My Goals 2014

Something I haven't really thought too much about since I started lifting in September last year is goals, now I know it’s a bit late to be setting goals a quarter into the year but better late than never I suppose. 

There’s probably a ton of people looking at this thinking well how do you expect to achieve anything if you don't set any goals??!! Well I didn't or haven't, until now, I think when I first started out I just wanted to get stronger, that is still my main focus now [with an unbelievable amount of fussing over the most minute things in the process] but now that I'm part way through my strength training I'm thinking about what to do 'after' I grow up to be big and strong.

Next week I'll be commencing week eight of my StrongLifts 5x5 programme my current stats are:

Squat 100 kg

Bench Press 60 kg

Overhead Press 40 kg

Barbell Row 72.5 kg

Deadlift 120 kg

Reverse Pyramid Training is what I want to be doing eventually, mainly because it's a lot less sets than what I'm currently doing with a lot higher intensity, I don't want to be spending hours in the gym doing a ton of routines. But I do want to make sure that I have made suitable progress with the StrongLifts 5x5 protocol before to progress strength wise and build muscle. But to do RPT this I need to have a solid strength foundation before I can start with this style of training, so with a bit of guidance from the awesome +Mike Matthews I've come up with this:

All in the 4-6 reps range:

Squat @ BW * 1.75 = ~165 kg

Deadlift @ BW * 1.75 = ~165 kg

Bench Press @ BW * 1.35 ~127.5

Overhead Press @ BW * 1.0 94 kg

If I keep progressing at the same rate I should be up to these numbers toward the end of May 2014 It's only my pushes that are falling behind and this is also assuming that I don't put on any weight!

Here’s the posts relating to RPT from the man himself Martin Berkhan and also from Andy Morgan of the awesome RippedBody.jp

Reverse Pyramid Revisited

‘Three Day Split RPT’ Routine

I was doing it wrong!

For the last four weeks I have been doing Leangains wrong!!

As I thought it was you worked out your total calories you needed then cycled carbs and fat depending if you were training or resting, my caloric intake is meant to be 20% lower on rest days!! I should have RTFM a little better!!

I stumbled across my error quite by accident when I was messing around on my android phone and discovered there was a Leancalc app for calculating your Leangains macros and calories, imagine my surprise when I saw there were two amounts for calories; workout days and rest days.

Leangains.com is a great resource with a ton of information I have found really useful and also theres a great FAQ on Examine.com if you are interested in losing viceral and stubborn fat then take a look at these and learn.

Off of the back of discovering that I was basically on a bulk for the last four weeks I decided to read up a bit more on Leangains again this time from both Leangains.com and rippedbody.jp ripped body have some great articles on LG nutrition I'll link at the bottom here.

One thing to note however is that my weight has remained pretty static at around 93 kg over the last four weeks so I'm not entirely sure if the additional calories has had any real detrimental effect so far.

From Wednesday 5th March I have been eating the right amount of calories and macros, my weight then 94.3 kg which is irrelevant really and the only indication will be my body fat percentage which I did with a four site skin fold test the other day, which I'm also pretty unsure about to be honest as my BF % come out at 13%, at lease I have something to measure against now in a months time after some 'ahem' correct leangains style fasting.

Here's the RippedBody.jp posts I had a good read through of and would recommend anyone else interesting in Leangains does so too

The Nutritional Hierarchy of Importance – #1 Calories
The Nutritional Hierarchy of Importance – #2 Macros, Fibre & Alcohol
The Nutritional Hierarchy of Importance – #3 Micronutrients & Water
The Nutritional Hierarchy of Importance – #4 Meal Timing & Frequency, Calorie & Macro Cycling
The Nutritional Hierarchy of Importance – #5 Supplements

Lean Lifting

lean lifting, just something I thought I'd start on here where I can keep a log of what I'm learning whilst trying to live longer and get stronger.

What I'm putting in here are my findings and what I have learned I have no educational or professional background in any of this so this is basically just another guy talking crap on the internet as there's no scientific research to back up my claims.

I'm experimenting with myself. What I'm doing here is just for me, I'm sharing it with you so you have a little bit more information to go with the information already out there

I'm aiming for a body re-composition after being a skinny fat guy for the last ten years or so, just skinny before then. The main focus is lifting heavy weights to gain lean muscle mass

A little more on my background, I'm a 37 year old male 193 cm tall and weigh 94 kg [at the time of writing this] and up until recently I was happily living my life carefree but recently started getting concerned for my health and the possible onset of type ii diabetes.

So last year I decided to start a fasting diet, now I love my food and the concept of not eating was entirely alien but I tried the 5:2 diet back in April 2013 at that time I was 105 kg toward the end of September of that year I weighed 96 kg by the beginning of November I was down to 92.4 kg and getting concerned about it so thought about adding muscle instead of fat.

So after an email exchange with an old colleague he introduces me to the StrongLifts 5x5 program a strength building program for beginners, this is what I have been doing now since November last year and I learned a great deal from Medhi's site, just enough for me to decide that I didn't need to pay ~£15 a month to join his gated community :)

Since then my weight has stayed pretty much static but I have gained a lot of strength

Now I know just changing my diet isn't going to guarantee I won't get type ii diabetes but it is on step toward helping my overall health.

Another thing I have found recently is more muscle helps improve blood sugar control, maybe I'll leave this to another post like most of the stuff I have covered in this initial post which may seem like a bit of a ramble but you have to start somewhere, right

Great resources that have helped me no end:

Leangains

Brad Pillion

ironstrong.org

Google+

Mike Matthews and +Mike Matthews 

Kev D Fitness and +Kevin Draganchuk 

nerdfitness.com