Does my bum look big in this squat rack?

Hanley wrote: »

I'm a very serious here - would you consider doing that professional shoot with me on December 1st?

I'll still be a mess by then. How much chub am I gonna lose in 25 days?? I have a suitably depressing "before" photo from yesterday but reckon I need 2 months-ish. 6 weeks anyway.

Monthly update!

So I've been carb-less since my previous post. At this stage it's practically impossible to avoid them so the diet came off the rails what with work events and Xmassy stuff that revolves around food. I hit 101kg on the last proper carb-less day at the end of last week.

Training was all high intensity low volume (a lot of weight lifted not very many times) and my lifts were mainly sumos, bench and front squats (to rest my elbows really, and for the sake of change).

I managed a 240kg x 3 sumo and a a 145kg x 1 bench last week so the strength seems to be ok. Best front squat was 145kg x 3. I'm sure my reg squat is in the toilet now after the break but whatever I know how to get it back. Apply pain to squat, PR.

Now that there are carbs back in the system I'm going to jump on Hanley's GVT buzz and go for hypertrophy until at least the end of January before turning back into a powerlifter. Hopefully one with better body composition.

So far I've had 2 GVT sessions. Bench, 80kg for 10 sets of 10 (attempted) reps and Sumos, 130kg for 10 sets of 10 (attempted). 60 secs rest between sets.

Of course I couldn't manage 10 reps on all sets which is contrary to Hanley who is starting lower and aiming for 100 reps. Interesting to see how we get on.

This is my new "go to" song for heavy lifting. I'm worried about why.

Xmas period of ludicrous calorie intake is over, got as many GVT sessions in as I could. Seemed to do a good job of putting the calories to work. I'm thoroughly fed up of being fat though. Weight held at 103kg so that's not bad but I need to get down below 100kg, probably 95kg for my belly fat to be acceptable.

Dieting pre-xmas was possibly the most boring and unsatisfying experience of my life so to hell with that I'm going to just run and jump and stuff while I concentrate on the powerlifts and start gettng back into the groove of them.

I just can't commit to solely powerlifting or mass building type training until this fat situation is sorted. Think it's the fact that I'm about to turn 33 and I'm fatter than I want that keep nagging me. So the fat has to go and I want to keep my strength up.

I really need a goal or I won't keep this lark up so I might look to do a triathlon or something over the summer and then get a 300kg squat by Xmas .

Hanley has spent the last several years coming up with ways of torturing people anaerobically so it would be rude not to give some of his ideas a go. He can point and laugh at me too.

Stand by for hilarity.

Ran some, cycled some, lifted some.

GVT session with 120kg wide stance back squats yesterday. Previous days included 4.7k run in 27 mins and 24k cycle in 70 mins.

Muhammed on rollerskates, back squats change everything. GVT'ing front squats just doesn't cause the same amount of discomfort. Failure comes about too easily with front squats. With back squats, when you hit failure you've still go 2 reps left in you if you can control your girliness for 30 seconds. Doing 10 sets of that has caused me to have a personal crisis on the damp chalky floor of my shed. Followed it up with wide grip 80kg benches (GVT). Finished the session off with Franley, 5 minutes 17 seconds. The GVT squatting banjaxed the BW squats so an assault on my previous all time best at this is on.

In the morning... I will run 5k in sub 25 mins.

Throwing all this pain at myself is great, I'm going to try and keep this log more up to date and create a shrine to overtraining if possible.

A great analogy I read this week about training and resting and "training smart". It's was in reference to Dave Scott, the Ironman, and it compared the body adapting to training to evolution which is adaptation on a grand scale. One of the pillars of evolution is that species under most stress and greatest threat of extinction adapt quickest. Evolution and adaptation speed up when more stress is applied.

Dave Scott trained like a madman. No heart rate monitor. No rest days. Went past the point of burnout and emerged from it like a sinewy phoenix.

Really people need rest days not because their body is telling them to but because their brain is. Your brain has two choices, convince you to stop or tell your body to adapt.

Don't stop.

Stupid brain.

I half wrote an entry about 4 times, so many updates.

Here's an overview of my last month or so.

Wifepants is pregnant - yay - but there are a few complications that we need to watch- boo.
I applied for voluntary redundancy in my job, was one of only 3% of staff who were rejected, endured a few weeks of arguing my case to no avail, resigned. Start new job in a month. - yay.

Got the Norovirus last week - boo. Simultaneosly excreted every mineral from both ends of me for a day and took a week before I stopped feeling like I had been hit by a bus. Got back to squatting/deadlifting this week and managed small improvements over the week before the virus. Nice.

Weight is now down to almost 100kg even due to said virus. Also a nice after effect.

An honourable mention to my, to date unmentioned nemesis, that has decided to intensify its efforts to derail my comfort. Piles. If you're a powerlifter in your 30s I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you know what I'm talking about. If you don't you aren't squatting enough or you're squatting high.

All this stuff has totally thrown off my prep for the comp but I think I'll do it unless life throws another curve-ball at me.

Interesting point about the running. Firstly I managed a 57min 10k 2 weeks ago which was pretty great - for me. That was like a 3 month goal I achieved in a month. Went for routine blood tests just to check on cholesterol etc. Firstly my cholesterol dropped a point vs 2 years prior. I was on a keto diet 2 years ago when the test was done. Seems to suggest the high fat diet is good for about a point on the cholesterol but that it reversed easily.

Also found my iron a bit low but not anaemic, red blood cells fine. That was a bit weird but I've subsequently found out that runners, particularly those that enter a new training cycle or ramp up intensity of training are at risk of iron depletion due to foot striking and sweating apparently. On both counts, due to being 100kg and pretty much throwing myself into long enough distances immediately I had a lot of broken blood vessels and a bit of brusing around my feet/ankles from the constant pounding of my well cultivated mass. Minimilast runners prob contributed too. I also sweat like a cornered virgin at the best of times, you can ring out my tops at the end of a run regardless of temperature outside. These factors apparently put your iron stores to the test.

Interesting if that is the cause given low iron could cause a lot of symptoms of "overtraining", none of which I have but it would be worth noting for any larger gentlemen who decide to start running. You could end up needlessly resting when you only need to be eating more steak and continuing to train.

Not bad advice for most issues really.

Eat more steak. Continue to train.

the drifter wrote: »

Did you hand in the notice in the old place before getting the new role?

If so doing that with a wife a kid and a second on the way......



you've bigger balls than i thought!

Did I bollox