Life of a Student

So I’ve been doing some introspection lately, and I’ve come to a conclusion as to why my gains are not as great as I’d like them to be first.

First off, the amount of sets I’m doing is just not enough. I’ve averaging about 6 sets per workout, and while the sets themselves are fairly high-intensity, they’re not providing sufficient volume. I highly recommend MadCow’s Training Primer for a solid article on how volume must be used to shape the creation of workouts. Therefore, effective immediately, I am going to start researching workouts that I can do (given my current limited gym setup).

Secondly, I’m not giving my body the nourishment (especially protein), and simple raw caloric excess that it needs to grow and build muscle. Simply, I don’t eat anywhere near as much as I need to grow.

Building muscle is not something the body does easily and willingly. The body must be convinced of the need to develop and adapt. And nothing can do that better than 1) caloric and protein excess and 2) decent heavy volume workouts, 3 days a week.

In spite of my underperformance, I’m still managed to make some gains, and I’m currently the strongest I’ve ever been in my entire life. I know that if I can just push a bit more discipline and time management, that the body I seek will be mine soon.

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So with my goal deadline a little less than a month and a half away, I thought I would go over how my progress is going so far.

Goals:
1. Parallel squat 275 pounds for at least 15 repetitions.
Three days ago, I squatted an all-time maximum, doing 230 pounds for 5 sets of 5 reps. To reach 275 for 15 repetitions, however, will be a worthy goal. Most likely, I’ll have to increase the volume to 2 squat workouts per week to hit that metric.

2. Weigh in at 170 pounds.
I currently weigh in at around 163 to 165 lbs, depending on the time of day. My diet is undoubtedly improving (thanks to keeping better tabs on how much and what I eat).

3. Be able to close the Captains of Crush No. 1 Gripper 8 times (I currently am working with the CoC Trainer gripper + CoC Expand Your Hand Bands, which I will review in a post at a later date.)
The Trainer gripper has become far easier to work with. Improved grip strength is actually one of the most functionally useful things I’ve gained from weightlifting. It makes so many tasks easier, something I notice and appreciate almost every day. I believe this goal is within reach if I keep up my grip workouts, and increase the volume to 3x a week (instead of 2x).

4. Weighted chin-ups with 45 lbs, at least 15 repetitions.
Out of all of my goals, this is the one I am closest to achieving. Two days ago, I was able to do weighted pullups with 55 pounds strapped to my waist (5 sets of 5 reps), so it’s not too unreasonable to expect that I could do at least 11-12 reps with 45 lbs. Looking forward to hitting this one.

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The internet has been responsible for teaching me 99% of the knowledge I currently hold about weightlifting. I highly recommend the Bodybuilding.com forums as a great community that houses a wide variety of training experts. Regardless if you’re a seasoned professional or just touched your first weight yesterday, the forums will have something of value to offer you. The Nutrition and Workout Journal sections in particular have some really good information. I’d also like to add that the Teen Bodybuilding section is of a little bit lower quality than the rest of the board.

But I want to move the focus to two online tools that have helped me keep tracking my progress with the iron:

Joe’s Goals - Goal tracking system
Here’s their own description from their website:

Inspired somewhat by Benjamin Franklin’s 13 Virtues, I built Joe’s Goals to make it stupidly simple to create, track, and share your personal goals. It is a productivity application that is actually easy enough to use.

For beginners to weightlifting, a sticking point is building the habit of going to the gym regularly (3 to 4 times a week). I had this problem about 2 years ago - I would go to the gym around 1-2 times a week. Since I never tracked my gym visits, I thought that I was doing a lot more volume than I actually was.

Joe’s Goals helps with this problem by presenting a simple, clean interface for general goal tracking. For each day, you simply click off a check mark if you achieved the goal. The interface keeps track of “chains”, which are how many days in a row you’ve successfully executed your goals. There’s nothing more satisfying then keeping up a solid chain and seeing at the end of the week a nice looking row of 7 straight check marks.

Fitday - Diet Journal

There’s no doubt that nutrition is an essential part of the growth and hypertrophy process. You absolutely have to get at least 1 gram of protein per lb of bodyweight in order to promote muscle growth. Not tracking your diet is like shooting in the dark - you have no idea if you’re getting anywhere.

FitDay offers a database of thousands of foods and their estimated caloric values. Using it over a period of 3 days to log my food intake, I realized that my nutrition is lacking - I’m only averaging around 2700 calories and 110 grams of protein per day. I’m currently working on some goals and guidelines to address these deficiencies.

Hope you find these tools as helpful as I did - leave a comment on what you think about them.

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I was thinking about my workouts the other day, and it hit me. I’m likely not doing enough volume (only 4 to 6 sets per workout), and I’m pushing myself to failure on each set, which is not the greatest for nervous system recovery. So after some research, I’ve decided to make the switch to Frankie NY’s Mass Building Routine. A lot of people have reported significant mass gains with this program, when combined with a solid diet with caloric excess.

(image thanks to scotbuff)

It’s a 3-day program based around heavy 5 x 5’s. You pick three compound exercises to do each day, and do 5 sets of 5 reps of the same weight (not to failure), for a total of 15 sets.

I think a problem I’ve always had is the mentality that I need to push myself to failure every time - it’s not necessary. This new program should really help me address that, as it’ll be difficult for me to get 15 sets of volume done burning out each time.

So I’m planning to make my new routine look something like this:

• Day 1 (Pull) - Weighted Chins, Hammer Curls
• Day 2 (Push) - Flat Barbell Bench Press, Barbell Military Press
• Day 3 (Legs) - Back Squats, ?? (need to find an exercise here)

The reason why I only have 2 exercises each day so far is that the gym I am training at has relatively limited equipment. As I grow more comfortable with this routine, I will integrate new exercises.

I’m going to have to drop down in weights a little to get used to this new routine, as before I had been doing 4 sets to failure with the heaviest weight I can manage (usually 6 to 9 reps), but I am excited to start.

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Bench press has historically been one of my best lifts. Until freshman year of college, I actually was able to bench more than I could squat. I’ve always had a relatively strong chest and triceps compared to the rest of my body.

A sample old chest/triceps workout I used to do:

• 3 x 6 reps Barbell/Dumbbell Bench Press (I always start with a heavy compound movement)
• 3 x 8 Weighted Dips
• 3 x 6-8 reps Triceps Pushdown

I experienced good growth and strength increases with that routine, I feel mainly due to the proportion of compound exercises it involved. Compound exercises truly are king for building muscle and strength - I really look down on individuals who spend all day in the gym doing curls in the squat rack.

So anyway, recently I took about a 5 week break off of benching due to a sore wrist injury. I just came back a few days ago, and unfortunately I’ve dropped about 20 pounds on my bench. Before I was repping 195 to 200 pounds for reps, and now I get challenged with 175-180. I’ve decided I need to get back to old days ASAP, so I will be really pushing myself in the gym to try to get back to my old levels.

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My strength usually peaks over the summer, as I have more time to devote to lifting and my diet is much more accomodating to growth (in terms of calories and protein). During the school year, I make an effort to devote as much time as I can, but academics can be very exhausting and motivation-draining. My all-time strongest was at the end of the last summer, where I weighed in at the following stats (approximately):

• Weight: 162 lbs
• Bench Press 1-RM: 240 lbs
• Squat 1-RM: 270 lbs
• Weighted Pull-ups 5-RM: Bodyweight + 45 lbs plate
• Weighted Dips 5-RM: Bodyweight + 50 lbs

In striving to achieve my new goals, I am now rapidly approaching these old maxes, although at a slightly lower weight of around 157 lbs.

Although strength-wise I may not be able to match my peak, in terms of motivation, weightlifting knowledge, and pure discipline, I feel that I am at all-time highs.

It’s time for me to take massive action and break through to new records - tomorrow is squat day, and I look forward to it.

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So recently, I’ve taken a couple of proactive steps toward increasing my overall back strength. I recognized that grip strength was a limiting factor in my back training - during pullups, my grip was giving out far before my back did.

Solution: The Captains of Crush Trainer Gripper

I ordered this gripper thinking that it would be easy (given my few years of resistance training). It was anything but that. My first experience with it involved not being able to close the gripper even one time with my left hand, and only being able to close it 4 times in my right hand.

Now, I’m up to 8 to 9 reps on the my right hand, and I can bang out 4 reps with my left hand. My pullup ability has increased accordingly - I can now do 21 straight, as opposed to 15-16 before (with my grip failing at the end).

In a later post, I will talk about the other step I took that greatly increased my ability to do consecutive pullups.

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There is no other exercise that offers as high a level of muscular recruitment as squats.

I also personally feel that there is no other exercise that brings as much “good pain” in weightlifting than the squat. I can pump out heavy weighted pullups or bench press 1.5 times my weight all day, but when it comes to squats, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t approach the rack with sense of dreading for the next hour.

Today was squat day. Last week, I squatted 210 pounds for 4 sets, and it felt relatively easy and manageable. So instead of increasing the weight my usual 5 lbs/week, I chose to take the harder route and increase it 10 pounds to 220.

Here’s what my workout looked like:

• 45 x 8 (warmup)
• 135 x 6 (yawn)
• 185 x 3 (heavy warmup)
• 220 x 8 (wow this is tougher than I thought)
• 220 x 7 (do I honestly have 2 sets left of this?!)
• 220 x 7 (I can’t feel my legs anymore, and I want to vomit)
• 220 x 8 (My feeling of relief is overshadowed by the fact that I can barely walk back to my room)

Squats are a necessary evil - if I was limited to just one exercise, it would be the parallel squat. I always feel a great sense of accomplishment when I finish them, and my reward is a nice can of tuna + Club crackers (have to get a 1 gram protein per 1 lb bodyweight :))

Tags: Exercise, Workouts // 1 Comment »

So true… I’ve made so many on-the-spot goals for myself that were driven solely by how I felt at the time (a girl I liked, or a mistake I made). Goals are far more powerful as a motivator when they are physically written out, and even moreso when they are divulged to the public. So without further ado, here are my exercise goals for the semester:

• Parallel squat 275 pounds for at least 15 repetitions.
• Weigh in at 170 pounds.
• Be able to close the Captains of Crush No. 1 Gripper 8 times (I currently am working with the CoC Trainer gripper + CoC Expand Your Hand Bands, which I will review in a post at a later date.)
• Weighted chin-ups with 45 lbs, at least 15 repetitions.

Deadline for completion: April 30, 2008

These will no doubt be challenging goals to reach, and I will need to modify my current diet heavily - I am not getting enough protein and carbohydrates currently, and diet is as important as actual weightlifting in gaining strength and muscle.

For now, I’m converting this blog from a personal one to a workout journal, complete with how I am doing towards achieving my goals, and some commentary on weightlifting and training in general.

Tags: Exercise, Goals // 1 Comment »

It’s a vicious cycle. I’ve spent numerous nights this semester puzzling over homework in the wee hours of the night. I always promise myself, “Next time, this will not happen. I will start my homework the day it’s assigned.”

Inevitably, new work is assigned. However, feelings of late-night tiredness and stress far from me, I choose time and time again to partake in time-wasting activities like surfing Digg. Before I know it, it’s 3 AM the morning of an assignment’s due date, and I’ve got several hours of work ahead of me.

In other events, I have been fairly successful in keeping up with the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year regarding exercise and my hobbies. Just have to maintain that consistant stream of action, and start taking action on killing procrastination.

Tags: College // 1 Comment »