PLacebo effect helluva drug.

Testosterone is overall not as important to libido as you might think and optimal ("high normal") estrogen is probably much more important than you think. Clomid doesn't reduce estrogen, but does stop it from binding at receptors. Its supposed to do this selectively ("selective" estrogen receptor modulator) but will still have impact on other tissue.

Literally every person who has started a weird fad diet reports "so much energy" despite a sudden need for taking a nap and going home at 11PM on the weekend. (23y new vegan)

Most people are really bad at having any idea how they felt. I'm sure Melkerson knows this from doctoring or whatever he does.

Back deload:

Deadlift: 120kgx5, 130kgx5x4
Rows: 60kgx10x3
Unilateral Pulldowns: 1ppsx10x3
Low row machine: 10x3
High row machine: 10x3

All nice and light weight. Still sick/no appetite but I got in and got it done.

You and Thremp could certainly be right about that. That's a tough argument to beat. The case against placebo are the studies that show increased libido with clomid (I can give you some links if you're interested). I don't think any of them were placebo controlled, though. So, it still really could all be placebo effect.

What we really need is a placebo-controlled trial involving Clomid. I'll have a look for that, but I'm not hopeful.

You guys will go such incredible lengths to avoid testosterone meanwhile crushing your 4 beers on a friday and slamming back chili's hamburgers. It's incredible how successfully propagandized you were aginst these medications given how lightly you treat other parts of your health. NGL it's tiggering me tbh. I guess if you don't drink, don't smoke, eat a very clean diet filled with micronutrient dense foods, and do a whole lot of cardiovascular exercise then I'll accept judgement/fear about AAS. That doesn't describe very many people. Like bro, estrogen is a very important hormone in your body. Don't suppress its binding to various receptors across the body to get a 500ng/nl test boost lmao. Even in a clinical setting this is only done for fertility restoration; nobody would ever consider this a substitute for TRT or as a performance enhancer (and i believe loco is using it for fertility as well).

Chest+shoulder+tri deload

Machine press: 4x10
Machine fly: 4x10
DB incline NG press: 15kgx15x3
Some cable incline flies
Pushdowns: 25kgx20, 20kgx3 more sets
Cable side delt raises (!): 4x12-15 each side

I'm pretty sure my lack of direct delt work recently is the direct cause of my shoulder pain. I used to get some pain from cable side delt raises because I probably went too hard on them in the past and then stopped doing them. I'm adding them back into the routine and perhaps just generally more HARDCORe delt work in the form of raises instead of just "stability and rehab exercises"

I got the neutral grip presses idea from Andrei Deaui on youtube. For a guy who's just a super positive entertaining dude not meant to be educational i'm learning a lot about bbing and nutrition from his channel. The john meadows style NG presses with the DBs together is ultra-mega-pain evne more so than normal db pressing. But the neutral grip while keeping the dumbbells separate as you normally would is definitely less painful than a "normal" grip. I'd say it's a 0.5/10 with 15kg, so we'll keep working around there and accept this will be a long and slow road to full recovery.

Also got some 93/7 ground beef. Lean ground beef is extremely rare in China. I mean technically I can get a meat grinder and order lean cuts and do it myself but I appreciate the convenience. I made some very plain salt+chili powder+garlic air fryer meatballs that taste great and take so little prep/cleanup. I could also make a couple dozen of these, freeze them, and cook them directly from frozen in the air fryer for maximum convenience. This is a big meal prep breakthrough lolz. I definitely get very sick of chicken breast after a while.

I'm not anti AAS, nor do I feel the need to microdose arimidex because some weird dude on the internet rants about it.

Currently I'm on the baseball bat boner method of determining my T levels and they seem fine for now. I'm sure I'll be on TRT at some point tho.

Maybe that wasn't directed at me. But I'm currently on the multivitamin level of creatine.

Nah, not directed at you. The other riff-raff drunkards who ask me with seriousness if I'm worried about dying at 45 from 750mgs of test/wk including those IRL natty plers in our pling crew. We have one of them who is literally 130-140kg 40% bw and constantly tryna bulk at 182cm but is worried about steroids. Like mother****er, being 140kg is way more hazardous to your health than being on steroids but non-obese.

We all do indeed have our blind spots; I'd hit the roof if the minis started juicing in their 20s but would tell them to keep it reasonable if they started drinking in college, so I'm not claiming the moral high ground here. Both seem pretty terrible for long term health if you abuse them severely; I guess AAS just seems particularly stupid for youngs given the vast majority of recreational use in that demographic seems (to me, in any case) to be dipshits that haven't come close to optimizing training or other lifestyle factors before jumping on, and severe abuse has some pretty negative externalities even without considering death (as does alcohol, to grant your point).

Re: saucing personally, I'm never going to say never, but I'm pretty old right now and still no "performance" side effects that I've noted, so we'll see. Maybe after I permanently destroy my testosterone levels after turning into what my wife affectionately calls, in the affect of her father, a "running queeah", I'll be more willing to pin myself back to quasi-male status. Only time will tell, I suppose.

Yeah that's fair with respect to your own choice not to juice. We have different goals. Basically every coach I've ever interacted with has said "yes you have what it takes to be a classic physique pro" and they don't say that to just anyone. I definitely have very good top 10% shape/structure, but worse than average muscle building and strength genetics and maybe just above average getting lean genetics. I was also making a small side income personal training and fitness modelling in my previous city. With my new job setup and how rules work here vs in that city it's far harder to do that unfortunately. But with high level competitive aspirations and money on the line it makes sense for me where maybe it wouldn't for a lot of posters.

It definitely was a mind**** making such poor progress the past 18 months and even regressing slightly with zero covid, but bodybuilding is an old man's game. The top 4 on the AC stage average age was like 39 this year and around the same for this year's olympia. Classic average age is much younger but as the division matures it'll probably converage to late 30s as peak years as well. Breon was around 37-39 winning olympias. Tony Freeman didn't turn pro until 36, didn't win a pro show until 41, and then almost won an olympia at 44.

Not to say I have any hope of competing in an olympia ever. But earning a pro card and stepping on a pro stage to get tied for last place at least once and being able to walk around with a lean aesthetic 235lb physique ? Absolutely realistic goals I reckon.

By process of elimination, I'm going to assume you guys includes me. Not sure how you arrived at that. I'm definitely not against testosterone supplementation. I'm just somewhat curious about them, and asking you stuff really saves me a lot of time on certain topics. I could definitely see myself considering it at some point

BTW, this isn't true. There are plenty of studies on using clomid to treat hypogonadism. I can link you some articles if you are interested. It is true that one of the reasons for choosing clomid may be fertility preservation (as opposed to restoration). There may be other reasons (e.g. preference for pills over shots). I do agree that it seems to be an inferior treatment, but it's definitely a thing that is done. However, if you just want to say it's kind of a dumb idea, I'll cosign that.

Yes, you are right. Some Docs will use clomid for hypogonadism rather than trt. Having done both and given the side effect profiles of both, I'd say one of the only reason to ever do this is to maintain fertility. But usually on 125mg/wk, one's fertility won't take that much of a huge hit and can be restored very easily. I guess if somebody is super acne prone or runs sky high RBCs or something too, maybe.

Just realized I almost definitely had the flu this week. Powered through and didn't miss any work/training, but ate about half of my normal meals. Leg deload

Leg press: 2ppsx20x3
static lunge: 8kgx10x3
leg extensions: 15kgx12x7
hamstring curls: 30kgx12x3


No SLDLs. I've been perpetually exhausted. Got a new mattress finally delivered today. Shoulders are always feeling much better even after just one night of having it.

I was hoping to do a full arm workout tonight since it's not very CNS intensive but with recovering from illness I don't think I'll be able to give 100% so prob just gonna chill and hope that I can be back to 100% on Monday. DL 175kgx5x5 hopefully around 20-25 minutes for all working sets.

Hammer curls: 15kgx12x5
Pushdowns: 25kgx35, 4 more sets 10-12
EZ curls: 25kgx14x5
Overhead tricep extensions: 5 sets failure
Hammer curls: 7.5kgx12x5
Skullcrushers: 7.5kgx12x5

This was 3/10 Friday. Forgot to log. Deadlifts+back tonight. Idk if I'm gonna pullup or not. Probably. Sleep/nutrition this weekend was awful. 175kgx5x5 LFG. 5kg jumps all the way up to 190.

Deadlift: 175kgx5x5 26 minutes
Pullups: bwx11, 7, 5, 5, 5
Unilateral pulldowns: 1.5ppsx12x4
Row machine: variousx10x4
Underhand pulldowns: 10x4

No curls

Was pretty taxing on cardio. Bar speed on the last rep was still flying, but my cardio is trashed because I stopped doing stairs from knee pain and was sick last week. My city opened a 100km "bike trail" (idk if this is the correct way of dedscribing it) so I'll head there at least 1x/wk to get in some more cardio. Maybe KB swings at home on wednesday. My cardiovascular system is not sufficient to handle my lower body training. I'm going to keep doing pullups on back day but not free weight rows. They are basically redundant if deadlifting I think (I don't know, maybe).

Still going up 5kg each week to 190kg even if I end up taking 30-40 minutes. In Honor of Mark Rippetoe (RIP cept he's not dead). After I hit 190x5x5 I'm going to deaload and then attempt 230kgx5 which would be a 2 rep pr.

Chest+shoulders+triceps

My shoulder prehab routine is the DB external rotations kneesovertoesguys style, locke 3, and sometimes banded external rotations Did this first followed with

Cable side delt raises: 4 sets each side
Cable external rotations: 3 sets each side
Machine press: 55kgx19, 9, 45kgx10, 10
Machine flies: 10kgx10x4
Incline db: 15kgx 20, 20, 12, 13 (first 2 neutral, 2nd two normal)

Superset
Pushups: bwx10, 10, 7, 6
Incline cable flie machine: 4x fail

Pushdowns: 25kgx19, 4 more sets


Since my shoulder training has no overhead pressing, I'm going to just do it first. The prehab/rehab stuff gets me a big posterior delt pump and a little side delt pump anyway and it is essentially still shoulder hypertrophy training.

I got a new mattress last week and this has resulted in my shoulders feeling the best they've felt in months. And still yet I think doing 2 free weight movements on chest day is probably too aggressive for an older bb like me, especially with my history of bicep tendon problems being literally 10 years now. I think progress to something like this eventually, hopefully in about 2 months:

Shoulder non pressing work
Incline DB press 4 sub maximal sets with a "progressive volume" loading protocol starting at 4x10 and ending at 4x15 before increasing weight and starting at 4x10 again
Decline machine press: 4 sets failure
Machine flies or cable clies if cable machine is available (its not): 4 sets near failure
Incline cable fly machine+pushups superset failure
Pushdowns 5 sets failure

I had an existential crisis when somebody innocently asked me "How did you start bodybuilding?" and I went through the story of Klokov videos and obsessing over oly lifting and kinda back-dooring into bodybuilding as a substitute for what I actually wanted to do. I only want today's emo rant to be short, but life was so simple when I was oly lifting because I loved it so much and my purpose in life was so self evident and there was never any questioning or evaluation of my goals or dreams back then. Now things aren't that simple. The idea of monetizing my physique or fitness knowledge, doing well in competitions, winning a pro card, making money through coaching/online coaching/modelling (the last of which I actually did) doesn't excite me nearly as much as when I was 20 dreaming about oly lifting well enough to get invited to the olympic training center to get a 1k usd/mo stipend with free food and lodging and train full time as a job. It excites me a little bit, but mostly I'm excited to walk around as a big strong guy who turns heads in the ****ing mall or whatever and I already reached that goal long ago. I'm excited to move bigger numbers on the bar for some lifts but not others but it's still not the same...

I made a copium post in the lc thread saying I wished I'd started more bbing style training when I was in my twenties. Pure ****ing cope. I absolutely loved oly lifting and treasure those years and memories. Just in denial b/c I'm hurt that I can't/don't do it anymore. I probably had good genetics for it too and have nobody to blame but myself for training so incredibly stupidly.

Anyway, I tried to do a leg workout but was crestfallen back to my emo ways...

Static lunge: 10kgx15x4 holy **** that was hard, great pump tho
Leg press: 2ppsx20x4 1.5 min rest
Leg extensions: yeah whatever
HAmstring curls: RP set 40kgx16, 8, 3
Toes elevated SLDL: 70kgx10x3

Anyway I've circled my calendar for April 17 or 16 to attempt 230kgx5 DEADLIFT.

I got it good... it's so childish and naive to expect to have a life where you wake up every day overflowing with passion for what you do. I'm a big fish in my job and I actually enjoy it a lot and I'm fairly grateful I didn't choose a more challenging career where i'd be a small fish instead. Salary to cost of living is good. Opposite sex good. Lots of meaningful and fulfilling social relationships because of said career choice. Good physical outlet, good foods. I can travel easily and take 10 weeks of vacation per year... like wtf am I bitching about? It's not just childish and naieve, it's actually somewhat arrogant and ungrateful to think there should be more.

Even people like loco in glamourous careers like professional gambling probably end up viewing it as a grind, even with the fancy food/hotels/casinos and all that. Hedonic creep or whatever its called. I should just stfu and enjoy it lol, Idon't really have any serious problems.

Yesterday we lost 48k. So doesn't seem sexy at all.

Yeah I feel you, dawg. Everyone ends up in a grind and has parts of their life they're not going to enjoy or times they feel nostalgic for simpler eras. Just part of adulting. I refuse to be emo about this.

On a totally unrelated note, I am never starting with leg press ever again. Always start with static lunge/single leg squats. I can handle 12.5kg or 15kg for 15x4 for sure next time. I mean maybe I really phone it in and don't leg press at all and instead do nothing but single leg squats+leg extensions for quads and maybe some light goblet squat 20s or buy a few boxes build my own belt squat setup. Belt squat is the same as the leg press more or less but more ROM, less plates, and less EGO. I hate the leg press because the machine is infested with ****** small dicks who want to do sets of 4-6 with partial rom and a **** ton of plates. Timing is super sensitive on Thursday (my leg day) because I gotta be out of the gym before 7:45 or 8 or else I stand no chance of getting to sleep by 10-10:30 becuase my HR is still too elevated. I really don't have time to wait around for people flexxing egos. I want to keep my weekends open to have a social life but I can't see how else I can avoid the leg day sleep problems besides "train less hard or with different exercise selection"

you can't train am?

Work 7:45-5:20 most days.

I'm going to solve this problem by going back to 5 days per week and doing monday as deadlift only or maybe deadlift+hamstring curl if I'm feeling frisky.

nah, hamstring day with DL, hamstring curl and one other bullshit accessory maybe sldl or ****ing hip thrusts or hyperextensions or whatever I feel like that day. Then no hamstrings or just hamstring curls on quad focused leg day. About the same or even less volume spread out over more days. Also addresses the back trianing problem.