Thanks. Yeah 10lbs sounds fine for now. I just went up 10 today to 365 and could only do 4 but i'm glad I moved up. As far as rack pulls go, I just did some looking into them and like the idea of them. Halting deadlifts may make their way into my routine as well. I think glute strength may be a weakness of mine so I may start doing some work there as well. I feel like all too often I'm not engaging my hams and gluts enough during the pulls.

April 7:

Weight: 210.5 this morning. Ugh. I tire of bulking.

Squats:
3x5x315

Bench Press:
3x5x230

DL:
1x4x365

April 9:

Squats:
3x5x315

OH Press:
3x5x130

Good, I finally was able to do all 15 reps. Next time it's 135.

Rack Pulls:

Not sure if I'm doing it correctly, but I basically set the support bars in such a way so that the bottom of the weights were about a foot off the ground. Maybe like 8-10". So basically this is the top half of the deadlift.

5x225
4x315
4x365
3x405

April 8:

Ancillary day.

Pullup/captains chair leg raise supersets. Pullups: 17, 15, 10. CCLR: 25, 25, 25.

Bicep curl/dip supersets. BC: 80lb ez curl @ 10, 10, 8. dips: 15, 15, 15. Trying to keep good form and going slowly and all the way down on the dips

Some stupid squat machine. Put my feet out in front to really use my glutes a lot. Probably not going to do this again.

April 12:
Weight 210

Squats:
3x5x325

Bench Press:
1x5x235
2x4x235

Other stuff like bicep curls, dips, ab stuff

April 13:

Deadlifts:
1x5x365
1x3x365

Finished my workset this time and had some more gas in the tank so I did a few more afterwards. Next time I'll try 375.

OH Press:
2x4x135
1x3x135

Ugh, not the kind of progress I wanted. Maybe because I benched the day before? It may be a while before I can get through all 15 reps of this.

You are strong like bull. Is there any reason why you aren't throwing Power Cleans into the mix? Might not be a bad idea as a third movement on days you don't deadlift.

You're off to a great start though it has to be said.

Tyvm! Thatshighpraise.gif

I have thought about them before but now that you suggest it i think i will try and work them in some more. I may do some later today even. Do you normally do some warmup sets and then 3 worksets of 5 reps each?

Rip recommends 5 sets of 3. I personally think progressive singles are good for the warm ups.

April 16:

Weight: 209.5

Squats:
3x5x325

Video form check:



Bench Press:
1x5x235
1x4x235
1x3x235

I was sooooo close to get a 5th rep in set 2 and equally close for the 4th rep in set 3. Next time I hope I can get there. Thankfully had a spotter each time. Wouldn't have attempted otherwise.

DL:
1x4x375

Video of form:

April 20:

Weight: 208

Squats:
1x4x325
2x5x325

First set was really freaking hard for me and I didn't want to try a 5th rep. Next two were hard but doable. I feel like I may be getting weaker already No, it's all mental. Must be strong, like ox.

OH Press:
135lbs, reps of 5, 4, 5.

I realized today that breathing during OHP is the worst thing possible. First set I did 3 in the first breath and then struggled on the next 2 but got there. Next set I took a breath after rep 3 and could only get 1 more, barely. 3rd set I didn't breathe until after rep 4 and then was able to pound out one more.

Leg Press:
Yeah yeah, I wanted more leg work but didn't want to squat so did some leg presses.

Anyways, tmw is dead lifts and pullups and bis/tris. maybe some other stuff in the mix as well.

April 21:

Weight: 208

DL:
1x4x375

As I was doing warmup sets I had a mediocre set of 2 reps at 315 and then followed it up with an amazing set of 2 reps at 315. I don't know what I did in that 2nd set but it was such a big difference. I took a few minutes and then added my weights to make it 375 and hoped I could replicate that awesomeness but couldn't.

Then I did bis/tris for a little bit and then some cleans. I suck at cleans.

April 22:

Weight: 208

Bench Press:
2x5x235
1x4x235

Well, at least it's progress. My 2nd set I could have pounded out another rep at least but I wanted to save the gas for potentially finishing all 15 reps but when it came time for my 3rd set I couldn't even get close on my 5th rep.

After BP I did some rows, some ab stuff (really just 3 sets of leg raises. I need to really be doing more ab stuff), and some db bench press @85.

I switched from bulk to cut (and stopped creatine) a few weeks before you, and hemorrhaged 15# off my squat within 10 days. Squat strength loss has slowed or stopped now, but I'm starting to lose some off my upper body and DL now.

I haven't stopped creatine yet but I assume you stopped bc of water retention?

Also, I may start running outside soon. I haven't ran in many months since I've been focusing on getting stronger and I've read that running can be detrimental do your strength but so is cutting so....yeah.

Yeah. My recreational sport is volleyball, so dumping any weight helps a ton with jumping, and it's rec league playoffs now. I think the creatine benefit during volleyball is minimized, since there is generally enough recovery time between max jumps. 10# is like an inch and a half of vertical if you can manage to not lose strength.

I also wanted to make sure I got back to at least my pre-bulk level of leanness, and the unknown amount of extra water retention confused things too much. 5 more pounds, and I'm gonna go to maintenance + creatine for a bit to try to get an idea of how much water weight difference the creatine makes for me.

Pretty common to get a bit weaker at first, especially if you're not pro at dieting. Agree that it'll probably stabilize if you're doing it right.

If you decide to incorporate some cardio there's certainly nothing wrong with that - depending on how you do it and what your goals are. I'm not gonna pretend to know how best to incorporate cardio. When I've done it I've done some 4x4 sprints combined with a bit more LSD on another day, possibly combined with some rigorous walks several times a week.

From my current cut I think LISS or even lighter cardio is the way to go. Whenever I try to do anything actually difficult then lifting is a huge bitch and/or I get weaker.

Sprinting or anything taxing will be a bit like lifting in the first place and during a cut the last thing I want to do is more lifting-like effort that doesn't actually help me keep muscle/strength.

I'd cut out the cardio completely but eating a couple hundred calories less sounds really grim. I already am annoyingly hungry before bed and at various points throughout the day at this point.

One thing I should note is I'm not doing intermittent fasting - so perhaps I should be switching to that for the last month of cutting. I dno, it's certainly possible but is a pretty big change from how I currently eat (8am, 10-11am, 12-1pm, 4-5pm, 8pm).

highland: I hadn't considered stopping creatine but I may at some point towards the end of my cut. Well, I say end but really I should say beginning of summer. I'd like to get most of my cut out of the way by Memorial day (end of May) so that I'm not a gigantic fatty. But yeah, maybe in a couple weeks I'll cut that out.

SM: yeah I'm definitely no pro at dieting but I am pretty good at eating very healthy things. Maybe I am more like a semi-pro. Right now I'm not logging my foods but I keep a pretty good mental tally of what I'm eating on a daily basis. Also, I guess I shouldn't be worried about losing strength too much since my goal is like 50% look better and 50% be stronger. Even if I lost 50lbs on my squat I'd still be stronger than I was at the start of all of this so I guess that's a plus. if it means I go from 14% bf to 9% then that would be a giant win in my book.

SM/Yugo: I think sprints would probably be good for me to do and I probably will do some soon but I think most of my cardio will be light distant running outside. like 4-6 mi. when the weather is nice. I doubt that will really impact my strength much at all.

Yugo: Never tried fasting and I think I would totally hate doing it. I eat at almost the exact same times as you throughout the day. breakfast, half my lunch, 2nd half, protein shake, dinner.

As far as aesthetics go, creatine is always a win. Most of the water you retain is inside the muscle, so you should look better on it. I mostly stopped, because I started at the same time as my bulk, and want to compare apples to apples before and after bulk/cut cycle.

Good to know, ty

April 25:

Weight: 207.5

Squats:
3x5x325

Bench Press:
2x5x235
1x4x235

My spotter gave the very slightest of help on my 5th rep, I think. So, I'll count it as 4. But this is still the closest I've gotten to finishing all 15 reps.

DL:
1x5x375

So for the first time today I did something that post probably do every time but really helped me out a ton. When I got set and took a big inhale I gave it a second for the air to make it's way down in my body before I started the lift. Wow, what a difference that made. I used to inhale and immediately do the lift and my guess is that the air was trapped somewhere where it wasn't doing me a whole lot of good.

Damn you squat so much more than me!

+ we have the exact same weight, but I'm 2 inches taller, what are you eating nowadays?

Yeah my ass is huge now too. Squats just come easy to me I guess. I moved up really fast but I'm definitely plateauing at 325 right now. I struggle to finish all 15 reps each time I squat and now I'm getting this knee pain in my left knee as I do reps which is getting concerning.

I'm no longer bulking so no longer am I seeing dem gainz anymore It was nice while it lasted but I didn't like feeling fat and gross all the time. So, now I'm not really cutting but I am watching what I eat. I avoid most bad foods and don't really drink any alcohol so I eat pretty well.

Yesterday I had:
2 servings of oatmeal
5oz of a leftover steak
4 eggs sunny side up
3/4c greek yogurt
post workout protein shake
big double-meat bowl at chipotle

It was pretty awesome. Today is going to be fairly similar but not as protein heavy. Most weekdays it's more like oats + greek yogurt for breakfast, lunch of broccoli, rice and grilled chicken, handful of almonds, pwo shake, and then some kind of dinner similar to the lunch.

What I don't like is that I feel like I'm strong but I don't look it. I need to lean out a lot but I'm not doing any cardio and I really hate restricting my calories. Even though I eat well all I want to is eat all day long.

April 27:

Weight: unsure

Squats:
3x5x325

OH Press:
1x5x135
2x4x140

DL:
1x4x385

I was lifting w/ a friend and showing him SS stuff so I decided to do DLs again since I felt good. Well, I was also going for a new PR since I cleared 375 last time. It went well for me though. 385 looks pretty badass since it's 3x45 and a 35. Getting close to the goal of 405 for reps!

What's with just staying at 325 squats? Reset or move up imo.

Getting strong up in here

When I was moving up I was bulking so weekly gains were easy. Now I'm on a slight deficit so I'd like to continue to move up but I don't feel ready to attempt 335 yet. Maybe I should, though. I definitely have a fear of failing on squats so that plays a factor here as well. Argh, don't know what to do.