Go with the flow!

[Espi]

This is *not* a program Galya, I'm just trying out all odd lifts that are in the series at T-nation: Exercises you've never tried before, so it's like do them once or twice and be done with them. Though actually, now I *am* pissed at myself for not having tried harder and probably I want to try again on Saturday. Before the glute-ham raise kills me. Somehow the overhead squats are really fun things to do.

[galya]

GHRs are the devil!

[Espi]

Now I know.. I just couldn't even do a single one today. I tried, but failed because my calves cramped up before I could even complete 1 rep. Never mind, I tried.
I did think of a way to do them assisted in the cable station. A bit like how I do crunches. But then there still needs to be someone holding my feet.

[Espi]

Saturday March 10
TRAINING Triple Anti-KISS – 3 cycle 2
all weights in kilograms
DYNAMIC (NROL) STRETCHING
1 walking lunge with UB twist (5 each side)
2 lateral lunge with opposite hand reach & touch (10 each side)
3 ball bridge /Russian twist (10 each side)
4 inchworm (5x)

WAVE LOADING
A1 Romanian DL
WU: 42,5 x 10
Wave 1 – 2
52,5x8– 55x9
57,5x8 –60x8
62,5x7– 65x7 (last week 62,5x8)

A repeat of Thursday, as I felt weak and almost dizzy again. Too many carbs pre-WO. Now from 2 bananas (they are getting too ripe) and the resulting serotonin and possibly even hypo, made me feel bad. Again a cup of coffee made me feel better though HR went way up higher than it normally does.

MEDIUM
A2 bent over row
45 x 15
42,5x15 (last week: 42,5x12)

Though I didn’t feel strong, got in more reps.

B2 good morning
37,5x12
35x14 (last week 35x10)

Same as with BORs, feeling weak.

A3 pull through
Funny, I’m doing this series of ‘Exercises You’ve never tried before and the 2nd instalment has you do the pull through, which is currently part of my normal (apparently not so normal) routine. No suprises here.

This is a favorite of guys like Dave Tate and Coach Davies. Attach a rope like you'd use for triceps pushdowns to a low pulley cable. Face away from the weight stack, straddle the cable and hold the rope at crotch level. (Yes, you'll find the rope in a peculiar position!)
Spread your feet to wider-than-shoulder-width, with a slight bend at the waist. Now walk out a little so you'll be able to keep constant tension. Start the eccentric (lowering) part of the movement by pushing the butt back and reaching your hands through your legs. Full extension of the movement comes as your forearms/elbows touch the sides of your knees. The concentric or lifting part of the movement is a forward, upward explosion to a standing position, where your hands return to the crotch position.

These ought to hold you over until our next installment. If, in the meantime, you've got some fancy-schmancy exercises that are either new or were somehow left behind in the old days of weight training, let us know and we'll think about using them in the column?as long as you don't want any free stuff as a reward or anything.




11,3 x 17-20 (last week: 8,8x20-22)
Form is improving, same amt of reps as last week!! On towards higher weights.



B3 pull ups
BW x 1- 1 (last week: 1-1)
Again, too tired in arms after the BORs to do 2 reps

BODY WEIGHT EXERCISES
A4 renegade row
(BW + 3)x 13

Remains very difficult to stay balanced here when you keep the butt down.

B4 pushup
BWx8

Was supposed to do 2 sets each , but didn’t feel like it as I’d already done the odd lifts.

ODD EXERCISES
A5 Single Leg Standing Deadlifts

Just when we think we've heard of every exercise in existence, Ian King hits us with these two one-legged versions of popular lifts.

Let's start with the single leg standing deadlift. Stand on one foot with the other foot slightly off the ground. Bend the knee of the supporting leg a little but don't change the knee angle during the exercise.

Bend at the waist while allowing the back to round (yes, round!) and reach towards the floor. Touch the floor with the hands or the dumbbells if you're using them and go back up to the starting position. Use a speed of three seconds down, pause for one second at the top and bottom, and three seconds up.
Start with bodyweight only and when you can do ten reps at the correct tempo and without losing your balance, use light dumbbells.



Because of the extreme fine print, I only looked vaguely at the pic and only remembered the part about standing on 1 foot. And discovered pulling up a 40kg bb wasn’t a good idea. Upon reading the text tried again with BW only and managed 10 reps, but only barely.


A6 Single Leg Standing Goodmornings
Now for the one-legged good morning. It's basically the same as above only you'll be holding a light barbell (or even a broomstick until you get used to it) across your back. The shift in external resistance will make it feel a bit different than the single leg deadlift. Follow the same rules as above.


Because I’d just done normal GMs, did them as BW only. Apart from the balancing act, it was fairly easy. Could’ve done them with a light bb.

A6 Glute-ham raise
This is a mother of an exercise. Unless your hamstrings are copper-sheathed and iron clad, don't even try this movement. If you ignore our advice and decide to do it anyhow, take it easy.
Find some sort of pad lying around the gym. Fold it in two or three if you need to. Kneel on the pad with your hands on your hips. While your partner holds onto your calves, slowly lean forward toward the ground while keeping your back straight and not bending at the waist. If you're like most people, you'll only get about half-way before your hamstrings give out.
This next part is important so pay attention: as you fall toward the ground, catch yourself with your hands! Otherwise, you'll look like Jersey Joe Walcott after Rocky Marciano pasted him one in that famous picture of their heavyweight title fight.
Continue lowering your torso with your hands. Allow your body to come to a push-up position. Then, explode out of the down position until your hamstrings can pull you back up. Repeat until fatigued or until you hear a grotesque, gut-wrenching, tearing sound.



Finally tried this one, with the assistance of one of the gym trainers. And before even finishing 1 rep, one of the calves cramped up so much that I just couldn’t finish the movement. This is too freaking hard.
But… I might try again, but then in a cable station, a bit like how I do cable (rope) crunches. But then there still needs to be someone holding my feet. With a bit of counterweight it shouldn’t be as freaking hard.


General
Not feeling good with too many carbs in my system, was really dragging myself, unfocused, easily distracted, etc. Next time back to my very small carb load pre-lifiting. Though OTOH, while feeling weak I wasn’t so weak at all, just not feeling well.

Training statistics
Rep index: 175 reps/hr (75min, 50 min real-time)
Volume: 10126kg
# of sets: 22 - # of reps 219 - avg reps/set : 10,0 - kg/rep 46,2 kg [hr]

[Lost Dog]

When I'm on a lower carb diet, I won't even start my workout drink until I'm in the middle of my mobility stuff. I feel crappy if I take it too early.

I love pullthroughs. I'm going to try some of those one-legged exercises!

[Espi]

I'm not doing as much as before, viz. less sets (approx. 5-10 less) and no cardio, so I'm not as depleted as I used to be. Before it would not be so bad when I'd start having carbs before a workout, but still had to limit them.
An apple omelette which is my usual bf , isn't bad, but a banana omelette and then also another banana and too much time between eating it and exercising, spells disaster.
Heart rate going up, weak, dizzy etc.

The normal stuff I have during a workout is a jam-based drink (jams made into a drink by putting it in a blender), it seems weird, but it's the drink that works best for me: fructose from the fruit and sucrose (50% fructose/50% glucose) from the added sugar. Not too fast and not too slow as a carb source. And then I can start drinking it right away and keep sipping from it.

Candy is fun, but slightly too fast. Maltodextrin or glucose .. way way too fast. It's almost like being in a roller-coaster taking those.

But... I do like experimenting (and living dangerously).

[Espi]

It's weird but now I actually dropped cardio entirely, I'm completely stunned at how little influence it makes re wt loss.
At first I missed the excitement terribly. Whenever I do cardio, even when it's planned to be SS cardio, I always push myself so much that it becomes a HIIT like thing.
Results: yeah, OK, maintenance might increase a bit, but then I'm wasted until my next WO and often end up overtrained, or .. as a kind of self-defence, start to overeat.

So , in the end I think cardio is grossly overrated. The only cardio worthwhile doing is a very brief HIIT cardio.. not the endless SS cardio... unless you really enjoy it, which I actually do! And, of course, do it just as part of your everyday routine. Like walking/cycling instead of taking a car/bus, taking the stairs etc. But not the mindless treadmill work that only made me hungry, once out of the appetite suppressing adrenalin-haze that burnt me out without me realizing it. That's still a big puzzle, being able to do so much volume & cardio in the gym without feeling tired and then being excessively tired once I stop.

But then again, everyone is different.. that's something that I see as a major difference between men & women. Men can do SS cardio and see fat loss like magic. Women do cardio until the cows come home and see no results. I'd love love to see more research being done on that phenomenon. At times I could strangle Lyle for his utterly stupid phrase "eat less, exercise more you fat fuck.. forever", because it led me to believe that I just wasn't working hard enough and had to do more.

The article that triggered me to writing this is this one:

Art Devany
Too Much Cardio and Long Workouts Make You Fat

One of many paradoxes about human fitness and body composition is that too much exercise makes you fat. How can this be since exercise burns energy? Well, because in the long run a lot of low intensity exercise does not burn energy and it redirects energy flow to fat. Human metabolism is highly adaptive; if you burn more fat, the body will resupply more of it.

Why doesn't a lot of low intensity exercise burn off fat? It is easy to see in the gym that it doesn't. What are all the fat people doing in the gym? Walking on treadmills and cycling endlessly and at a very low level of intensity. The evidence is there for anyone to see. The same point is true of bicyclists and joggers; they have a high fat content (fat, skinny joggers). The point is equally true of guys who work out endlessly, doing multiple sets of high reps. Nearly everyone in the gym is too fat, not just in the real world outside, it is everywhere.

I made this point long ago in an interview with a performance publication; too much cardio makes you fat. Now just the other day I saw the point on a sign in Gold's. So I asked one of the trainers, who had no real explanation for it. Few likely do know how or why this happens and are less likely to see the same problem with body builders.

The basic reason is that too much cardio or body building increases stress hormones and down regulates hormones, like GH and testosterone, that preserve muscle. In addition, elevated stress hormones make you insulin resistant and leads to over eating as well as eating the wrong things that cater to insulin resistance, meaning simpler carbs. Runners and bikers are taught to live on carbs and the path from excessive cardio to insulin resistance to poor body composition to frank diabetes is one that has been trodden by many an endurance athlete. It is one that keeps obese individuals from losing fat when they begin training in a gym and really dooms them. The success rate for the obese in the gym is poor.

Body builder types have similar problems, but I find that more of them are fat than they ought to be. Then again, they do too much volume (stress response) and eat really poorly. Protein powders, gainer drinks, carbs, carbs, and carbs to get big. To get fat really.

The excess volume is similar in its effects to running excessively. Both convert expensive fast twitch muscles into slower and less energetically expensive intermediate and slow twitch fibers. Both diminish muscle mass and this means your basal metabolism falls. Thus, you burn less energy.

This is one of the standard problems with first order thinking. If you focus on burning fat (cardio) you do burn fat. But, you set off all sorts of second and third order effects that alter the result. In the end, you lower your total energy expenditure by lowering lean muscle mass and reducing hormone drives and muscle fibers that burn energy. To reach a new metabolic equilibrium you have to eat more fat or convert intake into fat. This is fine, but if you also lower total energy expenditure and alter hormones in the process, the end result will be an altered body composition; more fat, less muscle.

[Espi]

Tuesday March 13
TRAINING Triple Anti-KISS – 3 week 3
all weights in kilograms

BOYFRIEND LIFTING
Often I like to lift him up, did it this morning as it was his birth day, lifted him onto bed and kissed him up & down because it’s his birth-day
BW (approx. 85kg) x1

DYNAMIC (NROL) STRETCHING
Forgot!
But instead

WAVE LOADING
A1 Yates Row
WU: 30 x 12
Wave 1 – 2
40x12– 50x9
45x10 –55x8
50x8– 60x7 (last week 50x7)

Whoah… much better than last week. As a matter of fact, so much better that the # of reps were way higher than planned. So.. upped the weight by a wopping 7,5 kg which now was 12,5 kg more than I’d anticipated when starting the new routine.

MEDIUM
A2 pull through
11,3x21 (last week: 11,3x17-20)
Now with better form, hadn’t realized you’re supposed to rise up while doing the pull-through.

B2 pullup
BWx1-1
Was a bit tired from the bb bent over row (underhand grip involves biceps too)
Oops.. when I looked again, realized that I wasn’t supposed to do these now but only on Saturday. Back to the planned routine.

A3 incline db press
26 x 12
24 x 14 (last week (24x12/22x15)
Went pretty good!

B3 EZ curl
17,5x14 – 11 (last week: 17,5x11 / 15x13)
Again, much better.

A4 standing face pull
11,25x18 – 19 (last week: 8,75x17-20)
It gets boring, but once again.. pretty good!

A5 wood chop
11,3x19 (last week : 11,3x18)

A6 golf swing
8,8x15 (last week 8,8x14/11 )

One rep more , and by now I’m suddenly feeling energy just fleet out of me.. weird.

ODD EXERCISES
A7 Texas Arm Wrestler Curl
This one is apparently a favorite of competitive arm wrestlers. Here's how it's done:

Straddle a flat bench with your feet on the floor. Place your forearms and hands along your quads while holding a loaded barbell. The back of your hands should be near your knees. Sit up straight and concentrate on keeping the whole body tight and rigid by contracting your abs. Take a deep breath and hold it, then explode the heavy weight off your thighs into the finished curl position. Lower the bar back to your legs under control and repeat. Try not to bounce the weight off your thighs, though. Rest the bar across your legs between reps for a full 4 seconds. (This is to keep you from cheating and using momentum, you sneaky bastard, you.)

Remember, too, that this exercise is meant to be done heavy. It's only a partial curl, so you've got no excuse to use one of those pre-set barbells that only go up to 85 pounds. Shoot for 4 to 6 maximal reps.

And, like always, don't cheat by lurching and gasping and drooling like the town drunk.


25 x 3

Either I’m a weakling, or I was already too fried by the EZ bar arm curls. , as the 25 kg bb I tried to do it with only went up 3 times. Apparently the text led me to believe that 85 lbs /38kg was a wussy weight so 25kg would be an extreme wussy weight.. ok, I’m a wussy girl.
No explosive drive up either.

Opinion: negative, can’t be bothered to try this one again.

A7 Farmer’s Walk

Pick up a pair of heavy, really heavy, dumbbells and take a walk around the gym. That's the essence of the farmer's walk. This killer old school exercise will set your lungs on fire, annihilate your grip, forearms and traps, and build a ton of mental and physical toughness.
Here's Strongman Competitor Chad Coy doing the Farmer's Walk with 330 pounds in each hand.
You can perform a designated number of "sets" for a certain distance or just see how far you can go with a certain weight. Each week, try to increase your distance or use heavier weights. Most men can easily start out with 100-pound dumbbells.


2x30 kg x few steps.

Again, OK so I’m a weakling. Took the heaviest dumbbells of 30kg out of the rack, fully expecting to be able to walk around the gym as well, I figured I’d be strong enough.
But unexpectedly this was prevented by the sides of the db digging very painfully into my wrists so decided to put the weights back into the rack.

Opinion:neutral. Could be a good exercise if you’re willing to do Strong(wo)man events where this is part of the required routine, but it’s hard to find weights that are really heavy enough and it’s a clumsy exercise to boot. Can’t really see a benefit for non-strong(wo)men other than ‘having fun doing weird stuff’.

BODY WEIGHT EXERCISES
A7 sissy squat
BWx 9
Only one set, was ‘pooped’ by then and wanted to go home.



General
Weird workout. Came in thinking that it wouldn’t be a brilliant day as I’m having 2 diet days in a row on Sun/Mon and that supposedly should make me weak a day later. Not so.. amazed myself in several exercises that went way better than expected.
And then, seeing strength just fleet away is equally strange. Well, perhaps it isn’t as this is exactly what happens with my friend who can do approx 10-15 sets just fine and then is just completely wasted. Would this ‘weakness’ be a good sign that I’m not producing cortisol for the ‘second wind’ I normally get?

Training statistics
Rep index: 184 reps/hr (75min, really taking it very easy)
Volume: 6059kg
# of sets: 22 - # of reps 230 - avg reps/set : 10,5 - kg/rep 26,3 kg

[Lost Dog]

Men can do SS cardio and see fat loss like magic.

Oh, really? NOT!

[UConnJulie]

Espi, love your revelation about ss cardio ... I have found the same thing ... and love all the funky exercises you are trying ... thanks for including photos as I did not know what many of them are ...

[Espi]

Typically, SS cardio would work for me.. like 1 week.
In the past I've done a lot of cycling holidays, one of them even lasted 12 months! The most gruelling one is called the 100 Mtn Pass ride and it has you cycle over at least 100 French mountain passes and a total of 4000 K (2500mi). I averaged 80 K (50mi) a day and used 50 days + 5 rest days.

While I'd sleep in tents most of the time, I'd never take along cooking equipment but just eat cold food. Dining out in France takes oodles of precious daylight time.
Like before I'd drop weight like a stone in the first week(s) and then it would just totally stop.

When I came back home the rate in which I put on weight was outright frightening. In just 7 months I got to my highest weight ever. Despite working out 3x/wk , cycling quite a bit and doing 2 spinning sessions.

This is just an extreme example. But cortisol is a huge factor here. And it remained a huge factor . Every single time I go into the gym and did cardio post workout my body would just go in 'overdrive' and enable me to finish a workout and even feel great & rejuvenated afterwards.... but then CRASH HARD later that day and even more the next day. I mean crash in the sense that I could get barely anything accomplished, other than vegetate on my chair.

I miss the excitement from the cardio, but love how I feel at home without the cardio . And funnily, I'm getting exhuasted sooner when I lift, but OTOH seem to get stronger.

[Espi]

Thursday March 15
TRAINING Triple Anti-KISS – 3 week 3
all weights in kilograms

DYNAMIC (NROL) STRETCHING
1 Walking lunge with upper-body twist 5 each side
2 lateral lunge with opposite-hand reach and touch 5 each side
3 quick & dirty version of inchworm, just squat down and then rise up with hands on floor, fastest way to stretch hams : about 8 reps
4 ball bridge / Russian twist 10 each side


WAVE LOADING
A2 db press
WU: 22 x 10
Wave 1 – 2
26x10– 28x10
30x8 –32x8
34x6– 36x6 (last week 34x7)

About the same as last week, and again a bit problematic because I felt a bit sleepy.

MEDIUM
A3 goblet squat
20x14-12 (last week: 18x11-14)

B3 bb front squat
27,5x12 -11 (last week: 27,5x13)
Very satisfied about progress in form, the exercise no longer terrifies me and is also not painful to the wrists anymore now I bump down the weight and only catch it just beofe it starts to fall.

A4 bb military press
22,5x11
20x13 (last week 22,5x11/20x13)
Same weights as last week.

B4 triceps pushdown
16,3x 11
13,8x15 (last week: 13,8x17)
Feeling much more tired .. too tired to get in a decent amt of reps)

Skipped ab exercises.

ODD EXERCISES
A5 Jerry Telle Chest Routine
This is a series of dumbbell flyes that transition into a modified dumbbell bench press. Telle's idea of an effective workout involves two important factors: high-fiber tension and fatigue. This chest routine will provide both in spades.

Start with a 135-degree wide-angle fly; in other words, with very little bend in the elbows. Lower the dumbbells to a count of three seconds, take a one-second pause then raise them back up. Continue until failure. Rest for only ten seconds and lie back for another set.

In this second set, you'll do flyes again, but this time bend your elbows more until you're doing about a 90-degree fly. Again train to failure, rest for ten seconds, and lie back for a third and final set.

On this last set, you'll perform standard dumbbell bench presses on the concentric portion, or lifting part of the lift, and then "fly out" on the eccentric portion, or lowering part of the lift, until failure. In other words, press the dumbbells up as if you were doing a standard dumbbell bench press. Then, with your elbows locked and while keeping your arms at a 135-degrees wide angle, lower the dumbbells all the way. To initiate the next rep, bring the weights to your side by bending the elbows (i.e., bring them into the start position for a dumbbell bench press). Ouch!

One final note: Use the same weight for all three sets..



Wasn’t exactly sure what weight to use because it’s been eons ago I did flyes. So, just picked an 8 kg dumbbell which didn’t seem too hard nor too easy.
Managed: 8 reps for 1st wide angle set
Managed 5 reps for 2nd 90° angle set
And only got up to 3 reps for the 3rd db press + flye out

It’s truly remarkable how quickly I’m fatigueing nowadays since I’ve dropped cardio from my routine. Still not certain whether it’s positive or negative.

Opinion: positive, looks like a good extra for a chest routine as an alternative to drop sets to fatigue with.


BODY WEIGHT EXERCISES
A1 pullup
BWx1
It’s really noticeable that I’ve worked lats 2 days before.. feeling tired here.
(started with this one)

A6 supine row
BWx 5
Hands started cramping, never had this happen before. Possible reason: the very acid candy I’d brought along.. yep living dangerously

General
It continues to amaze me how quickly I’m fatigueing during a workout. Or perhaps I shouldn’t considering I’m once again on a cut.


Training statistics
Rep index: 175 reps/hr (75min, really taking it very easy)
Volume: 8867kg
# of sets: 22 - # of reps 204 - avg reps/set : 9,3 - kg/rep 43,5 kg

[galya]

I like to find you in good spirits, your workouts seem awesome. I see how you can be tired, it's a lot of work! Keep it up By the way De Vany looks awesome and has always been an inspiration for me!

[Espi]

Saturday March 17
TRAINING Triple Anti-KISS – 3 week 3
all weights in kilograms

DYNAMIC (NROL) STRETCHING
1 Walking lunge with upper-body twist 5 each side
2 lateral lunge with opposite-hand reach and touch 6 each side
3 quick & dirty version of inchworm, just squat down and then rise up with hands on floor, fas