CK's Journal - Mixing it up to confuse my muscles and shock them into growth

Dam, I tried to be the 1000th post, id a cake ready with candles in all  

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I thought i would never inject being serious, but i research and changed my mind and a few weeks later i was injecting, not hard to do at all. I wouldnt say i had a phobia of needles but i didnt even intend to inject myself.

LOL cheers Shane, I appreciate the sentiment anyway!!

Ice - I suppose you're right. Plus I'm not actually afraid of needles, it's more that I'm just afraid that I would do it wrong and give myself an infection or something! We'll see what happens...

Yesterday's session:

Front Squats
70kg x 5
70kg x 5
70kg x 5
72.5kg x 5 (+2.5kg)
72.5kg x 5

Dips
BW + 25kg x 6
BW + 25kg x 6
BW + 25kg x 6
BW + 25kg x 7 (+2)

High Pulls
60kg x 8
60kg x 8
60kg x 8 (+1)

Smith Shoulder Press
3 x 12
(wasn't exactly counting here but squeezed out a few more reps than last week)

Incline Curls
3 x 12

Fantastic session, gains on everything, despite a less than ideal diet this week.

Was out on Friday night at a work thing with a lot of people I've only known for a few weeks and I received many many comments about how buff I looked haha. I think I look like sh1t but there ya go! We're all our own biggest critics I guess.

Last week on Cyno starting tomorrow. Somewhat underwhelmed so far, but I'm gaining strength while eating in a large deficit so I guess that's something.

Good session mate. Strength going up and weight going down, good work.

You're probably like me, look in the mirror and don't really think anything different, it's other people that tend to notice the changes.

Cheers Burney!

Hay,
 
best of luck with the cycle. will you post pics soon of how your looking at the mo? be good to see
 
whats your height and weight at the mo?
 
thanks
 
Joe

Cheers Joe! Yeah I'm gonna post pics when I'm happy with how I look. At the moment...not so much! I'm currently 88kg and 6 foot!

This evening's session. Not very eventful but enjoyable enough.

Squats (Mod stance, ass to the grass, ie. Olympic)
80kg x 5
80kg x 5
80kg x 5
80kg x 5
85kg x 6
Weird.

Incline DB Press
32.5kg x 6
32.5kg x 6
30kg x 6
30kg x 6
All incline benches were taken so just decided to do this, not a huge fan of pressing with DBs anymore.

Barbell Bent Over Rows
65kg x 8 x 3

I enjoy barbell BORs, great exercise. Will stick with this for the next while.

On another note, I have nearly come to the end of my tether with my Squat.
Why the hell am I so weak? I think I have a strong enough Bench and DL given how long I've been training, but my squat is pathetic. Why? I've been trying so hard to improve it!

One thing that really annoys me is that I find it extremely difficult to quantify progress when squatting. This is because I train on my own and so I never have any idea if my ROM is ok and if I'm actually breaking parallel. So the only way I'm able to quantify progress is when I squat ass to the grass, like today, because obviously there is no questions re ROM. And in that respect I have definitely made progress because around 7/8 months ago I could only squat 60kg ass to the grass, and about 3 months ago I could only squat 85kg to parallel (or what I thought was parallel), and now I can do it easily ass to the grass.

But the problem with this is, I don't want to squat ass to the grass, I want to squat like a powerlifter! (Except when doing fronties but that's a different ball game).

And I just find it so hard to gauge if I'm actually making any progress or just simply decreasing ROM while increasing the weight, in other words not squatting to depth but thinking that I am.

And all of this aside, my squat is still pathetically weak no matter which way you look at it. Even if I loaded up a barbell and did quarter squats the numbers would still not be impressive. I don't think squatting 85kg ass to the grass is particularly respectable when compared to my other lifts.

Does anybody have any ideas as to the kind of ratio (if there is such a thing) between squatting ass to the grass and squatting to parallel? ie. if my ass to the grass squat is 85kg, what should my parallel squat be?

Also, does anybody have any ideas as to how the f.uck I can improve my squat more successfully than how I've been trying so far because like I said, I am nearing the end of my tether!

Do you train in a gym? If so can't you just ask someone to have a look and tell you how deep you're going, or when you're getting to parallel etc?

There is a big mirror in front of the squat rack where I train, so it's relatively straightforward for me to see when my legs are parallel to the ground.

Not really qualified to offer advice on how to improve your performance I'm afraid....

Oh, not that it will make you feel any better, but I have exactly the same thoughts about my benching as you do with squatting....

You could video yourself to gauge depth on squats.

Why are you worried about poundage? Are you powerlifting? If so you probably need a periodised routine where you vary % of 1RM, im not a powerlifter but im sure the llikes of iank could advise. I would not beat yourself up too much, you've made progress as you were squatting 60kg when you started and now your doing 85kg. Keep at it!

Singles doubles and trebles mate to increase the weight?

HSD - I have asked people to check my depth on occasion but the two main reasons why this hasn't been much help are that 1) the squat racks are quite far away from all the other equipment and there usually isn't many people around cos its a very commercial gym and 2) I really couldn't be asking people to stop what they're doing and check my form for every set!

Jim - Not powerlifting now but I plan to eventually! I suppose I am progressing, just a lot slower than my other lifts thats all!

IT man - I will definitely have to rethink how I squat, but my annoyance comes from the fact that I have been able to progress very well on other lifts just by doing basic, linear progressive overload, so I am just perplexed as to why this hasn't been anywhere near as effective for my squat!

Thanks for the replies fellas

 


Gotta be in your head mate tbh....


If you can add 5kg the last set and still do 6 reps you could be doing 90kg at the beginning....Start with the heaviest weight you can lift i got caught in this, if you dont make 5 reps who cares do it next time.


Id be going 90kg from the 1st set and keep going till failure in each set...


So it might look like this


5
5
4
2
1


Next week stick at 90kg till you can do


5
5
5
5
5


then add another 5kg etc etc


Dunno if that might help in theory you should be adding weight every two ish weeks i would guess

Cool thats good advice pal! Cheers. You talk sense! Yeah I wasn't quite sure WTF was up with that last set today, I guess I wasn't pushing myself on the other sets!

As mentioned above, just bring in your camera phone and video yourself, after a while you'll just get a feel for being parlel. Alternatively if the squat rack your using has safety bars, then adjust these to the height that then you squat down they meet at the point of parallel.

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Absolutely awful day today, diet wise. It completely fell apart because I went for lunch with a lady friend in an italian restaurant and had a massive bowl of pasta, and then the carb cravings just wouldnt stop thereafter. I now understand why everybody says to have your cheat meal as your last meal of the day, it's unbelieveable. All willpower just went completely out the window, I had about 5 chocolate bars and two bottles of lucozade, and the fact that my office has an endless supply of biscuits at all the tea stations just made matters worse...

Pick up the pieces and start again tomorrow!

Need some motivation, so going to put up this pic again to remind me what the hell I'm putting myself through this hell for!

It's only one bad day, get back on it tomorow and all will be good . Who's that a picture of? He's massive.

CitizenKane


Absolutely awful day today, diet wise. It completely fell apart because I went for lunch with a lady friend in an italian restaurant and had a massive bowl of pasta, and then the carb cravings just wouldnt stop thereafter. I now understand why everybody says to have your cheat meal as your last meal of the day, it's unbelieveable. All willpower just went completely out the window, I had about 5 chocolate bars and two bottles of lucozade, and the fact that my office has an endless supply of biscuits at all the tea stations just made matters worse...

Pick up the pieces and start again tomorrow!

 


Mate.....fukc it.


One day who cares....