Road to strength - Part 4: the bulk begins

It's day 2 of the bulk and even though I thought I would feel like this

I feel GREAT!  Muscles feel full but actually quite lean.  I normally find for me that when I eat more than 230g of carbs (on 250-ish atm) I just feel plumpy and crap.  A higher fat, lower carb diet normally suits me quite well, but this feels great.  It is very early days and I might not be saying this next week when I up the carbs by another 25g!

I've started a new cycle of my program and i'm happy to say that my 1rm for deadlifts has gone up by 7kg and 3kg for bench.  I'd be happy if my deadlifts go up that amount each cycle, to be honest.  It might not be a very massive amount, but it is creeping up and they are sensible and sustainable weight increases.  The bench will always been my weakest lift.  I can't get away from that!  I feel like I have technique and my training plan down and now I just need to be patient.  Really, as long as the weights are going up I can't complain.

I think i'm going to do a "top tips for deadlift" type blog post so look out for that and more meet progress updates SOON.

Road to Strength - part 3: Squat GAINS

I'm on the last week of the first cycle of my new programme and I've just tested my squat 1 rep max and GOOD LORD is it exciting.

On my old programme (my own programme based off Wendler’s 5-3-1) had me squatting once a week and even though I’ve been squatting in various forms ever since my leg break, I have never felt comfortable and have always had weak squats.

I can look at other people’s form and tell them what’s wrong with it, but I can’t look at myself in the mirror while squatting and tell myself what’s wrong…so a couple of months ago I got my fiancée to video tape my squats.  It was fucking painful.  But I found:

-          the bar path wasn’t straight up and down

-          the bar was too high on my back when I was attempting low bar squats

-          I was leaning forward

-          My upper back wasn’t tight

-          I wasn’t achieving minimum depth

It was truly awful, but at least it was a starting point to grow from.

My new programme has me squatting twice a week and that extra frequency was really what I needed to nail the movement.  Want to get better at something?  Do it more!

The strategy I took was to concentrate on one “fix” every week.  The first week I really wanted to focus on getting the bar sitting in the right position on my back.  This led nicely into my second focus of upper back tightness.  I felt these two things had a knock on effect and would improve the other faults I found. 

SPOILER ALERT

It worked.

I went from a 1 rep max of 50kg to a 1 rep max of 75kg in 5 weeks and I am so happy!  Considering my goal for the meet is 90kg I feel a lot more confident about achieving that number now!

Review: Adidas Powerlift squat shoes

I have wanted to get some shoes specifically for squatting ever since I started making squats a priority in my training, but I could never afford the pair I wanted. 

I came across these at the Adidas website on sale and went for it.

My first reaction when I un-boxed them was the shoes look fucking good.  It’s not like the other squat shoes that look like they've been dipped in a massive bucked of bright lime green paint and then been sick on.  Looking good does not positively correlate with a higher 1 rep max, but I’d prefer to not look like a complete fanny all of the time.  Maybe just some of the time.

I strapped them on and off I popped for some squatting.  I previously squatted bare foot or in chucks (no particular reason, I was wearing them for deadlifts straight after so just wore them for squats too!) so was really interested to see how the wedge heel would feel.  They felt really really good!  I normally feel like the mobility in my ankles holds my squat back but by having the little wedge in these bad boys things felt much more natural – like I wasn’t fighting my own limbs anymore. 

These shoes are also really lightweight, but feel durable (for a cheaper weightlifting shoe), and have good grip on the sole so you won’t slip about on the platform.  I estimate eventually I will want to upgrade to the Adidas Adipowers because they are the most beautiful things ever, but for now I am more than happy with these guys!

Price (£65.99) 8/10

Appearance 10/10

Durability 7/10

Performance 8/10

8/10 cat faces

Review: L-Carnitine shot from Myprotein.com

I got this for free and tried it out.

Firstly, there were mixed instructions on how to take it.  The website said use it pre-workout on an empty stomach and the bottle said "We recommend consuming 1 shot straight after workout or any other time of the day".  As it has a little beta alanine (normally found in pre-workouts) I expect they actually mean it to be consumed before workout.  If this is the case they really need to clarify this on the product and website.  Yesterday was a small workout day for me so I didn't require a pre-workout so I decided to take it post workout.

It tastes vile.  Absolutely vile.  I don't know how they got that it "comes in two delicious flavours" because I'd honestly rather drink a lemsip than drink a shot of this again.

Lastly, L-Carnitine is found naturally in the body and the likelihood of this improving training to a degree where you'd notice it is, in my opinion, unlikely.  In a study by Smith et al (2008) they found that L-Carnitine did not improve aerobic or anaerobic fitness.  Try it if you want but I doubt you'll find it a great help.  ALSO IT TASTES VILE.

Zero kitty faces/10

References

Smith, W. A., Fry, A.C., Tschume, L.C., and Bloomer, R.J. (2008) ‘Effect of Glycine Propionyl-L-Carnitine on aerobic and anaerobic exercise performance’ International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 18, pp. 19-36.

Road to strength: part 2 - Diet

I have just under 14 weeks to my first meet so I've had to start thinking seriously about diet and weight categories.

My meet is following IPF regulations so the weight classes are:
45kg
52kg
57kg
63kg
72kg
84kg
84kg+

I fit comfortably into the 84kg+ weight class and there's no way for my first meet I'm going to try to lose like 10kg.  So the plan is I'm going to go on a mini cut for two weeks to get rid of water weight, a little of the Christmas excess, to see where i'm actually at and then I'm going to lean bulk until the meet.  If I'm already comfortably in the biggest weight class, and not going to drop weight for the competition, then I'm going to fill myself with as much lean muscle as possible in the next 14 weeks.

I'll be on about 2000-2200 calories for the next two weeks and then reverse dieting until I see the scales go up.  I got some pretty good advice about reverse dieting so I know I'll be upping my carbs and fats by 10% each week until I see the scales go up.  My protein is already high so I'm leaving that alone for now.  I am very aware that I will gain some fat, but with training being so intense and me doing cardio as usual (because everyone should!), I'm estimating it won't be a lot.  I also know it's not possible to gain like 10 pounds in muscle in 14 weeks, but even a little bit more muscle will help!

There are plenty more things to plan for this competition - soon you will see me in a singlet.  HOW EXCITING.