Lean Bodies Consulting

THURSDAY’S WORKOUT

Decline Hammer Strength Press
Worked up to 305 x 12 + 5 + 2

Hammer Strength Shoulder Press
worked up to 215 x 9 + 4 + 3

Reverse-grip Bench Press
worked up to 160 x 12 + 5 + 3

Assisted Pull Ups
worked up to 80 x 10 + 4 + 3 plus 10 lat shrugs

Paused Deadlifts
Worked up to 455×6 and then dropped to

405×10

Not sure how I got through the 455. I wasn’t in the mood to train today, even though going into the final exercise, i was up on everything. I warmed up with 135 and was thinking, ugh, that was heavy. That’s not usually a good sign.

Then 225×3 - still heavy
Then 315×1 - still heavy
Then 405×1 - felt like 805×1

So I took a good 5 minutes to get ready for the 455. First one went up ok, so then I knew I had it. Rep 6 was a doozy. This is my limit for now.

The 405×10 wasn’t that bad, besides feeling lightheaded at the end of it. Definitely easier on the way down than it was on the way up.

Weight is up to 232 now. I feel chubby, but full. LOL 240 will be good.

I’m at that point where I’m starting to fill out and get bigger which is good. But it also coincides with not feeling as lean, which really isn’t just a feeling. It’s a fact. I’m up about 8lbs now. For the longest time I couldn’t get my weight to budge, owing to a lack of consistent eating, but now it’s starting to increase relatively consistently. While I’d like to do a little bit of dieting right now just to scale back a bit, I’m going to hold out until the New Year I think.

One of the biggest dieting mistakes a person can make is not using an ‘outcome-based approach’.

Think about it. If something is broken, you fix it right? Well, what do you do if your training and nutrition program stops producing the desired results? You think you’re doing the right thing; you’re eating well, you’re lifting weights, you’re doing cardio, and everything seems correct on paper … but for some reason, the results just aren’t coming like you thought they were. Or maybe they were, but they’re not now.

What do you do? Keep plugging away? Common sense would seem to say no. Why continue on doing something that’s not working? Yet, this is what a lot of people do; they just keep plugging away, and they keep spinning their wheels.

Listen, if what you’re doing isn’t working, doing it longer isn’t going to make it suddenly start working. Your program needs some trouble shooting and you need to make some changes to it.

What’s an outcome-based approach? It’s really quite logical. What you do is based on the results of what you’re doing. Getting the results you’re after? Stay the course. Not getting the results you’re after? Make changes. See? Common sense, and yet oddly in practice, not a strategy many people in pursuit of fat loss pay attention to. I’ve come across many people who have been dieting and training for months with little to no results. Barring some undiagnosed physiological issue and assuming your adherence to your program is above 90%, this shouldn’t happen.

I think the best time line to monitor your results is biweekly (every two weeks); it’s long enough to see if what you’re doing is promoting any physical changes but not so long, that if you’re not getting results, you’ve wasted a lot of time. If there are no changes in two weeks, adjust your program. Reassess your caloric intake. Perhaps you need to lower calories by another 10%. Perhaps you’re actually undereating and need to raise your calories.

Look to your diet first; don’t automatically assume you’re not doing enough cardio because more than likely, you already are. Nutrition will trump exercise every single time. Remember, you can’t ‘out-exercise’ a bad diet.

MONDAY’S TRAINING

Barbell Preacher Curls
Worked up to 95 x 12 + 4 + 3

Hammer Curls
Worked up to 45s x 9 + 4 + 2

Seated Calf Raise
Worked up to 75×11 (with the nasty 15s pause in the stretch position)

Lying Leg Curls (toes pointed)
Worked up to 140 x 12 + 6 + 6

Full Squats
Worked up to 350 x 1, then

315×5, then

190×19

That last set was brutal. When I was at 13 I was telling myself to just stop at 15. But if you hit 15, you have to go for 20, and if you hit 18, you know you can get 20. But I was teetering on the 18th and getting light headed. I did 19, thought about 20 for about 20 seconds and decided to rack it instead. I felt sick for a good hour afterwards.

Here’s a couple video clips of the deadlifts I talked about yesterday. This is my wife hitting 250 and 260 for a single. I believe Noel will get her clips up in her blog today as well.

SATURDAY’S TRAINING

Incline Bench Press

Worked up to 250×9 + 3 + 1

Military Press

Worked up to 165 x11 + 4 + 2

Lying Triceps Extensions

Worked up to 90 x 8 + 3 + 2 (lost some ground on this exercise)

Rack Pull Ups

Worked up to BW x 10 + 4 + 4

Corner Rows

I skipped these this workout.
Not a bad workout, not a great workout either. The focus just wasn’t in the workout today.

Saturday was still a fun time in the gym as Noel was in town for the weekend and she and Laura (my wife) were going to do some heavy deadlifting. Noel had basically strained her neck in Thursday’s training session but she spent an hour with my ART guy on Friday night getting things worked out.

Saturday marked the end of her 8-week bulk so she just planned on trying to hit a PR in the Push Press and a PR in the Deadlift. Laura decided to sneak in on the Deadlift action and go for a PR as well.

Noel, as she said in her blog hit a 145lb Push Press, which is awesome. I got a video of it that I’ll get uploaded. She can post it on her blog.

She also worked up to a 325lb deadlift - impressive considering what she started at.

Laura worked up to a 260lb deadlift, but what has to be remembered is that she’s only 113lbs, so that makes that a 2.3x bodyweight deadlift - to put it in perspective, that’s equivalent to me hitting a 535lb deadlift at today’s weight of 232lbs. Impressive. I remember when she first pulled 135 for 1 rep.

I got video of both those deadlift PRs, which I’ll get up shortly as well. It’s always impressive to see women, strong women, hauling around the big weights.

All in all a fun day in the gym.

I forgot to post up Thursday’s workout:

THURSDAY’S TRAINING

Barbell Curls

Worked up to 105×10 +3 + 3

One-arm Cable Reverse Curls

Worked up to 20×14,14

Calf Press in Leg Press

Worked up to 285×11 (I do a 15s pause in the stretch on every rep here. Try it. LOL)

Hamstring Leg Press

Worked up to 545×15

These are simply done with only the lower part of your foot on the platform. So your toes, etc. are off the platform and you’re concentrating on driving through your heels. Great exercise.

Leg Press

Worked up to 720×10 (8 plates per side)

And then dropped down to 515 for a set of 20.

My leg gains continue to come at a good rate.