Training Log: 29/03/2013

Second Upper Body Split

1. Pull-up: 3 sets to failure
2. Lat Pull-down: 2 sets of drop-set
3. Meadows Row: 5 sets of 8
4(a). Seated DB Press: 3 sets of 8
4(b). Incline DB chins: 3 sets of 10
5. Barbell curl: 5 sets of 6
6. Core circuit
7. Barbell push-up finisher

Training Log: 27/03/2013

Upper Body Day 1

1. Machine Press: 3x8
2. Bench: x5, x3, x1
3. Alternate DB Bench: 2x12
4. Machine Fly: 2 sets to failure
5. Shoulder Complex
6(a). DB shrugs: 3x30s
6(b). Alt. hammer curl: 3x8
7. Ab roll finisher

Training Log: 22/03/2013

Upper Body Day 2

1. Pull-up: Max + 2 x 70%
2. Pulldown Drop Set: 2 sets
3. DB Pullover: 4 x 12
4(a). Seated Arnold Press: 3 x 8
4(b). Incline DB clean: 3 x 10
5. BB Curl: 4 x 8
6. Core Circuit
7. Finisher: Barbell Push-ups Descending: 18,17,16,15...3,2,1.

Love the finisher, gave me a huge pump on the chest. Pretty satisfied with today's training, was able to crank out 15 pull-ups. Looking forward to getting more reps. Hopefully will be able to perform muscle-ups in the summer.

Peace.

Training Log: 24/03/2013

Today I had the privilege to train with Lawrence who is a personal trainer at PURE and also an expert in athletic performance. It was a sick session with a lot of adrenaline and testosterone pumping. Learned a great deal from him, corrected some of my bad habits on the deadlift and also squatted some heavy weights. Since currently I only have one legs day, I wanted to pack everything into that session so I can get the most of it. We ended up doing deadlifts and squats in the same session.

So I decided we begin with some speed deadlifts with 40 to 50% max, did like 20 sets with around 10 worksets. Then moved on to (what was supposed to be my mainlift of the day) max squat. Then I realized it was a terrible idea. My lower back was quite fatigue from the deadlifts, probably since I hadnt deadlifted for a couple months. And the speed work had taxed my CNS quite significantly, I was only able to hit 70-80% of what I was supposed to lift. But "f*ck it" I thought. Lawrence was killing it for reps, I should be able to at least hit a rep with that weight. It was only 130kg. I switched from free squat to box squat cus I knew I can handle more on the box. So I loaded the bar, squatted down and sat on the box. As I tried to explode upwards,  I realized there was nothing left in me. Next thing I know the bar rolled over my neck and bam it hit the ground.

First time to really miss a weight like this. Here's what I've learned:

1. Never pair dynamic with max effort. If time only allows you to train legs once a week. Pick one, you cant put too much on your plate.

2. Assess your physical condition realistically. As old Henry Rollins said: "Most injuries involving the Iron come from the ego... Try to lift what you aren't prepared to and the Iron will teach you a little lesson about restraint and self-control."

3. If you're gonna alter your stance/ the way you execute a lift in the middle of your sets, you gotta start from scratch. For example, you were pyramiding up your free squats for a max lift. You realize you may not be able to hit the weight you wanted to on that particular day with a free squat but you know you have a bigger chance using a box.  Now you don't just put a box there and start doing box squats using the same weights you were using. Even though its arguably still a squat, the target muscles are entirely different so does the way it is executed. You gotta start all over again from a light weight and pyramid up. Well that seldom happens to me actually. Usually I'd settle for a 3 rep max instead. Guess my competitiveness got the best of me.

Well at least I wasn't injured. I'll take what I've learned from my mistakes and kick some asses next week.

Here's a sneak peak into our training:

So I thought it would be easy:

This guy was obviously killing it, he moved on to 140kg after this.

This is before things got ugly:

All in all, it was a sick session. Thanks to Lawrence, here's my new motto: "To become the best you must learn from the be(a)st".

Stay strong and get stronger

Training Log: 20-3-2013

Upper Body Day 1

1(a). Machine Chest Flyes: 3 x 8

1(b). Band dislocation: 3 x 8

2. Bench Press: x6, x4, x2

3. Alternating Lying DB Press: 2 x 10 

4. Dip: 2 x till failure

5. Standing Rope Pulldown: 4 x 12

6. Shoulder Complex: 2 x 10

7(a). DB Shrug: 2 x 30s

7(b). Alternating Hammer Curls: 2 x 10 

Stay Strong.

Keep Your Chin Up

Today's my second upper body day, did some chin-ups, arms and shoulders and some abs.

Love the chin-up, I think it's the King of upper body exercises because it utilizes a heck load of muscles, builds your lats tremendously, as well as your upper chest, arms and your core. Best thing is that all you need is a bar. Personally, I love doing chin-ups because I suck at it.

Here's what my training today looks like:

1. Chin-up: Max reps + 3x 60%

2. Lat Pulldown: 1 set 12-15, 8-10, 3-5 (20s rest in-between)

3. Shoulder Press: 3x 12

4. Blackburn: 2 sets of 4 variations (hold for 20s)

5. Cable curl: 3x 12

6. Hammer curl: till failure (~25 reps)

7. Some core circuit: 2 sets (V-up x20, Hip raise x20, Toetouch x 15)

On a good day, I could crank out 15 reps. Unfortunately, not today. 

This is one of the places where one should do their curls in, i.e. not in the squat rack.

Stay Strong.

Shut up and Squat

Training Log: Legs (Day 2)

Finally, the long awaited legs day!

I'm using a 3-day split these days (twice upper body, once lower) cus things have been hectic with school and other school. Here's my routine:

1. Kneeling Jump (with 20kg barbell): 5 sets of 5

2. Stiff-legged Deadlift: 3 sets of 10 warmup, 3 sets of heavy 10 workset. Enjoyed the pump after pre-exhausting the hamstrings

3. Squat: pyramid up to x7, x5, x3 or more

4(a). Supine hip thrust: 3 sets of 15

4(b). Elevated stability ball plank: 3 sets of 45s

5. Front leg elevated reverse lunge: 2 sets of 12

Not too intense. But I did enjoy going heavy on squat. In fact its my first free squat in months! I've been doing box squats only, stacking up the "steps" as the box if you know what I mean. Like those the ladies like to do aerobics on. Anyway, today some dude took it for depth jumps so I wondered why not some free squats? I was surprised I could handle the same weights as I did for box squats. That was encouraging. However my form began to fall into pieces as I moved up the weight, I wasn't sitting back enough, the shins were too forward, and became too quad dominant. It was a hell of a session nonetheless! Probably gotta start doing some good mornings and other posterior chain movements to remedy the issue. 

Here is my last set of squat (253lb x 6)

My warm-up set has a better form, notice how I sit back and my shins are closer to perpendicular to the floor:

Some hops:

Left the gym with surging testosterone. Ate a huge slice of pizza and drank a gainer on the way home. Cooked myself a big slice of grass fed ribeye afterwards. Now I'm ready to deal with all the crap life throws at me.

And the answer is "No". Squat is not bad for ur knees (when performed correctly)

Nutrition 101

Not everyone wants to look like the incredible hulk. A lot of people out there training/ contemplating about starting to train want to get strong and obtain an athletic body. Looking like the incredible hulk is easy: you lift heavy, eat TONS of crap and sleep. The only difficult thing is the "eating TONs of crap" part, cus tons literally mean tons. But for most of the ordinary lads out there they want to lose fat and gain lean muscle at the same time and look like Michael Phelps, that require some tinkering in terms of their diet.

Here are some tips:

1. Good news: you don't have to do hours cardio to lose fat. Sprint for 10-15min couple times a week on the treadmill/ bike/ out there on the busy streets on an empty stomach (preferably first thing in the morning) will do the trick.

2. You have to eat fat to burn fat. Yes, that's what I am telling you. But why? Most of our energy are generated from the carbs we eat during the day. So when we train we are burning the carbs we ate but not the fat that is in our body. The thing is, from what I learn from John Meadows, you have to teach your body to use fat as the energy source. How? You limit your carbs intake and take in some good fats, such as grass fed butter/ beef and coconut oil. Those saturated fat are good for your body and with diet consisting of more fat and less carbs, your body will start replacing carbs with fat for energy generation. Then you'll be burning fat.

3. Protein shake before and after training for optimal protein synthesis. That's simple. Preferably, add some BCAAs and glutamine to your workout drink.

4. Get some sleep. Studies have shown that lack of sleep contributes to lost of lean muscle and slowing metabolism. It means that if you dont get enough sleep, you become a skinny fat person. Yeah. skinny and fat.

5. Spread your meals throughout the day (~6 meals) to ensure a faster metabolism. Unless you want to gain weight, then you'd want to have 2 or 3 hooge meals per day so that ur metabolism is slowed down.

6. Stay away from simple sugar.

7. Lift HEAVY. No further explanation is needed here, unless you're less than a man.

Stay strong.

New Blog

Recently couple of my friends have been asking me questions about what they should do in the gym if they've never trained with weights before. Stuff like which exercises they should do, how often, how many sets/reps, all those shit I've dealt with couple years ago when I first began my journey under the bar. Took me a long time to figure things out. In fact, my training has not been too structured before since as a competitive swimmer, I thought I didn't need to be too big or too strong to swim fast. (And I wrongly adopted the western linear periodization which was actually detrimental to my sports performance and also my gain in the gym) However I was wrong. You need to be strong in order to be good at your sport. Being strong and powerful doesnt mean getting huge and buff, look at Bruce Lee. A lot of work lies in neural adaptation and ability to accelerate, but that'd be another article for next time.

Having read extensively on Elitefts articles, especially those from the man Dave Tate himself, I've gained a different perspective on training and also, on training hard. Other stuff like nutrition and supplements, I've learned a great deal from John Meadows (Mountaindogdiet).

This blog serves as my training log where I'll put down my workouts for my readers' reference. I've gained 30lbs of muscle mass in the past 3 years which I consider pretty steady (given my huge aerobic output, swimming 5 days a week) while maintaining a 5-7% body fat. Now I'm half-retired from swimming because of the need to do well in my last semester at law school. The break from swimming enables me to re-think and re-plan my weight training regime thoroughly. I've experimented with the Westside maximum/ dynamic effort and some Defranco (for maintaining my athletic ability and John Meadows stuff (maintaing on accessory exercises to strengthen my weak links, i.e. delts, pecs, yes my pecs are weak). From time to time, I can't stop wondering whether I would swim faster if I had proper weight training before. A lot of trainers don't know what they're doing, let alone helping clients achieve their goals. Programming is an art with the single goal of meeting your client's needs. The linear periodization method I was trained with (hypertrophy->strength->power) is a thing that should've been left in history. It surprises me how so many trainers still live by this method and refuse to change. No wonder a lot of them I see in my gym cant even lift their own bodyweight in bench press/ squat/ deadlift. With that in mind, I hope I can help aspiring athletes and people who want to be strong to reach their goals.

Sometimes I find it difficult to understand how some people go to the gym simply for aesthetic reasons. I mean, I do like to have bigger guns and shredded abs. After all, I would be lying big time if I say I dont care how my body looks. But the reason I go to the gym is to get strong, in the hope of getting really strong. On the path to get stronger, the aesthetic aspects come naturally. But avoiding big weights and 'toning' this and that are signs that you are weak, most importantly, mentally weak. And going to the gym simply for aesthetic reason is like putting the cart before the horse. Perhaps because I'm an athlete, I pay a lot more attention on improving the body's performance, rather than how the body appears.

In the era we are living in, everyone seems to have forgotten the value of being strong, both mentally and physically, and have become complacent about their materialistic lives. It sickens me to see dudes who cant even load their suitcases onto the back of their car. And where's ur dignity when u see some guy pat ur girl's butt in a club, but ur only too scared to confront because you're not strong enough. (definitely not advocating a bar brawl here, but you get my point) And being truly strong transcends lifting suitcases and shit, confronting others who has stepped on ur tail; its about what you learn about yourself, your potential to surpass your perceived limitations, your ability to endeavor and your drive to become a stronger and better individual.

In the following weeks/ months, I'll put up articles and videos introducing some basic programming and training techniques. Stay tuned.