JamesCoombs

Thanks It's good to be back. Workout for the day: Starting short and lightish at the moment and intend to ramp back up to where I was before breaking by the start of the challenge. Dumbbell Bench Press18 kg x 8 reps5218 kg x 7 reps5116 kg x 6 reps46Dumbbell Bicep Curl8 kg x 10 reps268 kg x 10 reps268 kg x 10 reps26Triceps Pushdown (Elastic, so no actual weight)12 kg x 15 reps912 kg x 15 reps912 kg x 15 reps9

You're right it looks like a lot. My eyes were glazing over as I read, but hey, reach for the stars and the moon Its a good place to be. And congratulations on the 100 burpees That's pretty sick.

So I was happily going about my business. Getting evil plans laid out and planning the founding of my little business empire when my Mum appears from nowhere with a pop and exclaims... "James! You've got a letter! You're going to a boarding school for magic! You'd better get ready!" "What?! But I'm a 28 year old man!" "No you're not!" ***POOF*** "WHAT THE $%^&?!" "Language young man! Now get ready, the train leaves in an hour!" So yeah.... by the next day my 11 year old butt had been sorted into Slytherin. The next few months went by quickly and I'd started to pick up all this magic business. But it was still pretty weak. Most of us firsties couldn't lift much more than a feather! But then Halloween came. Some clown had let a troll into the castle and I was sneaking out of the prefect's care to enact one of my plots, when I see these three Griffendorks corned by the troll in a bathroom, and I swear to merlin, one pulls out his wand and lifts the troll's club. HIS WHOLE CLUB! I was like… What the?! A few hours ago this guy couldn’t lift a feather and now he’s lifting a club that must weigh more than him! Time to get some serious training on. Three weeks of winggardium leviosa training followed by three weeks of quidditch practice. ——————————————————————————————————————— So, I’ve finished my exams and am getting ready to leave Shanghai, my residence of five years. This does mean leaving behind all my weightlifting gear which is a bummer and I’m not sure what I’m going to have available in Cyprus or the UK or how quickly I’ll be able to get it. This means adaptation, experimentation, and bodyweight exercises. So, this challenge will be a two part challenge, the first half will be: Goal one - Train every other day for three weeks = 11 training sessions Goal two - Eat three solid meals and one healthy snack every day = 21 days Goal three - Stretch on rest days = 11 stretch sessions Main goal will be, as always, put on 1.5kg of muscle from the start weigh in of the challenge. The second half of the challenge will be figured out once I arrive in Cyprus and am better able to judge what’s available.

Not going to lie. I've been slacking . On the plus side, I'm pretty sure it was worth it for a month to get the results I wanted.

Just got back reading through everything and Whoa. I missed so much Glad that you're feeling better! Looking forward to seeing you in the next challenge! Surgery is not fun but I guess now you've the belly button problem out of the way you'll be one more barrier blasted through to your training goals... even if it takes a bit longer because of it

OK I'm back! Exams have finished and I went AWOL for a while while I focused those. Wasn't anticipating that but it happened. So, next challenge is on June 8th mmmm? Time to get back on the wagon.

Sweet. Sewing is on my to learn list. Along with every other skill in the world of course. Will we get to see the results when you're done?!

Shanghai. Been here almost five years... moving back to the UK soon though. Brand name clothes are generally more expensive here though. So there's defiantly a trade off. But! If you really want to go somewhere for good affordable tailor made clothes, the best place I know is Hoi An in Vietnam. Beautiful town. Spent a week there a couple years back enjoying the beach while waiting for suits to be made. May have to go back if the bulking program is as successful as I hope. Its a tough life. <--- Pro tip: Yaly's. If you ever find yourself in Hoi An... Go here.

Was in such a get down to business mood I totally forgot to do daily weigh in On the other hand. I got down to business. Feeling out the weights for the new split I'm doing for this challenge. Doing a two day split with mainly big lifts for hypotrophy. Total tonnage: 3.192 tonnes Front Barbell Squat18 kg x 15 reps4518 kg x 15 reps4518 kg x 15 reps45Standing Barbell Shoulder Press (OHP)26 kg x 4 reps4918 kg x 10 reps5618 kg x 10 reps56Stiff-Legged Barbell Deadlift26 kg x 10 reps4626 kg x 10 reps4626 kg x 10 reps46Barbell Hip Thrust16 kg x 10 reps1916 kg x 10 reps1916 kg x 10 reps19Standing Barbell Calf Raise22 kg x 15 reps1122 kg x 15 reps (PR)1122 kg x 5 reps9Dumbbell Side Lateral Raise3 kg x 12 reps333 kg x 12 reps333 kg x 10 reps32

Hi Sam! Good to see you again! Can do. I wasn't sure anyone cared

Daily weigh-in: 70.1kg SDMA: 69.9kg [69.9, 69.7, 70.1]

Not quite. Trying to establish the value of social media as a public good to both consumers of sports content and providers of sports content. Also building tools for other researchers to use who don't have the programming background. Ye have an interest in economics? Todays workout! Deadlifts Bent over barbell rows Dumbbell benchpress Dumbbell flyes Tricep pushdowns (Elastic) Dumbbell bicep curls Total tonnage: 3.91 tonnes

Extracting economic insights relevant to events management from live-broadcast-sports-events' social media activity. Basically a massive excuse for me to learn to work with social media APIs and data mining, cleaning, and analysis programatically. I'm an event management student but I really like programming and the course doesn't give many opportunities to do that, so when one presented itself I grabbed it.

Subbed! Good to see you again! Ack. yeah, warming up before max effort is defiantly a thing. Still.... could be worse:

Subbing for kick ass woman doing kick ass things. Its a shame you don't live over here (Not that I'd wish the air on anyone). You can get tailor made clothes for cheaper than regular western lowish-end brand name clothes.

Daily weigh-in: 69.7kg Will start tracking the Seven day moving average (SDMA) once I have a few more numbers. Today will be chest and arms. Yesterday I pumped out 900 words of dissertation.

Thanks. Ye, positive is good. Stoicism helps too. Daily weigh-in: 69.9kg

Hi Wildross, Good to see your new challenge thread. And good to hear you're getting back on it Looking forward to the day I too can hit these numbers... even if only for 1 rep max.

Ack. One day late. So! Last challenge my overall goal was to get to 69.3kg which was a success. Woot. Then life intervened. The last few weeks have been just treading water, keeping my food intake where it should be and squeezing in workouts in between the uni workload. Just six weeks until I've graduated. Six... long... weeks. The end of uni ramp-up is real. No fancy challenge story this time. Just get it done. Overall challenge goal: put on 1.5kg of muscle - 70.8kg (SDMA) When this goal is reached I'll officially be the heaviest I've ever been in my life. And not in a bad way. Sub goals: 1. Eat 2,500-3,000 calories a day. + 3 Con 2. Lift lots of heavy things every other day. + 3 strength 3. Write 500-1000 words of dissertation a day. + 2 Wisdom 4. Study for exams. + 2 Wisdom 5. Win.

The moment you said it was one of AB's I immediately started reading the post with his voice in my head. Actually sounded very much like he would speak... right up until the 'hehehe'; then it went weird

Start of week five! two more weeks to the end of the challenge! Daily weigh-in: 69.7kg - SDMA: 69.58 [69.7, 69.2, 69.3, 69.3, 69.4, 70.1, 70.1] Workout day! Back and shoulders day. Deadlift for strength Bent over rows for hypertrophy OHP for hypertrophy One arm dumbbell rows for hypertrophy Dumbbell side lateral raises for hypertrophy Dumbbell bent over rear delt raise for hypertrophy Deadlift starting to feel heavy now. final set was 5 reps for 68kg... almost 1x weight. Total tonnage: 2,616kg or 2.6 tonnes

Been on a few day hiatus to be a lazy bum. Could sort of call it a fasting break? Reset my protein uptake? I still haven't figured out if that's a thing or not or if there are any benefits to inserting fast days into a bulking program. Does anyone know of any scientifically verified sources that can say one way or the other? Anyway! 21st March daily weigh-in: 69.3 22nd March daily weigh-in: 69.2 SDMA - 69.52 [69.2, 69.3, 69.3, 69.4, 70.1, 70.1, 69.3]

Hi Mark, Just read through your thread. Awesome stuff! Looks like you're making solid progress towards your goals despite all the stuff being thrown at you. Looking forward to following your struggle! Fight on.

Daily weigh-in: 69.3 - SDMA: 69.50 [69.3, 69.4, 70.1, 70.1, 69.3, 69.3, 69.0]

Daily weigh-in: 69.4 - SDMA: 69.47 [69.4, 70.1, 70.1, 69.3, 69.3, 69.0, 69.1] Today's workout: Legs! Starting hipthrusts from zero weight since that way I know I'm activating my glutes like I'm supposed to be. Did that last leg session... this session, it's just the bar, so 8kg. Moving up from there in 2kg increments until we hit maybe 30kg? then move up in 4kg increments? Whatever. I'm doing this slowly to get it right. Starting off at 48kg like bret was suggesting was yielding little but progressively stronger hamstrings (not that stronger hamstrings is a bad thing). Total tonnage: 2,964kg or 2.9 tonnes.