Adarq.org

I am personally locking my knees and even trying to actively hyperextending them (I know, sounds terrible) and also am doing the same thing with the hips (going for a posteriorly rotate pelvis at the top) - these two things help me really squeeze the VMOs and glutes, a thing that normally doesn't happen if I don't actively think about it. If I'm just doing "normal" reps these things don't occur. It's a pretty big difference for me (I can feel the VMOs and glutes do work doing this).

I might be misunderstanding you (probable) but are you saying that if you consciously exaggarate the movement at the end of the cocentric you get better activation in VMOS and glutes? I'll have to try that out and see for myself.

Obviously I'm not overdoing it or really exaggerating it to the point of injury, and I'm usually doing it with lower weights. You won't see me think about this doing 1RM stuff.

Interesting. Yeah, it would have to be an effect seen over volume since it's such a small part of the ROM.

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I read that as people diet down to lower bodyfat - their muscle fibres transition into slow twitch ones. Now that's something I don't want to happen - so I should keep the sprints and jumps in while cutting. But what i'm wondering is, maybe when they studied this thing, they were studying people who did a lot of traditional "fat burn" training like slow steady cardio. If you spend hours on the treadmill a day, of course that will mean your muscles adapt to that sort of activity. Doesn't necessarily mean cutting bodyfat itself is automatically the mechanism for the fast->slow twitch changes.

Actually, training brings you more into the IIA realm of more endurance (vs IIB) - sitting on your butt all day long gives you more IIB than training (probably also does doing very low volume/very high intensity (tension) singles and stuff like that).

What's also interesting is that only the type II fibers actually hypertrophy, otherwise we'd see those muscular marathon runners with huge type I muscles.

that ain't just quads, broseph. look at how much your upper back rounds on the concentric.

interesting analysis. you're obviously in a better position to know than i am.

Body comp thoughts
When I started cutting at 87kg (190lb) I thought by the time I got to 80kg (175lb) I'd be ripped. Then I got there and it wasn't the case. So I said, surely by 75kg (165lb) it will happen. And as i'm quickly approaching 75kg I realise it's not going to happen there either! I'm thinking it might be closer to 70kg (155lb). I can't imagine needing to go under 70kg, that must be a safe lower bound, but lets see what happens. I'm getting used to disappointment.

My waist is now just under 33" and I suspect given my build, i'll need to look at achieving a 30" or smaller waist for single digit bodyfat. So I probably have months of cutting left to do. This sucks obviously. But i'm satisfied knowing there will be the light at the end of the tunnel, i'm just not anywhere near it yet.

Oh and the reason why I'm looking at 30" is the following table:

American Council on Exercise
Bodyfat %   Abdomen (in.)   
0%   26.58
1%   26.92
2%   27.27   Essential Fat
3%   27.63
4%   28.00
5%   28.38
6%   28.77   Athletes
7%   29.17
8%   29.58
9%   30.00
10%   30.44
11%   30.88
12%   31.34
13%   31.81
14%   32.29   Fitness
15%   32.79
16%   33.30
17%   33.82

generated using http://www.chaosreigns.com/gym/waistfromfat.html - i put in 14" for neck and 75" for height. Would be interesting to see what other people get using the calculator for their current waist and expected waist at 10%?

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funk master flex

Surveys FTW!!! 

Neck = ~16'' ( 40,5 cm ) / Height = 72'' ( ~183cm )

10%   31.90
15%   34.18
20%   36.78

Current waist = ~35,7'' ( 90,5cm ) => ~18% 

Thank you for the data guys. It looks like it uses neck circumference as a proxy for muscularity and waist circumference for fatness. If you have an inch more of neck circumference it affords you an extra inch of waist circumference for the same bodyfat. Interesting stuff.

Training
FS 1x107.5, 4x100, 5x95

BP 6x77.5, 6x75, 6x72.5, 6x70, 6x67.5, 6x65 (last 3 wg)

BS 3x90, 2x100, 3x102.5, 4x100, 2x97.5, 10x60

BW: 77.1kg/169.98lb  (quietly slipped into 160s -- reverse hypertrophy here I come)

FS notes:
Couldn't for the life of me figure out why almost every single rep including warmups had bad form. Were my shoe laces too tight? Was it the different pair of shorts? Was some muscle (group) not fully recovered from last week? Very frustrating.

BP notes:
Struggling with that top set but I finally got 6 this week. But it was so difficult that I may as well have failed it! The good thing about this session was getting 36 reps in. Decent amount of volume.

BS notes:
Delaying this to the 3rd (!) session made a big difference. I think also because I warmed up starting from the bar rather than my usual practice of going straight from FSs to BS starting with 90kg. Whatevers. Was still shit, couldn't get 6 reps at all. I didn't court failure though. Anyway, hopefully i've done enough to put some carbs into my legs all the same.

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Session 1: Incredibly shitty workout. I guess i've had a good run lately, lots of PRs while cutting. In hindsight I might have erred by not taking the carb reload today. I have been feeling pretty awful, tired and my brain feels sluggish inside my scull. I guess that was a sign i'm carb depleted or whatever but I wanted to soldier on for another week. Nevermind. I'll take on wednesday.

I cut the workout short, will have some bread and try again later tonight to backsquat and bench. If i have time and weather permits, hiit sprints as well.

Session 2: I decided just to do the carb reload today. Why not? I've been eating bread like it's going out of fashion. So good.



I think there were 8, 10 or 12 in the whole pack. I didn't pay attention. But looking online each one is 16g of cho, 2.8g pro, 0.7g fat - so pretty great for a good clean carb reload.