To Kuwait and Back Again

[Dahavol]

This is going to be my log which I plan to keep from now until I return from Kuwait. I am in the Army National Guard and I will be deploying this summer for a 9 month tour in Kuwait. I am in the Intelligence branch, so I am a full blown Fobbit(never leave the base) on deployment, which is the perfect place to really add some significant strength.

I've been around for a little while after picking up the book last year and running the program mostly as prescribed. I've mostly just lurked as I didn't feel that I had much to contribute and there were a great deal of people with better knowledge and experience to weigh in. I did post a long rambling question in Jordan's nutrition thread which was slapped down roundly as it deserved. I decided that I wanted more individual guidance so I decided to become a client of Jordan (if you aren't working with him and you have some free income, its well worth the price of admission.) I've been following his nutritional guidelines for the past few months with varying levels of commitment and follow through on my part. However, I've recently rededicated myself to sticking both to the workout plan and nutritional plan. So I decided that logging would help with that.

My goals are to add significant strength, lose body fat, increase my APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test) scores significantly, and generally stop being a fat body who barely scrapes above the army standards (and sometimes falls below). I will be working with Jordan on my nutrition and following a 6 day a week workout plan incorporating advanced novice programming on the starting strength model three days a week, and conditioning sessions the other three days of the week.

Bio Facts
Age: 29
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 241.6lbs
Waist: 40.0"
Neck 17.0"

Current 5RM
Squat: 280
Dead: 340
Bench: 190
Press: 120
PC: 120 (just added these and they suck badly, but with time, they'll come)

Nutrition:
2x high carb days 375c/220p/62f
5x low carb days 225c/275p/72f

Supplements
E/C, R-ALA, L-Carn, Seasmin, Fish Oil, Beta Alanine, Betatine HCL, ZMA, Liquid D3, Creatine, and Bcaa's

Workout Plan
Monday: Advanced Novice (Heavy)
Tuesday: HIIT + Pushup/Situp Intervals
Wednesday: Advanced Novice (Light)
Thursday: HIIT + Pushup/Situp Intervals
Friday: Advanced Novice (Heavy)
Saturday: APFT improvement (Intervals on the three events)
Sunday: Rest

I imagine that it will probably be mostly an echo chamber, but feel free to drop in and leave a note if you have a question or comment.

[Dahavol]

2/4/2014

Wieght: 241.6lbs
Workout: HIIT, C2 rower 20 seconds on 1min40sec recover, 10 sets ~105m in the worksets.
Pushups/Situps 1 min each then 2 min rest.
Round 1: 24 Pu - 25 Su
Round 2: 16 Pu - 23 Su
Round 3: 14 Pu - 21 Su
Total: 54 Pu - 69 Su

Workout was good overall, I was burning out on the last 4 sets of HIIT, but my average distance was around 110m for the first several intervals so I was pushing quite hard. The pushups and situps are improving and best of all they arn't dropping off as precipitously from one set to another, I think that I may add another set of these next week to get more volume out of this work. As with most of the time, 95% of my pushups all tend to come in the first 30 seconds, and then I struggle to get one or two more, but I'm improving there as well.

[Erok]

Looks like a helluva plan. You should see some massive gains if you stick with it, and listen to Jordan.
The AFPT Saturdays alone should be worth the price of subscribing to this thread.
Godspeed, soldier. Come back safe.

[Dahavol]

Looks like a helluva plan. You should see some massive gains if you stick with it, and listen to Jordan.
The AFPT Saturdays alone should be worth the price of subscribing to this thread.
Godspeed, soldier. Come back safe.

Thanks, Yeah listening to Jordan, so easy in theory, so difficult in practice. Its odd because the plan actually has plenty of calories in it and ability to get just a couple of snacks it here and there, so it should be somewhat easy to comply with. However, I've found that exercising strict control day in and day out can be sometimes more taxing than total starvation with some cheating thrown in. I did a run at RFL a couple years back and compliance was somehow easier on a more "extreme" diet. Although I did end up weaker and gained most of it all back shortly after the cycle completed.

The APFT Saturdays are 16 minutes of pure hate. Right now I'm doing .2 Mile sprint at about 1 min, 1 min pushups, 1 min situps and then 2 minutes of rest. Repeat for three sets at the moment. Plan is to titrate up the sprint distance and the number of sets overall. I missed last weekend as I was at my weekend drill but ten days ago I just about puked on the old ladys flopping around on the floor mats at my YMCA. I already am kinda out of place there as someone doing serious strength training early in the morning, that would have cemented my rep as a psycho for sure.

As for coming back safe, I think the last hostile fire death in Kuwait came when Saddam was still in charge of the Iraqi army. Therefore I'm much more likely to hurt myself by doing something stupid in the gym than from the enemy, but thanks for the well wishes.

[Dahavol]

Weight: 242.6
5 min C2 row: 1.1km
Squats: 225x5x3
Press: 120x5x3
Lat Pull: 150x8x3

Workout went well. I fell asleep a little early yesterday since my lower back was barking at me after my DL day Monday. It felt a lot better this morning and Light squats were easy as they should be. I'll keep a close watch on my recovery as I keep progressing because this is a place where I could cut some volume if I'm having trouble keeping up. From what I'm reading 2 work sets of 5 on light day is plenty to stave off any detraining effect between Monday and Friday's session. However, as I could still use the practice, I'll keep sets at 3 for now. Press was a little rough at 120 mostly due to shitty form. My form feels great during warmups, but then goes to crap when the weight is heavy. I'm still establishing proper muscle memory and will get better. Also I had to face a mirror today since my ideal rack was being used, so that probably didn't help.

[Dahavol]

Reasoning behind pushup-situp intervals?

For the APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test). The APFT starts with 2 minutes of max pushups, then a minimum 10 min rest, 2 min of max situps, minimum 10 min rest, and a timed 2 mile run. I need a minimum of 39 pushups, 45 situps, and a run time of <17:00 in order to pass this test at my age group. While increased strength will certainly help greatly in these events, they also require some additional adaptations to perform at their max. I especially have to take this seriously as my chunky ass has not historically done very well on this test, and have even been known to fail it once or twice with significant career consequences. So, while my primary training is based around strength, I have peppered in some additional "sport" specific training like the pushup-situp intervals to ensure that I am at the very least able to pass while I am getting stronger.

Eventually my hope is that the stronger fitter version of myself which will emerge from dedicated strength training, will never again need to worry about meeting the minimum, since I'll be far above it based on strength and conditioning alone. However, I'm not there yet. I do put these on my non lifting days so as to minimize the interference with my strength training, and I know that in the ideal world I'd avoid this type of training. Until the army decides that strength is more important to a combat situation than running two miles in shorts and a t-shirt, I'll have to deviate slightly from the ideal training model.

[Dahavol]

Goals: I decided that it would be a good idea for me to come up with some goals for the coming year of training and body recomp. Since this will be the first full year that I will be doing "training" and not "exercise" I'm stoked to see what a whole year can do.

2014 Goals
1. Increase my PL total to 1300 (currently at around 880 or so)
2. Score a 270 on a PT test (best ever in Basic was 224)
3. Decrease my body fat to 15% (currently around 30%)
4. Show up to weight train at least 125 times and do other training at least 50 other times for a total attendance at 175 training sessions. (125 times is 80% attendance at 3 times per week)

Jordan though that the goals were attainable, but he also suggested adding in some short term goals in order to foster better progress (as an aside, this is a great example of why I love working with this guy so much. He always is providing little help here and there, sometimes without even asking, even if its not directly related to the nutrition plan. It really shows that he cares about how his piece fits into the whole picture of success for the trainee.)

Intermediate goals for March 1st, 2014
1) Estimated 1000lb total (based off rep max calculators)
2) Decrease weight to <232
3) Not miss a [Lifting] session from Jan 19> March 1

[Dahavol]

Weight: 243.1 (steadily going up while sticking to plan exactly...Blergh)

Workout
HIIT C2 rower :20/1:40 x 10 sets with 5 min warmup and 10 min cool down, ~105m in work sets, 6.4km total
Pushups/Situps 1 min each then 2 min rest.
Round 1: 25 Pu - 26 Su
Round 2: 15 Pu - 21 Su
Round 3: 12 Pu - 20 Su
Total: 52 Pu - 67 Su

Feeling pretty good today. I made a detour on my way home from work yesterday and had a tiny asian lady walk on my back for a while. Totally worth the bitching out I'm going to get from the wife when she sees the bill. I'm getting a little run down as I tend to get in the week following a drill weekend. Both my full time job and army job are both desk jockey positions, but after a full week of work plus a weekend of army stuff and then a full week of work again, I start to feel the accumulated lack of time off. Really looking forward to the weekend and sleeping in a little. However, I am feeling pretty damn good considering. Not sure if its due to the recent layoff, or because I'm starting to adapt to this much working out (probably a combination of both), but I am feeling like I'm able to give it my all each and every day. Of course I sound all optimistic and stuff because its High Carb Day, which is like my personal bi-weekly Christmas. Guilt free and diet compliant while eating cheeze-its? Yes please.

[Erok]

Wanted to chime in with supportive words, but now all I can think about is "mmmm, cheeeeze-iiits....."

[Dahavol]

Weight: 241.8 (hmm...two times in a row I'm down more than 1.5lbs the day after a high carb day. Probably coincidence, but odd, since it has tended to be the opposite in the past.)

Workout
5 min row 1.0km
Squats: 285x5x3
Bench: 200x5x1
200x4x1
195x5x1
PC: 120x1x7

So today was all told a pretty good workout, with many issues. Squats started great until the third rep of the first set, when I had the all so familiar chest collapse turning the rep into a hybrid squat/good morning. Fortunately the weight was not so heavy so I was able to both recover from the form deviation and finish the set. This will not work for very much longer, so I have to get this form right. I think I just end up thinking too much about all the little things and end up doing the worst thing which is go loose in the hole. I imagine this is solved by simply staying tight, but I'll have to really focus on it if I want to progress smoothly to three wheels.

The bench was, well, my own damn fault. I got a little greedy. 190 went like butter on Monday and I've been up against 200 without surpassing it so many times. Plus a guy sat down with zero warm up and just threw 225lbs on the bar and went to town. Of course, none of these are very good reasons to get greedy and take an extra big step, most especially the last reason, but hey, I'm almost 30 and pretty soon I'll be too old to do dumb stuff in the gym right? Anyway, it was actually pretty close to going on the second set and I might have even been able to lock it, but since I felt about to drop it and I had no spotter I decided that discretion was the better part of valor (a lesson if which properly applied in the first place, would not have been necessary here) and make it more of a half rep. Learned the lesson, did the last set at the weight I should have been using all along and all was well. I'll still go to 200 next week, and stop being an idiot in the future...maybe.

Power cleans were just a big pile of garbage as usual. My form is awful, I don't rack properly, and I am about as explosive as an obese chihuahua. I just haven't practiced enough and anything lighter seems to reinforce a slow movement pattern rather than an explosive one. Also, I've played football in the past and explosive was not really a word that anyone would have used to describe me at any point. Big fat lineman was much more my speed, as was lumbering buffalo. So I could probably really use some development of my explosive power, it just wont come easy.

Final notes, I needed to cinch my belt another notch from usual in order to get sufficient pressure for my bench. I only have two more notches left before I'll have to break out my drill, or just buy another belt. Also a guy who usually works out in the morning saw me fail my bench rep and told me he would spot me anytime. He also said it was about time that I did something other than squat as that was all he ever sees me do. Of course I've done much more than squat each and every time I workout, but I suppose there are worse gym monikers to have than "The One Who Squats"