This is my new Journal. I finished a six month Journal a couple of weeks ago in which I spent three months concluding a long term building phase and then three months cutting down to near contest condition. Here is that thread: http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/showthread.php?t=38213
I had pictures taken the day before Easter but couldn't post them here for technical reasons. I will admit I am a techno phobe and if I was a bit more computer savvy, I might be able to figure out a way to resize or edit the pictures so they would fit, but its not to be so the pictures are instead on my Webshots page at http://community.webshots.com/user/racingbill, so go ahead and take a look there.
Though I had gained visible size, especially in the upper body, over the last year, I was not happy that there had been overall improvement in my condition over last year. The "pieces" did not really seem to be put together in a pleasing way aesthetically. I had strong points, but also some glaring weaknesses, especially from the side views.
I took some on the comments from readers here and my own observations to a meeting with my trainer two weeks ago during my vacation in Florida. We had a long long talk and agreed on what improvements had to be made long term. We also agreed ( and it took some convincing for me to "buy in") to let her "take over" my entire training program for the next year. I have been working with her for short terms the last four years, but most of my training programs where ones I put together. I feel now that I have maxxed out on how how far I can progress based on my own knowledge and even though it appears there are going to be major changes plus some things I already see in the first program that I am already skeptical about in my own mind, I am going to let someone else take total control of the steering wheel. She says she can improve my overall package significantly by this time next year ( the pictures will tell the story, yes or no) and if it doesn't work, we agree that I can "fire" her and seek other avenues. She is a former national competitor who has demonstrated that she "knows her stuff" and has trained other people for competition with success, so I am confident that she is not blowing smoke up my ear. Diet and cardio will still be my domain until the last twelve weeks, at which point she will take control of those aspects also.
I am working on an arrangement with a local trainer for pictures and measurement, including bodyfat, to be taken periodically so my trainer can see my progress ( or lack thereof, but I hope not) and use this is setting up the next program. I hope to have this finalized in a few days.
So, what are my long term ( one year) goals? 1. Add 3-5 pounds of pure muscle overall. 2. Come in with a harder physique, eliminating in particular the softness in my lower back and oblique areas. 3. Present a better "x" frame physique, in other words, a more clearly defined look where one can see the wide upper body, slimmer waist and more visible thigh and leg sweep from a visual perspective. Right now, its a bit too "blocky" in part because I have a genetically wide waist. 4. Bring up substantially clearly defined weaknesses in the calves, rear delts, biceps and in the hamstring/quad separation. 5. Improve on leg definition, especially in quad separation.
A lotta work ahead...
I want to build more mass, but then chisel my physique, so that's why I named this Journal "Mass and Chisel".
I got my first 8 week program last week. I had alot of questions, which we've discussed and ironed out. The intent of this program is to build more mass in the back, rear delts, calves and biceps, widen the shoulders and work on those hamstring and quad separations. It is very different from what I am used to. First, I have always cycled my rep ranges and rest periods, for instance doing say 12 reps with 90 second rests for a week or two, then say 8-10 reps with longer rests and then maybe 15 the next week or two but with short rest periods, keeping the same rep range for every exercise. This program varies the rep ranges and rest periods WITHIN EACH BODYPART. For instance, the back workout consists of three exercises pyramidded down from 15 to 8 reps, one exercise of 3 sets of 10-12 reps and one exercise of 3 sets of 12-15 reps with much shorter rest periods. The intent is to work different muscle fibers while also building mass at the beginning by lifting heavy weights with low reps the last two sets. Each working set of each exercise is to go to failure. Second, there is much more volume than I am used to for bodyparts like the biceps, triceps, delts and hamstrings. I have gone from a three day weekly split to four to allow for the greater volume. The workouts are much shorter in overall time than I have done in the past, but with every set of every workout going to failure, it will probably be much more intense overall as time goes along. Frankly, I am not sure if I can work at full intensity for 8 weeks straight without burning out, but I will see..... Third, the routine has some exercises I have never done before or done very rarely because I did not feel they did anything for me physique wise.
Here is program #1 in a nutshell:
- Four weight workouts a week. Starting next week, the weekly cycle will be something like this: 1) Tuesday Chest and shoulders 2) Weds or Thurs Back and hamstrings 3) Saturday Triceps and biceps (though I am free to switch the order on occasion if I wish), then abs 4) Sunday Quads and calves. Cardio will be one morning a week, either on Monday,Tuesday or Friday. A second calf workout is also supposed to be with cardio, but I found this week that this will not work. I cannot do 35-45 minutes of cardio and a calf workout and still get to work at anywhere near the time I am supposed to be there. So I will work a second calf workout in somewhere each week, whether is be a morning or another night by itself or possibly done during workouts 2 or 3.
- Chest: Smith Incline Presses, Flat DB Bench Press, Decline Flyes, either Pec Dec or Cable Crossovers
-Shoulders: Smith Machine Military Press, single arm Lateral Raises, Wide Grip Upright Rows, Bent Laterals on an Incline Bench, Barbell Shrugs behind the back.
-Back: Wide Grip Pulldowns, T Bar Rows(wide), DB One Arm Rows, Close Grip Pulldowns, Deadlifts
-Hamstrings: Lying Leg Curls, Standing Single Leg Curls, DB Stiff Deadlifts
-Triceps: Close Grip Bench Press, DB Overhead Extension, Overhead Rope Extensions, Pushdowns(wide grip)
-Biceps: Straight Bar Curls, Standing DB Curls, Reverse Curls w/ EZ Curl Bar, Concentration Curls
-Quads: Leg Extensions, Front Squats, Hack Squats, Walking Barbell Lunges
-Calves: Seated Leg Curls, Weighted Calf Raises on Hack Squat( substitute for Donkey Calf Raises because my gyum does not have this machine), Standing Calf Raises, One burn out set for one minute of one legged calf raises on a step.
I finished the first cycle of workouts tonight. I started last Thursday and spent this week getting used to the routine, learning the new movements such as the behind the back shrugs, and getting the weights right so that I will be training close to or at failure on my working sets starting with the next cycle.
I will be working out each day Thursday through Sunday to complete the second cycle and then start the Tuesday/ Wed or Thurs./Sat/Sunday 4 day split next week. I will post my workouts in the Journal starting with Thursday.
I weighed 182 1/4 tonight pre workout. I was 183 on picture day March 26th and 180 when I got back from vacation on Monday April 11th. I am not going to be eating ungodly amounts of food for right now. I am aiming to be around my maintenance range of 3900/4000 a day, but I think I can get up to 185 in a month and then sustain that for at least the first part of the summer as I do want to look good ( not fat) for the beach season. I am going to experiment with a slightly different ratio for awhile. I have been on about a 25% protein/55% carbs and 20% fat off season ratio the last two years. I want to reduce my meal sizes a bit ( to keep that waist down), clean up my carbs a bit and reduce the proportion of carbs slightly, so I am going to shoot for a 30/50/20 split.
Well, its late, time for bed. I'll post my supplements, some of which will be changing, in my next post.
I had pictures taken the day before Easter but couldn't post them here for technical reasons. I will admit I am a techno phobe and if I was a bit more computer savvy, I might be able to figure out a way to resize or edit the pictures so they would fit, but its not to be so the pictures are instead on my Webshots page at http://community.webshots.com/user/racingbill, so go ahead and take a look there.
Though I had gained visible size, especially in the upper body, over the last year, I was not happy that there had been overall improvement in my condition over last year. The "pieces" did not really seem to be put together in a pleasing way aesthetically. I had strong points, but also some glaring weaknesses, especially from the side views.
I took some on the comments from readers here and my own observations to a meeting with my trainer two weeks ago during my vacation in Florida. We had a long long talk and agreed on what improvements had to be made long term. We also agreed ( and it took some convincing for me to "buy in") to let her "take over" my entire training program for the next year. I have been working with her for short terms the last four years, but most of my training programs where ones I put together. I feel now that I have maxxed out on how how far I can progress based on my own knowledge and even though it appears there are going to be major changes plus some things I already see in the first program that I am already skeptical about in my own mind, I am going to let someone else take total control of the steering wheel. She says she can improve my overall package significantly by this time next year ( the pictures will tell the story, yes or no) and if it doesn't work, we agree that I can "fire" her and seek other avenues. She is a former national competitor who has demonstrated that she "knows her stuff" and has trained other people for competition with success, so I am confident that she is not blowing smoke up my ear. Diet and cardio will still be my domain until the last twelve weeks, at which point she will take control of those aspects also.
I am working on an arrangement with a local trainer for pictures and measurement, including bodyfat, to be taken periodically so my trainer can see my progress ( or lack thereof, but I hope not) and use this is setting up the next program. I hope to have this finalized in a few days.
So, what are my long term ( one year) goals? 1. Add 3-5 pounds of pure muscle overall. 2. Come in with a harder physique, eliminating in particular the softness in my lower back and oblique areas. 3. Present a better "x" frame physique, in other words, a more clearly defined look where one can see the wide upper body, slimmer waist and more visible thigh and leg sweep from a visual perspective. Right now, its a bit too "blocky" in part because I have a genetically wide waist. 4. Bring up substantially clearly defined weaknesses in the calves, rear delts, biceps and in the hamstring/quad separation. 5. Improve on leg definition, especially in quad separation.
A lotta work ahead...
I want to build more mass, but then chisel my physique, so that's why I named this Journal "Mass and Chisel".
I got my first 8 week program last week. I had alot of questions, which we've discussed and ironed out. The intent of this program is to build more mass in the back, rear delts, calves and biceps, widen the shoulders and work on those hamstring and quad separations. It is very different from what I am used to. First, I have always cycled my rep ranges and rest periods, for instance doing say 12 reps with 90 second rests for a week or two, then say 8-10 reps with longer rests and then maybe 15 the next week or two but with short rest periods, keeping the same rep range for every exercise. This program varies the rep ranges and rest periods WITHIN EACH BODYPART. For instance, the back workout consists of three exercises pyramidded down from 15 to 8 reps, one exercise of 3 sets of 10-12 reps and one exercise of 3 sets of 12-15 reps with much shorter rest periods. The intent is to work different muscle fibers while also building mass at the beginning by lifting heavy weights with low reps the last two sets. Each working set of each exercise is to go to failure. Second, there is much more volume than I am used to for bodyparts like the biceps, triceps, delts and hamstrings. I have gone from a three day weekly split to four to allow for the greater volume. The workouts are much shorter in overall time than I have done in the past, but with every set of every workout going to failure, it will probably be much more intense overall as time goes along. Frankly, I am not sure if I can work at full intensity for 8 weeks straight without burning out, but I will see..... Third, the routine has some exercises I have never done before or done very rarely because I did not feel they did anything for me physique wise.
Here is program #1 in a nutshell:
- Four weight workouts a week. Starting next week, the weekly cycle will be something like this: 1) Tuesday Chest and shoulders 2) Weds or Thurs Back and hamstrings 3) Saturday Triceps and biceps (though I am free to switch the order on occasion if I wish), then abs 4) Sunday Quads and calves. Cardio will be one morning a week, either on Monday,Tuesday or Friday. A second calf workout is also supposed to be with cardio, but I found this week that this will not work. I cannot do 35-45 minutes of cardio and a calf workout and still get to work at anywhere near the time I am supposed to be there. So I will work a second calf workout in somewhere each week, whether is be a morning or another night by itself or possibly done during workouts 2 or 3.
- Chest: Smith Incline Presses, Flat DB Bench Press, Decline Flyes, either Pec Dec or Cable Crossovers
-Shoulders: Smith Machine Military Press, single arm Lateral Raises, Wide Grip Upright Rows, Bent Laterals on an Incline Bench, Barbell Shrugs behind the back.
-Back: Wide Grip Pulldowns, T Bar Rows(wide), DB One Arm Rows, Close Grip Pulldowns, Deadlifts
-Hamstrings: Lying Leg Curls, Standing Single Leg Curls, DB Stiff Deadlifts
-Triceps: Close Grip Bench Press, DB Overhead Extension, Overhead Rope Extensions, Pushdowns(wide grip)
-Biceps: Straight Bar Curls, Standing DB Curls, Reverse Curls w/ EZ Curl Bar, Concentration Curls
-Quads: Leg Extensions, Front Squats, Hack Squats, Walking Barbell Lunges
-Calves: Seated Leg Curls, Weighted Calf Raises on Hack Squat( substitute for Donkey Calf Raises because my gyum does not have this machine), Standing Calf Raises, One burn out set for one minute of one legged calf raises on a step.
I finished the first cycle of workouts tonight. I started last Thursday and spent this week getting used to the routine, learning the new movements such as the behind the back shrugs, and getting the weights right so that I will be training close to or at failure on my working sets starting with the next cycle.
I will be working out each day Thursday through Sunday to complete the second cycle and then start the Tuesday/ Wed or Thurs./Sat/Sunday 4 day split next week. I will post my workouts in the Journal starting with Thursday.
I weighed 182 1/4 tonight pre workout. I was 183 on picture day March 26th and 180 when I got back from vacation on Monday April 11th. I am not going to be eating ungodly amounts of food for right now. I am aiming to be around my maintenance range of 3900/4000 a day, but I think I can get up to 185 in a month and then sustain that for at least the first part of the summer as I do want to look good ( not fat) for the beach season. I am going to experiment with a slightly different ratio for awhile. I have been on about a 25% protein/55% carbs and 20% fat off season ratio the last two years. I want to reduce my meal sizes a bit ( to keep that waist down), clean up my carbs a bit and reduce the proportion of carbs slightly, so I am going to shoot for a 30/50/20 split.
Well, its late, time for bed. I'll post my supplements, some of which will be changing, in my next post.
Looks good Ego! I'll certainly be following along! 
Hey! I can't what to see what happens!! I hope you like the program! Just think positive thoughts! 
I've never tried the cable overhead curls..i might have to give those a whirl! 
Another funny or odd thing...I wanted to try that last week on a weeknight, but at peak hours during the week, the balls were being hogged! 
) 3 sets of 20 reps, one set straight on, one set with toes pointed in and one set with toes pointed out.
I did add reps and weight though.
