Yesterday was my final workout on Mass Made Simple.  Sometimes I feel like I’m too hard on myself…I didn’t get to 50 reps with #205 but I did get to 30 and finished with 20.  Three weeks ago my first try at 50 reps at #205 ended up with 17, 15, 13, and 5.  So my 2nd set was better than my first set Dec 30 vs Dec 10.  And I completed it in half the number of sets.  Overall, not bad. 

I also set a PR in bench press with a relatively easy single at #265 with very solid form.  The spotter felt like I could have gone for another one but I was happy with the PR and I knew I still needed to finish my squats. 

It feels good to finish all this up before the New Year.  I’m also a little proud of the fact that while I may not have completed all the workouts as written, I managed to complete the 6 week program thru the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays with 3 business trips in there.  That’s not too shabby. 

Overall I started the Velocity diet @ #213.1 and got down to #194.7 and then went up to 206.5 as of this morning(I’ve got the digits in there because I’ve been weighing myself using kilos but I know most people reading this will relate to pounds)  while being stronger at least in the bench and squat before I started.  I know my quads and hamstrings feel bigger.  I’m going to do another dexa scan and hopefully I’ll have at least maintained my body fat percentage.  We’ll see. 

Things I learned

1) Protein and fish oil at night before bed time can work wonders with your recovery.  I have completed workouts that have wrecked me.  A shake with fish oil and protein powder helps me not feel wrecked the day after.  Not part of the program but helpful with recovery is magnesium oil. 

2) Peanut butter & jelly sandwiches contain a ton of calories and are very easy to eat (at least for me).  I went thru about 3 jars of peanut butter, 7-8 jars of jelly (strawberry), and countless loaves of bread.  I feel like if I need to diet back down and lean out a little bit all I need to do is cut out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, replace with some fruit or some such and that’s like a 1500 calorie deficit right there. 

3) I seem to work out better with a two day a week program with an option to go to 3-4 rather than start with a 3-4 day workout and do 2.  Even though I may end up doing the same thing, psychologically I seem to feel better about planning for two and adding an extra workout when my schedule permits. 

4) I seem to have a 4 week attention span in terms of blocks with week 5 the hardest but week 6 gets better mentally because it is the last week. 

5) High rep squats and complexes can really boost your metabolism.  I measured my heart rate in order to get an idea on how many calories I burned during a session and it measured in at 1000 calories for a session lasting about 80 min.  Which sounds like a lot but that’s like 4 pb&j sandwiches. 

Physical Goals for 2013

Squat – 450

Deadlift 540

Bench – 315

MP – 225

Weigh in at 181 (vs. 206 as of Dec 31)

Behaviors to focus on in order – make my own breakfast.  Do short walk each day, preferably with weight vest but any walk is ok.  Use 531 to progress up on 2 day template.  Add a weekend conditioning session with football teammates. 

Happy New Year everyone!

I’m still progressing on my program.  Just completed training day 9 yesterday of Mass Made Simple.

I’ve been looking online for logs and I notice that quite a few people start on it but then you don’t hear from them again… or make tweaks to it and then it becomes some other program. 

The program is simple.  Just follow it.  It’s only six weeks.  I was doing this program just before Thanksgiving and it will run thru Christmas and I will complete it just before the New Years.  I am not athletic or genetically gifted.  In fact, I’m sort of lazy.  Part of me thinks that a bunch of people on my dragon boat team did the marathon after I finished it because if someone like me can finish a marathon, hey… so can they. 

Here’s something to consider… you’re doing a massive amount of full body work throughout each workout.  The bench press is a full body exercise if you’re doing it correctly.  You need to keep your whole body tight as you bench.  The one arm press is a full body exercise.  Your whole body needs to lock down tight in order to press.  The complexes hit the whole body. Nuff said.  The squat are a full body exercise.  Yea, maybe your ears aren’t getting pumped but that’s up for discussion after you do a set of 50.  If you are doing all of these exercises then there’s no need to tweak.  And if you’re going to tweak it… do it after you do the program as written.  Then tweak all you want. 

However, what I think you may find is that it is so challenging near the end of the program that all you should think about it completing it as written instead of wasting any time on thinking of ways to make it better.  For example I felt pretty messed up after training day 4 when I had to do 3 sets of 115 for 30 reps each.  That would seem like a day off to me now.  I would LOVE to do that workout now.  Which is another thing to think about… Coach Dan John designed it in such a way that it is tough but doable from workout to workout.  Training day 8 called for as many sets as it took to get to 50 reps but max out on each set.  I.e. don’t do 10 sets of 5.  The first set I did 17 @ 205# then a set of 15, 13 and 5 to get to a total of 50.  My legs were not happy campers.  Training day 9 called for as many reps on the last set up to 20.  I really wanted to do 20 and I felt like I could because I did 17 on Monday.  An extra 3 reps… do-able.  Much of this is a mental grind but it’s also mentally enabling.  I’ve done it before and I can do just a little more.  That’s a pretty valuable lesson you can take and apply it to anything!

Just 6 more training days and 2.5 weeks to go.