Getting on track.

Edenexodus

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What's up dudes?

I've been working out quite a while, had high hopes, then got married, had a kid, priorities changed, the usual story. So I'm working to get back on track I've spent the last year or so working out, but without any really defined goals in mind and without that structure I kinda went in circles not getting anywhere.

So I have some goals:

Weight: 175lbs (currently 157lbs)
Body fat: according to my app 13%-13.5%
Squat: 345lbs (256lbs just haven't pushed it)
Bench: 225lbs (215lbs current)
Deadlift: 400lbs (315 current)

I eat keto because my wife has epilepsy and uses a medical keto diet to keep from having seizures and to support her I do it as well, at times I'm not as strict with it but I'm usually pretty fastidious with it.

My workout consists of Strongur big six, currently it's a split of:

Day A:

Squat
Bench
Bent over rows

Day B:

Deadlift
Military Press
Pull-ups

I usually do Sunday, Tuesday, Friday

The app changes reps, weights, rest times and such for me, so as long as I stay with it things should go well.

I'm posting this log to help me keep things on track, find some support among like minded individuals, as well as impart what little I've learned over the last seven years of lifting.

Some comments about me. I'm Muslim so if you see comments like "in shaa Allah" this is used to mean god willing if it's something I intend to do but haven't done yet, I may also reference fasting, prayer times, I'll try to keep it understandable.

Im twenty-nine, I've been married for five years, I have a two year old daughter, and I workout in a glorified shed that's around 280sq ft that has my barbell, power rack, bench rack, bench, kettle bells and various power lifting implements.

After all that I hope you guys are all well, that you find this log interesting, I sometimes update frequently, totally open to questions or advice that is constructive.

Nice to meet you all.
 

Edenexodus

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Squat:

(Warmups)

175lbs X 5
160lbs X 10 (3 more in reserve)
135lbs X 13 (3 more in reserve

Bench:

(Warmups)

145lbs X 6
135lbs X 12 (3 more in reserve)
105lbs X 16 (3 more in reserve)

Bent row:

(Warmups)

155lbs X 5
140lbs X 12 (3 more in reserve)
115lbs X 18 (3 more in reserve)

Warmups on there are their own things I didn't list their weights but it follows a 5, 5, 5, 3, 2 rep scheme. The list weights with sets are the actual working sets.


Alright alhamdulilah (praise god), that's the last workout for Ramadan and the first time I've made it through the whole month of Ramadan working out. Ramadan is the month of fasting, no food, water, sex, bad manners from sun up to sun down, I usually workout right before the time to break fast.

Anyway, I'm not sure what the app is doing as those reps were low, the weight was low as well. I think the app got confused because it told me to change phases from heavier weight for 8-12 reps but only one set, to slightly less weight for three sets of fifteen or more. So I failed pretty good and so now it probably thinks I'm all gimpy and need a break.

Food for the day is as follows for those interested:

2,087 calories
135g protein
46g carbs (18 of which are fiber)
161g fat

Supplements:

5g creatine
5g beta-alanine
250mg resveratrol
1 animal pak

Going up to maintenance calories from a deficit has given me more energy, helped with muscle recovery but I haven't seen any weight change, it's only been a few days so I'll see what's up later in shaa Allah, I hope to gain about 1lb or around there per week. I plan to average the week out to give me how much I'm gaining and I'll probably adjust at two weeks or a month in shaa Allah.
 

Edenexodus

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Today was Eid-ul-fitr which is the celebration of the end of Ramadan, there's a huge group prayer, sermon and celebration. I have off the next three days from work. I think they said one thousand people showed up to the prayer so I got so see a lot of the new people I've met. We also went to a sushi place that my dad, brother and I used to go to, my dad really loved the place which was kinda hard with his condition now, we have been going there over twenty years now so I had a sort of cheat meal. I ordered two sushi rolls, some miso soup, crab cheese dip and tempura cheesecake.

My wife had been there once before but didn't get to eat much that time, my daughter was pretty interested in the whole affair as it was the first time she has been to a sit down restaurant like that.

So the workout.

Deadlifts:

(Warmups)

230lbs X 12 (2 reps in reserve)
205lbs X 8 (4 reps in reserve)
165lbs X 18 (3 reps in reserve)

Military Press:

(Warmups)

110lbs X 11 (2 reps in reserve)
100lbs X 7 (no reps)
80lbs X 10 (no reps)

Pull-ups:

BW + 15lbs X 8 (no reps)
BW X 12 (2 reps in reserve)
BW - 30lbs X 12 (2 reps in reserve)

The deadlifts and stuff were killing me, rest times were 90 seconds and I count time lowering the weight against the rest period so if it takes me a minute to take off weight, then usually I'll start setting up to lift again so that by the time I get set up it's time to go again.

I was pretty happy with 230lbs X 12 on deadlifts, wanted more but can only do what I can do lol.

Diet is interesting today as I'm not fasting for Ramadan, and also not intermittent fasting because during eid-up-fitr which lasts usually three days, it's not recommended to do anything that might be seen as fasting during eid. So I usually intermittent fast 20hrs - 22hrs a day anyway so I haven't been doing that.

Carbs made me feel kinda lethargic while my body was digesting all the stuff I ate and I feel like it was kinda messing with my lifting but it should pass in shaa Allah. I plan to finish out another meal and my macros should be about:

2,612 calories
128g protein
169g carbohydrate
163g fat
 

Edenexodus

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I read a little more about dosing Beta-alanine, from what I gathered it's more effective if you dose it a few times a day, than if you are dosing it all at once. I had been dosing it 3g-5g post workout with 5g-7g creatine, Vitamins, Resveratrol and all that. Today I dosed 1g Beta-alanine, with about 2g-3g creatine thirty or so minutes before my workout, then I did about the same again after my workout, and I plan to do that much again probably before breakfast tomorrow, in shaa allah. Creatine, and Beta-alanine are so inexpensive that I'm not too worried about using small amounts more than I intend to, I could pull out my gram scale, but I only did that today to get a rough estimate of how much was 1g on my scoop.

Workout:

Squat:

(warm-ups)

180lbs X 14 (3 Reps in Reserve)
160lbs X 16 (3RIR)
130lbs X 12 (0 RIR)

by the third set my legs were pretty tired, the rest time was ninety seconds, and so I would tell my legs to do things, and not much happened. It's a mental game for the most part of keeping myself focused while doing these types of days.

Bench:

(warm-ups)

150lbs X 13 (2 RIR)
135lbs X 14 (2 RIR)
110lbs X 15 (2 RIR)

Bent over rows:

(warm-ups)

160lbs X 15 (3 RIR)
145lbs X 18 (2 RIR)
115lbs X 20 (3 RIR)


Workout went pretty well, felt a lot of exhaustion after about halfway through, ended up being able to pull through, I think the Beta-alanine and creatine pre-workout helped, but I need more times to see if that's true or not.

Diet, is still not my usual, I'm back to eating keto, but I am having meals throughout the day which is unusual for me, and I don't like it. I have a slight headache most the day, and feel lethargic from the food I've eaten. I plan to keep eating around maintenance for another week, then I think I will probably bump to 250-500 calories surplus and see what happens with that. Strength is still going up slowly so I can't complain there.

Weight 156.8lbs

Diet:

Cals: 2,109
138g Protein
49g Carbohydrate (21 of which are fiber, 28g net carb)
162g Fat
 

Edenexodus

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Workout:

Deadlift:

(Warmups)

235lbs x 5 (3 rir)
210lbs x 6 (5 rir)
170lbs x 8 (3 rir)

Military Press:

(Warmups)

110lbs x 5 (2 rir)
100lbs x 8 (3 rir)
80lbs x 11 (3 rir)

Pull-ups

Bw + 35lbs x 5 (3 rir)
Bw + 15lbs x 8 (3 rir)
Bw - 15lbs x 11 (3 rir)

I switched to working out every other day because I feel pretty well recovered by then so wanted to give it a go to see if I can get more in. So far feel pretty good, need a little foam rolling maybe an epsom salt bath every other week but load feels good and it feels like I'm progressing. Weight is staying pretty steady at 157lbs-158lbs. I think 2,100cals-2,200cals is a pretty good maintenance for me.

My calculator is still saying I'm around 13.5% body fat but I'm seeing more veins recently so things may be leveling out. I'm undecided if I want to maintain till Tuesday then add in 250cals - 500cals to add muscle or cut about the same amount to get down a few percent body fat.


Diet:

2,167 calories
135g protein
43g carbohydrate (22g being fiber)
166g fat
 

Edenexodus

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Workout:

Squat:

(warmups)

185lbs x 3 (5 rir)
165lbs x 12 (5 rir)
135lbs x 16 (3 rir)

Bench Press:

(warmups)

155lbs x 3 (5 rir)
140lbs x 13 (3 rir)
115lbs x 20 (3 rir)

Bent over Row:

(warmups)

165lbs x 3 (3 rir)
150lbs x 13 (3 rir)
120lbs x 18 (2 rir)

The rows were making my lower back feel a little off, but nothing that was too out of the ordinary, or that would have been unsafe. I'm still working out every other day, my app hasn't yelled at me, it's actually able to track and predict my recovery, which currently says is way faster than I would have expected. I guess at the weights I'm dealing with there's not a huge amount of muscle breakdown going on.

Body weight has been staying right around 157lbs, excluding weird variations that go away within a day which I assume is from weird water intake, or a really stressful day. Lifting and eating have been going well, I still feel like I'm getting slightly leaner day by day, but not much, so I will probably up calorie intake a small amount and see what happens with my muscle gain, I would like to get better increases in strength, with some muscle gains, but who knows how well the muscle gains will go with as long as I have been working out, but since weights have been low I'm optimistic.

Diet:

Diet is still usual keto, I've been watching my carbs a little closer, usually keeping under 40g total, removing fiber it's usually around 20g-30g per day, I don't feel like I need more than that, and my cravings for non-keto foods hasn't really been there.

Cals: 2,070
Protein: 139g
Carbohydrates: 36g (16 fiber, 20 net)
Fat: 159g

Moving into other things, recovery work is going well, foam rolling most days, stretching stuff like that. Low back is still tight and I think I'm going to use some kind of accessory work on it, to try to strengthen it up, as well as stretch it to see if I can get it to loosen up, otherwise it's going to keep giving my just tiny issues.
 

Edenexodus

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Workout:

Deadlift:

(warmups)

240lbs x 12 (1 rir)
215lbs x 8 (2 rir)
175lbs x 12 (3 rir)

The deadlifts went well, and the app I use said I was well recovered, only trouble I really had was that my bar is cheap, and so the knurling on it doesn't dig into my hands much because it's not sharp. I would like to get a new bar, but those are pricey, and I made a deal with myself that I'm not going to get random expensive stuff unless I'm going to stick to this for the long term. I've been working out for a long time but there's a certain level of dedication I want to keep up. Anyway, due to one of my other deals, I now get a fan out in the shed I train in, so that's pretty rad since it's usually in the 90'sF/32C out when I workout. I have some portable ac units that I could use but I would need to fix the windows.

Military Press:

(warmups)

120lbs x 7 (0 rir)
110lbs x 8 (0 rir)
95lbs x 8 (0 rir)

These didn't go as well as I wanted, shoulders were just giving out. I think this was from the deadlift effort. I was going for sets of ten or more.

Pullups:

BW + 20lbs x 9 (0 rir)
BW x 8 (0 rir)
BW -30lbs x 8 (0 rir)

Diet:

Calories: 2,185
Protein: 140g
Carbohydrates: 41g (18 of which were fiber, 23g net)
Fat: 172g

I've been looking into whole food substitutes for my supplements, like getting rid of the multivitamin, possibly replacing it with specific foods, as well as Beef liver powder, liver powder actually has a decent bit of protein per weight, 7g protein per 10g of powder, for comparison, my whey protein is about 7.5g protein per 10g, I would guess the macro, and micro nutrient profile of liver powder to be better than Whey protein powder considering liver is a whole food sort of, while whey is less so, but I'm still looking into it. I also plan to get ricotta for whey protein, but if the absorption rate is that much better with liver powder, and other food items, that alone may make a difference as a lot of multivitamins don't use the full spectrum of vitamins, or minerals, or use inferior quality versions that the body doesn't a readily absorb. At any rate, it's something that I'm mulling over, and will work on adding in if it seems worthwhile.
 

Edenexodus

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Workout:

Squats:

190lbs x 13 (3 rir)
170lbs x 15 (2 rir)
140lbs x 11 (5+ rir)

Didn't get more reps on last set because my quads were pumped like crazy and it was getting painful, I was pretty intrigued that I got such a pump being on keto.

Bench:

160lbs x 10 (1 rir)
145lbs x 10 (3 rir)
115lbs x 14 (3 rir)

Same thing here set two and three could have been more but my chest was pumped to the point of being painful. I'll have to focus more because it's a mental game with working through it.

Bent row:

170lbs x 12 (3 rir)
155lbs x 15 (2 rir)
125lbs x 18 (2 rir)

These felt good, first set got a little sloppy toward the end, but tempo was good, I could really feel the muscles working which was nice.

I switched over to working out in the morning for my major workout and have been sort of toying with super high rep pump stuff for lagging body parts at night (biceps, triceps, middle and rear delts), I also foam roll and stretch before bed. The morning works well for me for the major workout because I'm fresh, have energy, and I feel like working out then spending the day moving will help stretch things back out. Whereas with a night workout I workout then lay in a bed asleep, which makes my muscles tighter I think.

Diet:

I happened upon Vince Gironda with his steak and egg diets, stuff like that, so I've been experimenting with lots of eggs, meat, beef liver ect. I found instinctively eating these things puts me around 2,500 calories which is a slight bulking amount for me so I'm going to give that a go for a week or two and see how it feels. I keep track of my calories, try not to get direct carbs, or sweeten anything. Also I eat a large salad at night, with kale, veggies I want some spinach, also homemade dressing. Also to clarify I'm not eating just steak and eggs I took away eating meats, eggs, cream or half and half, real pasture butter, nuts, veggies ect. So I usually have eggs, chicken, butter, and some nuts. Another meal was a large salad with herring, more eggs and some cream.

Diet:

2,544

Protein:184g
Carbohydrates:49g (16g fiber, 33g net)
Fat:170g

Bw: 156.2lbs
Bf%: 13.2 or something.
 

Edenexodus

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Workout:

Deadlift:

245lbs x 4 (4 rir)
220lbs x 9 (3 rir)
180lbs x 12 (5 rir)

Military Press:

120lbs x 3 (2 rir)
110lbs x 7 (3 rir)
95lbs x 11 (3 rir)

Pullups:

BW + 65lbs x 2 Failure
BW + 45lbs X 4 (2 rir)
BW x 12 (4 rir)

Workout went good, felt a lot stronger on all of these, and considering about a month and a half ago my max for deadlift was 225lbs for a struggling 3 reps, 245lbs for a easy 4, and a few weeks ago 12-14 reps with 240lbs, I'm happy with that progress. My pullup has gotten a lot better, even the two/three I did today with 65lbs weighted was way better than usual, and the body weight pull ups I did I could have done more, but I still just have muscle pump going on.

Diet:

Nothing.

Currently dry fasting, so I'll keep things updated there, I've been checking my ketones, and blood sugar sorta regularly over the last day or so, because I wanted to see what was going on. My average blood sugar is 85, and my ketones are around .6mmol - .7mmol. I noticed that right after my workout my blood sugar had gone from 84, up to 124, so I went grocery shopping with my daughter, came back and it was down again to 84. I was pretty happy with .7mmol ketones yesterday considering I'm eating 3 meals a day, and around 175g protein. I also supplement in a few grams of protein every two hours or so from liver powder, and that doesn't seem to be messing with my ketones, or blood sugar in any real way.
 

Edenexodus

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Workout:

Squat:

195lbs x 8 (5+ rir)
175lbs x 12 (3 rir)
140lbs x 16 (4 rir)

Bench:

165lbs x 8 (2 rir)
150lbs x 11 (2 rir)
135lbs x 15 (3 rir)

Bent row:

175lbs x 8 (5 rir)
160lbs x 12 (5 rir)
135lbs x 20 (3 rir)

Workout was great felt strong and want to load more on squat but I'm trying not to get ahead of myself.

I had finished a dry fast experiment, went three days with no food or water and had started rehydrating and eating last night, worked out this morning. I don't know the accuracy but a few places put my bodyfat around 8%-10% I don't know if I just have terrible ab genetics or what but I can see my top abs but not lowers, however I have slight feathering in my teardrops and intercostals are pretty pronounced when flexing and quite a bit of arm veins.

Body weight is around 150.6lbs. Lowest it got was 149lbs. Highest ketones I saw was 4.1mmol and lowest blood sugar was 67.
 

Edenexodus

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Workout:

Deadlift:

215lbs x 15 failure
195lbs x 13 failure
160lbs x 18 failure

Military Press:

100lbs x 13 failure
95lbs x 9 failure
75lbs x 12 failure

Pull-ups:

Bw -15lbs x 15 failure
Bw -30lbs x 13 failure
Bw -30lbs x 14 failure

I did these pulling my chest to the bar since I read that it's more effective so I tried to touch or get my chest as close to the bar as I could.

Front squat:

95lbs x 8 (1 rir) x 4

I logged one rep left, but could have done a lot more, this is the first time adding in secondary work so I didn't want the program to overload me.

Incline dumbbell Press:

70lbs x 8 (1 rir) x 2
30lbs x 10 (2 rir)

These are combined weight for the dumbells. So first two sets were with 35lbs dumbells, third set with 15lbs dumbells because I only have a set of 15lbs, 20lbs and 35lbs. I have some handles but I need more plates.

Ab wheel:

15 reps x 4

I had to do these on my knees instead of on my toes because my core is too weak to extend my arms like that, but I'm excited to see how these improve things with the stretch and angles.

Tempo on these killed me today at one minute between sets so I did the whole workout in thirty six minutes. I was also in a hurry because I needed to shower, eat and shop before work this morning at seven.


Diet:

I'm doing a carb up today since I talked to my buddy and I'm flat which I'm horrible at telling when I'm flat but at 20g carbs per day for about a month I expected it. I plan in shaa Allah to have about a 200g carb up low fat meal as my second meal today. I had my post workout shake, then worked out and I'm going to do the carb up in a few hours.

Going to eat a few bananas, sweet and sour chicken and rice and some haribo gummi bears, if that doesn't fill me up when I check tomorrow in shaa Allah next time I'll probably do a cheat day because I tend to get too flat and then need longer than one meal to carb up but we will see.

Weight is around 155lbs - 156lbs
My workout app says I'm 12.7% body fat but measurements say 8.2%

At any rate my waist is 29 inches lol.
 

Edenexodus

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Workout for 7/15/17

Squat:

170lbs x 15 (2 Rir)
155lbs x 18 (1 rir)
125lbs x 16 (1 rir)

These has my legs so pumped I was rushing to bench to try and get blood moved to another muscle group.

Bench:

145lbs x 15 failure
130lbs x 12 failure
105lbs x 11 failure

Bench just wasn't doing it today, don't know why, I have a slight soreness in my left shoulder which I think is from rowing that is making my bench not right. Another problem I'm encountering is just the pump is so strong now that I'm carb loading from time to time that inhibits my ability to move the weight.

Bent row:

155lbs x 15 failure
140lbs x 16 failure
115lbs x 18 failure

Recently too I've been dialing in the focus on the movement, keeping things strict and connecting to the muscle I'm trying to build. I think these small changes are having a positive effect on my body but make the workouts harder.

Tricep dips:

Bw + 20lbs x 8 x 2

Lying leg curls:

90lbs x 8 x 4

Reverse hyper:

Bw + 45lbs x 8 x 4

The addition of secondaries is also making my body react a lot, considering I'm moving 25% - 50% more weight per workout I'm impressed with the results.


Diet:

Calories: 2,609

Protein: 197g
Carbohydrates: 49g (4g fiber 45g net)
Fat: 183g

Bw: 156.2lbs
 

Edenexodus

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Today

Workout

Deadlift:

220lbs x 9 (2 rir)
200lbs x 16 (2 rir)
160lbs x 23 (1 rir)

Military Press:

100lbs x 11 (2 rir)
90lbs x 13 (1 rir)
75lbs x 14 (0 rir)

Pullups:

BW x 8 (3 rir)
BW - 15lbs x 10 (1 rir)
BW - 30lbs x 9 (1 rir)

I perform these pulling to my mid chest, not until my chin is near the bar.

Front Squat:

95 x 8 (3 rir) x 4

Incline Dumbbell Press:

70lbs (35lbs set of dumbbells) x 8 (2 rir) x 4

Ab wheel x 15 x 3

The workouts are really effective and I feel good after them, the pump I'm getting is really strong.

Diet

Calories 3,838
Protein: 221g
Carbohydrates: 271g
Fat: 204g

BW: 156.6lbs
 

Edenexodus

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Workout:

Bent barbell row:

125lbs x 5 (2 rir)
150lbs x 5 (3 rir)
155lbs x 10 (3 rir)
165lbs x 10 (2 rir)
190lbs x 6 (1 rir)
160lbs x 10 (3 rir)
170lbs x 8 failure
195lbs x 5 (1 rir)

Barbell bench press:

110lbs x 6 (3 rir)
135lbs x 5 (5 rir)
135lbs x 10 (3 rir)
145lbs x 10 (2 rir)
165lbs x 3 failure
140lbs x 9 failure
150lbs x 5 (1 rir)
170lbs x 4 failure

These were supposed to be decline but my arms are too short to reach the bar at the lowest bar setting. If I can find a stable way to raise the bench I'll do that.

Dumbbell lateral raise: weights are dumbbells combined weight.

40lbs x 5 x 2
70lbs x 10 x 2
40lbs x 6
40lbs x 10
30lbs x 8
40lbs x 5

Standing calf raise:

60lbs x 5
70lbs x 5
70lbs x 10
75lbs x 10
90lbs x 6
75lbs x 10
80lbs x 8
90lbs x 5

Knee raise crunch:

20 x 3

Table crunch:

12 x 3

Double up:

10 x 3

This workout is essentially the beginner workout from. Vince Gironda's book with modifications since I don't have pulleys. My plan is to do this for three weeks with increasing intensity as possible, then take a week off and then test my maxes for bench, deadlift and squat. Going to do a two day on, one day off, two day on two day off schedule.

Diet:

Diet is really low carb usually around 30g - 40g, protein usually in the 200's with fat around the 170's unless I'm doing a carb load which is usually on Sunday. I tried two carb loads in one week and it felt like too much.

Calories: 2,778
Protein: 226g
Carbohydrates: 35g (4 fiber, 31 net)
Fat: 191g

Weight: 157.4lbs

Weight according to logging right now is going up around .8lbs a week which is good for me, I want a real slow gain and don't want to gain a ton of fat.

Additionally. The workout is running a hypertrophy wave the first two days which consists of a full body workout just split over two days because all in one day would be way too much time. The second set of workouts are hypertrophy strength wave, then the weights go up and back to hypertrophy only.

I've been doing a lot of postural correction trying to retrain rounded forward shoulders from years of playing video games and what not as well as slight anterior pelvic tilt. The correction for shoulders consists of wearing a band around my shoulders from time to time that manually pulls my shoulders back. I usually wear this a little in the evening and while working out. Band pull aparts are also another way I help to strengthen and retrain the area. This has helped to alleviate sore shoulders and seems to have helped increase blood flow to my arms. While my hips are an issue I've been stretching them and working to correct the improper tilt which seems best helped by suspending yourself upside down with a large band but I don't have one large enough so I hope to get one soon. In shaa Allah.
 

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