Jheft's Heftorium, ver. 2.0

I'm starting a new journal since I've been away for so long... Away from here at least. I've been keeping up with the weights, though my discipline has slipped in terms of meal preparation, routine structure and whatnot. I'm still eating healthy, and working out, just not in a good, structured way.

I kept slowly cutting most of last year, and got down to about 163 pounds, but never really got lean. No matter how much I cut, I never had abs, and just kept losing strength and muscle. I feel like the whole year was a waste.

I'd been working with various low-rep formats, (5 reps usually) and I don't think that works for me. The best results I had last year were with HST at the beginning of the year, particularly the very first part of it. So for now, I'm just going to do 15 rep sets of the major lifts plus a few supplementary lifts three times a week until I feel like I've gotten some endurance back and broken in, then work out some sort of structured routine. I've been doing three workouts a week, but I may go back to four a week. I'm just not happy with the progress I'm making and really need to shake things up.

I've added about 4-5 pounds so far this year, which is good. I haven't been bulking aggressively; I'd like to just add 2 pounds a month or so at most so I minimize how much cutting I have to do later.

My previous journal, Jheft's Heftorium ver. 1.0

My Journal: Jheft's Heftorium

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." -- Mark Twain

Hey Jheft....
Good to see yo back around....Without you around Andrew has been the resident wiseazz around here...HaHa...Just kidding...Kinda, anywho,good to see you back around. I'm looking forward to keeping up with your jornal!

Current Stack: HDROL,Celltech,Superpump 250, Glutamine,Beta alanine,Whey protein.

He's probably been spewing all kinds of nonsense without me keeping him in check. I guess I'll have to get back to kicking his butt.

My Journal: Jheft's Heftorium

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." -- Mark Twain

Hi ya jheft! sorry you feel last year was a wash for you.

You'll be very disappointed in me... I have wrapped myself up in some serious Daoist ooogy boogy nonsense...

Nice to see you back smarty pants!

Well, not all ooogy boogy stuff is made equal, I'm sure you picked one of the better ones. :-)

Anyhow, I weighed myself a couple times in the past week... It turns out I weigh less than 162, not 168 like I thought. Either I got the 168 on a really weird day, or I was drunk and misread it or something. So I'm losing weight right now, which is weird, because I'm eating a lot. Just getting back into the habits of weighting and measuring and stuff regularly is surprisingly hard.

All my workouts are running really long, I don't know if I'm just trying to do too many things, or I'm lazy and not moving fast enough.

My Journal: Jheft's Heftorium

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." -- Mark Twain

How long are your workouts going for? Mine are going like nearly 3 hours now, lol. It was previously like 1.5-2hours and then sinced I changed my routine, I take ages. But it's because I like take 5minutes rests b/w sets.

Mine are getting close to an hour and a half. The rule of thumb I always hear is to keep them to 45-60 minutes. Beyond that, I really do lose my focus.

My Journal: Jheft's Heftorium

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." -- Mark Twain

Ugh, I'm gonna quit the full-body routine. Doing full-body got me good results for the first 6-8 weeks when I started it last year, but nada since then. I'm gonna go back to a push/pull/legs split and see if I can make some progress.

My Journal: Jheft's Heftorium

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." -- Mark Twain

How long are your workouts going for? Mine are going like nearly 3 hours now, lol. It was previously like 1.5-2hours and then sinced I changed my routine, I take ages. But it's because I like take 5minutes rests b/w sets.

 
Have you ever tried 60 seconds between sets? I swear to you it's the quickest 60 seconds of your life.

''If one is after quick results one never learns an art.''

Erich Fromm

I've done that in the past, but never stuck to it. It was always a choice between short rests and lifting heavy, and I always felt that was a bad trade, at least on the major compound lifts. Maybe I'm wrong. But I just don't feel like I'm getting a real workout if I'm benching 30-40 pounds less just so I can keep my rests at one minute instead of two or something.

My Journal: Jheft's Heftorium

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." -- Mark Twain

A couple other things... I'm gonna get back on creatine. I've been off it for a few months just cause I got out of the habit of taking it. I do remember it giving me a bit of an endurance boost when I first started on it, so maybe that's all I need to regain my focus.

Also, I'm not on here very often, because I'm getting serious about playing Go again. Anyone else play?

My Journal: Jheft's Heftorium

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." -- Mark Twain

LOL^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I knew andrew was going to have a field day on this.
TBH....He was rather reserved....I expected a 3 page diatribe...LOL

Current Stack: HDROL,Celltech,Superpump 250, Glutamine,Beta alanine,Whey protein.

Actually, my deadlift has gone to hell, my max is probably a little less than 350 now. That doesn't sound bad, I suppose, but when I was at my peak, I was doing 350 for 4-5 reps. My bench is better than it used to be... I've been doing high-reps for the past few weeks, so I don't know what my max is, but it's definitely in the 180-190 range. It's been pretty much plateaued since back when I was posting regularly, but that's true of basically all my lifts.

I'm not gonna back you up completely on blaming "genetics." People tend to overstate how much biological/physiological attributes are linked to genes. Not only are there environmental factors that influence a person's physiology, but there are also other heritable factors that aren't directly genetic, e.g. the meta-genome. I'm not saying that there isn't some sort of biological reason why some people like you and I do well with deadlifts and not with bench (long arms, for example, constitute a biological reason), but it's not, per se, genetic. Genetics is just a component.

In terms of low-reps vs. high-reps... I can't say conclusively that either works for me. I've been through a year of nothing working for anything. I can't get stronger. I can't gain muscle. I can't lose fat. So, going back to doing a split is the only thing I can think to try next. I'll probably stay in the 10-15 rep range.

My biggest problem is just motivation and energy. I'm not missing workouts too much lately, but I always dread them. They take too long, even though I'm not doing that many exercises. And then I'm so tired after I'm done that my whole evening goes to waste afterwards. All I have the energy to do is watch TV. I've tried taking time off to give myself some recovery, but I just come back more tired than before.

At least with a split, I will only be doing squats and deadlifts once a week, so I'll have only one day to dread (though it'll be a really killer day). I just feel so winded after doing them that I just don't have any focus left.

One thing I've really neglected is regularly taking measurements and pictures. I suppose it's possible I've made all kinds of progress in that department but just haven't noticed. But given that my strength and weight have mostly been going sideways, I doubt it.

Also, the office where I work has moved, so the grocery store is no longer on my way home. This makes it more tedious to keep the pantry stocked, which means my meals suffer.

I don't play Ikariam any more. I had like 7 cities going after the upgrade, but the balance of the game was all screwed up, and I became a big target after I broke into the top 100. It was annoying getting attacked all the time. And there was really nothing new to do in the game. I'm back to playing Go and Nethack.

My Journal: Jheft's Heftorium

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." -- Mark Twain

jheft


I've done that in the past, but never stuck to it. It was always a choice between short rests and lifting heavy, and I always felt that was a bad trade, at least on the major compound lifts. Maybe I'm wrong. But I just don't feel like I'm getting a real workout if I'm benching 30-40 pounds less just so I can keep my rests at one minute instead of two or something.

AdamScott
How long are your workouts going for? Mine are going like nearly 3 hours now, lol. It was previously like 1.5-2hours and then sinced I changed my routine, I take ages. But it's because I like take 5minutes rests b/w sets.


 
Have you ever tried 60 seconds between sets? I swear to you it's the quickest 60 seconds of your life.

Just a thought from my experience, I had a huge problem with recovery, energy and motivation couple of months ago. You know especially if you are going to a split now... you might want to give really shortened rest a good solid try. I needed more rest because of my kung fu business, I am pooped all the time. Once I let my ego go (and since I am on a pre-summer cut), ignored the weight i was lifting (actually I purposely choose a routine that would not let me compare my lifts, to what I had been doing previously, I'm doing a freekin' circuit of all things???), cut the rest way down (between circuits), and was determined to hit it and quit it, in as short and as taxing a way possible... I had to stop lifting for 1.5 hours + it was becomming menatlly burdensome, as well as physically nearly impossible. Jeasus Christ I yammer... long story short ....I feel much, much, much better. Enough so, that I long for heavy weight again (i don't not long however for the decline in maxes I am sure to witness). From a purely asthetic point of view, I am certainly progessing. And I know you primarily in this for asthetic reasons...

Yeah, I guess I can give it another shot. With a split it won't be quite so difficult. With a full-body workout, I've got squats or deadlifts up front, and then I'm completely winded for the rest of the workout.

But the weight for me is not an ego thing. I mean, even if I was benching 100 pounds for five reps, I would feel no shame, just so long as I was getting results aesthetically. I just feel like I wasn't getting results without lifting heavy. But I'm not getting results doing anything, so maybe that's another variable I can change.

What I guess I'll do starting tonight is go to a split, with roughly the same weight I'm using right now. Instead of trying to increase the weight over the next few weeks, I'll try to gradually reduce my rest times between sets until I've got it down to one minute, at which point I'll try increasing the weight again.

Of course, now I run a risk of changing too many variables at once. If it actually works, I won't know why, and if it doesn't work, I won't know if it's because I made a good change and a bad change and they canceled each other out.

It's also possible that what I'm doing right now is working, but I haven't given it enough time to see results yet (it's only been three weeks). But I feel like I have to change now, because I really need to find some energy somewhere.

My Journal: Jheft's Heftorium

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." -- Mark Twain

I quit playing a couple weeks after 0.3 came out.

Nethack has nothing to do with computer networks or hacking. It's not dodgy at all. The "net" is for the network of people that wrote it (it predates the use of "net" to describe the internet), and "hack" for the fact that it's a hack-n-slash dungeon exploration game.

You should play Go, twisted. It's a good way to prove you're a smarty-farty academic type.

My Journal: Jheft's Heftorium

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." -- Mark Twain

I'm gonna have to start posting in the fogey forum soon.

My Journal: Jheft's Heftorium

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." -- Mark Twain

happy birthday kiddo... I saw your name on the list a few minutes ago...

How are things going for you... recovery any better?

Eh, I'm happier now that I'm doing the split vs. full body, but I don't know if I'm really making progress in any particular direction yet. I'm still having trouble keeping my diet in check... I'm eating healthy, but I'm getting in fewer meals and my calories are probably not very consistent.

I'm actually in the middle of a week break right now. I usually feel pretty energized, if a tad weaker, after a break, so we'll see how it goes.

On the other hand, my Go is going pretty well. I'm 7-3 in my games this month, and my rank's moved up to 7 kyu.

My Journal: Jheft's Heftorium

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." -- Mark Twain