Big thanks to the folks over at Muscletech for giving me this great opportunity. I'll write a bit about me and what I've done in the past couple of years before I actually get started with the log.
Growing up I was always heavily involved in sports and lifted a lot in high school. My diet was pretty awful though. I played hockey in college and for about half of that I lifted seriously as well, but again my diet was seriously lacking. After graduating I didn't lift for several years and became skinnyfat and had virtually no muscle mass. I really hated the way I looked and saw an ad for a gym membership so I signed up. This was in February 2016. I did a self created workout for a while and did a cut that was probably too aggressive, but that did cut out a good chunk of body fat so I was in a good position to lean bulk for a year. I ended up moving to the Fierce 5 beginner program and got my macros in check and made good progress. I bulked over a year and went from 169 in May 2016 to 188 in May 2017. I had a vacation to the Caribbean coming up so I cut down to 178 over about 2 months and resumed bulking right after vacation. In March I was at 192 and carried a little more fat than I wanted so I decided to do a brief cut again before a week in Europe. That was supposed to last a month but when I got back I decided to do another 5 pounds or so. Overall I cut for a little under 2 months and I just finished last night. My goal (which honestly I lowered a few times) was 180 and my moving average was 180.3 this morning so I'll call that a win. Now, I can resume another lean bulk.
With regards to training, after a year on the Fierce 5 beginner I started slowing down my progress which was expected. I moved to the F5 U/L split and still made some progress, but about a year ago I started stalling heavily. I tried deloading but no bueno. I moved again to the 5 day F5 split and still stalled. My auxiliary lifts and bench were increasing slowly, but with a few back injuries thrown into the mix, I have actually dropped weight on my squat and dead lift in the last year and can't seem to get above where I was. Being 100% honest, I haven't pushed myself 100% on those 2 exercises out of fear of messing up my back yet again. Recently, I moved to GST training 4 days a week and it seems to be helping me get some progress back even while I was cutting. It's slow, but I'll take it. This was during a cut so now that I can up my calories I'm hoping the progress will resume.
Here are a few of my 1 rep max that I really want to improve on:
Bench - 265
Squat - 315
Deadlift - 260 (really needs work)
I'll likely eat at maintenance for a couple of weeks (or at least attempt to this weekend when I'm out of town) and go into a slight surplus around 3000 calories after for the duration of the summer. I have a bachelor party and another trip to the Caribbean in October so I don't want to blow up too much. Being in the ballpark of 185-190 should be good. I'll also try to upload a couple of photos I'm where I'm at now so I'll have a comparison in 12 weeks.
I just started taking Clear Muscle 2 days ago and had 1 workout while I was still on the cut. I'll do another workout tonight and continue taking it through vacation and once I return Monday I'll start logging and eating normally. Let's see how this goes!
Growing up I was always heavily involved in sports and lifted a lot in high school. My diet was pretty awful though. I played hockey in college and for about half of that I lifted seriously as well, but again my diet was seriously lacking. After graduating I didn't lift for several years and became skinnyfat and had virtually no muscle mass. I really hated the way I looked and saw an ad for a gym membership so I signed up. This was in February 2016. I did a self created workout for a while and did a cut that was probably too aggressive, but that did cut out a good chunk of body fat so I was in a good position to lean bulk for a year. I ended up moving to the Fierce 5 beginner program and got my macros in check and made good progress. I bulked over a year and went from 169 in May 2016 to 188 in May 2017. I had a vacation to the Caribbean coming up so I cut down to 178 over about 2 months and resumed bulking right after vacation. In March I was at 192 and carried a little more fat than I wanted so I decided to do a brief cut again before a week in Europe. That was supposed to last a month but when I got back I decided to do another 5 pounds or so. Overall I cut for a little under 2 months and I just finished last night. My goal (which honestly I lowered a few times) was 180 and my moving average was 180.3 this morning so I'll call that a win. Now, I can resume another lean bulk.
With regards to training, after a year on the Fierce 5 beginner I started slowing down my progress which was expected. I moved to the F5 U/L split and still made some progress, but about a year ago I started stalling heavily. I tried deloading but no bueno. I moved again to the 5 day F5 split and still stalled. My auxiliary lifts and bench were increasing slowly, but with a few back injuries thrown into the mix, I have actually dropped weight on my squat and dead lift in the last year and can't seem to get above where I was. Being 100% honest, I haven't pushed myself 100% on those 2 exercises out of fear of messing up my back yet again. Recently, I moved to GST training 4 days a week and it seems to be helping me get some progress back even while I was cutting. It's slow, but I'll take it. This was during a cut so now that I can up my calories I'm hoping the progress will resume.
Here are a few of my 1 rep max that I really want to improve on:
Bench - 265
Squat - 315
Deadlift - 260 (really needs work)
I'll likely eat at maintenance for a couple of weeks (or at least attempt to this weekend when I'm out of town) and go into a slight surplus around 3000 calories after for the duration of the summer. I have a bachelor party and another trip to the Caribbean in October so I don't want to blow up too much. Being in the ballpark of 185-190 should be good. I'll also try to upload a couple of photos I'm where I'm at now so I'll have a comparison in 12 weeks.
I just started taking Clear Muscle 2 days ago and had 1 workout while I was still on the cut. I'll do another workout tonight and continue taking it through vacation and once I return Monday I'll start logging and eating normally. Let's see how this goes!
from Bodybuilding News Updates https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=175789201&goto=newpost
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