Riboflaven

Upper Body Power Bent-over row 5/5/5 x 155 lbs Pull-ups 8/6 Rack chins 8/8 x 25 lbs Dumbbell bench 5/5/5 x 60 lbs Dips 10/8 Seated shoulder press 8/8/8 x 35 lbs EZ bar curls 8/7/6 x 65 lbs Skullcrushers 5/5/5 x 25 lbs Today was good. The dumbbell bench press was heavier than last week so it was pretty taxing. Felt great though and set the stage for the rest of the workout. I had problems on a few lifts though. The first is the pull-ups, it was an increase over last week, but my god they were a grind. The second were the EZ bar curls. I did less than usual. Bah next week I will just have to go super saiyan. One reason for the fails might be that I have started following the Eat Stop Eat IF protocol. I do love it and I can see myself sticking with it for quite a long time to come. Sunday was my first fasting day so my body might just be getting used to it. I will see on Thursday as I will be fasting Wednesday also.

Today was supposed to be a rest day, but it is super rainy up here so I wan't going to get any adventuring in with my brother. So I went to the gym instead and ended up deadlifting 300 lbs. Took a while to get up there going in small increments near the end. The last few were struggles but still smooth enough to be called a proper rep. I'm only 40 lbs away from deadlifting double my body weight. I did find my grip was failing at about 250 lbs (damn you stubby sausage hands!), which makes me very glad they invented lifting straps. Eat it gravity.

Chest and Arms Hypertrophy Dumbbell bench press 3/3/3/3/3/3 x 40 lbs Incline dumbbell press 12/12/12 x 35 lbs Hammer strength chest press 15/15/15 x 90 lbs Incline flies 20/20 x 15 lbs EZ bar preacher curls 10/10/10 x 55 lbs Dumbbell concentration curl 13/13 x 20 lbs Decline curl 20/20 x 15 lbs Seated EZ bar tri-extensions 12/12/12 x 45 lbs Rope press down 15/15 x 35 lbs Cable kickbacks 17/17 x 15 lbs A few notes on today. I feel the need to tweak the chest portion of this. I got a pump from the hammer strength sets but aside from that not much. I might use the olympic bar for the low rep speed work at the beginning. I do have to up the weight on the flies next week so I will see what those two changes do. I think I have to focus more on the mind-muscle connection during the chest exercises. My arms got an AMAZING pump today though. All those exercises are money, especially the cable kickbacks, I used to do them with a dumbbell, but now the resistance is constant through the whole movement. They hurt, and mental fortitude to get the set done, but they feel great. I have also found out that listening to the Dropkick Murphys while lifting is an amazing combination.

I am a night owl myself. The only thing that keeps me getting up early in the mornings is that I have had to get up early for my job for years on end. Since I have been laid off though I find myself wanting to stay up later and later. I do find that anything I do in the morning feel more productive than if I do the same thing at night which helps me want to get up early. I also tend to cut up a tomato (or use the canned kind), some sort of hot sauce (Sriracha or Sambal) and the tuna. Then fry up an egg to put on top, makes for a great meal. Quite a while ago my brother bought an hour glass (that actually measured an hour) for really cheap at a Chapters book store. using it to actually be aware of how much time we spent on the internet or playing video games was a pretty big wake up call!

Lower Body Hypertrophy. Leg days make stairs my mortal enemy. Squats (done as explosively as possibly) 3/3/3/3/3/3 x 100 lbs Hack squats 12/12/12 x 90 lbs Leg press 15/15 x 150 lbs Leg extensions 20/20/20 x 60 lbs Romanian deadlift 12/12/12 x 124 lbs Lying leg curl 15/15 45 lbs Seated leg curl 20/20 x 60 lbs Standing calf raises 10 sets of 10 reps with 10 seconds rest between x 85 lbs Seated calf raises 20/20/20 x 90 lbs

Back and shoulders hypertrophy. I love working my shoulders so these days tend to go on for quite a while. Bent-over row 3/3/3/3/3/3 x 100 lbs Rack chins 8/8/8 x 25 lbs Seated close-grip cable row 12/12/12/ x 90 lbs Dumbbell row 15/15 x 30 lbs Wide grip pull-down 20/18 60 lbs Seated dumbbell press 12/12/12 x 30 lbs Dumbbell one-arm upright row 15/15 x 30 lbs (doing these with a bar hurts my shoulders, but doing the one armed is pain free.) Side raises 20/20/20 x 10 lbs (sweet mother of pancakes these burn so good.) Supported bent-over Shoulder row 18/18/18 x 20 lbs Smith maching shrug 20/20 x 70 lbs A bunch of rotator cuff exercises. Then I did "Cosgrove's Evil 8 Complex" with 65 lbs which consists of DeadliftRomanian DeadliftBent-over RowPower CleanFront SquatShoulder PressBack SquatGood MorningFirst you do 6 reps of each with no rest then 90 seconds rest (I only took 30 cause I hate myself apparently) then 5 reps all the way down to 1 rep in succession. Best Cardio ever. I still had a fair bit of energy so I hopped on the spin bike for a 10 minutes. Then proceeded to have a lot of trouble lifting my arms to get my shirt on in the locker room. I will be upping the weight for a few of the exercises next week, it turns out eating enough really does help with strength gain.

Rest day today, though I got bored and did a bunch of push-ups. While I was cleaning up I came across my Boken and jo from Aikido which were hiding in plain site right next to my microwave. It has been quite a while since I practised Aikido, but the basic sword cuts still felt really good, so I also did a bunch of those. When the weather gets nicer I may have to take my weapons bag and head to a park to practise my weapons work. It is fun AND it scares the neighbours! What is there not to like?

I tend to start every workout with Olympic bar work for my big lifts, but since I am also looking to put on muscle mass I use machines to target specific muscles. In my case they are definitely worth using. I don't believe they are quite as evil as everyone makes them out to be. Just don't expect the weights you can move while one a machine to really translate to real life pound for pound. I would say that sticking with free weights is better for most people, but if you really don't want to go that route then using the machines is better than nothing. Though Steve did a post a bit ago called "Rage against the Machine" it would be perfect for you to read. If you wanted some more articles on dumbbells I can dig some good ones up for you.

Halifax, Nova Soctia. I love this city. All the convenience of a city but sooooo close to forests, and oceans, it is the perfect mix.

I don't know too many people who are excited about losing their jobs, but here I am with no work and sorta excited. I have my EI in line so I still have money coming in. Might be able to get some cash jobs also (am a carpenter) which helps. The reason I am excited is that I now have a metric f*ck tonne of time on my hands. The gym is going to be my home for the next little while. I have always enjoyed pushing myself just to see how far I could go. I have done a few 24 hour endurance races and cycled to and from work for most of last year, but I have never really looked super fit. Now that I have the time though I am going to be following the "Full Power/Hypertrophy routine" by Layne Norton. I have been in love with lifting heavy for some time but I also wanted to add some *gasp* hypertrophy to my workouts. I want to look great this summer and I'm willing to put in the work! The routine he has written down feels right to me, it still lets me do my favourite lifts while getting the pump I love from others. Along with the lifting I do plan on doing a kettle bell class once a week and getting really friendly with the spin bikes at my gym. That way I will be ready to do some century rides when this Nova Scotian winter passes. I will start things off with today's Lower Body power workout. I had to reset my weights a bit back because of a work related back injury, but I am working back up. I will also generally be excluding the warm up sets on my lifts. Another note is that on my deadlifts I do use lifting straps for my higher weights. I have small ass hands and stubby fingers. Even though I can hold myself up while rock climbing for a very long time I find the Olympic bar slips out of my hands even with chalk making it hard to focus on the lift. Front Squat 4/5/5 x 140 lbs (I make really weird faces during these.) Hack Squat 8/8 x 200 lbs Leg extensions 10/10 x 80 lbs Deadlift 5/5/5 x 225 lbs Lying leg curls 10/10 x 150lbs Seated calf raises 10/10/10 x 115 lbs

My Fathers favourite quote from some song is "This too shall pass." I always remind myself of that. When I do start feeling down though I tend to go straight for music. Sometimes it is hard driving rock, smooth rap, epic classical compositions, catchy pop, or a mix of all of those. If I do find I can't shake the bad feelings I will head out for a walk around my city. I usually just play whatever music I am craving and is on my ipod, but sometimes I'll put no headphones on and just let the sounds of the city take me where I need to go. To be honest I don't usually hear the music/city sounds I let my brain go where it needs to to solve the problem. I guess it it sorta like lucid dreaming but with more walking involved! And when all else fails I put this on, it was even my alarm to get me up everyday for about half a year.

Thank you Mr. Medium, that is exactly what I was looking for. After reading through them all Layne Norton's seemed to jump out at me. While my last few days at work have been pretty long and busy I have managed to get the first two days of his plan done, and absolutely loved it. I appreciate the help, I'll make sure to keep a battle log on my progress. Also, Lift Big Eat Big seems like an awesome website.

For the past four months I have been I have been following the Strong lifts workouts, with a few other lifts that I find fun. I have had some amazing progress. I chose that type of workout because I work as a carpenter and it didn't take a huge amount of time at the gym (twelve hour shifts really eat at the day). It also really helps to be able to pick up really heavy things and put them down into place. It has been one hell of a busy year but our main client (Loblaws Canada) is not doing much this year. So I got my two weeks notice. I am getting laid off, my last day is this coming Friday. Employment insurance here I come! Suddenly I have a huge amount of time to devote to the gym. I want the best body I can build. When I get a job again I will probably go back to just lifting heavy on the core lifts, but it has been seven years since I had a vacation. Imma gonna take a few months off and focus on me. Since it is a cold ass Nova Scotian winter I want to spend a lot of time at the gym and strive for the male fitness model type body. I have never looked like that so I figure now is the time for me to just giv'r. Exercise Preference Muscle hypertrophyH.I.I.T.I love cycling so the spin bikes at the gym and I are going to get really friendly. That way I can do some century rides as soon as it gets nice enough.Stats. Male315'10"175lbsTraining History It has been five years since I saw the light and realized that being fit was awesomeP90x, Strong Lifts ( <3 ), waaaay too many years farting around in the gym not following any sort of program.Diet Normal. That said being on EI won't leave me with much money at all for junk food, so it is eating clean or nada.Current Resources/Limitations I have access to a gym (fewer machines than free weights and a metric fucktonne of olympic barbells I LOVE my gym)I have all the time in the world.EI will last for around six months but I will probably be itching for work again in three to four months Any help or links that you all can provide would be really appreciated! Thanks for reading this by the way, means a lot to me.

I know that I am an emotional eater, so like Steve says I want to remove the emotional part from it. I am trying intermittent fasting for a month to see what I feel like (so far so good). I need to try and get my paleo on more. I am afraid to try too much at one time though, so I will focus on the paleo thing once I am more comfortable with the not eating the whole day long thing!

The dream is to not throw up during my upcoming 20k Spartan race. I have a beard because it is awesome and it lets me lather up my whole head in the shower. The Kilt is what I will be running the Spartan races in, also fashionable as hell. For most of my life I have been very, very unhealthy and over weight. I originally gained weight because my doctor put me on steroids for my asthma, then never bothered to tell me to stop taking them (I was 7ish). At that time my life consisted of staying in the hospital for a week, then home for a week or two then back to the hospital again. There was little to no activity in my life, so I ballooned in weight. While I didn't really have any control over gaining the weight, I did have control over losing it. Turns out being lazy and using my asthma as an excuse to never do anything was "easier." While I was completely capable of getting in shape I never did. Fast forward 20 years and two things happened in quick succession that woke me up. First was that I passed out "on the line" multiple 20+ hour days and an unhealthy cooks diet sent me to the floor. A bit after that I was outside playing on the rocks at a nearby beach with my Brother and Best friend. They both were able to run and jump up to a rock and pull themselves up onto it. I on the other hand could barely jump high enough to get my hands on top of the rock and couldn't pull myself up, let alone this "running" thing all you health nuts are talking about. It took both of them, with MUCH struggling, to get me up there. And my mom caught it all on film. They didn't think anything of it, because that was the way it had always been. 3 years later, tonnes of time at the gym, and (admittedly) still not so great a diet, I am in the best shape of most of my friends. I have turned into the man that I always made fun of. I used to say I didn't know why someone would workout so intensely that they couldn't lift their arms to wash their hair in the shower, now when that happens I giggle because it is awesome. I bike commute now (most days depends on what Halifax decides the weather will be) 10k each way. I hug my bike as often as possible because it makes my life great. I focus more on body weight workouts now rather than lifting heavy at the gym. My Brother and I are both addicted to the idea of being able to move our body in the straightest line possible while going over/under/through anything in our way. My body controlled me for most of my life, so I sorta like telling it what to do! My biggest weakness and biggest reason for joining the forums is my nutrition. Even though I eat much healthier I find I still eat like a fat guy. Cravings and binge eating are keeping me from seeing those abs I know I have. So I will be pouring over the nutrition forums with much vigour. Most of my friends and current roomie do not eat healthy at all, so I am surrounded by temptation so often. I often wonder how I can have everything so together exercise wise and completely miss the boat food wise. Goals: 1) Eat like a man, not like Augustus Gloop. 2) Do a muscle up. 3) Pay off my credit card. Right so I'll stop now, I have more stories I could tell, but this is already lengthy. Thank you for reading this, it is good to get some of this stuff out in the open. Peace.