Creation of an Explosive Mofo - My Training Journal :)

[coolcolj]

Damn nice solid 8 hours sleep, could have had more, but I had to get up early!
All those carbs yesterday helped. I think when I get off this diet, I should have sleep like that every night. Sure helps my recovery and well being. Feel pretty good, have a nice spring to my walk and the small jump and throw I did this morning was snappy and effortless. Although I look tired, sleep debt no doubt from the last year or so....
Still pretty sore though in my quads, upper hammies, glutes and upper body, whole body actually.

weighed 90.2kg 198.44lbs straight out of bed in underwear

Carbed up yesterday, but lightest carbed up bodyweight so far.
Took in about 2500 calories and 300+ g of carbs.

Here is the new diet plan

Low carb day - 70g carbs, 1400-1600 calories
Medium carb day - 150g carbs, 1800-1900 calories
High Carb up day - 300-350g carbs, 3000-3500 calories, I can eat whatever I want basicly

Sun - Training - Medium carb
Mon - rest - Low carb
Tues - Training - Medium carb
Weds - rest - High Carb Up
Thurs - Training - Medium carb
Fri - rest - Low carb
Sat - rest - High Carb Up

Saturday is pretty tiring from my part time job so I sure need the food then

protein is about 100-150g a day, I don't eat much as it's the only way to keep calories down so I can actually get lean, but I have no problems gaining muscle mass when I want to. Probably doesn't help recovery though.

I should get better training gains, recovery, sleep and hopefully lean up faster on this new plan. I have used a 3 day low carb to one day high carb eat anything and as much as you want on day 4 type setup before with very good results, but I was pretty lean back then. Which was based on an article by a female bodybuilder, and the setup had you going down to a 2:1 setup as you got leaner. So more days on low carbs the fatter you are, and then more frequent carb ups as you got leaner. This new setup is more inline with that as the one carb up a week isn't cutting it anymore

 

[coolcolj]

here is a video of Justin Gatlin 9.95 sec 100m sprint at the Osaka GP

http://folk.uio.no/perel/OsakaGP06.wmv

apart from the hunched start and acceleration, I like the power skip he does in the last 30-40m. Kinda cocky looking
I noticed that Powell does that as well. They seem to scoot away from the others, you can just see the power each stride from the bound.

closeup
http://folk.uio.no/perel/OsakaClose.wmv

 

[coolcolj]

Thursday 11th May - Cycle 3 Get Lean+Maintain Strength - Week 2 - Day 3 - Upper 2 Prehab_Rehab - Microcycle 8

Not a bad workout, pretty unexciting, but it must be done.

Bodyweight at gym - 202lbs in winter clothing
Workout time - 1.5+ hours
Workout rating - 8/10

General warmup -

1) whole body dynamic stretches and swings
2) bar complex with 30lbs - slow hang clean pulls, press and hang power clean
3) scapular pushups - on bench x 15, on floor x 15


Rotating Sets between each exercise

Resting 1min on warmups and 2 to 2.5 mins between each exercise on work sets

All the exercises were stopped when the burn started to get high, form deviated and I started to strain excessively

Shoulder width pulldowns to sternum

warmups - 30kg x 10+hold, 45kg x5+hold, 55kg x5+hold

controlled, 2 sec ISO hold at chest, 2 sec pause at top
Rotation 1) 65kg x 8 (+1 rep)
Rotation 2) 60kg x 8

Getting tehre, feelinge asier. When I get to 90kg I'll switch to pullups done the same way...

16inch grip standing Military Press - pushed behind the head at the top

Warmups - controlled with hold at top - Bar x 5, 65lbs x 5, 85lbs x 5

2 sec pause at bottom, controlled up, 3 sec hold at top, slowish down
Rotation 1) 95lbs x 8 (+1 rep)
Rotation 2) 85lbs x 8

Damn hard these, will stay here until I can get 2 sets of 8 without excessive strain. Set times are pretty close to 50secs

Steep angle Rows to ribcage - pulling with mid/low traps and delts

warmups - 15lbs x8, 30x5, 40x5,

2 sec hold at top, slow down, 2 sec pause at bottom
Rotation 1) 50lbs x 9(+5lbs -1rep)
Rotation 2) 50lbs x 8


Dumbell Bench - arms/elbows by side - neutral grip

warmups - 15lbs x 10, 30x5, 40x5

2 sec pause at bottom, controlled up, slight hold then shoulders pushed up off bench, slow down.
Rotation 1) 45lbs x 10 (+5lbs)
Rotation 2) 40lbs x 10

killer burn

Dumbell Curls

warmups - 2kg x 10, 15lbs x 5, 25x5, 35x3

Rotation 1) 40lbs x 8 (+1 rep)
Rotation 2) 35lbs x 10

LOL, I was only expecting to hit 8 reps on the 2nd set, but got 10! Should have kept it at 40lbs

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

Cooldown - Restorative - ISO stretches

single arm Face Pulls - 25lbs x 6, 50lbs x 17 each side
Low pulley External rotation - 15lbs x 15 each side

Pushup/Dip stretched ISO hold - knee supported x 30secs
Subscap raises 5kg x 15 + 30sec Pec/Subscap stretched ISO hold
Overhead Pullover/lat stretched ISO hold on dip bar x 30secs

static stretches for upper body/cuffs and some lower body

 

[carlsuen]

wow.. your knowledge on diet really impresses me.. do u have a link that u could recommend to me? cuz i'd really like to start to work on getting lean.. (i'm a fat boy bf@29%) and becuz of your MEGA thread.. it's hard for me to read from top to toe.. so i'd really appreciate it.. thx in advance..

 

[Introspective]

Diet plan seems good, you seem to know your stuff. Have you had a diet plan before that consist's of low, medium and high carb days ? are there any extra benefits when compared to just eating the same amount each day, like just having 7 medium days a week ?

 

[coolcolj]

Late night, crap sleep. Achey all over.

weighed 90.2kg 198.44lbs straight out of bed in underwear
same bodyweight as yesterday, but musclemass looks to be up.

12min walk, dynamic stretches/warmup active recovery and some easy stretching

 

[coolcolj]

wow.. your knowledge on diet really impresses me.. do u have a link that u could recommend to me? cuz i'd really like to start to work on getting lean.. (i'm a fat boy bf@29%) and becuz of your MEGA thread.. it's hard for me to read from top to toe.. so i'd really appreciate it.. thx in advance..

nah I just read and experiment a lot, but main problem things that worked for me years ago don't do the same thing anymore! Your body changes over the years hormone wise
I've never been ripped in my life or even close, but I'm hoping to hit 7-8% sometime this year hopefully

at your bf%, you don't have to do anything special, just eat a bit less, and move around a bit more. Gotta drink a lot of water, and make it ice cold water - each glass burns 8 calories to heat to body temp
I guzzle 7 litres a day at least... Take lots of fish oil too.
When you get down to the 14-16% area then you start to get into other issues. Anyway it just takes hard work and dedication over a long period of time.

see links below

Diet plan seems good, you seem to know your stuff. Have you had a diet plan before that consist's of low, medium and high carb days ? are there any extra benefits when compared to just eating the same amount each day, like just having 7 medium days a week ?

check these links out on carb cycling

http://www.avantlabs.com/magmain.php?issueID=15&pageID=159
http://www.avantlabs.com/magmain.php?issueID=16&pageID=181
http://www.avantlabs.com/magmain.php?issueID=18&pageID=232

well since your body has a lag type mechanism you can take advantage of that. When you cut the cals down your body starts to burn stuff, if you get carbs low and protein high, then more of that is fat and less of it is muscle. You'll drop a lot of water too thanks to the lower carbs and overall insulin levels will be lower which is good for burning more fat. But after a while it starts to think it's starving and down regulate your anabolic hormones and metabolism. You will get more hunger pains too...

So you crank up the carbs back up, and you can go way over maintenance calories and not get fat, because of the lag factor, in that 24 hours, the body is just going to suck every carb and calorie and put it into your muscles and not store it as fat. Your bodyweight will shoot back up but not as high as before, and your muscles fill out and your anabolic hormones come back up and the metabolism gets restores to a certain extent. Hunger pains go away...you feel motivated to keep it going

The medium carb day is just to aid recovery on the training days, and carbs/calories after training aren't usually stored as fat due to recovery needs etc

in a way it's like dual factor training - same concept to get a 1+1=3 effect
bigger disruption to the body over a period creates bigger super comp for advanced trainees, vs the single factor approach that begineers can make big gains on. Same applies here - regular dieting works ok if your pretty fat, but when you get leaner, the body doesn't like it because it starts to get into starvation mode, so you have to juggle things.
Over a 7 day period, the calorie amounts are probbaly about the same as a medium 7 day approach, but the effect on long term fat reduction and holding onto your muscle while still making gains in training is quite different!
Actually weekly calories can be much higher if you cycle carbs due to the lag factor

Dr Squat's zig-zag dieting is a simlar approach -not so worried about carbs, but fluctuating calories
http://www.drsquat.com/index.cfm?action=viewarticle&articleID=58

more stuff
http://www.theministryoffitness.com/mof/library/articles/article18.htm

You can think of leptin as sort of a master controller of metabolism (along with many others systems). Released primarily from fat cells, leptin has both central (in the brain) and peripheral (in tissues such as muscle and fat cells) effects.
Centrally, among other things, leptin controls hormones like NPY (involved very heavily in appetite regulation), thyroid stimulating hormone, leutinizing hormone and follicular stimulating hormone, growth hormone releasing hormone, and corticotropin releasing hormone (I'm probably forgetting something).

At least it does all of this reliably in rat models, there is some debate as to whether leptin controls every system as much in humans (esp. the GH loop). (Ed: GH = Growth Hormone)

Leptin levels are determined primarily by bodyfat percentage (with other effects from distribution, i.e. gynoid vs. android patterns and sub-q vs. visceral patterns, women also typically have three times the leptin levels as men given the same bodyfat percentage) and is heavily determined by caloric flux (more accurately, caloric flux through the fat cell).

Researchers have identified a system that 'senses' nutrient flux (flux = what's going in versus what's going out) through both fat and muscle cells. This affects a lot of process. When dieting, more calories are leaving the fat cell than are going in (negative flux). This nutrient sensing system 'senses' this and affects many processes, one of which is leptin production (decreasing leptin production).

So leptin drops.

When overfeeding, more calories are entering the fat cells than are leaving (positive flux). The system 'senses' this and affects many processes, one of which is leptin production (increasing leptin production).

So leptin increases.

Hence the need for cyclical dieting (which Elzi has expounded on at great length): when dieting, leptin drops and your body fights back.




By refeeding, leptin can increase again and reverse some of the negative adaptations, so that you can lose fat more easily when you cut calories again.




Leptin goes up as fat mass increases and goes down as fat mass decreases, it goes up when you overfeed, and down when you underfeed (note: the increase/decrease happens a lot more quickly than would be predicted by changes solely in fat mass).

When leptin goes down (during caloric restriction/fat loss), you get an increase in NPY (increasing appetite, especially for carbs), a decrease in TSH, a decrease in GHRH, a decrease in LH/FSH, and an increase in CRH. So thyroid drops, GH drops, testosterone/estrogen drop, cortisol goes up (to what extent this occurs depends on a lot of factors such as starting bodyfat percentage, caloric deficit, length of the deficit, etc, etc ; a lean individual will suffer these effects to a greater degree than an obese individual on account of the obese individual having a higher baseline leptin level but that gets into issues of receptor saturation and stuff).

Basically, the negative hormonal effects of dieting seem to be regulated to a great degree by leptin (there are other feedback loops operating of course). At the very least, the leptin system appears to coordinate the adaptations to dieting that occur (that cause the problems). Random note: leptin also appears to 'turn on' all the good hormonal effects that occur during puberty (i.e. it coordinates all of the anabolic hormonal effects that occur), and is a big part of exercise/caloric restriction induced ammenorrhea in women.

Peripherally, leptin is involved in things such as fat burning, glycogen storage, and plays a role in immune system function. There are other effects such as inside the fat cell lipolysis and even fat cell deletion that have been shown to occur in rats but it's at levels of leptin that are basically impossible without injection in lean humans.

As leptin drops, fat burning and mobilization becomes more difficult (both through direct effects of leptin, as well as changes in hormone levels) which is part of why you lose more muscle as you get leaner. Leptin also plays a role in insulin sensitivity/resistance. It also potentiates the appetite blunting effects of CCK (cholecystokinin). Etc, etc, etc.

It won't surprise me if research finds that leptin has an effect on just about every system in the body, which makes some sort of evolutionary sense. Leptin production and levels (along with sensitivity of course) essentially 'tell' your brain how many calories you're eating and how much you have stored, which determines to a great degree what it can't and can't do. [1]

Refeeding?

When they (Ed: plasma leptin levels) decline to a certain concentration, appetite increases considerably. This is also associated with a gradual shift in many mechanisms (both centrally and peripherally) that induce what is known as the dreaded plateau: decrease in SNS activity, slow down of the metabolism, suppression of the immune system, etc. Ideally, you want to prevent that downward spiral before the plateau establishes. But we can't do that without blood analysis. So, as soon as you start feeling a voracious appetite, then do either a full day of refeeding at above maintenance with carbs, low fat (try to derive most of your dietary fat from essential fatty acids, a balance of o-6 and 0-3s). Or eat a eucaloric diet (maintenance calories) for 2-3 days.
The issue is trying to repay much of the energy deficit, to reset leptin levels (they won't return to baseline, but they should discontinue plummeting) and the SNS activity. The leaner you are, the less fat mass you have, the less leptin you secrete and the more difficult it is to keep leptin levels within an operative threshold. If you are really lean, you may have to refeed every 4 days. And make ensure you intake plenty of zinc.

Also, you want to avoid a suppressed BMR. Which is why periodic refeeding, such as in the CKD (Ed: Cyclical Ketogenic Diet), is beneficial. The study demonstrated that when overfeeding (130% TEE) for 3 days, even if the excess in energy intake was stored as bodyfat, the change in fat would only be 0.3 kg, which is less than 2% of the baseline bodyfat. Imagine what would happen to that if the study subjects were exercising. [2]

 

[Introspective]

Thats some really great info, thanks

 

[silver_shadow]

coolcolj, i actually posted this on asdf's sprints/5x5 thread... but i would then become a thread hijacker
so i decided to ask you right here. before i do, i've been noticing for some time now that you really know your shit.
do you think it's a good idea for a guy like me: 5'10", 223 at just under 15% to do a few days of sprints for a few weeks? BTW, my CV conditioning is pretty good since i've been doing a bit of high intensity cardio during my bulking phases. also, my goals are to strengthen my CV system between bulking cycles and maybe drop a few pounds of fat as well. during this time, i'd be going lighter with the weights.
the reason i ask is because i've avoided sprints after i crossed 200 because i didn't want to risk my knees, ankles and shins. thanks in advance.

 

[coolcolj]

coolcolj, i actually posted this on asdf's sprints/5x5 thread... but i would then become a thread hijacker
so i decided to ask you right here. before i do, i've been noticing for some time now that you really know your shit.
do you think it's a good idea for a guy like me: 5'10", 223 at just under 15% to do a few days of sprints for a few weeks? BTW, my CV conditioning is pretty good since i've been doing a bit of high intensity cardio during my bulking phases. also, my goals are to strengthen my CV system between bulking cycles and maybe drop a few pounds of fat as well. during this time, i'd be going lighter with the weights.
the reason i ask is because i've avoided sprints after i crossed 200 because i didn't want to risk my knees, ankles and shins. thanks in advance.

well if you were active before and kept on running as you got heavier then it shouldn't be a problem. But if you were like me who was inactive and a gym rat that decided to start running when he was a fat 219lbs then yeah you will have problems. For a whole year my chins and ankles were trashed every time a ran in a bad way, but it got better as I leaned up and my body started to get used to it. I did a lot of barefoot drills to strengthen my foot muscles and lots of tib work too, but they only go so far.
Knees shouldn't be a problem if your run properly, there is hardly any knee bend, unless your try and "push" run with quads which a lot of gym rats do when they start running. Run on the balls of your feet and use your calves and posterior chain to propel yourself. off course doing that will mean your feet and calves better be up to the task

just keep the volume and frequency low and listen to your body


-----

Sleepy/tired, and still somewhat achey all over. Just gonna chill out and catch up on sleep today

weighed 89.8kg 197.56lbs straight out of bed in underwear

Looking leaner. 2nd Carb up today, but might not be a big carb up as I just don't feel all that hungry or in the mood to pig out...