Joel's Training Journal

[Joel H]

Ok here we go again. I'm starting a new journal, but leaving the name generic, simply because I don't know what training method I'm going to be using in the future. I've used the musclenow system with some pretty good success, but I'm bored with the workouts and ready to try some new stuff. I've been following Spytech's journal all year, and his SHSHT program looks really promising, so I'll be starting this journal using his methods and the musclenow diet pretty much, as it has worked well for me in the past.

[/b]Goals:[b] My goals are to get 18" arms and a 33" stomach.

Stats:
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 212
Arm: 16 7/8"
Chest: 47 3/8"
Thigh: 27 1/4"
Stomach: 37"
Calf: 16"
Forearm:13 3/4"

Here are my pics as of Dec 02:

[spytech]

right on, good luck J.

[Little 1]

Great goal!

Good luck Joel!

[Joel H]

Chest/Shoulders/Triceps
2-4 sets per exercise, 3-6 rep range, failure once per set. Note I only write down the first set, the rest went down from there.
Incline Smith: 215 x 3 (4 sets)
Decline Smith: 205 x 5 (4 sets)
Military Press: 175 x 4 (2 sets)
DB Press: 50 x 6 (2 sets)
Side Laterals: 25 x 4 (2 sets)
Rear Laterals: 125 x 5 (2 sets)
Overhead Tricep hammer grip machine: 160 x 3 (2 sets)
V bar Tricep Pressdowns: 180 x 5 (3 sets)
Rev grip CG bench press: 155 x 6 (2 sets)

Comments: Workout was a breeze compared to what I was doing, mostly because you can rest as long as you want, 2 minutes was plenty and I rarely lowered the weight on subsequent sets. I was doing 60 seconds rest last week and a lot more chest work, and training the whole body in two sessions, so this is a huge load reduction for me. I'm looking forward to next week. The workout took some time, but mostly because all the rest. I liked how there are a lot of exercises versus doing a million sets on less exercises like with musclenow, you don't get so bored. Overall it was decent. I got PR's only because I'd never done a lot of those exercises in years. Anyhow, it'a all good. I love the variety of new exercises and not doing tons of work on one exercise, that seems to make the amount of volume easier to do mentally. Nothing worse than doing 5 sets or more with one exercise.

[Joel H]

Ah I'm feeling a bit of fatigue now, although the workout seemed easy due to long rest periods, I can feel a bit tapped out now. Fatigue in the gym and out of the gym are two different things. This is good, I felt a bit worried at first that it might be too easy for me. I can always add extra volume too though, but I'll finish this first load and overload cycle and see how next week goes first. All good stuff though. I'm already looking forward to tomorrow, got to love being motivated!

[Joel H]

Well I woke up in the middle of the night and was starving! Despite eating way more food than normal, and my bed time meal was a huge plate of egg whites w/cheese and hash browns all mixed together and 2 cups of milk. I should not have been hungry at all, so maybe this heavier than normal relatively high volume work is doing some good stuff. I had to slam a protein shake in the middle of the night.

On another note, I woke up yesterday with a very sore tail bone for some reason. By workout time I barely noticed it though, and then last night it returned with a vengeance. Cost me some quality sleep, which I can't afford to lose really, as I want to make the most of my training right now.

The increase of food has me looking a little fuller everywhere, unfortunately the stomach looks a lot fuller too though, but I suppose that is just part bloat and part fat gained from increase in cals. Hopefully SHSHT works well for me. Feeling pretty good about training later.

[Joel H]

Well yesterday my tailbone never did start feeling better like it did on Monday, and I had to help someone move a bunch of crap. On the upside, I bought a new sealy boxsprings and mattress and it rocks. Hopefully it will help my back and neck which are always hurting. Coincidentally my upper back and neck are feeling better than they have in years, now if this stinking tailbone heals up I'll be back in business. I'm going to go do back today, but I'll skip deads until this tailbone heals.

[spytech]

I can feel a bit tapped out now. Fatigue in the gym and out of the gym are two different things.

Wait until you do an overload workout, you'll want to do nothing but sleep afterwards.

my bed time meal was a huge plate of egg whites w/cheese and hash browns all mixed together and 2 cups of milk.

For your sake I hope those were carb free hashbrowns, and cups of no-carb milk. Hope you don't plan on doing that often Even if you are bulking, carbs before bed should be avoided.

[Joel H]

Nope carb laden Your probably right and I tend to agree that bed time meals should be pretty much carb free. The musclenow diet has some carbs at bed time, but reduced. He claims the big no-no is fat and carbs together, and that the body needs some energy while sleeping so that your bed time protein can go towards repair. Since I'm basically under your control now spy, I'll do my best to do what you say, as I know diet is a big part of any successful program. I guess I'll stop eating carbs before bed then.

Back/Biceps
CG Pulldowns: 175 x 4
DB Rows: 80 x 6
Weighted Chins: 0 x 6
EZ curls: 100 x 2
DB Hammers: 35 x 3
Cable Curls: 110 x 5
Dumbbell walk: 10-30-10.

Comments: Today's workout wasn't the full deal, putting any real amount of weight on my feet hurts my tailbone injury, so I had to skip deads and shrugs and just do DB rows instead of BB rows. I was walking around like an old man, pretty stiff, but I managed to be a trooper and lift SOME weights, but really bummed out I couldn't do shrugs or deads. Unless tomorrow is way better, I don't know how much of a leg workout I can do, but I migth go and just do very high reps. It defeats the purpose, but it's better than doing nothing and getting DOMS when I can actually train them hard and heavy. I almost had 3 reps on EZ curls and I could have cheated to get it had my tailbone been better, but oh well. I'll get 3 next workout I think. Dumbbell walks are new to me, it's a vince Goronda method where you start with each exercise and go to about failure and then grab the next dumbbells and go again, in 5 pound increments. It was awesome, felt like a super pyramid combined with drops or something.

[waitlifter82]

For your sake I hope those were carb free hashbrowns, and cups of no-carb milk. Hope you don't plan on doing that often Even if you are bulking, carbs before bed should be avoided.

Carb free hashbrowns oh, you weren't serious

This should be elaborated more on. I hear you become less insulin sensative as the day progresses (see link). But if you workout at night (or late evening), you shouldn't restrict the carbs, IMO. And the calories in-calories out is still the major factor that you should first focus on.

I think this is what we are talking about:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...322&query_hl=6

[spytech]

Carb free hashbrowns oh, you weren't serious

This should be elaborated more on. I hear you become less insulin sensative as the day progresses (see link). But if you workout at night (or late evening), you shouldn't restrict the carbs, IMO. And the calories in-calories out is still the major factor that you should first focus on.

I think this is what we are talking about:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...322&query_hl=6

Yeah, I agree. If you workout before bed then yeah, you need the carbs - but I don't think this is Joel's situation.

I was joking about the carb free hashbrowns, pretty sure those don't exist (and if they did...yuck.)

[Joel H]

I think from a health standpoint most carb free or fat free foods that normally have fat might not be the healthiest things to eat.

Damn my tailbone hurts. Can hardly walk, yet I go to the gym and train that's a bodybuilder for you. "Oh my legs got cut off, but I can still do bench today", lol. "Least I won't have to squat anymore",

I just hope my ass feels better by tomorrow, I hate missing workouts. If it hurts I might just go do chest/tris/shoulders again, that would be the normal MN rotation again by now anyhow. Be better than taking an off day cause my tailbone hurts so bad. The crazy thing is I don't know what I did to it. I fell asleep on the couch, that is all I can remember doing that is out of the norm for the day before the injury showed up.

[young_squatter]

I think from a health standpoint most carb free or fat free foods that normally have fat might not be the healthiest things to eat.

Damn my tailbone hurts. Can hardly walk, yet I go to the gym and train that's a bodybuilder for you. "Oh my legs got cut off, but I can still do bench today", lol. "Least I won't have to squat anymore",

I just hope my ass feels better by tomorrow, I hate missing workouts. If it hurts I might just go do chest/tris/shoulders again, that would be the normal MN rotation again by now anyhow. Be better than taking an off day cause my tailbone hurts so bad. The crazy thing is I don't know what I did to it. I fell asleep on the couch, that is all I can remember doing that is out of the norm for the day before the injury showed up.

Hey man sucks that your injured.
But on this routine I dont think it would be to smart to do chest/tris/shoulders again, if you cant work legs, then just take the day off.
I know you love high volume, but dont go to crazy.

Hope you feel better so you are able to give this program a 100% go, if you do this program correctly you will be more then satisfied with your results.

Good luck.

[sword chucks]

nice workouts, good mass

[Joel H]

Thanks guys. I've trained my entire body twice a week before, so training it twice every 8 days will be fine. Had I not missed a workout, I'd be due to train chest by now anyway, and since I trained it Monday it I'm good to go if I decide to train it tomorrow, but hopefully I can do legs tomorrow. Unless I'm screwed up and we're only supposed to go MTHF... I'll have to check it out. MOst likely I'll do very light leg work depending on how my tailbone feels.

[Joel H]

Well last night the GF made me take a long hot bath then she gave me a tailbone massage, and I got a good nights sleep, and the tailbone feels about 90% better now, hardly any pain now. I've had some in the past, that seems how they work, they hurt horrible and heal pretty fast. Should be able to train legs later, I'm just not sure if I'll be able to go super heavy yet or not.

[spytechs_wife]

Well last night the GF made me take a long hot bath then she gave me a tailbone massage, and I got a good nights sleep, and the tailbone feels about 90% better now, hardly any pain now. I've had some in the past, that seems how they work, they hurt horrible and heal pretty fast. Should be able to train legs later, I'm just not sure if I'll be able to go super heavy yet or not.

glad to hear you are feeling better joel! take it easy and don't jump into anything crazy right away

clare

[Joel H]

Thanks C. I'll do plenty of warm ups to guage how heavy to go today.

[Joel H]

Hey Spy, at what point can we adjust the volume? Personally I think I could use a tad more volume than what your program has. Deload is fine, but after doing a couple of the workouts my instincts say to do one more set per exercise on the baseline and load weeks so far. I'll give it some more thought before I change anything and run through the load, overload, and deload weeks stock as written, but I'm thinking for the next time around to just add one more set or exercise here and there, especially on chest, I really miss DB flyes. I'm pretty sure you said a person can adjust the volume. I'm not going to just yet or anything as I just got started and want your advice too, but this is a lot less volume than I was doing.

[spytech]

Hey Spy, at what point can we adjust the volume? Personally I think I could use a tad more volume than what your program has. Deload is fine, but after doing a couple of the workouts my instincts say to do one more set per exercise on the baseline and load weeks so far. I'll give it some more thought before I change anything and run through the load, overload, and deload weeks stock as written, but I'm thinking for the next time around to just add one more set or exercise here and there, especially on chest, I really miss DB flyes. I'm pretty sure you said a person can adjust the volume. I'm not going to just yet or anything as I just got started and want your advice too, but this is a lot less volume than I was doing.

Joel-

The baseline and load week volume is low for a reason. The whole point of phase 1 is to overtrain your body - which first involves strategic deconditioning by doing lower volume for 3 weeks with barely any failure work - then hitting the overload week which is high volume where everything is to absolute failure. If you want to change any of the volume, thats up to you, but it kind of goes against what phase 1 is trying to do. Phase 2 is the pure volume phase where you start out high right away and end up doing 8 sets of everything.

[Joel H]

Oh ok. See I didn't read phase 2 yet, as I'm not there, and I remember seeing you do some insane number of sets, so I just assumed you had tweaked it for your own needs, thus I was considering that myself as I think I can handle quite a bit of volume compared to some people. So since there will be insane volume on phase 2, I'll just follow it as written the best I can. Thanks.

[Glyder]

Hey Joel! Looks like a good program.

glad to hear the tailbone is better. Sounds like you just had a massive bunch of tense muscles there. Massages are great, no?

[Joel H]

Thanks Glyder. Yeah, they hurt a bit, but feel good at the same time, go figure My GF thinks it was the uber hot bath that probably helped the most.

[Joel H]

Legs

Leg Press: 450 x 3
Leg Extensions: 312 x 8
Standing smith calf raise: 225 x 20

Comments: Skipped deadlifts due to my tailbone injury, tried leg curls, no go on that either. Leg press hurt my tailbone so I stopped after 3 reps, normally I can do around 590 for 5 or so reps. Easy workout since I skipped an exercise and didn't go heavy on leg press. Note I do not squat since I hurt my back squatting pretty bad a few years back. I might try them again down the road, we'll see how deads go, I don't deadlift either for the same reason, but I started them up again a while back and so far so good, but I use really light weight, like 225. If I can safely dead for a few months and really build it up I might try squatting again.

[anab0lic_]

hey Joel, i have to ask do you really think its worth getting much bigger? Reason i ask this is because as we all know bigger you get more you have to eat to build/maintain your muscle mass even more so for ectomorphs, im sure i read you were taking in some 5500 a day thats alot of food! What would you need to eat to maintain it? If you were to eat under maintenece how quickly does the muscle come off?

Im an ectomorph and would love to get to the kind of size youve achieved but not if it means taking in that ammount of food day in day out for the rest of my life... that would take over your life.

By the way i think the size you have achieved is really impressive considering how you started... you have similar frame etc to me except im not as tall.

[Glyder]

Hey Yesyesyes...here is an idea about how to intake that much food...

protein
carbs
protein
protein
fats
protein
carbs
protein
protein
protein

etc. you get the idea.

Its actually pretty easy. Just eat every 2.5-3 hours. 50 - 100 grams protein each meal, supplement with shakes, steel rolled oats, yams, veggies. Your body gets used to the higher intake relatively quickly.

Keep up cardio (low impact) to keep off the fat.

[Joel H]

hey Joel, i have to ask do you really think its worth getting much bigger? Reason i ask this is because as we all know bigger you get more you have to eat to build/maintain your muscle mass even more so for ectomorphs, im sure i read you were taking in some 5500 a day thats alot of food! What would you need to eat to maintain it? If you were to eat under maintenece how quickly does the muscle come off?

Im an ectomorph and would love to get to the kind of size youve achieved but not if it means taking in that ammount of food day in day out for the rest of my life... that would take over your life.

By the way i think the size you have achieved is really impressive considering how you started... you have similar frame etc to me except im not as tall.

I'd have to say that your metabolism adjusts and you get used to it. Also I seem to sort of lean up and lose weight even if I'm not really trying to gain or lose, but just by lifting weights. I naturally sort of cut because my appetite is less than what I need to maintain, so as long as I eat clean I sort of naturally cut or lose weight provided I train pretty hard. So what will it take to maintain? Not all that much I don't think. Probably around 3500 or 4000 when I'm done. I don't think there is such a thing as maintenance. I'm either trying to grow or trying to cut. I mean what is the point in going to work out if your not out to try and lift something a little heavier or to make gains? Naturally if it takes more than 6k or something to grow at some point, I'll say forget it and it's not worth it. But after cutting for a while, I'm gaining weight on around 3750, (not counting fat cals) so I don't need as much as I used to. I don't really think I'm any less muscular either, I think your metabolism adjusts as you age and if you cut for a while it lowers some.

For those confused about not counting fat, the musclenow diet has you take in around 50 grams of fat no matter what calorie level you are on, so you simply count carb and protein grams and don't worry about the fat, just get some healthy fats each day is the only rule, up to 50 grams. I'm sure I get close to that.

[Joel H]

I did this pic up the other day as someone was complaining about thier tall and skinny genetics. Now I'm no beast yet, but this picture shows you can add a lot of mass despite your genetic makeup if you work hard and diet right. I was about 23 in this pic, after gaining around 30 pounds of muscle, weighing around 160. The scale is about right too, as my arm length is about the same in the after pic. Amazing how much bigger you can get.

[spytech]

Only 50grams? That is really low, especially for bulking - where fat triggers testosterone. Fats are pretty much the most anabolic thing we can digest. I aim around 20-25% fat each day.

[waitlifter82]

Only 50grams? That is really low, especially for bulking - where fat triggers testosterone. Fats are pretty much the most anabolic thing we can digest. I aim around 20-25% fat each day.

agreed, I get 50g w/o touching a major fat source; coming from oatmeal, bread, whey, etc.