Disil's Log

[Disil]

3 months late, but I decided it's finally time for a log. Since I've been posting (and learning) quite a bit already, here's the broad overview:

 

From my first thread here, basically an introduction:

 

Alright, so a little information beforehand. I'm 29, 5'7'' and have gone from 185lbs to 136lbs from May '13 to March '14 and have held that weight without problems for 6 weeks now. My main form of exercise is yoga, DDPYOGA to be exact (which is probably best described as a mixture of Vinyasa Yoga and calisthenics) as well as some bodyweight exercises like push-ups and hopefully soon handstands and pull-ups. I have started to run 4.4 miles every 2nd day recently and enjoy it so I will probably continue with that, too. This is me, going from Day 1 to Day 300 (the last two pictures on the right and the side-view all being from day 300):

 

 

 

New Goals (as of April 16 2014):

- run at least a 10k or a half marathon (depending on progress) in September
- master a free handstand for at least 15 seconds
- further decrease bodyfat%, but with the overall goal of feeling the best I can physically still in mind
- manage to do a full pull up and work towards doing several

- stand up into bird of paradise

 

This is my pull-up progression from the respective thread:

 

 

I can do exactly 1 Pull-Up with proper form right now, but that is it. I can't even do 3 sets of 1 rep, the tank's simply empty after that one. I'm able to do several Chin-Ups with good form or a bunch of Pull-Up negatives (or Inverted Rows for that matter) and was wondering: which I should do in order to progress towards being able to do several Pull-Ups in a row? Should I even worry about this or simply do Chin-Ups and not care for Pull-Ups to begin with?

 

 

So I finally got there early enough so that there still was enough lighting. Still around 10 pm but any earlier and it's full of children. That's 29 days in, most of it at a caloric deficit. Thanks for the great advice guys.

 

 

http://de.tinypic.com/r/10g9u39/8

 

 

 

Little update, mostly because I untypically went there at 6 in the morning and had better lighting to actually record what I was doing. Went there fasted before breakfast and within 5 days of donating blood so I'm hardly in peak shape, therefore quite happy with where I'm at so far after 2 months.

 

Set 1: http://videobam.com/JLwaQ

Set 2: http://videobam.com/Idisn

Set 3: http://videobam.com/aMBMK

And for those who just can't get enough, my whole progression story over at DDPYOGA: http://ddpyoga.com/daniel.html

 

 

This is where I want to get to, not necessarily regarding body, but ability:

 

 

 

Goals:

• improve upon bodyweight capabilities across the board with major goals being muscle-ups, pistol squats, one arm push-ups, handstand without wall for 15+ seconds
• further reduce bodyfat, with major goals being to get below 10% bodyfat and eventually being able to see my lower abs/upper abs when relaxed
• increase running speed, currently being at a pace of 6min/km, speed of 10km/h
• further broaden my horizon in regards to cooking (currently at 31 new recipes tried since March 18) and getting better at it

 

 

My diet currently looks like this: Coming from my first bulk, I'm at a steep deficit right now (14 days in), eating paleo-ish, but with dairy, rice, potatoes, honey and the occasional pinch of sugar here and there. The plan is to keep this cut up until the hormonal side-effects of the deficit become too much and then transition through a 2-week period at maintenance either into another cut or into a bulk, slowly climbing to a surplus of 500cal. Which one it ends up being depends on how I feel at the end of those two weeks.

 

My workouts currently consist of a bodyweight routine on one day which I alternate with a 4.2m run on "rest days".

 

And.. this is me right now, a little sleepy, post-workout at roughly 62kg/137lbs and approximately 11% bf.

[Disil]

I start off every workout with these two:

 

 

And finish it with this.

 

Workout for today:

 

Headstand Push-Ups: 7, 6, 6

Handstand Practice: 10 min

DB Deadlifts (44lbs): 10, 10, 10

Diamond Push-Ups: 8, 6, 5

Close-Grip Push-Ups: 12

DB Shrugs (44lbs): 12, 12, 12

Bulgarian Split-Squats: 10, 10, 10

Bulgarian Split-Squats (+22lbs): 8, 5, 5

Jog 1 mile to park

Pull-Ups (false grip): 7, 5, 6, 2

Inverted Rows (straight leg): 10, 10, 8, 5

Bodyweight Dips: 8, 6, 6, 5

Walk 1 mile home

 

Decent workout overall. Soreness certainly made the pull-exercises more difficult. I'm kind of at a dead-end with Deadlifts, Shrugs and Inverted Rows because I can't progress them without buying new weights/finding a way to elevate my legs on the playground where there's nothing to evelate them with while under the bar and I also don't have any way of doing them at home either. Bummed I had to skip core, will do that with a vengeance next time.

The weighted Split-Squats were exactly what I needed. Normal ones felt too easy for a while now. The Diamond Push-Ups are coming along, I get pretty deep already without much discomfort in my elbows anymore (thanks Tanuki!). Handstand practice went great, but sadly the video I took of part of it is useless, because it only captured one half of me, but I'll make sure to share the one from Friday, provided it's something worth showing.

 

I'll only mention food if I happen to try a new recipe or something otherwise noteworthy happens. As for that, I'm looking forward to trying out the "bacon-wrapped chicken breasts on a bed of veggies" recipe tomorrow.

[Shortgorilla]

I'll be watching you, sir.

[PaulG]

Nice thread, I'll be watching it also. Muahahaha.

For inverted rows: go to Home Depot, buy a set of moving straps, nylon rope and handle-length PVC pieces and make yourself the most ghetto TRX/gym rings style setup ever for twenty bucks. Or go out and buy some real gymnastics rings if you like, they're about $70.

Funny question: how on earth are you doing handstand push-ups but also working diamonds? headstand push-ups require a ton more strength.

[Disil]

Workout for today:

 

4.4m run in 46:07

 

Had little to no energy which I blame mostly on the lack of carbs in the new recipe I tried today. Stupid me, usually I have at least a banana, an apple and some honey in at that point. On the bright side, I was pretty satisfied with the meal. This is how it ended up looking like:

Thats 400g of chicken breast wrapped with 6 strips of bacon, 500g of zucchini, 1 red and 1 yellow bell pepper, 2 red onions and 250g of cherry tomatoes. Flavoured with salt, pepper, provençal herbs and 2 tbsp of olive oil, 40 minutes in the oven. Comes down to 1019cal and 111g protein. Next time I'll use more bacon, less zucchini, some garlic, more herbs or maybe try the 3 potatoes the original recipe calls for instead of the zucchinis I substituted them with.

 

@Paul

I'm about as versed in home improvement as a T-Rex in handstand push-ups.

Apropos, maybe I'm using the wrong terminology here. What I'm doing looks like this:

Whether that's handstand or headstand push-ups, this is what I'm doing. As far as diamonds go, it almost feels like they work entirely different muscle groups. I feel the diamonds extremely in my triceps and posterior deltoid whereas I feel the hand/headstand push-ups mostly in my upper chest, traps and anterior deltoid and only little in my triceps.

[Disil]

Screwed up and accidently overwrote this while copypasting..meh :/

[PaulG]

Yeah, those are headstand push-ups. Part of the reason you feel them more in your chest than your triceps: more than likely, your arms are wider than shoulder-width. Arching the back can also be a culprit there.

Can't view the video, but wishing you luck! Pretty soon I'm going to be putting some real work into free handstands also.

[Disil]

After a little research I now get why they're called different names and where the difference lies. Changed the entries accordingly. Thanks for the wishes, I'm still happy with my progress so far, given that I wasn't even able to kick up against a wall 6 weeks ago. And yeah, arching is also on the list of things to correct. I just hope that with a stronger core, a lot of things will take care of itself basically.

[Disil]

Rest day my ass. Quad felt fine. Hip flexors and sides of my back didn't, but that wouldn't stop me. Then again, I also had some added motivation today. You see, if there's one weakness I have, it's sales. I just can't resist when stuff is cheaper than usual. If there's one other weakness I have then it's delicious ice cream. Well...this is the aftermath of both coming together and yes, that was 500ml (it was 33% off for fuck's sake! ):

But hey, since energy levels were low these last days, this was as good an excuse for a refeed day as anything. Still didn't overeat that much on the whole for the day (2922 in, ~2600 out) and after that, I certainly didn't lack carbs for my run, ha!

 

Apropos run, that one was pretty great. I even felt like I could run another lap around the pond, but I didn't want to overdo it. Time and pace were great, especially for the increased distance. I also finally seem to have found a more reliable app than runtastic to track them -> runkeeper!

 

Workout for today:

 

5.28m run in 53:37

 

Feeling great and ready to cut another week easily. Never been this low bodyfat% wise in my life. Bang!

[PaulG]

As far as that homemade TRX thing: loop some rope through the PVC and knot it to create handles you can attach to something. Then just run a moving strap through the handles and around a bar at the playground (or a doorway pull-up bar). Voila, instant DIY TRX thingy.

Sadly, there's no good solution for elevating your feet (unless you use them with a pull-up bar at home). But it does allow you to do wide ring rows, which cuts a lot of your biceps out of the movement and makes the movement harder.

That's what I'm doing right now with gymnastics rings, just my two cents. Otherwise you can just start doing them one-armed.

[Disil]

You see, half of those words either I have never heard or don't make sense to me in that order, that's how inane I am when it comes to DIY stuff.

 

The one-armed suggestion I can get behind though. I'll probably need to become stronger still to be able to do them and then likely only with bent legs but I've got somewhat of a goal so yeah.

[Disil]

Workout for today:

 

DDPYOGA Red Hot Core (12min core workout)

Plank: 40s, 40s

Headstand Push-Ups: 7, 7, 7

Handstand Practice: 10 min

DB Deadlifts (44lbs): 10, 10, 10

Diamond Push-Ups: 8, 8, 8

DB Shrugs (44lbs): 12, 12, 12

Bulgarian Split-Squats (+22lbs): 8, 8, 8

1 mile walk

Pull-Ups (false grip): 7, 7, 6, 5

Inverted Rows (straight leg): 10, 12, 12,

Bodyweight Dips: 9, 7, 7, 7

1 mile walk

 

 

Well, that's 15 days in a row without a designated rest day and I feel stronger than ever. Ben & Jerry's = superfuel. Workout was phantastic, dips almost felt too easy, I feel like I learned something new about handstands (to look straight ahead when upside down instead of staring at the floor, which should provide much better chances of keeping balance) and hey, even pull-ups went well. Right hip flexor is still sore as hell, my core is still struggling to adapt to all the workload it now gets but it's getting better.

To top all that off, I tried a new recipe today and invited my Mom over and damn, we devoured these sons of bitches like they were nothing. Quite some work, but well worth it. Zucchini Fritters, yes with flour, four eggs, 2 onions, 3 cloves of garlic, well and 1.2kg of zucchini. Certainly a future staple. Here's how they looked like:

 

Have an awesome week everyone!

[Disil]

Workout for today:

 

~3.8m walk

~3.7m run

 

Didn't take the time because I ran a different route, too many crosswalks, interruptions and whatnot. Also ran a ton of errands on foot making for more sweet exercise. Right shoulder is bothering me, handstands took a lot out of it I guess. Gotta monitor that.

[Disil]

Workout for today:

 

DDPYOGA Red Hot Core (12min core workout)

Headstand Push-Ups: 6, 4, 4

Handstand Practice: 5 min

DB Deadlifts (44lbs): 10, 10, 10

Bulgarian Split-Squats (+22lbs): 6

 

 

I guess my body is trying to tell me something. Had to stop the workout midway through. Zero energy, feel like throwing up, the right shoulder is really starting to bother me, my wrists felt unstable today, right hip still isn't good and hell even my neck is sore. Tomorrow a run and some light yoga and a complete rest day the day after are in order so I can hopefully resume my normal schedule on Friday.

[Shortgorilla]

Yes, please listen to your body.  Not doing so usually results in training disaster.

[Disil]

Yeah, July 26th was my last actual rest day. I'm sure I'll feel better by Friday.

[Disil]

Well, thunderstorms and nonstop rain all day means I'll get two rest days instead of one. I'll take it. Since I'm not getting much of a caloric deficit in this way and really feel like giving my body the best chances to recuperate and regenerate, I decided to take a diet break for at least 10 days which also lines up well with upcoming weekend acitivites.

[PaulG]

Good idea. When I was cutting I was amazed by how much slower my body healed and recovered from injury, stress, exercise, etc. But it's equally amazing how fast you bounce back once you're out of deficit land.

[Disil]

Well, August 15 will be another rest day. Shoulder feels better but still not 100% and after a selfmade chili con carne dinner with friends I'm hardly able to move, let alone work out. It's amazing how I miss working out, how I'm feeling totally restless after a mere 2 days of not doing anything. Saturday will be awesome.

[Disil]

I don't know what the fuck's wrong with me, but things are not working. Almost collapsed during the headstand push-ups, couldn't get over the pull-up bar more than 3 times and I was yawning pretty much non-stop. Not worth logging this crap.

 

After weighing myself out of curiosity I've got at least somewhat of an answer. Despite my last real workout being 6 days ago, the scale showed a monstrous 67kg/147.7lbs which is about 10lbs more than I had last week. Guess a ton of carbs and sodium account for a lot of that so it's no wonder I felt sluggish, lifting more weight than usual while feeling like garbage.

 

I'll be looking to get a good run in tomorrow and hopefully crush things again on Monday.

[Disil]

Workout for today:


4.2m run in 47:09

 

 

Crappy time, felt horrible, happy I did something at least.

[Muscle Professor]

I love that you take the time to post videos. Videos really pull in my attention so I will be following this log for sure.

[Disil]

Ha, I try my best Lanithroe.

 

 

"Workout" for today:

 

1 mile run

Pull-Ups (false grip): 4, 4, 4

Inverted Rows (straight leg): 10, 10, 10

Bodyweight Dips: 7, 6, 6

1 mile run

DB Deadlifts (44lbs): 10, 10, 10

Diamond Push-Ups: 5, 4, 2

DB Shrugs (44lbs): 12, 12

Bulgarian Split-Squats (+22lbs): 7

Bulgarian Split-Squats: 7, 7

 

 

Well, this stunk. My forearms and outer pecs were toast after the disaster that were the pull-ups and dips and I felt it during the diamond push-ups, so I didn't even attempt handstands today. Had to take it easy on a lot of things, even the split squats felt really heavy. Given that I haven't been at a caloric deficit for a while, these really low energy levels are probably to be attributed to a number of factors, from lack of sleep, stress and rather subpar diet (UFC on Saturday, then Summerslam, family dinners and the fact that I can now bake  really  awesome  cakes did NOT help at all with this) to nagging little injuries here and there, working out too late (10:30 pm) and an overall increased weight and therefore higher workload from both eating too much and too sodium/carb-heavy.

 

I've decided to not go back to cutting after the 14 day diet break, but instead simply transition into a slow bulk from there, trying to eliminate problem foods (yeah I'm looking at you pretzels) and loading up on a surplus of the good stuffs, i. E. more eggs, more meat, more rice and more veg. I really struggle with keeping track of my macros when not cutting, simply because the variety of foods I eat usually is much greater and I cook huge portions for more people more often which simply are more difficult to calculate. So for example, a sausage/veg/rice jambalaya I cooked for 3 people. It has roughly 2100cal and 100g protein and I ate about 1 1/2 plates of it which should amount to maybe 1/3 of it all, so ~700cal and ~33g protein, but it just seems so damn imprecise and things get even worse when it's not me who's doing the cooking.

Anyway, I really need to work on this, otherwise I'll again jeopardize the success of the bulk and, like the last times, overshoot my target again and will have to cut a lot more than necessary when I'm done.

[Disil]

I'm more and more confused. Got fierce doms in my forearms, lats and pecs which is weird since I didn't do anything I haven't done before and even did so less intense than usual. This past month I had 14 good to great, exhaustive workouts, 10 of them during a cut and for none of them did I feel the lack of energy during or the feeling of exhaustion and doms after that I feel right now and I'm really at a loss. I was looking to progress when I started this log, but now it seems like I'm regressing. Normally I'd have ran today, but constant rain whenever I'd have had the time made it quite difficult, but given how my upper body feels today I might just run tomorrow and look to postpone the next bodyweight workout a day.

[Shortgorilla]

Sounds like someone needs a hot bath and a couple days off.