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

31/08/14

On what was planned to be another testing day my wife convinced me to go for a ride while she ran. Plan was to do 28k from Arthur's seat to Cape Shanck. "I'll run and you ride" she said. "It'll be easy" she said. Get through the entry gates and this is what confronted me:



Then a little further on there was this:



Anyway we ended up doing just under 23k with me hiking and carrying the bike most of the way. Good fun though and we had a perfect day to do it and even included my wife getting lunged at by a tree snake. Not poisonous but scary as fuck for her.

The next week I spent on Hamilton Island drinking and eating and drinking some more. Didn't really gain any weight though which is strange but first night back in the gym tonight. Have a slightly different direction for the next few months. Will update that in a separate post.

No joke, upvoted for her! Lol

No joke, upvoted for her! Lol

Haha. Thanks mate.

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.

30kg / 33% in 3 months is not 'ok' progress, it is jaw dropping crazy progress, props!!!!

Haha. Thanks mate.
It does feel less stellar given some are previously had gains. Kind of like sloppy seconds. You'll take them but they're just not quite the same.

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.