Take as needed for pain (BBB 3month challenge)

Absolute Zero

Decided to start my first strength training log as a way of keeping track of my progress in the "Boring But Big (BBB), three month challenge. Effectively this will take the form of 4 major lifts, followed by 3x10 on another major lift. It will be interesting to see my reaction to deadlift 5x10, and this may be something I might need to tweek but I will stick with it for the time being.

Today of course is day one and I am starting conservatively on all major lifts to allow myself to adapt to a routine of 5 x 10 assistance work at 50% month one, 60% month two and 70% month three.

Deadlifts 110x5, 130x5 and 145 x 5.

Squat BBB 5 sets of 10 with 70kg. A nice light weight which gave me a nice excuse to try new squat stances etc. Not to harsh so far, set four was by hard the toughest though as I began to see shooting stars but i am putting that down to poor breath control. Nice and explosive, the cycle back from the gym was a bit of a killer but at least living in the Netherlands gives me a good excuse to do some conditioning.

Assistance of the Assistance :cool:

Hanging leg raise 3 x 10
weighted sit ups 3 x 10

Day one complete

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Some necessities.

Body weight - I would guess about 13.5 stone

Diet -

Morning - 10 eggs (5yolkes 10 whites) + milk in a pint glass or else Protein +milk. With 2 cups of Oats and an apple/orange if I have one.

Lunch - 350g mince with brocoli + milk.

Dinner - pizza or else chicken fillets with some form of veg or fruit and milk. Potatoes If I have them.

snacks - Generally more milk up to 3 litres.

Before Bed- Usually protein shake if I cannot be bothered cooking, or else some form of meat.


Edit - Being in college my choice of food is sometimes poor, I try to make up for days when calories are low through GOMAD or else junk food

JoeyDoh

Oho

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Day 2 of the BBB challenge. Bench press day

Bench press worked out at 60x5 70x5 and 80x5 I decided not to go for extra reps on the 80kg (Wendler himself advises to just stick to the recommended repetitions).

Military press 5 x 10 at 30 kg Not a massive weight by any means but still quite a chore to hit 50 times.

I superset the military presses with 5 sets of chin ups/pulls up varying the width and hand position of every set so I am hitting biceps, lats and upper back all in one session. This also kept me from sitting on my ass and kept the workout flowing.

Assistance work included

curls 3 x10 barbell and dumbell
3x 10 face pulls
3 x 10 - one set of dips and two sets of tricep pulldowns.

Another day done, and I feel like I am doing major work in the gym. After following madcows 5x5 for half a year it is nice to mix things up.

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Squat Day

Worked with three sets

100 x 5, 115x 5 and 130 x 5. Strangely enough 130 felt quite heavy especially by the last rep. I m putting this down to my body adapting to the volume over the week, but I feel strength gains might slow/ even regress while I pursue this program.

Deadlifts 5 sets of 10 with 90kg. I used a sumo stance for these deadlifts to try keep lower back out of the lift as much as possible and emphasize the hams and glutes. These felt good and I started getting a low back pump by set 4 and 5.

5 sets of 10 hanging leg raises/ Weighted sit ups.

hardest day of the week now completed. this is going to be a tough journey.

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Overhead press day

three sets - 45kg x 5 50kg x 5 and 55kg x 5.

Bench press - 5 x 10 @ 50kg

5 x 10 DB rows 30kg (unfortunately 30kg the highest dumbells in my gym)

Accessory work

3 x 10 face pulls
3 x 10 curl variations
3 x 10 tricep push downs

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Week 2 of cycle 1. This time I am working into the 3 rep range.

Deadlifts - 120 x 3 135 x 3 155 x 3

Squats - 5 x 10 @ 75 Kg

Accessory work -

Hanging Leg Raises 5 sets of 5

Notes -

I was not mentally 100% today for some reason. Im not sure if its a combination of training so early 9.30 am or else just the initial shock of this new program. Deadlifts felt extremely tough but I grinded through to 155. god help me when percentages go up to 70%. (I had to throw on the belt for 155 x 3).

JoeyDoh

Keep going lad, nice to see you logging!

Absolute Zero

Workout 2 of week 2.

Bench Press 65 x 3 75 x 3 85 x 5*

Over Head Press - 30kg 5 x 10

OHP super setted with 5 sets of 5 - Chins/ pulls varying grips

Accessory -

Curl variations 3 x 10
Face pulls 3 x 10
Tricep pushdowns 3 x 10

I make accessory work easy for my self - As Wendler says these shouldnt be any trouble.

NOTES -

Decided to go for 5 reps on the bench press today rather than three because my bench press strength is really lacking, I have not even hit 95kg for reps yet.
Over head press really took it out of me by set 5, got a good burn in the shoulders.
Pull ups felt very nice indeed today (they are perhaps my favorite exercise).

I also got my body fat checked on the machine that my gym has. I have no idea how credible it is.

Body weight - 82.7kg or 13 stone on the button. I was amazed at this, I have actually lost weight and settings were put to 21 year old male, 173cm height with standard body type.

Body Fat Percentage - 20%
Vet-Massa (Fat-Mass) - 16.5 kg

The rest of the readings are in Dutch.


I am not to worried about having 20% body fat percentage at this moment. I get regular cardio work done here. I will be going back to the hill sprints and prowler work when I return home in June.

Absolute Zero

Update on Diet

My initial diet program has been tweaked already.

I am a poor student so tbone steaks are out of the question.

I eat about 500-700g of mince a day making sure to strain as much fat out of it as possible. Post workout I will add spaggethi. I try to eat broccolli and carrots with every dinner I eat.

I also snack on at least 2 apples a day and take 2-3 protein shakes a day.

Other food I mainly consume is Milk ( I can easily knock back 4 liters of this stuff) and peanut butter. Between 5-10 eggs for breakfast, I just heat them in the pan and put milk in and consume in my Guinness pint glass and a bowl of Oats (and apple).

Supplements - Creatine (which just ran out today), fish oil and vitamins.

Its a basic diet plan but I am trying to stick to whole foods as much as possible. I am trying to only use creatine and protein as supplements. I also have a few ZMA tablets but they went out of date since January, Can anyone confirm if I can still take these?

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Squats 110 x 3 125 x 3 and 135 x 7

Deadlifts 90kg 5 x 10

5 x 5 hanging leg raises

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Overhead Press - 50kg x 3 55kg x 3 and 57kg x 6

Bench press - 50kg 5 x 10

5 x 10 Db row

Curl 3 x 10
Facepull 3 x 10
tricep push downs 3 x 10

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Deadlifts - 130 x 5 145 x 3 and 160 x 3

Squats - 75kg 5 x 10

hanging leg raise - 4 x 7 and 1 x 5

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Bench - 70 kg x 5 80 kg x 3 and 90 kg x 3

OHP 30kg 5 x 10

5 x 5 on pull ups and chins

curls, facepulls and tricep pushdown 3 x 10

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Squats 110 x 5 130 x 3 and 140 x 3

Deadlift 90kg 5 x 10

Hanging leg raises - 5 x 5

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Final day of cycle/Month one.

Decided to go gym today extra early. The cost of this is a poor breakfast of protein shake, oats and apple. I was starving in the gym and didnt have my focus/strength I usually have with my usual breakfast. The trouble is Sunday in Holland = no shops open until at least 4 pm. Any way...

Overhead press - 45kg x 5, 50kg x 3 and 57kg x 3. (should be able to do much more than this)

Bench press - 50kg 5 x 10 supersetted with DB rows 20kg 5 x 10.

The usual assistance work of Facepulls, curls and tricep pushdowns.

Was going to add in some threadmill sprints for conditioning but due to the unusually difficulty of todays workout along with my lack of energy I decided to skip them. I will do the hard conditioning on my off days (tomorrow, tuesday).

Any who - cycle one completed COME ON!:cool:

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Decided not to log my deload week (last week) as I just did a bunch of random exercises for the week.

Deadlifts 115 x 5 130 x 5 150 x 5

Squats 90 kg 5 x 10.

3 sets of 7 on hanging leg raise.

notes - today the assistance was extremely tough. I spent last week travelling home to Ireland and had examinations, as such my sleeping patterns and food intake has been worse than usual. Still I knuckled down and grinded through it.

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Bench Press - 65 x 5 75 x 5 and 82.5 x 5

OHP 35kg x 10

Super setted with weighted Chins/Pull ups with varying grip. +5kg

Facepulls,
Curls, 3 x 10
Tricep work

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Squats 100 kg x 5 115 x 5 and 130 x 5

Deadlifts 105kg 6 sets of 8

Ab work.


Notes - Deadlift 6 x 8 to slowly bring down the volume on my deadlift day as the weight goes up. Equals 48 reps in total (max is 50).

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Finally brought my camera with me. Gonna throw up videos along the way to keep track of form etc. This is my squat form. It has drastically changed since I last squatted my max 160kg x 3 last August before I came to Holland. Since then Ive lost alot of strength partying and the likes.

Any critiques from the big squatters be nice *EDIT* Yes i wore a belt on 130 I hammered myself with deadlifts after this I have an excuse ;P

60kg

130kg

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Overhead pres 40 45 52 x 5

Bench 5 x 10 60kg
Supersetted with 22kg 5 x 10 db Rows strict. (feels much better since JoeyDoh showed me the proper way to do these)

Usual accessory of
bicep
facepulls
tricep.

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forgot to update this earlier.

Deadlifts 130 x 3 150 x 3 160 x 3

Squats 90kg 5 x 10

Ab work.

Notes - tough day today, deads felt slow and squats were tough.

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Sporadic updates for the next week . Logging two workouts here.

Bench 70 x 3 80 x 3 and 87 x 3

Ohp 35 kg SS w/ pull ups 5 x 7.

Curls, tris and face pulls.

Squats 115x3 125x3 and 135 x 5

Deadlifts 5 x 10 @105kg

Skipped Ab work as gym closing.

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Trained with Joeydoh today in Kilkenny.

OHP worked up to 57 x 5

Bench 60kg 5 x10 SS with 22.5kg 2 x 10 and then 18kg 3 x 10 dumbell rows.

Accessory - tricep and bicep work.

Sweating buckets today.

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Here we go, the heavy cycle of month 2 of the BBB challenge!

Deadlifts 130 x 5 150 x 3 and 165 x 3* 5/3/3 ratio (no chalk )


Squats 90 kg 5 x 10 BURN!

Ab work - Something to do with smith machine, tore my abs apart!

Training in Fennelly's gym Kilkenny this week. Conditioning includes hill sprints and prowler work over the week. So good to see hills again (ireland ;P)

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Final day of the bench press for month 2.

Bench 75 x 5 85 x 3and 92 x 2 5/3/2 ratio

OHP 35kg 5 x 10

Assistance of lat raises 5 sets of 10.

Tricep/Bicep/Face pulls.

Body weight 13.4 stone 187 pounds.