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WEIGHT: 185.8! (168!!!!) 
SORENESS: none
ACHES/INJURIES: none
MENTAL STATE: a little dead, stressful day

- warm up
felt quite sluggish

- MB toss x 10
couple of very good throws, mostly okay

- DL bound x 4,4,4,4
second and third sets markedly farther than normal, good

- squat 315 x 1,1

- stretch

gym closed. snowpocalypse 2016 preparations, commence. i hope the gym doesn't close this weekend but i'm not getting my hopes up for that. hopes much higher for sledding.

in addition to stress, the sluggishness may be linked to the big ol' weight drop. first time i've been under 170 since, uh, i don't know it's been many years. since college maybe? waist is legit 30.5 which is the smallest also in at least 5 years if not longer. i've been at 31-31.5 for a long time.

i wear it all day except shower and sleep. have taken breaks for, for example, dates, when i'd rather not have to explain to a woman i'm meeting for the first time why i'm wearing a weight vest. i wear it during all training except ME DLRVJ, as well.

actually i'm not wearing it today, not sure why.

it took a week to work, i PR'd at the end of the first week i wore it.

haha i'll take that under advisement. problem with getting older is women expect you to be classier, though. i wish i'd gotten the weight vest in college, would have been a good ice breaker.

not sure i understand your question. the vest "works" because it fools your brain into thinking your body is heavier than it is. i don't think there's much acute potentiation, i've just been wearing it all the time until it's time to try to PR and then i've been flying. i do wear it on some DLRVJ and all my other jumping and bounding (and lifting, for that matter).

not sure i understand your question. the vest "works" because it fools your brain into thinking your body is heavier than it is. i don't think there's much acute potentiation, i've just been wearing it all the time until it's time to try to PR and then i've been flying. i do wear it on some DLRVJ and all my other jumping and bounding (and lifting, for that matter).

What I mean is I understand the idea is to make your brain think you're heavier by wearing it all the time and only at understandable times should you take it off such as sleeping and showering (as well as ME jumps for you).  Those ME jump sessions probably don't last too long though so it probably works fine for you. 

I was wondering if taking the vest off for the entire training session 1.5~2 hours of jumps, plyos, weights is "too long" of a time to have the vest off to the point that the same beneficial effects won't take place.

Also I wonder if having the vest off during training where you are actually moving and having to deal with the weight even more has a greater negative effect on trying to fool your body into thinking your heavy than compared to if you had the vest off the same duration of time but while just chilling at home?

edit: last question lol (if you can't tell by now, I'm strongly considering trying this), is it advisable to gradually add weight to the vest or can you just stay with the same weight the whole time.  I ask because I notice in your journal you added weight over time

WEIGHT: 185.8! (168!!!!) 

first time i've been under 170 since, uh, i don't know it's been many years. since college maybe? waist is legit 30.5 which is the smallest also in at least 5 years if not longer. i've been at 31-31.5 for a long time.

Congrats man. As someone going through the same dieting shit as you I wanted to commend you on this cause it seems so damn hard. Do you have any particular foods you enjoy that you think have good value in a diet? I've been eating lots of berries myself.

Also, I noticed in your hip thrust video that you were doing the standard variation. You should try out the 'American' version if you haven't already https://bretcontreras.com/the-american-thrust/ I personally have had much better glute activation using this variation (probably cause I don't have an exceptional hip hinge). Another good exercise that I have been having good glute activation on is the dynamic pull-through, which requires practically no set-up.

WEIGHT: ???
SORENESS: none
ACHES/INJURIES: none
MENTAL STATE: legs dead, otherwise good

- warm up

- MB toss x 11

- squat 315 x 1,1,1,1,1,1

- superset x 2
-- pull through 150 x 12
-- pull up/dip ladder x 2,3,4,3,2;1,2,3,2,1

- hanging leg raise x 10; windshield wiper x i forget how many

gym closed for the storm but i snuck this much in before. glad i (1) decided to work from home today and (2) went to the gym.

snowy weekend = gym was closed until today and was only open for a few hours today. as per usual after even a short layoff, i felt weak and slow.

WEIGHT: 191 (172.8 -- more alcohol than normal over the last few days prob accounts for some of this)
SORENESS: right arm from snowball fights, lol
ACHES/INJURIES: none
MENTAL STATE: fine

- warm up

- SVJ x 6

- DL bound x 4,4,4

- squat x warm up

felt out of sorts, cut it off. back to normal tomorrow i think.

WEIGHT: 172.8 (170.8 -- no weight vest)
SORENESS:
ACHES/INJURIES: right low back tweaked on squats a little, uh-oh
MENTAL STATE: good, a little slow

- warm up

- DLRVJ x a few
not great but my baseline has clearly moved up. hit 33 easily off one step, couple dunks with the small dodgeball.

- squat 315 x 1,1,1,1
meant to keep going but right low back was off. form was off, even in warm ups i was rocking forward too much. weird.

- hip thrust 295 x 12,12

- ladder x 1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1
-- pull up
-- dip

- stretch