Bunnit

Ouch. Yeah, this has failed before it's really started. I got pulled away from the gym to work away from home and as a result, haven't touched a weight since last halfway through last week. I'm going to hit the gym today, tomorrow and Monday before having to go away with work again so think I might just cancel this and make a battle log.. The GOOD news is that I should only have to travel one or two more times so my gym life will no longer be affected and I can jump back on SS. Damn work stuffs. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yessir, jumping back on it to do it properly and hopefully stick to it. (Work permitting)

Awesome, I think I'll scale it back to SS then. Might have to swap over to a battle log instead because I'm away with work next week with no access to a rack. Thanks for the advice Tron

Week 1.3 Workout: Shoulders and arms. 5 x 7 27.5kg OHP 4 x 10 32kg Shoulder press 3 x 15 50lb facepulls superset with 3 x 15 6kg rear delt raises 3 x 10 10kg lateral raises 4 x 10 80kg shrugs 3 x 8 18kg overhead tricep extension superset with 3 x 8 12kg seated DB curl 3 x 12 20kg skullcrushers superset with 3 x 8 20kg reverse grip EZ curls 3 x 10 80lb tricep pushdowns superset with 10/10/8 20kg preacher curls I'm not a huge fan of shoulders but it's been months, if not a year, since I've done OHP so it felt good to get back onto that. Equally my shoulder press could probably have been higher but my muscle endurance is naff so I took it easy for the first session. Arm pump was awesome after those last three supersets at the end. Apprenticeship : Up to 2000+ words, first unit should be completed by the end of the week. Nutrition : Got my 3L and recorded all of my food. All this aside. I think this program is a bit too advanced for where I am at the minute so I think I'm actually going to switch back to Starting Strength and then just add in some of these aux exercises along the way. Thoughts? (If anyone is actually reading )

hey tron Okay, week 1.2; Workout: Legs. 5 x 7 75kg squat 3 x 10 32/25/25 single leg press (high and narrow foot placement) 3 x 12 45kg seated leg curls 3 x 10 23/27/27kg leg extensions 3 x 10 100/100/90kg standing calf raises Squats were an absolute mission. On the last set I had to rerack after the 5th rep for about 10 seconds before I could complete the last two reps. The gym guy made me feel really pressured to leave time wise so I only did 3 sets on a lot of stuff instead of 4 and I missed off seated calf raises also. Apprenticeship : Procrastinated for hours but managed to get about 800 words done on one of the assignment so it should be finished by the end of this week. Nutrition : Got my 3L and recorded all of my food.

Damnit, maybe you've just tweaked something? Or maybe it's time to start looking towards a belt? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks wildross. There's a chance I'm misreading your comment but my bench isn't past by BW, my target isn't even as high as my BW. Also, my deadlift is almost twice my BW? Is 10lbs more realistic? And I have a while back but I'll put up some new ones as I've worked on form since then.

I've been meaning to read more and your challenge threads always help out Subbed for more glorious gifs.

Daaaamn, all the squats!

Totally read that in his voice aha. Heeeeeeeeeey! Anyhow, short but sweet; Workout: Chest and Back. 5 x 7 47.5kg bench 4 x 12 45kg wide grip lat pulldown 8/8/6/6 28kg incline db chest press 4 x 8 24kg Dumbbell rows 3 x 15 50lb straight arm pulldowns 3 x 10 16kg incline flyes Bench felt really light and i'm super impatient but I'll stick with this scheme and see what happens. I always worked a lot on form which should hopefully help me out when it gets heavier. Apprenticeship : Procrastinated for hours and didn't write a word. Hoping to get a load done today. Nutrition : Got my 3L and recorded all of my food, winner. So it begins..

You're gonna flip all kindsa shit. Subbed with coffee.

Yo, So I've only done one challenge and it was some time ago but I think that enables me to post in here? If not then let me know and I'll go back to the newbie one. In short: I started out on Starting Strength, I lost my way due to RL, I've done some hypertrophy training for the last 2 or 3 months and am now looking to start a new challenge going into the new year. Despite having been in and out of the gym for the last few years I am 100% still a noob and it's only been in the last few months that I've really started learning and taking it all seriously. As a result, throw as much constructive criticism/pointers etc at me as you can because I want to improve myself rather than injure myself and I am fully aware that I'm clueless half of the time That being said, the challenge is as follows; 1. Increasing my strength My friend has written me a strength/hypertrophy mixed program based on the smolov rep scheme which I will be following Train 6x a week, up from my current 4x a week. (I have done 6x a week before so this should be fine) My current PRs are not huge: 340/240/155 (DL/Squat/Bench). I'm setting a target for 365/265/175. (I have no idea if these are feasible targets within 6 weeks? May be subject to change if they are either too ambitious or too lenient) 2. Complete Apprenticeship work I am on an apprenticeship, i.e. studying whilst working. It is due to finish in March 2015. I have about 10 weeks left and in order to complete it I need to have done 10 assessments. I've currently done 2 and half of 2 more. Goal is to complete 1 unit a week until the end of this challenge. 3. Nutrition goals My eating has always let me down when it comes to training etc. My plan is to take a relatively relaxed approach to it over this challenge as I want to stop sweating the small stuff. I want to try and stop snacking and log all of my food using MFP. I also want to drink at least 3L of water a day. My current weight is 187lbs and my calipers tell me I'm at around 20% BF. Ideally I would like both of these numbers to drop but I'm more focussed on gaining strength at the minute so as a side goal I will weigh my self every day just to see what happens. If anyone thinks I should make any changes then feel free to let me know, all advice is welcomed. Up and at 'em.

You've got this Loopy! Exams are out the way for a bit so get back out there and kick life's ass again

Good luck brother! If you get the craving then mention it in chat and I'll give you a kick up the ass

DUDE. In short; 1) Way belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 2) That 405 pull was freaking insane, great job! 3) That manmaker vid has made my day. 4) Your Boston description was awesome. All the jealous. Just. Awesome.

For someone who is waaaaay to damn lazy, your lists make me want to jump into bed and hibernate.. But you're killing it! Keep up the good work snowwy

Sorry I'm so late LW.. Subbed to this now so I'll try and keep on top of it more. I'm not sure there's anything I could say that other's haven't said already but you certainly shouldn't feel guilty about needing help from other people. You've helped out so many people along the way that it's only fair you get a chance to take a step back and let other people help you out. I'm so sorry to hear about the stuff that's been going on, especially family matters, and I wish you all the best. Just been speaking to you in chat and it's so good that you're back in the gym now, feel that burn and use it as motivation to start fighting back! You're more than capable of beating this, you are a mother-rucking LION and they do not go down easily. We will find this mofo'n lotion! Chin up bro, we got yo' back.

Think my brain just exploded.. YOU GOT THIS SNOWWY.

Ah I'm with you, I didn't know it worked like that at all. Thanks a lot for that. I don't plan on eating loads, just as long as I'm eating three healthy meals a day and not being hungry enough to snack then I'm happy. Hopefully I'll get a couple of good recipes to get started

Good shout. I think I'm going to try and focus on the eating side of things and break it down into small goals. I really need to teach myself how to cook Thaaaanks tron.

I know it has only been 6 weeks but I've not actually seen any changes physically yet either. No obvious increase in muscle or slight trimming down etc. The trouble is that I'm not convinced I'm at any kind of surplus at all at the minute. But it's not so much the amount of calories that I'm overly bothered about at the minute, more the actual food I'm eating. Once I've managed to get that sorted then I hope to start progressing my calorie intake to bulk further, hence wanting to find a few healthy meals that I can learn to make Thanks for the advice. P.s not far out of teens also.

So. I've been lifting for approximately 6 weeks. I went through various stages of going to the gym over the last year or two but never really committed to a proper plan or regime. With the start of the last challenge, I decided to go back to basics and give Starting Strength a shot and having just finished my first challenge have noticed a decent increase in the amount of weight I can lift. I have absolutely loved being in the gym and can easily spend a couple of hours in there without noticing. My issue is food. My diet isn't terrible, I by no means am eating junk food and lots of greasy/fatty foods etc. On the contrary, I don't really eat much at all. But that's not to say that I'm still not hitting the best part of 2500 calories a day. My typical days food is - Breakfast - nothing Lunch - two cheese and cucumber or chicken and cucumber sandwiches on white bread rolls (sometimes one of each) an apple a banana sometimes a chocolate biscuit or another relatively small cake. Dinner - a range of things but generally pasta/chicken/veg. Snacks - quite often I'll end up being peckish after work and before dinner leading to eating another biscuit or something. Especially when working from home I end up eating the odd crappy snack throughout the day. Although I'm trying to replace them with the likes of almonds etc. I still live at home so usually my dinner is determined by what my mum cooks (none of my family have serious health issues but we're all trying to eat more healthily in general), which is usually potatoes or pasta, veg and chicken. Obviously it can vary but it's more often a chicken dinner than not. Unfortunately I can't cook at all, I never have cooked but I would absolutely love to be able to. Having never been particularly well off, and with 5 kids (although now 2 of them have moved out), my mum is used to making food go further. Although I try to get about 200g of chicken in each meal, quite often that number will drop so the consistency isn't great. And the other issue is that, at present, I have a pretty crap pallet and so whilst I love the smell and look of a lot of foods, I don't have very distinguished tastes. The biggest issue being eggs. I know eggs are really good to be eating but I absolutely cannot stand the smell or taste of eggs. I'm considering just eating them till that changes but if there's alternatives then I think I'd rather take them. So. Bringing it back to the point of it all. I really want to pack on some muscle, although preferably not a huge amount of fat in the process. I realise that's quite difficult to not put on fat at the same time so I'm not adverse to it but because I'm not really eating enough/consistently enough. So with a low budget and no cooking experience or knowledge, can anyone start suggesting or pointing me in the right direction of a good place to start with getting my diet into order so I can build some muscle? I'm more than happy to start with one or two meals which I can just eat over and over again until I start expanding my arsenal, just as long as they're relatively easy to make and relatively cheap to buy. I realise that's a really long winded way of saying; 'Can anyone advise on some healthy, high protein, easy to make, cheap meals please?' but I thought a bit of background might help! I'm 6'1" and weigh approximately 82.5kg/180lbs but think my bodyfat is around 18% at the mo. I want to get bigger but also want to lower my bodyfat, although I understand that I can't necessarily do both at once. I don't really have time for breakfast in the morning which is why I don't eat it but recently have been trying to drink a shake with 2 scoops of instant oats and 1 scoop of protein. Any/all advise is most welcome. Many thanks in advance and apologies for the long winded post.

So. The challenge has come to an end on these two workouts; Week 6.2 3/5 80kg squats 3 x 5 65kg bench press 1 x 5 105kg deadlift 5 52kg lat pulldowns 4 x 10 20kg obliques Ab work. Week 6.3 3 90kg squats 5/4/4 40kg/40kg/37.5kg OHP 1 x 5 110kg deadlift 1 x 1 140kg deadlift I'm not overly happy with how the challenge has ended tbh. My squats have just gone completely out the window. I'm fairly sure I'm messing up on form now as I can tell that all the weight is shifting to the balls of my feet on the way up which is just wrong. I'm going to deload and start from scratch I think. Very disappointed. And as for my OHP. It also petered out towards the end. I couldn't seem to push above the 40kg mark and even then I sometimes had to drop back to 37.5. As for my bench, happy with the progress I've made. I started out at 50kg and ended on 65kg. I'm fairly confident I can keep pushing that up as well so I'm not going to complain. And my deadlifts have been going great. I started out at 60kg and ended my last workout on 110kg. Further to this I also thought wth and tried for a 1RM of which I managed to squeeze out a 140kg. So very happy with the progress I've made there. I think my eating has gone to shit again..not only have I not been eating exceptionally well but I think I haven't really been eating a great deal at all lately. For no particular reason.. but I think this is why my gym sessions have been so affected because I just don't seem to have the energy to lift properly. And I had a few bad nights sleep as well which didn't help but in general it's got much better. I also have forgotten to keep record of my water consumption over the last week or two. I know that I got it in on my workout days but I don't really know about the other days. So overall, pass or fail? I'm not really sure. All I know is that the 6 weeks are up, I know a lot more and am lifting a lot more than I was 6 weeks ago. Whether that in itself can be labelled as a win or whether my sudden downhill spiral concludes it on a fail? I'm not really sure. Either way, I'm not going to let it stop me going to the gym but perhaps I'll skip the next challenge for now.. P.s I didn't really do much more in those two workouts because I was pushed for time.

You absolutely smashed your training goals bud! It would be a bonus if you'd got your logs etc sorted as well but you got the most important stuff done regardless. And with your exam in a couple of weeks as well...I'm excited for you...go ninja their asses! Keep us posted!

You've made such good progress dude! Especially that last post. Sorry to hear that you put your knee out but I'm sure you'll be back up and on it before you know it Great work!