EmbracingChaos

11 hours ago, wildross said:

these all look really really good.

 

Comments (all things to correct as you head towards heavier weights) 

 

1) Squat.  Great depth!  Might want to slow your descent just a tad so you aren't dive bombing

 

2) Front squat.  Drive your elbows forward and up.  Will be important as the weight gets heavier (to keep the bar from rolling off you delts)

 

Bench.  Could use some more tightness from the feet up. 

 

All in all, very very good.

Thanks, I'll take these to heart and start working on them.  I appreciate you taking you time!

Please critique my form!  Sorry for the slight tilt to the video, it was the best I could do to prop up my phone.  Thanks!

 

Yesterday was a rest day. Since I didn't feel much like eating yet again, I decided to just use the opportunity for a mini-cut, since I also don't have any exams this week and work seems pretty reasonable stress-wise. I'm probably gonna do this for 9 days since that's when the Game of Thrones season premiere is, which I'm likely gonna spend elsewhere and that typically includes a lot of food and little exercise that day, but it should suffice to get me to a ~7000cal deficit and rid 1Kg of fat. I went for a brief 3km run and achieved an 830cal deficit.

 

I also found out that I miscalculated my TDEE for the past ..months? A long time certainly. We're not talking huge numbers, but I might've been off by 75-200cal on most days, off meaning over, which also helps explaining the unwanted fat gain which can't just be a product of the couple of days of overeating here and there.

 

I went into today's workout feeling pretty bad. I knew I wouldn't be able to squat with my hamstrings still very sore, my quads slightly sore, my lower back still hurting on the right side and my knees both bothering me as well, but I decided to view this as a positive in that I''d be able to focus on my upper body entirely. I then forgot to drink my pre-workout green tea and anticipated an underwhelming workout, especially given that I'm cutting.

 

Workout for Thursday:

 

Squats (65Kg/143lbs): /

Overhead-Press (30Kg/66lbs): 2x6, 1x6 at 27.5Kg (I discovered today that while looking almost identical, we have two different 20Kg barbells in our squat racks. The difference is mainly the distance between the knurlings, but this has a big effect on stuff like my squat or OHP where I use it to remember how wide/close to grip. With this sorted out I had a much better grip than last time and with no prior exercises, the first set felt easy enough that I just went up to 30Kg for the last two. I struggled a bit for the last rep of each, but that's fine)

Pull-Ups (BW: 72Kg/158.4lbs): 8, 7, 6 (Since nothing is happening here and has been forever, maybe I just need to start adding weight and keep the reps lower?)

Butterfly Machine (35Kg/77lbs): 15, 14, 11 (I just went up and did surprisingly well)

Rows, one arm: (32.5Kg/71.5lbs): 12, 12, 12 (See above, lol)

Triceps-Extensions (20Kg/44lbs): 14, 12, 9 (good)

 

It always sucks when I have to skip an exercise, especially squats, but it just wouldn't have been wise to force them today. In exchange, I got this pretty awesome workout with a bunch of PRs and was in and out of the gym in an hour which is always nice.

 

Weight: 69.7Kg/153.7lbs
Calories: ~2220
Estimated Deficit: ~923cal

Deficit Total after cutting for 3 days: ~2252

The difference between the knurling sounds like one might be a powerlifting bar and the other an Olympic/combination bar.

Yea it's been pretty good.  I used an ACE bandage wrap for a week or so and it seems to get the swelling down enough to heal.  Thanks for asking!

Good to read you again mate. The link is not working sadly. Maybe it's me being from outside of NA.

 

 

Ah, found it. There: http://www.amazon.com/Portals-Dustin-Johnson-ebook/dp/B01AR1SMF6/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Bah, updated the link, thanks for letting me know.  I doubled up on the http:// since it had already added it.  

I haven't been posting in your journal (or my own for that matter) but I have been reading your journal every few days (after your updates).  Keep on with the lifting, you're getting there workout by workout!  

Just another quick update post.  I've been lifting 3 times a week still, basically staying the same on my lifts, and experimenting with a ketogenic diet.  Today is my 42nd day doing keto and so far it's been pretty nice.  The food is cheaper, I have all kinds of energy, and I feel like I'm mentally "clearer".  I'm not sure how long I'll keep it up, but for now, I'm pretty content with it.

I spent quite a bit of time cleaning up my first novel (supernatural, horror, suspense), Portals, and digitally self-published it on Amazon.  It is completely free for the next day or two, so if anybody is into those types of stories, feel free to pick it up before the promotion ends.  This is the link: Portals

Anyway, my intention is to keep lifting, eating, and writing for the time being.  I hope everyone's holidays went well!

Yea I'm just saying fast, still with tightness and strict form. I just don't "hold back" the bar if that makes sense. I don't drop it, nor loosen up, just kind of let the bar fall while keeping control. There does seem to be a lot of people who put it down slow too, so maybe that's more common than I thought. Personally any lower back pain I used to have from heavy deadlifts went away when I stopped putting the bar down slowly.

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After googling, here's two places that advocate lowering quickly (didn't learn it here though, and I admit I only browsed both of them):

https://m.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/3lfnox/cant_hold_up_form_when_putting_the_bar_down_while/

http://jasonferruggia.com/drop-the-deadlift/

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FYI, I watched your Deadlift video.  Your form looks good to me, but I've always done and been told that you should lift it slow and put it down fast (the opposite of other lifts).  The main reason is that the greatest potential for injury is while putting the weight back down and the second most common injury is tearing a bicep while lifting it up fast.  Looking good though!

I haven't had much to write about for a while now, but thought I'd do a quick snippet of what I've been up to.  I finished up my course of steroids and I've been eating in a little surplus (probably) for the past week and a half. I've been doing my regular one fast-day per week but I haven't been tracking any calories other than that. When I have done estimates I tend to be around a 150-200 calorie daily surplus, so I'm probably somewhere in that range.  I'm still lifting on a 3 x week schedule and increasing in strength on occasion (I'm sure the food's been helping).  My leg is still screwed up, so physical therapy is still in the mix. Just going to keep doing this until my leg is all healed up or I have a reason to do something different.

I've never even bought any weight-lifting shoes and I've been lifting regularly off and on for about 13 years.  Way to go!  I've heard they make a ton of difference.  I'll have to invest in some myself one of these days but first I need a new barbell as mine has become a bit unshapely as the weight increased.  I'm not sure how much it's rated at (it was a cheap one) but I know that my 315 lb. deadlifts have made it a bit gnarled.

Food: 

2,475 calories / 228g carbs / 77g fat / 193g protein

Eating window ~1:30 - 8:30 PM

Exercise:

Rest Day

Supplements:

4 fish oil capsules

Daily multivitamin

Creatine

MethylPREDNISolone

Weekly Deficit/Surplus To-Date: -1,153

Food: 

2,182 calories / 340g carbs / 29g fat / 154g protein

Eating window ~4:30 - 8:00 PM

Exercise:

Barbell Squats 6x165, 8x150

Weighted Pullups 5x195, 7x175

Overhead Press 5x120, 7x110

Handstands 2, 2, 2

Supplements:

4 fish oil capsules

Daily multivitamin

Creatine

MethylPREDNISolone

Weekly Deficit/Surplus To-Date: -1,348

It was nice to eat up to maintenance, though it's bittersweet because I'm still around 13.5% body fat.  I'm going to stick it out at maintenance for the next week and a half to work through the steroids and hopefully help my leg heal up, then I'll probably introduce a very minor surplus and see how things go.  14.5% is my drop dead point where I have to drop fat back to 13%.

Food: 
2,362 calories / 245g protein / 72g fat / 149g carbs
 

Exercise:

Rest Day
 
Supplements:
4 fish oil capsules
Daily multivitamin
Creatine

MethylPREDNISolone

Nortriptyline
 
Weekly Deficit/Surplus To-Date: -1,250

Welp... guess I'm going to just call this quits again and jump to maintenance.  I went to the doctor this morning to see about my leg, took x-rays (which were clean) and got a referral to get an MRI.  I was prescribed MethylPREDNISolone, which is a Glucocorticosteroid, to bring down the massive inflammation in my leg.  It works by raising cortisol and the major side-effects are muscle loss, fat gain, increased hunger, and insomnia.  Awesome.

The best thing seems to be to just try not to get worse from this spot and do what I can to get my leg to recover.  This is the suck, but what can you do...

... hurting everywhere and being in an overall shitty mood resulted in devouring a huge ass tuna salad and a full bag of chips. At least I ate some greens and protein instead of just gorging on candy. That's about as good as it was going to get today.

 

I completely understand.  Isn't it crazy how just feeling like crap can make you want to throw everything out the window?  At least that's how it is for me.  It's the whole hierarchy of needs deal, if I'm starting to feel injured or depressed it all spirals out of control.  Keep your head up and try to "tread water" until things improve.  I hope you feel better.

Felt pretty full during the morning so I went ahead and did my workout and then the fast day that should have been on Monday.  That puts me back into a weekly deficit at least.  I'm planning on just having about 24 oz. of flounder that we have sitting around needing to be eaten for dinner with a bag of broccoli, which should put me right back on track due to being so low calorie.  Even if I don't stick to that the week is easily recoverable at this point, so I'm not too worried about it.  Worse comes to worse I can spread the rest of my deficit over the remaining days of the week.

Food: 
40 calories / 0g protein / 4g fat / 0g carbs
 
Exercise:
Deadlifts 4x310, 5x280
Weighted Chinups 6x200, 7x180
Overhead Press 6x120, 7x110
Barbell Curl 3x5x85
 
Supplements:
4 fish oil capsules
Daily multivitamin
Creatine
 
Weekly Deficit/Surplus To-Date: -1,332

Yea you're doing a lot of arm movements in the gym, it could very well cause some tendinitis in your elbow.  Not real sure about your knee, though I'd feel pretty comfortable agreeing with your form theory and low rest.  I don't have much helpful advice though, I'm obviously pretty darn minimalist in my own workouts.

You're going to get hooked.  Read The Iron and The Soul by Henry Rollins to solidify it.

I felt like pure ass Monday, likely for several reasons.  My ITB is still all aggravated and preventing me from even walking, left-over stress from the weekend, and I switched to half caffeine coffee which is causing some caffeine withdrawal symptoms.  So, I took the day off from dieting and ate whatever I wanted, keeping in mind that I would have to live with the choices.  So the calorie count is relatively high, but not nearly as bad as it's gone in the past.  I stuck with my eating schedule of not eating until dinner and then I made myself have a ton of vegetables before I started in on snacks.  This was what I ate, because the next time I need a day off, I think this is a pretty good template.  Focusing on minimizing damage was the name of the game:

• 500g of mixed vegetables
  
• 500g of butternut squash
  
• 300g of green beans
  
• 200g of various peppers
  
• 1 lb. of steak
  
• 1.5 cups of spaghetti
  
• 1.5 cups fat-free chocolate frozen yogurt with a banana and ~20g almonds
  
• 3 macadamia nut cookies w/ 1 cup skim milk
  
• 1 cup fat-free chocolate frozen yogurt with 2 snack size Reese's Peanut Butter cups (this was awesome)
  

Food: 

3,188 calories / 162g protein / 73g fat / 459g carbs

Eating window ~5:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Exercise:

Rest Day

Supplements:

4 fish oil capsules

Daily multivitamin

Creatine

Weekly Deficit/Surplus To-Date: +908

Food: 

2,078 calories / 223g protein / 39g fat / 220g carbs

Eating window ~1:30 PM - 7:45 PM

Exercise:

Bench Press 6x185, 7x175

Weighted Dips 5x210, 7x190

Barbell Rows 3x5x175

Tricep Extensions 3x3x120

Supplements:

4 fish oil capsules

Daily multivitamin

Creatine

Weekly Deficit/Surplus To-Date: -3,944

Made it through the birthday party without cracking.

I've been finding the 5-minute journaling really helpful, I've been much more productive than usual with writing, spending time with my kids, and helping my wife out with random things.  I hope the trend keeps up because I'm enjoying getting things done.

Food: 

1,985 calories / 229g protein / 79g fat / 81g carbs

Exercise:

Rest Day

Supplements:

4 fish oil capsules

Daily multivitamin

Creatine

Weekly Deficit/Surplus To-Date: -3,742

My wife's family is in town for my daughter's birthday on Saturday.  Stressful, particularly even more so than usual because her sister is staying with us, but still managed to keep food under control.  All of the candy, cupcakes, ice cream, etc. at the birthday party is going to be a challenge.  Staying mentally strong and focused is the name of the game.

Food: 

2,002 calories / 246g protein / 50g fat / 163g carbs

Exercise:

Rest Day

Supplements:

4 fish oil capsules

Daily multivitamin

Creatine

Weekly Deficit/Surplus To-Date: -3,447

Yea but technically those adaptations will last at least six months, so... Stay positive and keep cortisol down. High cortisol screws everything up.

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If you're sore you're still in muscle gaining territory. It's not how often/long you're in the gym, it's whether you're tearing down your muscles and providing enough calories to rebuild them. You're good on both points. Minimum effective dose is what's important, and you're definitely good. That being said, I understand you miss the routine and stress relief provided.

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