The TFP Health Club

Well, I have been the same weight give or take a couple of kg since September, but I'm not too upset about that.

I need to actually work to go down further, and given all the other stressful shit in my personal life and work, I'm not really minded to work on it, but I'm still proud of where I got.

I've recently gone from over 25 years in size XXL clothes to size XL, and that feels like a win to me.

 

Bench is going back up, slowly. Had to widen my grip a little, apparently moved it too far in for my elbow comfort. Making an appointment with a personal trainer to see about building up some mobility. Tired of moving poorly.

 

Still hitting the gym. Still playing with higher volume. Incline barbell bench press at 215, 100 lb dumbbells for ten reps of dumbbell bench press, dips for 11 at 255 lbs of bodyweight. 12 sets of chest, 12 sets of back. Been a solid year of working out. Still get excited to be there.

 

In the past year I have added a legitimate inch to my upper arm measurement. That makes me happy. In other news, my gf is an oncology nurse. Someone donated 3 kilos of glutamine powder (an amino acid, one of the most prevalent ones in the body) to her clinic, in sealed containers. Most likely a patient died and the family didn't know what to do with it. And yes, I did ask if anyone else could use it. But they cannot give it to another patient, so I get to benefit from it. It's about $120 of glutamine, almost a year's supply at 10 gms a day. Effects are probably pretty negligible on on otherwise healthy person, but it certainly cannot hurt. It will either have no effect or a slight benefit, but at no cost to me.

 

Did my second workout of light work yesterday. Doing full body routine of 4 sets of 10 on all lifts. Lots of volume, not much effort, yet. Gonna start ramping up soon, but I'm just getting used to the routine. Trying to break some of the bad habits I've picked up lifting heavy all the time.

 

Hit two new PRs last week.

Deadlift: 300# (twice my bodyweight)
OHP: 85#

and two weeks ago I hit Flat Bench @ 165#.

Going to go for my PR in squats this week so I can get some numbers to work off of for the rest of my bulk cycle.

 

Did squats and bench last night. Was supposed to do more, but I wore myself out. Out sick last week and this was my first workout since 12/5.

Squatted sets of ten 135 185 225 275 315 and a set of 8 with 365. In retrospect this was a huge jump in both volume and weight, so I have myself to blame for feeling beat up.
Benched sets of ten 135..245 and a set of 9 with 265, followed by ten with 225 for the heck of it.

Next time I will just pick up the parts I didn't do this time: Cable rows, Romanian dead lifts, lateral raises, pull downs, and arm work.

 

I've just had two weeks where my average weight through the week is below 95 kg, for the first time ever. So it's slow going, but the direction of travel is correct...

 

I don't think I had mentioned it before, but my wrist hs been bothering me while lifting. Supinated curls especially, but also heavy bench presses has been throwing my grip off and feeling it in some other movements as well. So today I picked up some cheap wrist wraps and headed to the gym. Anecdotally, I feel they did help overall and give support to my wrist. My hope is that I will be able to wean off of them over time and get back to what I was doing before. I still took it easy on movements I needed to favor, but I didn't load up and try to push through since I had a crutch. We'll see over the next couple weeks.

 

^^^ wrist wraps can help reduce strain on elbows during pressing and squatting. I've been using them for a while, at least on heavy sets.

 

Squat's doing good. Lots of volume, very tiring. Benched 315 for 6 tonight. First night since summer that I've felt strong on the bench. I'll take it.

 

Ftr, since losing so much weight, I can use my hips in WAY MORE FUN ways now.


*ahem*

I'll be joining the YMCA before the month ends. December (and, let's be honest, most of 2016) was strictly maintenance for me. I'm ready to lose this last 40 pounds and get all buff and shit.

 

What is lots of volume for you? I have trouble motivating myself for even 8 reps a set for squats. Volume for upper body is fine. I knocked out 16 sets for back in just over half an hour, and then another ten sets of biceps. And every time I run my best set of flat bench through a calculator, it comes out to an estimated max of 315-320.

 

I...could probably do that better now, too. I should try that out.