ORIGINAL: S41N7

NUTRITION
6:00 - mug of green tea and a green tea exstract
-------------------45 MIN LOW INTENSITY CARDIO---------------------------------------
7:00 - 30g whey, 40gs of oats with skimmed milk and 200ml of fresh fruit juice
10:00 - Wholemeal pitta with 120g of chicken and a pear

12:15 - Progen and tropical fruit salad
3:30 - Wholemeal pitta with 120g of chicken and an apple.
6:00 - handfull of mixed nuts (though they might give me more energy to train)
-----------------------------------TRAINING---------------------------------------------
7:30 - 40g whey and 50g of oats

My Current Journal - http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/tm.aspx?high=&m=3164336&mpage=1#3164336
My old journal - [link=http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/m_2480

Are you still in communication with james as he may be able to guide you more with relation to diet linked to training and maybe jiggling it around to get some energy into the sessions with maybe some simple sugars or something.

ORIGINAL: S41N7

@ ChrissieG - Thanks, Cookie was OK for a day or two before contracting food poisoning, bad luck huh? She is doing her best and remains undetered.

@ Kitty. Thanks for you comments man. I really mean it. I feel normal now. Thought I was the only one, or that I didnt have what it takes or something. You have really (more than you can know) picked me up .

That's what we're here for. You will go through many phases of ups and downs, some days you will be eager to get on stage the very next day you'll be lacking in confidence that you'll be ready. Just be aware of these demons and face them head on I can fluctuate by the hour

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Agree with kittys post mate, youre doing extreamly well fella... your bound to get your ups and downs only a minute percentage of people can go through with a pre-contest diet from start to finish. stick at it mate focus on the goal.

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."
Thomas Jefferson

 
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Guys, I dont know what to say. This morning the alarm went off waking me to my 5:40 fasted cardio appointment with a spin bike. A voice in the back of my head calmly advised ne to "give it a miss today, afterall its advisable to listen to your body and well, Im still tired". Then I heard Kitty; "its normal we all feel like that... now get up and show us what your made of." I also heard Jay; "Stick to It mate your doing well" and at 6:50 the last pedal rotation cerimoniously maked the end of the morning cardio routine. Am looking forward to tonights training and know that I might feel weaker and to and somewhat undermotivated but not abnormal or failing.

NUTRITION
6:00 - mug of green tea and I forgot to take the green tea exstract
-------------------45 MIN LOW INTENSITY CARDIO---------------------------------------
7:00 - 30g whey, 40gs of oats with skimmed milk and 200ml of fresh fruit juice
9:30 - Wholemeal pitta with 120g of chicken and an apple

My Current Journal - http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/tm.aspx?high=&m=3164336&mpage=1#3164336
My old journal - [link=http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/m_2480

Well done

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Good man!

 
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Good stuff D - good to see you back.

How are the sugar cravings?

Is you appetite ok?

I want you to hit you next weights session with double motivation - train like you're a pro - imagine yourself on stage....

James Collier MuscleTalk Co-Owner + Head Moderator
Nutrition Consultant www.healthyaction.co.uk
Email: james@muscletalk.co.uk

I will cope with the sugar cravings, in the long run success begets success.

Appetite is still heavily connected to mood. will have to learn a few more coping stratagies, maybe adding soybran to the oats or something. "I run that idea by you now"

Hitting the weights hard? easier said than done. I think I train pretty hard and my workouts are fairly intense, but so does the guy on the bench next to me. He thinks the same about his training but I might beg to differ. His habit of doing cheat reps from the begining of his exercise is not a good idea to me, he thinks his training like a pro.

QUESTION: How do I really know? My training yesterday was a good one, did chest something like this:

Smith Mach' chest press
20x50kgs - 8-9
8x80kgs - 9
6x90kgs - 9
6x90kgs 10

inclined bench cable flys
9x18.75kgs - 9
8x18.75kgs - 10
7x18.75kgs - 10
Superset to failure (standing cable flys) - stripping down from 11.?kgs - 5kgs

declined db press
9x36kgs - 9
8x36kgs - 9
7x36kgs 10
Superset to failure (Chest Press Mach') - stripping down by 5kgs from 65kgs - 20kgs

All done within 45min (not sure exactly how long but I am quicker than most if not all other members). This sometimes gets me thinking "are my sessions too short. Yesterday when I did legs. I swear, I was in the traffic home twice as lomg as the session itself. Really frustrating.

The problem is that although my intensity levels were quite high on paper and (alone) I felt I could not have completed another rep (those where I tried and failed are level 10s, and those there I simply believed the next rep would not be completed are level 9s) after my workout I feel like "come-on-man" you should be screaming out another rep and convince myself that the chest workout was less than effective because my arms were quitting beforte my chest.

Today I do have some soreness in the chest as well as those in other areas namely, traps, abs calves and upper back. However none are sore enough to be sore to the touch or sore enough to convice me my workout was fantastic.

Visually there has been some improvements and areas are becoming tighter and herder to the eough. However, in july I feel I will have a decent beach body not a fantastic comp-body. Time will tell.

My Current Journal - http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/tm.aspx?high=&m=3164336&mpage=1#3164336
My old journal - [link=http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/m_2480

hello mate, just had a look through the new journal! im chuffed for you that your going to compete, keep plugging away!

my journal, come say hello - I need all the help I can get!
http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/tm.aspx?m=2617218   

stick at it mate, DOMS is not nessecarily a sign of a good workout. stick at it and you will look awesome on stage come july.

 
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Hitting the weights hard? easier said than done. I think I train pretty hard and my workouts are fairly intense, but so does the guy on the bench next to me. He thinks the same about his training but I might beg to differ. His habit of doing cheat reps from the begining of his exercise is not a good idea to me, he thinks his training like a pro.

QUESTION: How do I really know?

You'll know. The best way to describe it is if you feel 'pleasently exhausted'. But yes a fair point, as we can't tangibly measure 'intensity'. But if you're training all out in each set, making each rep count, and keeping to sensible rest times between each set, then you are training hard and intensely. Feel each rep.

James Collier MuscleTalk Co-Owner + Head Moderator
Nutrition Consultant www.healthyaction.co.uk
Email: james@muscletalk.co.uk

I beg to differ and say doms are a sure sign you have overloaded muscles sufficiantly and in a way they are not used to but each to their own.No soreness for me means i need to change something.Everyone always questions wether they are doing enough or doing it right, that never really changes does it?

DOMS have their place I think. I don't think every session is good but certainly once every 3 or 4 sessions of that bodypart when you really do have had extra good workout. I try out for personal bests every 3rd or 4th session, that's when I get the DOMS. I couldn't train this way everytime as I think it would disappoint me as I do not believe you can do a PB everytime (if you can then you're not working hard enough to begin with), but every third week, I feel ready to push an extra couple of reps or up the weight. Keeps me on my toes

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Was thinking about this last night and i missed the point here about wat ya mans trying to acheive.For me doms are a sign of muscle overload to encourage hypertrophy and ofcourse this aint gonna be acheivable anyway whilst dieting for fatloss so i wouldnt consider for you at this stage doms being a sign of adequate intensity.
Agreed kitty on the pb thing but it does depend on how much weight your adding.Most gym dwellers unfortunately only have the option of 2-4 kg increases between discs or dumbs, my home kit can go half too 1 kg at a time so for a good run i can top pb's all other things being good.
I am a firm beleiver though that the majority of sessions can produce muscle soreness if not through pb's then cycling of movements or mixxing up sets/rep ranges.Like you say not every session but the majority of my sessions leave me sore to some degree and if i aint i feel ive wasted my time.Everyone has a different way of doing things though.

Good poit kitty. Deep down inside I am somewhat aware that its not possible to get a fantastic workout every session. However, I am also aware that i should be training towards that goal at every session. Doing so, with an aim to beat a PB every 4 weeks sound more realistic, rewarding and motivating.

Deep down Inside I KNOW THAT doms IOS NOT THE SOLE DETERMING FACTOR OF A GOOD WORKOUT IN ALL PEOPLE ALL THE TIME. hOWEVER, IT IS A GOOD INDICATION (that said my hest is even more sore today - YAY - ). [DOH, caps-lock].

DOMS are for me what the first high is to an addict. I find myself chasing the initial extremity of my first hard workout.

Stef, you raise a great point At the mo' (and for at least the nest 3 months I am a member of two gyms (FitnessFirst [with its relative comforts] and EMPORIUM [hardcore BB gym)At FF there are some 1kgs and 0.5kg increments I will use smaller increments as opposed to beating PB by 10. maybe a 1 or 2 kg increase will give me a feeling of success and immediate achievements.


Yeterdays Nutrition

ORIGINAL: S41N7
NUTRITION
6:00 - mug of green tea and I forgot to take the green tea exstract
-------------------45 MIN LOW INTENSITY CARDIO---------------------------------------
7:00 - 30g whey, 40gs of oats with skimmed milk and 200ml of fresh fruit juice
9:30 - Wholemeal pitta with 120g of chicken and an apple

12:15 - Progen and tropical fruit salad
3:30 - Wholemeal pitta with 120g of chicken and a banana.
-----------------------------------TRAINING---------------------------------------------
6:00 - 120g chicken and wholegrain rice
9:00 - 40g oats in skimmed milk and 30g whey.

My Current Journal - http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/tm.aspx?high=&m=3164336&mpage=1#3164336
My old journal - [link=http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/m_2480

TODAYS' NUTRITION
5:45 - mug of green tea and I forgot to take the green tea exstract
-------------------45 MIN LOW INTENSITY CARDIO---------------------------------------
6:30 - 30g whey, 40gs of oats with skimmed milk and 200ml of fresh fruit juice
10:30 - Wholemeal pitta with 120g of chicken and an apple
12:15 - cabbage and carrots. A Maximuscle protien bar and mixed tropical fruit.
3:30 - Wholemeal pitta with 120g of chicken and a banana.
-----------------------------------TRAINING---------------------------------------------
6:00 - PWO - 40g whey in water
6:30 - 120g of chicken, peas and string beans.
9:00 - 120g makerel fillet and a very tall beaker of squash.

Will be trying to ensure that very little carbs are consumed after 6-7pm. Instead EFAs and potiens awill be consumed. I think this is the aim of james plan but sometimes I have 40g of oats and 30g of whey at this time, I am not sure this is productive towards James plan or my own gains. Recent comments from AJ reminds me that this is not supposed to be easy and I am supposed to be putting in even more effort in sticking strickly to the planned pre-comp diet. A very important task as this is my second phase and James is a man after my own heart (I will be told in no uncertain terms if my progress is insufficient or disappointing). IT REALLY IS TIME TO QUIT tHE JIBBER JABBER

TRAINING: SHOLDER
Cleans and press
10x40kgs - 8
10x40kgs - 9
8x40kgs - 10
6x40kgs - 9
Seated DB Press
7x30kgs - 9
8x30kgs - 9
8x30kgs - 9
Standing DB Shrugz, (immediatly followed by quickshrugz to failure)
13xx40kgs - 8 (50x20kgs - 7)
9x42kgs - 9 (30x25kgs - 9)
11x44kgs - 10 (20x25kgs - 10)
Seated Side Raises
12x8kgs - 7
11x10kgs - 8
6x12kgs - 10
6x12kgs - 10

My Current Journal - http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/tm.aspx?high=&m=3164336&mpage=1#3164336
My old journal - [link=http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/m_2480

Woke up with moderate sorness in the lats and traps, upper back feels a bit stiff too. This pleases me . It pleases me alot.. I will continue to question my intensity in order to provide the body with new challanges and spur adaptation.

NUTRITION
missed this mornings green tea as iwoke up at 5:40 and should have woke at 5:30-
------------------45 MIN LOW INTENSITY CARDIO---------------------------------------
7:00 - 30g whey, 40gs of oats with skimmed milk (forgot to have the fruit juice)
10:30- Progen
12:30 - Wholemeal pitta with 120g of chicken a banana and an apple (forgot to have the apple with the progen).

My Current Journal - http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/tm.aspx?high=&m=3164336&mpage=1#3164336
My old journal - [link=http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/m_2480

How's cookie doing? Not heard from her in ages. (sorry to hijack your journal to ask)

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She's back into the gym and doing her resistance training . She also commits to the early morning fasted. However, I dont think she is doing the evening cardio yet. She is over the worst and is almost fully recovered. Things should be back to normal real soon.

My Current Journal - http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/tm.aspx?high=&m=3164336&mpage=1#3164336
My old journal - [link=http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/m_2480