Training -- Tue 30/07/2013

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
2x72.5kg
2x82.5kg
2x87.5kg
2x92.5kg -- I like it when I take my old 1RM and do it more than once.
5x72.5kg

L-Pull Ups

5x6xBW

OHP/Pendlay Row

3x10x20kg/15x40kg

Training -- Mon 29/07/2013

Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x60kg
5x80kg
3x100kg
2x120kg
2x135kg
2x142.5kg
2x147.5kg -- I have a good feeling about the upcoming comp.
6x120kg

RDL/Calf Raise

3x10x65kg/10x300lb

GHR/Calf Raise

10xGreen/10x300lb
10xGreen/10x260lb
6xGreen/10x260lb

Training -- Thur and Fri 25-26/07/2013

Thursday

Front Squat

10xBW

10x20kg -- Threw the bar up into my chin once or twice; good fun.

5x40kg

2x5x60kg

Pause Squat

5x80kg

5x100kg

2x3x112.5kg

Deadlift

10x60kg

5x100kg

2x130kg

1x150kg

4x1x165kg -- This was supposed to be 2x3. Not happy, Jan.

3x100kg

3x110kg

3x120kg

3x130kg

3x140kg

3x150kg

Friday

Bench Press/L-Pull Ups

10x20kg/6xBW

5x40kg/6xBW

10x65kg/6xBW

9x65kg/6xBW

8x65kg/6xBW

OHP/Seated Row

10x20kg/10x20kg

8x30kg/10x30kg

8x30kg/10x40kg

8x30kg/20x40kg

Training -- Tue 23/07/2013

Yesterday's Squat PB

Bench Press

10x20kg

5x40kg

3x60kg

1x70kg

1x80kg

2x3x87.5kg

5x77.5kg

12x60kg

CGBP/Pull Ups

--/8xBW

2x5x55kg/8xBW

Cable Row

4x10x50kg

Training -- Mon 22/07/2013

Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x50kg
5x70kg
3x90kg
1x110kg
1x120kg
1x127.5kg
1x135kg -- I figured I hadn't done any heavy squats in over a week, so I should probably be slower warming up to get into the groove. Turns out it also helped with actually being, you know, warm.
3x142.5kg -- For those of your playing at home, that's my old PB from competition. Nick recorded it, hopefully I'll be linking the video back here later.
2x142.5kg -- Went for a 3rd rep, stayed fairly stationary about an inch above the bottom before Scott helped me back up.
5x127.5kg
12x95kg -- Could have done more, doesn't matter.

RDL

3x10x60kg

GHR/Calf Raise

10xGreen/10x340lb
2x8xGreen/8x340lb

Mid Year Camp and Some Exercise: Spiritual and Physical Training

So, I spent the last week, from Sunday afternoon to Friday afternoon, on MYC, a bible camp put together by AFES (Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students). It was about 90% bible and 10% camp, making the first couple days feel more like bible college than camp, but I'm not complaining, even though it was mentally exhausting. On Wednesday, after a discussion on what it means to be a missionary (turns out you don't have to go to impoverished nations to bring food and the bible to be a missionary, turns out by definition all Christians are missionaries wherever we are) in the lobby area of the camp site, I picked up the lamo-brand barbell in the lobby, stuck some weights on the side and did supersets of OHP and BOR with about 40-45kg (based on the assumption that the bar was 5-10kg). Got a dirty look by one of the people running the camp site while I was at it. I wonder what sort of reaction I'd have gotten with jerks and Pendlay rows...

I played basketball one day. In our small teams, I was chosen for wearing a shirt that says: "I'm multi-talented: I can talk and annoy you at the same time." I guess the team leader didn't know that amongst my multiple talents, basketball, and indeed all ball sports, are nowhere to be found. I lost count of how many hoops the other team scored, but I distinctly recall my team scoring 0. There was a river walk at 7:15am on Thursday. I got up early for it, but also spent time beforehand making myself pretty by shaving, which resulted in me arriving at 7:20am, at which point whoever was going for the walk was gone. I ran to wherever I could see water from the dining hall, which meant about 20min of fasted cardio, but did not find any signs of human life. So I called it quits and opted for breakfast, over which I had a great deep and meaningful conversation, including a lot of edification and encouragement, and some effective kicking in the rear end. A few more deep and meanfinguls occurred in the latter half of the week, including staying up 2 hours after normal camp bed time with a small group macho-looking young men (eg one looks like a football player and probably is, one has a beard that every man is secretly envious of) talking about our dads. One of the guys started the night with a cup of coffee and ended the night with a cup of tears and snot, according to his own words. Much more enriching conversation than "So...what do you study?" Along the way, I got a look at some of the big blind spots that are ignored in my church communities, so now I get to be a man on a mission, and just as I've gotten a few good kicks in the butt on camp, I intend on giving a few good, swift kicks in the butt to my brothers in the near future. Action is good.

Even though I have a car of my own, I opted to get a lift from other campers to and from the site (my car's not great for bringing passengers and their luggage, and I have the geographic sensibilities of a carrot). The girl who drove me and a couple others from my church community home discovered that the added weight of people + luggage makes an uphill start a trickier game. Long story short, I was happy to give her whatever cash I had to go a tiny way towards helping with the costs of repairs to her vehicle.

This morning I went to the gym and did the most disgusting thing anyone's ever done: a conditioning session. Went away feeling all worked out and good in just under an hour. Despicable.

Skipping
About a minute or 2 of flailing about.

Sled Drag
100m x 20kg
100m x 30kg
Several sets (wasn't really counting; something like 6) x 50m x 40kg

Log Press/Cable Row
10x11kg/10x50kg
10x16kg/10x50kg
10x21kg/10x50kg
10x26kg/10x50kg
2x10x31kg/10x50kg

Body Weight Box Squats
5x5

Training -- Fri 12/07/2013

Squat

10xBW
10x20kg
5x70kg
3x100kg
1x120kg
3x4x135kg
5x127.5kg
6+2x110kg

Bench Press/Pull Ups/GHR

10x20kg/8xBW/9xGreen
5x40kg/8xBW/9xGreen
3x10x62.5kg/8xBW/9xGreen

Incline DBBP/Barbell Row

2x10x10kg/10x50kg

And now to enjoy a week off. Head out to camp on Sunday, back on Saturday, back to uni and upper/lower on Monday (Squats Monday, Bench Tuesday, Deadlifts Thursday, OHP Saturday).

The Dead Zone

Not that one.

The Dead Zone is a body fat range. Exactly what range it is will vary from person to person, and probably varies even in the same person at different stages in life. Basically, it's a range in which progress in both muscular gains and fat loss are highly obscured to the untrained eye.

For the average guy, this is about 12-18% body fat. For women, I'm not sure what range it is, so I'll do what I normally do with women's body fat percentages and add 10, so I'll guestimate 22-28%.

The Dead Zone is where people can move from low body fat % towards high body fat % and honestly think it's all lean mass, or from high body fat % towards low body fat % and honestly think that they aren't losing any fat -- it's all muscle that they're losing (or so they think). In essence, this is the range in which sharp definition of the muscles is obscured by fat, but the shape of the muscle underneath is not obscured much by the fat, so a little more fat just makes the muscle look bigger, and likewise, a little less fat just makes the muscle look smaller.

At lower body fat %'s than the dead zone you get "ripped," "shredded," "lean" physiques. At higher body fat %'s, you get some far less desirable adjectives.

The implications of this are:

1) If you can't see your abs with crystal clear definition and you're gaining weight, you may be in for a sobering disappointment when, after 3 months of gaining "one pound per week of lean mass" you wake up and discover you're closer to a keg than a 6-pack. If you're bulking, do it slowly.

2) As you lose weight, as you pass through the dead zone, it can be fairly demotivating. We're all paranoid of losing dat dere gainzzz, which causes a lot of people who've bulked up through the dead zone to start cutting in the dead zone, think they're losing their muscle mass, and promptly switch back to bulking. So be aware of the dead zone, stick to a sensible diet for your goals, keep training, and trust that you'll be alright when you come out the other side.

3) You're probably a whole let skinnier and fatter than you thought. Congratulations.

Training -- Wed 10/08/2013

Skipping

About a minute. Gotta get warm.

OHP/Front Squat/Cable Row

--/10xBW/--
10x20kg/10x20kg/12x50kg
5x30kg/5x30kg/12x50kg
3x40kg/3x40kg/12x50kg
1x45kg/3x45kg/12x50kg
1x50kg/3x50kg/12x50kg -- Looking over my records, I think this is a PB.
1x55kg/3x55kg/12x50kg -- So's this.
1x60kg/3x60kg/12x50kg -- And definitely this :D
Attempted 62.5kg, bar disagreed with me partway up.

Deadlift

10x60kg
5x100kg
3x120kg
2x140kg
3x4x155kg
5x145kg
8x127.5kg

Biceps Triset/Triceps Triset

2x10-10-10x5kg/10-10-10x5kg

Decline Sit Ups/Plank/Fitball Rollout

10xBW/30sec/10

Body Image is Not Enough

This post is modified from a post of mine in a bodybuilding forum, in which the topic of discussion was guys having negative attitudes towards muscular women. As tends to happen in such discussions, the members quickly divulged into issues of:

- What kind of body is culturally beneficial to have

- Men not liking muscular women because we're insecure

With a couple modifications, here's what I had to say.

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A thin girl doesn't open up a magazine and find edification, she opens up a magazine and is told that she's not pretty enough, she's not thin enough, she's not fancy enough, she's not sexy enough...and if she just makes herself a little bit more [insert adjective here], then she can enjoy being confident and socially acceptable, yet somehow that little bit more is never enough, and there's always one little bit more to go: there's an infinite distance between 99 and 100. The promise of a prize is presented just outside of arm's reach, and yet no matter how much she grasps at it and clings to it, no matter what she does to grab hold of it, no matter how many steps she takes to get close enough, it's unobtainable. Of course, we all buy into the belief that it is obtainable and that thin girls everywhere have obtained it, which I think is why we typically think (wrongly) that's okay to shame these girls.

The first slide has often been used to shame skinny girls.

I like what they did with the following three slides

to shame said shaming.

What is the marketing strategy for 90% of the fitness industry? Is it that fitness will make you strong and physically functional? Is it that fitness will enhance your abilities for sport? Is it that fitness will make you live longer and reduce the risk of chronic, terminal illness? Is it that fitness will give you more freedom and independence? Is it that achieving PB's will give you a sense of accomplishment, and that the endorphins released while training will make you feel good? Is it that fitness will help you sleep and give you more vitality? Or is it that you should go to the gym and drink protein shakes in order to look sexy and attract as many potential spouses as possible? I think 90% of fitness industry marketing is that last part. And how many people actually go to the gym for primarily aesthetic/cosmetic reasons? If your hair still has natural colour in it, there's a very high chance that that's all you're there for. So, if most people assume that training is for aesthetics, and if most people assume that everyone has the same aesthetic goals as each other (which is generally true, although there are a large minority of exceptions), then from their generalised POV, if you're more muscular than is conventionally desired in a woman, you're doing it wrong. "Silly bodybuilders, don't you know that you're giving me a DErection? I know your goal is for me to fall in love with you upon first glance, so why are you making yourself not fit my standards of beauty?" Seriously, most people think that working out is all about making other people want to have secks with you. The fact that most discussions and articles about women lifting pander to the imagined target audience's fear of not being conventionally attractive anymore (by becoming "bulky") demonstrates that at some level even we think like this, and if we think like this, how can we expect others to think differently?

See what I mean?

To those who are saying that because it's often guys who don't lift who find female lifters unattractive, these guys must be insecure... Insecurity may be a factor, but I think it's more a matter of conditioning. Sexual attraction is very socially conditioned. When I was 17, I thought Adriana Lima and Miranda Kerr were the sexiest, most beautiful women on the planet, and I thought Jamie Eason was huge, buff and looked like a man with make-up and tissues in his bra. I don't think that was me being insecure and intimidated by Jamie Eason, it's just that I wasn't used to seeing many guys more muscular than her, and I was used to seeing girls less muscular than her, and these Victoria's Secret models were always presented as the standard of beauty. That's not to say that my standards of beauty were ever perfectly aligned with the standards of beauty of the guy sitting next to me -- there's always some nuance. Now I find Adriana Lima and Miranda Kerr attractive mostly just from the boobs up. Significant upper body muscle mass on a woman doesn't do much for me, and past a certain point (a point which can be achieved quite naturally) it becomes more of a visual deterrent than lure, but a woman would certainly have to try if she wanted more lower body muscle mass than I find attractive. This, too, is conditioning, from years of engagement in strength communities. I don't think I'm intimidated by more muscular females (although I'm yet to meet any females who are more muscular than I currently am), however there is definitely a grey area in which more muscle stops being more attractive, and a point at which more muscle rapidly becomes less attractive to me. Then again, I don't hate on muscular women (beyond the level of muscularity that I like), I just don't say anything (this wasn't always the case). If I find you attractive and want you to know that I find you attractive, I'll let you know. If I don't find you attractive...well, I don't go out of my way to inform guys that I'm not attracted to them, so why go out of my way to inform women that I'm not attracted to them? I can think of very few circumstances in which that would be a beneficial, productive use of my vocabulary. If I were in a relationship, there's only one person who I'd care about being attractive to, and if someone who I'm not in a relationship with is not going out of her way to personally be as attractive as possible to me, then obviously me finding her attractive is not high on her agenda, so what reason do I have to waste time and energy thinking about how much I don't find her attractive, letting her know that I'm not attracted to her, or judging her for not being attractive to me?

Training -- Mon 08/07/2013

Bench Press

10x20kg
5x40kg
3x60kg
1x72.5kg
3x4x82.5kg -- I like that feeling when you get all your reps.
5x77.5kg
8x67.5kg

CGBP/Pull Ups

--/10xBW
10x55kg/10xBW
10x55kg/8xBW

Pause Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x60kg
5x80kg
5x100kg
2x5x110kg

RDL

6x77.5kg
2x8x77.5kg

Fat Gripz Row/Calf Raise

4x12x50kg/12x320lb

Training -- Fri 05/07/2013

Squats

10xBW
5 hip thrusts
10x20kg
3x20kg with multiple pauses throughout each rep
5x60kg
3x100kg
1x120kg
3x5x127.5kg -- This would have been a whole lot easier if I'd been smart enough to put heavy squat day before heavy deadlift day, not after. Oh well, I go on camp in about a week -- I'll come back ready to use my brains WRT programming.
5x120kg
8x102.5kg
16x95kg

Bench Press/Barbell Row/GHR/Glute Bridge

10x20kg/5x25kg/8xGreen/5xBW
5x40kg/5x25kg/8xGreen/5xBW
3x10x60kg/5x25kg/8xGreen/5xBW -- Lightweight rows to focus on trying to keep my glutes activated and holding the bar in place at the top.

Training -- Wed 03/07/2013

OHP/F.Squat/Seated Row

--/10xBW/--
10x20kg/5x20kg/10x40kg
5x35kg/5x35kg/10x40kg
5x48kg/5x48kg/10x40kg
3x48kg/3x48kg/10x40kg
3x48kg/5x48kg/10x40kg
10x30kg/--/10x40kg
8x30kg/--/10x40kg
--/3x70kg/--

Deadlift

10x70kg -- Today I deadlifted just wearing my socks, after spending the last couple months deadlifting in squat shoes (which technically would make them deficit deadlifts, ever so slighty). I quickly discovered that deadlifting in my shoes has either really taught me to pull back, or has made it harder to pull back (one or the other or some funky combination of both), because for the first couple reps I kept staggering backwards at the top.
5x100kg
2x130kg
5x140kg -- This was meant to be 145kg. Misloaded, which ultimately resulted in doing 1 more set than planned.
3x5x145kg
5x137.5kg
8x120kg
10x110kg -- My hamstrings have been happier with me than they are right now.

Plank/Glute Bridge

2x60sec/5 with 5sec hold

Training -- Mon 01/07/2013

In Soviet Russia, bench presses YOU!

Bench Press

30x20kg -- It was cold, so instead of focusing strictly on form I just threw up a lot of reps to get some blood moving. Also did a longer warm up than usual for this reason.
5x30kg
4x40kg
3x50kg
2x60kg
1x70kg
3x5x77.5kg -- Wasn't happy with how this went. Sure, I got my reps, but it was largely touch-n-go to make sure it happened. Final reps weren't fun.
5x72.5kg
8x62.5kg
12x57.5kg

Pull Ups/CGBP

2x10xBW/10x50kg
7xBW

Pause Squats

10xBW
10x20kg
5x60kg
5x85kg
2x5x107.5kg -- Back to using my belt.

Fat Gripz Row/Calf Raise

5x10x50kg/10x320lb