Entry #272

Walked to the store and bought dinner. Cottage cheese, case of creatine, and flax oil. Note how I can hardly contain my excitement. It was a good walk. Worked the heavy bag bare-knuckle when I got back. Noticed a bad habit of letting my wrists bend when my fists make contact. I'll go bare-knuckle more so I can work on this.

Shoulder feels fine, but I'm planning on stretching tomorrow before lifting starts again.

Entry #271

Shoulder hurt like hell today in the weightroom. Did not affect performance, however. Warmed up on the speed bag and the punching bag. Had my fastest speed bag session yet; the thing was blazing, with no slowing down when I switched hands. My arms gas out on that thing because I have to hit it hard to keep it bouncing fast. There's probably a better way. Also lowered the weights on speedbench. Supposed to use 45% of ORM, and I was using 185. I lowered it to 145, figuring that my bench max is more or less 290 right now.

Cardio was mixed. I did (consecutively)
five rounds of jump-rope.
forty roundhouses on the heavy bag for each leg (shins hurt like hell).
Three mixed rounds on the heavy bag, 4 oz gloves (would have done more but didn't want to over-exert stress on my shoulder, although it felt much better at this point).
Numerous laps in the swimming pool.

Shoulder feels completely fine now. I have an idea that it's because of how I sleep. I usually lay on my side with my body resting on my arm. I never really thought much of it, but I should probably stop doing that now that I weigh so much more. We'll see if that makes any difference. I'm basically trying to test out all these theories so that I can pinpoint the problem.

Entry #270

Box squats today. Boring as hell. My form is getting stricter, though. Should decrease the height next time. Been pounding my traps these last few weeks especially. Used 335 lbs for 12 reps of shrugs, and then eventually switched to 105 lb dumbbells for 10 reps. Ryan was there and commented about how I was using my arms a bit excessively for the dumbbell shrugs. Or more like roared it across the room. That guy, he'll kill you, I tell ya. But I should watch for that next time.

No BJJ or muay thai today, but I'm scheduled for sign-ups and lessons on Tuesday. The desk lady'd better not bail on me again like last time.

Also, I've been eating this cottage cheese crap before bed for the last two weeks, and the stuff doesn't even phase me anymore. Good mental discipline. I should get some oatmeal to replace the bagels, now.

Entry #269

Productive training day. Attempted 295 lbs for a single on the bench press after warming up on the speed bag and the punching bag, but only managed to get the bar up half-way before my spotter took over. He commented on how close I was. Also raised the weight for weighted dips, with a 45 and a 35 attached to the belt, all for 10 reps. I managed to make use of the broken equipment; the hook to link it to the chain is still intact, but the fastener to lock it in place is long-gone. It still held up, and if anything it forces me not to swing around so much.

Later I worked rounds on the heavy bag using the 4 oz. gloves. My legs were still feeling it from the sprinting yesterday everytime I kicked. It's not the muscles that are sore, but the joints meeting by the groin area. Did not affect performance, however. Cardio has improved by a lot.

Entry #268

Kicked my ass in cardio training today. If I can't find anyone else to fight, I might as well do it against myself. My pattern was a lap of HIIT around the school track immediately followed by a round of shadow boxing, and then a rest. Was tough trying to link smooth combos under heavy fatigue, but I had little trouble putting power into my shots. Of course, I was tired from running, not fighting, so it's no mystery why that was so. I've noticed how second-nature it's become for me to snap back my strikes now. Same with keeping my hands up; I never drop 'em anymore. These were two bad habits that gave me a lot of problems in my spars against Malcom last year and the year before. All the bag training's paid off. To substitute for that I hung my sweatshirt over the pull-up bar and used the two hanging sleeves as targets to aim for in later rounds. Discovered it totally by accident.

Preceding this, I managed 15 pull-ups, at the current weight of 210. At 185 lbs last year my max was 17.

Entry #267
Easy day today. Was restless, so I made this.

Entry #266
Today was awesome. Raised the weight on everything, save speed bench. I think you're only supposed to go heavier on that in accordance to the poundage achieved on max effort day. Rather, the point is to become faster on it. One-armed dumbbell rows were with 90 lb dumbbells for 10 reps each. Also used the speed bag and heavy bag for bench warm-up. I nearly hooked the bag onto its side (it's a stand-up).

Brent invited me to go paintballing tomorrow at his place. Should serve as some badass cardio.

Entry #265
Box squats again. Boring stuff. I did Romanian deadlifts after for 8 at 225 lbs. Stood on the box for a greater ROM. Should go heavier next time. Also did shrugs for 12 reps with 335 lbs. I attempted an overhand grip, but that failed by rep 4, so I had to quickly switch to over under. Awesome grip training. Screw wrist curls, my forearms got more pumped from shrugs than anything else. The 100 lb dumbbell shrugs felt light as hell after using the loaded barbell. By the way, they haven't replaced the broken weight belt yet. What a cheap piece of equipment. I could hardly believe it when it snapped in half.

Muay thai is on Monday. And, I'm still at 210 lbs. I love creatine for this.

Entry #264
Took the first half of this week off to revise the routine. I'm going to deal with the alternating schedule for squats and deadlifts because box squats are in every week, and on non-deadlift weeks I can do Romanians for the choice back exercise (I've been doing extension variations for that category). This way I'll be more familiar with the movements. I'm also replacing the consecutive lat exercise with lunges. I'll make some good use out of that ab room yet (lots of space to do 'em).

I've also been choking down cups of cottage cheese before bed. Good mental discipline, I must say. I'm reserving the casein powder for bulking. Here's my bedtime stack:
1 1/2 cup of cottage cheese (45 g of protein caseinate)
Half a wheat bagel
3 tablespoons of flax seed oil
5 g of glutamine

Entry #263
In the process of revising my routine, so I didn't lift today. There are some discrepancies that are bugging me about my current one:
>Squats are the only leg exercise.
> Squats and deadlifts are alternated tri-weekly, rather than having their own dedicated sessions.
> Lats are worked two consecutive days in a row.

Prior to this entry I ran to the high school for some cardio training. Shins held up well on the run over, but I didn't want to push my luck, so I did no sprinting on the track. Instead, I did stair runs on the bleachers. That didn't bode too well, seeing as how it was pitch black at night, so I went on the lighted track and jump-roped. Didn't record time or anything. After that I ran home with no problems.

Entry #262
Actually got some fun training done at the party today. This was by far
the most educational high school birthday party I've ever been to. We
were talking about books from school, sports, and politics. A small
group of us would swim some hard sets of laps in the pool (freezing cold, at night),
run to the hot tub, run to the pool and swim laps, etc. Taking a five minute break inbetween like that allowed me to swim explosively and fast, rather than a steady, lazy lap run. I also did some
shadow boxing.

Brent kicks ass. Happy birthday. Anyways, here are some pictures:

Entry #261
Went to the Kickboxing Academy with intent of signing up from here on out. The plan was a BJJ lesson tonight (muay thai ends early on Fridays, as I saw on the schedule today). As luck would have it, the front desk lady wasn't there. This guy helped me out and went to look for her, but to no avail. He said it was weird, try coming back tomorrow, etc. Went home and did some shadow boxing instead.

Had a good lifting session. Was showing my sister how to do deadlifts, and Ryan (formerly known as "Coach" in previous entries) showed up and helped her out with them. Also had a good talk with an ex-powerlifter. He commended me on deep squats.

Entry #260
Ran to the high school, but my shins started dying near the end (it was supposed to be a warm-up run). To make matters worse, the track was being used by one of the school teams. I walked back and used the heavy bag at home instead. Roundhoused it 'till my shins were sore, and I went bare-knuckle on it a few rounds. I regret not making a more organized session out of it, actually. The pool is closed until May, by the way. I wanted to use it this month.

Also, the pool party thing wasn't today. It's on Saturday. One of the wrestlers wants to spar me. It's on a lifting day, though.

Entry #259
Highlight today: breaking the weight belt from doing weighted dips. The chain broke in two by the fastener. What's the point of a weight belt if you can't use heavy weights on it? Must have been a cheapie. It was a new one replacing the old one that kept randomly disappearing. I have bad luck with these things. Luckily, I managed all my sets.

Also hit 285 on the initial set of bench press. I had a good warm-up using the gym bag. It's soft as a pillow, so I s'pose it's ideal for that. I figured out that the running warm-up wasn't helping my shoulder pain. The cause of it was actually the weighted crunches I do. I rest the 25 lb plates on the floor next to me, and when it's time for the set I reach to the side and twist them up on my chest. I guess the movement of doing so was placing stress on my rotator-cuff. I just realized this yesterday as I was doing them. Next time between sets I'll simply lie flat with the plates resting on me, without placing them on the floor.

Today's session:

1 minute heavy bag warm-up
Bench press: 45 lb bar; 15 reps
1 minute heavy bag warm-up
Bench press: 4 sets; 3 reps (135 lbs, 185 lbs, 225 lbs, 245 lbs)
Max bench press: 4 sets (285 lbs, 285 lbs (failure, help from spotter), 275 lbs, 275 lbs (little help from spotter [I believe I'm stuck in old bodybuilding habits by lowering the bar too slowly without realizing I'm doing so; when I let it go down faster it did not result in failure])
Weighted dips: 4 sets; 10, 8, 6, 5 reps (45 lb plate and 25 lb hanging from belt)
Cable pushdowns: 4 sets; 10, 8, 8, 7 reps (170 lbs [meaningless number -- on the adjacent cable machine I can only do 90 lbs])
Lateral raises: 4 sets; 10, 8, 8, 5 reps (30 lb dumbbells -- kept them at the side rather than in front)
Bent-over barbell rows: 4 sets; 8 reps (145 lbs)
Hammer curls: 3 sets; 8 reps (50 lb, 45 lb, 45 lb dumbbells [hammer curls seem initially easier, but for some reason they make it harder to stand straight -- must work on stabilizing back, rather than using a wall or bench as a crutch])

 I was invited to an all-day pool party tomorrow by someone from school. Thinking about skipping it so I can do better cardio, which I missed today.

By the way, I haven't lost any weight, but my midsection looks less blurry. I'm thinking it's the creatine maintaining that weight.

Entry #258
Put out 345 lbs for singles on squats. At the end of the session I managed seven wide-grip pull-ups, a one rep improvement, consecutively going down to six and then five reps. My fresh rep range for ordinary pull-ups is 17 still, despite the weight gain. No cardio today, but tomorrow for sure. I need to go lifting earlier so I have time later in the evening.

I'm also planning on ordering a cheapie battery-operated blender off of eBay so I can make a shake immediately upon walking out of the gym and into the car, rather than waiting five minutes until I get home. The definition of paranoid.

And if all goes accordingly, muay thai lessons are up for Friday.

Entry #257
I hate speed exercises on these "dynamic effort" days, whether it's with box squats or with bench press. I understand the benefits that derive from them, but they're extremely dull. Performed the obligatory speed bench (12 sets of doubles with 185 lbs), and the rest of the session saw an increase in weight. One-armed dumbbell rows was with 85 lb dumbbells for 10 reps. I'm relatively new to this one so I've made decent beginner gains in it.

No real cardio today. Gave my shins a rest. I stocked up on good food at Costco, though. My traps are sore from yesterday. It's a rather satisfying feeling.

Entry #256
Box squats went well. Increased barbell shrugs to 295 lbs for 10 reps. Attempted a standard snatch grip. By the third set my hands were failing; I had to go for an overhand/underhand grip to even lift the bar. A great grip exercise.

Later on, I did HIIT at the high school. It was pouring. I brought along my jump rope. There was no real order to what I did, however. It was a mix of sprinting, jump roping, and lots of shadow boxing.

Entry #255
Training with George screwed up my schedule. Took today off, lifting-wise. Still sore as hell from Saturday. Really looking forward to speed day as a means of active recovery.

I ran to Hollywood Video and back again. It was a fast jog rather than HIIT. Shins still hurt, but not nearly as bad. Still, I should go easy on them for now. The punching bag and the pool will suffice for cardio.

Entry #254
Squatted 315 for 3 reps, and then 335 for singles today. Definitely could have done more, but I'm wary of possible injury from increasing poundages too suddenly. I'm also looking to improve on pull-ups by using them as the lat exercise at the end of this session from here on out. The plan calls for an 8-10 rep scheme; I managed 6 (due to it being at the end).

Did HIIT on a run later at night. My shins were killing me after the first burst. I had to walk half the way, and sit down for a few-minute rest in the middle of it. Never had this happen before. Perhaps I'm not used to sprinting at this weight, or maybe it's because I shouldn't be running on leg day.

Entry #253
Yesterday was HIIT in the rain on the school track. Started to feel some stress in tendons around the groin area after a few sprint sessions, so I finished off with four rounds of shadow boxing, and then jogged home with a final sprint up the hill leading to my house. Maybe I'm not used to sprinting at this weight, or something, but I usually don't feel pain like that from mere running.

In terms of diet, I've cut out the weightgainer, along with those crappy frozen pizzas. I plan on eating big still, just cleaner. Today was mostly a rest day. My upper-body is blasted from Saturday's session.

Entry #252
Finally, final bulk pictures. Highest body fat percentage I've been at. Unfortunately, I don't have pre-bulk pictures in the same poses that would make for fair comparison. Note to self: take pictures outside next time so objects aren't construed with my form and lighting is more consistent. My camera randomly takes pictures dark.

6'0, 210 lbs:







Just for fun:



Begin cut phase. Will update after HIIT tonight.

Entry #252
Demonstrated a Westside session with George. Two weeks off seemed to work. Shoulder is feeling completely fine. I seem to be at a plateau on bench press at 275 lbs. I'll give it a few more weeks.

Might start cutting tomorrow. I have contemplating to do tonight. I hate the condition my cardio's at right now. Currently at 210 lbs with shorts on.

I'm looking to start taking the bus to BJJ/Muay Thai class.

This entry is scattered. I'm exhausted.