Blackjack's Gettin' Stronger - The K.I.S.S. Plan

[Blackjack]

Thanks for the definate encouragment. Ben's been sleeping much better lately. He fought off a cold last week but otherwise he's been pretty quiet. My wife is still struggling. She's started a mental countdown until the baby comes. It seems she's got restless-leg-syndrome. Lots of pain in her hips and legs. She's been elevating them and that seems to help. But she's taking Tylenol & Unisom to help her sleep. I've actually been sleeping upstairs as well so that's nice. I was really not enjoying sleeping downstairs in the basement.

Work has been a struggle for me in a good way. Very busy with traveling quite a bit lately and actually I'm interviewing for a promotion later today. So I guess it's a good kind of stress. Just a lot going on right now. I really can't complain, we are very blessed overall.

Workout
Did my pull-up workout this a.m. Got all 10 sets of 3 reps with just bodyweight. Will add 10lbs next week. Goal here is to increase the amount of BW pull-ups I can do without stopping. Need to test this to see how I'm progressing.

Then I completed a superset of 1-arm DB Shoulder Presses (35lbs) & DB Rows (45lbs). Going to increase Sh Press by 5lbs until they are even with DB Rows. Will use holds at the top to increase intensity on the rows before I add weight. These are both good for my shoulders.

Diet has been so-so. Watching what I'm eating without counting calories. Still sticking to meat, cheese & veggies. Have also added a piece of fruit or two per day as well. I've decided I will be doing the GS diet once again for 6 weeks starting Oct 16th. Why that date, becuase I'll be traveling once again the week before and that will be it for business travel for the year. This will take me up to Thanksgiving and our pending arrival. My goal will be 195lbs while maintaining strength I'm gaining in current cycle. Maintaining strength will hopefully indicate maintaining muscle mass. Workout for the GS Diet - I'm going to fall back on the trusty TTFL workouts. Not sure which ones at this point but I'll pick two and do them for 3 weeks each. Goal is to gain as much strength in this training cycle as possible until then.

That's the plan. "Failing to plan is planning to fail..."

Ted

[tridude]

Good luck Ted. I will be interested to see how the GS diet goes. I am to chicken to try it!

[galya]

Good luck with that Ted, I think you are the only one here to repeat GS that soon! Lead the way!
Keeping my fingers crossed for the job

[Mahler]

Looking good, Ted.

Did the 10X3 with 200lbs on flat bench.

Not pathetic at all. That's a helluva lot of reps for 200 lbs.

Hope things settle at home and with the job.

[Blackjack]

Thanks guys. My body adapted pretty well to the GS diet rather quickly, so it's not as intimidating as it once was.

This morning's workout was just a run around my neighborhood. Didn't keep time just ran hard for 1-2 min and took a 1-3 min rest. Very dark around my neighborhood. Was very overcast and dark due to some showers that went through before I got out. Need to run through the park (very dark too but no traffic) or drive up to the track. At least until the weather holds out.

Went to the ortho yesterday afternoon. Gave me another corizone shot in my shoulder. Basically, it's an impingement. Suffered some tendonosis in my rotator cuff and it's causing irritation by rubbing on my achromium (sp?). Told me to give it a few months and if the pain comes back he may do an arthroscope and shave the achromium down. Should probably adjust my bench press workout Saturday so we'll see what I decide to do. May switch to some higher rep DB stuff for a couple weeks. Or just change up the set/rep scheme.

Diet has been fair past couple of days. Eating a couple pieces of fruit each day. Been splitting an apple with some Nat. PB before bed with my little boy.

All for now, thanks for checking in.

Ted

[cappuccino]

What supps are you doing with GS? I'm trying to decide if I should do the BCAAs and creatine. Not bothering with the HotRox or ZMA.

sorry if I missed these details in your first round of GS

[Blackjack]

Originally Posted by cappuccino

What supps are you doing with GS? I'm trying to decide if I should do the BCAAs and creatine. Not bothering with the HotRox or ZMA.

sorry if I missed these details in your first round of GS

At a minimum I would go with the creatine/BCAA. It's not that expensive and per the aricle, it is your muscle-saving help.

I never had any issues with sleeping. But if you read the article, Berardi is doing a lot of Hot Rox. Earlier this week I took some at 2 pm and was up until midnight from the obvious effects. He recommends taking like 6-9 of those things per day. No wonder he needed the ZMA to sleep. I workout first thing in the a.m. so I rely on Hot Rox or I also took some Spike to wake me up since I don't drink coffee or tea. Plus, this low of carbs really does a number on your CNS so you may want to have some Hot Rox or Spike handy. Play it by ear.

I would recommend going with the BCAA in pill form. The powder doesn't really disolve that well in water and really makes it taste bitter. I'm strongly considering trying the Biotest BCAA depending on the price.

I pretty much logged my whole experience with the first go around of the GS on another log...

Blackjack's Gettin' Shredded - The Berardi Way

This will detail what I did and some issues I had. This time I'm going to try to do a better job of following it to the letter - no nuts or milk for one thing. Carbs only from veggies. I'm going to try the Greens Plus Fiber this time based on some bathroom issues I won't go into.

Hope that helps, let me know if you have any more questions.

Ted

[Blackjack]

Deadlift workout today. Good workout, but I didn't get up early enough so I had to cut it short. (The Kid was up at 2am again, not sure why.) Anway, here's how it went...

Deadlift 10X3X250lbs - completed all sets and reps. Felt very good.
Mixed in some 1-arm band extensions & external rotations for shoulder rehab. Going to bump this up 10lbs next time around. Enough f'in around. Need to really push myself over the next couple of weeks.

Plan to finish workout with 4X6 Front Squats & 4X12 Sw Ball Jacknives tomorrow a.m. along with some core stuff.

BTW, jumped on the scale this a.m. for fun and I'm at 206lbs...cool, thought I was creeping back up to 210lbs. If I'm at 205lb for my GS diet I'll be very pleased. The plan would be to drop about 10lbs then - which is very feasible.

Check ya later...Ted

[cappuccino]

Thanks Ted! I'm looking to order the BCAA/Creatine now...and the t-nation site must be down cause I can't link to it.

I see ICE is recommended too, but it's powder, and I'm not sure which of the other brands I should try.

I'm ok with the 4 meals as they are pretty big ones for me, but right now I'm doing breakfast/lunch/dinner/pre-bed, so I might need to do an afternoon snack instead of pre-bed. Long day in between with no food However, I might switch to 5 and do a 1/2 meal mid-morning and 1/2 mid-afternoon.

[Blackjack]

Over at the PN Forum, Berardi said he's using the Biotest BCAA and noted it was more convienient for him to swallow the pills, FWIW.

Workout

Planned to do General Warmup; Breakthrough Workout; & superset I didn't get to yesterday of Front Squats & Sw Ball Jacknife...however, I ran short of time so I only ended up doing 2 of the 4 sets of FS/SWJK's.

2X6X145lbs FrontSquats/2X12Xbw SwBall Jacknife

Wow, Front Squats are tough. I'm not sure any other exercise I do gets my heart rate up like them. Huffing and Puffing on those sure makes the jacknives tough as well.

Good ab/core workout today.

In the Breakthrough Workout I'm doing, Verstegen (sp?) has you do knee rotations that really have helped my squat. They always say you should try and push your knees out when going up in the squat. This exercise definately has helped in that movement and has no doubt helped my squat a great deal. You basically take a band and wrap it around your legs just above the knee. Then you take a shoulder width stance which puts tension on the band with knees slightly bent and rotate your knees, one at a time, in and out. Pretty interesting exercise. Didn't really see the advantage until I made that change in my squat movement.

Ted

[Blackjack]

Suppose to do a shoulder-friendly workout today...not sure if I succeeded.

Supersets of the following...

DB Flat Press/BB BOR (3X8)
DB Inc Press/DB 1-arm row (3X10)
Sw Ball Fly/Rev Fly (3X12)

Didn't do heavy BB Bench Presses to give my shoulder a break. But it's still a little sore. Oh well. May do some re-hab exercises later today while the Kid's taking a nap.

BTW, I made a good omelet this a.m. with pepperoni slices and mozz. cheese...Yum.

[Blackjack]

Pretty good workout this a.m.

Back Squats - 8x3x215lbs
==>Last set of 3 was pretty ugly. Will stay at this weight next week as well.

Superset: RDL (4x6x195lbs) / Wt Ball Ab Curls (4x15x55lbs)
==>Grip was shaky on set 2 on the RDL's (didn't used mix grip like I have in the past) so I used my straps on sets 3 & 4. Not liking the ab curls - need to find better ab exercise. May just switch to planks or something.

Hope everyone had a good weekend - see ya tomorrow!

Ted

[galya]

Planks sound great, do some side bridges as well. Stability is always key and a better option

[Frank.S]

workouts look good.. Looking like some good gains

But I thought the GS diet was only supposed to be done every 2 years due to the 'extremeness' of it? at ~200lbs I dont really think you need to do that extreme of a diet.

[Mahler]

Great job on the squat-fest. Wow!
And, I agree. The front squats are a killer.

[Blackjack]

Schedule off day today. No workout, eating clean though.

Ted