Bens getting into shape log

[Kaiser]

Good to see you are back on track with both the diet and the workouts. How's the ankle holding up, mate (I just had to say that!)?

Don't be afraid to lower the weight and stick to perfect form. I'm embarassed to even quote what I'm squatting, deadlifting, and benching, but if I can shed the fat and get decent LBM, I could care less. Ian King's Great Guns taught me that it doesn't matter how much you lift to get results (unless you are training to be a powerlifter like Danny), it matters keeping perfect form, tempo, and rest periods and to keep progressing without getting injured.

[BjsAust]

Didnt feel a thing in the ankle doing deadlifts. I'm squatting tomorrow so I'll see how it holds up there (only exercise its hurt on). Ankle feels about 90-95% there, I think a lot of the rest will come just from using it properly. One thing I havnt done is try to run on it yet, I need to head out one night and try some gentle HIIT (which I guess wont be HIIT but the same idea slowed down ).

Yeah, forms important to me. I dropped weight about 5% on every lift getting back into it now and handled most of them fine. Next week most will be back up to what I was doing previously and I'll work on increasing gradually from there. Whilst I'm not lifting huge numbers, I can pride in looking around the gym and realising I'm one of 2 I've seen squat (and other guy doesnt get parallel lifting half what I do) and the only person I've seen deadlift at all.

I'm focused purely on the bf% at the moment. Any str/size/whatever else I get is a bonus. Once I pull the weight off then I'll worry about all that.

[BjsAust]

Squats and calf press.

Felt it in the ankle a bit to begin with, but didnt restrict me, and as I went it stopped hurting. On the other hand something else was hurting in my thigh/groin area. Not sure what, and it only hurts squatting. Didnt seem to affect what I could do, just annoying.

Working hard on getting down low, I'm doing parrallel pretty easy now, but much below that is hard. I need to work on something there, maybe its a balance issue? I thought it was flexibility, but I squatted down without a bar and did it easy enough. I think I need to reread some of the squat advice articles out there and see if I'm missing something in how I'm doing them. All in all felt pretty good though. Didnt have that "weak" feeling I did last week. Almost got stuck at the bottom a few times but was able to force my way out of it.

Moved calves onto the 45 degree legpress thing today. Just went 160kg fairly easy, I think it'll go a fair bit higher pretty quickly but I'm happy to ease into it.

All in all tired, sore, but feeling good. DOMS should stop knocking me around as much in the next week or two. I need to start working some cardio in there, at this stage anything is better than nothing. I'll spend some time over the weekend copying my custom foods into fitday online and should be set to start recording on there daily for my meals.

[BjsAust]

Mixed up the routine today. My GF is starting to do basically the same workout so I went to the gym in the morning with her and took her through squats and calf raises. Personally I felt really good. Getting down low and feeling strong and powerful. Time to start upping the weight. GF did pretty good. Struggled keeping the bar up until she put the pad thingy on the bar. Didnt always get as low as she should, but I'm sure everyone whos ever tried to do deep squats has started the same way. Tended to lean way too far foward with her upper body until I got her looking upwards and things seemed to improve.

I put the custom foods in fitday yesterday so I can start logging it now. I'll put a link in after I get done with todays.

105kg Squats and 200kg Calf presses. Both to go up next time. Starting to get that strong, powerful feeling in the legs in particular just walking around now. Weight lifting is good [img]smile.gif[/img] .

[BjsAust]

My fitday account

http://www.fitday.com/WebFit/PublicJ...?Owner=BjsAust

I never realised the difference a day sitting nothing could do. Yesterday was basically mess on the PC and read/watch TV which apparently burns no more than sleeping. So the difference between yesterday and today with just normal activity on top of 1 hour at the gym is 900 cals. Going to need to be aware of that eating wise (I thought I underate yesterday until I saw that).

Weighed in yesterday with no weight change. I'll just record as I go this week and check again and modify based on the results.

[BjsAust]

OK, so things are going well still. Yesterday I did chinups and dips. Did all 5 sets of chinups on the chinup bar fine, no need for the assisted machine this time! Felt good. Dips no worry there, I think I'll need to add some weight to them.

I played basketball last night for the first time this year. Ankle held up fine. Got a bit sore if I ran flat out on it, but I took it easyier than normal. Of course losing a contact halfway through didnt help my shooting .

Got up this morning feeling sore and went to the gym for Deadlifts and Shoulder Presses. Deadlifts back up as high as I've gone previously (115kg - 250 lbs) and Shoulder Press to 20kg per dumbell. Felt good and strong (but still a bit sore from last night).

Measuring my eatings been interesting. I'm eating a lot less cals than I thought, only averaging around 1700 per day and though I was low-mid 2000s. Now this raises a dilemma. According to fitday I'm eating 1000 cals less than I'm using. If I was eating 2400 for instance and didnt lose weight I'd just cut a couple hundred out. Now I dont know if I'm supposed to eat more, less or what. Gonna need to give it some thought I guess.

[BjsAust]

Very tired this morning, so put off the gym till lunch time. Incline dumbell press and biceps today. The "easy" day in my mind. They're still hard lifts, but leave me with the completely drained feeling the other days do. Up to 27.5kg easy enough on DB press (30Kg next week, my prev top) and 15kg on biceps which I'll put up as well. Interesting looking at yesterdays food log. I thought I ate much the same as prev days but put down a lot more cals. I'll pay attention over the next few days and see where I go. I think adding a little more protein based foods in wouldnt hurt atm. Maybe an egg at sometime and some cottage cheese before bed. Perhaps some more almonds at mid-morning, we'll see.

[BjsAust]

Not a break from training, just from posting .

Other than yesterday its been a good week. Yesterday was the Australia Day holiday so took off the gym and ate a fair bit. Other than apple pie and icecream for desert not super-bad food, but a fair bit of bread and wine in there.

Put up squats to 100kg (somethings been wrong with my counting lately, I think I've been stating 10kg above actual). Form is feeling really good. I'm getting very low and have a lot of power coming up. It was well worth dropping the weight down and working on form while gradually building back up. Calves I did 220kg and will raise again, chinups and dips going good, time to investigate a dip belt for them. Just got done doing deads and shoulder press. Deadlifts did 110kg and felt good, but couldnt quite get the last one up on my 5th set. Think I'll increase the weight anyway though. Shoulder presses were hard. Went up to 22.5kg and really struggled. Got through them all except 5th set my arms collapsed after only 2. Think I'll stay that weight next week .

All in all, really starting to feel good, and definately starting to see visible improvements. Weight hasnt dropped yet that I'm aware of, but body image is improving so I wont get too concerned just yet.

[BjsAust]

Short update. DB Incline press today and seated dumbell bicep curls. Went 30Kg on BP and got all 5 sets done. Felt really heavy and suspect I'll struggle next week, but I'll put it up. Did 17.5 on bicep curls and struggled. Got 5,5,4,4,3 reps. I'll need to stick there till I can get more out. Had a pain in my forearm which is a bugger. It happenned last week I think, but until I did the curls I havnt felt it all week so thought I'd recovered. As it is after every set it had fairly intense pain that would fade by the time I got to the next set. Didnt seem to affect str, but if its not right by next week I guess I should do something about it.

[Rev]

Hey Ben, I just got done with my R, R, & D with HIIT. Sounds like you're doing good. Crazy how the routine will actually build your strength quite a bit. HIIT is kind of tricky to work in isnt it. Are you still doing your HIIT? I always did mine at night, lifted in the morning.

[BjsAust]

My ankles still isnt up to sprinting so I've been a bit slack on the HIIT. I'll give it a go on the weekend, and I'm hoping that if I ice it afterwards it should stand up to it. I seem to be doing a good job building muscle and the fact my weight isnt increasing tends to suggest I'm burning some fat. I think HIIT 2 or 3 days a week will really accellerate the fat loss though so keen to get into it.

[Rev]

Oh yeah definately, HIIT was the make or break point for my fat loss, it's awesome. But ankle is priority, sorry to hear about the injury. Maybe try stationary bicycling it for the first week back in HIIT? I did that a few times, worked well. Get better soon!

[BjsAust]

I'm not a fan of cardio inside, prefer to get home and then go out. I could try taking the bike out if I need to, but doing HIIT on the bike sounds awkward [img]tongue.gif[/img] . I'll see how the running goes.

[BjsAust]

Time for the "day after basketball" update.

Good week so far. Squats/Calf raises both up, will go up again next week. Dips/Chins got through easily, I plan to take a backpack next week to add weight. Deads today were up and hard. Will go up again next week, but definately feeling very heavy, grips becoming an issue again, I need to work on that more at home. I got 5,5,5,4,5 today, switched to an alternate grip for the last set as it felt like my grip went on the 5th attempt on 4th set. Got through all 5 sets at 22.5 kg dumbells on shoulder presses. Happy with that as I really struggled last week, I'll go up this week.

Basketball was good last night. We were missing our best player who normally gets about half our points and played the 2nd top team. We ended up a draw (not a great game by me [img]tongue.gif[/img] ). This gives us an unbeaten streak of 7 games now, and still out of the top 4 . Hopefully we'll break in soon. Hard to improve too much without practise, I'm going to get down to have some shots at least 2 times between now and then, but as a team it would be nice to get some practise in.

[BjsAust]

Dumbell BP today, went great. Highest weight so far and got all 5x5 done, although I found I needed my GF to give me a little nudge to move the first rep on the 4th and 5th set. Have trouble getting it going from that far down. Will go up to 35Kg next week. Seated dumbell curls sucked though. Did 17.5 kg again and didnt get anymore out than last week. That and still having issues with my forearm. Going to start working the forearms some nights and just keep plugging I guess. I'd really wanted to get all five sets out on the curls today, this will be the first time I've sat at one weight with an exercise for more than 2 workouts in a row.

[BjsAust]

OK, so the weekend was a bit up and down. Firstly Friday night I headed out for some HIIT. After reading the thread on the fitness boards about it I decided to go with 15sec sprint, 45 sec cooldown. Even just during the warmup jog down to the park I could tell I was out of practise running. Just felt stiff, sore and not into the swing. That feeling lasted all the way through. I got through what I wanted to do and was buggerred by the end, but I think it'll take a week or two until I readjust to running again and get completely into the swing of it.

After the running I got the GF to take some update pics just in my running shorts. Picture showed about what I expected, but still dissappointing. Muscle definition up, especially through the pecs and traps. Did a back double bicep pose ( ) and I've never had lumps and dimples like that before, but at the end of the day theres still a fairly thick layer of fat overlaying it all. GF says she can see its down in the pics and I think I agree, but still definately more than I'd like. The next morning we did measurements. Again about what I'd expected. Chest, biceps, hips and thighs all up, waist and calves down. As expected muscles have grown and some fats gone, just not as much as I'd have liked. BF% actually measured up but I think I just suck at measuring consistantly.

So where does that all leave me? Well I'm lifting heavier than ever and gained some good lean muscle. I've worked out consistantlly for a while now and am into a routine. Slow gains made so far. Whilst I havnt made the progress I'd want, my eatings been pretty good and I'm only just now adding HIIT into the equation. If I can do HIIT two times a week, play basketball a third and just mess around having shots a couple of nights then suddenly I'm adding nicely to my "calories burned" and so on. Hopefully by easing into things a bit like I have I can step things up to full out without worrying about burning out or injuring myself.


Did squats, calves this morning. Put squats up to 105kg and thought it wouldnt be a big issue. For some reason I had trouble maintaining form. I'd get the first 3-4 reps out great then lose it on the 5th and have to brute force it up (I have a bad habit when things get hard of lowering the weight foward and just driving up with my quads instead of using my posterior chain). Ended up only getting 5,5,5,4,2 out. One thing thats crept in is I'm taking the weight out and then standing with it on my shoulders for way too long before I start my first rep. I've got to get better at just getting out, setting up quickly and getting into it. I think just plain exhaustion played a part. So I'll leave it the same weight next week (dissappointing, had thought I'd go another 5 or 10 kg before missing a full lot of sets) and expect to power through it fine if I concentrate on it a bit more. Calves up to 240kg and got through them fine.

[BjsAust]

Pullups and Dips this morning. Took along an old hessian backpack and used it to add weight. Started with a 5kg plate and it really busted me on the pullups. Got through pretty well, but not happy with form. I'll stay there another week until I'm happy. Dips felt so much better with weight, I'll add another 2.5kg to them next time.

Feeling very sore today, legs are killing me from yesterday still. Going to have to do a thorough warmup tonight before basketball.

[BjsAust]

Basketball was great last night, ran my legs off. Thought we were in trouble playing the team directly below us without our only big guy playing, but we ran circles around them and ended up winning 40-24. Very tired today though [img]tongue.gif[/img] .

Deadlifts and shoulder press. Both struggled. Got 5,5,5,4,4 on Deads using 115 kg. Man it felt heavy. Seems to be an issue with my grip still, I'll keep working on it. Not sure if I'll go up next week or not, might stay the same and hope it fixes my grip a bit. Shoulder press was nasty, first time I put them up (went to 25kg dumbells) I couldnt even get them off my shoulder, really struggle just getting them started. Ended up doing 5,5,4 with 25kg (got some funny looks with whole body shaking and taking almost 10 secs to get some reps up), couldnt get the 4th set going and dropped to 22.5kgs and only got 3. Pushed out 5 fine on the fifth set though, so I'll stick at 25 and hope to get all 5 sets done at that weight next week.

Very tired, very sore. Feels like I did myself good, but the next rest day will be nice .