Strength Engineer Log

[StrengthEngineer]

8/12/17

Official Weekly Measurements:

Weight Average: 159.54lb
Average Weight Change: -1.06lb
Waist Circumference: 32in
Body Fat Percentage: 13.3
FFM: 138.32lb
Fat Mass: 21.22

Thoughts: Good week. Once again, the results are better when I use refeed days. I had one partial refeed day, and also had one cheat meal in there as well; I went out to a Mexican food restaurant with some friends, and had a couple pounds of bloat the next morning so it's really surprising my average weight loss was still 1lb with that one really high weigh in. Next week I am probably going to have a higher than usual weight loss because I'm actually quite a bit lighter than the average there at the start because of this. The one bummer, you'll notice my body fat % is the same as last week, I hadn't measured my neck in a few weeks because it had been 15.5in without fail every week... decided to measure it this week and it was 15.25in so I lost 1/4 inch there. I would have been 12.7% this week if my neck hadn't changed. So at some point over the last 3-4 weeks that happened, my guess would be last week as my bf% dropped a whole percentage point and my FFM jumped up quite a bit. Logically that would make sense. So instead of last week being 1 whole %, it was probably about 1/2% both weeks. Either way, we are getting close to the end, and that makes me happy.

[StrengthEngineer]

8/14/17

Press: 77 x3, 88 x3, 99 AMRAP (goal 7): 8, 110 x3, 77 3x5
Chinup: 5x10
Dip: 15/15/15/12/12
Sit-up: 15/15/15/12/12
Curl 45: 5x10

Thoughts: e1RM PR!!! I needed that, especially with how bad of a beating my squat has taken, my confidence has been down. I calculated in advance that 7 reps on the AMRAP would be a very slight e1RM PR, and I felt so good after 7 I was able to hit 8! It makes no sense that in a cut my squat has been plummeting but I'm hitting a PR on press, lol. From what I've read most people maintain squat easily and their press plummets in a cut. Strange, but either way that PR today felt really good. I needed that win. Especially going into deadlifts tomorrow; though I don't expect as good of a performance in DL's tomorrow I am still going to try for a very small e1RM PR as well. Good day!

[StrengthEngineer]

7/15/17

Deadlift: 203x3, 232 x3, 261 AMRAP (goal 8): 7, 290 x3, 203 3x5
Band pull-apart (red): 5x20
Push-up: 20/20/20/15/15
Sit-up: 5x15

Thoughts: Good day today. 1 rep shy of my deadlift AMRAP test goal, but like I said yesterday I was setting my goal for an e1RM PR and not sure if I would get it. Good news here, that tracks to 313lb e1RM which is the exact same e1RM that I started this meso-cycle with 8 weeks ago. So I have at the very least succeeded maintaining my strength on this program despite being in a cut, and that my friends is a still a win. Moreover, I feel like I had the strength to get that 8th rep, just had some back rounding on 7 and decided to play it safe and cut the set. But I don't routinely go above 5 reps on deadlifts, so I may have still gained some strength and just not had the endurance to get enough reps to display that strength. I'll get a better feel for whether I made any deadlift gainzzz in two weeks when I do the second and final week of AMRAP testing with 5% higher weight, as I won't be going as high of reps so it will be more in my comfort zone. Also, it's good hitting some higher intensity work, that 290 triple helps to remind my body what it's like to lift at that intensity since I spent the last 8 weeks working sub-maximally. All in all, I'm feeling pretty good so far as the first half of my testing week comes to a close. I'm definitely feeling a bit sore and tight (those 15 rep dips yesterday...), but I have not lost any strength in deadlift or press as I thought that I had. My deadlift is maintaining and my press has improved. I already know my bench has made gainzzz, I'm expecting a good test on Thursday. That leaves the only lift that I've lost strength in as the squat, and I'm not entirely sure that my squat issues aren't mental in nature, with potentially some form inefficiencies, and some being out of practice in the higher intensities thrown in for good measure. When I'm done with the cut I'm probably going to get some more squat coaching, either hit up Robert Santana again (SSC) or I found a non-SSC powerlifting coach that has a powerlifting gym closer to my side of town that I may try out to see if his eye may catch something that Robert's eye didn't. He's coached a lot of successful competitive powerlifters, so he may have a different take on things that may help me. Either way, I'm feeling pretty good right now. My confidence is starting to return and the fire is starting to burn again. Now I just got to finish off the last bit of this cut and then the gainzzz will once again rain from the sky.

[StrengthEngineer]

7/17/17

Bench: 112 x3, 128 x3, 144 AMRAP (goal 8): 8, 160 x3, 112 3x5
Row 95: 20/20/15/15/15
Tricep Pressdown (red): 5x20
Sit-up: 5x15

Thoughts: Another e1RM PR! I probably could have pushed for 1, maybe 2 more reps there, but I had 8 in my head so I cut it there. I should have no problem hitting another PR when I do this again with 5% more weight on the bar in 2 weeks. I think what has really made the biggest difference in my pressing the last couple months is all of the upper back work I've been doing. I'm able to really lock my shoulder blades in place now and give myself a good platform to press off of. Back when I was doing my LP on both press and bench the bar would get kind of wobbly when I would get fatigued on later reps/sets, but no longer; I'm in absolute control of the bar for the full ROM.

[StrengthEngineer]

7/18/17

Squat: 126 x3, 144 x3, 162 AMRAP (goal 10): 10, 180 x3, 126 3x5
Face-pull (red): 5x20
Push-up: 5x20
Ab-roller: 5x15

Thoughts: Squat went well today. So far my goal of dropping the weight to build momentum back up is working, as I hit my goal of 10. Strangely, the last couple of reps my obliques were what felt fatigued, so that might be a sign that my obliques might be a potential bottle neck on squats. I should look up some stuff I can do to strengthen my obliques, as I've never directly trained them in any way. I also made a slight form adjustment today. Alan Thrall put out a very timely video yesterday of him coaching some people through the squat and one of his cues really stood out to me was that he said to bring your knees about an inch in front of your toes, that if you keep your shins more vertical that removes a lot of quad from the exercise, and as long as I've been squatting I've never felt my quads in a squat or the next day, if I felt anything in my legs it was always pure hamstring and ass. So I took some video from the same front 45 degree angle he was using in my warm ups (I've always taken rear 45 degree angles) and watched my knees, and sure enough my knees maybe were going to mid foot or slightly in front. So I made some adjustments to bring my knees forward more, and not over-exaggerate my hip break. It felt pretty good on the reps I did it right, I felt sturdy and balanced, which I never have really felt in a squat before. Obviously it's an adjustment so not every rep was done correctly, I went too far forward a couple times and the weight went into my toes. On my AMRAP set I got in a good rhythm towards the end where I was just hitting each rep perfectly with the weight sticking right at mid foot even under fatigue. I'll probably do some practicing with an empty bar the next few days to engrain the form in my head. So very long story short, I am starting to feel a little hope in my squat again. Next week is a lower intensity week, then I get back to one more week like this one only with 5% more weight on the bar!

[StrengthEngineer]

8/19/17

Official Weekly Measurements:

Weight Average: 159.06lb
Average Weight Change: -0.48b
Waist Circumference: 31.9in
Body Fat Percentage: 13.1
FFM: 138.22lb
Fat Mass: 20.84

Thoughts: Not my best week here, but I'm not surprised either. My sister was in town last weekend so I ate out with her once. My weight shot up the day after and took days to get back to where I was. Unfortunately, my aunt is in town this week and wants to go out to eat on Thursday :/ I'll do my best to try to keep it as least damaging as possible as I would like to get a good week this week, but I'm learning that even just one meal eaten out can screw you pretty hard. These people coming to town are killing me, lol. However, I did have a woosh this morning, I actually weighed in this morning at 158, so 1lb below my weekly average, so that's promising. Unfortunately I feel very bloated this morning, so my waist circumference didn't really show it. I also purchased some calipers on Amazon yesterday, those should be here this week, I'm curious how that reading stacks up against the Navy Method. I did really good in the gym this week on my AMRAP testing, better than I expected actually, so that's quite motivating. Next week is a lower intensity week to recover a bit since I was maxing out the relative intensity all week long, then the week following that is the final week of the macro-cycle where I do the same thing I did this week only with more weight.

[StrengthEngineer]

8/21/17

Press: 71.5 x5, 82.5 x5, 93.5 x5, 71.5 3x5
Chin-up: 5x10
Dip: 15, 15, 15, 12, 12
Banded twist (red): 5x15
Dumbell curl 25: 8, 8, 6, 5

Thoughts: This week is my lighter week. This meso-cycle is setup medium (last week), light (this week), heavy (next week) as opposed to my volume blocks where I ramp up light, medium, then heavy. I got some loadable dumbells from Rogue delivered this weekend, so that will help give me a lot more options on my assistance work, as you can see I did dumbell curls today instead of the usual barbell. I forgot how much heavier weight feels with a dumbell, next time I do dumbell curls I'll do a little lighter weight as I would rather do the 5-6 range with a barbell not a dumbell. Also implemented the banded twists as I noted on Friday in my squat set that my obliques felt like they were getting fatigued and a potential bottleneck. So we will see if these help over time. Also, I stated on Friday that I had never really felt my quads during or after squatting, well after changing my form to bring my knees a bit more forward, holy shit I've been hobbling around all weekend, lol. That's a really good sign, if my quads got destroyed with a lighter weight than I've trained with in months it means that I really haven't been activating them as much as I should; by over-exaggerating the hip break and keeping my shins too vertical I've been doing a pretty posterior dominant squat and running from my quads. So, now that I'm building back up and using more quad they'll adjust, I'll be using more muscle mass in the lift, and I should be able to blow past my previous sticking points. This gives me some hope, as it makes no sense that all my lifts have either stayed the same or made gainzzz in this cut, but my squat plummeted damn near back to square 1 where I started my LP at back in November.

[StrengthEngineer]

8/22/17

Deadlift: 188.5 x5, 217.5 x5, 246.5 x5, 188.5 3x5
Band pull-apart (red): 5x20
Push-up: 5x20
Sit-up: 5x15

Thoughts: Pretty good day. Slept like crap last night and wasn't really feeling it this morning, but it's a light week so it wasn't too hard to suck it up and do it anyway. Today is a refeed day, so yay carbs!

[StrengthEngineer]

8/24/17

Bench: 104 x5, 120 x5, 136 x5, 104 3x5
Row 95: 5x20
Tricep Pressdown (red band): 5x20
Sit-up: 15/15/15/15/20
Hammer curl 20: 10/10/10/9/8

Thoughts: Good day, it is a light week so as expected it's more of a punching the clock kind of week. I decided to experiment and try out hammer curls as I've never done them before and I keep reading about how they're beneficial. Definitely different, hit the side of my biceps, I've never really felt that muscle before, lol. I'll play around with them once a week for a few weeks and see if I like them. I also decided to go back to maintenance calories as was my original plan for this week and next. Today will be my 3rd day back at maintenance. Lyle McDonald recommends taking 2 weeks at maintenance every 4-6 weeks in a cut, especially as you start getting in the lower bf %'s like I am now getting into. I've been in a cut straight for a little over 2 months now. I had originally planned to do this week and next week at maintenance because of that, and because of the timing of next week being a heavy testing week as maintenance calories should help me hit some solid PR's, but I got a little greedy and started thinking that since I've only got 3% body fat left to cut to hit my goal, that I should just get it done. Well I've officially plateaued on my fat loss. Looking back over the last couple weeks my weight has basically just fluctuated between 157 and 159, and it's pretty much looking like it's just simply glycogen and water weight being gained and lost on different days depending on carbs and workload. The most telling sign is that my waist has measured the same for two weeks. I've also been feeling like hot garbage and have had absolute 0 sex drive, it's clear my hormones are out of whack and my metabolism is down. So I'm going to stop being greedy as it's just not working for me, go back up to maintenance for the next week and a half to let my T rise, cortisol drop, allow my thyroid to pick back up, leptin levels to go up, and hopefully start stoking the metabolism fire again. Then I'll go back into my cut and if all goes according to what Lyle says, I should be able to drop this last 3% rather quickly as my body will be in a better state to burn fat. Here's hoping it works as well as he says, I have had great success just with the refeeds he recommended even though I was doubtful about those at first as well. And if nothing else I get a little relief, I will feel better, get back to being myself, possibly build a tiny bit of muscle, and rip out some solid fucking PR's next week in testing!

[StrengthEngineer]

8/25/17

Squat: 117 x5, 135 x5, 153 x5, 117 3x5
Face-pull (red): 5x20
Reverse-grip dumbbell bench: 45 x8, 35 4x10
Ab-roller: 5x15

Thoughts: Easy day, as is the theme of the week. But the nice part was those light squats let me practice my form adjustments really well. Definitely felt a bit more comfortable with it by the end of the day today. Also, in spirit of trying new things with my new loadable dumbbells I played around with a reverse-grip dumbbell bench instead of push-ups today. That's actually quite difficult, I was expecting it to be easier than it was. On that first set with 45's my arms were wobbling all over the place, I couldn't keep them under control, so I lowered the weight a bit. Still wasn't easy, but was controlled for the most part. Figured those might be a good assistance exercise to experiment with since I don't have an incline bench. Other than that, I'm just ready to test my lifts next week and hopefully set some PR's!