Go with the flow!

[Espi]

Yes Stingo, I'm comparing the reps with what I did for reps the last time using that exact same weight.

Thanks Lost Dog, it feels like a long time while it was only 2 weeks!

.............................. ..
Sunday Sept 9
TRAINING Go with the Flow Routine 9 WO 2B
all weights in kilograms

DYNAMIC STRETCHING
1 Frankensteins x 10
2 inch worm x5
3 lateral lunges x10 per side

BW complex
1 walking lunge w rotary torso x 6 (each side) - 6
2 BW prisoner squat– 10 - 10
3 Swiss leg curl x12 - 10

A1 front squat
WU : 36x8
Wave 1+2:
41x7 (0) – 42x7
43,5x6 (0) – 44,5x6
46x5 (0) – 47x 5
Despite increased strength, exercise was still harder because of sleepiness.

A2 DL
WU: 60x8
Wave 1 + 2:
65x8 (0) – 67,5x8 (+1)
67,5x7 (0) – 70x7 (+1)
70x6 (0) – 72,5x6 (+1)
Used a raised platform of two 20kg disks. Sounds weird but it helps lifting more as my arms + back are otherwise lifting most without help of the legs. Now I can use more ‘leg drive’.

B1 weighted supine rows
BW+8 x 8 (+2)
BW+7x 7
BW+6x 6 (-2)
Supine rows/pull ups wear me out fast. First set was better, others same or worse.

B2 Smith lunge (ditched shoulder exercise, the cleans for lower wt front presses and clearing out the bb rack is enough)
30x10
27,5x10
25x10
Could’ve aimed for more reps but am trying to take it easier here.


C1 wood chop
16,3x 10 (+2)

D1 exo rotation
3,8x12 (0)
E1 renegade row
9x8-8
Now paying close attention by doing it in front of mirror: butt down and no swinging of the hip sideways. Dang, that’s a lot more difficult!

E2 db swing (without rest)
9x8-8
Whew, the second set I thought I'd be so exhausted that the dumbell would go flying. Things went a bit in slow motion after the first few reps. But oh what a fun exercise it is. Was thinking about how Galya can do this with an amazing weight. 9 kg scares me already!!! Got to look up her video as I'm unsure about form.

Cardio
500 m in 2:34,1 min – 11681 m/hr (-1024)
AveW = 96 (-19)
Kcals burnt: 26 kcal – 607 kcal/hr (+74)
Decent session.

Also some TM walking for 7 mins @ 12.5% and 5,4km/hr w 2 min cooldown
0,77km in 9minutes – 5,13 km/hr (-0,16)
Kcals burnt: 93 kcal – 620 kcal/hr (+31)
HR mostly between 120-130bpm, starting at 95bpm

General: OK workout. Made sure to not go to failure. Most problematic: having eaten white chocolate about 60 min before WO = sleepiness. Fortunately it went away after a couple of sets.
WO-drink : IsoDex sports drink w extra citrulline malate

Training statistics
Volume: 17960 (+1083) kg
# of sets: 35 (excl.WU, -7) - # of reps: 273 (-30) - avg reps/set :7,8 (+0,6) - kg/rep 65,8 (+10,1) kg

[bigDman]

nice squating

[Espi]

Tuesday Sept 11
TRAINING Go with the Flow Routine 9 WO 3A
all weights in kilograms

DYNAMIC STRETCHING
1 Russian UB twist w 3kg ball x 10

UB BW COMPLEXES
A1 knee push up x 10 – x10
A2 renegade row (6kg) x10– 10
A3 supine row: 10– 8

B1 pull ups w neutral grip
BW+5: 1 (0)
BW+4: 1 (0)
BW+3: 1 (0)
BW+2: 1 (0)
BW+1: 1 (-1)
BWx2 (0)
Started with 1 more kg than last time. More tired.

C1 db press
WU
(2x9)x8

Wave 1+2:
(2x11)x12 (0) – (2x12)x12 (+1)
(2x13)x11 (0) –(2x14)x11 (+1)
(2x15)x10 (0) – (2x16)x10
One kg more for every set , but same amt of reps for the wave (12-11-10).

C2 pull ups
In Smith:
BWx1 (0) w mixed grip
BWx1 (0) with pronated grip
BWxF with supinated grip
Tried all grips and need to work on the various ones.

D1 EZ-bar biceps curl
20x8 (0, compared with March 27)
17,5x10 (-2)
15x13 (-1)
2,5 kg more for all sets. Will stay here for 3 workouts and see reps increase?
As ever it amazes me how fast biceps fatigue. Small muscles fatigue, big muscles get warmed up.

D2 close grip bench press
32,5x9 (-3 comp to Aug 4)
30x12 (0)
27,5x13 (0)

Overall 2,5kg more. Starting weak, finishing OK.

E1 wood chop
16,3x12 reps each side (+2)
Going better. Will stay at this wt for a while.

F1 cable crunch
16,3x32
Too easy. Only stopped because of getting foot cramps. Will do 18,8 kg or 21,3 kg next time.

G1+2 goblet squat + db swing
10 x 8-8 for each.
Getting out of breath and since I was afraid the db would hit my head (was tired) stopped after a mere 2 sets.

Cardio
500 m in 2:43,2 min – 11029 m/hr (-652)
AveW = 81 (-15)
Kcals burnt: 26 kcal – 574 kcal/hr (-33)
AveRPM: 35/min
Tried to concentrate on form and stuck to 60-80 Watt mostly with a 100m ‘sprint’ @ 120-160W.

TM walking for 10 mins @ 15-13% and 5,1-6,4km/hr w 2 min cooldown
0,96km in 10minutes – 5,76 km/hr (+0,63)
Kcals burnt: 108 kcal – 648 kcal/hr (+28)

General: I’d better either eat something lighter if I must eat fast carbs pre-WO or stick to low-GI carbs. Now I was so afraid to feel sleepy, that I felt uncomfortably full when rowing. Fortunately that feeling went away when I got to lift. No major yakking today, so was finished reasonably fast.
Feel reasonably satisfied, except about again omitting the ‘Exercises You’ve Never Tried Before (a series from T-Nation). Was more tired in general but this is probably to not getting enough rest.

WO-drink : goat milk PP w coconut milk & Endure (old product w citrulline malate)

Training statistics
Volume: 9656 (-905)
# of sets: 35 (incl. WU; +1)- # of reps: 291 (-6) - avg reps/set :8,3 (-0,4) - kg/rep : 33,2 (-2,4)

[ljk]

holy pull ups batman!!! NIIIIICE.

[Espi]

Thanks.. not so nice today. You'll read it in a moment.
Unrelated to the training or perhaps it is, I'm starting on Cytomel today after having taken another 100g glucose tolerance myself. I'm pretty peeved that blood glucose levels are still piss-poor after 3 years (it's been 3yrs). Fasting glucose was 6,9 this morning when not having done anything at all. Then, after going to the supermarket and pharmacy to pick up glucose for the test, it dropped to 5,9 , which is the level it had when tested im my doc's office.

Seems that without exercise and being at near goal weight (i'm 63kg now and have a normal bf% of 26% according to the Omron) I'm still borderline diabetic.
It took 2,5 hrs to clear the glucose. At the 120min mark it was supposed to be lower than 7,8. Instead it was still 9,1. "Levels between 7.8 and 11.1 mmol/l (200 mg/dl) indicate "impaired glucose tolerance." And indeed that's what it was.
I kept testing till 180 mins were gone and very interestingly, the levels just shot down to 6.2 20 mins later (140min), but then rose again to 7.2 (160min) and 8.3 (180min). That's just so freaking weird! As if my body is wanting to keep blood glucose levels at around 7 instead of sub-6 and producing more glucose when it drops lower than 6? If not available , then taking it from protein?

Problem is: eating lowish carb has serious consequences : tingling fingers, blurry eyes etc. However, this is supposedly a thyroid problem. So, hopefully I'll be able to combine Cytomel (T3) with a lowered carb diet in order to control blood glucose levels better.


.............................. .............................. ...........

[size=12pt]Thursday Sept 13[/size]
TRAINING Go with the Flow Routine 9 WO 3B
all weights in kilograms

DYNAMIC STRETCHING
1 inch worm x5
2 lateral lunges x10 per side

BW complex
1 walking lunge w rotary torso x 8 (each side) - 8
2 BW prisoner squat– 8 - 10
3 Swiss leg curl x10 - 10


A1 DL : upping 2,5 kg everywhere
WU: 57,5x7
Wave 1 + 2:
67,5x7 (0) – 70x7 (0)
70x6 (0) – 72,5x6 (0)
72,5x5 (-1) – 75x5
Again used a raised platform. Hrrrmppfff was hoping for more as I actually had to grind my last reps. Was NOT supposed to try and go to failure so early!

A2 front squat : upping 1 kg for everything
WU : 37x7
Wave 1+2:
42x7 – 43,5x2 (-4)
44,5x6 – DNS
47x5 – DNS
I’m not posting the barbell cleans that I do for a number of front squats, viz. try to get the barbell up by means of a clean when I can. I also warm up for these in a natural way as I’m using the fixed bb rack for taking out the barbell. This is impossible without removing the other barbells, which I clean most of the time. Normally I can clean all barbells up to 35 kg. THIS time I already knew that 30kg was going to be a problem, and indeed, there wasn’t enough ‘schwung’ to make it go up. I had not enough focus to do the lifts properly and when my wrist hurt too much with the 43,5 kg squat I quit and just went on with the deadlifts (always superset slowly).

B1 weighted supine rows: was supposed to up by only 1 kg
BW+11x 4
BW+9x5
BW+8 x 6 (-2)
BW+7x 7 (0)
Having a real brain fart again and forgetting to subtract 2kg from the total weight to get the db weight.. backpack = 2kg , so total of 9kg = 7kg db plus backpack. I was soooo surprised to only get to 4 reps! Will have to up the weights more slowly , and use microloading here as well, like with front squats.

B2 Smith lunge upping with 2,5kg
32,5x9
30x9 (-1)
27,5x11 (+1)
Perhaps I was cheating a bit by not doing an entire ROM

C1 Saxon side bend
6x7 (-4) : a far cry from last time

D1 exo rotation
3,8x12 (0)

E1 renegade row
E2 db swing
Skipped both… don’t have enough focus for these today.

Cardio
500 m in 2:40,7 min – 11201 m/hr (+172)
AveW = 84 (+3) @ intensity 1 (0)
Kcals burnt: 26 kcal – 582 kcal/hr (+8)
RPM: 35rpm/min
Trying to go smoothly, which went OK as I didn’t feel as tired at the end of the 500m as before.

After the lifting: TM walking for 20 mins @ 15-12% and 4,6-6,74km/hr w 3 min cooldown
1,91km in 20min – 5,73 km/hr (-0,03)
Kcals burnt: 222kcal – 666 kcal/hr (+18)

General: unsatisfied about lacking focus. I’ve done an Oral Glucose Tolerance test in the morning which meant I had far too many carbs in my system before working out.
This always puts me asleep fast and makes me weak as a kitten! Combine that with forgetting the Fortega and caffeine pre-WO and not sleeping enough… not good.
Good reminder about how we take things for granted when things go ‘smoothly’.
WO-drink : goat PP drink w passion fruit syrup & extra citrulline malate

Training statistics
Volume: 13592 (-4368) kg
# of sets: 29 (-6) - # of reps: 206 (-67) - avg reps/set :7,1 (-0,7) - kg/rep 66,0 (+0,2) kg

[Espi]

Saturday Sept 15
TRAINING Go with the Flow Routine 9 WO 4A
all weights in kilograms

DYNAMIC STRETCHING
1 Russian UB twist w 3kg ball x 10

UB BW COMPLEXES
A1 knee push up x 10 – x10
A2 renegade row (7kg) x10– 10
A3 supine row: 10– 8

B1 pull ups w neutral grip
BW+5: 1 (0)
BW+4: 1 (0)
BW+3: 1 (0)
BW+2: 1 (0)
BW+1: 2 (+1)
Forgot to do BW chins.. was busy. Did another one in the other gym.


C1 db press
WU
(2x10)x8

Wave 1+2:
(2x12)x12 (0) – (2x13)x12 (+1)
(2x14)x11 (0) –(2x15)x11 (+1)
(2x16)x10 (0) – (2x17)x12
One kg more for every set , for 3rd time same amount of reps for each sets. Feeling so good that I had to resist temptation to do much more reps, except for last set (did 2 reps more). Amazing.. with that weight I’ve mostly done just 8-10 reps!

D1 EZ-bar biceps curl
20x9 (+1)
17,5x10 (0)
15x12 (-1)
Same weights. About same, started out better, finished weaker.

D2 close grip bench press
32,5x10 (+1)
30x11 (-1)
27,5x12 (-1)
Feeling a bit fatigued.

E1 wood chop
F1 cable crunch
No more time.

G1+2 goblet squat + db swing
Did these in another gym with approx. 6 kg. Just for ‘shows’.

…………….
Cardio
No cardio, except for the bike ride to the gym and to another place where I met people to train in a 2nd gym. We mostly yakked and did a few exercises.



General: didn’t do the entire workout nor any cardio, but went to another gym for a meeting and very few exercises, among which the db swing , barbell rollouts and seesaw press. These are all described in the Exercises You’ve Never Tried Before #6: http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459663
It was impossible to do woodchops or kneeling crunches.

WO-drink : goat milk PP w passion fruit syrup

Training statistics
Volume: 8476 (-1180)
# of sets: 34 (-1)- # of reps: 268 (-23) - avg reps/set :7,9 (-0,4) - kg/rep : 31,6 (-1,6)

[UConnJulie]

Good workouts!! How are you feeling?

[Espi]

Hi Julie. I'm feeling good. As I wrote before, have just started Cytomel. I'm feeling more alert, somewhat warmer and heart also beats a bit faster. Which is why I'm just taking a teeny tiny dose of 6.25 mcg until I get used to it.
I'm hoping to drop carbs again, as it's become clear to me, that carbs still affect me big time and I have very poor glucose tolerance. Perhaps the Cytomel will allow me to go lower in carbs towards around 100-125 g without the side-effects I was experiencing sofar, like tingling fingers, blurry eyes as well as getting overtrained easily.
.............................. .............................. .............................. .....................

Monday Sept 17
TRAINING Go with the Flow Routine 9 WO 4B
all weights in kilograms

DYNAMIC STRETCHING
1 Frankensteinx10
2 inch worm x 5
3 lateral lunges x10 per side

BW complex
1 walking lunge w rotary torso x 5 (each side)
2 BW prisoner squat– 10
3 Swiss leg curl x10
Only 1 set of each as I felt a bit sore.

A1 front squat : upping 1 kg for everything
WU : 38x7
Wave 1+2:
43x7 – 44,5x7
45,5x3 – 47x6
48x5 – 50x5
Cleaned the barbells up to 30kg this time to get the barbells out of the way. Not yet daring to clean the 35kg. Again wrist trouble with the 45,5 kg but tried again for subsequent sets and managed all of those fine, though wrist is still complaining a bit. 50kg is the highest weight I’ve done sofar. In 4 days another time with 50kg as it was supposed to be done with 49 kg but I didn’t want to get 4 disks of 0,5kg (had 2x3 disks of 0,5kg from BodyPump Class, don’t you love microplates)

A2 DL : upping 2,5 kg everywhere
WU: 60x7
Wave 1 + 2:
70x7 (0) – 72,5x7 (+1)
72,5x6 (0) – 75x6 (+1)
75x5 (0) – 77,5x5
Not as concentrated as I’d wanted but OKish.

B1 weighted supine rows: was supposed to up by only 1 kg
BW+10x 5
BW+8 x 7 (+1)
BW+7x 8 (+1)
Had to drop the weights. Will go for the weights that allow 6-12 reps.

B2 Smith lunge upping with 2,5kg
32,5x10 (+1)
30x10 (+1)
27,5x11 (0)


C1 Saxon side bend
6x10 (+3)
Improving again.

D1 exo rotation
Occupied.

E1 renegade row
E2 db swing
Have done these already past Saturday and wanted to do more cardio.

Cardio
1000 m in 5:14,2 min – 11458 m/hr (+257)
AveW = 90 (+6) @ intensity 2 (+1)
Kcals burnt: 53 kcal – 607 kcal/hr (+25)
RPM: 32rpm/min (-3)
Things are going a bit better again. Couldn’t resist going fast for the last 200m.

Then 16min TM walking @ 15-9% and 5,4-6,7km/hr w 2 min cooldown
1,58km in 16min – 5,93 km/hr (+0,20)
Kcals burnt: 168kcal – 630 kcal/hr (-36)

General: not enough focus but better than last time. Especially thrilled about squatting the 50kg again. Also thrilled about not being as dead tired & exhausted after the session than I normally am.
WO-drink : passion fruit syrup & extra citrulline malate plus a bunch of grapes

Training statistics
Volume: 13595 (+3) kg
# of sets: 30 (+1) - # of reps: 183 (-17) - avg reps/set :6,1 (-1,0) - kg/rep 74,3 (+8,3) kg

[stingo]

Nice workout Espi - grats on the squats. Do you keep a spreadsheet with the formulas etc on it to track your workouts?

[UConnJulie]

I'm also taking thyroid hormone, but I'm taking Armour Thyroid ... I also notice better energy, improved heat retention (hands and feet are not so cold all the time), my hair is not falling out in clumps in the shower, and my resting heart rate is much higher (used to be about 55 and is now closer to 70).

[Espi]

Stingo, I'm keeping an Excel spreadsheet. Two actually.
1 is to plan and another where I actually put in the results and do the calculations. It also automatically calculates the estimated 1RM. Which eg for front squats should be around 65-70kg. For deadlifts around 90kg.

My hair fell out late Nov 2002 when I got to do a very low-carb diet. I felt great on the diet but after 6 weeks (8kg wt loss) the loss stopped completely and nothing I did, helped.
My hair still is thin & brittle. I must say that I've not really felt cold in a long time, until I tried intermittent fasting. Then I felt cold to the bone again and I hastily dropped the 'Fast till 5' method and then adopted a 12hr fast, which also didn't bring what I wanted. Now I'm back at the 3 meals/day but skip lunch and hence have an 8-9 hr gap between breakfast and dinner (eating last meal around 10pm).

I'm feeling elated that as little as 6.25 mcg of T3 already helps so much.
Like how I am not feeling so exhausted from training that I can't even eat. When I forced myself to eat, I'd be ravenous though. But right now I'm not really feeling hungry after the workout. Just because I'm not really feeling as tired as I normally am.

Too early to tell, but it looks promising.

[UConnJulie]

Originally Posted by Espi

Too early to tell, but it looks promising.

Great news!

[stingo]

Out of curiosity, have you tested if that really is your 1RM?

[Espi]

Out of curiosity, have you tested if that really is your 1RM?

Not for front squats. It is from a calculator and it never really adds up. I mean, when I calculate it from a 8RM set, I mostly can do more weight when I'm really at the 1RM.
Conversely, I'm much weaker when I calculate the 10RM from a true 1RM.
But a true 1RM effort is very rare for me. Only about once every 3 months I get to do these.

[Espi]

Wednesday Sept 19
TRAINING Go with the Flow Routin