Training Log - August 5-7 2009

Hell yeah, deload is over, and I'm itching to begin a new cycle. Time to start cursing at the bar again!

Diet tweaks:

I am going to try reducing my food further during the lighter weeks (week 2 and 4). I'll try to go completely low carb during week 4 (including breakfast), and carbs pre workout only during week 2. Of course all this will have to be adapted to the upcoming Ramadhan fasting month.

Training goals:

The same. All out strength while making myself a healthy individual mobility wise and a small effort on keeping my body weight/reducing without affecting my mental sharpness. My target is to go in excess of at least 3 reps in every "rep" set (the last one). This will give the volume needed to gain a bit more muscle and promote a bit more fat loss lacking in low rep exercise. At the same time, I'm going to try to be consistent with my dumbbell circuit cardio which is pretty brutal already during non-lifting days:

with a 10 kg dumbbell,

10 DB swings

10 clean and jerks each hand

10 snatches each hand

repeat for 3 cycles and go home.

Here are my training scheme for next week, with adaptations as necessary (click for full size):

Considering that I certainly got more than 1 reps during test week, I am considering retesting my 1 rep maxes to work with. By test week, which falls during the exam week, I'm hoping to beat my old 1 RM's. Estimated upcoming PR's:

Deadlift - I think this is going to soar, considering that my grip was my weakest component. 130 kg is definitely beatable now, and if I'm lucky I might reach 135 or even 140 kg.

Bench Press - Considering I've never failed to lift 1 at any weight, I'll just hope to beat 80 kg.

Front Squat - Form is what I worry more than whether I can complete a lift or not. My target is to reach 90 kg with good form.

Military Press - Never practicing means that you're going to be weak at it. And considering that I tend to get back discomfort* from severe anterior pelvic tilt means that I'll focus more on form with this lift. I'll be happy if I can get 45 kg with good form; any more is just icing on the cake.

*I've found the cause of it too: lazy abs causing by lower back to sag backwards and produce an excessive lordosis when standing. The solution: continuous conscious abs bracing makes the discomfort completely disappear at all times, as it straightens my back. The only problem was that doing this while standing for 3 hours straight delivering a seminar topic is tiring to my abs. It also explains making my static ab work for the next cycle pretty hard.