half human/half machine - downloading training data...

[Android]

Hey Varven,

The holding of the preacher curl lockout I can relate to, but that's way different on the muscle group than a static hold on a squat just before lockout if I understand what you mean correctly. The bicep stretch you are doing pours blood down into the bicep and stretches the hell out of it I think. For some reason I can't get my head around the same thing happening on the squat lockout, because the quad muscle doesn't resemble a bicep. So that static hold must do something else. And the static hold on bench different again?

Mate if it works for you awesome, appreciate your insight and you can be sure I'll play with it and see how it feels first.

Okay, today at midday was Triceps. No other workout today this was soley dedicated to them. I really want bigger meatier triceps than I have. I probably spent the first 6 years always measuring my tricep progress by lifting my arm up horizontal and looking at the amount it dropped down from under the arm. That's the biggest head of the tricep and contributed to the most inches when measuring your arms so it made sense...until I started to compete this year. Now i want to see the outer head more so that from a front shot I have boulders protruding from the sides of my arms.

Warmed up on the tricep pushdown machine, light warm up never pushed it too hard for 3 sets.

I did the obligatory cable pushdowns first, this exercise I did with a rope and slowed down the movement more than usual, squeezing at the end of the movement and separating the rope as much as I could. I watch my shoulders here and try not to use them but they tighten up anyway. It was 25+ reps down to about 15 rep sets on a heavier weight.

I then moved over to the dumbbell rack and supersetted behind the neck tricep (extension?) with my new found favourite tricep exercise I still ahve no name for. Like a side lat raise but you keep the delt from lifting. I am starting to think it's like an upright stiff-armed tricep kickback. Today my right tricep outer head was rock hard on this exercise but I couldn't quite nail the left side. Can play with the angle going backwards and my wrist position alot so will try to nail it next time. Both sides came out nicely and I never rested between super-sets as both exercises are single arm there's plenty of time for resting each arm.

Final exercise was the ez-curl tricep extension but like the french-way where you don't do skullcrushers you angle your elbows out beyond your head so there's no rest in the movement at all. Then for each set I went to close-grip presses but really the weight for the bar was so light I had to really squeeze my triceps with each press and went for like 30 reps.

I was really happy with the workout, from the front I can see an improvement in the outer head then a month or two ago (after its pumped up though and u dont pump triceps just before the show right...right?).

Anyway Biceps hurt a bit from other day, lats I can feel when I give them a squeeze hurting, lower back not as bad as I thought it would be tbh, and legs are okay but hammies are tightening up and calves hurt to squeeze - awesome!

Tomorrow is rest day, nothing, nada.

So it's been 2 days off, 3 days on, rest,...

And likely to be Friday, Saturday training, Sunday off which is a split I like to keep for an Ecto:

...1 day off, 3 days on, 1 day off 2 days on...

Can fit Back and Legs into the 3 day part or one of them into the 2 day'er doesn't really matter in the big scheme of things over many years.

Diet I should mention the Aussie butcher is doing 8.99kg chicken breasts this week, with skin on at that price. I'm on beef but then the neighbour gave me a 4kg ham, so today I had about 1kg of it during the day, so 3 or 4 more days to go on that. It's a welcome relief to eat cold ham during the hot day as my appetite was waning a bit earlier.

REST, I don't like REST days :-|

[Android]

Shoulders today after a REST for me was destined to be a good one.

A whole 2 days of eating beforehand had me carbed up and ready to throw some heavy weights around.

Warm-up was the side-lateral raise machine. First set was 30 reps of mid-weight then we worked our way down to the stack and did 3 good sets of 10 reps at that weight. Warmed up now :-)

Seated dumbbell press to begin with, today didn't feel like press machines so we supersetted the dumbbell press with a front barbell press. The bar had 10's each side so a 40kg bar to exhaust the press. First up were 25kg dumbbell presses and then straight up to 35kg for a few sets. Reps were low for us just trying to reach 12 if we could.

Side lat raises were next, warmup on 9kg dumbbells and a strict chin to chest back straight as a die, no movement at all except for side raises. man even at 9kg it was hard to get 15 out tbh. We settled for 12.5kg dumbbells and after 8 strict ones dropped to 10kg for a few more reps. Felt like we did about 5 sets of these then we did seated bent-over side raises for the rear delts with 6kgs. Did 4 sets of 15-20 good reps. The last set we exhausted the rear delt by sitting upright and doing more side raises, then bent-over and rear delts again, did this a few times. It;s like a rest pause without the rest LOL. Taking the strain off the rear delts but still moving them with the help of the side delts, then back to rear delts again - awesome!

That was it for a training partner, he waited while I finished off with a couple of sets of front raises with a 25kg plate. 15 and 20 rep sets, now we were done!

PWO is the usual 50gms protein powder and 50gms Glucose. I added some Glutamine and some Creatine this workout was pretty heavy duty. Popped once-a-day multi-vitamin for the 2nd time today as well. really felt like this shoulder workout was of good quality for me.

I'm not going to cook tonight so dinner is tuna and baked beans, then snack on almonds watching TV and have another tin of tuna before 10:30.

[GreekAdonis]

You get some mean vascularity in your arms android! Must be from squeexing out all those reps! :grin:

[Android]

You gotta love NOX products + low /bf!

Today was a chance to catch up on Hammys.

I'm trying to fit in an extra workout for weak points and settled for this muscle group today.

Before the workout at 12:00 I consumed this in order ...

7:30am - Double-serve protein shake

8am - 200gms oats (raw weight)

8:30am - 250gms chicken (raw weight)

10:30am 200gms oats (...)

11:00am 250gms chicken (...)

This is 240gms carbs and 110gms protein, about 1500 calories.

Btw, I eat protein and carbs separately but close together, if that makes sense. I mean oats and chicken don't mix and taste to shit hot so I eat one first then the other. It's a habit I have and since I containerise all my meals for the working day I don't mix them together either. I might open a chicken container and do a mouthful of chicken and then rice, but generally meat is eaten before the carbs.

I took an iSatori Bullet on the way to the gym and drank an XTend mix throughout the workout.

Lying hammy curls were first. I warmed up on 50reps for the first set. The stack goes to 190, I warmed up on 50.

Then another set on 90 for 20 reps.

Then 5 working sets on 130 for 8-10 reps. Last sets were good I could feel the inside of my legs touching as the hammys swelled.

Then it was onto the standing leg curl machine. I did this one lighter than I've ever done my Hammys had no strength in them by now and only onto the 2nd exercise! I tried various things I would normally do with Biceps like half-curls then full curls. Holding a squeeze at the top for 5 seconds etc and did 5 sets for each leg.

Then it was a few sets of the seated curl machine, one light weight set of 25 reps to warm up and 3 heavy sets of 10 reps each.

That was my Hammys 'extra' workout for the day.

I wanted to give my chest a bit of a heavy exercise for no other reason than I haven't a chest workout for just over a week now. I went for dumbbell incline presses. 1st set was 20kg for 20 reps, then 30kg for 12 reps, then 40kg for 8 reps (I was stopping well before it got hard on the 30kg and 40kg reps as I wanted to go heavier).

I got out the 50kgs and did 2 good sets of 8 reps each. Lifted up myself no spotter so next time I'll be comfortable going heavier with someone there, can't wait!

After the workout it was the obligatory post-workout shake I take for the drive home. Then into a can of baked beans and a tin of tuna.

Once that was in me (now), I cook up chicken and rice for the next meal planned at 4pm.

Bulking up:

In case it's not noticeable I'm switching bulking up.

For workouts that's back to heavy weights low reps and I'm also eating more carbs and food at slightly different times. I am a big believer in timings for changing your body shape.

Last night my final meal at 10pm was baked beans rather than tuna and that small change makes a big difference.

Ever noticed or read how a sumo wrestler gets big?

Makes for interesting reading considering they eat alot of protein and carbs just like us really (ok maybe alot more than us!).

They skip breakfast (lowers metabolism).

Eat at midday and nighttime.

Sleep after eating.

Exercise on an empty stomach.

Eat socially. (Meals socially are 44% larger and 30% higher fat)

Drink beer. (Cortisol release increases fat deposit rate)

[wopo]

Last night my final meal at 10pm was baked beans rather than tuna and that small change makes a big difference.

can you please explain how it helps android

[soundsgood]

Is it because of the high carb content on baked beans rather than the carbless tuna?

Interesting facts regarding the sumo wrestlers. Esp the social eating.

Thats why its so hard to eat out anywhere when you're cutting aye. You give specific instructions to the waiter, but you know its gonna be loaded with fat!

[Android]

Yes it's for the carbs.

Bulking up includes fattening up for me, I think someone's mentioned before on this forum about the fat amongst the muscle. That's bulk.

Also un-used carbs stay in your system ready for use for about 36hrs I think it is, so carbs at night also help the workout the following day to some degree.

[NZPT]

what was your BF before you started cutting for your show andriod? you have a goal bf you dont want to get over or just keep bulking until its time to cut?

NZPT

[Android]

what was your BF before you started cutting for your show andriod? you have a goal bf you dont want to get over or just keep bulking until its time to cut?

NZPT

I was 16% before I made any changes, about 12 weeks out from the show and that was around 100kg, it was first week of August that I stopped bulking up and started to clean up my diet and switch to high rep workouts.

I'm back to 100kg now and probably 12-13% maximum, but will check next week sometime.

[Android]

Tonight was Arms, just Arms, nothing but Arms.

To me Arms is a self-gratifying workout, it's the one thing I love, LOVE to blow-up. Big arms are what I want. But, I try not to focus on the parts I like so I don't do Arms every week and instead I usually split Biceps and Triceps up. So Arms day is really like a treat for me!

First up today was a superset of the preacher curl and the tricep pushdown machine. Warmup was 30 reps of each then worked our way down to the stack and did 3 good sets of each. The stack on the preacher curl was hardest but managed 7 reps each time.

Next up was single-arm cable curls. This is a bit of a concentration curl exercise imo. If I don't do concentration curls I usually do this one. Good weight, enough so that I can squeeze a the top, for just 8-12 reps. 4 sets each arm.

Time for Triceps again, we did cable pushdowns this time. Worked our way down to the stack and did 3 good sets of 8. The stack at Les Mills is pretty heavy on one cable machine and they were exhausting sets, some stars were flying around my head after them the kind I might get if I did heavy deadlifts or heavy leg press.

Next up was a combination of wide-grip slide barbell curls then followed by close grip curls. This one hurts when the bar is just 20kg and you do like 20 reps of wide-grip. Close-grip ends up only getting 10 out before the pain says 'STOP'! Told my training partner that I wish I had taken some Panadol.

Tricep kickbacks were next, I did them the usual way bent over a bench, nothing special with these to explain.

Finally we did Hammer curls, standing with 30kg dumbbells. No warmup, just straight to the good weight. No swinging except what the weight does to the body. First sets were 12 each arm but this quickly faded to 8 each arm and we did 4 sets in total.

That is a very special Arms workout for me. Covered almost everything I wanted to do and we did good heavy weights which tired us out between sets despite not appearing to be that aerobic.

It's Legs tomorrow night!

Then it will be Back on Wednesday.

Oh, I brought a car today, for my Christmas stocking. It's a 2001 black Lexus ES300 and a real dream car for me. So Arms day AND a new car, how can Christmas get any better!

[two_phat]

Thats a nice car andriod! 8)

[Android]

Yeah hell'sh nice car to be driving around in ... because I'm worth it :-) LOL

Oooh yeah, my Chest hurts from Sundays single exercise. Hammys not so much bit disappointed in them will have to punish them for it tonight unless they start something soon.

This morning I got up earlier I wanted to add 6 scrambled eggs to my breakfast.

It took me a bit longer to eat the 200gms of oats (fill a bowl to the very top with dry oats and add a little water to soak in) and the bowl of scrambled eggs, I was full.

Still had the double-serve protein shake when first got up, this was a big breakfast for me!

My arms feel and look fuller than last week.

When I bulk, every opportunity I get I down a can of baked beans, not sure if I mentioned but yesterday about 90 mins before the workout I had a can of baked beans.

When I was starting out I used to have 2 cans a day, one before and one after a workout. I swear that on a couple of occassions I would sit back on my lounge after eating a post-workout can and I could feel my skin stretching.

That reminds me, I have some favourite foods that I always consume above any others, they are unsurprisingly some of the most nutrient-dense foods you can find so that I can fit in as much goodness before feeling full.

I remember I had a food almanac and would study the variables of nutrients in each food and would target the highest valued food per gram (obsessive a bit but for a skinny guy I couldn't waste room in my stomach for crap like apples or vegetables).

I can and have lived soley off these at various times over the years, no suprises here:

Beef, chicken, peanuts, almonds, baked beans, white rice, bananas, eggs, potatoes, kumara, tinned tuna, milk, ham, and for a sweet snack it was raisins.

[Gym rat]

Very flash car Android.

[2guns]

Tricep kickbacks were next, I did them the usual way bent over a bench, nothing special with these to explain.

wat weight did u use for these bro?

getting a new car is always a good feeling!

[soundsgood]

Hi Android. Nice choice, the Lexus ES300 are very solid cars :clap:

But that must be one hell of a big xmas stocking you got there! :pfft:

Just a couple of quick q's

This morning I got up earlier I wanted to add 6 scrambled eggs to my breakfast.

Do you always eat the whole egg or half and half with egg whites?

I can and have lived soley off these at various times over the years, no suprises here:

Beef, chicken, peanuts, almonds, baked beans, white rice, bananas, eggs, potatoes, kumara, tinned tuna, milk, ham, and for a sweet snack it was raisins.

For bulking, is white rice a better option than brown rice? And the only fruit you have in there is banana's. No apples, pears or oranges? You must take multi vitamins as well?

[Gym rat]

Android you xmass stocking must be massive to fit your new car in :pfft: :pfft: .

[Android]

Android you xmass stocking must be massive to fit your new car in :pfft: :pfft: .

It's an empty stocking now am already driving it :-) Loads of fun driving to the gym tonight with a few people in it, drink holders fit the shaker bottles perfectly all we need now is a mini bar serving cold shakes right? :-)

Got told it looks like a 'dealers' car wtf ... I mean that's just how we roll in Mt Roskill :wink:

[Android]

Do you always eat the whole egg or half and half with egg whites?

Hey soundsgood, I eat whole eggs, I want everything in the eggs :-)

For bulking, is white rice a better option than brown rice? And the only fruit you have in there is banana's. No apples, pears or oranges? You must take multi vitamins as well?

Have no idea, in my book I can't eat brown rice it's disgusting therefore white is better for bulking cause I am likely to eat more of it.

I went for 6 years eating 5 bananas a day every single day. I was quite addicted to them. Had to drink alot of milk since the potassium lowers calcium levels but I love milk.

Now though I back off them and eat a variety of things when bulking, anything left in front of me for more than a few seconds in fact :-)

I always always take multi-vitamins regardless of good diet or not and take them twice a day. If you drink copious amounts of water (and you should) then gotta replace those water soluble vitamins like Vitamin C.

[Gym rat]

Good idea Android to have a mini bar in your car.

[Android]

Yesterday had 2 workouts, 1 was quite a bit specific. I didn't want a complete back workout so I targeted the exercises that really hurt my lat insertions, top and bottom. This one was at midday in City Xpress gym.

I warmed up on the seated row machine and used lats to pull the weight back rather than the the elbows so much. I didn't care about squeezing at the back like I normally do, this was just to warm up my lats for what was to come.

I did some lat pulldowns behind the neck and let the weight really pull on them as the bar went back up again. Got an amazing stretch and pain from this in the top of the lat, and then went over to hang from the pull-ups bar with different grips and tugging away until it hurts. I wish I had straps for this as the tugging naturally means you have to grip tighter and so the forearms are the limiting factor here, you just fall off when u cant hold on any longer.

I also spent time stretching the lower lat insertion point by grabbing a solid piece of equipment and grip it with one hand and pull backwards , leaning forward a bit to feel the stretch in the right place. I did this and held for as long as the pain allowed me to.

That was it, took all of 25 minutes to do. Does it do anything? well I'm hoping to lower my lats next year and so for those that believe you can't change your genetics and are stuck with the insertion points you were born with...you're probably right...but...I am taking this as seriously as I worked on my bicep to take it right down to the inside of my forearm with preacher curls. I think it's more realistic to believe that I can build up the tips of the lats and make them larger than they currently are and so rather than taper off like most peoples do (and mine) for the length that they are they stick further down the body...an illusion. I have done the same with my back width, it never used to go out so wide as a kid growing up but it does now, it's just that the tips are larger and more pronounced they probably still insert where they always have.

Reminds me of what someone once said about physiques and bodybuilding. You can have a v-taper by adding width to your shoulders or removing width from your waist, either one works fine (both is a double whammy!).

Anyway, this is something I will persevere with I have plenty of lat photos to compare with when the time is right.

Legs at night!

Wow what a blast this was. Did primo hack squats, put a weight belt on for the final set of 5x 20kg plates each side. Didn't have leg wraps with me but will do it again in a few more weeks with some on. Got out 6 or 7 don't remember much after that, the first rep was a 'feeler' so not as deep, 2nd one deeper, 3rd rep and the rest were below parallel, last rep had a hand to stand up again. The rest of the workout was great but didn't compare to this single event for me :-) Warm-up before this mammoth exercise was 2 sets of leg extensions 30+ reps, and the pyramid sets on the hack Squat as well from 1 plate each side to 5.

Did superset standing hammy curls with lying hammy curls straight after the hack squats and I was rooted throughout these. I didn't feel like throwing up but thought to myself this is as close as I've been to being 'poked' in a workout.

Finished off with a heap of Leg Extension sets. Pretty girl on the machine next to me so was talking to her between sets and couldn't just leave .. now could I?

All up a good day yesterday!

Must be a combination of changing to low reps and switching to beef. I imagine the high rep work picked up my fitness a bit and prep'd me for the onslaught, here's hoping.

Merry Xmas guys and girls, hope Santa brings you that Weight Belt or Ab-King Pro you've been secretly wanting ... :^o

[Gym rat]

Same to you Android .

[Android]

Sorry, haven't posted for over a week.

Here's how my Christmas has gone, I stayed eating and training to bulk up and got awesome results so far.

Have got the in-laws over from China so my diet is perfect for bulking up.

We're all eating bucket loads of rice from morning to night, there's never no cooked rice in the house it's absolute heaven!

I've moved my workouts across to the low rep range for everything I do, but some exercises if I can't 'feel' anything working I go lighter (some tricep exercises are like this for me, I can't feel the muscle working when it's heavy).

I've made 2 changes from the norm I think I mentioned this 2 weeks ago:

1. I started having carbs as my last meal (A can of baked beans every single night the misses just loves me for it! LOL)

2. Have gone back to Creatine and Glutamine after a 3 week break off it.

It's been 2 weeks on my new diet and nearly 2 months since the last comp, have reached a PB weight of just over 103kg.

It's just a good creatine monohydrate and glutamine taken in the same doses between meals while loading and then in PWO shake.

I was introduced to the combination about 8 years ago and its sometimes lost in facts but Glutamine is a muscle volumizer as well, taken with a good creatine it's a double whammy.

Yesterday at Les Mills doing arms I was 103.7kg so I am tempted to take a break today and keep eating, but I have Legs tonight and Back tomorrow already lined up with different people so feel obliged.

Don't expect to gain anymore weight over the next 2 days until I take a break, eat, soak it all up, and then continue :-)

It's 2pm and I've had a double-serve shake, 200gms oats and water, 6 eggs, 1/2 kg of potatoes, 1/2kg of ham. 2 coffees, 2 multi-vits, and lot of water (4 litres already). I am a big water drinker hence why I take multi-vits during the day as well. I am retaining water like my pregnant wife its totally anabolic. No fruit yet (no reason why not btw, will have a banana when I get home if I remember to otherwise it's no biggie to miss fruit for a day).

Will get a b/f test done in January sometime I expect it to hover around 15-16%, not really worried my concern is eating to excess protein for muscle-building and carbs for energy and help me to lift heavy and stay anabolic.

That's my Christmas, I ate and trained my way right through it! Think I had 2 beers on Xmas Day and 2 on Boxing Day, loads of turkey and beef since then and now just polishing off the ham.

[ohjoshua]

its ok, just dont let it happen again.

[soundsgood]

Good to see even the top guys slack off a bit over xmas, makes me feel not so bad Android :grin:

Thats a fantastic weight gain you've made so far, you will be hitting the stage almost 5kg heavier than last year at this rate!

[Android]

Great water weight \:D/ will see what happens as the months progress ay!

Tonight was Legs and I learnt a couple of new things from this session.

A lying leg curl with independent swing arms allowed me to really concentrate on each Hamstring. I noticed my foot naturally wants to face outward and not straight back. So with the mirror I could consciously adjust and found it harder to curl. I think this a breakthrough for my Hammy development.

I also found it near impossible to point toes and not have the calves working. Was suggested to me a while ago and I tried it on a standing leg curl and noticed I couldn't quite curl high up to my butt with pointed toes. I can't see how pointed toes take the calves out of the equation now, just pointing them is a flex of the calf itself. Conclusion, independent leg curl machine in front of the mirror suits me, forces me to do strict curls, and can focus on one Hammy at a time. And don't point the toes.

6 sets of warm-up and working sets later and we were ready for the Smith machine squats. I had been listening to Bob C on a DVD explain and show why putting legs forward or directly under the bar is not a substitute squat at all, and why anything closer than shoulder width leg stance is pointless and pretty unstable. Was like a 'light bulb' turning on for me when I heard and saw it.

So legs were placed behind the bar, and super wide (not quite sumo stance but nearly).

Man there was no rest at the top of this movement that was the first thing I noticed. When you put feet forward you can rest-pause at the top but with feet behind there is no rest it's a downward force the whole time. Got right down low and felt the tops of my thighs being used to drive up the weight, worked up to x3 20kg plates each side for an 3 working sets of 8 reps each.

Then we went over tot he Leg Extension and pre-exhausted our thighs for 3 sets, medium weight 15 reps each. Last set had a rest-pause at 15 and then did another 5. Painful!

Final exercise was Leg Press and we did quite light but our legs were already pumped up. Did just 3 sets straight up with 3 plates each side and 20+ reps. Going as wide stance as the plate would allow and way down past the stomach, pushing up and stopping well short of the top. My legs were always bent even at the top of the movement and we drove out the reps so until exhausted, 3 times each.

That left me hobbling back to the car on dodgy pins to down a PWO shake with glucose and double protein.

Dinner was waiting for me as soon as I got home, I ate too quickly after the workout actually and could only stomach potatoes, about 200gms of beef, and some avocado.

Will have the other 200gms beef and some potatoes after writing this.

Fantastic night of Legs, looking forward to tomorrow...i think.

Anyway, I love learning new things and the smith machine squats are now viewed in a different light. The old way I used to do is still a valid exercise, but it isn't a squat substitute it's more of a hack squat and should be treated as such.

And the alternate hamstring curl machine is my new friend, there's only one at Three Kings so that might be where I go in the weekends from now on.