Monday, April 30, 2012

Thought about life, crap, training, and stuff.....

Ok so the intermittent fasting, is over.

I gave it two weeks.  I'll tell you why I have decided to drop it, and what I'm doing instead.

As the days went on, I found myself drinking more and more and more diet coke or diet whatever, in order to stave off hunger.  To the point to where my co-worker said to me last week "man, why are you drinking so many cokes?"

He sits beside me and notices everything so I knew it wasn't just me.  One day I had 6 diet cokes between 8:30 and 11:30.

I am absolutely fatigued by nighttime.  I mean, I'm in bed by 9:00 P.M. every night.  I actually don't know if this is a good thing or bad thing, but every entire afternoon and evening I'm already out of gas.

I also can't get used to the dry mouth.  I have dry mouth 24/7 no matter how much water I drink.  It could be from all the diet drinks, however on the weekends, those have been mostly cut out.

On the weekly training day, I do not train well eating all of those carbs before hand.  I do enjoy training fasted a lot, and the weekend training has been awesome.  But I have to get a weekday training session in and that one was terrible both times.  I felt like I was going to pass out (that evening fatigue).

I will be switching over the the Carb BackLoading protocol.  This seems to go hand in hand real well with what I was doing before, but with a little more structure.  It also spoke to what my instincts had commonly told me, but people told me not to do.  Eat a shit ton of food after I was done training, and even if it was junky, it didn't matter.

I actually think if I could have trained at 11:30 or so during the week, I probably would have remained on IF for a lot longer time.  But that in conjunction with all of the diet drinks I have been scarfing down like Pookie in a crack factory, makes me think my body is altering my eating/drinking behaviors in order to overcome the fast.  And I no likey.

So as everyone saw, I was at the Strength Guild this weekend doing deadlifts for reps.  My lumbars and traps are completely thrashed this morning.  And yesterday I napped for over 2 hours and then was still tired last night.  This is one of the reasons that I don't think that deadlifts are something to build a mass building routine around.  The dead is a movement that takes so much out of you, so doing it all out like that isn't something that is going to give back like it takes, on a regular basis.  It tends to move best based on singles, doubles, and triples.  And there's not a lot of time under tension with those kinds of reps, so I have begun to leave it out of my mass building templates, and focusing on rows, shrugs, and chins instead.  You know, basic back building.  However most guys want to still pull big, so it's a case of pulling every other week for a few singles or a triple, and that's about it.  That's also enough to at least maintain your pull, while building the mass base around it.

The 500x12 was a PR for me.  I've hit 10 many times, and honestly, I should have gotten 13 but I rushed it a little bit, and I also didn't get a big enough air which caused my mid-section to collapse a bit on the last rep.  So I'm not counting 13, but the strength was there for it, I just made a couple of technical errors.  The next time I head out to Topeka I plan on smashing 12 and hitting 15, at least putting a little pressure on Phil to do more.  500x20 is doable within the year I think.  As Wendler told me, if I can just maintain my bench, I'll be sitting on top of 500x20 and 315x20 within the year, giving me two of the WCS standards at around 240 pounds.  If I can clean 315, I also think in year that would be doable as well.  God damn this excites me.

Even more exciting to me is the progress Hannah is making.  She's aiming for 135x20 for our next visit, and I don't know if she can make that kind of progress between now and then, but I know her work ethic will get her closer to it.  Phil was blown away by how quick she could turn on that "switch" and go into beast mode to get after it.  I didn't want to be "that parent" and talk my kid up, because she's been like that since day 1 with me in the weight room, but it was very emotional for me to see her inspire people with how hard she works.  That's not an exception for her, that's the rule.  She's like that day in and day out in the weight room and she has been a great training partner.

So The Avenger's is already getting stupid good reviews.  I mean like, makes Ironman look shitty type reviews.  I am now at "piss my pants" excitement mode for this.

Jamie and I did CnBYE-3 last night.  I laughed for far too long about our conversation about "the beetus".  I also want to ahead of time, that in no way, shape, or form am I laughing AT people with the beetus, it's just that the word itself makes me laugh.  I have no idea why, but it does.

Since I am starting the carb backloading plan today, I have to do the 10 day prep period.  Just for an FYI I was 248 pounds this morning.  I won't even begin to tell you what I ate Saturday and Sunday.  Let's just put it like that.

I hope everyone has a shit Monday because that's how it's supposed to be.






23 comments:

  1. i find that training in the morning at 10 am whle doing intermittant fasting is ok ,last meal at 10 pm , small scoop of protein and 1 teaspoon of peanut butter pre workout,going ok for last 2 weeks

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    1. The IF protocol I did was 16 hours between eating.

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  2. Any links to good information about carb backloading protocol Paul? I know very little about it other than its low carb pre workout, high carb post

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    1. Just google Keifer and carb backloading. Lots of info.

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    2. Ive been reading a lot on the dangerouslyhardcore site. Damn this stuff sounds interesting. Shame the book is a pretty steep $89 cos i'd just delve in and buy it otherwise.

      I'd be very interested in hearing you and Jamie discuss some of the key principles of carb back loading in your podcast. Jamie always cites his blog with lots of scientific study so presumably he is quite in tune (or not) with a lot Kiefer would have to say?

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  3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pod4jIKT_kA
    I couldn't resist. On a serious note, I found starting with 16 hour fasting sessions before switching to 24 really helped. Also, I already drank a load of water in the mornings, but on a fast, lets just say my 2.2 Liter bottle is a close friend. Also, great lifting vids from Strength Guild a lil while ago. Made my max of 430 feel pathetic. But that's what time is for. Today I'm starting a 3day/week, modified version of Doug Hepburn's old 'Routine A'. Well, time to train.

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  4. It sounds like you gave IF a pretty good run. It's what I use, but then again I haven't been having the same problems with hunger and tiredness, so it seems to work for me.

    I'm also looking forward to Avengers. :-)

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  5. Thanks for turning me on to IF. Too bad it didn't work for ya but I've been able to workout fasted for all my workouts and I had probably one of the best workouts I've had today. I could definitely see how training later in the evening would suck though as my energy levels have tapered off later in the day. GL with the carb backloading and keep us updated.

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    1. I think it would have worked, actually. If I could train at 11 or so each time I need to train. I actually really like IF a lot but some of the other effects I have had made me decide to move to the carb backload approach.

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  6. Having done both, IF i ran twice last year for two 8 week periods and I've been back loading now for over 10 weeks, I think CBL is much more functional for a strength athlete, or anyone with a heavy training schedule.

    I think Avengers is the first movie in years I might go hardcore geek for and goto the midnight release.

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  7. What do you think about substituting something like RDLs or SLDLs for regular deadlifts while mass building?

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    1. That's exactly where I went with the new big-15 program.

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  8. The Avengers IS that good! Really.
    geo

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  9. Hi Paul,

    Are you hiring Kiefer or buyig the book??? I've been thinking about giving carb backloading a shot for awhile now. My only hold up is I train in the late morning/early afternoon. So I'm not sure how exactly it would work, although I'm sure it could work.

    Thanks,
    Jason

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    1. I believe it DOES work, as tons of guys and gals have come forward with their results from it. I've just read online about how to run it, but I plan on buying his book.

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    2. I bought this book recently, and I feel like there a couple of simple dead ends that need to be addressed. 1) How many calories and what macro breakdown do you aim for during the 10 day depletion phase? 2) The amount of carbs recommended for a 300lber such as myself seems just insane. I would be interested to see how you are going to set up your diet using this method.

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    3. Right now I'm just making sure to keep my carbs below 30 for the day, and get in enough protein and fat. Basically it looks like this so far........

      7 a.m. coffee with slight amount of protein powder and coconut oil, sometimes a second cup with whipping cream

      11:30 or so - usually chicken breast or turkey with veggies. The chicken and turkey have been cooked in coconut oil as well.

      2:30 ish - protein shake and peanut butter or almonds

      4:30 - home - coffee with protein powder and coconut oil

      BCAA while training

      post w.o shake - just isolate in water

      dinner - usually looks like lunch

      9:30 - 10:30 or so - cup of cottage cheese and peanut butter

      That's it.

      As far as the carb backloading, I know from experience when I do it, I will start small and monitor shit. So it will be like jasmine rice and lots of ice cream and cake. And I'll go from there.

      I will probably carbback load one other night if I feel like I need it.

      Hope this helps.

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  10. Hi Paul,

    Do you think rack pulls for higher reps (5-15) would be a good substitute for deadlifts if the goal was to just gain mass? Would these be okay to do every week using your big-15 rep scheme? Or do these also "take more than they give" like you said with deadlifts?

    Thanks
    Phil

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    1. No.

      I think rack pulls take less because the low back isn't as involved, but the issue of having a lack of very much of an eccentric is still there.

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  11. Hey Paul,

    Congrats on that PR and on Hannah's PR! Quick question - I understand what you're saying about deadlifts not being efficient mass builders, but how do you feel about Wendler using 5x10 in 5/3/1 for one of the assistance plans?

    And thanks for putting together a phenomenal site with some great info. I can't wait for that book to be finished!

    John

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    1. I like the BBB template. I just don't like heavy deadlifts to near failure as a mass building staple. For all the reasons I've talked about.

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  12. hey paul regarding your what constitues strong standards, how much are you curling now? ( by the way i always hated curls just like doing squats but after reading your WCS standards i want to try to build all of them up) which leads me to my next ? how do you build up the barbell curl? what about weighted dips and chins?

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    1. I do curls weekly, but not so much heavy because of my elbow. I use them to keep my elbow healthy for the most part.

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