Day 64 - To My Dearest Followers

Sorry I haven't posted anything in over a month, I have been super busy socially and between that and gymming and eating (and sleeping) I don't have a lot of time to just kick back let alone do a blog.

So I've been doing some thinking and I'm going to video blog from now on.. No typing, no thinking, just saying what I'm feeling and telling you whats up.  This will hopefully make it easier for me and beneficial for you.

For those who are wondering, even though I have missed a mess of blogs, I am yet to miss a meal, workout or cardio session and have recently tipped the scales at 113.4kg (almost 16kg down from my starting weight).

I'll explain some of the set backs I faced in future rest day posts.

This week is the start of week 10, which means the start of phase 3, which means the start of DTP.  If you are not aware what DTP training is, read this then prepare to vomit.  And if you have a few spare minutes watch this:

and this

...Then vomit

First DTP workout starts tomorrow which chest and back, talk to you then! (if I'm still alive!)

Day 38 - Phase 2, Chest and Tris

Training days are the best days of the week. If find it a lot easier to persevere through the exhaustion at work when I know I'm going home to get ready to hit the gym.

Didn't have a great start to the day. I ran out of oats! I thought I had 2 or 3 bags left but it turns out I didn't. Then he boss had a go at me today for 'being late to work.' Apparently my start times for the last 6 years have not been correct which means I have to leave home earlier to get to work which also mean I have to wake up earlier (then 5am) to get my cardio done. In fairness, I have been genuinely late a few times lately, mainly from simple things like not being able to find my wallet and/or keys or leaving my laptop at home. So I have to pick up my game.

Chest and tris today, phase 2 style! Lots of sets, lots of weight, lots of grunting haha.

Started with decline DB press. Worked my way up to 30kg during my warm ups but by the time I'd got there, someone decided to take the 30kg dumbbells and hold on to them while resting. Instead of waiting I thought “bugger it” and grabbed the 32.5s. Only just got to 10 reps, so in the end it was probably a better choice.

Straight arm pull overs next. Thought I'd try the “bench across the shoulders” method opposed to just lying on the bench. It worked out alright and I surprised myself with how much weight I could use.

Incline DB press was the last chest move and by that time, my chest was fried! Had to really dig deep to get my reps out and really had to concentrate to keep good form.

First of the triceps moves was bench dips. These thing are still here to haunt me. I thought they would get easier, only doing 10 reps but I was wrong! Had to rest-pause to get the reps put on the last 2 sets.

We moved on to overhead cable extensions and once again, I thought I would smash the weight but I was truly rooted by this time. And after looking back, we were supposed to do triceps push-downs, not overhead extentions. My bad.

Last move of the night was one-arm DB extensions. I went super light on this and still failed before 10 reps. I was well and truly spent by this time.

All up, we took an hour and 10 mins. Which is alright for 2 people and 24 sets. I felt we went just about as fast as we could go and got the job done pretty well.

Can't wait for bed tonight then a 4:45am rise to hit some cardio and abs. Until then...

AM Cardio – 25mins Brisk Walk

Meal 1 – CNP Pro MR (multi-vitamin, Green tea, L-Carnitine, Yohimbe)

Meal 2 – 180g tin of tuna, 1 wholegrain tortilla, Tabasco sauce

Meal 3 - 180g tin of tuna, 1 wholegrain tortilla, Tabasco sauce

Meal 4 – 180g tin of tuna, 1 wholegrain tortilla, Tabasco sauce

Meal 5 – 200g chicken breast with garlic

Meal 6 – Post-workout shake

Meal 7 – Casein Shake

Pre-workout: DY NOXPUMP (multi-vitamin, Green tea, L-Carnitine, Yohimbe)

Decline DB Bench Press

10 reps of 32.5kg

10 reps of 32.5kg

10 reps of 30kg

10 reps of 27.5kg

Straight Arm Pull Overs

12 reps of 17.5kg

10 reps of 22.5kg

10 reps of 25kg

10 reps of 25kg

Incline DB Bench Press

10 reps of 20kg

10 reps of 20kg

10 reps of 17.5kg

10 reps of 17.5kg

Bench Dips

10 reps with body weight

10 reps with body weight

8+2 reps with body weight (rest-pause)

6+2+2 reps with body weight (rest-pause)

Over Head Cable Extensions

10 reps of 2 plates

10 reps of 2.5 plates

10 reps of 2.75 plates

10 reps of 2.25 plates

One-Arm Overhead Extensions

10 reps with 5kg

10 reps with 5kg

10 reps with 5kg (forced reps)

10 reps with 5kg (forced reps)

Post-workout Shake: 2 scoops of whey protein, 80g of dextrose, 5g of creatine, 10g of glutamine

Day 37 - Rest That Back

My back!

Man, I have never felt my back like this before, I blame the dead lifts. My lower back is fried. This probably the most I've felt a workout the next day since I started this program, which is great!

Didn't do much worth talking about today (except catch up on 4 blog posts haha), which I apologise if you were hanging out for them. I am just so tired lately and doing anything but sleeping and sitting around seems like a chore. Not to worry though, I'll try my best to stay on top of the for the remainder. Should see a lot of change in this phase which is exciting, so I should have a lot to talk about and hopefully keep you interested.

Anyway, best hit the sack now. Chest and triceps tomorrow. Pumped to see what type of weight I can hit on the bench press. Until then...

-Scott

AM Cardio – 25mins Brisk Walk plus 3 sets of crunches (25 reps)

PM Cardio – 25mins Cross Trainer plus 150 twists

Meal 1 – 2 scoops of whey protein, 1 cup of oats (multi-vitamin, Green tea, L-Carnitine, Yohimbe)

Meal 2 – 180g chicken tenderloin, 1 wholegrain tortilla, Tabasco sauce

Meal 3 - 180g chicken tenderloin, 1 wholegrain tortilla, Tabasco sauce

Meal 4 – 2 tuna and brown rice sushi rolls

Meal 5 – 200g round steak with garlic and mushrooms

Meal 6 - 200g round steak with garlic and soy sauce

Meal 7 – Casein shake

4l of water with 4 scoops of xtend

Day 36 - Phase Two Begins!

Phase 2 started today!

Can't believe we're in to week 6 already, almost half way.

Jumped on the scales this morning and found myself at 120.1kg, 9kg down from my start weight. The scales aren't a very good indication of my progress but they give you the idea that what I am doing is working. I'm noticing my arms and legs lean up now as well. Starting to see some quad definition and starting to see the classic “biceps vein” when I'm in the gym which is always a good motivator. This phase will see some dramatic difference and the training volume is going up as well as the cardio and the number of reps in going down so we will be lifting heavier. Also, we wont be pre-exhausting the muscle, we'll be going straight into heavy compound lifts, which will be good fun.

I'm going to follow the book exactly in regards to training on this phase. Which involves a lot more sets and therefore will take a lot more time so we'll really have to smash it to get our workout done in under an hour. But more sets means more calories burnt. tonight, we failed at keeping the time down, majorly. Mainly because we didn't know what weight we would lift and Brock had never done a dead lift or a bent over row so I had to give him some pointers on form. We WILL improve on this next week.

So, back and biceps. Started again with my old friend wide grip pull downs. I'm finding it a lot easier to hit my lats with this now. Just gotta go a little lighter and squeeze the weight down.

Then into reverse grip pull downs. This is probably my favourite pull down exercise. You can really feel your mid-lats working and can generally go heavier that the wide grip.

Bent over dumbbell rows are awesome. I've only done them a few times before but they really hit the whole upper back.

On to dead lifts now. Dead lifts have always scared me a little bit because you can really mess yourself up in your form is sloppy. Not that I use poor form, I'm just very aware of what can happen. Managed to hit it pretty hard though which was good. Even got to pull my weight belt out, which hasn't been used for a long time. The book says to used dumbbells but the dumbbell rack at the gym is usually pretty busy so we used a barbell on the power rack instead. Also, we only took the bar down just past our knees, instead of all the way on to the floor to keep the weight on our back and keep it off our glutes and legs.

DB shrugs still feature is phase 2 but only needing 10 reps, I could go a lot heaver. I found it very annoying (and sometimes painful) lugging huge dumbells around so we're going to use the barbell and power rack next week.

Finally on to biceps. By this time an hour and 10 had already past so we were waaay behind schedule. We quickly knocked out 5 sets of barbell curls then moved on to machine preacher curls.

After an hour and 40 mins we were spent. I cant remember the last time I trained for that long, hopefully it will be the last.

Went home for a shake and a quick game of FIFA 12 before a casein shake and bed.

Looking forward to a rest day tomorrow and a relaxing day at work haha. Until then...

- Scott

AM Cardio – 25mins Brisk Walk

Meal 1 – 2 scoops of whey protein, 1 cup of oats (multi-vitamin, Green tea, L-Carnitine, Yohimbe)

Meal 2 – 180g chicken tenderloin, 1 wholegrain tortilla, Tabasco sauce

Meal 3 - 2 salmon and brown rice sushi rolls

Meal 4 – 180g chicken tenderloin, 1 wholegrain tortilla, Tabasco sauce

Meal 5 – 1 scoop of whey protien

Meal 6 - post-workout shake

Meal 7 – Casein shake

4l of water with 4 scoops of xtend

Pre-workout: DY NOXPUMP (multi-vitamin, green tea, l-carnitine, yohimbe)

Wide Grip Pull Downs

10 reps with 13 plates

10 reps with 13 plates

10 reps with 13 plates

10 reps with 12.5 plates

Reverse Grip Pull Downs

10 reps with 13.5 plates

10 reps with 13.5 plates

10 reps with 13 plates

10 reps with 12.5 plates

Bent Over DB Rows

10 reps with 15kg

10 reps with 15kg

10 reps with 20kg

10 reps with 20kg

Dead Lifts

12 reps with 60kg

10 reps with 80kg

10 reps with 90kg

10 reps with 100kg

DB Shrugs

12 reps with 50kg

12 reps with 55kg

10 reps with 55kg

Barbell Curls

10 reps with 5kg

10 reps with 7.5kg

10 reps with 7.5kg

10 reps with 7.5kg

6+4 reps with 7.5kg (negatives)

Machine Preacher Curls

10 reps with 1 plate

10 reps with 1.5 plates

10 reps with 1.75 plates

10 reps with 2 plates

4+6 reps with 3 plates (negatives)

Post-workout Shake: 2 scoops of whey protein, 80g of dextrose, 5g of creatine, 10g of glutamine

Day 35 - Sleeeep

So tired... So, so tired...

Did nothing but sleep today, pretty much. Got out of bed early to do cardio, even after a late night (midnight is late for me ok haha). Then after meal 3 lied down for a bit of a kip and woke up just in time for meal 4 haha. Unfortunately, I wasted a day. But man I needed that sleep.

Cat Empire were good, to be honest I was a little disappointed. If I was to have my time again, I would of stayed at home but I bought the tickets before I started the program and had a good time out with mates which I don't do very often.

My meals last night, I had shake just as I got out of the car and had a second one waiting for me in the car for after the gig. I managed (somehow) to get back to the car after exactly 3 hours, so I had the shake and headed home without missing a meal

Continued to smash down some tortillas today, so good. I'll be buying some for work tomorrow, thats for sure. Until then...

- Scott

AM Cardio – 20mins Cross Trainer

Meal 1 – 2 scoops of whey protein, 1 cup of oats (multi-vitamin, Green tea, L-Carnitine, Yohimbe)

Meal 2 – CNP Pro MR

Meal 3 - 180g chicken tenderloin, 1 wholegrain tortilla, Tabasco sauce

Meal 4 – 180g chicken tenderloin, 1 wholegrain tortilla, Tabasco sauce

Meal 5 – 150g chicken tenderloin

Meal 6 - 200g round steak with garlic and soy

PM Cardio – 20mins Brisk Walk

Day 34 - Tabasco and Tortillas!

Just a borin' ol' rest day today.

Did make an awesome discovery though! Wholegrain tortillas! Amaaazing! AAANNNDDD! Tabasco sauce!

Sorry about the excitement but I'm so pumped that I found a delicious, easy to prep carb source and a delicious, metabolism friendly hot sauce! I went to town on these today and plan on buying many more haha.

Helped out my old man on the farm today as well, the poor cows had some ticks that needed tending to so I helped him out with that, which was fun. Reminded me of being a teenager again haha.

Going to see The Cat Empire tonight, should be fun. I'm going to save my cardio for the dancing and jumping around that is bound to happen. Gotta make sure I time my meal right so I don't miss one, this might be difficult but I should be right.

Until then...

- Scott

AM Cardio – 20mins Cross Trainer

Meal 1 – 2 scoops of whey protein, 1 cup of oats (multi-vitamin, Green tea, L-Carnitine, Yohimbe)

Meal 2 – 180g tin of tuna, 1 wholegrain tortilla, Tabasco sauce

Meal 3 - 180g tin of tuna, 1 wholegrain tortilla, Tabasco sauce

Meal 4 – 180g chicken tenderloin, 1 wholegrain tortilla, Tabasco sauce

Meal 5 – 200g chicken tenderloin

Meal 6 - ½ scoop of whey protein, ½ scoop of casein protein

PM Cardio – +20mins of Hip shaking and such things

Day 33 - Good Bye Phase One!

Last workout of phase one, so we made sure we made it count.

Started off with delts as per usual, side raises first. I felt like I've hit a bit of a wall with the side raises, it never was my strongest exercise. I was so disappointed with my effort with the side raises I felt I really needed smash front raises to make up for the side raise. I wasn't over the moon with my effort so once again, I gave it everything on shoulder press to really finish my delts off.

I was happy with the shoulder press equally a PB on the first set and dieing after 10 reps on the second set.

On to legs and man, I don't think I've hit legs like this before.

I've never hit real failure with leg extensions before, the pain always gets me but today, I persevered. After the first working set I had a pump going in my quads. I had never felt this before, it was an insane feeling. Such a big muscle and so full of blood! It really got me psyched for the second set.

Second set I ran out of puff after 14 reps but still had 6 to go, so I got Brock to force the last few reps out and the pump get even more intense! Looking back, I still can't get over how full my quads felt.

Hit some good weight on the leg curls. I was exhausted by this point but had to keep pushing. Got my sets done and hit the leg press.

I had just about nothing left in the tank once I got to the leg press, first set I went pretty light. So the second set, I loaded the machine up with 240kg and gave it everything I got. After about 3 reps, I was really struggling then something clicked in my brain and I said to myself “Its not going to go away until you finished this set, so hurry up and get it done!” I smashed out the last 12 reps relatively easily and once I'd caught my breath, realised I actually had 280kg on there and therefore set a PB! The power of the mind baffles me sometimes.

Quickly nailed calves (while nearly seeing a fight erupt in the gym haha) and we head home for a WELL needed post workout shake.

My disorganisation is still letting me down as I still haven't pre-cooked any meal and still relying on subway and MR shakes to get me through, which really gets me down. Gotta really tighten my belt and cook something up but I am so tired all the time now and it make getting motivated really hard because I know if I stay up and cook, I'll be dead at work the next day.  Sort of a catch 22.

Rest day the next 2 days. I'm going to a concert on Saturday night which should be interesting, I'm too focused right now to blow my diet, I'm just more concerned about how tired I'm going to be. Until then...

Meal 1 – 2 scoops of whey protein, 1 cup of oats (multi-vitamin, green tea, yohimbe & l-carnitine)

Meal 2 – CNP Pro MR

Meal 3 – Subway (6” roast chicken on wheat, letttuce, tomato, onion)

Meal 4 – Subway (6” roast chicken on wheat, letttuce, tomato, onion)

Meal 5 – Post-Workout Shake

Meal 6 – casein shake

4l+ of water with 4 scoops of xtend

AM Cardio – 20mins brisk walk

Pre-workout: NOXPUMP (multi-vitamin, green tea, yohimbe & l-carnitine)

DB Side Raises

8+7 reps with 12.5kg (swung)

9+6 reps with 10kg (swung)

DB Front Raises

15 reps with 15kg

15 reps with 12.5kg

DB Shoulder press

15 reps with 20kg

10 reps with 20kg the 5 reps with 15kg

Leg Extensions

20 reps with 10 plates

14+6 reps with 10 plates (forced)

Leg Curls

8 reps with 13 plates then 7 reps with 12 plates

15 reps with 12 plates

Leg Press

15 reps with 220kg

15 reps with 280kg

Standing Calf Raise

2 sets of 15 reps with 40kg

Post-workout: 2 scoops of whey, 80g of dextrose, 5g creatine, 10g glutamine