Is the housing something they are charging you for or is it a free additional benefit.

If so can't you just accept the unit, put some **** in there, show up occasionally (having a place right next door to work could be useful from time to time) but actually live somewhere else. Kind of a hassle, I guess, but not too bad if you really don't want to live there. What I'm most curious about is how they bust you for this?

Free, obv. It's actually about as luxurious as $1500/mo housing in that area. Price levels in Shenzhen will be suburban America but not big city America. Except food will be cheaper+lower quality. Entertainment stuff like movies/bars that I never go to will be like NYC prices. $32 cocktails.

I assume they don't bust you, but just they wont' allow you to substitute for a housing allowance. The vast majority of schools have no teacher housing and just give an allowance and most of the ones that have teacher housing allow you to choose between this or a normal housing allowance. If it's relatively good on privacy and seperate from the main school (my previous school in Suzhou had this, though i didn't stay there) I'm mostly fine with it.

I'm 95% sure the recent pec/bicep thing has been b/c of doing more fps bicep exercises to isolate the peak. Gonna go back to standing ez curls standing hammer curls as my only lifts for a while. Maybe the concentration curls too, those were fine I think. I think it was the spider and cable curls where I started having problems.

Legs last night, lost colossal amount of strength

Hip thrust: 2px15, 12, 10
Leg extensions: 22.5kgx20, 15, 15, 15
Leg press: 3ppsx25, 20, 20
forearms


New split will be

Biceps first+legs, push+tris and delts, pull+biceps, off, repeat.

Not gonna do the cute biceps with push triceps with pull thing anymore. I think pressing builds triceps more directly and than most back movements stimulate biceps in the right way. Another change I plan to make is to do chins/pullups first, then immediately my ~9-12 sets of biceps, then the rest of my back workout instead of biceps at the end.

Pull

Chin-ups (supinated): bwx15, 10, 8
Hammer curls: 15kgx16, 10, 8, 10kgx13
EZ curls: 20kgx13, 12, 11, 8
underhand rows: 70kgx13, 8, 6
Row machine: 3 sets
Forearms

Elbow pain was present but only on left side and seems to go away the more reps of chinups I finished. Didn't hurt on any other exercises.

I guess I can finish the diet really soon now... NGL I'm actually a bit sad to stop it. But I can't really compete around this time in the 2nd semester... I'd say I need at least 8 weeks to bring something I"m really proud of and really more like 10. The timing just doesn't line up well with when things are getting the busiest at work. it's just best to do it after exams are over. And I can't really compete later in the summer b/c I'm moving. That's okay. Break from about Wednesday until starting prep again march 1. Stay around 97 or below, but ideally below 96. I'm 93.3 rn and I don't feel particularly depleted, flat, or hungry so probably won't get a big rebound. My clen dose stayed very low and never got over 80mcg only in the last ~10 days or so. Caffeine+yohimbine were super high but you don't really get rebound weight gain from those. Just gotta be responsible and eat more pad krapow/skin on chicken breast+rice and limit the carne asada fries, gnocci, and shawarmas to only once per day.

Green can make me overeat pretty hard so I'll be moderate in my consumption of that, and I already don't enjoy alcohol/drinking.

I decided I'm going to do 0 pic updates for anyone except emailing myself weekly check-ins to monitor progress once I start prep. It's like a painter... only want to show the product when it's finished. Gonna complete the act with baggy clothes at the gym. The positive affirmations actually kinda **** with my head and make me too complacent.

Starting March 1 will put me at 15 weeks out from a show in Chongqing and 16 weeks out from the pro/am show in Tianjin, which would be a lot more travel/hassle with food and lodging. I'm lean enough to be ready in about 13-14 weeks if I start from March 1 so I should have plenty of time for either of those shows.

I learned a hell of a lot about cooking, what foods my body responds well to, minimalist approaches to PEDS (not low dose, but super safe/simple compounds), and cardio habits. Going forward I think my year will always be a ~16 week contest prep along with an 8-12 week reset phase about halfway through the offseason in an attempt to stay leaner.

Super excited and happy these days.

I've been a nightly user but for the past 3-4 months I've almost completely cut it out. It's helped a little bit with decreasing late night munchies - not a ton but I probably have other food triggers. So cutting it out can only help you manage overeating, but I'm sure you're disciplined enough to not go too overboard with food so it just depends on weighing the trade-offs. I do think my sleep quality has been better since I've stopped. I feel more well-rested when I wake up even if I get the same number of hours of sleep as when I was consuming.

Well, I can't enjoy it during my time in China at all because of too much legal risk. I'll prob enjoy it 3-4x/wk post workout while on vacation. Nothing crazy and not right before bed or sleep quality falls.

I wanted to rest today but I couldn't stay outta the gym. You know how it go, I got that hustlin grindin mindset. But I also lose impressive amounts of strength and fitness whenever I get really sick. I will not be surprised if it takes me until around early March to be back to the same #s I was before getting sick and at a heavier bodyweight. Oh well...

Legs
Ham curls: 47.5kgx15, 10, 8
Leg extensions: 22.5kgx25, 19, 16 supersetted these movements but still took about 2-3 minute rests
Paused sLDL: 100kgx10, 8 shaking like crazy in the bottom lmao
front foot elevated split squat: 10kgx10x3 each side

Gonna try to hit a push workout tomorrow and a pull workout on Friday, then I leave Saturday morning and I'll probably take 2-3 days off so I can get bloodwork.

Diet is over and I feel a little bit sad about it. This was easily one of my easiest diets ever, but I didn't push super hard either. 10-11kg in about 11 weeks. I guess that's sorta hard for normal people given that I wasn't particularly high bf% at the start, but for a bodybuilder that's a mild diet. I feel like lately I'm craving healthier and healthier foods and feel this weird disgust for junk, partially because I know it's gonna make my stomach feel bad. I really just feel great eating meat, rice, sweet potatoes, vegetables, and fruit and more home cooked meals. It's very easy to eat this way in Thailand though. I think one reason it didn't feel very hard this time is because my calories never got all that low and I never really felt that hungry; I mostly built the deficit by huge average steps+lots of cardio in the 130-150 hr range. This was also the first time I used caffeine+yohimbine heavily; normally I relied only on clen. Caffeine is so powerful for appetite suppression even if it isn't boosting output nearly as much as clen. The approach of stacking many different stimulants in lower doses definitely beats fewer stimulants in higher doses. I wish I could get ephedrine to add that in too, but too illegal. Synephrine is reasonable. That condemned labz product with like 6 different stims including DMHA in it was just too hardcore for me; made my prostate feel weird and painful. Yohimbine I don't think is really doing all that much, but definitely helps with mood and having your mind more energetic. I think contest prep I'm going to limit cardio to around 30 minutes on weekdays, 60 minutes on weekends, and mostly focus on building step count up from a baseline of 10k up to around 16-20k the last 6 weeks. Around 15 minutes posing immediately post training on weekdays and around 40 minutes posing after meal 1 before training on weekends too... posing is surprisingly good for fat loss/cardio and obv you gotta have endurance for doing it on stage.

First day off the diet, all I really wanted was to add some Chinese naan bread with my beef stew. And some chicken tenderloin+white rice (instead of sweet potato)+green beans with 14g of grass fed butter on top and a side of fresh strawberries is what I'm gonna eat 4x tomorrow. I'll probably keep eating this way even after I quit bbing and I'm an old man; I just feel better eating healthier and I don't think its purely placebo (though I'm sure some of it is).

Also decided I want to train 6x/wk henceforth instead of the 3 on 1 off thing. Having different days off is disruptive with my work schedule; I'd like to just always have Wednesday off. And I think being in the gym 6 days a week will force me to have shorter and lower session RPE workouts; ideally upper body sessions should be 40-50 minutes and lower should be 50-60. SRPE should rarely go over a 7.5.

How long are your current sessions?

about 75 minutes lower body 50-60 minutes upper body. I have always had a problem of going TOO HARD in the gym but I'm getting better and better at not annihilating myself each session

Push
Lock 3
DB prone raises: 7.5kgx5 sets fail
SS with forearms

Machine press: 62.5kgx16, 52.5kgx12, 10 wow that's some incredible regression. Months of strength evaporated in a week of illness... and it probably won't just come right back despite starting up a surplus
Incline db press: 25kgx15, 12, 10 same
Machine flies: 20kgx15, 8, 7
Pushdowns: 4 sets
dual rope pushdowns: 4 sets

Screwed around the first few days. Now I'm set up in a condo and in a rorutine.

Legs
Leg extensions: 3 sets
Leg press: 2.5ppsx20x4
Some weird glute press thing: ???x???

Push
No lock3 bc no 1kg dbs. I'll do closed fists next time.
Prone raises: 7.5kgx5 sets failure
Machine press: 130x16, 10, 9
Incline db: 30kgx13, 13, 10
Cable crossovers: 3 sets failure
Pushdowns: 4 sets
Dual rope: 4 sets

Pull
Supinated Chins: bwx 15, 12, 10
Hammer curls: 15kgx14, 8, 10kgx 13, 10
EZ curls: 20kgx4 sets failure
BB rows: 60kgx15, 12, 10
Supinated pulldowns: 3 sets
Forearms

Supinated chins feel the best for my elbows. Next pull sesh I'm going to try biceps before anything. If I still get 13 reps on chins on first set I'll probably do it that way henceforth and always hit biceps first.

Training starting to get more srs.

Legs
Ham curls: 135x16, 120x12, 9
Paused toes elevated SLDL: 100kgx13, 11
Leg extensions: who the **** knows lolx3 sets failure
Front foot elevated split squat: 12.5kg dbsx10x3


I don't have a scale but doing "eat clean bodybuilding food until full and don't stuff yourself, 30-40 minutes fasted AM cardio, 8-12k steps per day" and staying tight while not feeling like I'm suffering or anything.

Didn't get that shenzhen job. who tf knows why... interviewed perfectly. But foreigners hiring other foreigners can be bizarre, high variance, and idiosyncratic if the foreigners aren't integrated. If I'm interviewed by a Chinese or a Chinese speaking foreigner I won't run into any rejections at all. Still got a lot of other options and it wouldn't be the end of the world to re-sign my contract and stay two more years where i am now. Since I didn't sign in december, I must sign for 2 years if I stay rather than one. Whatevs.

Push workout last night
DB prone raises: 7.5kgx24, 4 sets failure
Machine press: 130x16, 110x13, 10
Incline db: 30kgx14, 13, 10
Machine flies: 3 sets failure
Pushdowns: 4 sets failure
Dual rope extensions: 4 sets failure

Sorry about the jerb.

What flavor of foreigner was interviewing you? British? American? Other?

BRitish. My success rate for being interviewed by brits is 0% n=2. They generally take a "we're here to colonize and civilize", whereas Americans take the view of "we're here to integrate and add some western flare where we can". And I'm far on the spectrum of being localized/integrated, which is going to rub a lot of the older British people the wrong way as they have deeply rooted white savior complexes and fundamentally view everything about China as inferior and needing to be "fixed" by being more British (tbf I'm actually not entirely sure they're wrong, look at HK. But it hasn't been my approach and I think that approach will lead to a lot of banging your head against a brick wall)

Biceps before chins doesn't work. It probably works okay if you train rows first, but I think I'm gonna stick with the 3 on 1 off schedule and just realize that if legs fall on a wednesday I probably can't go 100%. doing 3 on 1 off allows me to put biceps first on leg days and then on back days I can train them 2nd after chins. Supinated henceforth. I may need to start alternating beginning with rows and chins, unfortunately. Elbows probably can't take chins first every day even though I think they're objectively a better lat builder and my rear delts+lower back+traps are all really good so rowing first is kinda silly and higher cns strain. But otoh its a chance to ego lift and the girls at the gym will know how strong I am want want to put their mouth on my penis as a result. Especially if I do double overhand strapped rows.

Pull
Hammer curls: 15kgx20, 12, 9, 8
EZ curls: 17.5kgx22, 12, 10, 14
Chins: bwx 7, 6, 5 lol
Rows: 60kgx18, 70kgx8, 9
Pulldowns: 3 sets

3 principal roles in my current organization. All in the "barely 6 figs" usd range. One school specifically asking for English+Chinese bilingual. There are just so few foreigners who work demanding jobs like mine who also managed to learn Chinese. Most Chinese speaking foreigners either use Chinese at work or do bullshit easy kindergarten or tutoring center jobs with much lower hours and more time. I'm also the only guy currently within the organization who is foreigner and speaks Chinese at workplace communication level. I know because we all meet each other at a conference every year. My current organization does staffing+hr+quality control for foreign staff at the international programs run out of Chinese public schools; so I'd stay with this organization but change schools. The one needing Chinese is in a city about 40-50km away from Suzhou, the place "where I grew up". And I mean coming to a second country and learning a new language and culture is basically a 2nd growing up period and that place is your new hometown basically. Pretend I wrote some deep long-winded rant piece about identity being forcibly recreated through immigration and cultural integration, there's enough of my postings to AI generate that ****.

Would it require me to put bodybuilding on the back burner? Honestly no, not really. Maybe move any hard contest preps to vacation time so I'm less moody/hangry, but beyond that I'm sure it'd probably be a reduction in overall workload, much higher stakes work, and different kind of work overall.

Biceps+legs

Hammer curls: 15kgx21, 14, 8 pr, nice
ez curls: 3 sets whatever

Hip thrust machine: 110kgx20x3 very light but new machine is way different from my home gym's machine
Leg extensions: ??x3x fail
Leg press: seriously just random weights working in with 2 russian guys but 3 working sets 20, 20, 12


Low effort into my leg training these days, boyos.

Sounds like a good evolution if it happens.

Pretty sure "barely 6 figs" is equivalent in discretionary income to something like 300-350k in SF or NYC.

Prob a better way to think about income instead of just gross pay. "How much money do I have at the end of the year to spend on anything?"

I'm honestly not even sure what SF/NYC cost of living is like, but you are probably about right tbh. I'm so sparse with my spending and even a large increase in income won't really change my habits

Push workout yesterday
DB prone raises: 7.5kgx26, 4 more sets
Machine press: 135x18, 8, 9
incline db: 30kgx12, 15, 12 tie for the most reps I've done in a workout at this weight and I probably had more rir this time than last time
Machine flies: 3 sets
Pushdowns: 4 sets
Dual rope pushdowns: 4 sets

Pull workout today
Chins: bwx17, 13, 11
Hammer curls: 15kgx16, 10, 8, 9
EZ curls: 15kgx??x4
Underhand rows: 70kgx12, 8, 9
Underhand pulldowns: 40x12, 10, 8

Okay a few notes:
1. BW at the gym was 100.8 clothed and hydrated. Yikes! I look fairly lean in the mirror and still even have quad vascularity and definition. My morning bw is a bit higher than I'd wanted it to be. This is okay because I decided I'm not going to compete most likely this year. I'm doing the 15+ week dieting phase, but I've had 2 chances to get my feet wet competing and I'd like to have a national-level competitive physique before the next time I step on stage. I've learned that these super long permabulks aren't productive and you do need to come down and reset fairly often. I think I was so fat last time that doing 2 cuts in this 12 month period is very much justified. Still going to do the contest prep diet and PEDs as if I were competing, however. If I somehow end up looking nationally competitive to where I could legit hop into nationals in October after a short break, then yeah I guess I'll step on stage to qualify. I think this is unlikely; I probably straight up need another 10lbs of stage weight. This time around the goal is just to get as lean as possible and get hard striated glutes for the first time to potentiate the next offseason. If I somehow pull that off in just 15 weeks, diet stops there and we start to reverse diet. If it takes me 20 weeks, we go for 20 weeks then. Not going to go any more than 20 weeks though. Next offseason will be fairly strict the whole time. This offseason bulk only ended up being super strict and clean toward the end, I need to do that the whole way through and reverse diet out super slowly.

2. GH I was using was fake. Getting stuff from a hospital in China henceforth. It's still only about $170/100iu kit from the hospital which is reasonable. Live and learn. It wasn't totally fake, it was the peptide gh fragment so I was still getting some of the fat burning effects of gh, just not the important IGF-1 elevating and hyperplasia effects.

3. My elbow pain is completely gone. I guess the underhand chins and the return of heavy hammer curls did the trick for balanced forearm stimulus. Given that supinated chins are much harder than ng chins and with my recent bodyweight gain, I'm probably very close to my peak chinning strength before the elbow pain began about 2 months ago.

4. I don't think I should be free weight rowing both pull workouts. In fact, I can see a strong argument for dropping free weight rows entirely since I'm doing SLDLs, hip thrusts, and hamstring curls and most of the science bodybuilding bros say machine rows are overall better for upper back development and free weight rowing is going to tax p-chain+lower back more. However, I think I am going to keep them in once every 8-day cycle because a. I enjoy doing the exercise. and b. the nonscience bodybuilding bros claim that there's just a certain indescribable thickness they build in the upper back, lats, and lower back that can onyl be replicated by DLs and rows. When high profile pro bodybuilders drop these excercises and replace them with more 'evidence based' types of rows, their back development invariably suffers. I'll compromise and do barbell underhand rows on one of the pull days and machine rows or DB CSRs on the other day. My pull workouts will still be structured as pullups, 2 bicep exercises, rows, pulldowns for the foreseeable future. But as my arms come up more, I might move biceps back to the end of the workout again.

How the fack did you figure it out? Unless you're a top notch chemist with a well-equipped lab, seems pretty tough.

Guy,

COL is incredibly high in those areas. Plus you're looking at a pretty obscene tax burden. Take home is under 200k. (On a 300k income.)

FEIE is incredibly strong when you're under the threshold. Esp since the housing benefits receive preferential treatment. Basically you're likely falling somewhere in that range compared to someone bragging about making N amount in a very high COL area with onerous taxes. (Yurop says hai.)


On a chicom question, is it common for people to chew food up with an excessively full mouth (chipmunk-esque) and then randomly spit globs of food out on a plate? Is this a regional thing? I know this people are primitive and rather gross, but what spawns this behavior?

bloodwork first then send a sample off to a lab in Switzerland for HPLC testing

Interesting insights regarding COL. It's been a long time and I never lived in a major urban area like that. I guess I should be more grateful for the income and cost of living I have now. The principal role will come eventually even if it doesn't come next academic year. I'm not stressed out about this. Even if I have to do some bullshit online 'educational leadership' graduate degree or certificate before I get it, it's going to come eventually and almost certainly before age 40. I already did one online post graduate certificate and it wasn't that painful and that will have paid for itself by like August. I can do another one to move forward.

The chewing thing is universal and not even restricted to mainland China afaik. I believe HK/TW/SG Chinese also do this.

Seriously considering dropping all barbell rowing since I SLDL and hip thrust every 8 days. I'm kind of imagining just how much overall weekly CNS fatigue this could remove... but rowing is cooolll the girls in the gym need to see me lifting and grunting and making mean faces with a big loaded barbell so they will want to suck my peennisss!1!1

I'll try rowing every other pull session like I said before and track session length. If I consistently can't keep it under 70 minutes, I'm going to drop them.

I guess I should have figured you'd have a go to lab for exactly this sort of thing.

What's the going rate to get the analysis done?

For GH serum blood test, about 16 usd. For IGF1 test, around 20 usd. For hplc testing, $200+shipping.