Two Years Removed...

[timtimtimmah19]

So two years ago I was relatively active on this board, and I've decided to start up again on here.

Since then I have mostly resolved my lower back injury through PT and regular icing/stabilization work/proper exercise form. As some background, I am going into my Junior year of college and play Varsity Sprint Football for my school. Sprint football is full contact, 11 on 11 football with all the collegiate NCAA rules, with the exception that it has a 172 lb weight limit. Players must weigh in before the season either at 172 hydrated or 165 (no hydration test) and then make 172 pounds 2 and 4 days before that week's game.

I began my cut from 183 about a month ago. I am using a carb cycling method that has me taking in on average 500 cals below my maintenance (as calculated via a BMR estimation formula). On high days, I take in 3000 cals/240g protein/330g carb/80g fat. On moderate days, I take in 2800 cals/240g protein/280g carb/80g fat. On low days, I take in 2600 cal/240g protein/210g carb/90g fat. Before vacation this week (this vacation is possibly a once in a lifetime dining experience that I wasn't going to give up) I weighed in at 179.8 at 5'11", which is definitely on the right track. During vacation since I don't have the ability to obsess over macros, I have simply eaten clean and listened to my body. Unfortunately, I managed to either catch a stomach bug or get food poisoning so for the past 48 hours I have survived on crackers, ginger ale, and water in an effort to restore fluids. Today I feel moderately better, so we'll see how that goes.

Before vacation my recent lifts looked like:
Back Squat: 275x6
Front Squat:215x6
Deadlift: 355x3
Bench Press: 235x3
DB Row: 100x3 or 80x8
Power Clean: 215x2

I had thus far managed to drop weight and increase my lifts at the same time using low reps. However, my joints are beginning to protest and old injuries are aching, so I'm going to be moving on to a higher rep set from here to mix things up and give my joints a break from the heavy lifting. Any constructive criticisms or comments are always appreciated!

[timtimtimmah19]

First workout of the new periodization today. Exercises lumped together were supersets with 30s rest between each set. Exercises on their own had one minute rest between sets.

Squat: 205x12 225x12 225x10

Bench Press: 155x12 155x12 155x12
Cable Row: 110x12 110x12 110x12

Military Press: 85x12 85x12 85x12
Lat Pulldown: 90x12 90x12 90x11

RDL: 135x12 135x12 135x12

All in all, the workout felt good. After a long phase of low rep work and my illness, I knew for sure my numbers would be down a bit. I'm actually okay with where the squat was, but the bench was way lower than I expected. RDL's were really low just because I was beat by that point.

[timtimtimmah19]

Today I just did some stretching, prehab, and foam rolling. Tomorrow I'm headed to the beach so Monday will be my next entry.

[timtimtimmah19]

I definitely see what you're saying. I actually prefer splitting my Squats and full deadlifts into two different sessions. I just like to do the RDL's after my squats since I figure squats hit quads and the posterior chain to varying degrees and RDL's tend to just focus on the back. I think what I'm going to do though is actually attack my lower body in a more traditional set up and go to a split along the lines of lower/core and upper/conditioning work to avoid the fatigue factor in my legs.

[timtimtimmah19]

Squat: 225x12 225x10 225x8
RDL: 185x12 185x12 185x12

Pulled something, workout had to stop.

[timtimtimmah19]

Thanks! I iced it, stretched, and foam rolled and it felt a lot better. Here's to hoping it's better for tomorrow for hill sprints!

[timtimtimmah19]

Morning Weight: 179.6
Caloric/Carb Intake: Moderate (100g fat/235g carb/240g protein)

DB Bench: 60x12 65x12 65x12
DB Row: 60x12 65x12 65x12

DB Military Press: 40x12 40x12 40x12
Wide Grip Lat Pulldown: 120x12 120x12 120x11

X-Row: 15x12 15x12 15x12
Pushups: 15 15 15

[u]Shoulder Pre/Rehab[/u]
Cuban Press: 45x6 35x8 35x8
L-Raise: 15x10 (too fast)

45 degree lying raise: 5x10 7.5x10
Low Pulley External Rotations: 10x10 10x10

Stretch

Rain ruins plans for hill sprints, so they will be added in tomorrow to my plyometric/footwork day

[timtimtimmah19]

Morning Weight: 179.0
Caloric/Carb Intake: Low (100g fat/185g carb/240g protein)

Footwork Drills: Dot Drill for speed/Dot Drill over barrier

Box Jumps: 5 5 5 5 5
Depth Jumps: 3 3 3 3 3
Ski Jumps: 5 5 5 5 5 (per side)
Slams: 12x8 12x8 12x8

Stretch/Foam Roll

Still raining...

[musculargirl]

Humid and rainy here too! I love a good summer thunderstorm but not when I want to go outside. Hope it clears up for you soon.

[timtimtimmah19]

Weight: 178.2
Calorie/Carb Intake: Low. Began as a high day since I was supposed to work legs, but I slashed it after not having time. Leg tomorrow though

Beautiful day today...so naturally the pool I cleaned was vandalized via a shattered glass table in the middle of it. So instead of being able to train before my clinic internship at 1:00 I spent my day there talking to police and cleaning up.

[timtimtimmah19]

7/16

Weight: 178.0 :-/
Calorie intake/carb intake: High (100/285/240)

Deadlifts: Warmup 275x8 275x8 275x8

Leg Press (60 degree): +380x12 +380x12 +380x12

Back Extensions: 25x12 35x12 45x12

Pull-Throughs: 100x12 100x12 100x12

10 Hill Sprints

Stretch

[timtimtimmah19]

Les: It's 12 reps at 100 lbs for this exercise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9srrE2- ... re=related (about :23 on)

Probably the most awkward looking lift I do, but really does a good job hitting the hamstrings/lower back for me.

7/17
Morning Weight: 177.0
Calorie/Carb Intake: Moderate (100/235/240)

Incline DB Bench: 60x12 60x12 60x10
Cable Row (Narrow Grip): 130x12 130x12 130x9
Tricep Pressdown: 70x12 85x12 (chest cramp) 70x12
Pulldowns (Chin-Up Grip)-115x12 145x8 145x8
Face Pull: 70x12 70x12 70x12

Pallof Press: 55x8ps 55x8ps 55x8ps

Stretch, ice

[Boss Man]

100 sets of 12 would be pretty insane I'd agree. Good job he wasn't doing that.

[timtimtimmah19]

Haha, yeah last week was a little higher rep to give my body a break from heavy lifting but that would be simply masochistic...

Lesplease: What I did was 3 sets of 100 lb for 12 reps. My notation in this blog is kind of weird, but what I'm doing is putting every set in individually, so when I'm ramping up it will be easier to track for me.

7/18

Weight: 177.6
Calorie/Carb Intake: Low (100/185/240)

7/19

Weight: 178.2
Calorie/Carb Intake: High (100/285/240)

Lift: Lower Body

Front Squat: 135x3 155x3 165x3 175x3 185x3 195x3 205x1 (could have gotten three, but rep speed was slowing)
RDL: 135x5 155x5 175x5 195x5 215x5
Reverse Lunge: 45x6 45x6 45x6 45x6
Glute Bridge: 135x8 135x8 135x8

Core Work
Pallof Press: 20x8 25x8 30x8
Pikes: 15 15 15
V-Up: 10x15 10x15 10x15
Reverse Leg Raise: 12 12 12

Cuff Work
Cuban Press: 45x6 45x6 45x6
L-Lateral Raise (Immediate after last cuban set): 10x10
DB 45 degree lying abduction: 5x12 5x12
Low Pulley External Rotation: (Band) 12 12
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Today was a little different than usual. It was storming something awful, so instead of braving the elements to drive to the gym I used my home set up. Unfortunately I only have DB's up to 45 here, which makes things difficult for lunges. I would load with the bar, but going back into heavy lifting, I want to protect my back best as I can. This is also why these numbers are a little lower than before. As far as my weight goes, I'm not thrilled with how it has trended up a little bit. I'm thinking that I've gotten lax with my sodium intake, since it adds cheap (in terms of cals) flavor to food. I'm going to switch a couple things around in my diet and see if I can drop a little bit more, since I did notice I am looking a little bit bloaty today.

[timtimtimmah19]

7/20
Weight: 177.6
Calorie/Carb Intake: Moderate (100/235/240)

Upper Lift:
BB Bench: 135x3 155x3 165x3 175x3 185x3 195x3 205x3
Cable Row: 160x5 175x5 175x5 160x5 160x5
DB Military Press: 50x6 55x6 60x6 65x6
Chin Ups: 8 8 8
Tricep Pressdown: 80x8 90x8 80x8
X-Row: 20x8 20x8 20x8

10 Hill Sprints

All in all, was satisfied with how the workout went. Bench has dropped off, which I expected after a week of vacation and then a lighter lifting period. Usually I would now have a day of rest, but since I'm leaving early Friday morning for a week where I won't have a gym, I'm going to push things for now and let my body recover then.

7/21
Weight: 176.6
Calorie/Carb Intake: Moderate (100/235/240)

Lower Lift:
Hang Clean: 95x3 135x3 145x3 155x3
Deadlifts: 185x3 225x3 275x3 285x3 295x3 305x3 315x3
DB Split Squats: 45x6 45x6 45x6 45x6
Pull Throughs: 50x8 70x8 90x8

Core Work:
Pallof Press: 30x8 30x8
Pikes: 15 15
V-Up: 10x20 10x20
Reverse Leg Raise: 15 15

Cuff Work:
Cuban Press: 45x8 45x8 45x8
L-Raise: 10x10
45 degree raise: 5x8 5x10
LP External Rotations: 10 10

Deadlift was a bit lower than I would like right now. I'm wondering if using my home gym instead of the one I go to had an impact as I can't get quite as good a grip on the bar here (too new haha...) which kind of shifted my focus from other cues. The pulley system here is definitely stickier than at the other gym, which would explain the lower pull throughs. All told, my body feels better than I expected, although my upper is relatively sore from yesterday. Hopefully that will fade enough for me to hit upper again tomorrow. I'm thrilled about where my weight is, I'm only 1.6 pounds from my target in-season weight of 175, but what I'm probably going to do is shoot to get all the way to 172 so when my carbs refill I won't find myself looking at 180 or something. This way I could also get to school, manipulate some variables, and weigh in at 165, thereby bypassing later hydration tested weigh ins at 172.