uKazushi's training log.

[uKazushi]

Starting training more seriously. Been an on-off casual lifter for a while. Not that I wasn't into it, I was unmotivated by a lack of results. Caused by a lack of understanding of basic training principles.

My sport is Brazillian Jiu Jitsu. Unlike a lot of people who've take it up because it's the new thing. And all seem to tire of it in three months. I've have been going at it for a while.

I'm big. Just over 6'3" tall. But very, very poor maximum strenght. Of course a lot of people see my size as a huge advantage. And it is against a 70kg weakling. But I think my lack of strenght, combined with my size, works a little bit against me. Taking away the essential mobility.

To cut a short story shorter. Everyone always tells me I'm good. And I can hang with the most experienced people in training when it's relaxed and more technical. I've entered a few things, had mixed results. I'd like to have a very competitive year next year. And I think strenght training is going to help me have one. It's not the whole solution, but it's part of it.

Anyone is welcome to comment. I definitally consider my self a student at the gym. It's only been in the last six months that I have stopped doing silly, time wasting, counter productive things. Please don't post comments about Jiu Jitsu here. Unless they're to do with conditioning for Jiu Jitsu.

As far as the actual program. I looked at what I was lacking. Like most "athletes" (not that I really consider my self one. haha.) I suffer from a weak posterior chain. My program is an adaptation of the WS4SB III template.

[federaldb59]

was wondering what happened. good start

[uKazushi]

.........

Hi, Sorry didn't post my message right the first time.

[uKazushi]

To catch up on the week just been. Just got back from a holliday. Going to the gym was murder.

Arrived home at 2am after a five hour flight, four hour wait before my transfer flight, followed by a 4 hour flight.

Upper RE
Bench ~ 132lb x 20, 18, 15.
Lat Pulldown ~ 140lb x 10, 160lb x 8, 160lb x 8 with imperfect technique last rep.
Facepull ~ 80lb x 8, 8, 8.
Mil Press ~ 40lb dumbbell's x 12, 12, 12
BB Shrugs ~ 220lb x 10, 8

Didn't do
- Two more sets of shrugs
- Elbow Flexor

...accepted tired failure, grabbed my stuff, started leaving. Walked past the electronic scales. Was like, oh I wonder what my holliday has done to me. Jumped on. 242lb! I was like "holy****!". I was a 202lb rake before I went on holliday for 2 months!

[uKazushi]

Lower ME

Free squats ~ bar x 15, 132lb x 8, 176lb x 8, 198lb x 5, 209lb x 5, 220 x 5, 242lb x 1.

The last one wasn't an ME lift. I was aiming for five. Just didn't really feel I could get there.

Bulg split squats ~ 50lb dumbells x 6, 40lb x 8.

Legs were shaking to much to stand, wanted third set. Took a 10 minute sit down.

Bulg deadlift ~ 242lb x 8, 176lb x 8.

Grip was a big issue. Weak hamstrings! Obviously this is why I need to train. Again left gym feeling defeated. However I guess that's how you feel when you're inactive for almost two months.

[uKazushi]

The last of my historical workouts since arriving home last week.

Upper ME

ME bench ~ 132lb x 8, 154lb x 8, 176lb x 5, 187lb x 5, 198lb x 5, 209lb, x 3.

Like usual, wanted the last set, but only made three.

DB Bench ~ 60lb dumbell x 8, 50lb x 15.

Bad call on the 60. Will start on 50 next time.

Rowed using lat machine bar ~ 120 x 15, 140 x 15, 160 x 9.

Tri pull down ~ This machine was expressed in kilograms. Forget numbers. Last set was 15 reps of 74kgs. Which seemed a bit high...

Felt alright after this workout.

[uKazushi]

Had BJJ for an hour and a half. Sparring killed me. Didn't go to the gym that night. Obviously max strenght isn't the whole quality I'm lacking right now. Will incorporate some DB swings into workout.

[uKazushi]

This brings me to today! Wanted to go and do a chin-up and grip centric workout. However whole body is aching. I think I'm better off having another day off.

Bought a tub of protein powder, and some dextrose. Also a multi.

Cleaned up my diet a lot over the last few days. Five egg whites, one whole egg, tomato, red onion, and red pepper breakfast. Apples, oranges, almonds and protein shakes for snacks. Chicken and pita bread for lunch. A little cheese and crackers, probably to much, I guess any is too much. And chicken, pita, and vegetables for dinner.

[uKazushi]

Spent almost a five or six straight days with my girlfriend. Dosn't help. Wasn't in my town, so I only made it to the gym once so far for Upper RE. Made four BJJ classes at three different clubs though.

On the upside I did a few hours of "farm" work one day. Really did the back, legs and grip.

Upper RE
Bench bar x 50 explosively warm up, 132lb x 15, x 15, x 15, x 15.

Rather than going for actual reps I just tried to keep it moving explosively the whole time. I though: maybe this is the best of both worlds, explosive moment, on a low enough weight that you can keep it going for a lot of repititions.

Lateral pulldown, weight machine at girlfriends gym actually had no markings. Was old. Did four sets.

Military press, dumbells were in kilograms. 20kg's x 8, for three sets. Felt really hard. Might have actually missed the last rep.

Facepull, thirty kilo's plus known bar weight. 10 x 3.

And that was the end of the workout because we had to go and get something from the supermarket for girlfriends mother. Missed...

Elbow flexor / DB shug superset
Abdominals
Grip

--------------
Found out I don't really like super setting medial delt and lat work.


Did a bit of research into the bench technique. Found out I was bringing the bar right over my face, making it a more shoulder than tricep movement. Fixed that. Felt a lot better. I think I will see a lot more gains benching this way as well, due to prior shoulder injuries.

I'm going to adopt some immediate goals in kilograms

- 140 bench x 5
- 180 squat x 5
- Row entire weight machine

Am thinking of adding some GPP type stuff. Equipment access is a problem. DB swings seem like an option. Along with filling a tire with concrete and towing it around =).

Will start running and skipping, no need to record that

[uKazushi]

Just got back from a short holliday.

Hotel Workout A

Worked out in the Hotel's "gym". It was like a chest press machine that went up to 220lb. In the morning I set the press machines height to it's lowest setting. Stood over the bench, facing away from the machine, and did dead lifts. Ten sets of ten. Then ten sets of ten bulgarian split squats each leg without any weight. Then faced the machine and used the little bit on the end for single leg hamstring curls for three sets of fifteen.

A deadlift, a unilateral squat, and a hamstring workout. Not bad to get out of a chest press machine!

Hotel Workout B

This time used the chest press properly. Again ten sets, was pretty much going for one rep max's once it got over 190lb. Put feet up on bench and did some push ups, similiar motion to incline bench for a few sets.Stood over the bench, same as when dead lifting, and did ten sets of ten shrugs.

[uKazushi]

My hotel gym workouts didn't really stress me so I went to the gym.

Lower ME

Squat
Worked up to 242lb for four reps. Was going for five. But shorts split on forth. Wasn't quite getting it to parallel either and I figured it was the shorts that were restricting me.

Bulgarian Split Squat
20 x BW, 10 X 30lb dumbells, 10 x 40lb dumbells

Bulgarian dead lift
132lb x 25, 176lb x 15.

...Quickly left as was running late for dinner out.

-------------------------------------

Thought I'd add in dumbell swings. But then I reconsidered and will use a once a week barbell complex. I figure the pro's are that I can add in a bunch of posterior chain movements that I can't fit in otherwise and hit it in virtually everyway. Even if only lightly.

Am thinking of something like 88lb barbell for twenty reps of five movements. Like deadlift, half hang clean, push press, good morning, and squat.

Never done it before so I'll have to experiment with how taxing it is.

[uKazushi]

Chin ups

I did seven sets of three chin ups in my garage. My goal was ten sets.

Chin ups have always been a weakness of mine. And although I am already have quite a full workload of lifts I want to incorporate them twice a week. So I came up with doing sets of three reps and taking two-to-three minute breaks. And just going until I found the third one too hard, but not really "to failure" then stopping. I've come to this because I suck at chin-ups. And although I can do seven or eight, it really kills my next set. So I never really get enough reps in. Usually only around fifteen. So today I got twenty one, and next time hopefully thirty plus. After this for a few weeks I'll add a second upper ME day using weighted chin-ups as the lift. I have allowed for this by stripping a few exercises on other days.

Musing

Since reading about powerlifting (95% defranco's website, 5% westside website) I have come to the conclusion that an ME or DE day should be three-to-four lifts. And a repetition type day should be limited to six-to-eight, and utilize supersets where possible to get the workout time down. So I will be structuring my according to that from now on.

Running

I am going to start running in the mornings tomorrow. This is because I would like to change weight catagories in the two months. And would like to increase fitness for grappling.

Weight loss

I need to lose about 9.3% of my body weight. And I wouldn't even consider cutting weight like wrestlers. Lol, you guys are way too hardcore for me. I don't know if I could go to sleep the night before dehydrated.

The routine

Basically I'm going to dynamically warm up for two-to-three minutes. Jog down to the local park which should take about ten-to-fifteen minutes, at which there is a nice up hill track which is about twenty meters long. At the bottom I'm going to sprint to the top. Perform ten squats at the top, and walk back down. Performed for X number of times depending on fitness.

Then I am going to do about fifteen minutes of drills I have gotten off the internet for wrestling. Such as wide outs into sprawls then circling out. Practice singles, and some doubles as this is my first no-gi competition. And some specific BJJ movements for hip mobility as well.

[uKazushi]

ME Upper

Bench

bar x 25, 60kg x 8, 80kg x 8, 85kg x 5, 87.5 x 4, 87.5 x 3, 87.5 x 4.5 (failed last rep)

Moved the hands in a little closer than usual after reading about how benching translates to sports. Felt quite a bit harder.

DB Bench

45lb x 20, 45lb x 19

Seated row

120lb x 15, 140lb x 10, 130lb x 13, 130lb x 8

Didn't go well today. No idea why.

Tricep pulldown

44kg x 20, 50kg x 20, 56kg x 20, 62kg x 18

Decline sit-ups

BW x 20, BW x 12

Don't feel stressed at all from this workout. Maybe this is bad.

Will try to run tonight! Slept in a tad.

[uKazushi]

Oppsy. Suppost to go running but then I drunk some alchole, and made a date to go to the movies.

[uKazushi]

Random semi-drunk decision: Will do power cleans instead of jumping. No reason other than it's fun to have a mini-sport within the workout. Something to get excited about. And jumping just dosn't get me as excited. And I don't think it will be too taxing on my body. As taxing as say a DE squat as my technique won't be good enough to get a high enough weight to do that.

[uKazushi]

Finally went RUNNING!

30 minute run, stretched out hip flexor, then three hill sprints of about 50 meters up a niiicce hill.

Am quite happy with my self right now.

Lower DE this afternoon.

After DE would like to work solo on some no-gi movements. Add some more weapons. Not sure if these names are correct but I am going to solo drill some singles, doubles, sprawling against single & double, sit-outs, anything else I can youtube. My current club is all about the "leave the gi on until the week before mentality". I don't agree =P you've GOT to know the relevant techniques. How can I seoi nagi someone without a gi.

[uKazushi]

Obviously got a bit to over ambitious / optimistic about my fitness level. Lower DE was rubbish.

Lower DE

Power clean (learning)
Bar x 10
50kg x 3
60kg x 3
70kg x 1, x1, x1, x1, x1

I guess for me seventy was the right weight to learn on. At sixty everything felt so easy. I was able to get the elbows sticking out, catch it on the front of my shoulders. Land with good posture. As soon as I put seventy on it was landing on my wrists, elbows down, bad posture (was landing "up-right" rather than semi-front squat).

Felt drained. Am sure it was from the running in the morning rather than the power cleans. Also had been on a just under two hour walk to get the news paper, in the heat of the day, maybe that had an impact.

Bulgarian split squat
BW x 25 each leg
BW x 25 each leg

Good mornings
Since it was a bad workout anyway I decided to practice some good mornings with a light weight as I want to use this as a ME lift when I start rotating.

bar x 10
40kg x 10

Ham-glut extension
Was curious how much of your ham this actually used. As my hamstrings are still stuffed from my bulg dead. I did 9 at BW. Guess it uses a lot of ham since I am usually 10+ with a 50lb plate.

Roman chair
BW x 10

Felt like so stuff so went and sat in car for a bit. Then drove home.

Definitally did not do any drills last night. However had 1.5 hours of BJJ today. The big guy in class didn't feel anywhere near as heavy as he did first class back when I could barely breath. Fitness must have improved a lot since then.

Got to get my hill sprints up to ten reps. Then get a weighted vest.

[uKazushi]

Upper RE

Bench was been hogged by people one-rep maxing 120kg's. For like 45 minutes so used DB instead.

BD Bench
25lb dumbells x 50
50lb dumbells x 15
50lb dumbells x 15
50lb dumbells x 15

Lateral Pulldown
44kgs x 20
50kgs x 20
50kgs x 20

Facepull
50lb bar x 20
50lb bar x 15
50lb bar x 15

Med delt & trap SS
15lb dumbells raises x 20
60lb dumbells shrugs x 20
15lb dumbells raises x 20
60lb dumbells shrugs x 20
15lb dumbells raises x 20
60lb dumbells shrugs x 20

Zottoman Curls
20lb dumbells x 15
20lb dumbells x 15
20lb dumbells x 15

Skipped abdominals as was straight to BJJ where abs get around 200 reps for warmup

-----------------------------------

Was so wasted before the gym. Spent the whole day in the sun, on the beach. Must have been so depleted, and dehydrated. Felt really bad at the gym, and at BJJ.

[uKazushi]

Lower ME

Squat
Bar warm up x 15
60kg x 8
80kg x 5
100kg x 5
110kg x 5
115kg x 3, stopped realised I felt fine, x2, finished.

Maybe could have gone 120kgs. But am doing ME upper tomorrow. And no rush. Definitally wouldn't have hit parallel if I had gone for 120.

Bulg split squat
BW x 15 each leg
40lb dumbells x 8 each leg
40lb dumbells x 8 each leg

Bulg Deadlift
60kg x 15
80kg x 10
80kg x 10

Will go 100 next time.

Barbell holds
100kg x failure
120kgs x failure
120kgs x failure
120kgs x failure
120kgs x failure

Noticed I have a very weak grip on my left hand. Obviously the BB holds will help. Seems silly I never trained BB holds before since gripping the bar was the #1 inhibitor to my deadlifts in the past.

Overall happy with training. Didn't go too hard but was good.

Tomorrow ME upper in the AM. Run and hill sprints in the PM. Then going CAMPING! with the girlfriend =).

[uKazushi]

Oh yeah and I think I am going to just use vertical and box jumps for DE. I haven't done jumping training since I did judo with stick legs. Back then it felt pointless. Now my legs have a little more muscle it really feels like I am exploding.

[uKazushi]

Quick Upper ME in the morning before I dropped the car off at the garage. Only had a protein shake before hand. And only had fourty minutes to do it.

Bench Press
Bar x 50 warm-up
60kg x 8
70kg x 5
80kg x 5
85kg x 5

Supplementary Dumbell Press
45lb Dumbells x 20
45lb Dumbells x 20

Horizontal Row
120lb x 15
120lb x 12
120lb x 12
120lb x 11

Dumbell Row
Skipped. Only had a few minutes left.

Tricep Push-down
50kg x 20
50kg x 20
50kg x 20

[uKazushi]

Shoulder took a hit in Judo training. Not fun reminded me of not sleeping for like four months last time I had a major injury. Am considering tappering off BJJ and moving into weight lifting more as am loving time spent in gym so far. And keen to make some squat and bench gains.

[uKazushi]

Cars in shop no workout tonight..

[uKazushi]

Grrrr... they ordered the wrong parts for the car. Still in the shop tonight.

Did some chin-ups, might do some push-ups, squats, lunges and abs later.

[uKazushi]

Giving some serious thought to changing up what I am doing in the Gym and switching to a power lifting (PL) type workout. Wouldn't go entirely PL as I really value being athletic but am pretty sure this will be my last month of sports for a while. So I think I can up the intensity in the gym a lot more.

Just read the latest Ask Joe at defrancotraining.com about suppliments and am currently using only a whey protein isolate. I'm going to take his advice and go and drop some cash down for a meal replacement shake, greens, and fish oil.

I know this is bad but I was watching Troy (the movie with Brad Pitt) and was like "damn those are some mean abs. I might start cutting. Not really sure how to do this properly last time I cleaned up my diet I ended up a 90kg twig and that was with three shakes a day, and four big meals each one about 250 grams of sweat potato, 250 grams of ground beef or chicken breast, and about three cups of vegetables. I was squatting ATG three times a week as I was doing 5x5 stronglifts (which I now think is a very bad program, and wouldn't recommend to anyone).

So on the one hand I've had that experience where I ate a lot, and it was a very clean diet. Virtually no exceptions and weight (not just fat, muscle as well) just seemed to fall off. Dropped from a healthy 105kgs (I'm a solid 6'3") to 90kg's. I personally think I looked like #$%& at 90kgs. I was actually intending to add a lot of muscle as well... so not really sure what happened.

Other experience was earlier when University got out, combined with girl issues, and the fridge in the flat broke down so I couldn't store food. I started eating about twice a day, often at drive-thru's like McDonnalds to avoid my ex-girlfriend (as we lived together). It was pretty stupid, I stopped working out for about three months. Was at about 111kgs, looked like #$%@.

Another one just recently when I got back from Australia on holliday. Had an awesome time. My family over there treated me really well, too well infact. I was basically eating out with a different group of relations every night, drinking about two beers at lunch, and three to four at night. Got to say though the Greek and Italian food in Australia is amazing. Again blew up in weight. When I weighted my self on the gym scales after arriving home I was 242lb.

So in terms of "the right diet for me" I'm not sure because I don't want to go through the trouble, and expense, of a really clean "eat big" diet just to shrink in size. But I definitally don't want to eat a filthy diet, blow up, while feeling like ****.

I am wondering though if last time I ate a lot if I did was get a lot of 'food' but not a lot of calories.

Also when I hit a 140kg or 3 45lb plates each side of the barbell squat, and a 100kg bench (both for five reps). I am going to reward myself by making some 45lb chains to attach to the barbell. I'm going to try and make them with inter-changeable lenght chains. So I can use them for squatting and benching.

I guess this is how you fill up your time when you can't go to the gym.

[uKazushi]

I am thinking about a five or six day workout plan. This is more because I love going to the gym than because I think this is the best method. I will be sticking with Defranco’s type template. With some of my own modifications and am going to add in RE or light squats. Then converting that to a DE squatting day when I get a much bigger ME five rep max.

I want to use RE lower body for about two months. I would use DE but I wonder is that actually appropriate for a five rep max rather than a one rep max? And if so how does it work?

So I am thinking about…

Maximum Effort (ME) Upper Bench
- Flat bench press. Work up to a five rep max. Try to get a least five sets total in working up to the ME set.
- Flat dumbbell bench press. Two sets of seventeen to twenty reps.
- Seated row. Five sets of ten to fifteen reps.
- Single dumbbell row. Two sets of twenty plus.
- Triceps pushdowns.
- Weighted abs.

Repetition Effort (RE) Lower
- Squats for reps. using the same weight lifting to about three reps of failure. Choosing a weight that will allow around fifteen reps repeating for three sets *superset* with vertical jumps off from parallel for three reps between sets.
- Bulgarian Split Squats. Going for near, but not quite, maximum repetitions using only body weight.
- Good mornings. Picking a weight which is appropriate for three sets of fifteen repetitions
- Heavy bar hold until failure however many times to get about five minutes holding total.

RE Upper
- Repetition flat bench press. Three sets to failure of 70kg’s.
- Lat pull down using a higher weight working for five sets at a higher weight, lower repetition.
- Face pull
- Dumbbell shrug and raise superset.
- Elbow Flex
- Leg lift, roman chair, reverse sit-up type abs for reps

ME Lower
- Work up to a max effort squat (rotate squat, box squat, front squat, deadlift)
- One set warm up body weight. Two sets of weighted bulg split squats
- Stiff leg deads
- Heavy barbell hold for five minutes total

Near ME Upper Chins
- Chin-ups. Initially I am going to work up to fifty reps. However many sets it takes me. In the (hopefully near) future I am going to switch to working up to a near max (as this isn’t my ‘real’ ME day) set of five by adding weight. When that happens I’ll just aim to get my five sets of five in, but with progressive weight added.
- Lat pull down. Using the 44kg setting going for full on max reps.
- Light dumbbell shoulder press for fifteen to twenty reps
- Heavy hammer curls for eight to twelve reps
- dumbbell side bends for twenty plus reps

General Physical Preparedness (GPP)
- While I’d rather do other things, which I think would be more beneficial, I will probably just do hill sprints. Once I feel comfortable with ten sets. I’ll buy a weighted vest.
- I will follow this with a large hip mobility and stretching routine.

I think my upper lifts should start kicking ass when my chins get up. They suck so much it has to correct some kind of imbalance by improving them.

[uKazushi]

So for self summary...

buy: Meal replacement shake, greens, fish oil.

start: RE lower tomorrow night (fingers crossed will have car, please, oh god please.)

...and find some other hobbies, something i can do when i don't have a car for example.

[uKazushi]

And start researching chains!!

Edit: how to make, not how to use. Well... how to use as well.

Second edit: and how to make a two inch sub-parallel box to squat off. Which is easily portable. And two one inch pads to adjust it from a two inch below, a one inch below, and a parallel box.

Third edit: However I may only have these when I squat 3 plates each side, and bench two, for five reps.

[uKazushi]

RE Lower

Squats
Bar x 10 warm - up
132lb x 15
132lb x 15
132lb x 15

Felt quite tiring. Was a late night workout. Would usually be sleeping right now.

Bulg Split Squat
BW x 25 each leg
BW x 25 each leg

Quads were burning by now. Actually not sure why I've done this volume before I am sure.

Good morning
Warmed up doing ten ham-glute raises. As rack was taken.
40kgs x 10
40kgs x 10

Felt really tight in the hamstrings. Like I couldn't keep good form. So I stretched out between the two sets but I didn't feel any better so I kept it super light.

Barbell holds (holding palms in, on the non-grippy part of the bar
100kg's - counted until 78.
120kg's - counted until 28
120kg's - counted until 36
120kg's - counted until 21

Grip is weak. Am definitally training grip after every lower and abs after every upper.

[uKazushi]

ME Upper

Flat Barbell Bench Press
Bar x 50 warm up
60kg x 8
70kg x 5
75kg x 5
80kg x 5
85kg x 5
90kg x 3
90kg x 1

Barbell Press
Bar x 10
Bar x 10
30kg x 5
40kg x 5
50kg x 3

Supplementary
50lb dumbells x 15
50lb dumbells x 15

Seated Row
120lb x 15
130lb x 8
140lb x 8
140lb x 8
140lb x 8

Single dumbell row
50lb x 15 each side
50lb x 15 each side

Tricep pulldowns
50kgs x 15
50kgs x 15
50kgs x 15

Roman Chair
BW x 10 Straight leg
BW x 10 Straight leg


I must have been doing bench with better technique today. I put a lot of focus on making it go straight up rather than letting the elbows come out, and the bar come over the shoulders. I think a achieved this b/c triceps didn't want to do pulldowns. They were already sore.

I think I got a bit more volume today.