Posts

Showing posts from July, 2021

The new program

 First off, I read up a lot increasing your press (overhead). My conclusion is that pressing regularly is normally enough to bring up the main drivers: delts, triceps, and traps. You still need a lot of supplemental exercises though, just focus on the stabilizers, not the drivers. Those are quads and abs. To that end I incorporated quad work squat. Safety bar squat, and gripping the rack to stabilize. The end result is a sort of halfway house between a squat and a leg press. I also replaced a lifting day with a free day. The idea is to have 4 week long phases. A base phase and a maxing phase. Staggered so while I am maxing upper body, lower body is doing volume. Monday DB press ramp to a working set of 4. (120+) Immediate Backoff set 8x70 Ramp to safety bar squat (stabilized) set of 4. (~265) Immediate Backoff set 8x185 Pull Ups 10 ALACTIC Cable Side bends  Wednesday. Free day. Swimming for now. Thursday (Sets of 30+, ALACTIC. Assist during eccentric if possible) Glute Ham Raise   (Abo

The old Program

 My old program, which I followed for several months looked like this: Monday Pin Press ramp to sets of 4, approximately 85% 1 RM. High Pull ramp to sets of 4, approximately 85% 1 RM. Cross Cable Pull 14 reps (More effective lateral raise) Clavicular fly 17 reps (ALACTIC*) Face Pull Wednesday Glute Ham Raise 21 reps (ALACTIC) Zercher Squat holds (hold 10 seconds at the bottom) Cable kneeling pull over 21 reps ALACTIC Adductor Machine 34 reps ALACTIC Thursday Press shrugs 10 reps ALACTIC Wall Press 34 reps ALACTC (similar to scrape the rack press, except roll the bar up the wall using weights) Chest Row Machine 34 reps ALACTIC Saturday Long distance running or biking (keep low intensity by intervals and rests as needed) Partial Nordic Raise 10 reps ALACTIC Apia Row 10 reps ALACTIC *ALACTIC means do 1-3 reps (about 10 seconds), than rest 3x (abpit 30 seconds). This keeps the work in the phosphocreatine system and not straying into the lactate system. Replenishing the phosphocreatine uses

Swimming First - Frog stroke

My easy workout right now is swimming in the pool once a week. The guy next to me was doing the frog-stroke back and forth. I had tried it last time I was regularly swimming some years ago, without success. Back then I was very dedicated at swimming, trying to go as fast as possible, timing intervals and so forth. Now, I see the benefit of a relaxing workout. Watching him I got ganas to try it. My first attempt went well, I went out about 25 m and returned. My upper back felt a little spasmy, the muscles tightening up under the unfamiliar strain. At the end of the workout I decided to go for a whole pool length. I started at the deep end, so if I run into trouble at the end I would be in shallow water. I did it! This reminds me of the time I first swam the front crawl. I had tried numerous times but always stalled out after the push off the wall and sank. Then after some time away, when I had spent a lot of time in the weight room, I just did it, first time, no special effort. I think
 Diet Plan I am loosely following the croissant diet . The diet is avoid PUFAs, especially omega-6. Get plenty of saturated fat. Supplementing with sterculia oil, astaxanthin, berberine. Small amounts of fish oil. The idea of this diet is to increase and metabolic rate, which is supposedly down because we are all in a semi torpid state and dieting, fasting, and PUFAs increase our torpor. Potentially the metabolic rate can swing +/+25% (as mammals) so it would have a huge impact, especially since the difference between gaining pounds a year v. losing them is usually just 50-100 kCal/yr. I am following this diet because my ability to fast or restrict calories feels like it is shot after working well previously. (I went from 230 to 190). I am now 240. Additionally I have episodes of fibromyalgia and I expect that ultimately mitochrondia dysfunction is at the root of it. This diet may offer a way to fix that via uncoupling reactive oxygen species from mitochrondria generating cellular ener