Quagmire911 Lifting Journal

[Quagmire911]

Unfortunately that's the heaviest DB in the gym, so I'll have to increase reps now.

5/3/1 has worked well for the squat, well it did at the end of last year. I had taken a long time off it so that needs to be taken into consideration. But yes, I suppose you could say high reps help somewhat as they are a part of the program.

I squat in cheap s*** shoes at the moment. I am broke at the moment and am not going to be spending money on shoes just to squat in. I've done it in socks in the past which might be an idea again, the shoes don't feel particularly stable. I felt a bit off because my left quad was bothering me, and it is that leg that came forward. It's actually fine today, I stretched the hell out of it last night. I need to do static stretching more. I don't know how much more I can get out my squat at the moment because it has gone up quite a bit recently. The strength increases go in spurts, for me anyway. I'm hoping for a nice increase in my dead now, it's been a while.

Thanks Jitterbug, that s*** nearly went bad. I wish I'd had known 120x10 was my best and I would have done 11-12.



Tuesday

Cardio:

S.Bike 30 minutes HR 150-160- This felt good. Didn't want to kill myself today, wanted to leave the gym feeling energized.

I also did pec deck 70kg 2x10 with ramping beforehand and pulldowns 80x10 100kgx5 with ramping beforehand. I meant to do the pec deck yesterday but forgot. I think I need to do more reps with body weight on chins. I have to say it feels pretty good using most if not all the weight on these machines for reps. All the looks you get is pretty fun. It shows my pecs are weak though, I can pretty much max most things except the pec deck. Shouldn't be too long.

That's pretty much it. I've starting drinking a shi* load of tea for the theanine. There's good evidence showing it lowers cortisol/stress and some otherstuff. I do seem to notice it around 4-5 cups. Promotes alpha brain waves/increases gaba.

I'm thinking of doing cardio tommorow, I'll see. The diet is really clean now except some drinking, but I have been keeping it to the weekends. I rekcon a final push with the cardio and cutting the sugar should do it.

Until next time...

Quagmire

 

[Quagmire911]

Wednesday

Cardio:

S.Bike 30 minutes HR 145-160- Took a while to get the HR above 150.

Deads tommorow...

Quagmire

 

[frenchbeauty]

I'm on the stationary bike 3* a week too for 30 mins.. You doing it first thing in the AM ?
Been checking out your log once in a while... looking good man, keep it up

 

[Cure]

I can vouch for them as well (chucks), I got a cheap pair of converse knock-offs from peacocks for £10! much better than trainers.

Cure.

 

[Quagmire911]

FrenchB: I'm not doing it in the am. I'm not usually awake until after mid-day at the moment. I usually eat and then head to the gym.

Espi: Thanks man, could do worse with the drinking habit. I'll get a bit of money in the next couple of months, if there not too much I'll maybe get a pair. I may go in socks again for a while.

Cure: I could stretch to £10, I think there is a peacocks near here, I might check it out.

Workout too follow...

 

[Quagmire911]

Thursday

Well I woke up and whilst I didn't really feel shi*, I didn't feel psyched up for the gym. This was after I had had my usual breakfast. I decided f*** that, because I really wanted to PR on deads today. So I took a decent serving of creatine and tyrosine and an ultra strong cup of coffee. I also ate a little more carbs. It occured to me that cutting out the oj is actually taking away quite a bit of energy. I also decided that I'd splash out the £4 and get another bottle of ammonia, my last bottles' lid cracked a few weeks ago rendering it useless. After doing all this, I was feeling better about the gym. Here it is:

Deads 130x5 150x3 167.5kgx6 (369lbs) PR- Great set, and a two rep PR. I told myself that I must get 5 and PR. I had too, nothing else mattered in the gym apart from that. I even put deads first today to stay completley focused on them and give it everything. Well it was a pretty good set, the first couple of reps were good. 5 went up without too much trouble so I did 6, which wasn't the hardest rep I've ever done but pretty difficult. I think if I hadn't done the creatine etc and eaten a few more carbs, 5 would have been a struggle. But I needed this. I know I can do 170kgx5 now which is a good stepping stone, now I just need to do it. Then I need to nail 200kgx1. Soon...

DB oh press 24x5 30x3 34kgx5- I'm pretty happy with this. After the deads my forearms were fried and I was aiming to only get a rep with 34kg. After the warmups and ramping I had recovered enough to give it some effort. I could have gotten a little more had I waited a little, but I left it there. My mission was deads today, so I wasn't thinking too much about this. My best here is 7, so I am around that level. This hasn't moved in a while either, so I'm going to have to do something about that now.

Pulldowns 100kg 2x10- Chins have been feeling shi*ty recently, so I am going to switch for a little while. I might throw some bw chins in just to keep the movement fresh.

Kneeling rollouts +10kg 2x8- I didn't think 10kg would make it that much harder, but it did. If I get this up to +20kg 2x15 or so, I think standing for reps may be on the horizon.

Hip machines 1x20- These are easy now for the full stack (70kg). If I don't do them, my strength disappears on them. Doing a set or two every week to maintain it. I think it helps the dead/squat somewhat.

S.Bike 30 minutes HR 145-150- Pretty good. It's usually harder after weights, but I had more energy. Probably on account of the pre-workout "stack".

And that was it. I was going to do pec deck again, but someone went on just as I was about to and I didn't have time to wait. I don't mind doing it twice a week for a little while since it has been neglected somewhat. I may do it tommorow, I'll probably be in for cardio again. I could swear my pecs have actually improved in the last few weeks.

Got some alcar and b5 on the way at the moment. My skin isn't great at the moment, never really has been, but it's been worse latley. These supps improve fat metabolism, so apparently it can help. If it doesn't, at the very least it should boost fat burning (obviously). I've heard good things about alcar in particular on this. It is the rate limiting factor in fat transport or something like that.

I think I need to up the calories a little pre-weights at least. On Monday my strength was there but energy went down fast. The "stack" probably helps too. One last thing: The left quad is still funny, and the right knee has always bothered me a little. I am going to stretch the hell out of them over the next few days (I've been neglecting that) and see how it feels. I may have to can squatting/leg press or rework it somehow cause it isn't right at the moment.

That's all for today, great session. Probably cardio tommorow, until then...

Quagmire

 

[kbear0101]

Grats on your PR Quag! Whats the ammonia for?

 

[Quagmire911]

Thanks kbear!

I can answer that question two ways. The way that will make you understand best, is to get some and sniff it like it's coke, right before you lift.

The second way, is about it increasing adrenaline or some shi* that I can't really remember.

I just get those small bottles of smelling salts out of the chemist/pharmacy. Mackenzies is the brand. It's £4 and lasts for months as long as you don't crack the cap.

Quagmire

Ps- Please note that there is cotton wool between the bottle opening and crystals. You sniff the vapour, you don't actually snort the crystals or anything like that . You can get caps off the net, but I think it is actually cheaper to get the smelling salts, at least it used to be.

If you look at that "dance" Benni Magnusson does before he deadlifts. He's actually pulling an ammonia cap from behind his ear, putting it to his nose, and sniffing it.

 

[Quagmire911]

Friday

Cardio:

S.Bike 30 minutes HR 145-155- Had a hard time keeping my heart rate above 150 today. I was at my usual pace, much harder and my legs start to burn too much. Usual pace is around level 3 105-115 rpm.

Pec deck 80x5 85kgx5 100kgx1- Pretty cool how quickly something improves if you haven't really done it before. The machine maxes out at 100kg, so the aim is just to get up to that for 20 reps+. That will scare the people in that gym, should be fun.

That's all for this week. Until next time...

Quagmire

 

[Quagmire911]

Monday

Good session today for the upper body. Going easy with lower body. Here it is:

Bench 65x5 75x3 90kgx10 (198lbs) PR- Happy with this. If I had a spotter, I think 11 was there. Pretty much 200+ for double figures, good bench mark. Hopefully I'll get 204x10 when I do it next cycle. Making steady progress on this. Higher reps seem to work better for me. I've also stopped looking for 10-20lb jumps every month which was a waste of time.

Front squats 65x5 80kgx5- Hard but I probably had more. This will go up quite a bit if I actually do it for a few weeks. My best was 100x3.

Squats 80x10- Pretty easy. My left quad is still funny, and only in the bottom position of a2g squat. Going to keep this low until it feels better. I read a Poliquin thing that I read in the past saying your front squat should be minimum 85% of your back squat for structural balance, and I know for a fact mine isn't. Perhaps this is why the squat is the exercise I'm most "unsure" on. What I mean by that is I think my form could be better, I'm not "tight enough" during the lift. I've always felt if an injury were to happen, it would be most likely on the squat. This has always been the case, and I did have 6-9 months off it that ended just under a year ago. So I need to be careful, and get it sorted.

Skullcrushers 35kgx12x12 PR- I'm calling the ez bar 10kg. I think I remember that from the past.

Kroc rows 48kg 2x15- Added a set this week. I'm pretty pissed off that the DB's don't get any heavier.

Pec deck 85kgx10 90kgx5 PR- Goes up to 100kg, will be at that soon for reps. Will be interesting to see if this has any affect on anything else, ie, bench.

S.Bike 30 minutes HR 140-145- Kept it easy today, I plan to do a lot of cardio this week.

That was all for this week. Weight was 179.4lbs this morning. I was thinking of just deloading because of the left quad, but I think I'll just cut the heavy back squats and work around it. It's only been three weeks, so I think it's a bit early for the a deload doing two days a week, and it is only the squat/leg press causing problems.

Happy with the bench. That's all for today, until next time...

Quagmire

 

[ATP]

Grats on the PR m8. Just wanted to say that EZ is 10 kg to save you the confusion.

 

[Cure]

Weighed an EZ on my gyms digital scales today.

8.3kg. your's might be different though.

Cure.

 

[Quagmire911]

Tuesday

Cardio:

S.Bike 40 minutes- First 25 HR 145-155, last 15 min 135-140

Not a lot to say, decent session. Possibly in tommorow for more cardio, deads on Thursday. Until then...

Quagmire

 

[Fuglydude]

Your bench is really coming along hey? You're close to doing 100 kg x 10 or 12 reps, which is a great benchmark. Think the heavy kroc rows are helping w/ the bench? I always find having a thick strong upper back helps to push heavy because you can use it as a "launch pad" of sorts.

Keep it up man!

 

[Quagmire911]

It's been doing well in the last 6 or so months. Gone from roughly 90x5 to 90x10, which with losing 10lbs and drinking like I do, I'll take any day of the week.

I don't know if the rows help my bench, not been doing them long enough, but your theory is correct of course. I'd say I have noticed them helping dead lockout in the past. Perhaps in the last few weeks, as I did well last week with deads. This is kroc rows of course.

Yes, the numbers are creeping up slowly, which given the drinking and the fact my weight will be in the 170's for at least a little while, I'll take. It seems to go from exercise to exercise which goes up slowly. When I've got some cash again and can eat the way I want to and maybe get some more supps, maybe then I can really attack 3/4/5. For now it's small steps.

Right now I'd attribute the increase in bench to doing higher reps in the last 6 months. Before it that it was 5's for a long time. I moved it too 8-12 for the most part at some point in those 6 months and it is working.

Quagmire

 

[ATP]

Yeah a little higher reps in the bench is great for increasing strength. Such a big risk to overtrain the CNS otherwise if you train with low reps to failure. Rows and especially dumbell presses with good form does wonders for my bench Db presses seem to carry strength over to barbell presses compared to the reverse.

Good to see that the weights are creeping up, once you hit 3 digits for reps it's time to celebrate.

 

[Quagmire911]

Wednesday

Cardio:

S.Bike 55 minutes- First 30mins HR 145-155, last 25mins HR 130-155.

Had a hard time getting and keeping the heart rate at 150 again today, at my usual pace. Must be getting a bit fitter again with the extra sessions. Felt really good today, no problems.

Deads tommorow, until then...

Quagmire

 

[Quagmire911]

Thursday

Good session today. Here it is:

DB oh press 24x5 28x5 32kgx8- I think this matches my PR. Probably could have got 9, but I would rather PR in later weeks. I actually started the percentages off to high here by accident.

Deads 115x5 135x5 152.5kgx8 (336lbs)- Not sure what my PR is here, but it is around this. I know I've done 155x10. I had 11-12 which would be a PR. Again I left it conservative so as not to burn out. This was a great set. My strength on deads is going up. I want to hit the 170kg's for 5 reps+ in two weeks.

Kneeling rollouts +15kgx8x8 PR- This was brutal.

Conditioning/fat loss:

Deadlifts 100kg 5x10
Db press 16kg 5x10

What I did here was I did 1x10 deads, immediatley followed by 1x10 db press. I then rested 60s and repeated until all 5 sets were complete. This was pretty fun! I could barley press the 16kg db's on the last two sets on the latter reps. I was pressing two 16kg's at the same time.

I might set some kind of goal with the above, like to get 10 sets or something. I was going to do pulldowns but couldn't after this, should have done it before. I think I will do pec deck plus pulldowns before the cardio tommorow.

After the above I am absolutley ravenous. Cals have been low all week so I'm going all out tonight with two pizza's post workouts. In the middle of the first as I type this. I'm not binging on sugar though, that would be bad. There's around 24g in two pizza's, so that is acceptable. Comes out around 200g carbs, 40 g fat, and 80g of protein . I'd rather have less carbs and some more protein, but it's all I've got.

I think I can see a new level of leanness today. I've been working hard enough for it. Will weigh myself and measure at the start of next week. Shouldn't be long now though...(six pack).

That's all for today. Until tommorow...

Quagmire

 

[Quagmire911]

Friday

Cardio:

S.Bike 30 minutes HR 145-155- Good stuff.

Pec deck 80x5 90x5 100kgx5 PR- Good stuff. Maxed out now.

Pulldowns 100kg 2x8

Hip machines 70kgx20

That was it. The strength work was done before the cardio which meant I didn't have to work as hard to get the heart rate up. Feeling fit.

Until next week...

Quagmire

 

[Quagmire911]

Monday

Alright day today. Didn't get a lot of sleep, first week of new wave, wasn't looking for anything special. Here it is:

Bench 60x5 70x5 82.5kgx10 (182lbs)- Had at least two more, I reckon 13-14 with a spotter. Left it there.

Wide stance squats 85x5 100x5 115kgx5 (253lbs)- Went about twice as wide as usual as this doesn't cause my left quad any problems. This required a lot more hip drive and I'm not used to it. This was around about a 5 rep max with this stance. It should go up if I have to continue using it though.

Skullcrushers 40kgx8x8 PR- Good stuff.

Leg press 250kgx10x10 (550lbs) PR- Good stuff. I'm thinking that it may have been the leg press which caused this quad problem in the first place. I think I haven't been putting my foot high enough up on the board and have been pressing too much with my toes. I moved it up on the second set here and it was noticeably easier to press. I'll know in a few weeks I guess, but it doesn't make sense that squats would cause a problem all of a sudden. The week it happened was the week I did 300kgx6 on these.

That was all. Pretty short session, just wanted to get in and out.

A note on the fat loss front: I think I have been eating too much. I've only really been eating three meals a day, but the problem has been too many slices of bread. The real problem is that each slice of bread is around 100kcal and that doubles when you spread a wad of butter on it. So I need to cut back on that.

Anway, that is all for today. Cardio tommorow, until then...

Quagmire