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Quote from: Coges on September 08, 2014, 09:15:18 pm

Things to focus on in the next 16 weeks which will take me right up to the new year.
- Initial fat loss (down to 10-12%)
- Core strength- Massive hole in my programming
- Upper body size - Summer is just around the corner and I'm shallow like that.
- Retaining and gaining strength on lower body lifts (albeit potentially more slowly than before)
- Squatting technique - I can see some good gains coming from solidifying my technique and working on proper bracing and breathing. 

Sounds like a good plan. A lot of people make the mistake of wanting to 'recomp' which means effectively the same thing as 'wheel spinning'. Gaining strength or mass requires eating enough food to gain weight and it's not possible to circumvent it with the mythical idea of staying at the same bodyweight but gaining muscle at the same rate as you're burning bodyfat. I'm glad you're not making that mistake though. Good luck, will be good to see where you are in 6-12 months time if you stick to the above plan.

Cheers thanks mate. I've never had the patience for a proper cut before (never had to) so we'll see how we go.

B3W 16 Week Progress Summary

5 May 2014
Squat- 95 x 5
Deadlift- 120 x 5
Front Squat- 75 x 5
Snatch Grip DL- 75 x 5
Incline Press- 62.5 x 5

18 August 2014
Squat- 125 x 5 / 140 x 1
Deadlift- 155 x 5 / 170 x 1
Front Squat- 105 x 5
Snatch Grip DL- 105 x 5
Incline Press- 72.5 x 5

The things I care about:
Squat- +30kg
DL- +35kg and PR @ 170
FS- +40kg

Feel like I've made ok progress. Better diet, recovery, sleep, stress, etc and it could have gone better. Diet and recovery strategies being the two main culprits.

Things to focus on in the next 16 weeks which will take me right up to the new year.
- Initial fat loss (down to 10-12%)
- Core strength- Massive hole in my programming
- Upper body size - Summer is just around the corner and I'm shallow like that.
- Retaining and gaining strength on lower body lifts (albeit potentially more slowly than before)
- Squatting technique - I can see some good gains coming from solidifying my technique and working on proper bracing and breathing.

I have a hypertrophy plug in for the program I'm currently doing. Initially this will be adding an extra upper body exercise for 2-4 weeks, then adding an additional lower body exercise, then maybe some RPT style training. It sounds counter-intuitive trying to add whilst losing fat but I'm hoping the fat loss is a 6 week deal and I'll ramp up the gain from there.

One overriding goal is to do a 5k race early in the new year (end of Jan start of Feb). Want to get myself in some decent shape and then add a 5-6 week training block to do a decent time. Figure I should be able to go under 25 mins easily with some decent running under my belt but would ideally go closer to 20m (not sure how realistic this is though). I figure the faster I can finish the better as I hate running. Why am I doing it if I hate running? Bloody good question. Main reason is to spend more training time with the wife and also to show people that I can actually run and not just sprint around a basketball court.

Edit- All in all I'm not too fussed about my pure strength numbers over the next 16 weeks. Will still be going as heavy as I can but form will be front of mind. Also, I see this as a great time to get my body prepared for a full on assault on big numbers next year. I should still add to my squat and DL numbers by the end of the year and figure if I can get the body in great shape heading into next year I am a good shot at a 250DL and 200SQ next year.

08/09/2014
B3W
Week 0- Workout 1
BW- 91.1
Total Cals- 1,708

Warm Up

Squat-
bar x 5- paused
40 x 5- paused
60 x 5- paused
80 x 5
100 x 5

Incline Press- Fat Gripz
bar x 8
30 x 8
40 x 8
50 x 8

Ring Dips
BW x 6, 6, 6, 6

First session back after my time off. Wanted to ease my way back in. 100 felt like a ton on the squats. Hoping to go 110 next week and progress back up from there.
Am focusing on form and bar speed more on all exercises at the moment. Good to be back in.

23km is a pretty good run, especially on what looks like challenging terrain. is your wife a marathoner?

Yep. She has done just halves (sp?) up to now but has the Melbourne marathon booked in for 6 weeks away as her first full one. The trail we started is a point to point 28k event in Jan that she's doing as her first trail run. We did part and came back the same way.

She's a machine too. I'm struggling to pedal away on the bike (which is hers and way too small for me) and she's just powering up these hills.

I'd say the mental part is greater in the squat as you can't just let go if it all goes wrong.

Nice vid. You make jumping look so easy.

Is the reason why you're afraid to go too deep a matter of strength or a matter of losing balance?

I think moreso just the weight. 150 has been a long time goal and I think I mentally sabotaged myself.
Deadlifted last night too. I'll do a separate post but 170 went up well. 180 felt like it was nailed to the floor. It was all mental.