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Hey lance this is about training with singles. I am using your guidelines for ~10 heavy singles (w/ a weight that is the heaviest I can do with good form for multiple singles). So far so good.

Googling around for infos about singles training, it's not easy to google because you end up finding sites about speed dating and stuff. Anyway I came across a webpage where the guy talks about resting 30s btw sets. This seems crazy to me because aren't singles supposed to be harder to recover from than higher rep sets? Is it worth trying shorter rest periods like 30s or would you recommend sticking to the usual 3-5mins rests btw singles

Oh man i had the best night of sleep in a long time. It's amazing how much the body loves carbs. I'm continuing my carb refeed (24hr long - ends in 3 hours). Today i've had about a dozen bread rolls. The macros are quite favorable, under 15g of fat. I made a mistake yesterday by eating eggs in the morning, those bitches cost me 27g of fat.

My arms seem fuller today. Legs not yet though, still look skinny, so hopefully by tomorrow they will be pumped up too.

Goal is to put down 800g of carbs in this refeed. So far i'm up to 700g ish. Almost done.

Done, sucessful carb refeed is sucess.

Aite fun and games are over, starting tomorrow im back to my usual cutting diet + some extra carbs and fats to bring up to maintenance and that's it. Im hoping i'll see better times in the gym. If I don't get some PRs soon i'm going to be heart broken just kidding.

That was a great cut. Losing 7kg and losing 5+% bf is really good.

Success! Great work man. 
I really like the chart you use on your log, really helpful.

Thanks guys!

How did your strength evolved over all this process?

I've lifted heavier weight before on some lifts like DL and BS - but my form was quite bad back then. I set multiple PRs on most lifts that I care about (FS, RDL, weighted chinup and BP). Most people would be happy just to maintain their strength but I actually built some! I put this down to dieting moderately. Especially the last month or so of cutting I really hit my stride and was able to balance the deficit without compromising workouts. My next cut will go much more smoothly given what i've learnt in the last 4 weeks.

I've done hardcore heavy deficit diets like RFL before - but this was much better suited to maintaining and improving physical performance.

Decided against the hard deficit for the last day of the cut. For the same reason I didn't train either. I wanna be fully recovered and fresh for tomorrow when I begin the next phase of becoming athletic. It's a 2 week period where I will eat maintenance calories and hold my bodyweight steady. It allows my hormones to rise and return to baseline after the long period of dieting.

I am hoping to see better performances in the gym as a result of the better hormonal milieu. I dunno if it will mean setting PRs every workout. We'll just have to see what happens.

Hopefully i've done enough to take my bw near or under 79kg / 174 lb - but we'll see what the scale says tomorrow

The plan for training is pretty simple .. loads of front squatting. Then some more back squatting. Aim to add a solid 10kg to my front squat PRs (for triples and fours) during the maintenance break. Upper body lift i will be emphasing is the weighted chinup. Will hit it heavy and often and aim to add weight aggressively as well. Don't be surprised if I end up doing a smolov with weighted chinups - i'm just that keen on the heavy chins.

So my best FS so far is:
bests: 115x1, 110x2, 105x3 and 101x4 (@ > 82kg)
goals: 125x1, 120x2, 115x3, 110x4 (@79kg)

And yea it might not be possible to add 10 kilos in 2 weeks. That's ok. If i only add 5kg, that's still awesome progress.

I dont like how I have marathon squat sessions which leave me unable to do much else. So i'm gonna split the workload as follows:
AM - heavy FS (3s and 4s), heavy BS (3s and 5s)
PM - lighter FS (4s), lighter bs (6s, 8s, 10s)

Hopefully this way the CNS shit is done when i'm fresh. The pump stuff goes later during the day.

I still wanna maintain my bench and press, so will have to figure that out somehow but it's not so important. I think the weighted chin is my preferred upper body mass and strength builder and the goal now is just to get to a decent level (think 115x3 and 120x1 @ BW < 80kg) so that when comes time to bulk, i'm not wasting my time with light shit and can just go all in for a real decent goal like weighted chins with 140kg. Realistically speaking that's much more likely than me ever benching 300 with my build (long arms, narrow shoulders, little upper body mass).

20 hour fast broken with a sandwich made of 5 eggs (small ones tho), 2 slices wholemeal bread. Also 2scoop whey shake in 400mL lowfat milk. A banana and half a dozen strawberries. It's pretty much dinner time lol and i'm having my brekfast.

For dinner i'll just have another shake later and get some sleep. Hopefully I got a wicked deficit today. And tomorrow we'll see what happens. I might or might not train depending on how much I want to squeeze an extra day of hard fat loss out before monday.

BW = 89.2kg / 174.61 lb

Training
FS 3x102.5, 0x117.5, 4x97.5, 4x95, 4x92.5
BS 2x90, 3x100, 5x95, 6x92.5, 8x87.5, 8x82.5
BP 1x77.5, 4x80, 2x75
HIIT 7x(12s on, 13s off)

FS notes:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfptghp0bPg" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfptghp0bPg</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HRO-hWOwKo" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HRO-hWOwKo</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOQ-at86YYc" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOQ-at86YYc</a>

Went for the 4x102.5 but after the 3rd rep I just racked it, i know I wouldn't have got the 4th. Wanted a PR and decided to go for the 117.5 max, wasn't to be. On the bright side i'm 2.5kg off my PR for 3 reps and i've just got thru a long cut so i'm not too displeased with my last squat showing while cutting.

So that's that - next time I squat I won't be on a diet. I'm going to be aggressive with my front squat over the diet break. Will write a longer more detailed post on this next week.

Oh sweet, I figured out how to use avidemux to trim my videos. Will make uploading MUCH faster and it wont fill up my HD. I might write a script to go thru all my videos and trim them now. This one is only 2MB now! I think it makes it easier to focus on the lift. I usually edit my videos so they're as brief as necessary. Now they will be visually compact too.

BS notes:
Depth varies too much. I will repeat most of these sets again next time.

BP notes:
Benching after front squatting just does not work. I was prioritising front squats obviously otherwise I'd BP first. May just have to do that anyway, I don't like losing ground on bench.

Conditioning notes:
Amazing what difference 1 second makes. Last time it was almost enjoyable, this time it wasn't.

No abs or chins, too fuxxored. I squat too much.

Food



Took my free meal for the week. Grilled wedges & coke. Still have two solid days of cutting left over the weekend, will be strict of course.

BW: 79.2 kg / 174.61 lb

Goal achieved 4 days early. New goal is < 79/174.

I will fast 18 hours today and stick to the diet and hope i'll be under 79kg by tomorrow and l have a feeling I have PR coming up in me tomorrow in the last squat workout of the cut. That would be ace.

Possible choices for PR attempts
4x102, 4x102.5, 3x106, 3x107.5, 2x111, 2x112.5, 1x116, 1x117.5

Not sure which one of these I like my chances of best. The 117.5 would be bring me within a kilo on the bar at 1.5BW so that would be cool. But I've been working hard at the 102 the last coupla weeks and would like to see that fall (best i've got is a failed 4th rep). Realistically speaking i'm probably gonna go for the 102 but who knows what i'll end up attempting.

This is very important to remember. And  I actually tried natural whey it tastes so bad you would not believe it...

I had that stuff for years. I've had about 60kg of that stuff in the last coupla years. Wow that's a lot. You get used to the taste. But I got tired of it eventually. I've switched to flavoured whey. It just tastes so much better it's like having a delicious treat, and cos they're usually low carb or whatever it's no big deal. I have three different flavours atm, all WPC. strawberry which i love (breakfast), choc mint (which sucks really), and banana (which is great).

Pros of natural whey are it's cheaper, you get slightly more protein per unit weight (cos there is no additives for flavouring). And you can choose your own flavour by adding stuff to it if you're into making shakes. I used to do the whole blender thing, throw stuff in there, icecream, fruit etc. It's fun for a while but I kept breaking my blenders and fuck that noise. Most of the time I just had it unflavoured though because it's inconvenient to make a smoothie before rushing off to work or before gym or after .. Now i just use a blender bottle with flavoured whey, takes seconds to prepare and it's easy to clean and there is nothing to break. I don't even use that wire ball thing, just shake it hard and ready to go.

i'm with LBSS i live on whey. I take 3 scoops a day. Sometimes I take 2.5 another times I take 3.5 but most days it's 3. If i'm a scoop light than usual i'll have trouble with hunger.

I'm similar to you guys in that my lbm is around 150lb .. so I don't need a huge amount of protein, aim to get 150g a day. morning -  3 whole eggs, whey shake with 1.5 scoop in the morning in 300-400mL lowfat milk. Preworkout and post workout i'll have 300mL low fat milk with 1-1.5 scoop of protein each. And then a bit of meat for dinner (~20-40g protein). And that's it.

Back in teh day i used to eat a lot of protein 200g+ but that was stupid and wasteful and i didn't know better. I am more discerning about my choice of nutritional advice nowadays.

TLDR: get natural whey if you are a student and don't care about taste. it's cheap, easy and good way to a good quality protein supplement in your diet.

sorry for writing an essay