End of Cut Phase Report

Well, I went an extra week on my cut phase because I had some Hydroxycut left. I shouldn't have bothered. This week was terrible: I binged, failed to work out regularly, and drank a lot. Sucks. Anyway, here are the measurements:

Weight: 109kg (-2)
Neck: 18 (+0.5)
Chest: 46 (+-0)
Arms: 16 (+-0)
Forearm: 13.5 (+-0)
Wrist: 8 (+-0)
Waist: 41 (+-0)
Hips: 44 (+-0)
Thighs: 27.5 (+1.0)
Calves: 16.75 (-0.75)
Bodyfat %: 18.6 (+-0)

Basically, I'm sitting at the body fat that I had a couple of weeks
ago, but with a kilo and a half less muscle. Not good. The last week was really bad.

Time to start bulking again!

Kosta's Total Body Workout for the Forty Year Old.

So, Kosta, I've decided to write this all down for you because the
napkin at the bar (and my drunk self) didn't do it justice last night.
I'm putting it in a blog so that I can embed videos without problems.
Hope you are OK with it. No one reads my shit blog, anyway.

Neither you nor I are men's mag cover model material. Both of us are
just trying to fight the aging process and look a little better while
we do it. Most of the workouts you see posted are for guys who've been
working out for some time and don't remember what it's like to start
with little muscle mass and a fair amount of fat.

I don't think three is some magic number, but it occurs twice here in
my recommendations, both at key points. We'll call them the triangles.
One could just as well be a square or pentagon, but it's not. Don't
take the numerology as more than a coincidence.

There are three parts to your plan"

1. The workouts.
   
2. Sleep, and
   
3. Nutrition.
   

3. Nutrition

__________________________________________

We'll start with nutrition. Follow a loose 40-40-20 nutrition plan.
That means that you should be eating your weight (in pounds) in grams
of protein every day. A little less one day or more another is OK, but
keep the average. You need another equal amount of carbs at specific
times during the day. They remaining calories will be about 20% of
your weight in grams of fat. Unless you eat only lean fish, this
amount of fat will probably already be in the meat you eat every day.

Get an account on http://fitday.com or http://caloriecount.com and
record what you eat for a couple of weeks. Once you get your regular
foods in the history, it doesn't take long. I was really surprised at
the carb and fat level in what I was eating last year. Once you get a
feeling for your diet, you won't need to keep records anymore.

Break your calories into six or seven meals spread throughout the day.
Try to keep the protein level fairly constant at no more than 40g per
meal (more is really just a waste). For example, if you weigh 200 lbs
(just a round number -- not a real guess), you would aim for around
25-35g of protein per meal. It could be broken down like this if you
work out in the afternoon:

• Breakfast 40g with your meal
  
• Mid-morning snack 25g shake
  
• Lunch 40g with your meal
  
• Pre/post-workout drink 50g total, split in two
  
• Dinner 40g with your meal
  
• Evening snack 25g shake
  
• Total = 205g
  

The carbs should be concentrated in the morning and right before and
after your workout. Too many carbs and your blood sugar (and insulin)
will be all over the place, causing your body to store fat. Your
pre-workout drink should have high-glycemic-index carbs and be taken
about an hour before your workout so that you have the energy to
complete your workout well. The post-workout drink should be consumed
within twenty minutes after your workout in order to minimize muscle
soreness. Try not to have any carbs at all for three hours before bed
time.

A little secret is that for almost three hours after a taxing workout,
your body won't store anything as fat. That means that the
post-workout time is your cheat time. If you have a craving for
something that you know you shouldn't eat, put it off until after the
next workout. Obviously, try NOT to cheat, but we all do, so I think
that it's best to push those moments into the time zone where they do
the least damage.

Get some supplements. Take a multi-vitamin. Take omega-3 fish oil.
Take an anti-oxidant (so you don't rust, haha). I also take liver
pills to help my amino balance. Since you are a woman, you need extra
calcium, too. ;)

Start taking creatine. I know that you said you don't like it, but it
will help you lift heavier and more intensely without a lot of muscle
soreness. It's cheap and easy to use. Mix it in your pre/post-workout
shake. Order it and the supplements from http://speedns.com

Get on TRT. I'm not kidding about this one. Increasing your
testosterone levels to the 30-year-old range will make your life so
much easier.

Finally, you need to plan. Get yourself ready for your nutrition.
Prepare your protein and supplements in advance. Know what and when
you will eat. Don't get caught without your nutrition in place, or
you. will. fail.

2. Sleep

___________________________________________

You need to sleep more than you do now. Six hours is not enough for
your body to add muscle. Try for eight. Please. Pretty please.

1. The Workout

___________________________________________

This is a total-body workout. This is extremely intense and designed
to push your body into muscle-building mode. You will be tired.
Exhausted is probably a better word. The exhaustion comes from taxing
your nervous system, not necessarily from muscle soreness, though
you'll have that, too.

This is a three-day-a-week program, but you can add in a little more
as you feel able. Put mostly cardio in on the off days.

OK, this is a column A, B, C, and D program. It concentrates on
compound activities. Isolation exercises are the kind of things that
sculpt you. Did you ever see Pumping Iron, when Arnold is talking
about sculpting his body, adding a little here and taking some off
there? That's what isolation exercises are for. Neither you nor I are
at that point yet, brother, so we won't worry about them.

First, column A, the chest:

_____________________

• Bench Press (mid-chest and tricep)
  
  You'll want to keep the bar a little higher than he does, over the nipples, but with the arms still angled slightly. People always recommend that I use a thumbless grip when I bench because it's better for your wrists. Hmmm. Opposable thumbs are good. This is why the thumbless grip is also called a "suicide grip." Don't cry when you watch these.
  
  
  Now my flabby, shitty BP.
  
  
• Inclined Press (upper chest and tricep)
  
  Now me ....
  
  
• Dips (lower chest, attachment, and tricep) [do these assisted or with
  extra weight, as necessary]
  
  If you can't do a full dip (I couldn't in December), get assistance from a machine or a partner.
  
  

Next, column B, the back:

____________________

• Wide-arm rows (upper-middle back and biceps) [Barbell rows, wide-arm
  cable pulldowns, or wide-arm machine rows are fine]
  Barbell Rows
  
  T-bar rows
  
  Machine rows
  
  
• Close-arm rows (lower-middle back and biceps) [Dumbbell rows,
  narrow-hand cable pulldowns, or close-hand machine rows are examples]
  
  With a barbell
  
  Dumbbell rows
  
  Machine rows
  
  
• Wide-hand pull-ups or lat pulldowns (Lats and biceps)
  
  

The final compound movement section is column C, the legs and lower back:

_____________________________________________________________

• Deadlifts (Quads, gluts, lower back, and some hamstring, trap, and
  forearm -- virtually everything) [standard, not Romanian]
  This guy starts with his hips higher, emphasizing the back and hamstring part of the lift. Most powerlifters use this method. I prefer to have my hips lower in order to emphasize the quadracep part of the lift, leaving hamstrings for the stiff-legged deadlifts.
  
  
• Stiff-legged deadlifts (Hamstrings, lower back, and most of the rest
  of the body, haha)
  
  I don't go down to the ground, especially on heavy weight, because I have a tendency to round my back when I go that far.
  
  
• Squats (Quads and lower back) [As we talked about, you can use a Smith
  machine and move your feet forward.
  
  Alex Poole's website has some excellent videos: http://www.weighttrainingtechnique.com
  
  I needed to go lower on my squats. There's some new evidence that going lower is actually better for your knees, breaking the common belief that going to 90 degrees is better for the knees.
  
  

These are VERY heavy lifts and need to be with proper form. Start
light to get it and build up tolerance. Keep your knees behind your
toes at all times. Try to lift with your legs, not your back (though
your back will get plenty, anyway)

Column D (or the etc. column)

_____________________________________

Some stuff didn't get a lot of work, so we need to make sure that it
doesn't languish.

• Military press (shoulders and triceps)
  
• Front, back, and top shoulder isolation exercises
  
• Calf raises
  
• Arm exercises (do you really need them?)

Take one from each column for each day, two from column D if you are
feeling perky. I follow a modified six-rep method. The heavy lifts are
all six reps. The last set should be to total failure. Arnold suggests
three reps with strict form and three more however you can get them.
Get a spotter. Without a spotter, you won't go as heavy as you need to
because you'll be afraid of the weight. On days when you just can't
afford a full workout, go a little lighter and super-set the
exercises. I can get the four exercises in 40 minutes that way, but
it's best to do them one-by-one.

Each exercise gets six sets, broken down this way: two warm-up sets, three heavy sets, and one cool-down and pump set. Stretch the body part in between each set.

• Warm: ten reps with 60/70% of the weight you will lift that day. Focus
  on form and complete the reps slowly.
  
• Heavy: six reps with 85/90/100% of your max for the day. I cheat on my
  first rep and only do half so that my muscles don't collapse. The last
  rep of the last heavy set needs to be spit-in-the-air,
  shit-on-your-seat time. You couldn't do another one if you tried. In
  fact, you're not sure if you only completed that one because of your
  spotter or not. Kills the larger slow-twitch fibers.
  
• Cool: 15-20 reps at 60%. This high-rep set uses your fast-twitch
  fibers instead of the slow twitch ones and gives you a great pump.

  You need to make one major change, and that is to do your cardio AFTER
  your workout. Get on the treadmill for 5-10 minutes before your
  workout to warm up your boy, then do a full-body stretch. Don't
  dilly-dally. Hustle on over to your workout and get started. Continue
  to stretch in between every set. Do your cardio after your workout.

This change accomplishes two things:
1) You have glycogen stores in your muscles so that you can lift
heavier for longer, and
2) You don't have glycogen stores when you do your cardio, so that
your body starts to burn fats earlier.
Right now, you've got it backwards. Your cardio isn't that effective
in burning fat and your lifting is more difficult because you lack
the energy.

Hope this all helps.

Dan

Cut Phase Progress

I couldn't handle the super-low carb diet (again) and gave up last
Thursday. I still limit my carbs to times around workouts, but at
least I'm not lethargic all the time now. Lifting on no carbs is
painfully difficult.

I'm a week and a half into the cut phase, and I'm already shedding a
lot of fat. I'm beginning to see definition in a lot of muscles that
were smooth before. Since my weight is remaining pretty much constant,
I wanted to check my progress and find out if my eyes were deceiving
me, so I taped this morning. The results are:
Area Measurement Change
Neck 17.5 0
Chest 46 -0.5
Arms 16 -0.5
Forearms 13.5 0
Wrist 8 0
Waist 41 -1
Hips 44 -2
Thighs 26.5 -0
Calves 17.5 -0
Weight 111 -1
BF% = 18.6%
I'll say it again
18.6%

The end of November put me at 33%. Now I'm at 18.6%. This is amazing.
I couldn't be happier. My short-term goal was 18%, and it looks like
I'll make that this phase.

Next bulk phase, I'll be looking to add 5 kg of lean mass while
keeping my BF% below 20%. Next cut I hope to be able to drop to 15%,
where I can stay for the rest of my life.

Entering the Cut Phase

I starting cutting two days ago, on Monday. It's a hard process. I
rarely make it all the way through, but it's not an all-or-nothing
situation, so I still make some progress.

I've been trying to follow a two month gainer cycle followed by a
month-long cut cycle. The gain cycle has generally not worked as well
as I wanted, and I lost fat during that period. Optimally, I should
gain a very little fat and a lot of muscle. The fact that I'm losing
fat means that I'm not eating enough and therefore not gaining all the
muscle that I could be. The cut cycle should keep most of my muscle
and lose a lot of fat. I rarely complete it, though, because I'm not
good at diets -- That's the main reason I lift in the first place. I
don't want to diet, so I increase muscle mass and my metabolism
instead.

Anyway, This time I'm going on an Atkins-style super low carb diet for
four weeks. No bacon or anything, just eggs and meat and lots of
greens. The first couple of days have been torture. My sugar has been
so low that I'm a walking zombie. I tried this diet a couple of times
before, but never made it past three days. I think I've finally turned
the corner, though. Today I feel significantly better than yesterday.
My bike ride to work wasn't torture. I don't feel like I'm going to
pass out at the keyboard. I hope that I can make this cut phase work
successfully this time.

On the Juice

Well, I'm not exactly on steroids: I'm on TRT. Testosterone
Replacement Therapy is a doctor-prescribed treatment for older guys
like me who have naturally reduced testosterone levels. Symptoms of
low testosterone include weight gain on the abdomen, irritability,
restlessness, difficulty sleeping, reduced energy, and lowered sex
drive. TRT alleviates all these problems, turning you into a virtual
thirty year old.

I'm happy about going on it because I was given Andriol Testocaps
before and they worked wonders. The testosterone was bound to cod
liver oil so that it made its way through the liver, normally a
problem with oral TRT. I lost a lot of weight and felt great while I
was on it. The last two months have been difficult as I have returned
to my normal, sloth-like self.

In addition to the other benefits, this time I don't have to take
nasty pills twice a day. A doctor's visit every three weeks for an
injection is all that it takes.

On "the juice" and happy about it.

E-mail test

Test test

Back Workout

Yesterday my workout buddy wasn't feeling well, so just came to give me support. I tried to make the workout as fast as possible. A couple of months ago, I was doing 2-3 hour workouts, but I'm off vacation now, so I don't have that kind of time or energy. I've been averaging and hour to and hour and a half. I want to slowly transition myself to a more FIT (Fast and Intense Training) style until my next long vacation, so I took the opportunity to do that yesterday.
Instead of doing my normal workout of one exercise at a time with a minute or so rest between sets, I did supersets, resting only as much as I needed to to recover. six sets each of chin-ups, barbell rows, and lat pull-downs followed by four sets of shrugs and six sets of curls. I finished in about forty-five minutes and my back is toast today.
For my cut phase on Monday, I've decided to give my joints a little rest and do high reps for the next four weeks. I'll try six sets of 15-20 reps each at about 70% of my normal six-rep workout weight.