Hypertrophy Phase: Week 2 - Day 7

90 seconds rest, 4 sets, 13-15 reps

Bench
275x1
225x14
205x8
185x13
135x15

Bent Row
205x13
185x13
135x15
135x10

DB Press
50x15
50x15
50x15

BB Curl
65x15
65x15
65x15
65x15

Band Pull-Aparts
70 reps: did this awesome series here - http://articles.elitefts.com/training-articles/band-pull-apart-super-series-for-healthy-shoulders-needs-formatted/

Notes
Short rest periods destroyed my press strength.  They also destroyed my pull strength. My back is pretty damn fatigued. Overall though a solid session.   I'm taking dat dere creatine mono, and I actually felt a marked difference tonight.  It is hard to tell whether I'm adjusting to the program, or whether its the creatine helping me bust out a couple extra reps.  I don't really measure, I just throw a lot in my protein shake.  I know supposedly creatine loading isn't needed, but fuck it. I have a lot.  I'm going to start throwing in a moderate single before my high rep stuff.  I have many reasons for this I will get into over the course of the next few weeks.

Now I'm going to tell a story about a person that almost killed themselves in the gym tonight. We will call him Bob.  Tonight Bob got entirely too amped up for his squats.  I don't mind yelling, swearing, or some of the regular shit to get pumped up, but when a person literally starts stomping on the platform (repeatedly) before approaching the bar, I think that might cross the line.  After barely squeaking out which was clearly a max attempt, Bob preceded to stomp some more and try for another.  He missed halfway up and sent 300 something pounds off his back sailing onto the platform.  No big deal.  Thats what bumpers are for...right?

Undeterred by the near stapling, and unaware of the fact he almost crushed a girl next to the chalk bucket, Bob preceded to the bench.  Bob was still fired up.  Its time to fucking bench.  Bob started with a huge arch, but as he reached up for the bar, he deflated like a beach balloon.  Something told me to watch. I didn't consciously think about what was about to happen, but after spending a long time in and around barbell lifting, the totality of the circumstances gives you a good sense for shit.

So I watched.  And Bob is lucky I did.  Bob unracked the bar, and almost immediately it fell with speed of gravity on his neck.  In the split second that followed a number of thoughts entered my mind, the first being, "holy shit I'm witnessing a person decapitate themselves."  To be clear, Bob didn't miss the lift on a heavy grinding rep.  The bar just fucking fell on his neck.

I was about 20 feet away, so I sprinted over and upright rowed the bar off his neck into his uprights.  Bob immediately grabbed his neck and gasped for air.  I thought I might have to call 911 because I wasn't sure if crushed his windpipe.  But Bob managed to squeak out "that wasn't supposed to happen. I was going for a triple."  Alrightythen.

After yelling at him for not asking for a spot, I explained to Bob that: 1) his failed squat attempt destroyed any chance of heavy lifting for the rest of the day; and 2) he lost all tightness and was too far from the bar to unrack it himself.  Bob thanked me for saving him.

So Bob lives to squat and bench another day.  What is the moral of this story?

There is no moral to this story. If I had to come up with one, I'd say "don't be a stupid jackass in the gym."

Hypertrophy Phase - Week 2, Day 6

90 second rest periods

Squat
225x3
275x4.... pulled left hip flexor

Deadlift
295x15
275x13
225x13
225x13

Leg Press
270x15
270x13
230x15
230x15

Calves (Leg Press)
230x20
230x15
230x15
230x15

High Decline Situps
BWx16; BWx16; BWx16

Notes
Nothing to even say about the hip.  Totally sucks.

Got nauseous during today's session.  Its not the high reps - its the rest periods.  I did my best to stick to 90 seconds during deadlifts, but between sets 2 and 3 it was impossible (without killing myself).  I was sucking wind like crazy.  I make up for it on the later sets by going a little under the time required.

Anyways, I'm interested to see how this turns out.  This program is either bodybuildings long lost secret, or its the stupidest fucking program of all time.  I'm leaning towards the latter.

I've been formulating a sweet intra workout custom supplement mix with Gabe's help.  I'm pumped  to try it out.  I've long been a fan of BCAA's, I just never get consistent with it.  But I think some superabsorbant/superfast acting peri-workout nutrition would really help out with this sort of training.

Hypertrophy Phase - Day 5

Warmup: Foam rolling, hip circles, mountain climbers, facepulls, 70lb windmills, 97lb turkish getup (video)

Getup: http://youtu.be/Avw_NV4u4hc

Training
120 seconds rest, 3 sets, 8-10 reps

Squats
185x5
225x8

Bench
225x10
225x10
185x8

Row
225x8
185x10
185x10

Seated DB Shoulder Press
50x10
60x10
60x10

BB Curl
75x10; 75x10; 75x10

Band Pull Aparts
20; 20; 20

DB Rear Lateral
12x10; 15x12

Notes
The gym got a 97lb kettlebell so of course I had to see what I can do with it.  I did a single getup.  Form sucked, but I did it.  Kettlefags across the country cream themselves over a 97lb getup.  What does this prove?  Nothing really.  As I've said before, if you barbell lift consistently, kettlebells do not build strength.  They are amazing for joint mobility, conditioning, core work, and stretching. So in that respect they are an excellent aid during strength training because they keep you healthy. But again, they don't build strength.  I barely do getups at all (my form makes that obvious), but I'm able to do one with a 97lb kettlebell because I've been pounding heavy barbells for years.

Started off with squats to see how much hip held up. It felt fine.  I'm still a little cautious though.  I'm going to squat on Monday, but I'm not sure I will do the prescribed 4x15.  We'll see.

Overall I feel great after week 1.  I kept rest periods very strict.  Next week is going to be tough.  Rest periods drop to 90 seconds, and another set is added on to all exercises.  My mid and upper back are ridiculously demolished.  I hitting that shit literally 6 days a week.

Nutrition
I slammed a quadruple isolate shake immediately post workout.  (105 grams protein w/ 20 grams leucine).  About 30 minutes later I had a pound of steak and 6 eggs w/ an avacado.  Performed this workout 100% fasted at 3:30 p.m.  Due to the volume of these sessions, I'm considering some peri-training nutrition stuff.

Hypertrophy Phase - Day 4

Warm-up: moderate foam rolling, hip circles, mountain climbers, goblet squats, chins, windmills

120 second rest periods

Squat

185x5

185x5

185x5

Deadlift

315x10

315x10

315x10

Leg Press

270x10

270x10

270x10

Calves (on leg press0

270x10

270x10

270x18

High decline Abs

25x8

25x8

Band Pull Aparts
24

Notes

Had a decent hangover today.  Nothing a little pre-workout red bull and ephedrine won't fix.  ;)

During warm-ups I noticed my left hip seemed to feel fine.  I very, very cautiously warmed up for squats.  Pain free.  This is a little weird considering it hurt enough for me to completely drop squats a few days ago.  I did a shitload of lacrosse ball work on my legs on Wednesday.   Maybe that did the trick.  On Monday I'll give squats a try and see how it goes.  So twice a week I'll be doing high rep squats followed by high rep deadlifts.  Should be a good time.

Sets of 10 feel easy after starting the week with sets of 15.  I'm using a stop watch for my rest periods.  Therefore they are strict as hell.

Hypertrophy Phase - Day 3

Warmup: foam rolling and lacrosse ball... skipped all the rest.

Training

Swings
70x10; 70x10; 70x10

Pushups supersetted w/ Chins
15; 15; 15
5; 5; 5

Dips supersetted w/ TRX Row
8; 8; 8
5; 5; 5

Calves supersetted w/ Waiter walk
115x15; 115x15; 115x15

Hypers
20; 10

Notes
Had to combined two sessions since I cannot train tomorrow.  This is a 6x a week program so I can't really push anything back.  Today was supposed to be just swings, sled, abs and calves.

I took everything pretty easy and lowered reps because I'm sore as fuck all over.

Hypertrophy Phase - Day 2

Skipped warm-ups

120 second rests

Bench
205x13
205x10
165x13

Bent Row
185x13
185x13
135x15

Seated DB Press
40x15
40x15
40x15

BB Curl
65x12
65x12
65x12

Notes
Lifted in my dress pants tonight because I forgot shorts haha.  I need to tone done the intensity a little bit.  120 seconds rest is actually a lot for me right now after all of the metabolic training/conditioning.  So even though this is all light weight, still pushing it hard.  Most of the time I'm actually using lower than 120 second rest period.  Tonights workout was about 35 minutes.  Sweating like an animal, but it feels great.

I'm a little up in the air with regards to bent rows immediately following both deadlift days.  Would I program it that way for strength?  Absolutely not.  In fact, I've often said I believe a bent row is one of the only true "replacements" for doing deadlifts every week.  So to have those two exercises back two back for a combined total of 4x a week is pretty intense.  I will be fatigued and it will significantly affect poundages.  So what?  I'm actually curious as to what will happen. My theory: my back is going to blow the fuck up and get crazy strong.  Having a big strong back is fucking awesome.  Back is everything in strength training.  Everything.  I never see any truly strong dude that doesn't have a big back.  I'm not talking about a guy that happens to be pretty good in one lift. I mean a guy that is just diesel all around. Strong mofos always have wide, thick and yoked backs.

Diet was more dialed in today.  Carbs were slightly high, but its hard for me to get under 35 net cabs because i eat ridiculous amounts of green veges.

Cals

2648

Fat: 183g

Carbs: 79

Fiber: 35

Protein: 206 

Big Beyond Belief - Routine Explanation

I'm loosely following the "Big Beyond Belief" bodybuilding routine over the next 6 weeks.  I might go 12 if things go great.

BBB originally came out in the early 90s.  It was pretty groundbreaking for the day because it modeled bodybuilding after Bulgarian high frequency training.  Lots of guys had great results and got big and strong.  There are three versions: 4x a week; 6x a week; and 12x a week (2 a day).  6x a week is the most popular so that is what I'm doing.

BBB is essentially a 6 week mesocycle divided into 3 week microcycles (technically the entire BBB program is an 18 week macrocycle, but some of the routine gets pretty fucking bizarre past 6 weeks).  The first 3 weeks, called "ramps," place an emphasis on endurance and building huge amounts of volume and thus huge amounts of fatigue.  The second 3 weeks are a little more strength and power oriented, but it is still bodybuilding.  The second 3 weeks are where the growth is supposed to occur.  For the two people  that actually read my blog, you might notice that this sounds a lot like Mike T's RTS system.  This program is just on the far end of the hypertrophy spectrum, while RTS is all about strength/powerlifting.

The first ramp phase is like this:

Week 1: 120 seconds rest, 3 sets per bodypart
Day 1 - Endurance 13-15 reps
Day 2 - Endurance 13-15 reps
Day 3 - Strength 10-12 reps
Day 4 - Strength 10-12 reps
Day 5 - Power 8-10 reps
Day 6 - Power 8-10 reps

Week 2: 90 seconds rest, 4 sets per bodypart
Reps stay the same

Week 3: 60 seconds rest, 5 sets per bodypart
Reps stay the same.

Decreasing rest periods while increasing total sets week to week is what really makes this killer.  This is the sort of routine I would write up on napkin while sitting on an airplane with nothing else to do. But follow something brutal like this to the T, and who knows, you just might become Big Beyond Belief.

Weeks 4-6 are similar to weeks 1-3 in that intra week reps cascade down from high to low, but overall the reps are lower, rest periods stay at 180 seconds, and only 3 sets per bodypart are performed all three weeks.   Essentially, the dual-factor theory of periodization is at play here.  Leo Costas (BBB writer) managed to come up with a pretty sound routine. On the other hand, he also outlined pretty shitty exercise selection.  There is a huge and very informative thread on BBB over at t-nation.  Some experienced guys talk about how Costas stole all of these ideas and then printed them, not really having a fucking clue what was going on.  This makes sense after reading the book. Nevertheless, it is generally a sound program with some very nice components that you don't see in other modern bodybuilding routines.

Weeks 4-6 you both recover from the massive fatigue generated in week 1-3 fatigue, and  simultaneously gain strength.  The single factor theory would say you have to completely recover from fatigue and allow super-compensation to take hold for an increase in performance.  But single factor is overly simplistic and probably wrong. Even in a beginner, fatigue is always accumulating if you are working out 3x a week with any sort of intensity.

For the most part I ignored the prescribed bodypart split.  This split emphasizes the lifts I care about and is slightly strength biased.

Monday:  Deadlift, Leg Press, Decline Abs, Calves
Tuesday: Bench, Bent Row, Seated Military, Curls/Rear Delts
Wednesday:  KB Swings, Sled Pushes, Waiter Walks, Calves
Thursday:  Pushups, Chins, Dips, TRX Rows
Friday: Deadlift, Leg Press, Decline Abs, Calves
Saturday: Bench, Bent Row, Seated Military, Cable Row, Curls

So Monday lines up with Friday, and Tuesday lines up with Saturday.  Because Leo Costas is mentally challenged, he never explained whether  you are supposed to vary your exercises everyday or use the same ones.  It makes sense to take advantage of the descending reps throughout the week and train some of the same movements.   I'm using Wednesday/Thursday as low intensity recovery days, but I'll still get a lot of reps with the bodyweight type exercises I've chosen.  I briefly considered throwing in single leg work somewhere, but I seriously cannot imagine doing 5 sets of 15 bulgarian split squats.  No thanks.

More to come, but for now its time for bed.