Old-School Iron

Yep, only seven days to go before it’s meet time.

I’m probably going to be a bit below my wildest hopes with regard to the poundages, but it’ll still be okay. I’ve managed to keep my weight down, and so I’ll likely weigh in at something around 88kgs / 194lbs or so… and come close to the same lifts as last time. Pretty decent, in my thinking.

I was actually surprised by how well it went…

Considering that my spring and summer has been mostly about light pumping (gaining 4kgs) and then a month-long complete lay-off, with no training and especially no singles at all in 6 months…

Squat (full range, ass to the heels):
I did 6 sets: 5 x 60kgs / 132lbs, 5 x 80kgs / 176lbs, 3 x 100kgs / 220lbs, 3 x 120kgs / 264lbs, 2 x 140kgs / 308lbs and 1 x 150kgs / 330lbs.

These went surprisingly well, I thought, and I did feel like I might have gotten a 155, maybe 160 if I’d have pushed it, but I figured I might as well “start light” and leave a rep or so hanging… This may bode well come meet time. I’m not spilling the beans on how I’m training (mainly because there’s precious little of it yet), but I’ll get to it after the meet.

Deadlifts, sumo style:
I did 6 sets of these too, with the same poundages up until 140kgs, at which point I felt good and decided on a 160kgs / 352lbs lift for my single. And guess what! I friggin got it!

Not a huge achievement? Under normal circumstances I would agree, but consider this: at the last meet I lifted 165kgs / 363lbs AFTER a 9-week russian peaking cycle. This time? No deadlifting in 6 months plus a full month lay-off from all training… and was I surprised?? Um, who wouldn’t be? The whole workout took 58 minutes to complete.

Kris seemed a bit shocked but, as we frequently joke; I am not an example of typical results by any measure… I keep somehow amazing myself as well as Kris. Maybe the one-month lay-off was exactly what was needed.?

I’m fairly optimistic about my meet-results now. I believe I should have the same poundages as last time pretty much in the proverbial bag, but we’ll see how it goes. Murphy may have something he wishes to share before that…

Ah, yes, the second virtual meet is up and coming soon.

I’ve been a bit preoccupied with various projects lately, and my training had nearly ground to a halt. However, I’m now back and at it again…

It will be rather interesting to see how a month-long layoff and training at a seriously under-equipped gym (our basement facility) will affect my strength come meet time.
I do have a plan that I will be implementing, but I think I’ll keep everybody in suspense about what that is until the meet. If it fails, then maybe I’ll just try and fade it away and not tell anyone.

Basically, I’m a bit lighter than I was in February but I’m hoping this hasn’t affected my strength all that much. I haven’t noticed a decline at work, at least, and I have a physically somewhat demanding job at the moment.
I definitely don’t have any illusions about being at the top rung of the competition by any means, not with the current cadre of competitors, but I’m thinking I won’t be too shabby if I lift roughly the same as last time. In fact, I’d be delighted if that were the case, considering this summer’s workout frequency and the absence of a power-rack and Olympic bar at our basement gym.

We’ll see how it goes. Wish me Power!!

Sorry it took this long to get this, the third and final part of the nutrition articles, written. Anyway, as promised, this part will deal with fat loss, basically.

Losing weight is easy; stop eating. Losing it the right way (aka from bodyfat stores) is a bit trickier, albeit not horrendously difficult. At least not in theory.

There are simple guidelines that anyone wishing to loose some extra flab may follow, and this without any calorie-counting. Also, you must bare in mind that these are according to the official guidelines. But first, there are some underlying principles that need a bit of clarification before we can fully understand those guidelines.

First off; the sensation of hunger.

I am one of those people that are constantly hungry. I kid you not, if I was to stuff my face with 2 chicken breasts and a bag of bacon (150g in Finland) right now, which should satisfy anyone for quite a while, I’ll be “hungry” thirty minutes later. I’ve come to realize that the feeling of “hunger” and an actual need to eat don’t necessarily coincide, at least not when it comes to me. If I ate every time I felt like it, I’d be fat. Seriously fat. So, I’ve learned to distinguish between “wanna eat” and “gotta eat”. You need to eat at about 2-3 hour intervals. Any more often than that, and you’re begging to be fat. Any less than that, and it’s the same deal.

Yes, really. That often. People wanting to lose fat should eat as often as anyone else; 2-3 hours apart. That translates to 5-7 meals a day. That’s: breakfast, morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, dinner/preworkout meal, supper/postworkout shake and an evening snack.

If you eat less than that, you’ll be hungry. Hunger creates feelings of “wanna eat”. Now, eating is okay, and eating less isn’t usually the best ticket to losing weight. More often, it’s what you eat that’s the deciding factor, as well as what you burn.

Now, the easiest method to losing weight, by far, is eating less than you consume. Contradicting myself? Not really, since I’m not suggesting you ease up on the eating, but instead add more consumption. Exercising is the easiest way to burn off the unwanted fat. However, most people also add more food to the mix, and this is where it falls apart.
Exercising does NOT give you the thumbs up to eating whatever you feel like. Proper exercise needs proper fuel. You wouldn’t pour canola oil into your car’s engine, now would you? Oils aren’t the same, and neither are foods.
Some people, though, hate to exercise and can’t be forced to do so, either. Lucky there’s a way around that, although I would strongly recommend getting off your ass and exercising anyway! Any exercise is better than nothing at all. Walk, swim, ride a bicycle, throw some hoops, play you nintendo Wii, whatever.

So, how to go about it, then? You should never go hungry, especially when you’re trying to loose weight. Why is that, you ask? Because going hungry will make it harder for you to resist the temptations of chocolate bars and such, and starving yourself is downright depressing, not to mention unhealthy. So, eat all you can instead, with these guidelines in mind (and in practice!).

- The stomach fills not by the caloric content, but by the volume (aka size) of the food.

- Start your meals with a salad or a soup. Why?

- Add vegetables to your food.

- Eat berries.

Berries contain lots of water and fiber, and not a whole lot of energy (calories). In addition, they have an abundance of vitamins, minerals and other beneficial phytochemicals. But, they taste great and that’s really all you wanted to know, right? Add some fresh or melted berries (without added sugar!) on your unsweetened muesli, in your natural yogurt or in your oat meal. Can you say flavor..? Try this: add half a cup (1dl) of strawberries, half a cup of raspberries and half a cup of blueberries/bilberries to a blender with some natural yogurt and some ice. Blend, and enjoy your airy breakfast smoothie that has a lot of volume and fluff, with your oatmeal. Notice how I weave it all together..?

- Eat fruit for snacks.

- Drink water.

- Choose fiber-rich products.

- Use spices, for goodness sake!

- Avoid sugar.

- Avoid alcohol.

- Avoid fats.

A diet heavy with fat is no diet for anyone wishing to loose any weight. Everyone knows this. This is because the caloric density of fats are over double those from protein and carbohydrates, and are thus easily eaten excessively.
If you don’t believe me, try this on for size: eat two whole chicken breasts and nothing else and wait until you’re hungry again.
Now have three tablespoons of olive oil and nothing else and see how long it takes for you to get hungry once more. The caloric content is the same, you see. Nuff said, I believe.

However, the food industry is tricky. “Low fat” does not mean “low calorie”. More often than not, low fat means sugar added in one form or another, so you need to pay attention to the nutrition facts on the box as well as the ingredients lists. Sugar alcohols are sugar-like in caloric content (maltitol, mannitol, sorbitol and other polyols, all ending with “-ol”) even though they don’t act as it in the bloodstream. In my mind, anything artificial (aka not occurring in nature) can’t really be all that good for you. Aspartame, for instance, has been known to estherize into formaldehyde in the body, when taken in large enough doses. Formaldehyde…now there’s a healthy-sounding beverage, wouldn’t you say..?

That said, it is more prudent to choose foods based on caloric density than fat-content, however. Yes, the fat does make it more dense energy-wise, but it does also slow down the absorption of sugars, and a certain amount of fat is after all essential to the proper functioning of the human body.

How to determine the caloric density of different foodstuffs:

1) Fiber content:

the more fiber a product contains, the less kcal you get. Fiber is mostly insoluble.
Examples:
Cereal with high fiber content: 65kcal / 25g serving vs. cornflakes 95kcal / 25g.
Rye bread 200kcal / 100g vs. French toast 250kcal / 100g.

2) Water content:

the more water a product contains, the less kcal you get. Water has no energy, and takes up a lot of volume. Dry foodstuffs tend to be calorically denser.
Examples:
Watermelon 25kcal / 100g vs. banana 85kcal / 100g.
Apple 30kcal / 100g vs. Dried apples 240kcal / 100g.

3) Fat content:

the more fat a product contains, the higher the kcal amount (9kcal/g vs. 4kcal/g of protein and carbs).
Examples:
Hamburger between two buns without mayo 300kcal/each vs. the same with mayo 530kcal.
Fat free milk 35kcal / 1dl (half a cup) vs. full fat milk 65kcal / 1dl.

4) Air content:

adding air to your food has a fluffing effect, and two portions of equal size (that have therefore the same satiety effect) can have dramatically different caloric values.
Example:
Whisked chocolate mousse 100kcal / 1dl (45g) vs. unwhísked chocolate mousse 230kcal / 1dl (100g!)

There we are. If you’ve read the whole three-part series, feel free to drop me some feedback!
You can either drop a comment or email me at: mans@mansrinne.com

Nutrition is not all that different for muscle-building than for everyone else.
There are some differences, though, and I’ll give you a quick rundown of those.

First off, there are three main anabolic hormones; growth hormone, insulin and testosterone. All you need to know, really, is how to stimulate the production of those hormones, and here’s where the fine-tuning comes in.

A large fat intake (1-2g / kg / day) will stimulate the production of both growth hormone and testosterone, whereas a smaller intake (under 1g) does not.
A relatively large intake intake of carbs (5-6g / kg / day) will stimulate insulin production.
The surprise is that animal protein (meats, fish, dairy, eggs) also stimulates insulin production, but also testosterone. Plant proteins only stimulate insulin production, so animal proteins are superior in this regard for building mass. However, eating way too much protein also inhibits testosterone production, so keep it under 3g / kg /day.

Note that these can be achieved with food, and without that food being chemically enhanced in any way.

Simple, huh? For an anabolic meal, include the following:
1) plenty of animal protein, about 40g per meal (meat, dairy or eggs)
2) plenty of high quality carbs, about 50-70g per meal (veggies and rice/pasta)
3) plenty of good, polyunsaturated fats (olive oil or even -gasp- eggs in your salad)

There you go. The recipe for building muscle mass.
The rest of the recommendations follow the lines given in the previous chapter about general nutrition, with minor adjustments:

Protein: 2g / kg / day
Carbs: 5-6g / kg / day
Fats: 1-2g / kg / day

So, the official idea is that strength athletes don’t need as much carbs as the general public (5-8g/kg/day). Sounds weird to me, but okay; I’ll try anything once as long it isn’t illegal, immoral, fattening or carcinogenic in rats.
Oh, please note that the above gram-amounts should be calculated for lean body mass, not whole weight.

According to the official guidelines of the Finnish government, your preworkout drink should consist of 0,2-0,3g protein / kg and 0,4-0,5g carbs /kg and be as fat free as possible (for a 90kg athlete this means 18-27g of protein and 36-45g of carbs). As this brew should be imbibed no more than 10 minutes before working out, it’s suggested that only about a cup of liquid be used (~2dl). This will make for a relatively strong drink, but it will ensure you’re in an anabolic state even during your workout (the protein will stimulate insulin and testosterone release, and the carbs will heighten the insulin response). The best powders to use are hydrolyzed whey and maltodextrine. You will notice I said that the protein (in case of whey protein) stimulates insulin. This was news to me, as I’m sure it’ll be news to others as well. Generally speaking, we’ve been lead to think that carbs and only carbs stimulate insulin, but this is not so. Whey protein also does so.

Your postworkout drink should consist of 0,25-0,5g protein / kg and 0,5-0,8g carbs / kg and should be drunk immediately following your workout (for a 90kg athlete this means 22,5-45g protein and 45-72g carbs).

Other than that, follow the guidelines for general nutrition.

However, if you’re having difficulty eating sufficient amounts (i.e. you don’t grow or get stronger even though you work your butt off in the gym) you might want to try the following; since fiber satiates well, and faster carbs actually cause you to crave more food (due to the insulin upshot and consequent drop in blood sugar levels), eat a bunch of fast carbs.
That is; potatoes, pasta, quick rice, bread and such. All the stuff you’re generally warned to stay off of. This way you’ll get more calories in you and you will tend to grow. However, not going to the gym or working out quite enough will cause mass buildup around your waistline. This is called bulking up and is like so passé.

I figured it was about time I too had an article on something on my blog.

What else but the single most ignored facet of training lore; nutrition. There’s a lot to it, but none of it is exactly rocket science. So, in simple terms, I’ll explain the whole thing. This will be a three-part article, since it’d be quite long otherwise…

There will be a conspicuous absence; the division into male-female.
The reason is simple; muscle physiology does not differ by gender, and so nutritional needs don’t differ either, except in two regards: women should pay closer attention to their iron intake as much iron can be lost via bleeding in the menstrual cycle, and in the case of eating birth-control pills women need to make sure they’re getting enough vitamin B’s, since the pills tend to cause greater usage of these.
Sorry guys, but us men cannot therefore argue that we “need bacon to survive, dammit” since we really don’t. Delicious as it may be.

Before we can go into specifics, it would be wise to look at some overall clever ideas regarding anyone’s nutrition.

This part will therefore deal with the nutritional guidelines that are in accordance with the “official” line of thinking regarding food and health (Finnish recommendations). The next part will deal with how to adapt this into building muscle and strength. Again, there’s scant little difference between men and women in this department as well. The third and probably last installment will deal with weight-loss. How to eat yourself lean, basically. Not difficult either, by the way…

——-

Before you can start calculating how much you need to eat, you need to know how much you’re consuming. First and foremost; get your bodyfat % measured by someone who knows what they’re doing. Fat cells don’t use energy (aka food) so all the calculations will be made for lean body mass (=LBM, aka fat-free bodyweight).
Don’t trust those electric impendance measures, you know; the ones that look like Knight Rider’s steering wheel, since they’ll downright lie if you’ve got even slightly above average muscle mass. Go to a seasoned measurer, found at most “hardcore” gyms everywhere, where they measure with a skinfold caliper.

Here are the two most used formulas for calculating your resting metabolism (base metabolic rate, BMR). Note that the weights are in kilograms.
To get your kg weight: divide your lbs bodyweight by 2.2. Example: 220lbs div 2.2 = 100kgs.

-The Cunningham formula from 1980 is widely used because of its relative simplicity:
500 + 22 x lean body mass (aka fat free bodyweight)

-However, the Harris-Benedict formula from 1919 is more accurate as well as more elaborate:

For men: 66,47 + (13,75 x bodyweight in kgs) + (5 x your length in cm) – (6,76 x age in years)
For women: 655,1 + (9,56 x bodyweight in kgs) + (1,85 x your length in cm) – (4,68 x age in years)

(one inch = 2,5cm)

Or, for the sake of simplifying things, you can do it the Chris Aceto way and make a rough ballpark guesstimation:

Your weight in kgs x 22 = guesstimate of base metabolic rate
(Or, your weight in lbs and simply add a zero).

So now you have an idea of how much you need to eat, if you never did anything like lift a finger or such, also known as your BMR. In order to know what you actually need is a bit more complex. Everything once you get out of bed consumes more energy than what your BMR is. You’ll need to compensate for this loss by eating more food, thankfully.

The MET system (metabolic equivalent system) is a system by which you can very accurately gauge the amounts of calories you need, but the system is a bit time consuming, since every activity has to be recorded every hour, and there is a different value for each activity based on it’s heaviness.

The simplified MET system goes like this and is calculated for the entire day at a time:

BMR x 1,2: physically light job and no other physical activity
BMR x 1,3: physically light job and some light chores
BMR x 1,4: physically light job and a fair amount of chores
BMR x 1,5: physically light job and lots of chores
BMR x 1,6: physically medium heavy job and no or very little chores
BMR x 1,7: physically medium heavy job and some light chores
BMR x 1,8: physically medium heavy job and plenty of chores
BMR x 1,9: physically demanding job and no or very little chores
BMR x 2,0: physically demanding job and reasonable amount of chores
BMR x 2,1: physically demanding job and plenty of chores

For someone like me, with a physically fairly demanding job plus the 3-4 workouts I do a week, which can be counted as heavy chores I’d say, adds up to about 2,0 times my BMR. Which is roughly 3700 kcal/day altogether.

Basically, we should all be eating between 5-7 meals per day, that is, in 2-4 hour intervals. Less than that and you’re prone to binging once you get your meal, causing a massive insulin surge in your bloodstream followed by the “crash”, or post-meal weariness.

That is, to see it in writing: breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack and a bedtime meal.

This is optimal for everyone, since it’ll keep your metabolism going steadily and you won’t get those crashes after meals. It doesn’t really matter whether or not you’re hungry, you should never miss any of those meals. Period.

So the “three square meals a day”-thingy should be dead and buried by now, but for some reason it isn’t. Somehow that ogre still survives, even though the same recommendation (5-7 meals per day) was made more than a century ago by most strongmen and other athletes, perhaps most notably for us muscleheads by Eugene Sandow.

Another thing is, carbwise, we should all be eating more veggies, legumes and fruit. This is because they’re rich in vitamins, minerals and something you can’t get anywhere else; phytochemicals like flavonoids. Yes, yes, I know red wine also has flavonoids in it, but alcohol has absolutely NO place in an athletes’ diet regardless (at least not on a regular basis).

Also, all the carbs you consume should be from high-fiber sources. That would include oat meal, rye meal, rye bread, rye crispbread, full-grain rice and unsugared cereal, unsugared muesli, firm veggies like carrots and beets, and so on.
The gist here is that even though the calculation makes your carb intake look like 60-70%, the fiber in it makes it so that you’re not actually overfeeding yourself with sugars (let’s face it: carbs = sugars) simply because the fiber is very filling. You’ll be stuffed before you’ve overeaten. Besides, fiber is non-soluble and thus doesn’t really count as energy intake anyhow.

A range of 5-8g of carbs per kg of bodyweight per day should suffice. And that includes the fibers, too.

What surprised me as I read through the official guidelines was the amount of fats they’re prescribing as a healthy amount. I’ve actually had to increase my daily fat intake to fit these parameters.
Get this: 1-2g/kg bodyweight/day is optimal, they say. That translates into a whopping 20-25 E%! (E% is the percentage of your daily energy intake).
Less fat than 1g/kg/day equals less testosterone and growth hormone, it would seem according to the metastudies our fine government has made, and is thus not optimal for strength gains and muscle growth. And in my own case, it seems to work. I seem to be growing but burning fat all the same while doing so. ‘Strange’ seems somehow inadequate to describe it…

However (put the bacon back in the fridge if you would, please), these fats should come mainly from plants; olive and rapeseed oil, margarine, peanuts, almonds and the like. Also, fatty fish like salmon should be a part of your weekly menu on a very regular basis. Lucky for me we Finns have plenty of ways to cook a salmon, sometimes even just salt it and leave it in the fridge overnight. Yummy!

Protein seems to be better if it comes from an animal source like chicken, beef, pork, turkey and dairy such as milk, cheese, yogurt and cottage cheese. This is because plant based proteins don’t have the same testosterone-upping and hence, anabolic, effect.

Plant proteins are also inferior with regard to their amino acid content, but it has to be said that a sensible vegan diet usually does have everything you need.
However, vegans and vegetarians need to make sure they’re getting enough iron. Meat is rich in well-absorbable iron and plant sources simply can’t compete in this department since the iron in plants doesn’t absorb as readily. A sufficient protein intake is 0,8-2g/kg bodyweight/day.

And: IF your diet is compiled sensibly, you should be getting all the vitamins, minerals and other healthy substances from diet alone. Basically you’ll not need supplements. However, you may wish to make sure you’re getting everything you need by popping a multivitamin-mineral pill each morning just for kicks.

Recap of basic nutritional guidelines that anyone can reap the benefits of:

Protein: 0,8-2g / kg / day
Carbs: 5-8g / kg / day
Fats: 1-2g / kg / day

I have two weeks of vacation time starting on Sunday, that is tomorrow is still work as usual, but on Monday I’m on holiday…
This is perfect, since we’re going to take a day-cruise over the Gulf of Finland from Helsinki to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. The cruise includes – get this; a buffet breakfast! They have no idea I’m coming, obviously. Otherwise, they’d cancel the buffet idea. They’ll be running out of eggs and meats in no time. Well, serves them right for charging 9,50€ per person for the buffet. And to put this is perspective; the entire cruise costs about 10€ per person.

Cruises to Tallinn are very popular, and the Estonians have a special nickname for Finns; Poro. It’s the Finnish word for reindeer, and it isn’t meant as a flattery in any way, shape or form. (However, Wiki had this interesting thing to say about the word.) This again, is largely due to my fellow countrymen and their unfortunate predisposition for hard alcohol drinking. We drink more than even the Irish per capita.

The riot in Tallinn yesterday has made their government ban the sale of alcohol altogether though until May 2nd. Not that I mind, but some might.

Well, yet another server crash. Again, however, I shall leave the technical details to Kris, but it seems there’s either a bug in the system itself or perhaps some library of something corrupt somewhere.

And actually, I switched training systems again.
Yes, I know I said I’d be doing the Pearl program, but: the time it takes to go through a single workout is around two hours. Right now, I just don’t have enough time to do that. I will most likely return to the longer program at some point, because I do feel it’s great overall conditioning and would recommend it to anyone wanting some variation from a regular split program like the ones that are so popular nowadays.

So, I had this really evil thought, about a seriously nasty type of training and decided to give it a whirl.
Having now done a weeks’ worth of training in my new “intracycle” style, I can say that it definitely is quite taxing. I call these intracycles, because in training terms a microcycle usually refers to a week or so, but these cycles go on within the exercises themselves, rendering the term microcycle too large. And of course, calling it a macrocycle is way out the window. A month, yeah right…

Here’s the general gist of the nastyprogram:
Some readers may know about my cycle-training, where the training is split up into three distinct phases, or cycles lasting about 4 weeks each, where the first month is regular, heavy training with a 8-12 rep-range, the second month a superslow 60 sec set with 6 reps done, and the third month a fast pumping 20-30 reps… And it’s nasty, really nasty.

Well, I figured the only thing nastier would be to include all of them at the same time!

Enter current system. I do 6 sets per exercise, and have “intracycles” per each exercise, where set 1 is 8-12, set 2 is 60sec, set 3 is 15-20, and then once again through the cycle. HA!
Well, the joke is on me, since this is really intense. It burns like hell, the second heavy set is really nasty and I feel dead after each workout. Not completely, but let’s say the muscles involved are deep-fried. My triceps still ache, and it’s been what – 4 days since the workout? Unusual for me to be sore for so long, since I recover in roughly two days from almost anything.

Having now been on this newest of new programs for a couple weeks, I can say it’s pretty darned interesting.

Walking through the gate of Pearl

I thought I’d make this headline one with a dual meaning, for some unwarranted fun on my part.

The first meaning of course referring to the recent server problem, which I will allow Kris to describe in full detail. This is to say he’s the computer wiz, and I’m the nearly computer illiterate dude happy with getting the most basic functions right. Such as blogging and smurfing the net. Using Word and such. I feel I have learned a great deal about computers over the last two months. Namely, about how webservers can crash without valid reason. But as previously stated, I’ll allow Kris to go over the details of that one. It was NOT, however, of our doing.

Anyway, since the subsequent loss of a number of posts, I have adopted a whole different way of blogging. I write everything out in Word first and copy paste them onto the blog. That way, even if the we have another server meltdown, which Kris is relatively sure will not happen, I’ll still have everything on my own computer. I’m feeling safe.

The second meaning being that pre-crash but post-virtualmeet I said on this very blog and over on Virtualmeet.net (should be back online anytime now) as well that I was to embark on a real old-school training scheme concocted by the legendary Bill Pearl. The program is totally free, and is available on his website as a read-only page. It contains a full program from beginner to advanced powerbuilder (my term (?) for old-school bodybuilding) in 20 months.
The funny thing is, he only splits it up near the advanced level. Until then, you’re pumping the entire body 2-4 times a week! Yeah, that’s right, the whole body, every time.

Just a few months ago I would’ve said that this kind of training would be insane and likely result rapidly in overtraining symptoms (headaches, sleepiness, loss of apetite, loss of results gained…).
However, now I’d say it’s more what you get used to than anything else. Yes, the volume is high but hey, it worked then, why not now? Human physiology hasn’t changed in ten thousand years, why would it suddenly have changed over the last couple of decades?

The program (which I started from month 8, intermediate level), is a nice mix of stuff. Basically it’s just a lot of volume in comparison to anything I’ve ever done before, and with an order of exercises I may not (read: would never) have chosen myself. But, since Bill Pearl is a legend known to most that’ve lifted a weight or read a magazine such as Flex, MuscleMag or Muscular Development, and has over 50 years of bodybuilding experience, I figure I may as well trust he knows what he’s doing.

And so my first workout was quite horrendous. I tried taking it way easy, but I was nearly puking by the time I was almost half-way through… After all, 48 sets with 30 sec - 2 min rest is rather tough to someone not used to it.
However - and this is where it gets interesting; the second workout felt like a breeze. I sailed through, tired and wiped yes but still not even close to puking. I’m thinking I might have eaten better that time, because I can’t see the body getting used to something like this in two days. Along with his training suggestions, Pearl recommends around 60% of one’s calories come from carbs. I can now say with experience and some confidence; it is next to necessary for this type of training. No way could you complete a workout like this on any type of ketogenic diet. Or, maybe on a TKD… (targeted ketogenic diet). Interested readers should refer to Kris’ excellent review on ketogenic diets.

Another new idea is to NOT train to failure.
I’ve basically always gone to the edge, aka positive failure (=can’t raise the weight another time, even at gunpoint). This new, pumping style I like. It feels good, and for some reason, I don’t really get sore anymore. This is good, considering my current job of lugging wooden furniture around. And, as Ronnie Coleman once is said to have said: “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get the same results you always got”. In this deep and cryptic thought (note tongue-in-cheek demeanor) I read: vary your training from time to time.

Having never done anything remotely like this, because I figured it would lead to overtraining in a week, I must say I’m very positively surprised. Not only am I getting stronger, but my weight is back up to 93-94kgs. My virtualmeet weigh-in clocked me in at 91kgs just about a month ago. No sign of overtraining. Besides, Pearl has you changing the whole thing each month. Not a single exercise is the same (mostly) and even the order in which you train them changes.
It’s nice, because you get to try training ideas that may not have entered your wildest dreams, such as doing legs at the end of your workout after having blasted through the entire upper body first.

So, now that I’m clear of month 8, I’m supposed to start doing abs 4 times per workout, dispersed throughout. It’s going to be interesting… And, as suspected, none of the exercises are the same and even the order in which one trains the bodyparts is completely different. I’m expecting some soreness for tomorrow…

This has been interesting.

After having gotten through weeks 1 and 2 of month 9, I came down with the flu and have been down for a whole week, displaying an odd array of symptoms. Day 1 consisted of fever, and associated chills and sweats. Day 2, however, had me clear of the fever all day, but come evening I had serious nausea. Day 3 had me feeling otherwise okay, but having a wild case of diarrhea. And the fever returned in a chilling matinee performance where my temp went up by 2 degrees centigrade in an hour. NO fun, let me tell you. Anyway, interested to see what day 4 might bring, I wake up the next morning with no diarrhea, no nausea, no fever…but a severely sore right hip joint. Walking was very painful… I just had to laugh. Who’s ever heard of a stomach flu like this? Hip pain? I mean come on…

Today, however, I’m fine and going to go to work tomorrow unless something freaky occurs again.
Hopefully I’ll be back to lifting as well real soon.

Oh yeah, and welcome back to my blog!!

This is a historic post. For two reasons, actually.

Reason 1: This is the first post on my brand-new LG K1 Express laptop (user review to follow).
Reason 2: We’re now officially one third through this Peaking Program! Yay! Cause for celebration, so I went and bought myself and my new laptop a Targus “Global Executive” Backpack. Nice, lifetime warranty..!

Anyway, the week’s workouts went okay.
On Heavy Bench, I started to feel it’s actually heavy with 6 x 5reps @ 102,5kgs / 225,5lbs. On the last set, I had to fight to get the last rep. Lessee now, next week it’s 6 x 6…
The Light Squats went really well, with only one penalty repetition because of sloppy execution on my part. The rest of the 6 x2 @ 130kgs / 286lbs was a breeze. No hip pain, no nothing. Really nice…

Deadlift day. Return of the hip pain. Actually, it got quite severe, but I lived. I did 6 x 5 @ 122,5kgs / 269,5lbs. I think I thought too much about how I was doing it. Mental note: Next week, go “no mind” instead…

On saturday, I ran into some trouble on the squats. Everything was going great, I was getting good depth on all reps, except on set 3 I bungled one. Then, on set 5 I must’ve had the belt on too high, because it sunk into my ribs and caused enough pain for me to decide to skip set 6 and the light bench pressing altogether. We (me and Kris) decided that this would cause a penalty of 50cents, as it was due to circumstances beyond my immediate control. Put on some Ice Power immediately, which Kris had in his bag just in case.
Nothing broke though, as I diagnosed myself by bending and such. Since bending towards the “damaged area” doesn’t hurt and I can comfortably even sleep on it, I deduce no bones were crushed. Hopefully, this won’t make me bomb out of the peaking routine either…

Penalties total so far over the three weeks: 4€. I’m still alive, though…