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Hi friends,
Apologies for dropping off the face of the Earth halfway through last year's bulking blog. I got super busy during the holidays. I ended up completing 11 out of 12 weeks of last year's bulking program. Christmas fell during Week 12, so it was literally impossible for me to go to the gym (because it was closed) several times that week. I got my BodPod scan taken when I returned from the holidays, and even though I felt tremendously stronger and visibly had more muscle, my fat/muscle content stats remained relatively unchanged. But I think lifting as much as I did laid a good foundation of strength and gave me so much more confidence to be in the gym, especially with any type of free-weight exercises. Lifting also helped me understand my body more as far as what exercises work which muscle (groups) and which of those are good or can be altered to become effective in strength training for ultimate. The experience from bulking helped me create some new lifting programs for ultimate (available on the Ultimate Lifting page) which I think really helped my overall fitness for the 2018 club season. The 6th week of this lifting program is a deload week which in more ultimate terms means it was a week of active rest. It also happened to coincide with the Thanksgiving holiday. It was supposed to be a regularly formatted week (lifting/cardio on the same days), but I ended up doing the workouts on Monday and Tuesday and then baking/enjoying the vacation from work the rest of the week. The deload workout consists of doing the warm-up cardio and then for each exercise, complete 2 warm-up sets and then a single set of 20 reps to failure. It was still pretty exhausting. My body enjoyed the rest (and the extra sleep on my days off). This week is back to normal. Week 7. Now I'm repeating through the programs structure which means I get to measure myself against my numbers from each of the other weeks. This week is back to doing sets of 12-15 reps to failure. And I am going to make some additions to the workouts now that I have a better handle on everything. And I'll try to throw together some metrics comparing 1st half to 2nd half. Monday -- Upper Body A: This workout remains unchanged this week, but I might add a wide grip lat pull down in the future to work my back more. Upper Body A Deltas Δ 10/16 - 11/27 Mid grip bench press +5, +10 Bent over row +10, +5 Military press +5, +10 Barbell Shrugs +30, +20 Close grip bench press +10, +5 Barbell Curls +10+3, +10 Tuesday -- Lower Body A: I love the results I'm getting from doing the workout as is, but because ultimate includes a lot of shuffling motions / sideways explosion, I've decided to add hip adductions and hip abductions to start building muscle on the inside and outside of my thighs in addition to just my quads and hamstrings. Since these are new to this half of the program, they won't be included in the deltas. Lower Body A Deltas Δ 10/17 - 11/28 Squats +30, +50 Stiff-legged deadlift +35, +15 Leg press +55, +40 Standing calf raise +80, +80 Seated calf raise +40, +20 Incline crunches x, +40, +40 Back extensions x, +15, +15 After only one day of comparison, I'm not sure yet whether my legs really have become this much stronger, or if I wasn't lifting as close to failure as I am now. While I tried to lift to failure with each set during Week 1, I was also becoming used to the equipment and my limits. Weeks after this might not have as great of deltas, and might be closer to the deltas on my upper body. Time will tell. Wednesday -- Cardio:
Megs and I opted for a pyramid structure HIIT workout. She realized last week that she doesn't like the tabata ABAB type workouts too much so I looked for an alternative option. Shout out to Fitness Blender for providing cardio workouts that are way more entertaining than just running. Thursday -- Upper Body B: A couple of notes on my numbers for this lifting sequence:
Friday -- Lower Body B: My legs were still sore from the Tuesday workout before I began this one, so I made sure to roll out thoroughly before beginning the second leg sequence of the week. The only change for this one is that I gave up trying to use the seated leg curl to target my hamstrings and did most of my reps with a stiff legged dead lift. The seated leg curl machine felt like it was bruising my calves even when I rotated the pads to the less used side. Saturday -- Cardio: Doing cardio after such a taxing week was tough, and doing a toning-focused cardio workout was even more challenging. (Megs wanted a change from our usual HIIT workouts.) We ended up doing this workout, except I did regular push-ups instead of the chair push-ups and just did the motion of the pull-ups instead of doing actual pull-ups. My arms were sore from Thursday, and I wanted to be able to recover on Sunday to start the week semi-fresh. Just briefly, I wanted to mention a new tab that I added to my spreadsheet: Weigh Ins. I've been weighing myself on the Monday morning of odd weeks so far (1, 3, and 5). Note that the initial weight on week 1 was different (higher) than the weight the Bod Pod gave me an hour later. But since I can only schedule Bod Pod assessments every 12 weeks, I'm using the scale to track changes even if they aren't absolute values.
Anyways. Week 1 I was 146.2 lbs. Week 3 I was 145.2 lbs. I'm guessing this drop just came from starting to workout after a few weeks of rest. Probably a combination of not eating quite enough and my metabolism speeding up. But then in Week 5, I weighed in at 147.6 lbs so I'm back on track with actually putting on noticeable muscle mass. I'm shooting to get to at least 150 (it just seems like a solid number). W4D23: Saturday Cardio
It was really cold on Saturday, and I hadn't really gotten a chance to recover from the ultimate tournament last week. Megs and I took our dog on long walks on Saturday and Sunday, and I called it good enough. Monday -- Upper Body A: W5D24 begins the week of 6 sets of 3 reps each. Even. Heavier. Gotta get those #gains. Only a couple things to note that deviate from my normal workout:
Tuesday -- Lower Body A: I went even heavier on the squats, and I'm beginning to realize the limitations of using a Smith Machine to do these. The Smith Machine's pure vertical motion is starting to mean that I'm concentrating loads on my back more than if I was doing a normal squat. But it hasn't actually become problematic yet. Everything else went according to plan. Thursday -- Upper Body B:
Nothing too different than usual for the W4D21 workout. I'm getting closer to being able to do the wide grip pull-ups on my own, but my body is still learning how to do that motion without using momentum. Next week is sets of 3 reps, so maybe I'll manage it then. For the dumbbell shrugs: I used wrist straps, and they definitely helped me to hold the dumbbells and get a much better workout on my traps. I'll definitely be using them in the future. Still kinda scared of pinching my finger again when I re-rack the larger dumbbells... That wasn't a super fun experience. Friday -- Lower Body B: I'm getting really f!cking pissed about the fact that my gym only has a seated leg curl. It's become essentially impossible for me to increase the weight because I can't hold myself into the machine while doing the curl. I think I bruised both of my calves from trying. And my hamstrings barely felt worked afterwards. I think I might just start doing the stiff-legged dead lift as my hamstring exercise on both lower body days. I'll check in with a staff member next week about that situation. But I don't think any gains will come from using the seated leg curl. (Note the the leg extension is still good and I've been progressing on that). I did start adding dumbbells to the lying leg raise and the side bend this week. The extra weight definitely made the exercises more difficult, and I can still feel how tight my core is 7 hours later so I'm expecting to be sore there tomorrow. I'm not sure what I'll be doing for cardio tomorrow, so I'll include that in my first post next week. Protein update below. This past weekend, I played at a women's college tournament with a pick-up team to round out their bracket numbers. Lots of running/cardio on both Saturday and Sunday (in the day count, I'm still going to reference Saturday as W3D17 and pretend that Sunday was a rest day which I had already taken on Wednesday - kinda balances out). While not as sore as I typically am after an ultimate tournament (thank you, short games), I definitely did not enter this week fresh or well-rested which might influence some of the numbers I'm hitting.
Anyways. Week 4. Even heavier. This week, the workout calls for doing 5 sets of 4-6 reps to failure. It's definitely intense. I did change a few more things around to try to optimize the lifts based on the equipment available. Monday -- Upper Body A:
Wednesday (W3D15) this week was my rest day. I'm playing in an ultimate tournament this weekend, so I wanted to give my body a bit of time to recover before continuing to demolish it. I'll be doing plenty of cardio on both Saturday (W3D17) and Sunday (which would be my normal rest day). So Monday's workout will be super fun.
Thursday's upper body day was an afternoon workout for me, and one of the staff guys bantered with me about how I decided to sleep in that morning. But the workout was still good. The only change was that I started using the EZ Curl bar for the lying triceps press instead of just doing it with dumbbells. Still figuring out the exact form, but that's the difference in the numbers you'll find in the spreadsheet. I came back this morning to do my Friday lower body workout #12hoursapart. During this workout, I realized that I don't like the positioning of the handles on the seated leg curl because even with the seat belt, I have trouble curling my legs due to the actual motion, not the weight. I adjusted and began holding onto the seat behind my head rather than on the handles by my side. Way easier to curl that way. Will be doing it in the future. For the standing calf raise, as I increased the weight, I noticed that I've started deforming the plastic platform I was standing on... So I switched it up and put two 25 lb. plates under each of my feet to get the elevation, and those held up fine. Still no weight added to the leg raises or side bends -- I wanted to make sure I could complete 3 sets of 12 before I added the weight since I only did sets of 10 last week. I'm planning on adding weight next week. Also, every month the fitness center posts lists awarding "medals" to people who visit the gym frequently. Despite only joining halfway through the month, I managed to qualify for a bronze medal in the month of October!
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about me:Woman-identified ultimate athlete wanting to reach new fitness levels after graduating college. Seeking to prove that not just males can get ripped in the gym. Archives
October 2018
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