CK's Journal - The Road To Achieving a 1-Star Rating

Yeah defo mate, max is 132.5x4 got to that within about 3months of deads so very happy, got a lower back injury and had it for a while working my deads back up again now at about 100x4 atm and will slowly progress to try and fix up my lower back, cant progress to quick as i dont wanna further incurr damage to my back, so slow and steady wins the race :)

Ah yeah you're dead right not to risk it (excuse the pun LOL). Today's workout (haven't trained legs in about 3 weeks due to my crap knees):

Legs

Squats
60kg x 10
60kg x 10
60kg x 8

Front Squats
40kg x 10
40kg x 10
40kg x 10

Calf Raise (Smith)
80kg x 10
80kg x 10
80kg x 10

Leg Extensions
140lb x 10
140lb x 10
140lb x 9

Leg Curls
140lb x 10
140lb x 10
140lb x 10

Then I threw in some pretty killer core work:

Hanging Leg Raises (from Chin Up bar)
BW x 10
BW x 7
BW x 6

Roman Chair Leg Raises
BW x 10
BW x 10
BW x 10

Roman Chair Static L-Sits
1 x 10 secs
1 x 6 secs
1 x 5 secs

Notes: I brought the weight down on the squats to 60kg because I wanted to perfect my form and start squatting ATTG. I was going roughly parallel before, but I can certainly see the benefits in squatting the whole way, it's a hell of a lot harder, that's all I can say. Intense workout, I have DOMS  in my quads and my abs already, god help me tomorrow!

dead right - hahaha nice one mate, nice session.

Not much to report from the weekend. Out on friday night and got absolutely sh1tfaced, great night though. The last few nights out I've been getting loads of comments about being bigger, it's great! I'm loving getting bigger but I'm getting so sick of my belly, can't wait to cut! But at the same time I'm terrified that I'll lose size when I cut and look small again. Prob won't care too much as long as I get visible abs, my abs feel really strong and defined but they're just covered by a big layer of fat, it's so annoying!

My legs are in bits today and yesterday though, I wonder if alcohol makes DOMS worse? naturally my Diet kind of went to sh1t yesterday and hasn't been the best today either, but normal service will resume tomorrow. Chest tris and shoulders tomorrow.

Same mate so annoying my abs look good just never seen all them lol can see 4 atm abit. Im cutting atm lost 6 lbs first week, plan to cut for another 3 weeks or so just to get belly fat down.

LOL @ does alcohol worsen DOMS lol

Cracking session today.

Push

DB Press
34kg x 10 (+1)
34kg x 8 (+2)
34kg x 9 (+4)


Incline DB Press
28kg x 9
28kg x 7
28kg x 6

DB Shoulder Press
18kg x 10 (+2)
18kg x 8 (+2)
18kg x 6

Flyes (feet on bench)
12kg x 10
12kg x 10
12kg x 6

Tricep Pushdowns
?* x 14
? x 10

*I have absolutely no idea what weight I was using here because the normal cable machine was broken today and I had to improvise by using some other resistance machine.

I'll probably move on the 36's on the DB Press next session, my mate (who is pretty much my new training partner at this stage) is adamant that I should move up. My goal of getting the 40's up is looking more and more realistic I must say! Great session, feel great!

Cracking session alllright mate, well done.

Cheers mate Hope you're training is going well, it's hard to tell since you only run journals when you're doing cycles! Why don't you start a regular progress journal mate??

Training is going fine mate, strength has come down alot since SD, me doing my pct fooked things up. Bench is still up about 5kg or so, so doing ok. Joined uni gym and im doing wide grip pullups for the first time, i love them, doing them assisted atm and getting stronger each week, i can do about 5/6 reps with 20kg weight assisting me if you get me?

I dont feel the need for a journal although it would be helpful, you may have encouraged me to do one actually lol need to think about it, i only do a journal when i run supplements to show others how good/effective supplement x was and review it after.

So the push/pull/legs routine is going good by the looks of things mate? You tried any other routines before?

Iceman - Yep I'm loving the push/pull/legs routine. It's the first really proper routine I've ever used, before that I was just doing a 4 day split that didn't really make any sense, and before that I was just doing a load of stuff all at once every second day. But I reckon in a few months I'm going to change to Chest/Bis, Back/Tris, Legs/Shoulders or something, but for the time being I'm finding this routine great. Well done on the Wide grip pull-ups, I find them to be absolutely killer!

Pull

Well I knew last week's deadlifting session was going to be hard to top, but I certainly did NOT expect anything like this! Strength down quite a lot, and I kept getting a painful twinge in my left hamstring every time I got into the second half of each rep. Plus I had hardly eaten anything today before training so I was essentially lifting unfuelled. Perhaps I hadn't recovered from that PB last week? Who knows. These are not excuses, however. I'm disappointed with myself. I'm going to take a break from Deads next week to give my hammys a rest (not sure exactly what was going on with them today but it seemed a bit dodgy so I've decided not to risk it) and then come back to the Deads the following week and there is no way I'm going to let my strength go down like that again. The rest of the session was great though,not too bothered about losing reps in the Pulldowns because I went up in weight LOADS on the Rows! So all in all it was bittersweet.

Deadlift
102.5kg x 10
102.5kg x 8 (-2)
102.5kg x 6 (-3)

DB Bent-Over Rows
40kg x 10 (+4kg)
40kg x 10
42kg x 8 (+6kg)

Wide-Grip Pulldowns
140lb x 10
140lb x 9 (-1)
140lb x 7 (-3)

EZ Curls
27kg x 10
27kg x 10
27kg x 15's


Core/Abs

Roman Chair Leg Raises
BW x 10
BW x 10
BW x 9

Roman Chair Static L-Sits
BW x 10secs
BW x 8secs

Chin-Up Bar Hanging Leg Raises
BW x 6
(Grip totally failed after this so decided to call it a day!)

CitizenKane


Iceman - Yep I'm loving the push/pull/legs routine. It's the first really proper routine I've ever used, before that I was just doing a 4 day split that didn't really make any sense, and before that I was just doing a load of stuff all at once every second day. But I reckon in a few months I'm going to change to Chest/Bis, Back/Tris, Legs/Shoulders or something, but for the time being I'm finding this routine great. Well done on the Wide grip pull-ups, I find them to be absolutely killer!

Cool mate, splits are really good too, your split looks good, i used to do that split. Do you do wide grip pullups , i see pulldowns but no pullups maybve youve got mixed up lol?

Nice job on the rows mate. Best to rest and not aggravate injury good choice.

Icemansoldier

CitizenKane


Iceman - Yep I'm loving the push/pull/legs routine. It's the first really proper routine I've ever used, before that I was just doing a 4 day split that didn't really make any sense, and before that I was just doing a load of stuff all at once every second day. But I reckon in a few months I'm going to change to Chest/Bis, Back/Tris, Legs/Shoulders or something, but for the time being I'm finding this routine great. Well done on the Wide grip pull-ups, I find them to be absolutely killer!

Cool mate, splits are really good too, your split looks good, i used to do that split. Do you do wide grip pullups , i see pulldowns but no pullups maybve youve got mixed up lol?

LOL no mate I don't do Pull-Ups in my routine really. I tried them once or twice but I can barely get more than one rep.... Chin Ups are fine I can do sets of 6-8, but Wide Grip Pull Ups just aren't my friend! I presume it's because I'm carrying too much flab!

I wouldnt be able to do pullups if it wasnt for the assisted thing, but ill get there. If i do another SD cycle which i might soon i would like to think by the end of it i would be able to do a few reps with my own bodyweight.

Pullups are a good show of strength so i really want to get to the point where i can do reps with my own BW. I agree chin ups are easy compared to pullups LOL

Cool journal CK! Stick with the bulk dude especially with us coming into winter now it doesn't matter if you're holding some fat. I'm going for the 'mens health' look myself and I've realised over the summer that I really need to bulk a lot more to be able to cut down to a good size. I've tried the 'lean bulk' and my body just doesn't respond. 

Good progress so far though, keep up the good work!

Cheers for popping in mate! Always glad to get some input You're dead right I'm just going to bulk hard until Spring 2010 and then maybe go on a cut then, and yes I've tried to lean bulk before and it just didn't work for me, I found my lifts stopped going up every week so I just said fcuk it and decided to keep full on bulking! Good luck with your own goals mate

Was out on Friday night (EPIC night), and stayed in my mates gaff that night and most of yesterday so needless to say my diet yesterday was hilariously bad:

Breakfast - Burger King XL Bacon Double Cheeseburger Meal (Supersized)
Lunch - Packet of Tayto Crisps
Dinner - Dominoes 12" pizza with BBQ sauce, pepperoni, pineapple and black olives

LOL

Also was meant to be hitting the gym today but I woke up at like 3 (such a bum...) and the gym closed at 5 so I couldn't realistically get there on time. And to make matters worse I just found out my gym is closed tomorrow for the bank holiday, so no gym until Tuesday!

So all in all it has NOT been a productive weekend as far as my training is concerned! However it was very productive in terms of having the best laugh ever with my mates and scoring some birds, so I can't complain really

Just weighed myself there:

97kg

So that's 3kg gain in the last month, can't complain about that! It's definitely not all lean though because I think I may have added a bit to my waist, but not much. Now time to EAT

Push

DB Press
36kg x 6 (+2kg)
36kg x 5
36kg x 4

Incline DB Press
28kg x 9
28kg x 6
28kg x 5

DB Shoulder Press
20kg x 7 (+2kg)
20kg x 5
20kg x 4

Tricep Pushdowns
60lb x 14*
60lb x 12
60lb x 8

Pec Deck
170lb x 8
150lb x 10

Good sesh, glad to get the 36's up even if it was just for low-ish reps. Next week aim to get 8 in the first set and then anything after that is a bonus. Also I should note that my training partner was very tight for time today so we absolutely raced through our sets, probably could have gotten an extra rep or two on a few of those lifts if I had been able to take slightly longer breaks. Ah well!

*Note: Previously I had technically been noting down the weight wrong for this exercise: while the weight written on the weight stack that I had set to was in fact correct, the old cable machine I was using actually had double the amount of pulleys so obviously twice the purchase on the lift, so I was in reality only lifting half of what the machine was set to on the weight stack, and I only realised this discrepancy when today I used a different cable machine that only had one pulley. (As if anybody cares about this, haha)