^ Thanks bro! I'm not keeping my hopes up at this point.

No internet because I just moved and it's taking time to get an appointment to set it up. New neighborhood is really great. Very westernized, but still everything walking distance incl gym. Tons of really good food around.
July 31
BB rows: 85kgx6x4
Pulldowns: 155x10x3 minor pain
Cable rows: 125x12x5 this cable row machine is magic, great pump.
DB Chest supported row: 20kgx10x4
Unilateral straight arm pulldowns: 3 sets *supposedly good for scap winging but also a bbing lat exercise.

Hammer curls: 16kgx3 sets

Aug 1
Bw down to 94kg, probably lost a lot of water/glycogen lately.

OHP: 60kgx5x5 first time in almost 2 years doing standing ohp! It was easy though. I think I could 5-6rm 80kg still.
Side raises: 5 sets to failure
Single arm kb standard grip presses: 20kgx12x3 each side
Pushdowns: 4 sets
Skullcrushers: 14kgx3 sets

Tried out some inverted rows. They're still just nowhere near as good as pullups RIP. But doing a **** ton of scap retraction/horizontal pulling is probably step one to fix winging.


Knee's doing good still. When it's healed I'm going to do an LSU style push/pull 4 day routine (obv the oly singles+fs day cut). Basically like this:

Push
Squat
Incline
Flat db
pushups
shoulder+tricep isolation
single leg squats and goblet(belt) squats

Pull
Deadlift (very light or omit on 2nd dl session of the week)
BB rows
Inverted rows/cable rows
Chest supported rows
Pulldowns
Curls
hyperextensions

Keep the periodization mostly the same, maybe do it 10/8/5/3 instead. 3 weeks+1 deload week in each rep range. 4 days a week mo tu thu fri.

Going to return to inclining next session or next week, haven't decided. Just 5s/6s on main bb lifts for now until knee heals.

Yesterday evening

BB rows: 90kgx6x4 easy, will do another 5kg jump.
Pullups: bwx10x3 I wanted to quit pullups but both lat pulldowns were taken by some stupid couple doing zillions of reps with ultra light weights and a pt+client chatting away. Was toughish after rows though and didn't hurt at all!
Chest supported db rows: 24sx10x4
plate loaded Pulldowns: 110kgx9,5,3+3 unilateral rest pause

Hammer curls (seated): 18kgx3 sets failure unilateral then alternating

A bunch of kb swongs with 24kg sets of 30-50.


Today morning

Incline bench: 85kgx5, 80kgx5x4 felt heaavvvyyy
Flat db: 24kgx15x3
Pushups: bwx16,9,6
single arm kb press: 20kgx10x3 each side
Cable side raises w/ external rotation: 5 sets failure each side
Rope pushdowns: 3 sets failure
db skullcrushers: 12kgx13, 10kgx12,9

No v bar handle for triceps sucks.


I'm considering no form of benching as a main lift for a few months/weeks until I re-wire my shoulder mechanics. I'm going to try the Seated Press on Tuesday. If I like it, bye bye benching! I'm sick of constantly having my progress dragged down by the same recurring injury. IIRC G4S is only a vertical presser, and his pecs still look damn good. I'm still going to do light db benching+pushups as accessories too. I don't really want to standing OHP because you spend so much more effort stabilizing that it's hard to really overload triceps/pecs/delts tbh. Very hard to do high reps too as breathing starts to be a limiting factor.

Never really seated pressed. Most seated press apparatuses are ****ing AIDS for people just leaning back doing high incline partials and not even internally rotating, locking out, or going all the way down. My new gym has one of those crossfit "megaracks" so it should be a cinch to set up. Fancy as ****, you can do all that kstarr ridiculous band mobs on it.

No spotters needed too. If you fail, just return it to the front rack position and stand up from the bench? If you think western gym spotters are aids LOL LOL LOL China. Unsolicited spotters on visibly easy warmups with hands all over the bar.

I mean c'mon if you can legit seated press 95kgx5 how the **** will you not bench 140kgx5 if you still train lighter chest movements? I mean no expectedV presses.

oh yeah my knee is feeling great. A few more days then starting rehab with unweighted abductor (the pushing out one whatever the **** it's called) lifts and leg extensions from various angles and positions. After a week of that, provided there's no pain, eccentric only single leg box squats for about 1-2 weeks. If no pain from that, onward to barbell squatting!

Pull

BB rows: 95kgx6x4 brutal, might not make 100kg next session.
Pulldowns: 120kgx8, 11, 5+3 unilateral reps each side
Inverted rows: bwx14,10,10,9,7 I like these. Definitely very bicep dominant for a back exercise though. Works the neck muscles really well too?
Rack pulls below knee: 140kgx6, 160kgx6x2 no problems with this degree of knee flexion

Seated Hammer curls: 16kgx3 sets failure
EZ curls: 25kgx3 sets failure

KB swings: 20kgx100
messing around with hamstring curls on leg extension machine


Yates rows and pendlay rows are both stupid cheat rows. Gotta do a pendlay row but keep the weight suspended above the floor to maintain constant tension and use near 0 momentum getting the weight up while maintaining an isometric contraction in your lower back.


I'm guessing the bicep tendinitis might be from doing like 3-4x as much vertical pulling as horizontal. I made a **** ton of progress on the scap winging via scap pushups daily. I couldn't even do one correctly at first. I gotta use my lats doing them in a weird way I'm not used to to get it correct.

Push

Incline DBs: 34kgx17, 30kgx20,15
close pushups: 25,9,12
Single arm db ohp: 20kgx5x3 each side so much harder than kbs wtf
Side raise+internal rotation: 4 sets failure
Rope pushdown: 3 sets
improvised v handle pushdowns: 3 sets

Knee rehabz: Knee felt sore after doing these which never happens. Makes me think the rack pulls might have been a bad idea, but idk.


I tried the seated press. Could not get a comfortable setup at all so **** it. I'll either standing press or seated db I guess.

But most likely I'll just return to db benching only no barbells and do single arm db/kb standing for stability+shoulder health.

Pull

BB rows: 100kgx6x4 some kinda pr
Inverted Rows: bwx19,6,7 These are surprisingly hard. But again it feels like biceps more than back are limiting factors.
Chest supported db rows: 26kgx10x3 I kinda miss my CSR machine from last gym
Cable rows: 135lbsx10x2
unliateral Straight arm pulldowns: 15 reps each side

Hammer curls: 16kgx3 sets failure first set went like 12+12 each side, 5+5 each side, then 3 more reps one at a time. So yeah I do them constant tension, basically bang out as many as you can on just the left side, match that number on right, go back to left, then do 1 at a time.

EZ curls: 25kgx13,3,3

KB swings: 24kgx60, 21,21,25 about 20-40 seconds rest

Knee rehabz including 5x4 bw eccentric only parallel pistols

Knee is doing great. I could squat next week.But I won't. Want to correct this imbalance a bit more. I can bang out like 8 bw pistols left side, but evne when knee was healthy I could do 0-1 right side. Also going to warmup with a band around my knees until like 100kg.

Those of you who've followed previous iterations on my log know that I squat with a very ballistic bouncy explosive divebomb style. This is conducive to moving a lot of weight in the short run, but a pretty poor way to grow big muscles or the keep one's joints and tendons healthy. I need to follow my own advice wrt to checking ego, relearn the movement and stop descending so damn fast. Generally, I need to "try softer" and stop treating sq/dl sessions like it's ****ing gladiator life or death braveheart freedom disembowelment death metal. Not going to do any regular AMRAPing on these. Maybe I could get away with that at age 24-26, but I'm older, more enfeebled, and have less recovery time these days.

Rows. Waiting for loco judgement/approval. I think these pass, but I admit there was more momentum than usual because it was quite heavy. Going to stay at 100kg or jump only 2.5kg henceforth.

sex moans in the back are from a trainer doing forced beyond capable ROM static stretching with a middle aged obese female client.


If ****** trainers amuse you, your head would just explode in China. Staggering levels of incompetence. And they make far more money in $ terms than USA trainers and get far more clients who seem to trust them far more. They do this with less education and are held to lower standards of fitness for themselves as well. And if that weren't enough, they get hotter clients too. However I've thusfar observed far less incompetence among female trainers, particularly older ones, than male trainers. It's an interesting and unexpected inversion from USA #982. Two of the three trainers I'd describe as competent were MMA girls. The other was the 20 year old bodybuilding bro.

Shoulders+tris+light chest
seated DB ohp: 26kgx10x4
Cable side raise with external rotation: 5 sets failure
1 arm db ohp: 14kgx10x3 each side
Close grip pushups: bwx28, 18, 10, 13
V pushdowns: 5 sets failure
Reverse grip chest press: 3 sets

Low WIM just kinda wanted to get in get it done and gtfo. Prob burnt out from the difficult rows yesterday.

Monday
BB rows: 102.5kgx6x4 hard hard hard barely made it without cheat
pullups: bwx10x3
plate loaded Pulldowns: 110kgx14,5,7+3
Inverted rows: bwx14,10,11

ez curls: 25kgx19,8,7,5
hammer curls: 12kgx2 sets failure


Tuesday
Incline db bench: 40kgx14, 32kgx12,16 40s are the heaviest we have
flat db: 32kgx15?, 28x11, 14
Close Pushups: bwx19,10,7
V pushdowns: 4 sets failure
Reverse grip chest press machine: 3 sets failure
Overhead rope extensions: 3 sets failure


Last 3 sessions I've been feeling very sluggish and low motivation. Need some rest/light sessions. Did knee rehabs with pistol box squats and had essentially no soreness. Might do some squats with 60-80kg and get used to the movement again. I'm tentatively wanting to start the training cycle in early september, but I just wanna be able to bang out a few right side pistols before I even start pushing up the squat weights. Should prevent me from having any troubles like 6 weeks in.

No idea if I want it to be a 16 week or 12 week one. It'll be either 10/8/5/3 or 10/5/3. Chest no periodization just 3 sets failure db incline, db flat, pushups increase weight or reps or both.

Also I will be bringing back standing ohp. I think it's un-necessary for developing delts, however I think doing the lift and trying to bring weight on it will allow me to both bench with less injury risk and bench with more weight when I do bench. I mean incline db bench ofc.

Light day

Inverted rows: bwx10x5
Pullups: bwx5x2 quit lmao
cable rows: 135lbsx10x5

Hammer curls: 18kgx3 sets failure, first set got 15 each side
straight bar curls: 20kgx10

about 5 mins of kb swings, 10x10 bw hyperextensions, 10 min steady state cardio, and all my knee rehabs+ 4 sets of 5 eccentric pistol box squats.


Pistol box squats feeling better and more stable than ever causing less soreness the next day each time I do them. Will play with some ~40kg fses tomorrow.

Lighter day

OHP: 60kgx5, 70x1, 80x3 easy
fs: 40kg with a band around my knees x 5x5

10 min bike cardio.


Can't decide if I wanna mainlift ohp or not. I think that program I wrote out before is going to kill me. Also, my physique is extremely balanced and complete now, my only weakness is arms. It's hard for me to justify hitting back/chest twice a week when these are already my best groups and my legs are always going to be ahead of everything basically. I'll do a 4 day brosplit, but I can't decide if I want to put shoulders with arms and do ohp mainlift before arms or do shoulders on chest day. The former is harder for sure, but might result in a bit more upper hypertrophy.

I really need to commit to pulling back on volume and just trust in consistent smaller gains rather than trying to go balls to the wall all the time. My schedule is going to be very hectic starting in 2 weeks. I elected to go with the more rigorous Chinese language program which has a lot of who have already studied Chinese in high school. They probably have a lot less speaking experience than me but are way more familiar writing/reading/grammar/how to structure things. The other program is mostly for westerners who are coming here for the first time so there's a lot of time wasting field trips and cultural enrichment **** I've already been doing for 2 years.

Lastly, I'm about 90% committed to doing a bbing show next summer. Definitely one in China and, if I think I can win an overall, I will do one in America too.

Deload 3
Squat: 60kgx5x7 mix of hbbs, lbbs, and fs. no knee pain or discomfort whatsoever. A little lower back pain that went away a few sets in. No differences in lower back between the 3 styles.

BB Rows: 85kgx8x2
Pullups: bwx8x2
Inverted rows: bwx21,10,7

Ez curls: 32kgx12, 6, 5

I think the ez curl bar is actually 10kg not 5kg like I thought before. No idea.

I started measuring my food. Daily diet will be 600g chicken, 4.5 cups cooked white rice, ~150g broccoli, 6 eggs, a protein shake with skim milk and a banana, and then about 400-800 free calories. Should put me around 2900-3300 last time I checked, but I won't hestitate to bump that on leg and deadlift days when I start using big boy weights again. Plan is to minicut another 4-6 weeks then continue bulking slowly. As lean as I look in the pic on the last page, I probably would need to lose another 25-35lbs before stepping on stage to win.

After listening to bbers on the web and watching some videos of shows/looking at pictures, I've realized all you need to do to win most local shows (in America) is to show up legitimately 7-10% bf. Lots of very muscular dudes who are carrying lots of extra bf at every single non pro-qualifying shows, even in states where bbing is relatively more culturally present (AZ, California, Nevada, NY etc).


I don't really know about China though, but chinese gym bros are far more delusional than Ameribros. The footage I've seen shows more variance overall; more shredded guys on stage but also more ultrafats, fewer guys in the middle.

Yeah those rows are good. Which is kinda of refreshing after all the fake facking rows that have been posted over the years, from halfslant to richard muny (theengineer).

Rows and its variations have to be up there as most underrated exercise around here. They are hard and people with no heart like expectedV, avoid them like they are a plague.

"deload" not really a deload b/c I felt good

Incline DB: 40kgx16, 32kgx12,8
Flat db: 32kgx13,8,15
Close pushups: 3 sets, first was 29 reps
Shoulder raises: 4 sets failure each side


Used shorter rests on everything. Rehab skotts and cardiotard tomorrow.

About 20 minutes of knee rehabz, then
hbbs: up to 100kgx5x2

20 minutes cardio bike and treadmill


Might be starting a proper training cycle and new program sooner than expected... For now I'll prob work up to a comfortable 140kgx5x3 and if I can do that pain free it'll be time to start.

My knee feels great, but my back actually does not still. Going on a year since I first tweaked it. non unilateral rows, deadlifts, rack pulls, hyperextensions, kb swings, fses al feel fine, but for whatever reason the backsquat just does not. Kinda funny since I injured it unilaterally rowing. I might have to do FS main (in which case I'll start after 115kgx5x3). Not really the end of the world if bodybuilding.

BB rows: 105kgx6x4 about as hard as last heavy row sesh
Pullups: bwx11x2, 8+f
Pulldowns: 120kgx8,4,3+4 each side unilateral rest pause
Inverted rows: bwx12,10,8,8
straight bar curls: 17.5kgx20,11,8

Cardio 10 min bike

I went in planning to DL last, but then I remembered they bothered my knee far more than squats the first time around and I wasn't back to DLing last recovery until I was squatting 315x10 comfortably without pain. I coulda done rack pulls but those rows were sufficiently hard so I skipped.

Morning bw lowest in a long time at 94.6. Diet going very well. Cals have been lower than planned. Didn't end up eating the eggs at all, doing nuts throughout the day instead. After I get below 90, I'll reverse diet/bulk/cleanbulk/offseason and just try to stay below 97-98 until my contest diet starts.

So what are the legit forms of rowing Evo/loco and why?

Watch the video?

Criteria I'm sticking to: 1. Back approximately parallel to the floor 2. Bar doesn't come to a dead stop on the floor, but stays suspended above the ground with constant tension and no hard reset. Meeting points 1 and 2 may be impossible without using a riser, depending on anthropometry. 3. Very little to no active force generated via glutes/hamstrings/lowback, just isometric tension to hold the position. AKA use as little momentum as possible and let the intended muscle groups do the work.

Why: We aren't trying to do some kind of hurck the weight up deadlift with lat/bicep assistance that's predominantly a p-chain movement. This is certainly fine if your main goal is just increasing your deadlift strength, however. Similarly, we don't want to do those atrocious practically standing up but not quite shrugs with lat+bicep assistance, although this exercise is still probably better than the pendlay row is for upper body hypertrophy provided there's minimal momentum. But it's more for the lower traps and supporting upper back muscles and doesn't really get the lats well.

Did arms yesterday very light

Today Squatted 100kgx6x4

I was thinking earlier of moving to the 4 days bodypart split this week, but I think I'll keep the push pull going actually. No periodization, just 4 sets of 6 for squats twice a week and 3 sets of 5 for deadlifts once a week. Exhaust sum linear gainz then move to a 10s phase once I burn out. Will change the bb rows to some other rep range soon as I'm very much burning out there.

As I was leaving I got into a long conversation with a trainer once she realized I know lots of Chinese. I got some even more outrageous salary quotes than from before when I lived in the poorer area of my city. Approx $60-80 for an hour of teaching a group exercise class; they draw pretty huge crowds. Typical personal training session about $45/hr (paid to the trainer). She's not particularly pretty and looks way older than she basically booked up. Face of a 38 year old but body of a fit 19 year old at age 26.

I don't think it'll last... sales guys at LA fitness were clearing 6 figures in the 80s/90s when it was novel too, China's fitness industry is still in that phase, but new gyms are popping up very quickly. I used to visit this area (where I live now) in my first year here because it has a lot of the expat meeting spots and there was ONE gym within walking distance of the subway station, now there are 6.

Developed some kind of elbow tendinitis on the right side. Pulldowns and bb rows hurt today, curls and cable rows didn't hurt. Definitely holding off on any pressing or tricep motions this week.

Pull
Deadlift: 160kgx5x3
BB rows: 80kgx10x5 hard
Pulldowns: 3 sets various weights and reps, kinda painful
Cable rows: 115lbsx10x3
BB curls: empty barx28,10,12,9

Done in about an hour. BB rows after deadlifts were just killer. I reckon I could hit 100kgx10 fresh next back workout not doing any deadlifts, but put them after deadlifts and I'm not sure I could have done more than 90kgx10.

Deadlifts I was strong as hell for the first workout back after a 6 week layoff from dl/squat. I attribute that to the rows. Excited to see where I can go with DLs now pushing the rows hard and not worrying about the pullups. Simpler higher volume program for dls might also be interesting.

Elbow still sucked, so skipped some workouts. Feels okay now. I'll get back to pressing/triceps next Wednesdayish

Legs
HBBS 90kgx10x5
hamstring curls: 10x5
Leg extensions: 10x5

Easy. I'll go 100kg next.

DL: 170kgx5x3 last set hard
BB rows: 85kgx10, x6+f, 82.5kgx10x3 mental fail 2nd set. Will repeat at 82.5kg to keep it strict
Inverted row: bwx21, 4 more sets failure
T-bar row: various weightsx10x4
BB curls: 20kgx32, 15, 4 more sets failure

Elbow still fiecked. Couldn't do pullups or pulldowns, but still hurt a lot. Even lifting the bar overhead out of the rack hurts. Curls and horizontal pulls no pain.

I'm only going to train twice a week legs and back until it's resolved. Icing twice a day. Anyone have suggestions? It's the tricep tendon in the middle, not golfers elbow or tennis elbow on the sides. Clearly the deca and the TB-500 aren't doing the trick for me.

Slow eccentrics. I used rope pushdowns. Would use two hands to push then one arm for the slow eccentric. Doesn't need to be heavy maybe something you can do 15+ for one arm then do sets of 6-10 or whatever.

Then I'd do super light amrap where you can get 50+ to flood area with blood. Sleeves should help too but def do the slow eccentrics.

Thanks beasto. I'll give it a try today. I also realized that if I ever have other elbow/bicep tendon problems, I should go in and train just the left side light. Should help prevent strength loss quite a lot. And my right side on curls/triceps/shoulder exercises are all far stronger.

Yesterday
Did basically a Regan Grimes chest workout, meaning all machines all pussy stuff. And then the beasto rehab and some left side tricep stuff. Felt pretty disgusted. Can't believe people are able to reach IFBB pro status doing this and 0 sq/dl/bp or even free weights in general. Boring, but if I ever get banged up enough I may just convert to training like that.


Today
HBBS: 100kgx10x5
FS: 60x8x2
Unilateral Hamstring Curls: 20x10x5
Leg extensions: 30x15x4

My knee got very sore the day after when I did 90kg last week, so I think this was a bad idea. So far so good no pain though. Had some elbow pain gripping the bar first set, but it went away.

I'm basically waking up in the middle of the night hungry every single day. I gotta take my own advice and stop trying to cut so fast, especially since I'm not going to even start getting ready for anything until late feb/early march.