week 2 day 3

Many days in the gym are not magnificent. That is to say it is just showing up and putting in the work. Pushing limits where there seems to be a lack of space to do so. Dropping off bad moods at the door and shutting out the world. It's been my best practice at being present. The monumental moments truly aren't on max effort days. It's the in-between ones where consistency counts--when you come in, omit small talk, and do what needs to be done.

I decided to compete again next April. That gives me just under 5 months to train, which is downright luxurious. To show up and do well I would need a solid 12 week program, so I have plenty of time to build my muscle and add to my total. The wiggle room is nice. I'm adding a bit more cardio and some every training day things, such as AMRAP push ups or pull ups at the tail end. It is, currently, the worst part of the training day because I'm tired and spent and do not want to do them at all. But that's the point. Do it exhausted, build some endurance.

It's funny how deciding to compete again helped me regain my focus and excitement overall. I wasn't getting burnt out, but I was becoming distracted. Now there is something to aim for, so I'm building arrows in my quiver for a purpose. It's nice.

Today I woke up at 6am, on my day off, to get there and do what I needed to do. Workout included:
4x7 low bar squats @ 150
3x8 high bar squats @ 135 (tempo'd to focus on form)

3x4, 1x4+ overhead press
+40 reps dumbbell incline press
+28 deadbugs

3x20 tricep extension(behind head)
3x20 face pulls
3x20 tricep rope pulldowns
3x6 hanging leg raises
3x15 barbell curls

I'm in the beginning of this training block, so lots of hypertrophy to promote some growth. I know growth is happening because, ahem, I'm growing out of some of my shorts(again). Time to add new ones to the stock.

goal in progress

It's fairly well established at this point that I am terrible at updating regularly. I always intend to, but before I know it the days turn into weeks then into months. As more time passes, there is more to say yet I'm never sure where to start. I guess we will just jump in here.

On January 1st I sent in my money and officially registered for a powerlifting meet in April. No turning back now. I was more excitement than nerves until I started reading the meet rules and imagined how the day would go...that's when my hands started getting sweaty and I felt the need to go to the restroom. Ah, the nerves. They finally showed up.

I'm training smart and training hard. I've managed to avoid the hell that is the flu this year(knock on all the wood things, as the winter ain't quite done with us yet), but I did get a week long viral thing, and I'm currently getting well from a nasty cold that lasted just under a week. I fought the urge to return to training early, giving myself a day more rest than I wanted to. Time is precious, and I can't afford to be stupid about it. Better to take the extra rest as opposed to returning too early and staying down longer. As simple as these type of decisions might seem, I struggle with them. I'm stubborn to say the least.

The biggest change is that I've started benching twice a week. I squat twice, bench twice, and deadlift once. My accessory work has changed as well--I do what supports those three main lifts, and trimmed the fat that I could. The second bench day replaced my overhead press--I now do OHP on occasion instead of dedicating an entire session to it. I pummel shoulders with incline bench, lat raises, etc. Adding to my bench volume has made a significant difference in overall execution and the amount of weight I can press. As a matter of fact, I beat my old bench press max today by 3 reps. Totally unexpected, but a big victory for me. To me, it feels like a victory when I gain evidence that my programming is working. It gets a little harder to obtain those milestones the longer you lift--I'm a long way off from those beginner gains. The rep pr is quite nice, but my focus has been more on maintaining form lately.

There's still a lot of volume being done. I finish with heavier reps in the 1-3 range, mainly to lock in that form. As time crawls closer to meet date, I'm also doing more pause bench and squatting with commands--I am hellbent on having all white lights for my attempts. The more I can lock that into my training, the better accustomed I will be to it when it's time to compete. It's a nice new challenge to factor in, keeping me on my toes.

My hands are shredded. My body is often sore in one way or another. When I lay in bed at night, my quad muscles occasionally jump without provoking. But I love it. I love it so much. When I've had a rotten day, the gym is my sanctuary. Hell, when I have a great day I still look forward to my sessions--it makes the great days even better. I'm happy. I'm hungry. I'm working hard on the goal in front of me and that makes all the difference.

hypertrophy, week 7

- I am back in the land of high volume. On glute day I hit 8,000+ lbs of volume on back squat alone.

- I love how high volume has tested my discipline. I write almost all of my workouts down before I get to the gym, and I do my damnedest to stick to the plan. Sometimes I have to scale it back or improvise in the moment(if, say, I had a long day at work and I’m not feeling well), but I love the satisfaction I get from setting the bar and climbing to reach it. There are times when I am on my third or fourth set of squats and I try to con myself out of doing less reps on the ones to follow. I’ve grown to be quite good at telling that naysayer within to shut up though. I’m not really into selling myself short anymore.

- The loads are getting heavier, the lifts are getting harder, thus the DOMs(delayed onset muscle soreness aka hurting the day after the workout) are raging these days. I’m trying to stay consistent with my yoga/range of motion stretches, because it does help a lot. I need to foam roll more. Due to continuously overloading(progressive overload IS the key here) I find myself more tired and in need of more recovery post-lifting. I think I’m going to have to restructure my rest days vs working days to support the increasing workload.

- For squats, I switched from high bar to low bar. This means the bar placement on my back has changed from high(the bottom of my neck) to low (base of my traps). Instead of keeping my hands wide on the bar, I pin them in against my body, aiming my elbows down instead of winging out backwards. It took me a few sessions to get used to, but now I can’t imagine having my arms wide again. Keeping the arms pinned in helps me keep my chest up, and I can “pull” the barbell across my back and create a better “shelf” for the bar(think I used enough quotes?). Overall, it results in better form.

- I also end up like this when I pack my gym clothes in the dark of 5am:

at least I was kiiiiiiiiinda close

My bench press is finally climbling. I've been teetering around the same number on bench for nearly a year. In the winter I started over completely--I wanted to improve my form because it was fairly hideous. Hypertrophy work(lots of reps) has helped me lock in form and increase my confidence under the bar. That confidence is everything. Next thing to accomplish on bench: stop hesitating to ask someone for a spot. I need to push myself and I think not having a spotter keeps me in a comfort zone. No more comfort zone.

I'm going to purchase a food scale this month. I follow a fairly regimented diet and steer clear of junk. I'm a laissez-faire macro counter. The scale is going to help me keep better track--I'd like to bulk/increase my size a little. It's pretty much eggs/carbs for breakfast, rice, tuna, veg for lunch and occasionally the same thing for dinner(or udon noodles, and maybe chicken since I do eat that again now). Fairly boring from the outside, perhaps. No complaints here though. Special thanks to sesame oil, nutritional yeast, and hot sauce.

brief babble on hypertrophy, start of week 5

Today I started week 5 of my hypertrophy block. I'm getting to that slightly insane part of training where everything almost always hurts--not in a bad way, but DOMS for days. I've slowly been increasing my volume with each week--if the volume were an actual knob on a stereo we would be just a few decibels shy of 11.



Squats are nearing a brutal point. Late last week I hit a new 8 rep pr on back squat, and this week I set a new pr to beat that one. I've started incorporating pause squats(the pause is just above horizontal to increase power pushing out of the hole) in hopes of getting a little break amongst all that volume. Ha, break my ass.

I love the absurd mental game one has to indulge in during a high volume workout. During set up I'll nod to myself before that heave upwards to take the bar completely on my back. The nod is kind of involuntary. My brain and body check in with each other, find agreement, and then we go. I'm also visualizing a lot more, which is starting to help me strengthen my left side. Since I am right-dominant, my left side is naturally a bit weaker--something I've been working on correcting for some time now. It's too easy to go through the motions, mentally check out, and let my right side handle most of the work. Staying present and picturing the muscles at work really helps me balance the load from right to left. Higher volume is helping me lock in good form, which is going to be oh so necessary once the strength block starts. I want those 1 rep max prs. I want them bad.

At this point in my hypertrophy block, I mentally struggle with the last set. There is a moment where I am tempted to cut it short, skip the final set of reps completely. Over the past week, I've been combating this impulse with some trainer treatment. Almost always, I train alone, but sometimes I wouldn't mind having someone rooting for me to suck it up and attack the last set, or someone barking a countdown next to me for that last push. Even after all this time I could use a kick in the tookus now and then. My solution is to turn the "maybe I'll skip this one" thought in my head into that of a trainer--the voice I need to tell me to go on and do it, pull my shit together and make it count. A time or two I've muttered "one more Nik" under my breath before tackling the last set. The best feeling is finishing the one I initially wanted to skip out on. The completion is incredibly satisfying. I need that motivation at this point in my training--each workout is harder than the last. Sure I'm incredibly sore, but I'm also pretty damn content.