps before rep speed slowed considerably.

My upper back is sore from the consecutive workouts. As far as I'm concerned I think this DUP scheme is doing well, but it's still early to tell. Also, the frequency have suffered due to extra much work on the cabin.

My cut has turned into a semi-bulk as I'm doing more work than I planned and I wouldn't do very good on lowered calories. But on some of the non-workout days, when I'm not doing any construction work, I try to eat a little less. But today is friday. And fridays are refeed days! It has been a lot of toast and ice-cream.

Tomorrow I'll do more work on the log cabin (actually log home, as the logs have been milled, but that's just semantics). It's time to put up the rafters before I put the roof in place. It's slowly coming together...
 
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what sort of diet are you on?
is a refeed once a week for a cut?
how many cals do you do when you refeed?

i'm just trying to bulk so eating as much as i can without getting too fat. i found 3600 was a bit too much so trying to cut down to about 3300. but looking at my ever growing waiste i know i'm going to have to cut next cycle. what do you recommend? i was thinking about UD2 but it looks a bit hectic. i just wanted to do HST and maybe lower cals and do some cardio.
 
OzMullet,

My diet is not on track at the moment. On training days I go for higher calories, with higher carbs (easy calories), while on non-training days I just lower my intake of carbs, but it has been so much to do the borders have become a haze.

My original plan, based on a lot of research and testing, is simply: To cut, lower the calories to -500 below maintenace, with higher protein (approx. 200g/day), have a refeed day (mostly carbs, once a week) to prevent a major drop in hormone levels and strength; To bulk: up my calories by 500 above maintenance and focus on starchy carbs and lowered fat (as fat oxidation is approx. zero), but not nil (you'll need them to keep your hormone levels in check). Time frame: 12 weeks, either way. That's it. No mumbo jumbo stuff. It's easy and just require some patience.

The BF% should not exceed 15%, but it's hard not to bulk when mass is lacking. As someone said, why shooting for a six pack if you resemble a stick man? Some people have the mind set to gain a lot of muscle and fat (18%-20% or more) and then diet the lard off (and keep a bit of the beef) during a lengthy cut.

After my decision to be not-so-obsessive about my diet I just make sure protein is high on lowered calorie days and making sure I'll get plenty of carbs on refeed days (which have become more than once a week). I have no way to make sure what the exact calories are. I'll have to go by feel, which may put me off target by a several hundred kcals...
 
yeah ok sounds good. keep it simple hey. i started with my BF at 15%. its probably at about 17% now. i dont care, like you say why bother with a six pack if your small anyway. i might reassess when i finish this cycle. i might drop the cals down a bit next cycle - its getting really hard to keep it at over 3300 just feel full and bloated all the time.
 
Lyle's continuation of his article series on muscle growth (here) echoes some parts of this thread, also citing Wernbom's review on optimum volume, and mentioning the use of Borge's MyoReps and even Bryan's vanilla HST method. I'm not surprised we come to roughly the same conclusion as this is an amalgam of research from a lot of studies and hard earned weight room experience, distilled on the pages of this and other respectable forums and sites across the Internet.
 
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