JohnnyIrish's Diet/Workout Log

[JohnnyIrish]

Meals:
My meals are all mostly 2-3 hours apart except for meal 2 which is only 20-30 min after my first meal.

meal1: 4 eggs (omega 3 ogranic) w/chz +olive oil and (2)toast and butter
(take my gnc mega mens vitamins)

meal2: shake (50/50 casin & whey) + either apple, half cup oats, or banana
(I usually have this meal 30 min or so after the 1st)

meal3: Varies.. I eat out with my coworkers but I get things such as grilled chicken Cesar salads, or some chicken, beef with some carbs (bread or croutons)

meal4: shake (whey+oats) + veggies
meal5: shake (varries, whey maybe some casin, maybe apple, oats or banana)
meal6: steak/chicken/beef + veggies
meal7: Shake (casin) + veggies (so I don't go to bed hungry)
(I take this shake like 30 min before bed so I don't wake up at night to use the bathroom as much)

This is my meal plan outline.. I'm not always 100% on track with it but its my target and I'm usually pretty close.

As for working out:

I've been following the plan Where to start with one small change. Instead of the 45 min walking on off days, 3 days a week (off days) I've been cycling at the gym.

I've finished my first week, below is my max testing results:

Max testing:
Max Dumbell bench press
reps/lbs:
10 20
6 40
1 50
1 60
1 70
2 80
5 100 (just to be clear, thats 50lbs each hand)

(I've read since then I should do future max testing with barbells not dumbbells.)

Max Bent over barbell row (with ez curl barbells)
reps/lbs:
12 20
8 30
6 40
2 50
1 60
5 80
(I think I could have done more here..)

Max deads
reps/lbs:
12 bar
8 20
6 30
4 50
1 60
5 70
(might have been able to do more.. but my back was feeling sore)

Max squats
reps/lbs:
12 bar
8 20
6 40
4 70
5 90


Off days (3 days a week):
I ride the stationary bike at my gym. I use the feet clips (so the quads are used more) and I set the cycle to a resistance of 5 (out of a 20 max). I do this for 25 minutes and I typically reach a heart rate of 120-130bpm during (I'm 30years old btw). I plan to up the resistance and time weekly.

Extra info:
I'm 30yo, 5'6 tall, 163lbs, with a bf of 19% (gym measured) 23% (measured on my tanita scale at home).

 

[Warboss Alex]

you have more liquid meals than solid which is one thing I'll point out. if you do have to have so many liquid meals then ensure you have a whey/casein blend (or casein on its own) and add raw eggs to it along with the other stuff. but personally I'd try to eat at least one more solid food meal a day, preferably two.

as for the routine the 45 mins walking on offdays was fasted in the A.M. on an empty stomach, subbing it with non-fasted low impact cycling 25 minutes isn't the same thing. given your age and higher bodyfat I would do the 45 min cardio as it really helps with insulin management without being a strain on your cns.

Why are you using db press as a main exercise? use the straight bar for rows.

 

[JohnnyIrish]

you have more liquid meals than solid which is one thing I'll point out. if you do have to have so many liquid meals then ensure you have a whey/casein blend (or casein on its own) and add raw eggs to it along with the other stuff. but personally I'd try to eat at least one more solid food meal a day, preferably two.

as for the routine the 45 mins walking on offdays was fasted in the A.M. on an empty stomach, subbing it with non-fasted low impact cycling 25 minutes isn't the same thing. given your age and higher bodyfat I would do the 45 min cardio as it really helps with insulin management without being a strain on your cns.

Why are you using db press as a main exercise? use the straight bar for rows.

Thanks for the meal advice.. I'll work on fixing that.

As for the cardio I was considering cycling due to my leg thread. Will the walking+incline for 45 do more for strengthening my smaller leg then the cycling will?

Sorry, I think its miscommunication on my part.. I should have put "max" in front of those. What I listed was the results of my first weeks max training. (I did max leg last because it was sore earlier in the week and I didn't want to wait to start)
I will use the straight bar for rows from now on.

 

[Warboss Alex]

unless you have been specifically advised to cycle I would walk.

and yes, why are you using db press as a max?

 

[Quagmire911]

Use the squats to strengthen your legs.

You'll just have to keep the weight lower until your other leg gets up to scratch. Just add weight as best you can.

Quagmire

 

[JohnnyIrish]

unless you have been specifically advised to cycle I would walk.

and yes, why are you using db press as a max?

I just got back from the gym and did the 45 min on the treadmill speed 3, incline 3. Admittedly not optimal as I wasn't on an empty stomach but I wanted to try it and it definitely feels like a better workout. I originally was going to do the cycling because I thought it was better for my leg but with your present advice and my experience of just doing said exercise I'll drop the cycling and just do the walking. Thanks.


As for why the db:
Because the "where to start" states:
"Wednesday - 3 or 5 Rep max Bench Press, then 5rep max Barbell Row"

It doesn't specify to use barbells or dumbbells. In looking up the exercise I saw two variants, one using dumbbells and one using the bar. I didn't know if it mattered so I went with the dumbbells at the time.

I plan to use the bar exclusively for this exercise in the future.

 

[JohnnyIrish]

I want to make a log of my progress so I'll continue to post in here what I accomplish (unless you all think it warrants a new thread):

Today:
On an empty stomach, I did 45 min on the treadmill, 3 incline, 3 speed.
Heartrate: 120-130bpm

As with yesterday my right quad and calf start to feel fatigued/tight/soreish (note my stronger leg) at about 10 min in. However after about 35 min or so that feeling numbs and I'm fine.

As for eating:
I just made my eggs and toast.. thats all I've eaten so far today since I slept in till 10.

 

[Quagmire911]

Remember your leg strength will primarily increase through squats, endurance and conditioning are a different matter. Just makesure to work on all three.

Your maxes will most likely be conservative because you used dumbbells. In other words you should be able to do more with a barbell. Keep this in mind when doing your worksets, your starting weights me be easier than you expected.

Quagmire

 

[JohnnyIrish]

Forward: My days working out at the gym are moved around a bit. My squat section are Fridays, chest Monday and Wednesdays are deadlifts.

My workout today:
Incline press (bar): (reps/lbs)
10 x bar
6 x 20
4 x 40
4.5 x 60 ( I failed on the 5th one..)
5 x 40 ( I couldn't lift it any longer so I went down in weight till I could do another set of 5)

Dumbbell press (flat): (reps/lbs)
10 x 25 (50 total)
10 x 25 (50 total)

This felt light at first but the last few were pretty tough.

Seated Dumbbell shoulder press: (reps/lbs)
10 x 5 (10lbs total)
10 x 15 (30 total)
10 x 15 (30 total)

(Triceps work)Triceps pushdown - rope attachment: (reps/lbs):
8.5 x 45 ( I failed on the 9th.. and my tris were hurting)

Yeah this was stupid.. I might not have been warmed up enough.. and or just plain old over did it. It hurt too bad I couldn't do another set (I tried stretching it gently and waiting 3 minutes.. still too sore). In hindsight I used this on the cable pull down lat rack.. which jumps in weights way too much.. I should have done say a Cable Rope Overhead Triceps Extension on the other cable machine that has less of a jump weight from one plate to the next. Live and learn.


Diet:
As for my diet Saturday I had 4 real meals + 3 shakes. However today I'm back to 3 food meals and 4 shakes. I know this is suboptimal and I will change it.. I just need to organize my food, and learn more of how to cook so I broaden my options I think. Then I'll be able to add more foods and have a more rounded, more full meal plan. To that extent I bought the book "I'm just here for the food" by alton brown. I'm going to read some more of it tonight before bed.


Questions:
Do I need to do warm ups for every exercise or only if I hadn't used that muscle yet? Are the warmups I'm doing ok?

 

[EFFORT]

Questions:
Do I need to do warm ups for every exercise or only if I hadn't used that muscle yet? Are the warmups I'm doing ok?

Only warm up for a muscle group that hasn't been used yet. Your warm ups look pretty good. Once you have more numbers logged for lifts warming up will become easier since you'll know your ending point. The warm up example i always use is the plane one. When a plane is landing it starts its decent to the destination airport over 100 miles out. This gives the plan the proper time to reach the correct altitude, get speeds sorted out, gear down, lined up in the correct pattern etc. If the plane waited to do this when right over the airport things wouldn't be pretty. The same goes with warming up to lift weights just a lot simpler. You have a workset number that you'll be performing your sets at (destination airport), so your creeping up to that number getting your body prepared on many different levels to handle the weight you'll be using for your sets/or max (the plane getting correct altitude levels, speed, flaps, lined up etc). The lighter the weight relative to your set/max the more reps you'll be performing for your warm up sets and the closer you get to your set/max the lower the reps you'll be using for your warm up sets. (farther the plane is from the destination airport the higher it is, the closer the plane is the lower it is)

look here for some examples http://www.ironaddicts.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3404

 

[JohnnyIrish]

Thanks effort. Good warmup info.
I'll reread that again.

Gym today:
Fasted treadmill cardio this morn for 45 min, 3 spd, 3 incline. Heart rate didn't get much above 120 bpm today.

 

[JohnnyIrish]

My workout today:
Deadlifts (reps/lbs):
10 bar
6 20
4 40
1 60
5 70
5 70

Bent over Barbell Row(reps/lbs):
6 20
4 40
8 50
8 50

Bar Bicep Curl (reps/lbs):
8 bar
8 bar

Palms up dumbbell wrist curl (reps/lbs):
15 10lbs (20 total)
15 10lbs (20 total)

This workout felt better (I didn't get stupid like Monday) and yet still darn tough.

Question:
I now notice that both deadlift and squat days incorporate working some of the same body parts. Is it an issue that I have them separated by just one day instead of two as per the original plan (that is if I do the deads Wed and squats Friday)?

If its an issue I'll just change things up this upcoming Monday.

 

[Quagmire911]

My workout today:
Deadlifts (reps/lbs):
10 bar
6 20
4 40
1 60
5 70
5 70

Bent over Barbell Row(reps/lbs):
6 20
4 40
8 50
8 50

Bar Bicep Curl (reps/lbs):
8 bar
8 bar

Palms up dumbbell wrist curl (reps/lbs):
15 10lbs (20 total)
15 10lbs (20 total)

This workout felt better (I didn't get stupid like Monday) and yet still darn tough.

Question:
I now notice that both deadlift and squat days incorporate working some of the same body parts. Is it an issue that I have them separated by just one day instead of two as per the original plan (that is if I do the deads Wed and squats Friday)?

If its an issue I'll just change things up this upcoming Monday.

It would be better if you had two days between squats and deads. As you say they work some of the same muscle groups and doing them two days apart may become too much. You may get away with it initially, but I'd change it now to be sure and also for your long term benefit. So something like M-Squats, W-Bench, F-Deads.

Also, after you have done deadlifts I don't see a real need to do any warm up sets on rows. I would just go straight into the worksets.

Quagmire

 

[Mad Manic]

Johnny you need some pull ups in there for your lats, no point not doing those but then doing wrist curls. A good back/bis day is Deads, Rows, Chins, Curls. Go heavy on deads, no more than 4 sets even 3 will be fine. Good Luck.

MM

 

[JohnnyIrish]

Quagmire,

Thanks yeah I'll change it starting this Monday.


Mad Manic,

I know where your coming from and that makes sense to me however a lot of the people on here who really seem to know their stuff (more so then I to a great extent) seriously recommend not altering this "where to start" program so I think I'm going to stick within its structure for a bit and see how it goes.

 

[EFFORT]

Before you chime in with your gripe about that Manic (and if you didn't intend to then i'm sorry for calling you out, although think this will be a good read for people regardless though, sorry this had to take place in your thread johnny)

The majority of the guys on this board are originally coming from a place where they train 4+days a week doing each and every body part from each and every angle. They fail because they lack constistancy, there diets suck, there training sucks, (usually overtraining), there conditioning sucks and there sleeping sucks and of course there taking every which supplement under the sun.

So the whole point of the "where to start" thread is to get these guys on a program thats proven to work for the masses(obviously people vary a lot in terms of what they can tolerate, but this will cover everyone), while also changing eating habits to that which supports growth, improving conditioning, and sleep. And most importantly having them create a journal to force them to be consistant. Another issue these guys face is over analyzing, always thinking about there routine and making changes to it. So i said make no changes to any of the routines, since once 1 change is made another and another and they screwed themselves out of progress. I set it up so they wouldn't have to have a thought process other than show up and lift what the routine says to lift and once i made the "simple starting diet" thread, show up and eat what the thread says to eat. (i set it up this way intentionally since most guys think themsevles out of progress) so now they just do whats written, stick to it and in 11 weeks they have more progress than they've ever had in there training career, but more importantly, they now have 11weeks of consistancy under there belt at doing all the things they need to be doing to make progress. That 11 weeks will also produce good custom information of each individual which will tell us what needs to be done next to focus on there specific strengths and weaknesses.

 

[Mad Manic]

Before you chime in with your gripe about that Manic (and if you didn't intend to then i'm sorry for calling you out, although think this will be a good read for people regardless though, sorry this had to take place in your thread johnny)

The majority of the guys on this board are originally coming from a place where they train 4+days a week doing each and every body part from each and every angle. They fail because they lack constistancy, there diets suck, there training sucks, (usually overtraining), there conditioning sucks and there sleeping sucks and of course there taking every which supplement under the sun.

So the whole point of the "where to start" thread is to get these guys on a program thats proven to work for the masses(obviously people vary a lot in terms of what they can tolerate, but this will cover everyone), while also changing eating habits to that which supports growth, improving conditioning, and sleep. And most importantly having them create a journal to force them to be consistant. Another issue these guys face is over analyzing, always thinking about there routine and making changes to it. So i said make no changes to any of the routines, since once 1 change is made another and another and they screwed themselves out of progress. I set it up so they wouldn't have to have a thought process other than show up and lift what the routine says to lift and once i made the "simple starting diet" thread, show up and eat what the thread says to eat. (i set it up this way intentionally since most guys think themsevles out of progress) so now they just do whats written, stick to it and in 11 weeks they have more progress than they've ever had in there training career, but more importantly, they now have 11weeks of consistancy under there belt at doing all the things they need to be doing to make progress. That 11 weeks will also produce good custom information of each individual which will tell us what needs to be done next to focus on there specific strengths and weaknesses.

Well you should have set it up so that there is some form of vertical pulling in there. And if you set it up to have wrist curls for newbies, that's just bizarre. That's all I'm getting at, I know you're trying to be basic so they can stick to a solid program and gain.

MM

 

[EFFORT]

Well you should have set it up so that there is some form of vertical pulling in there.

MM

DAY 3(eg. Friday)
Deadlifts 2 x 5
Row or Chinup/Pulldown 2 x 8
Bicep Curl 2 x 8-10
Forearm Exercise 2 x 10-15

-----------------------------------------------

Workout B
3x5 Squat
3x5 Standing military press
3x5 Pendlay or Bent Rows (or power cleans)
**2x8 Chin-ups (recommended mainly if doing the cleans)

 

[JohnnyIrish]

So should I do chinups/pulldowns over rows? Are they better? What are the pros/cons of each? Yes I also have a propensity to over analyze..

I didn't ask these before as I do not want to keep second guessing myself. I have a workout plan that can work so thats that for now. Its set up and I'll follow it so I need to work/focus more on my diet (hence I need to read more about cooking).

PS- Mad I apologize.. as I know this is the definition of irony where someone asks for "critique my routine" and they replies to you like this.. geeze. *shurgs*.. I just need to pick my battles I guess. In time I'll revisit this.

-------------------------------
I felt pretty beat today (need to work on better/more sleep too) but I didn't get bad numbers from the gym.

My workout today:

Squats (repsxlbs):
10 bar
6 20
2 40
1 60
5 80
5 80

/\I felt like maybe I was going a bit too easy/cautious here.

Lighter squats (repsxlbs):
15 60

/\Now this felt tough to get all 15.

Good mornings (repsxlbs):
10 25 (50 total)
10 25 (50 total)

Hyper extensions (back extensions) (repsxlbs):
8 (no weight)
8 (no weight)

My back was sore.

Horizontal calf machine (repsxlbs):
(I'll do calf raises on the standing machine once I get them a little stronger)
10 30
6 70
1 110
10 150
10 150


Oh my diet note:
I learned a new new steak recipe that doesn't set off my smoke alarm (thank god) and uses the juices (flan) and it makes the previous cooked steaks I've made taste like crap in comparison. Now I just need to branch out and learn/cook chicken and ground beef dishes.. I have time free so I'll experiment with some of those tomorrow.

 

[Drum&Bass]

So should I do chinups/pulldowns over rows? Are they better? What are the pros/cons of each?

You never need to do pull downs..WIDE GRIP PULL UPS ONLY..when you've reached failure with wide grip, bring the grip closer...when you can't do regular pull ups, do chin ups.

Right now I don't row on the same days I do pull ups, but thats me and my routine switches often.

I'm huge fan of the pull up like people on this forum love the deadlift.

what part of NJ you from ?