[Cheetah]

Last challenge I did a pretty good job on my two goals, which were all about discipline.  I'd like to continue and improve on that for this challenge.

 

Goal the First:  Weight Lifting - The goal last challenge was to make 95% of my planned lifting session, and I did that.  I think it was challenging but achievable, and I'm going to keep the same goal this time, with a little bit of clarification.  My target is to lift 4 times per week, staying mainly with BP and DL.  I won't count myself having missed a session unless I get to Saturday and haven't got 4 in.  My goal will again be to make 95% of my sessions.

 

Goal B:  Calorie Target - I have a daily calorie target supplied to me by MacroFactor.  The objective is to not be more than 100 calories over or under this target.  Last challenge I ended up at about 70% compliance I think.  This challenge, I would like to reach 80%.  Just to be clear - there are no excused days for this.  It doesn't matter if I go to a cookout or it's DnD night or we end up at a fancy restaurant.  The body fat does not care, it only responds to intake and output.

 

Goal Thirdly:  Kneehab - I waited a very long time to get a PT to tell me what I need to do to strengthen my knees, and in the month since I received my protocols, I have done an abysmal job of actually completing them.  This must improve.  I really want to be able to do squats, and the way to get there is to do the rehab.  Consistency in this is just as important as the other two, if not more so.  The prescription is Minimum 4 x/wk, up to every day.  I'm going to commit to 5x/wk, and I want to complete 95% of that.  As with the lifting, I won't count a miss until I get to the end of the week and haven't got 5 sessions done.

 

I think that's it.  Happy Challenge everyone!

[Artemis Prime]

28 minutes ago, Cheetah said:

Goal Thirdly:  Kneehab - I waited a very long time to get a PT to tell me what I need to do to strengthen my knees, and in the month since I received my protocols, I have done an abysmal job of actually completing them.  This must improve.  I really want to be able to do squats, and the way to get there is to do the rehab.  Consistency in this is just as important as the other two, if not more so.  The prescription is Minimum 4 x/wk, up to every day.  I'm going to commit to 5x/wk, and I want to complete 95% of that.  As with the lifting, I won't count a miss until I get to the end of the week and haven't got 5 sessions done.

[sylph]

Happy Challenge, Cheets!

[Cheetah]

I'm going to start tracking with this week.  I think this is going to work best to go week by week instead of day by day.

 

Sunday:

Weights No

0/4

Calories No - I actually went too far under.  More on this below

0/7

Kneehab No

0/5

 

Monday:

Weights No

0/4

Calories Yes

1/7

Kneehab No

0/5

 

Tuesday:

Weights Yes

1/4

Calories Yes

2/7

Kneehab No

0/5

 

 

I'm not off to a great start this week, but it's been a weird one.  By way of explanation (not excusing, just reflecting) we were camping on Sunday and Monday, so getting going has been a little slow this week.  But in the end I'm looking for progress, not perfection, so I'm not too fussed about it.

 

I'm enjoying doing this instead of actually working on the work I need to do, so I'll take this opportunity to expand on my goals a little.  Just in case anyone is interested. 

 

For weight lifting, I'm limited by time.  As a result, I'm focusing on the main lifts for now. 

Last challenge, I was working on adding weight to the bar, and I made some good progress.  I crossed the 225 line on BP, and hit it for 3 sets of 5 in a session last week.  I'm very happy with that.  I've been working a linear progression with DL, and last week I pulled 265 for 1 set of 5.  It was very heavy, and it left my butt sore the next day, which I think I've never done with DL before, so that was new.  I take it as a good sign, that I'm finally getting up to a weight where muscles other than my lower back are working hard enough to respond.

For this challenge, I'm going to focus on getting enough hard sets each week, with a little lower weight and a few more reps per set.  I think this will give my joints and such a chance to catch up to the weight, and I can progressively add reps through the block to keep things moving forward.  In the longer view, the time limitation will be there for a while, but it is temporary.  I'm currently working a side gig that's taking me about 2 hours a day, and should last something like a year.  With that going on, I'm able to reliably get 30 - 45 min of lifting per day.  Once it's done, I can increase that to 60 - 90 min per day, which should be plenty to work toward my ultimate goal of getting seriously jacked.  In the interim, perhaps after the end of this challenge, I'm thinking about re-tooling my workout splits to lift 6 days /wk instead of 4, so that I can get some more volume in and keep making progress within my time constraints. 

 

For calorie targeting, I'm working on Body Recomposition.   The science says this is possible, and I'm at a current weight and body fat percentage (about 30%) that is in the range where it can be effective.  This is why I need to stay within 100 cals of my target, and I shouldn't go higher or lower - if I stay on target, I should be able to build muscle and reduce fat at the same time.  I've got my MacroFactor targets dialed in to the recommended weight loss rate for this, and it seems to be working - I've been losing about a pound a week, my pants are slowly getting looser, and my weight training is progressing.  As long as it keeps working, that's what I'll keep doing.  It's a long, slow road, but I think it's more sustainable for now.  Once I get closer to my ultimate goal, I'll probably switch to bulk/cut cycling, but we'll see how I feel about it when I get there.  For context, I started this year at 240 lbs, and I'm down to 222 or so.  I weight daily and use two different data smoothing apps to get a trend weight.  I have an incentive planned - when my trend weight hits 220, I'm going pants shopping to celebrate.  I should get there in 2 to 3 weeks, if I stay on track.  Future goals are to get to 200 around the end of the year or a little into January.  Once I get there, I'll re-assess and decide how much farther down I'd like to go.  My body fat goal ultimately is to be around 12-15%, and at my current musculature, I roughly estimate that I should weigh about 180 - 185.  Assuming that it takes almost a year to get there, and I manage to put on a few pounds of muscle in that year, I should land somewhere around 190-ish when I get to the bulk/cut cycling phase.  Even if things go a little slower than the prediction, I should be there by my 50th birthday in January of 2026.

 

 

[Cheetah]

Wednesday:

 

I did lift, in the evening.  Deadlifts and leg extensions.  DL at 265 are kicking my butt, literally.  I've never had muscle soreness like this.  It's like DOMS, but it's not delayed.  It starts as soon as the set is done, and the whole muscle just aches.  It's gradually wearing off, but last week when I did this it took about two days.

2/4

Calories were on target.  w00t

3/7

Kneehab - I finally got one in!  I also did leg extensions, which I think will help as well.

1/5

 

 

[deftona]

Here! Happy challenge! 

[Cheetah]

Thursday:

 

I did not lift; it was a rest day

2/4

I did not stay on calories.  I went over by 100, which is really not bad, but it's outside of range.

3/7

I did not do kneehab.  I'm going to have to figure out how to get a handle on this.  I think I need to tie it to some other part of my daily routine, but everything is so tight, I don't honestly know where to fit it in.

1/5

 

[Cheetah]

Catching up

 

Friday:

 

I did not lift.  I don't remember what happened; probably work and such.

2/4

I did stay on Calories

4/7

I don't think I did kneehab.  I need a place to track this in real time; I don't even have it in a notebook or anything

1/5

 

Saturday:

Lift no

2/4

calories no

4/7

kneehab no

1/5

 

So that's the end of week 0.  It did not go particularly well, but a lot of weird stuff happened.  My son broke his foot on Saturday, there was the holiday on Monday, and a lot of other nonsense.

 

Sunday:

No lifting, which is normal for Sunday:

0/4

calories no - there were DnD snacks involved

0/7

I'm pretty sure I didn't do any kneehab. 

0/5

 

Monday:

Finally lifting again!  Bench presses done.  More on this below.

1/4

Calories Yes. 

1/7

Kneehab No.  Good grief.  I really have to figure out how to remind myself to get this done.

0/5

 

And there we are.

 

So here's my over-thinking about programming for this week.

 

I am struggling a little bit with feeling like I'm taking the right approach to progressive overload.  I think the root of this problem is there definitely is more than one way to do it.  Stronger by Science did a whole article about this.  There have been a few studies on using load progression vs. set/rep progression, and long story short it doesn't really matter as far as strength/size gains are concerned, but that it does matter for what rep range you improve in - what you practice is what you improve.  They postulate that by practicing in various rep ranges, you can improve multiple rep ranges.  Sounds good to me. 

 

In August I worked on sets of 5, 4 or 5 sets per session for bench and 1 or 2 per session for deadlift.  I tried to add weight to the bar as often as I could, and I got good results with that.  In September, I'm actually dropping weight slightly and trying to work more on adding reps, and making sure I get 5 hard sets per session on bench, and two or possibly more on deadlift.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Nope.  That's just the beginning.

 

The tricky part comes in selecting weight for my sets.  Here's what I'm thinking.  The SbS guys have said in a couple of articles that what really matters for gains is hard sets per week.  They point out that 'hard set' means really hard - RPE 9 and up.  In order to get the minimum 10 sets in a week on bench, that means 5 per session which is fine, but if I'm doing 5 hard sets, the weight is going to go down from set to set, especially if I'm trying to get into the 7-9 rep range.  For example:  my session Monday looked like this:

 

215 x 8    215 x 5   205 x 6    205 x 6    195 x 6

 

I hit RPE 9 or 10 on every set, pushing as many reps as I could, to almost but not quite failure.  Also, I'm doing 3 min rests between sets, and that's been the same for several months.  So I think this is how it's meant to work - I don't think there's any way to hit the same weight and reps for 5 sets, if every set is a near-max effort.  In that session, I was actually hoping to get more reps than I did, and probably should have dropped even more weight in order to do so.  So the first question is - is this everyone's experience with this kind of effort-targeted approach to sessions?  Or am I missing something?  In a more traditional progression plan one would pick a weight and do sets across, and my experience with that was always that the sets would get harder as I went on through the session, until I was just barely making 5 reps on the last set.  Then the next session you either do the same thing or try to add weight if you're feeling sassy.  But I think that this might not be the best approach, because stopping short of max effort on the first few sets is not optimal, if I'm understanding the science correctly.

 

Am I totally off my nut?  Am I missing something obvious?  I'm going to go back to the SbS site and re-read some of this stuff, and see if I can find any details about this tucked away anywhere, but I don't remember them addressing this question directly.  Thoughts?

 

 

[Artemis Prime]

4 hours ago, Cheetah said:

They point out that 'hard set' means really hard - RPE 9 and up.  In order to get the minimum 10 sets in a week on bench, that means 5 per session which is fine, but if I'm doing 5 hard sets, the weight is going to go down from set to set, especially if I'm trying to get into the 7-9 rep range.

The SbS guys typically seem pretty up to date and solid on their data, but I've heard (and maybe the difference here is hypertrophy vs strength gains) that as long as you're at about 2RIR (which I think it typically considered RPE 8 or so, yes?) your sets are hard enough. And then the sets will get harder as you go, so if you aim for set 1 to be 8RPE, by set 5 you probably will be pushing 10. So maybe your first set needs to be a little lighter and then you'll be able to push through the others with less drop off.

But the drop off isn't necessarily bad. I haven't done a lot of this style of workout, but I do think dropping weight as you go isn't unusual in order to maintain the same RPE. It's my understanding that pushing close to failure = gains regardless of what the exact volume is. Although it's also true, to a point, that more volume = more gains, so I get wanting to add more reps in.

The other thing that occurred to me while reading your post is that you might want to look into myo reps. (Sorry if you're already familiar, but also could be helpful to anyone else reading the thread who's not.) Myo reps are basically you do your first set to max effort. On your following sets, you match those reps, taking mini rests in the middle of the set if you need to. So for benching, you crank out 8 reps at 215. The next set, you get 5, lock out your elbows and take a quick breather, then push out the next 3. Rack, rest, repeat. I haven't tried it myself yet, but it's in my toolbox as something to try whenever it feels like it's relevant to my progress.

 

Also...we need to talk about kneehab, Cheets. Pestering will continue until morale improves.

[Cheetah]

1 minute ago, Artemis Prime said:

The SbS guys typically seem pretty up to date and solid on their data, but I've heard (and maybe the difference here is hypertrophy vs strength gains) that as long as you're at about 2RIR (which I think it typically considered RPE 8 or so, yes?) your sets are hard enough. And then the sets will get harder as you go, so if you aim for set 1 to be 8RPE, by set 5 you probably will be pushing 10. So maybe your first set needs to be a little lighter and then you'll be able to push through the others with less drop off.

But the drop off isn't necessarily bad. I haven't done a lot of this style of workout, but I do think dropping weight as you go isn't unusual in order to maintain the same RPE. It's my understanding that pushing close to failure = gains regardless of what the exact volume is. Although it's also true, to a point, that more volume = more gains, so I get wanting to add more reps in.

The other thing that occurred to me while reading your post is that you might want to look into myo reps. (Sorry if you're already familiar, but also could be helpful to anyone else reading the thread who's not.) Myo reps are basically you do your first set to max effort. On your following sets, you match those reps, taking mini rests in the middle of the set if you need to. So for benching, you crank out 8 reps at 215. The next set, you get 5, lock out your elbows and take a quick breather, then push out the next 3. Rack, rest, repeat. I haven't tried it myself yet, but it's in my toolbox as something to try whenever it feels like it's relevant to my progress.

 

Yeah, I'm going back through a lot of their articles, and that checks.  Also, I think it's easy to fall into the 'optimal' trap - I suspect that the difference in gains over a long period of time between 3 RIR sets and 2 RIR sets is pretty small, esp. when you consider that estimating this during a session can be a little fiddly too.   Probably anywhere in the ballpark is going to get me more or less the results I'm looking for.  I should probably stop worrying about the details and just lift heavy stuff a lot.

 

11 minutes ago, Artemis Prime said:

kneehab,

 

You're not wrong.  I need to figure out how and when to work this into my daily routine.  I'm barely squeezing in lifting, and the kneehab is another 15-20 minutes that I often just don't have.  I'm beginning to think that I might just have to do it as part of bed time routine.  I'll try that this week and see how it goes.

[sylph]

9 minutes ago, Cheetah said:

Also, I think it's easy to fall into the 'optimal' trap - I suspect that the difference in gains over a long period of time between 3 RIR sets and 2 RIR sets is pretty small, esp. when you consider that estimating this during a session can be a little fiddly too.   Probably anywhere in the ballpark is going to get me more or less the results I'm looking for.  I should probably stop worrying about the details and just lift heavy stuff a lot.

This would have been my advice. Just do the thing (whatever thing you choose) consistently and with sincere effort). The rest is not worth worrying about, IMO, unless your life or livelihood requires it.

[Artemis Prime]

5 minutes ago, sylph said:

The rest is not worth worrying about, IMO, unless your life or livelihood requires it.

I was trying to think of a scenario where your life depends on it, and then I remembered this exchange from Agents of Shield:

Quote

"I don't ever want to do another pull-up again."
"You ever find yourself hanging off the edge of a building twenty stories up, you're gonna want to do at least one."

 

[sylph]

23 minutes ago, Artemis Prime said:

I was trying to think of a scenario where your life depends on it, and then I remembered this exchange from Agents of Shield:

 

I was more thinking along the lines of concurrent health things, like blood sugar crashes or easily dislocated joints or chronic fatigue stuff where you have to closely dial in a multitude of factors to avoid some catastrophic outcome. So I suppose I could've said "health or livelihood" but that didn't feel specific enough.

[Artemis Prime]

3 hours ago, Cheetah said:

I'm beginning to think that I might just have to do it as part of bed time routine.  I'll try that this week and see how it goes.

Sounds like a plan.

[Cheetah]

Tuesday:

 

Lifting No - I will still get all 4 in this week.  I just got lazy about it on Tuesday.

1/4

Calories Yes - I'm getting into a good groove with this.  It's a nice place to be.

2/7

Kneehab Yes - Finally!  Bedtime Kneehab was a success on day 1.  We'll see how it works in the longer term.

1/5

 

I did a little more reading, some re-reading, and found a few videos I had seen before, and I think I figured out where I was getting confused on rep ranges, weight selection, and intensity targets.  Most of the science-based fitness community is recommending 10 sets/wk as a good target for most people, with more advanced lifters working up more volume over time to keep progressing.  The intensity target for these sets seems to be 1-3 RIR.  However, in a video on a minimalist approach to lifting, Nippard pointed out a signifigant body of data that shows you can get something like 65% of the gains you'd get from 10 sets, by doing only 1-4 sets per week.  The caveat that he points out is in order to get this result, every work set needs to be taken very close or all the way to failure.  I think that in my mind, I was crossing these two things over, and had the idea that I needed 10+ sets of very high intensity.  So what does this mean for me?

 

Well, for starters it solves the Deadlift mystery.  For a while now I've wondered, if the recommendation is 10 sets/wk, why are there so many programs that use much less Deadlift volume than that, and still get good results?  I get that the reason for deadlifting less is because it's very taxing and harder to recover from and all that.... by why does it work with just a few sets/wk?  Now we know.  I suspect that if I train up my deadlift with lower weight, but gradually increasing volume for a training block, I could increase my work capacity on that lift, and transition into a pretty massive strength improvement block.  Just a thought, but it seems like it should work that way?

 

The other thing that it means is that, while getting 10 sets/wk for my bench press is pretty doable for me, I don't have to worry that I'm not getting any more than that.  And, if I only get 8 in one week, that's totally fine too.  I'll still be making progress as long as my sets are all getting into the 3-1 RIR... and honestly, I tend to push a little harder than that anyway.  I've gotten pretty good at knowing when I'm grinding out my very last full rep, and the next one just ain't happening.  And, if there's an accessory, say Curls, that I can only get in a couple of sets in a week.... that's still progress! 

 

The other other thing is, I feel better about doing the same weight across 5 sets, if my first set is a few more reps and slightly less intensity, and the last set is fewer reps and maximum intensity.  Which, you know... is how people have been training for decades.  Go figure.  Look, it's NERD fitness, you can't blame me for trying to re-invent the wheel with science.  Or something.

 

So let's talk program.  I'm still focusing on Bench Press and Dead Lift, with occasional accessories sprinkled in as time permits - this will mostly be curls and rows.

 

For Deadlift, as I mentioned, I want to back off of weight and work on volume.  For the last block, I was doing 1 heavy set of 5, twice a week, and adding weight every time.  I got up to 265 for my last two sessions, but it was really really heavy.  I'm comfortable calling that good progress for a strength block, and a good place to switch gears.  This week I'm taking it pretty easy.  This morning I did 2x5x135, and it felt great.  I'll do that again on Friday and call it good.  After that.... I'm not so sure.  I'll have to do some more reading and think about how to accomplish my goal for this block, which honestly is a little vague even for me.

 

For Bench Press, I'm basically going to keep doing what I'm doing.  5 sets twice a week, gradually nudging up weight and reps across the sets.  I'm dropping a little weight so I can get into the 7-9 rep range, rather than just doing 5's.  My goal is to eventually work up to hitting 225 for 5 sets of 7-9 reps.  I'm really not sure how long that will take, so we'll see where I end up at the end of 5 weeks.

 

I think that's all the thoughts I have for today.  If you read all that, blessings on you.

[Artemis Prime]

1 hour ago, Cheetah said:

Kneehab Yes - Finally!  Bedtime Kneehab was a success on day 1.  We'll see how it works in the longer term.

1/5

Well done.

 

1 hour ago, Cheetah said:

I suspect that if I train up my deadlift with lower weight, but gradually increasing volume for a training block, I could increase my work capacity on that lift, and transition into a pretty massive strength improvement block.  Just a thought, but it seems like it should work that way?

No expert, but from what I understand, yes, it should work that way. I've always avoided "hypertrophy" rep ranges just because that wasn't my primary goal, but my recent research indicates that best gains come from alternating high volume block to build capacity with high intensity blocks to maximize strength. With regular deload periods in there to manage fatigue.

 

1 hour ago, Cheetah said:

The other thing that it means is that, while getting 10 sets/wk for my bench press is pretty doable for me, I don't have to worry that I'm not getting any more than that. 

I suspect 10 sets/week is...not all that crucial. Maybe a good goal number to start with and adjust from there, But I'd say it's probably one of those things where if you find it helpful, then fine, but if it's becoming a distraction you can probably toss it out the window. Or possibly one of those things where very elite lifters who really need to dial everything in to keep making gains can see benefit from, but which in practical terms doesn't make much of a difference to recreational lifters. 

 

[Laghail]

Big fan of the lifting and the exercise science nerdery. Hella following!

[Cheetah]

Wednesday:

 

Lifting - Yes.  Light DL as mentioned above.

2/4

Calories - Yes. 

3/7

Kneehab - Yes, at bed time again. 

2/5

 

I'm debating getting my lifting plan down on a spreadsheet, just so I can solidify the plan.  Right now it all feels sort of vague and nebulous and abstract, because I've had so many thoughts about it.  I think writing it up, even though really it's a very simple plan, will help make it concrete.  It will also help me stick to the initial choices I make, so that I can give it time to work and see what the results are.  Ya, I think that's the thing to do.  I should have time to work on it today.

[Artemis Prime]

8 minutes ago, Cheetah said:

I'm debating getting my lifting plan down on a spreadsheet, just so I can solidify the plan.

When in doubt, spreadsheet it out!

[Cheetah]

Thursday

 

Lifting No

2/4

Calories No

3/7

Kneehab No

2/5

 

 

[Artemis Prime]

Good job showing up here with an honest report. I know a lot of us have bailed on challenges over the years as soon as we don't have successes to post, and that is not the way to improvement. Anything you can do to prioritize kneehab today?

[Cheetah]

8 hours ago, Artemis Prime said:

Good job showing up here with an honest report. I know a lot of us have bailed on challenges over the years as soon as we don't have successes to post, and that is not the way to improvement. Anything you can do to prioritize kneehab today?

 

Thank you for the encouragement. 

 

Yes, kneehab will definitely get done tonight.  I have my evening clear, so my wife and I will both lift weights, and I'll get the kneehab done, and finish the slide-out drawers I'm building for our kitchen cabinets.  It will be a busy night, but it will all get done.

[Yuen]

Impressive bench numbers you are putting up!

 

I know what you mean about finding it hard to squeeze another 15-20mins per day for the knee rehab. But in the long term it probably makes sense to prioritise this even over your time spent lifting (ie you can't progress if you are injured).  Good luck Cheetah!

[Cheetah]

Weekend Update!

 

Friday

Lifting - yes - I got back on the bench.  I've decided to use 215 as my volume weight, sets across with rep/set increases.  Friday I got 3 sets of 6 reps, and cut short because something came up.  But that's 8 sets for the week and I'm totally good with it.

3/4

Calories - yes - I was actually a little under; Friday was seriously weird food-wise.  More below

4/7

Kneehab - no - I was off of my routines, and didn't get this in

2/5

 

Friday we had another Jet Camp at my school, where we have a class of 5th graders come for a field trip for a few hours.  They get to play with airplanes, make a little sheetmetal plane with pop rivets, we run an engine outside, and fly little drones around the engine shop.  It's a blast, but it's a ton of work and totally exhausting.  It also threw me off of food routine.  Then Friday night I spent all night, into late hours, finishing a project in my kitchen.  I build some slide-out drawers for our lower kitchen cabinets.  It's awesome now that it's done, but that also was a lot of work, and I didn't get kneehab done, because honestly I just forgot about it.

 

Saturday

Lifting - yes - I did not deadlift.  More below.  But I did get three good sets of quad extensions.  I'm so glad I bought that bench.

4/4

Calories - hahahano

4/7

Kneehab - Yes

3/5

 

I think at the end of August I went a little overboard, and I still haven't fully recovered from that strain.  So I'm taking it very easy.  It's so difficult with deadlifts to find the line between working hard enough to keep making progress, but not too hard so that it takes three weeks to recover from a workout.  I have not got the balance of this worked out yet.  Any advice would be appreciated.

 

Okay, so the totals for the challenge so far are:

Lifting - 6/8 - 75%

Calories - 8/14 - 57%

Kneehab - 4/10 - 40%

Trend Weight - 221.5 lbs.  It's not a part of the challenge, but I thought it would be worth mentioning here anyway.  It's still moving down at more or less the rate I want, although better adherence will help that - obviously.

 

I'm going to have to pick it up if I want to make any goals for this challenge.  The last week was really hard in a lot of non-fitness related areas, which is not an excuse, it's just an explanation.  Those things matter and they have an impact.  But I'm feeling very positive and motivated this week, so I know that I will do well, and the numbers will all come up.

 

New Week:

 

Sunday

lift - no - Sunday is usually a rest day

0/4

Cals - yes - I did really well with this

1/7

Knee - no - Sunday is also a rest from this

0/5

 

So there we are.  Let Week 2 begin.

[Artemis Prime]

1 hour ago, Cheetah said:

I have not got the balance of this worked out yet.  Any advice would be appreciated.

I'm not lifting heavy enough yet to be running into this problem, but based on the SBS programming I've been looking at, it looks like their strategy is to do most of your deadlifting in the 75-85% 1RM range and add on variations like rack pulls and RDLs to increase volume.