Sets of faahve

Deadlift: Up to 110kg for whatever amount of reps, usually 1-3. Just trying to drill technique. If I did a sloppy rep, I just stopped and waited a minute or two to get my head right. Grip is atrocious right now and a big limiting factor. Mixed grip made technique worse. Tried hook but stopped because I had no idea what I was doing.

Bench: 5x5 @ 55kg. Wrists started to hurt and yep, was gripping the bar badly. Moved grip in a finger and made sure to rotate properly and all good.

Some lateral raises and one-arm DB rows to finish.

Will try 4 days next week. More concerned with getting into the routine of going to the gym regularly than I am with what I do inside in the gym.

Bench: 5x5 @ 60kg. Some latter reps were a struggle so safe to say the initial neuromuscular adaptation phase is over and I'm just at the "weak but trying to get stronger" phase

Incline bench: 3x10 @ 30kg. Was always weak with incline but I really had nothing left after these

Supersetted lat pulldowns/lateral raises and then facepulls/DB curls. Shoulders got a workout alright

I just find it exciting because I've been away for so long. But I'm going to be in a different stage to you because my struggle is to actually arrange life to get to the gym. I really, really, really wish I could set up a home gym because I'd be flying long ago... until I also hurt myself.

Anyway, my long term plan was to go to the gym 4 days a week. However, my ability to get to the gym hinges on how often girlfriend works from home because if she needs to go to the office, I need to stay at home and get the kids ready. She only goes into the office on Wednesdays which leaves me wide open for a 4-day split. Unfortunately, she's just gotten word that she'll have to go in a second day, which messes up my plans. Not sure what to do in the long run now.

Oh, also decided to go the whole hog and actually track what I eat. First time in my life doing it. Downloaded Macrofactor and decided I wanted to cut to 80kg by the time I go on a city break at the end of February. Started around 83kg and weighed at 81.1kg this morning.

App has me on 2020/2130 calories per day, depending on if I'm training or not. Daily protein target is a nightmare to reach and much effort has gone into reducing fat intake. Good thing is I'm rarely hungry doing this, which is probably due to the focus on protein intake.

No particular reason other than I wanted to see what it's like to track like this. The app is pretty cool and although it can be annoying trying to track absolutely everything, I've gotten the hang of it. Just can't wait til after holidays to see what careful bulking is like.

Bench: 4x6 @ 60kg. Weight same as last week but slight progress on # of reps.

I had planned on moving on to incline bench but all incline benches were being used, so kinda made things up as I went along from there. Not having a proper plan/structure in place didn't help. Had the idea of working upper back and arms. In some sort of a mishmash order, with some sort of makey uppey supersets, I did some NG lat pulldowns, tricep pushdown, incline DB press, EZ skullcrushers, hammer curls and facepulls. Never did the one thing I'm trying to do every day - lateral raises. Oh well.

Bench: 4x8 @ 55kg. Tiring because my arms are just weak and triceps still sore from Tuesday.

CG bench: 3x8 : 50kg. Just more tricep work.

Supersetted lateral raises/tricep pushdowns and then hammer curls/lateral raises.

Could have done more this session but I was a little late getting to the gym and ended up chatting for too long. Oh well.

Couldn't wake up this morning and was a disorganised mess. Got to the gym 15 minutes later than I wanted, which meant I needed to cut some things short.

Paused squat: 2x3 @ 85kg. Felt heavy. Moving on.

Paused deadlift: Up to 3x3 @ 110kg. Mixed grip from 100kg. They felt feckin great. Thought pausing them would kill me, but 9/9 good reps.

RDL: 2x8 @ 80kg. Again, felt great.

Supersetted chest supported T-bar rows/hamstring curls and lateral raises/light one-arm DB rows. I hate anything chest supported but they're a good reminder to keep core braced even if core isn't being used to move the weight. And if it feels like it sucks, I should probably do more of it.

Winter vomiting bug hit my house. Although I was unaffected, everyone else was, which meant I couldn't go anywhere that didn't involve electrolytes and food up until this morning.

Squat: 2x8 @ 80kg and 1 @ 90kg. Decided to do some higher reps to see how my conditioning is and yeah, it still ain't up to much.

Deadlift: 2x6 @ 110kg. First time going above 3 reps since coming back and loving my ability to rep without form breakdown. Just getting into a groove in a lift I have never really had a groove in before is satisfying.

Followed up with 3x15 on leg press and supersetted lateral raises/one-arm DB rows.

Think this is my 5th week back and I've only managed to go 1 week without missing a day. And I go on holidays next week. Kinda frustrating because it's hard to see myself being able to stick to any plan/program. But doing something is better than nothing.

Bench: 3x3 @ 70kg

Supersetted incline DB bench/lat pulldown, EZ skullcrushers/hammer curls, tricep pushdowns/lat pulldown (slightly heavier), then finished with lateral raises and facepulls.

Tired. Scales said 79.3 this morning.

Had a great time in Berlin. Averaged 30k steps each full day, which should offset any weight gained from the beer, schnitzel and currywurst consumed.

Paused squat: 4x5 @ 80kg. Jaysus, this felt worse than I expected. Legs felt weak, but bracing was good. Pushed hips back and dipped chest on very last rep. 19/20 good reps.

Deadlift: 3x5 @ 100kg. Nice and light and most importantly, consistent, uniform repping. 15/15 good reps.

Followed up by leg press, leg extensions and supersetted one-arm DB rows/lateral raises.

Looks like I might actually get through this week without missing a day. Therefore, to hell with pauses and to hell with being beltless.

Squat: 4x3 @ 100kg. Big jump, numbers-wise for me. Moved pretty well. But it was physically exhausting. I almost needed help unbuckling my belt (Inzer 10mm single prong). First time wearing it in well over a year didn't help.

RDL: 3x8 @ 80kg. Happy enough with the consistency of my deadlifts that I think I can do them once a week, which means RDLs instead today.

Finished with 3x12 leg press, 3x15 leg extensions and some one-arm DB rows.

I was truly physically wrecked after this session. Yeah, jump in weight might explain it but maybe being in a calorie deficit doesn't help right now.

Stomach bug all but gone. Still tracked food and was only consuming approx 60% of what I should have been, had I been healthy. Yesterday was the first full day of eating I had in almost a week.

Pause squat: 3x5 @ 80kg. Left belt off. This was difficult. Felt heavy and was draining. Definitely weak after eating so little recently.

RDL: 3x8 @ 80kg. Meh.

Finished off with some goblet squats because the leg press and leg extensions were in use. Just as well because because my energy was way down.

Pause squat: 3x3 @ 80kg. I usually wear a bar grip t-shirt but I purposefully didn't this morning and experienced bar slippage. Think the bar grip t-shirt allows me to place the bar lower than should be stable. Found the correct 'shelf' after a few warmups and it felt better, but bar was higher than normal. Notes have been taken.

Deadlift: 3x5 @ 120kg. First time pulling from the floor in two weeks and first time using a belt deadlifting in well over a year. My consistent form fell apart today and I'm not sure why. Perhaps my head wasn't in it properly. At a guess, maybe 10/15 good reps at best.

Finished with supersetted chest supported t-bar row/lying leg curls, followed by one-arm DB rows.

Weighed in at 76.4kg. Macrofactor had predicted I should be 78kg, but their algorithms obviously didn't account for weight loss due to stomach bugs. 78kg was my most recent goal weight and I reached it this morning, so program got updated. I opted to maintain and my calories and macros have jumped with the new goal in mind.

Calories: 2241 -> 2689

Protein: 148g -> 134g

Fat: 75g -> 90g

Carbs: 242g -> 335g

An extra 450 calories per day and it's mostly in carbs! Hell yeah. I currently have a nice daily routine where I can keep calories low and consistently surpass protein targets, but that'll have to change a bit now.

Pause squat: 3x3 @ 80kg... again. Just ensuring I'm consistent with bar position without a bar grip t-shirt.

Deadlift: 1x130kg, 1x140kg, 1x150kg and 2x5 @ 120kg. Just wanted to see where my top end was at. 130 was air, as was 140. I actually laughed after 140 because I wasn't expecting it to be so easy and had intended on not going beyond it. But 150kg moved a little slowly but most importantly, form was tight and there was room for more. Thought the 2x5 @ 120kg was going to be like air but nope, was actually a little heavy.

Supersetted chest-supported t-bar rows/hamstring curls and then some one-arm DB rows to finish.

Just really, really happy with deadlifting these days. Squat and bench, I won't mention. But with my inconsistent, sporadic and unorganised training, I can't expect much more.

Squat: Double @ 110kg and 3x4 @ 102.5kg. Felt dodgy due to bar slippage. Continued to purposefully not use a bar grip t-shirt and used one of the cheap bars, which was a crappy combination. Definitely felt a lack of upper back tension and had to adjust myself between reps occasionally. Happy with the double at least.

RDL: 3x10 @ 80kg. Meh.

Finished with some sets of leg extensions to near failure and one-arm DB-rows.

Missed another day this week due to conditions outside of my control. Decided to do the PHUL lower hypertrophy day to see what it was like.

SSB squat: 3x12 @ 70kg. Was supposed to be front squat but I suck at front squat and my torso remains pretty vertical when doing SSB, so it'll do as a sub. Weight was easy but I was really out of breath.

Reverse barbell lunge: 3x6 @ 40kg. Wasn't supposed to be reverse; only realised this afterwards. And it was supposed to be 3x8-12 but I completely sucked at them. Didn't feel too strongly about it as I was only sussing the day out.

Leg extension and lying hamstring curl: Grand

Seated calf raise: 3x12. no machine in my gym, so just put my foot on a block paddle and a 20kg dumbbell on my knee and did one leg at a time. Did the job and was under RPE 9.

Standing calf raise: 3x8. Used the same 20kg and started doing these, but realised it was waaay harder. Thought it was leverages or something, then realised my entire feckin bodyweight is being used here, unlike the seated version. Just about managed 8 reps per leg with bodyweight. Thought my calves were stronger. Guess this exercise is important then.

Biggest struggle these days still is not missing a day. With likely reduced hours on Good Friday and Easter Monday, it'll be another few weeks before I see myself ever starting a regular 4-day week.

Still have quad and calf DOMS from Friday.

Squat: 3x5 @ 102.5kg. Tweaked a few things, namely widened stance a little and trying to set my torso angle a bit higher. Definitely feel more stable in the bottom position.

Deadlift: 2x5 @ 125kg and 1x4 @ 125kg. Form felt sloppy in last set so cut it short. I reckon 11/14 good reps. Boo.

Leg press: 3x15 @ 100kg. Hate leg press, but got it done anyway.

Hamstring curl: 3x10 @ 25kg. Lower reps and heavier than before, but grand.

Seated calf raise: 4x10 @ 25kg per leg. Undershot RPE but was running late so just did these continuously.

Overall, felt a bit all over the place, likely due to only getting 4.5 hours sleep (coughing children). Under the circumstances, I'll take it.

SSB squat: 3x12 @ 75kg. +5kg on last week and not heavy; cardio still the limiting factor.

Barbell lunge: 1x12 @ 20kg and 2x12 @ 25kg. Started with an empty bar because screw my ego. This is practise, and I think I did ok with these.

Leg extension and lying hamstring curl: grand

Seated calf raise: 3x15 @ 30kg each leg. Was supposed to be 12 reps, but kept going to get desired effect.

Standing calf raise: 2x12 and 1x11 each leg. Couldn't even finish the sets with bodyweight. Guess this means my calves are weak AF.

Sweaty day.

Squat: 4x5 @ 105kg. Up 2.5kg and a set from last week. These felt really, really heavy, but they moved. Guess I have to suck it up.

Deadlift: 4x5 @ 125kg. Same weight as last week but with 20/20 good reps.

Leg press: 15 reps @ 100kg, 110kg, 120kg and 120kg. A PR I think. Not gonna jump over the moon because, well, it's leg press.

Hamstring curl: 3x10 and 1x9 @ 25kg. This goes from piss easy to failing in no time.

Seated calf raise: 4x10 @ 35kg each leg. No rest between switching legs; just continuous. Sort of easy, but because I'm so weak, the hardest bit was getting the 35kg dumbbell out of the rack.

This session was hard. I didn't need to rush anything and took my time and got almost everything done (damn you final leg curl rep!).

Legs still domsed from Wednesday. Maybe yesterday's weakness was simply because I had one less day to recover.

SSB squat: 3x12 and 1x9 @ 80kg. Being honest, I had been pushing through the reps with questionable form. Did 9 on last set before I decided I couldn't do any more with correct form, so racked it.

BB lunge: 4x12 @ 30kg. Legs were jelly by the end of these. Definitely harder than the 25kg last week.

Leg extension: 4x15 @ 25kg. Ugh, painful and reached my limit by the end.

Hamstring curl: 3x15 and 1x14 @ 20kg. That final rep again!

Seated calf raise: 4x15 @ 25kg. Rep range was 8-12, so oops. But these were actually hard.

Standing calf raise: 1x5. Ran out of time and was just too damn tired too, so bailed on these.

My legs are absolutely destroyed as I type this. Stairs were difficult. Been a long time since I felt this way.

Squat: 1x5 @ 105kg and 3x5 @ 107.5kg. Little bit up from last week. Had awful tightness in my inner thighs (adductors) and glutes that I didn't have yesterday. I do lower body stretches even on upper days, so not sure what it is. Could be really delayed doms. After all, my legs were bollocksed last Friday. Either way, depth wasn't as consistent as normal. But my squat felt strong regardless.

Deadlift: 130kg x 5, 4, 4, 4. Up in weight from last week. First set was solid, but wrecked me. And I cut the reps at 4 for the rest because I really felt like form breakdown was inevitable.

Leg press: 3x15 @ 75kg. Spent too long on squat/deadlift so had to rush these. Very little rest between sets so I might have gotten the desired training effect with less weight.

Seated calf raise: 4x10 @ 40kg per leg. Calfs were actually sore after doing these. They weren't hard; handling the 40kg DB was though because I'm weak.

Hamstring curl: 1x20 @ 20kg. Ran out of time so this was pretty much an AMRAP. Was supposed to be 4 x 6-10 reps.

Squats felt easier today; not because I was necessarily stronger or anything, but because I have accepted that they will always feel hard. Last week, they felt like they damn well nearly killed me, but, they moved and moved well. The video made them look far easier than they felt. It might be because my bracing is nailed down and bracing hard feels awful, which makes the squats feel awful. But if the end result is a big squat, it's worth it. Just gotta MTFU.

SSB squat: 4x12 @ 82.5kg. Up in weight this week and no reps missed. Mad the difference a rest day makes.

BB lunge: 4x12 @ 30kg. Same weight, but I could have gone 2.5kg heavier.

Leg extension: 4x15 @ 20kg. Reduced weight, but also reduced rest time to save time.

Hamstring curl: 3x15 and 1x12 @ 20kg. Same weight, reduced rest time. Hard

Seated calf raise: 4x12 @ 35kg each leg. This was too easy, but I wanted to conserver energy for...

Standing calf raise: 4x20 w/ both legs. I hadn't completed a set of these until this week. Calves are usually fried after seated raises and single leg with rep range 8-12 with bodyweight is too hard, so I just did both feet for higher reps and that was hard. Might try switch seated/standing around and see if I can do single leg bodyweight next week.

Squat: 4x5 @ 110kg. First set was hard and I was considering dropping weight, but persevered. Then I realised my bracing was a little off, so I adjusted, and everything felt easier.

Deadlift: 4x5 @ 130kg. Same weight as last week, but completed the reps. Not all good though; I reckon about 17/20 good reps. My last reps on some of the sets were dodgy to say the least. Annoying habit of mine I need to address.

Leg press: 3x15 @ 75kg. Was supposed to be 5x15, but was short on time. These were hard as I rushed them.

Hamstring curl: 4x10 @ 20kg. Coulda gone heavier, but no time for messing.

Seated calf raise: 4x10 @ 40kg. Grand.

The entire back of my leg leg has been sore since last week and I'm not sure why. It feels completely muscular, so I'm not overly concerned. I'd like to think that a bit of volume, combined with some unilateral and isolation work, is just making a weaker leg stronger. If so, great. But I'm still weary of it.

SSB squat: 4x12 @ 85kg. Up 2.5kg from last week. Yep, sets of 12 are deathly

BB lunge: 3x12 and 1x10 @ 32.5kg. Form was starting to break down and I was at risk if just falling sideways, so cut the last set short.

Leg extension: 4x15 @ 25kg. Grand.

Hamstring curl: 4x15 @ 20kg. No missed reps. Yay!

Seated calf raise: 4x15 @ 35kg. These were supposed to be 8-12 reps. Oops. Grand otherwise.

Standing calf raise: 1x10 @ 10kg, 2x10 @ 15kg and 1x12 @ 15kg. Found a way to do these weighted without falling over. 15kg was a bit light, so did some extra reps on last set. Legs shakey since.

Next week is a bank holiday so will likely have to do 4 days straight again. Oh well. Better than not training at all.

Squat: 4x5 @ 112.5kg. 2.5kg up from last week and felt like death. But hey, felt tight and moved.

Deadlift: 5, 4, 4, 4 @ 135kg. Up 5kg from last week. All were RPE9 and I didn't get tempted to go for those dodgy 5th reps.

Leg press: 1x5 @ 75kg and 4x15 @ 100kg. Death.

Hamstring curl: 4x10 @ 20kg. Low in weight but rushed them due to being pressed for time.

Seated calf raise: 4x10 @ 40kg. Grand.

Fairly sweaty today.