Bulking With BBQ - NordAK's Log

[NordAK]

September 26th 2011

Workout

Squats 5x5 - 145lbs
OHP 5X5 - 87.5lbs
Deadlift 1x5 - 180lbs
Pullups 3x5(f)

Weigh-in: 156.3

Food

I love shopping at Costco. Not only can you find amazing deals like $10 for 5lbs of almonds and $2.50/lb chicken breast, but you get amazing free samples and a polish sausage/drink for $1.50. I bought a frozen Costco chicken alfredo pizza, which is actually really good. Its even better if you dress it up with more ingredients. I added cloves of garlic, fresh basil, feta cheese, mushrooms, and of course... salmon to make "salmon alfredo pizza." The mild taste of salmon actually paired well with the garlic-alfredo base. The macros are pretty decent on the pizza base. 990 cals, 69g PRO for the entire pizza. Highly recommended.

Smoked Almonds


Salmon Alfredo pizza
Macros for Costco Pizza: 990cals 69g PRO Salmon: 48g PRO

[sepul^]

I often buy frozen pizzas that come only with cheese and top them myself - it's a very cheap and fast way to eat (and could be less healthy, depending on what you top them with). I find I can easily get 1000 cal per pizza and eating it always seems like an easy way to down 1000 calories.

[NordAK]

October 2nd 2011

Workout

Squats 5x5 - 160lbs
Benchpress 5X5 - 115lbs (PR)
Bent Over Rows 5x5 - 90lbs (PR)
Pullups 3x(f)

Cardio: None.

Another good workout. I was barely able to crank out the last rep on the last set of bench press. I think that I would be progressing a lot easier on BP/OHP if I wasn't competely wearing myself out with warmup sets and 5x5 working sets of squats. If I can't consistently up my BP weight I'm going to consider either lowering volume on squats to 3x5, or switching to a routine like 5/3/1 where all of the big lifts have a dedicated day. I chose SL 5x5 over SS because I was worried that 3x5 just wasn't enough volume, now I realize that 3x5 heavy parallel squats is plenty difficult. I guess I could also be getting worn out after squats because I'm not eating any sort of pre workout meal. I'm a believer that nutrient timing is mostly irrelevant, but I might experiment with adding a small carb-rich meal 1hr before my workout just for some extra energy.

Food

I still can't find "Schweddy Balls," so I settled pint of B&Js Milk and Cookies for a post workout treat. Just plain old chocolate chip cookies dipped in milk has always been one of my favorite desserts so I had high expectations. After sampling it I wasn't blown away.... I liked the subtle creamy base, but the mix-ins just didn't cut it. After the success of adding hot cinnamon rolls with cinnamon buns B&Js I decided that I have to try fresh chocolate chip cookies with the rest of the pint.

The only thing better than dunking fresh cookies in milk is eating them with icecream.


Chili dog and grilled salmon. Chili dogs taste a lot better than they look.

[Chadillac2000]

Good looking eats as usual! I'm definitely stealing your idea of adding in the actual dessert that Ben & Jerry's is trying to capture with their ice cream.

[NordAK]

September 26th 2011

Workout

Squats 5x5 - 165lbs
OHP 5X5 - 90lbs (PR)
Deadlift 1x5 - 195lbs
Pullups 3x9(f)


I've suspected for a long time that there was something wrong with my deadlift form... it just didn't seem to be progressing as fast as it should, my squat is almost as high! After watching the videos at http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/Deadlift_Videos I finally realized what I was doing wrong. When I positioned myself for the deadlift I was lowering my hips way too much because I thought it was necessary to have your lower back arched as much as possible. I tried to initiate the lift by raising my hips first trying to lead my upper body. I was treating the DL like a squat. This put a lot of strain on the lower back and made the lift much harder than it should be.

After watching the Rippetoes simple "deadlift setup" and properly setting up for the deadlift, I pulled up 190lbs like it was nothing. Motherofgod.jpg the difference was incredible, I feel like I could have added 50lbs to the bar no problem. Now I can finally get my DL numbers to something less embarrassing.

Food





Salmon, frozen veggies, and leftover cookies. I was feeling lazy after a 4hr chemistry lab.

[NordAK]

October 9th 2011

Workout

Squats 3x5 - 170lbs
Benchpress 5X5 - 115lbs
Bent Over Rows 5x5 - 95lbs (PR)
Pullups 3x(f)

Other Activities: None.

I only had an hour for the gym so it wasn't the greatest workout. I did 3x5 squats instead of 5x5. I'm going to try that for a few weeks and see if it helps or hinders progression. I'm hoping that doing less volume on squats will leave me with more energy for my other exercises. I'm starting to get frustrated by the slow progress on BP.

Food

Now that the fishing has died down, its crab season! King crab is ridiculously easy to catch. I just take a skiff out ~200ft from shore, throw out a crab pot with bait, and come back a day later to a pot full of crab. Another fun thing to do is scuba dive for crab. You can just walk into the water from the beach and pick them off the bottom. Crab are basically giant mean underwater spiders. How can something so disgusting taste so good?

Those claws are GNARLY. Once they pinch you they keep a death grib and don't let go.


16oz King Crab and ~1/4 stick of butter for dipping.

[Chadillac2000]

And I thought all the fish you had at your disposal was appalling...but now this...

A full pound of crab meat with butter for dipping, that picture is epic.

[binks09]

Crabbing 200ft offshore huh? And getting a full basket/pot? You make Deadliest Catch seem extremely over-rated!

[NordAK]

Crabbing 200ft offshore huh? And getting a full basket/pot? You make Deadliest Catch seem extremely over-rated!

Catching King Crab is like shooting fish in a barrel. I could throw out a pot right next the the skiff launch and come up with a full pot. The trick is getting a commercial licence.

Deadliest Catch is actually pretty legit. Those guys fish the Bering Sea where the weather is absolutely terrible. I got to sit down at a bar with the crew of the Time Bandit this summer when they stopped in town. Cool guys. One thing that annoys me is that the skippers don't get paid ANYTHING for being on the show. It all goes to the boat owners, most of which don't even live in Alaska.

[NordAK]

October 12th 2011

Workout

Squats 3x5 - 170lbs
OHP 3X5 - 90lbs
Deadlift 1x5 - 220lbs (+25lbs PR)
Pullups 3x9(f)


This is my first cycle trying out a new 3x5 SS style rep scheme instead of 5x5. Squats and OHP felt good although I didn't attempt to add weight on either. Deadlift form finally "clicked" for me. The key was learning to keep my shoulder blades over the bar with arms vertical and tight. Adding 25lbs this week seemed easy, and I didn't feel any sort of pain/soreness in my lower back like I usually did.

Food

I decided to actually start tracking my macros as best as I can again. I'm still not gaining 1lb/week consistently so it might be time to up calories! I'm thinking about using my sourdough and making some sourdough bread and pancakes this week. Making homemade sourdough bread is something Iv'e never been able to master... it always comes out too dense.



Papa Murphy's Pepperoni/Sausage Pizza.


Coming soon.


My carbs are always so low...

[NordAK]

October 13th 2011

Workout

None.

Food

Relatively boring day food-wise.



Pumpkin Pancakes with PB, icecream and banana.


Crab and remaining pizza

[vitornoob]

have i already said that i am subscribed?

your eatings are awesome, i was browsing here and saw some amazing pictures..man, Alaska King reminds me Discovery Channel...uuh eahuehauah

amazing, keep going and good luck!

[NordAK]

have i already said that i am subscribed?

your eatings are awesome, i was browsing here and saw some amazing pictures..man, Alaska King reminds me Discovery Channel...uuh eahuehauah

amazing, keep going and good luck!

Haha... I didn't know Deadliest Catch was famous outside of the US too....

Thanks for following! Iv'e been reading your log since you started. I hope you get your deadlift form down. I'm looking at that picture of the Travelstead brothers deadlifting in your log. My body is similar to the guy on the left, I have long legs and a short torso, so I can't get a perfect back angle. Before I tried to compensate by starting with my hips way too low, which made my arms slack. When I initiated the lift I was raising my hips more vertically before lifting with my chest.

Now that I've fixed my form and adopted a starting position like the guy on the left in the picture, my deadlift has exploded. Just always make sure to keep your shoulders over the bar with tension on your arms pulling up on the bar even if your back isn't completely strait in the mirror.

[NordAK]

[QUOTE=NordAK;763998183]

October 14th 2011

Workout

Squats 3x5 - 175lbs
Benchpress 5X5 - 115lbs
Bent Over Rows 5x5 - 105lbs (+10lbs PR)
Pullups 3x(f)

Other Activities: None.

Good workout. Doing pullups/chinups has helped my back strength and my bent over rows are much better. When I first started I didn't get how to keep my back strait and I would do my bent over rows with a horrible back arch. Watching http://startingstrength.com/index.ph...sition_control has helped me immensely.

Food

It wasn't the healthiest day of food ever. I'm back in the habit of drinking mochas every day, which is fine because its an easy source of liquid calories, but it gets expensive quick. I think the 3200-3500 level of calories is just about perfect for my activity level now that I'm in school. We'll see next weigh-in.

More fresh King Crab.


.

[NordAK]

October 26th 2011

Workout

Squats 3x5 - 180lbs
Benchpress 5X5 - 120lbs (PR)
Bent Over Rows 5x5 - 120lbs (PR)
Pullups 3x(f)

Other Activities: None.

I'm struggling with my squat form again. My warmup sets go fine, but when I get to working weight, it feels like I'm going to collapse with the bar if I get to parallel. Part of the problem is that I'm going down too slow. This may have just been a bad workout - if my form doesn't improve by next week I'm going to deload all the way back to my top warmup set weight of 150 and work my way back up from there. Form > weight. Practice makes perfect. On the plus side BP and row progression was back to being easy after a weird slowdown.

Food

I got my new BMF toy in the mail... so now I can join the OCD club! I was suprised by the results. Now that I'm in school and sitting on my ass most of the day I expected my maitenance to be closer to 2,500, but on a lifting day with no cardio and only 12,000 steps I burned 3,200! Time to up the cals to 3,700 I guess.

Pumpkin Cake with cream cheese frosting and candy corn.

[vitornoob]

lulz, this cake...how did you do the frosting?

and about squats, form > weight...i dropped almost the half of the weight in a deload week to check the form..
Take care about Bodymedia, 3200 could be something high in a WO day, but your off days could be really that low, so watch at least for 1 week and make like an average

[amel123]

in 4 months late! but its official... im moving to alaska, not really but after seeing these intense fish pics oh man idek what to do with myself!!!!

[NordAK]

lulz, this cake...how did you do the frosting?

and about squats, form > weight...i dropped almost the half of the weight in a deload week to check the form..
Take care about Bodymedia, 3200 could be something high in a WO day, but your off days could be really that low, so watch at least for 1 week and make like an average

I just use a very generic cream cheese frosting recipe.
8oz Cream Cheese
1 stick butter
1 tsp vanilla
I'm sure you could make a "healthy" version by subbing in FF CC and artificial sweetener, but I can't stand SF/FF stuff so I prefer smaller portions of real desserts. We'll see what the BMF says my burn is on rest days... I'm guessing ~2,800 since my workout burned 500cals yesterday. It's a pretty cool little toy, I like the sleep tracking.

[NordAK]

October 27th 2011

Workout

None

Other Activities: None.

I hate rest days, I feel like I should be in the gym or at least doing some cardio. I avoided doing any sort of physical activity today other than walking around campus to get an idea what my TDEE is for a sedentary day. Again I was shocked by how much I burn. The calculators I used underestimated by ~300-400 cals. I'll wait a week to get a better average but its looking like my new macros will be 3500 on rest days 3800-4k on workout days!

Food







Oktoberfest Chili - Chili with chopped up Bratwurst and Sauerkraut.



Pumpkin Proats with nutella and candy corn.

[Nimm]

Hey, thanks for the great advice in my log. And I wish I had found this one sooner - outstanding food porn, and good information. Subscribed, of course.

[NordAK]

Pendlay Row 125lbs x5

The guy boxing in the background gave me a bertstare when he saw I was recording myself.... Is this acceptable pendlay row form? I know my back appears slightly rounded at the start of each rep, but I have long legs so I don't know how to prevent that. I can lift a lot more weight if I lift the bar up and angle my back, not returning the bar to the floor each rep... is that type of row superior?

[hheck50]

You are correct. Your lower back is rounding too much to be safe form. I was completely unable to get the row form down so I stick exclusively to chinups and inverted rows.

[NordAK]

November 2nd 2011

Workout

Squats 3x5 - 185lbs (PR)
OHP 3X5 - 92.5lbs
Deadlift 1x5 - 230lbs (+5lbs PR)
Pullups 3x11(f)

Weigh-in: 163lbs!

Getting close to that 200lb squat mark! I can do 11xBW pullups so I'll be switching to weighted soon. Once I hit 200lb squat I'm going to another strength based program that doesn't include squats 3x a week. Maybe a 4-day push/pull.

Food

[Nimm]

Very nice work! I've been thinking about adding weights to the chin-ups and pull-ups too - have you gotten a belt? Or is there some other easy way to add weight without just buying more equipment? (Like if you grabbed a backpack and through some small plates in there, is that a bad idea for some reason?)

[NordAK]

Very nice work! I've been thinking about adding weights to the chin-ups and pull-ups too - have you gotten a belt? Or is there some other easy way to add weight without just buying more equipment? (Like if you grabbed a backpack and through some small plates in there, is that a bad idea for some reason?)

My friend has a belt which he uses for weighted dips, so I'll try that. To be honest I've never even attempted weighted pullups so we'll see how that goes. I'm sure a backpack would work too, at least at lower weights.

[hheck50]

Great work man! I'm about 165-170 and my squat right now is 170 3x5. Deadlift is 215x5. Unfortunately for press and bench press I'm still stuck at 80 and 110 lbs, which is very frustrating. I've done weighted chinups with 25lbs and was only able to get 5.

[NordAK]

Great work man! I'm about 165-170 and my squat right now is 170 3x5. Deadlift is 215x5. Unfortunately for press and bench press I'm still stuck at 80 and 110 lbs, which is very frustrating. I've done weighted chinups with 25lbs and was only able to get 5.

Iv'e had similar problems with bench and OHP. I started to do my bench/OHP sets before squats, and the "plateaus" were magically broken. I guess doing 5x5 squats was just wearing me out too much. Another thing you could try is switching to 3x5 squats before bench/OHP. Iv'e been experimenting with doing 3x5 squats on the deadlift/OHP day, and I find I can put more effort into the deadlift and accessory exercises later.

I know that breaks the rules of the program, but it works for me, and I'm still able to progress on squats because doing my bench/OHP sets doesn't wear me out. For my OHP Iv'e also started to use "micro" 1.25lb plates so I progress 2.5lbs a workout rather than 5lbs. 25lb weighted chinups is pretty impressive! Iv'e been doing 12xbw chinups so I think its time to start adding weight.

[NordAK]

November 7th 2011

Workout

Squats 3x5 - 187.5lbs
Benchpress 5X5 - 122.5lbs
Bent Over Rows 5x5 - 125lbs
Pullups 3x(f)

Weigh-in: 163lbs - Finally some real weight gain?

Great workout. I fixed my bent over rows. By taking a wider stance I was able to keep my back perfectly strait. Pulling strait up to my chest was much much easier than pulling at an angle like I was before. Bent over rows might be my new favorite lift. My squat form is starting to get shakey and I'm worried that I'm cheating and not quite hitting parallel again. Videos inc.

I'll be switching routines soon. I'm a competitive downhill skiier and theres no way I can squat 3x a week during the season. I still want to focus on compound exercises and building a base of strength. I'm thinking of a 4-day upper/lower squatting twice a week in the 5 rep range. I'd also like to keep doing OHP, deads, and bent over rows. I'm thinking of Lyle's Generic Bulk... Anyone out there have any ideas?

Food




Fresh banana bread with melted butter and B&Js


Chicken alfredo pizza with extra chicken, garlic cloves, and mushrooms. 1100cals 80g protein

[SideSteal]

Nice food pics up in here!

I'm no expert but re: Pendlay rows, back looks quite rounded.

[Nimm]

Great workout. I fixed my bent over rows. By taking a wider stance I was able to keep my back perfectly strait. Pulling strait up to my chest was much much easier than pulling at an angle like I was before. Bent over rows might be my new favorite lift. My squat form is starting to get shakey and I'm worried that I'm cheating and not quite hitting parallel again. Videos inc.

I'd like to see the video. I used to have bent over rows in my routine but switched them out because they were murdering my back, and I might have been doing them wrong. So this update caught my interest -I wanna see how you changed your form around to get these to work for you.

I'll be switching routines soon. I'm a competitive downhill skiier and theres no way I can squat 3x a week during the season. I still want to focus on compound exercises and building a base of strength. I'm thinking of a 4-day upper/lower squatting twice a week in the 5 rep range. I'd also like to keep doing OHP, deads, and bent over rows. I'm thinking of Lyle's Generic Bulk... Anyone out there have any ideas?

I'm obviously not an expert, but I've been very happy with a push/pull AxBx schedule - everything is progressing pretty well, I get the major compound lifts in, along with a couple accessories and bodyweight exercises, and recovery time seems sufficient. Squats and deadlifts alternate, but with 3 days rest for each - that feels about right to me. You could get OHP, bench, squats on one day, and deads/rows/pullups on the other (along with some accessory lifts).

And nice, nice food porn.