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So are we the only ones in the 600mg or more caffeine per day club? You, Kingfish, and me? Sometimes I feel like I need 500 mg caffeine just to make it to the gym.... this can't be good.

when i was dieting down i was using 600mg a day. Down to 500mg since now i use 200mg for the morning run (which does nothing, it's just habit.. i don't even feel anything but i believe it might help me perform/recover better slightly). For the squat session at lunch i use 300mg. Again don't really get anything out of it but if i didnt use it i'd perform worse so ya i just take it. My idea was to drop down after cutting but im trying to get my lifts to somewhere respectable first..

I jusg want to do a quick post on daily training as ive hit the 4 week mark today. Every morning i've done a treadmill run and a max squat session at lunch time. Last 2 days ive added an evening track session as well. Daily training is probably the best program for someone like me (=hard gainer). It's been freeing to just take every day as just another day, there are no special days in training which you dread or worry about 'recovery' since you train daily, every day is just another day. You  don't worry about recovery because your body just normalises being recovered. In a way what daily training has achieved that is most valuable is being very good at recovery. All those years babying my body in lieu of recovery just seems to be a huge waste of time in comparison because it turns out recovery is something trainable too.

In terms of gains, my warmup squat sets look super smooth, technically crisp and bar speed is incredible. I reach a point in every workout where things slow down and form begins to deteriorate, if someone else was more disciplined and patient then they could do more work under that threshold but i've got a timeline to adhere to so i've been pushing the envelop past that point every day.

The most impressive thing  so far is probably the development of lower leg strength and size which i attribute to daily running. Avoiding cardio seems to be the biggest mistake of all now, not only does it help recovery in a big way but it also helps develop the lower leg musculature which lifting never did.

In terms of actually getting fit, 4 weeks in, im still i'd say way below average for someone who plays sport. But im also holding a lot of water (due to chronic bad broken sleep) so when i figure out how to start sleeping better, i'll probably find my bodyweight drops and i'll be a bit closer to average fitness. Far away from PRs in the weight room still.

Lets see what the next 4 weeks bring!

one suggestion: for your harder efforts, run more by feel than by looking at the watch .. then look at the watch afterwards (at the end of the lap, or after the workout etc). use that feedback to tweak what you felt. if you look at your watch going fast, you're going to be alot less relaxed, run alot harder than you should, etc.. first put the distance in your head, that you are about to run, then take off but gradually, staying loose and just "going hard" but whatever "hard" is relative to that endpoint or lap distance you put in your head.

Thank you, that's solid advice! i will keep that in mind.

for slower runs, you can look at your watch right away. as long as it's relaxed, you can work on pacing etc by getting feedback from the watch.

today was the first time i looked at the watch while running 400m repeats and i saw for the first 200m i was doing a really fast pace (for me) of 3 min something. But as i progressed thru the run around 300m i could see my pace begin to fall off to around 4 mins.  it was pretty illuminating cos you know intuitively that you're slowing but to see the numbers really solidifies it for me. by the way, the way i feel on the last 100m - that's exactly how i play 99% of full court basketball games (yes only competition no pickup). so does this give any sort of notion on how to structure training to improve my game fitness?

so ya, don't get real-time feedback from your watch initially, unless it's just like a short stride or something (~50m) .. hard efforts w/ watch feedback, can be rough. have to get used to it.

on the 100m tempos i noticed the watch was nailing the 100m distance as i finished them, which was nice to see cos i had concerns about accuracy.

you'll probably make some solid improvement over the next few months if you keep it up .. you might be surprised.

im pretty much PR every single time i train (daily -- morning treadmill runs and evening track). but the frustrating part is my present fitness is prob a lot lower than what most basketball players would begin with (with no training). i dont even believe my training will actually really achieve anything about my bad fitness, think it might be genetic but if it does, i'll be super delighted to be surprised.

Bodyweight(AM): 81.7kg (13th dec)
Diet compliance: 2/2 days
Daily Squat: 27/27 days
Daily Run: 26/26 days
Basketball skill work:

Training:
AM Long run - 8.56km in 60 mins (PR)
PM BS 6x100, 6x112.5, 3x122.5, 2x130 (paused 1st reps)
PM Belted BS 1x132.5, 1x140, 4x120, 11x111
PM Speed run 4x400m
 
Notes:
Got the GPS watch and tested it out with some 400m repeats on grass. I took Mutombo's advice and found a nice marked out park in my area. Fresh lines and all. Was a bit self conscious at first cos they were doing some kind of social function at the club which overlooks the field.

 My fastest one was at 4:03 pace which i struggled to maintain i must confess. I was actually feeling great until around 300m when i just hit a wall and slow down a lot.  Does this tell you guys im really unfit?? If i had done another 400m repeat, i would have done a total of 2km but i didn't realise that at the time. So if my goal is to run a sub 20 5k, then it's probably never going to happen considering i can barely maintain a 4 min pace for 400m lol. Did anyone think i was this badly out of shape? Any words of wisdom welcome!

Bodyweight(AM): 83.0kg (11th dec)
Diet compliance: 0/0 days
Daily Squat: 25/25 days
Daily Run: 24/24 days
Basketball skill work:

Training:
AM Fast run ~ 5km total
PM squats 6x97.5, 6x107.5, 3x117.5, 2x127.5, 1x130 (paused the first rep on all these),
PM belted squats 1x130, 1x132.5, 1x135, 10x107.5

Notes:
First road run was fun albeit hard to adjust to not having a set pace. I can't wait to get my watch. Will do more running outside for sure.

Daily squatting is starting to 'work'. FINALLY. I attribute it to including the belt in the last workout. Spooky how quickly it has given a benefit.  The bar now feels like a feather on my back which i think is a consequence of the belt accelerating adaptions due to the increased IAP. I did a set of 10 with 107.5kg today and it fit inside a single insta clip so i did it at a good pace (no crazy rests between reps). I think the running has helped my body's ability to recover not just between training sessions but even between reps? Missed out on all those benefits of cardio all this time. What's funny is that my paused beltless has gone up too, did a top single with 130kg today for the first time in months. Nice. I'm definitely on the right track with this hybrid training mixing up the different factors.

Not to belabor the point but i think i understand the objection against belted squatting for optimal athletic gains - it's a syllogism of the form:

- powerlifters use lots of gear. powerlifters are not athletic - ergo gear does not build athleticism and it may detract from it

and i understand that perfectly well. But lets stop and think about hte typical powerlifter. They've probably never jumped (or sprinted or done anything remotely athletic) in their life. It's a sport which self-selects for those who don't have the skill or talent for actual athletic activity. Powerlifters are the rejects of the athletic world, those who can't athlete, powerlift. Huge generalisation i know but it's probably mostly true. Weightlifters are the gifted athletes among strength sports. Mediocre weightlifters are usually mediocre athletes.

Powerlifters train for minimal depth and do the slow lifts in an especially slow manner, agian, not what im talking about. If you use a belt and grind out every rep from start to finish with borderline depth, that's not going to build athleticism anymore (or less) than a straight up pause squat san belt. To get the athletic benefit out of the belt you want adequate depth AND a strong rebound which is faciliated by wearing the belt.

If you took the average person and trained them with a belt keeping in mind depth and bar speed you'd see more athletic gains than if they were using relatively lighter weights with no belt and/or paused (two extremes). the former would give the best carryover and the latter the least.

I would have agreed with you strictly from a purist perspective b/c the squats go something like:

text book paused ATG FS -> text book paused ATG BS -> ... -> belted barely parallel lowbar squat

but purity aside, what's best for athleticism? it need not be the exact same thing.

belts help with IAP yes but that's not all they're doing. They also help the leg muscles contract harder (hams, quads, glutes). That part might be cause or effect (im not sure) but the effects all put together are helping train the lower body to contract more forcefully. Now with the belt the torso also has greater time under tension AND finally for most ppl the belt helps exactly where the squat gets hardest (the sticking point) which is about halfway up. The belt allows you to continue producing force at that very point to help complete the lift (more time under tension). It's basically a way to make the squat more efficient. The IAP alone might be worth the price of admission but if that's all it was achieving it's not why it's a more athletic way to squat. I'm still a squat purist but from a holistic perspective, training with a belt a will get you more gains and that's a good thing. Training with a belt and without a belt offer good synergy because there is a carry over there. All of this will be proven if i can get my vertical back to 32" now that i've started using a belt.