Creation of an Explosive Mofo - My Training Journal :)

[coolcolj]

You only eat 1500-1800 calories a day??? For two years!?!? Wow!! I checked estimated calorie requirements of a 5 foot 80 year old man who sleeps all day and it's 1500... granted he did weigh 198 pounds much like you... what is your BF% exactly?

http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html

Calories are calories if your body is starving to death! Otherwise carb% prot% and fat% do matter... unless your carbs are drastically low you should be fine with any prot% fat%. You can't gain weight unless you are eating excess calories and excess fats produces the most fat (go figure that one?). I don't understand the bit about insulin spikes being a problem for gaining weight? And are you sure you even get insulin spikes from complex carbs or is your cereal all sugar?

Only thing I found is if you consume sugar right before working out your insulin will surge which could result in transient hypoglycemia (muscles ability to take glucose from the blood is enhance with high level of insulin) and insulin interfers with the body's ability to burn fat for energy, so you burn all your sugar sooner and get fatigued faster. This really should only matter for cardio or very long workouts...

it's going down every week, but probbaly around 15% according to those calculators

My body probably has problems with insulin senstivity, I get bad blood sugar crashes with simple carbs. Probably all caused by my massive chocolate binges a few years back. It even got so bad once where I blacked out in the gym once. Probbaly had some advanced type 2 diabetes. But since I eat way lower carbs these days, I'm reversing the effects over time.

 

[coolcolj]

Not great sleep, I feel a bit worn out and achey. Lips less dry and swollen
Will try and get a nap in. Not sure what I'm going to do, but since I'll be deloading a bit, I might just go play BBall vs the circuit intervals.

weighed 90.3kg 198.66lbs straight out of bed in underwear

 

[coolcolj]

Sunday 9th April - Cycle 3 Get Lean+Maintain Strength - Week 7 - Day 1 - BBall - Microcycle 7

Bodweight - in Shorts and t-shirt - 199.7 lbs
Session time - 35 mins
Session rating - 7/10

Didn't get too active, just mostly shooting, and some jumping. Wasn't feeling to crash hot, but not bad
Shins ached at the end

While my jump is up overall from when I was 207lbs, it should be another 2 inches up at least. 7lbs is a lot of weight, good for another 2.5 inches on my vertical jump me thinks.

Time to reduce the energy work and get my body snapping again and peak out my jump and speed. Gotta deload and let my shins recover too, which is a pain in the ass!
I'm juggling between wanting to peak out my power and get my strength back on line, while wanting to lean up as well - ugh..
Just scared if I sacrifice too much strength and power in getting lean in one go, that I will never be able to get em back to where they used to be. So I loose fat and weight, but not get the speed and jump gains I should have...

Anyway I don't think my setup this training cycle has been too good. I'm going to go back over my log and see what worked better for me, and make some changes.

 

[coolcolj]

Craptastic sleep again - I only get 6 hours of deep sleep, then I wake up and just lie there with eyes shut, but not able to get back sleep. Same thing everyday now. I want and need more sleep, but my body doesn't want to do it
Looking so frigging damn tired with major bags...

Lips still dry and slightly swollen. Some soreness in my spinal erectors.

weighed 90.1kg 198.22lbs straight out of bed in underwear

Getting more and more slender. Waist down another 1/4 of an inch from last week to 34.75inches. Just under 5 inches to go till I reach my goal...

 

[coolcolj]

Same crap with my sleep, sigh...
Lips still somewhat dry, but swelling is not as bad
A little achey in my upper back and external hip rotors

weighed 89.9kg 197.78lbs straight out of bed in underwear

Nice, still going down. I ate a bit more protein yesterday, extra 25g, so a slightly more calories. Upped the ice cold water intake a bit as well.

My Tanita scale isn't useless after all - this morning with my waist just under 35inches, it said I was 24.7% bodyfat. A few months back with a 36+ inch waist and 208-210lbs it was in the high 25% area, and back at 218lbs with a 39+ inch waist in the high 28 to 29% area. The Bodyfat % reading is coming down in a relative way, but deduct 10% to get close to my real BF%
So 14.7% BF sounds about right, and close to what this calculator spits out for me 14.9 % - http://members.nuvox.net/~on.jwclymer/bmi.html
Kinda amazingly close, as long as it's first thing upon waking after a leak!

About 1% per inch off my waist, gonna be a while till I hit 7-8%....28 inch waist???? Damn if I don't have a 40+ inch standing vertical jump when I'm that slim and light, I'm gonna cry

12min walk yesterday and some easy static stretching after
Did some upper and lower dynamic stretches/active recovery moves and lower body ISO holds before the walk

 

[coolcolj]

Tuesday 11th April - Cycle 3 Get Lean+Maintain Strength - Week 7 DELOAD - Day 2 - Power - Microcycle 7

Changing things, "deloading" switching to a pure power block, going back to my upper/lower split with 4-5 days between like sessions. Should get my recovery back up and getting me snapping again. Next lower body session will be on Sunday at the park - max effort sprints, depth jumps and such planned so far

Felt a bit dead today, warmups didn't feel all that good, and kinda heavy feeling. But I was able get my arousal up enough to have a productive workout.
Vertical jump in the gym is an inch+ lower than my best, and I weighed 205.5lbs back then. My jump should 2 inches higher now, so I have 3 inches to make up.

I didn't use my Jump to autoregulate volume last week and I did a ton more! Goes to show ...
Shins a bit achey after the 2nd rotation, and pretty much everything dropped off together. Guess it's all related.

Bodyweight at gym - 201lbs
Workout time - 1.5 hours
Workout rating - 7/10

General warmup -

20sec ISO holds - quarter squat, on toes, on heels (toes pulled up), hip back wide stance squat at parallel, on side of feet (for ankles), narrow fullsquat at bottom on toes

1) dynamic stretches and swings, rocking on side of ankle etc
2) back extension BWx5 + 4 twisting to each alternate side
3) reverse hypers - BWx8
4) situp complex on swissball
5) adductor/hammie stretch into back tumbells x8
6) usual bar complex with 30lbs
7) various hops

8) worked up to a few sets max effort vertical jumps - A little lower, not quite hyper today. Then did 1-2 jumps on each round of the warmups for the exercises below

Rotating Sets between each exercise

Resting 1-2mins on warmups and 3+ mins between each exercise on work sets

Explosive Full Squats - high bar, medium stance - Oly Shoes - no Belt

warmups - Reactive squats - BWx8, BARx5, 65lbs x3, 95x3,
Explosive Squats (fast down) - 135x3, 185x3, 225x3, 255x2

Down fast, explode up
Rotation 1) Vertical Jump - head 2 inches above ceiling then - 275lbs x 2
Rotation 2) Vertical Jump - slightly lower - 275lbs x 2
Rotation 3) Vertical Jump - head didn't touch ceiling, called it a day

Well I could touch my head on the ceiling panel at first - I used be able to bang it up 3 inches at a heavier bodyweight too. I focused on dipping down faster and got 2 inches higher - good force absorbtion I guess
Hopefully next week it will be back up and some extra ontop...
Also did em in olyshoes since I didn't want to change my shoes over, felt ok if a bit hard and heavy, about 2.5lbs heavier.

Squats didn't feel good today, iffy form, felt uneven, sh*tty bar doesn't help. Went up 10lbs from last week, this is about the limit for now, concentric speed was just under 1sec.


Cleans - Oly Shoes - HookGrip - no Belt

Warmups - Hang Powerclean Bar x 5
Powerclean + hang Powerclean + highhang squatclean 89lbs , 109lbs
Powerclean + highhang squatclean - 155lbs x 2 sets
Powerclean - 175lbs x 1, 205lbs x1

Rotation 1) PowerClean 225lbs x 1 - medium dip
Rotation 2) PowerClean 225lbs x 1 --> bigger dip and just made it

205lbs went up much faster and higher than last week. 225lbs felt easier too, but the rack was not stable, but the curved bar doesn't make it easy as it rolls a bit on my shoulders on impact. Just made the 2nd single
Squatclean form in the warmups was crappy, upperback is just not rock solid - I need to get back to frontsquats next to build em back up again

Jumpsquats on balls of feet - in Sneakers

Rotation 1) 25lbs x 4
Rotation 2) 25lbs x 4 --> much lower, and slower reversal speed, all over the place, shins aching a bit

First set felt good, 2nd one was a shocker...


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Clip of vertical jumps, explosive squats and 225lb powercleans

right click on link and save first to avoid errors
http://www.members.optushome.com.au...alJump_Squat275x2_PowerClean225_11April06.mpg

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Cooldown

static stretches for calves, quad/hip flexor and external hip rotors

 

[coolcolj]

Feel kinda upbeat, but I have a mild warm/drained feeling in my neck/head.
Overall mild achey feeling, moderately sore VMO, calves and posterior chain. Especially my upper hammies and groin area. Sore biceps, traps and rear delts, plus some upperback/cuff muscles

weighed 90kg 198lbs straight out of bed in underwear

I'm actually a little bit lighter after a few meals

12 min walk, light static stretching and some active recovery work.

 

[coolcolj]

Crap sleep, feeling a bit tired as a result. Gonna grab a short nap before training to freshen me up. Sore upper back, and serratus - thanks to me fiddling with scapular wall slides and holding various positions for 10secs. Damn I have problems with this exercise, my lats and upper back have to flex so hard to hold my body gainst the wall in the snatch like positions and when my arms is directly above. down lower in the military press middle positon my pecs stretch a bit too. So I'm gonna add these in on my active recovery routine I do before I go walking on my off days.

Back to upper body work. Can probably start benching again as last night I tested my incline bench form with no weights and my left shoulder is painfree - amazing because it used to have severe impingement pain when in the incline bench position. Flat bench and presses were always fine though, but now I can even stick my elbows out wide and not get severe pain.... I can also rotate both arms in each direction without any clicking and popping and left shoulder is dramatically pain free comapred to before. Taking a break from benching, and all the work I have put in flexibility for my pecs, lats and upper traps, plus both internal and external rotors is paying off!!!

Well I did the tests in this article again - and the results back up my experience so far
http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle...AC34AB7F1D5FF8B.hydra?article=05-183-training
Left shoulder can be moved slightly above parallel in the active impingement test now, with only minimal discomfort, still not as high as the right side but before I could only get it to 2 inches below parallel and then it would start to hurt

In the other test - well since I can put my both arms into the pray position behind my back with finger point up I didn't bother with the bottom arm, but with the arm over the top. On the right side I can get the middle of hand down to the boney bit at the base of the neck, the left side is not quite as flexible, only base of fingers to that spot, but still way better than before.
I have been putting both arms up and over, reaching behind onto my back everyday now, both staticly and dynamicly. This really helps stretch my lats and serratus area.

Funny how the left side is not as flexible and also the side that has all the problems...
My cuffs have always been strong, so most of problems are due to tightness and flexibility in my lats and internal rotors. Working hard on em has paid off.
Cleans seem to be helping as well since I restarted doing em heavier. They used to be part of the problem - tight and overactive upper traps, and like most people who stretches upper traps anyway? People shrug a lot and make it even worse, and then compound that with hunching over a PS2, computer or TV...
It's like a domino effect, I fix some other problems - get my lats and traps loose, serratus and scapulars muscle stronger and firing properly, then that allows me to start cleaning again which then dynamically strengthens the cuffs, upper back and shoulder girdle stuff and getting them firing in unison etc

sweet!

weighed 90kg 198lbs straight out of bed in underwear

Holding steady...but I got up earlier so maybe a leak away from a lighter weight

 

[coolcolj]

useful link = that can be helpful just as those tests in that shoulder article above have been


http://www.functionalmovement.com/SITE/the_screen/index.php

damn useful I have to say, saved me from future surgery no doubt!
I did a lot of stuff to fix it. Mostly unusal combo fo dynamic and static stretches and scapular strengthening and control work. Plus no benching and pressing and minimised upper body work. Still need to keep at it and improve it further.

Left side was lest flexible and had the most pain and problems...

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

CCJ, you might find this interesting:

http://www.functionalmovement.com/SITE/the_screen/index.php