Going sub 12% for an extended period of time and maintaining a high work load seems pretty brutal. I'm not sure many athletes maintain 8-10% year around?

Golden rule seems to be 10% but I agree nothing wrong with hanging out around 12%. You’re always just a minicut away from single digits and it’s probably better on the body.

Holy **** boys we have soreness, first time in forever I didn’t feel recovered in my upper body from Sunday’s back day to today’s. Perhaps I’ve found a minimum level of volume for growth...

5/29 - 1,780 calories (100c/181p/69f) - bit of a guess, had a trout dish with asparagus for lunch. Tasted way too good not to be done in a bunch of oil/butter. Also reminds me I need to get some fish in the diet vs just chicken, beef and eggs.

Pull W5D7
NG Chins 12,10,9xBW
Lats 4x14-18
Straight arm pulldowns 3x16
Reverse Pec Dec 4x20
Chest supp. 45deg DB Rows 4x16x30s

Uno mas! Uno mas!

5/30 - 1,700 (107c/173p/65f)

Diet Week 12 (8 days)

Average calorie intake: 2,119
Expected TDEE: 2,600
Projected weightloss: 1.10 (13.42 overall)

Well that just about does it, was 142.5 this morning. Onto a maintenance phase starting with a deload.

Climbing gym - 2.5 hours

4x7sec BW+25 20mm edge - hard
3x6 one arm scapular retractions
6x6/4 repeater 20mm edge

Climbed, fell off the finishing “jug” of a newly set V6-V8 on my ~3rd go. Strained my hand/wrist a bit in the process but it subsided enough to let me try other problems that didn’t ask much out of that hand.

Been a minute, basically took the last week super easy and had a 3.5 day work trip along with a 36 hour family weekend. Tried to keep calories somewhat in check other than a massive Texas BBQ binge last Friday night.

After driving a ton, squeezing in workouts, then flying I seemed to have messed something up in my back. Monday evening it was tight, Tuesday it was sore and dull pain, Wednesday it felt good in the AM then I stood up out of a chair and it instantly tightened up. It was bad enough to have my trying to schedule an appt with a spine specialist once I got back to Dallas. However I woke up yesterday and it felt much better and today I hardly noticed it. Wait and see I guess.

Weight is right around 145. Trying to hold it here for the next two months and reevaluate. Honestly even though my total weight loss wasn’t perhaps what I wanted I dropped 2.5” off my waist/stomach which seems very good.

My new mesocycle will be a 5:1 paradigm strictly on upper hypertrophy in the gym and lower flexibility and single leg strength on climbing days.

I’ll be progressing based on RiR in the gym and via heavy hanging/pulling/campusing wrt climbing. I need to gain some pulling power back for sure.

6/7 - 2,408 calories

Friday Push

W1D1 (8 chest, 8 delts) (3-4 RiR)

Paused Smith Incline bench 16,15,14x115
Pec Dec 14,15,16x70
Push Ups 24,18xBW
DB side raises 2x16x20s 2x15x15s
Band side raises 4x21xGreen

Took Humira today too, UC symptoms remain in remission.

Tried some new recipes and food choices last couple days, been a mixed bag. Subbed in potatoes as a carb source, attempted to make protein French toast, and bought some interesting Trader Joe’s cereal and multi-nut milk. Sitting here with one last meal to eat tonight stuffed and just shy of 2,000 calories which isn’t shocking with the volume of these meals.

6/8 - 2,529 calories
6/9 - 2,450 calories

Saturday - Climbing gym 3 hours

Hangboard
3x7sec BW+30 20mm medium
Repeater 20mm edge 2x6x5on/5off

Tried to take it super light due to not wanting to fall with my back. Convinced myself I’d just auto belay after hanging but nope straight to bouldering area like an idiot. Hangboarding was super strong, a week off clearly helped.

Sunday Pull

W1D3 (7 pull, 4 rear delt, 4 bicep) (3-4 RiR)

Weighted chins 3x7xBW+10
Lat Pulldowns 15,15,16x95
Straight arm Pulldowns 1x28
Rope Face pulls 4x18-20
DB curls 12x27.5s,25s,22.5s,20s
Cable rope curls 2x22

Trying to concentrate each set on mind muscle connection but this **** it hard to statu focused on throughout. Grip almost a limiting factor on lat stuff with soreness from yesterday and 3-4sec reps.

6/13 - 2,522 calories

Back update - woke up with a noticeable bruise on my lower back yesterday. However my mobility and back pain has been decreasing. It’s much better when I’m active too. Today the bruise was larger but again all my other “symptoms” were better. Anyways going to the doctor tomorrow to at least make sure it’s nothing too crazy.

Climbing gym 90min

6/13 - 3x7sec BW+30 20mm easy/medium
Repeater 20mm edge 2x6x6on/4off

Apparently:

1. Eating isocaloric
2. Taking 4-5 days between hanging sessions
3. Lifting at maintenance volumes
4. Lowering climbing volume

Does absolute wonders for hangboarding lol. I’m crushing these sessions where as BW+25 was an absolute struggle at the end of my last mesocycle.

Took it super easy climbing wise and as soon as I forgot to down climb a couple times got out of the gym before I could tweak my back. Don’t think I climbed anything harder than a V2+ for fear of falling.

6/23 - 3,110 calories

Still trucking along, back is significantly improved as is hamstring/glute issue. Really thought I might have re-aggravated it yesterday with an aggressive heel hook but seemed fine today.

Averaged 2,700 calories a day this past week so working that back up also. Think I’d like to be around 2800/day for the last 3-4 weeks of this maintenance phase. Really want to make sure I’m out of the deficit for an extended period of time before figuring out next steps. Energy was super high today. Replaced a good amount of carbs with more fruits/veggies and some other sugary treats. Body seems to respond well to this but satiety and hunger cues not so much.

Climbing wise not much has happened because I’m getting to the gym 1-2 per week. Did figure out I was doing way too much hangboarding before, because my results when hanging every 5-7 have been awesome. Can do all the moves on two different V6-V8 graded problems but they’ll likely be reset before I get back to the gym.

Have to travel Tues-Friday which should result in taking three full days off from training. Not sweating it really since I’m in a maintenance block. I’m sure I’ll stay super active but this 6-8 weeks was supposed to include an overall reduction in volume and it has so far.

Bodyweight average last 7 days was 143.9.

One other “experiment” for me during this period has been keeping work sets to 8-12 each gym visit and upping my frequency of times I go. Usually I do all my main lifts in the PM then go the next morning to finish up accessory work. Fortunately I have the time and freedom to do this.

In the mornings I typically walk to the grocery store, pick up fresh fruit and veggies, then do about 20min mobility and prehab stuff before hitting the last few worksets. Enjoying it since it gets me up and going and into the day.

For example here’s yesterday/today’s pull workout.

W3D3 (8 pull, 6 rear delt, 8 bicep) (1-2RiR)

Weighted chins 3x8xBW+12.5
Lat Pulldowns 16,17,16x90
Straight arm Pulldowns 25x50 22x60
Reverse pec dec 23,17,17x40
—Monday morning—
Rope face pulls 3x16
Alternating DB curls 4 sets
Seated DB curls 4 sets

Still alive, still maintaining. Work stress/travel plus gym volume definitely taking its toll. Felt a chest cold coming on while in the gym yesterday, then felt wiped out once I got home.

Been averaging ~2,600 calories a day and my last daily 10 weigh-ins have all been between 143.5 and 144.6. 3-4 more weeks of this then figure something out.

Climbed today, finally put down an Uber soft V6-V8 that had been frustrating me. Wasn’t even sure I was going to climb but felt good enough to go. I walked up the damn thing after failing it nearly 20 times over the past couple weeks. Go figure.

Skipped heavy hangboarding today felt like a dumb idea with a potentially compromised CNS. White blood count has been good (very low end of acceptable) but I get bloodwork done in a week so we will see if it has dipped.

Overall things are good, really pushing the volume and this is the last week of my mesocycle so I’m taking everything to 0-1 RiR. Work and family stuff will force me to take off five days starting on the 13th so I’m going to push hard until then.

7/6 - climbing gym 3 hours

Hangboard
3x7sec BW+35 20mm edge - hard (up 5lbs, curious if scapula is limiting factor moving forward)
1x7sec front3 20mm edge - medium (experimenting, liked these)
Weighted hangs on pull up bar, up to +87 (these are dumb/easy/pointless)

Climbing - super good session, definitely settling into new bodyweight and climbing at a higher level. Flashed a new V5-V7 (V3+) and V4-6 (V3-) and sent a project V4-V6 (V5-). Re-sent the soft V6-V8 with video below. I should work it more to keep my feet on and improve my body tension and COG positioning. I haven’t been taking enough video and it’s super helpful to see all the errors.

FWIW this wall starts at about 50deg and the upper section is 30ish.



Also trying to video more in the gym to make sure my form doesn’t suck and I’m hitting the proper RIR. This was second set of 3x8xBW+15 and I deemed this 1 RIR (with good form). Thoughts on form and RIR appreciated.

7/7 - Weekly calorie average 2,710

Overall I have to say I feel pretty close to 100%. My lingering hamstring/glute weirdness isn’t really bothering me anymore. My back feels fine, elbows are good, forearms aren’t blown up, etc.. The extra calories are helping for sure.

Pleasant surprise in the weighted chins today, but overall this workout is me being frustrated I could never really find the mind muscle connection in my lats.

Even tried a couple wide grip pulldown sets at the end and filmed the last set. I think I might be leaning back too much and getting some upper back and rear delt involvement. Will try a more vertical position next time.

Sunday Pull

W5D3 (10 pull, 6 rear delt 8 bicep) (0-1 RIR)

Weighted chins 9,8,8xBW+17.5
Straight arm pulldowns 17,16,12,12x70
Lat Pulldowns was 17,15,15x90
Reverse Pec Dec 3 sets
Rope face pulls 3 sets
Wide grip lat pulldowns 2x12x90
—Monday morning—
DB curls 4x
Cable curls 4x

Deload week in progress, ends Monday. New mesocycle Tuesday. Nothing really different might try to operate a little more in the 20-30 rep range.

Going to hangboard every 5-7 days depending on progression. Right now I’m doing 3x7sec xBW+35.

Here are my last 6 Sunday “pull” days. Had to move tomorrow’s up to today for travel. This shows the progression I was shooting for this cycle. I’d like to hit 8xBW+25 chins by the end of the next block.

The climb in that video was good to watch - nice effort.

Thanks!

Still climbing and lifting. Been hanging 1-2x/week and today did my first campus workout in a while. Simple campus boulders V0-V2 x8 and large rung ladders 2-3-4-5-6-7-8. Did 3x8 wide grip chins in between this all.

Finally put down this circuit, it’s the medium grade of the three they set on this wall. Amazing how hard it was compared to how easy it looks once you send it.

7/20 - 5,076 calories

Climbing gym 3 hours
3x7sec BW+35 20mm hard/fail
—Further proves I need to take more days between hard hanging/campus sessions. Thinking week should look like:

Monday: weighted hangs and light circuits
Thursday: campus, muscle ups and medium circuits
Saturday: hard bouldering

Managed to climb another V6-V8 in the gym. This is considered “soft” for sure I’d give it a V5 grade. However that means I can now climb two problems in this grade at the same time. Never happened before. There is a third I think I can get too!

Also flashed a V5-V7 I’d rate at V4. Fell off a bunch of other V5ish things.

I think that schedule looks good. I'd recommend trying to get in 4 days of climbing if possible. Tuesday looks like a good day to add in some easier aerobic capacity work. The key will be keeping the intensity low enough that you can still give a good effort on Thursday. There are a lot of ways to structure this sort of work, depending on setup. Monday you could perhaps do a slightly harder but short session after the hangs and the light circuits on Tuesday.

If 4 days leaves you feeling wrecked then stick with the 3 days and gradually increase volume over time.

Agree, I'll be switching to four days a week after my current lifting mesocycle runs out. For now 3x a week is probably even too much unless I really start doing lighter days. I'm one week into this meso and I am already feeling three hard climbing days last week. I'm pulling 2x a week in the gym on Tuesday and Sunday.

Looks like you are on the right track. 4x a week climbing coupled with a hard lifting program would certainly be too much work.

Well I’m already rethinking when to do weighted hangs and Thursday makes more sense but it would basically be an all out training session at this rate with like zero climbing.

7/22 - Climbing gym 2 hours

Easy 20 move circuit, 14 sets.
—decided to have a little fun, reduced rest by 15sec every go. Started at 3:30 rest and completed the circuit every time until I got to the final :15 rest and fell on the 14th move.

V2-V3 bouldering - 12 problems in 15min
V3-V4 bouldering - 12 problems in 25min

Probably sweated out a few pounds. That’s more than 500 moves total I reckon.

That's a gnarly session! How do you feel afterwards? Pretty sure I'd be wrecked.

I have session where I will do a 25 move circuit 4x without resting for one set. I'll do 3 sets total with about 10 mins between sets. I am keeping the intensity level lower than you though. I try not to get anything more than a moderate pump for a session like that.

Light pump at the end of the circuits. Should have done fewer reps with less rest. Bouldering was fine, if anything I went too fast and should have focused more on proper movement.

This Hangboard session cemented in my mind the need to do these once a week and on Thursday’s with my current schedule. Smoked this one. Last couple at same weight had been brutal.

7/25
Hangboard 3x7sec BW+35 20mm medium
Underhand Chins 4x8xBW
Campus
1-3-4 large rung xL/R
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 large rung x3
Other random campus stuff

Bouldering - hard 2-3 move sequences

Think my campus goal will be 1-4-6. Miles away right now even on the ~30mm rungs.

7/27 - Climbing gym 3 hours

Sent another V6-V8! That’s my third of July, before this month I had done two total. We will call this one a rock solid V4.

Worked slab in Jeff’s honor. Sent a V4-V6 2nd go. Fell on other hard stuff. There are four really good V5-V7 grades problems on the big overhangs I’m excited to work going forward.

8/1 - climbing gym 2.5 hours

Hangboard 3x7sec BW+35 20mm hard/fail (failed 3rd)
Underhand Chins 10,10,9,8xBW

Campus
3-4-5-6-7-8-9 large rung x1
2-3-4-5-6–7-8-9 large rung x1
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 large rung x1
3-4-5-6-7-8-9 medium rung x1
2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 medium rung x1
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9f medium rung x1
1-3 L/R large rung
1-3 L/R/L/R large rung
1-3-5 attempts L/R x2
Campus boulders 4x

Then a friend showed up so I did about 20 V1-V4- boulders with him.

Some quick training clips, 1-4-6 obviously MILES away. Good end of 2019 goal?