Creation of an Explosive Mofo - My Training Journal :)

[coolcolj]

I came across this in some kid's training journal


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My chiropractor/trainer has trained the Atlanta falcons(when they went to superbowl), Minnesota Vikings, Chicago Bears.

I had terrible back pain through the summer, and when i started football, i couldnt hardly get into a 3 point stance, i played through pain. So i took 4 weeks off until i heard about this trainer. He said My Lower back was out of line, and it was from squatting. He is amazing, after one visit he stretched my entire body and popped my back back in line and played the next game.

Here is what i can and cant do. i can do squats, but not parallel. only go down 33 degrees, which is almost halfsquats i think, this is actually a must for everyone. IF YOU DONT BELIEVE MY TRY THIS.

put your hands on your hams, do a half squat. you should feel your hams contracting. Now, feel your hams through a full squat, you dont feel them. and going below 33 degrees is just putting more pressure on your patella(knees). and all it will do is contract your knees, and eventually you will blow them out. this is just a thing that i beleive. it makes perfect sense to me.

and another thing is is that i have been running with pain in my back for a long time, and this caused my running to be very bad, so now that my back is in line, i can have better form. And he guarantees that i will be faster. my last 40 was a 5.00. so next time i test it, i hope its at least a 4.9

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Did a lot of standing and one step jumps - seems like there is only a 2 inch difference between them now - guess its time for depth jumps...

Why does this signify a need for depth jumps? What will these help with, exactly?

 

[coolcolj]

Why does this signify a need for depth jumps? What will these help with, exactly?

well if my standing jump and one step jump are within 10% of each other than that means I have an inch or so to gain on my one step jump if I improve my reactive strength with depth jumps

there are all these tests and indicators to determine where on the explosive strength - reactive strength spectrum you lie, and hense the weakness you need to attack to bring things up etc. In otehr words right now I'm more strength dominant than reactive

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Took a while to sleep, ate to close to bedtime, and then the dog woke me up again - arghh. Pretty tired as a result, I sure look it, but feeling strong.

Funny thing is since I started the new diet I feel better than I have all year, especially given the calorie reduction and poor sleep. I didn't get much DOMs at all yesterday or feel drained, recovery just feels better overall. I think the big boost in protein and constant supply of it is the big difference.
Ok I am deloading, but I've deloaded before, and even prior to that I have trained much like I have in the last 2 weeks and haven't felt this solid. Joints and tendons just feel much more robust. See what happens when I switch back to the strength block. I think this maybe the final missing piece of the puzzle!

bodyweight has shot back up to about 94.2kg 207.5lbs in shorts and t-shirt from the carb load. Waist at 35.5inches.
I don't seem to be losing weight as fast as I'd like, but I'm slowly zig-zagging my way down, bodyfat is definitely going down. Feels like I'm gaining some muscle mass or maintaing it better, rather than me losing some in the past 6 months.

 

[coolcolj]

I fiddled around with a formula in one of Dr Squat's books

and it says at 206lbs and a 35.5inch waist
I am at 17% Bodyfat with 170lbs of lean bodymass and 36lbs of fat

So getting down to 180lbs would put me at 6% bodyfat

sounds about right too!

 

[coolcolj]

Dog woke me up again, and then some hoon in a V8 decided to do donuts down the street.....! Sleep, please let me have good sleep for once...
Did a pretty intense whole body stretch session yesterday after a hot shower.

bodyweight out of bed was 94.5kg 208lbs in shorts and t-shirt
Waist still at 35.5inches.

So after 2 weeks of the new diet, I've lost half an inch of my waist, but bodyweight has gone up a bit...gained muscle...?!
Still maintaining today, then back into the low carbs tommorrow.

 

[coolcolj]

Sunday 16th October - Cycle 3 Get Lean+Maintain Strength - Week 7 DELOAD - Day 1 - Upper - Microcycle 4

Good workout. Felt stronger than I have in a while, and I certainly haven't lost any strength 2 weeks into this diet. I think I can get stronger through it, if I play my cards right....
Experimented with alternating heavier loads with explosive stuff. Certainly made the heavier stuff feel faster/easier.
Was gonna do an extra rotation with the heavier loads, but decided to save msyelf for the speed session 2 days from now.

Bodyweight at gym - 209lbs
Workout time - 1 hour 15 mins
Workout rating - 9/10


Rotating Sets between each upper body exercise

Resting 1.5-2 mins on warmup sets and then 3-3.5 mins between each exercise

14 inch Grip bench - shoulder blades tucked - no arch or leg drive

Warmups - Bar x12, drop catch style - bar x 6,
semi-explosive 95lbs x 8, 135x7, 165x5, 195x3, 225x1

explosive sets - controlled down in the first third, freefalled down at halfway down and snap up 2inch off the chest

Rotation 1) 235lbs x 5.5
Rotation 2) 160lbs x 4 - explosive
Rotation 3) 225lbs x 5 ---> felt hard
Rotation 4) 155lbs x 4 - explosive, crap form on first rep
Rotation 5) 215lbs x 5 --> better form, felt easy

Last set felt the best, much better form, kept elbows further in which gives me a lot more leverage.

clip - right click and save first to avoid errors
all sets
http://www.members.optushome.com.au/coolcolj3/Movies/CCJ_14inchGripBenchComplex_235x5_16Oct05.mpg

Chest Supported 45 degree T-Bar Rows - Overhand grip

warmups - semi-explosive - Bar x12, 25lbs x8, 45x6, 70x5, 90x3, 100x1, 110x1

explosive sets - explode up, freefalled down and abruptly brake 2-3inches from full extension

Rotation 1) 115lbs x 7
Rotation 2) 75lbs x 5 - explosive
Rotation 3) 110lbs x 7
Rotation 4) 75lbs x 5 - explosive
Rotation 5) 100lbs x 7 --> felt piss easy

hammies were straining a bit on these

 

[coolcolj]

Not feeling too bad, best sleep in a while. Whole upper body is pretty sore already, some of it is probbaly from my part time job.

bodyweight out of bed was 93.8kg 206.5lbs in underwear
Waist just above 35.5 inches

Back to low carbs. I'm tweaking the diet a bit, by removing the morning breakfast cereal from the low carb days. So carbs will end up under 100grams a day. Will keep it there post workout though. I think this will improve things.

 

[coolcolj]

Feeling pretty good. Nice sleep, but did wake up early, managed to get back into it after a bit. Had no probs falling a sleep, I think the 25min walk yesterday afternoon with my girlfriend helped here
I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to walk with me doing speed work today, but it doesn't look like my hammies get sore from the walks anymore. I just thought it would help my CNS recovery. Although my erectors are a bit achey. Upper body still moderately sore.

bodyweight out of bed was 92.2kg 202.8lbs in underwear.

I lost a ton of water weight overnight - almost 4lbs!
Yesterday I took in 1400-1500 calories, 220-240g protein, 60-70g carbs and 40-50g fat.

Felt pretty good, but started to feel jittery and hungry in the later afternoon/evening. Need to get some vitamin C and calcium...
Looks like my decision to drop the morning breakfast cereal was a good one.
Back down to my lightest bodyweight so far. Going down like clockwork after every carb up phase.
Although I'm only averaging 1lb a week loss so far.

So I have a 1100-1200 calorie decifit each day - it takes 3500 calories to drop a pound of fat and 7000 for 2lbs. So far I've used a UD2 style setup - 4 days low carb, one day carb up with 2-3x maintenance, then 2 days of maintenance, and repeat. The 4 days of dieting only allow for a 1+lb drop. but then I get a big rebound anabolic responce from the carb up and maintenance
So you pretty much kill 2 birds with one stone, get leaner and increase muscle mass/strength/power or at least maintain performance. Plus the contrast gives you an overshoot effect that is greater than just staying in the middle.

Right now I'm pretty fat at 17% or so bodyfat, so I have room to drop the fat quicker until I hit the 10% range which would be around 190lbs for me.
Would like to hit 2lbs a week fat loss, but I would need 6 days a week of low carb days to do that. A carbup after 3-4 days is probably needed since the hormones start to shift to the catabolic/performance drop end around then. I was thinking of just doing 3 days low carb, and then a carb up on the 4th and then straight back into it. That would give me close to a 7000 calorie deficit I need, plus I still burn fat during the carbup day.
Or even do a straight PMSF/Fat Fast/Velocity type diet, then refeed/carbup at the 2 week mark and repeat until I hit 10% bodyfat, then switch to my UD2 type setup and ease down to 6-7%....that would get me there quicker, but with more pain...
After that low/moderate carbs on rest days and higher carbs on training days should allow me to maintain things. See how things go for now.

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I was doing some thinking - in the last 6months I was doing a moderate approach - medium carbs, protein and fat. My carbs were never really low enough to keep insulin low to move fat fast, and never high enough to get a big anabolic responce, plus my protein wasn't high enough for recovery and growth, plus fat was probably too high to keep calories low. So in the end it took ages to lose the 12lbs of fat I dropped, and not enough of anything else to do much but sit in the middle hormone wise.
This makes me think the high/low intensity approach is pretty much better for everything from diet to training setup, than just staying in the middle of the road, and trickling along....

 

[coolcolj]

Tuesday 18th October - Cycle 3 Get Lean+Maintain Strength - Week 7 DELOAD - Day 2 - Speed - Microcycle 4

Good session, but felt a bit queezy from the diet.
I couldn't believe how light I was today, even after stopping any drinking an hour before, I keep hitting the toilet every 10mins leading up to the workout, and dropped a ton of fluids.
With my bodyweight down almost 5lbs from when I ran the 6.68secs 50m sprint on the same field at the end of the last mixrocycle, I expected to blitz it. But I stuffed up the timing - DOH! And probably the diet doesn't help, oh well, next week perhaps...

I normally like to do depthjumps first to fire up the CNS, the RFI hops to get my hyper and then the sprints. Today I flipped the order around and it didn't seem to work as well, since I was "asleep" on the first sprint.

Bodyweight at home - 204.5lbs
Workout Rating - 8/10
Workout time - ?

Warmup

warmup - dynamic stretches and swings, foot massage, various hops in place in bare feet at home.

Slow Jog - 50m x 4 - walks back to start doing Dorsiflexion drills - 1mins rest

Jog 25m - sideways run 5m each side - backwards run 5m - x 3 complexes - 1mins rest

Rotating Sets between each exercise

Resting 1 min on warmup sets and then 3 to 3.5 mins between each exercise

50 metre sprint - from proper standing start - sprint spikes

warmups - start into 5m burst, jog 5m then acclerate 10m x 3 sets

concaved field - first 25m 2-3 degree uphill, the rest 2-3 degree downhill
Rotation 1) 7.35 secs
Rotation 2) 8.06 secs overshot the 50m mark, stopped around 75m
Rotation 3) 6.85 secs

The first run felt half "asleep". The 2nd run felt absolutely flying, but I forgot to stop the stopwatch until I hit the end of the field, around 75m...
Third run felt pretty slow, tired by then, and the left inner shin had a slight ache when I was deccelerating at the end of the run. Muscles obviously very tired with no force absorbtion ability left. Called it a day after that
Shoulders and neck were quite tense, ached quite a bit after each run, probably from the heavy upperbody workout 2 days ago

Starts still need work! From the video and it seems like the work I did last lower body workout, has had an effect on form, it looks different. Stride rate is down a bit so, maybe I'm extending my hips more now?

clip - right click and save first to avoid errors
http://www.members.optushome.com.au/coolcolj2/Movies/CCJ_Sprint50m_Run2_3_18Oct05.mpg

Depth Jumps - into Stiff legged landing onto balls of feet

warmups - a few bodyweight drop squats, off 1 step x 2, 2 step x 2, 2 step x 1, 3 step x 2, 3 step x 1, 4 step x 1

on concrete - 4 steps = 26-27inches
Rotation 1) 4 steps x 3
Rotation 2) 4 steps x 3
Rotation 3) 4 steps x 1 altitude drop

Went pretty well, lighter bodyweight is helping. Last time I did this height on Altitude drops it was quite hard. No problems today. On the 3rd set, my legs felt pretty shot from the sprints, and I actually felt scared before the drop, body didn't want to do a depth jump, just landed...
Called it a day after that - the body never lies...

RFI Hops on/off a 12inch step - max reps in 10secs

warmups - 6inch x 5, 12inch - 3x3

Rotation 1) didn't start stopwatch...
Rotation 2) 10secs x 14reps

I'm pretty good at 6 inches, so I did em on a 12inch step. Felt scary and awkward at first, but then started to get better as I warmed up. Even with the extra 6 inches, my legs don't bend much. The last half of the 2nd set was starting to get a nicer flow. Should be much better next week.

clip - right click and save first to avoid errors
http://www.members.optushome.com.au...2LeggedHop_12inchStep10sec_14reps_18Oct05.mpg

 

[coolcolj]

Woke up at 12:30am, then tried to go to back to sleep, but didn't have much luck, just lay in bed in drifting in and out of sleep all night. But I don't feel that bad at all, and I don't look tired.
Feet and calves are a bit sore, and some mild aches in my posterior chain/erectors and upper back/biceps, but I don't have that drained feeling like I used to get on a similar workout. Recovery and general well being is way better than before on this diet, pretty amazing given the big calorie reduction, hunger pains and inconsistant sleep.

bodyweight out of bed was 91.8kg 202lbs in underwear.
I lost almost a pound overnight, and waist finally down to 35inches!
Man I am looking different, I see changes every day. 1 inch off the waist in 2.5 weeks is pretty fast progress. Now down to a 34 inch waist and under 200lbs

Diet same as yesterday, but I had a postworkout cereal+whey+oak milk, which bumps up the carbs to around 100-110g, and I cut back on the fishoil caps to 6, which drops calories down about 100, and fat a bit.
Fat loss has sped up since I dropped the morning breakfast cereal, and the sprinting yesterday doesn't hurt either
On target to drop 2lbs of fat this week it looks like

I never paid much attention to nutrition before, I used to think it was 75% training and 25% diet. But now I'm a big believer - more like 60% diet and 40% training influence on results.