Adarq.org

Training
FS 5x101 (PR), 5x97
BS 3x90, 2x100, 5x102.5, 6x100, 6x97.5
BSS 2x6x50 (PR), 6x50 (R leg), 7x50 (R leg, PR)

BP 6x76, 6x74.5, 6x72.5, 5x70 (WG), 5x67.5, 5x65

BW: 76.8kg/169.31lb (PR)

FS notes:
I tried this new thing - front squats are exhausting on upper back, obviously. But what I was finding is when sets go on for ages, you get really fatigued just from standing there with a bar. So I tried to get thru the set quicker. It worked, was easier. But I found my form was breaking down a bit from having to rush thru the reps. So i think there is a sweet spot where you do it just quick enough, but not too quick so that form is good and excess fatigue does not occur. Good discovery.

BS notes:
In warmups with 90kg: SHIT secret unlocked! Basically at the bottom of the bs - i shud let my hips psuh me down, kinda liek what happens in front squats. I wasn't doing this til now, but having done it ive noticed it gives me that extra depth which I was missing in BS. LBSS might be happier now with my depth i think.

I wanted 6 reps of 102.5 but got 5. Would have got an ugly 6th (form on 5th was breaking down) so didn't bother. Next time 102.5x6 and hopefully 105x5 as well? Maybe we'll see.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdl7cj_f70w" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdl7cj_f70w</a>


BSS notes:
I tried using my lifting shoes for these - big mistake, was very unstable and wobbly on the bench leg. L leg is beasting, finding all the weights easy, even with brief rests following R leg worksets. For weak R leg I did 2x volume of L leg again. Not sure if I wanna keep up this R skewed training but like i've said before, R leg doesn't mind, it's L which gets the doms .. which makes no sense but that's what we have yup. Oh wait, maybe it does make sense! L leg is more of a n00b, R leg is intermediate. So R leg is chilling and recovering ezy because it's on that newbie flex. That makes sense right? Whatever.

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Was in two minds whether to do concentric heavy front squats or BSS. Decided to stick with BSS on this high volume day. I can do the concentrics on the higher CNS intensity days. Either way, i'm confident i'll get that 120 front squat PR by friday week.

I envy you , in the good way! That approach was always my ideal scenario. Pick a workout scheme ( FS + cutting in your case ) , stick with it for a long time, then go to the court after a long time and enjoy the benefits.  I know it's not even right , you ( we ) should keep up with jumping to maintain efficiency/mobility needed for ME jumps, its better injury-wise too.
But that feeling , hitting the court after months and being a totally different (better ) athlete, priceless. Hope it makes sense!
Keep up keeping up! 

Thanks vag! That makes perfect sense. The reason I haven't kept up jumping is because i've been juggling enough things already in training and playing basketball and jumping wasn't a priority in the end. If i got a bit of extra recovery ability i'd put it towards building strength/muscle or improving conditioning to aid fat loss! Those just happened to be the main goal. But I do wish i could do more things in training I'm just terribly limited by the cut to stick to a few things only.

I used to love playing ball but I had to give it up because I couldn't improve my lifts and cut and do everything else too.

The other thing is, when i was in middle of the long cut, my legs were tired from all the squatting and conditioning (daily cardio + 3x hiit/SS)  I was doing. If I went down to the basketball court, i was sure i'd find i was jumping poorly. Which makes me feel bad because as you might know the feeling, there is nothing worse than doing a max effort jump and being well below expectation. That feel sucks. So mentally I wasn't interested in failure and decided it was just better to avoid failure by avoiding jumping altogether lol.

I bet if I had kept up the jumping i'd be jumping higher now though. You're definitely right about that. I'd have bigger/stronger calves as well.  Guess it was just a trade off. Thankfully it hasn't hurt my VJ though which gives me hope that I have a lot of potential left in me when i've all the ducks in a row. Thinking when I finish cutting, push up my lifts a bit more, start doing plyos and eat more food i'll be jumping a lot higher maybe. we'll see.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdl7cj_f70w" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdl7cj_f70w</a>

Nice to see tall people squat full with good form. 

Get out of that twig weight and lift more volumes.  Good things happen the stronger you get - you also have more tissues to absorb the impacts of landing as you squat more weight.

Absolutely destroyed my diet on xmas day lol. Maybe I'll get some nice PRs tomorrow? Lets see.

My idiot friends convinced me to drink a 750mL double strength dare espresso iced coffee at 3:30am just before going home to sleep. Now i'm completely wired and the last thing I wanna do is go to bed. It's out of revenge because apparently I introduced them to dare a few years back and they've been hopelessly addicted since so they wanted to get back at me for putting them onto the stuff. I was hooked myself for a while and swore off the stuff but man it's like liquid crack. So smooth, so good.

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Exciting news. Might be joining a new gym with plenty of equipment. I saw they have dbs that go over 80kg and a few squat racks etc. Should be good for training in the summer when it's too hot to workout outside in my home gym.

The only catch is I need them to waive the high initial membership nonsense fees. Supposing I can manage that, then I shud be training there for at least the next 2-3 months.

One key motivation is I want to try out dbs for unilateral work, esp for upper body since my weak side doesn't want to catch up with the strong one on bench press etc. I notice my left pec is much stronger/bigger than my right one. That should be fixable with dbs.

They also have the usual array of machines. Which I want to try out. Maybe i'll get a lot of mileage out of the leg press? Perhaps the single leg press for building quad mass on the weak side.. worth a try..

and i can finally do some beach work and build my guns better than just with weighted chins .. hopefully dbs help there

I'm also finally gonna be able to do conditioning on a bike which should be low impact enough on joints while allowing me to implement a proper tabata. Should get me real fit very quickly. Maybe even try the c2 rower for conditioning..

What else is exciting .. i guess i'll be able to find out how badly my issues with flooring/bent bar at home affects my form on the main lifts when I train with better equipment. Although they don't seem to have any power racks and having instead to use their squat racks with fixed safeties might not suit my proportions? will have to see. I don't mind continuing to bs/fs at home though. if only they had bumpers I cud just drop them.. but that's not gonna happen in an ordinary gym..

But all of this will give me a new fresh stimulus to training since things have been getting a bit stale

Training
FS 1x90, 1x100, 1x07.5, 1x112.5, 1x115
BS 5x60, 3x90, 2x100, 3x107.5 (depth was high tho), 5x100 (ok depth i think)
BP 1x70, 1x75, 4x80, 5x75
DIPZ 3x5xBW (new exercise, very shaky on these)
BCU 10, 8, 6, 5, 4
Single DB bp 8x20, 6x24, 2x6x22R
Single leg press 3x8xwhatever the plates were on
foam roller on quads

BW: 76kg / 167.551lb

I think that's the lot, unless i'm forgetting some exercises. I was scheduled to do weighted chinups but i didn't take my chains with me so just did bw ones.. will probably do weighted next workout. oh and I didn't do BSS - didn't wanna stack it in front of everyone on my first day at the new gym. Did single leg leg press instead. Probably the same shit anyways.

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FS notes:
Well it looks like my form problems are in fact to do with my home gym setup.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJAtTP63fYk" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJAtTP63fYk</a>

BS notes:
BS form improved greatly from change of scenery.

Upper body notes:
So my flat bb bench liked the new bar. But all this training i've done at home has put a definite strength imbalance there and it wasn't reasonable to expect everything to be perfect so soon.  I used the dbs to work on my weak side, doing a few more sets. Will give it a bit of time and hopefully I can bring up R side and then i'll get my bench press nice and symmetrical. Oh and dips. I was shaky on these, new exercise and all. Lets see what this does for my upper body.

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So I will prob get another 2 sessions in this gym before going on to gym B. The barbells were very nice. Expensive ones. Was sick using a decent one for a change.  In another note, my waist did finally catch up to the scale - i've lost a full 1/2" making my waist 32.5" which is cool.

nice to go away and come back to find people have been killing shit. you're right about the BS depth, nice job.

bf% guess is tough without a back shot, but i'd say about 12-13%. abs wouldn't be coming in at 15% unless you carry all your fat on your back.

Thank you. I've had abs for a while now even when I was heavier than now. So I think it's the latter - my body has cleverly stored fat in places I can't easily see. This might also go some way in explaining why even at my heaviest I never looked "that fat" - like when people say they carry "it" well.

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Doms in lats and upper back. I only did unweighted chinups (for lats) which should be really easy for me?? Shrug. Unless the dips & 1 hand db presses contributed too. No idea.

update. doms in lower back and abs also.

Training
FS 4x102.5 (PR), 5x97.5
BS 5x102.5, 6x97.5, 5x95, 6x90
BP 2x70, 1x75, 77.5x3, 72.5x6, 70x5
Single DBBP 6x20R, 5x22.5R, 3x25R
DIPZ 3x8xBW

FS notes:
I wanted 5x102.5 but my upper back rounded on the 4th and I knew if anything the 5th would be even uglier. Decided to rack it after all. Woulda been nice to get the 5x102.5 PR on teh last workout of the year - but you know what 4x102.5 is still a 4 rep PR so whatevers. Next time will get it fo sho.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7fj6-9alDU" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7fj6-9alDU</a>
^was happier with my form on the 2nd set of front squats.

BS notes:
Shithouse backsquats. Only decent set was the last one.

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Another day, another gym. The one i went to last time was closed which sucked or so I thought but turns out today's one was even better. Very neat, nice equipment, kickass air/conditioning, not very busy, not many bros. It was one of the best i've been to in this city. I'm so lucky it was open today and being under that icy cold a/c because it was 40° C at home and so ridiculously hot that there was no sense in trying to get thru it here. The squatting setup was almost perfect. The floor was solid (not squishy like the previous gym). The only defect was there was very little clearance between the barbell sleeves and the rack. You have to be super careful not to catch the pins with the bottom of plates.

Workout done under long time fasted conditions because i've got a party later tonight. Workout was much more difficult than it would be otherwise. So that's it, the last workout of the year.

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2012 Summary
I did well this year, lost a whole load of body weight, was around 90kg at the start of 2012 and I ended up 75.5kg at my lightest a few days ago.  My best backsquat was 130 without a belt and my best front squat was 117.5kg. I'm due to FS 120kg any day now. Post cutting, I'll do a lot better on lifts in 2013. In the process I went from not being able to dunk, to landing my first dunks and finally in Dec, being able to dunk with ease.

My waist reached a PR milestone of 32.25" this morning - which means i'm not far from being under 32" now. That gives me motivation going into the new year - want bad to stop being a fatfuck and finally be lean and athletic. The main reason I didn't end up 8% bodyfat is because I started out a LOT fatter than I initially thought. I may well have started cutting from upper 20s.

Will finish the job and get down to 8-10% by Mid-Feb.

Thanks for reading. Happy new year everyone. Hope you achieve your goals!. Til next year