No I personally didn't and tbh I kind of disregarded those. I would read up why those are necessary though because layne put them in there for specific reasons. I would benefit from doing them with squats because my form needed to be adjusted.

7/19/14
Week 4 day 5
Weight: 163.2

Warm up cardio stair master
13:49 (180 calories burnt)

Squats 4x2 90% @ 157.5 lbs
165x2
175x2
185x2
195x2 x2

BB lunges 4x10
45x10
95x10 x3

RDL 4x10
45x10 x2
95x10 x2

Macros
2,875 calories
50g fats
413g carbs
37g fiber
210g protein

This should be interesting.

lol, it certainly will be.

Filmed a couple of sets of squats. I was only suppose to do 157.5 lbs because that was 90% of my max. Surprisingly, this was the first time in a while that I felt zero pain on hip flexors while going "deep". I ramped up the weight a bit and ended up at 195x2 which I was thrilled about. I'm hoping to hit 225x2 by week 8. Might be a bit aggressive but I can do it.

185x2


195x2

I think the squats look real good dude.

Thanks bro, been working a lot on my hip flexors. Super happy about the progress and bam, no pain today and depth looks decent too imo.

+1

A rare +1 from you, thanks. I did expect some kind of orange infused joke from you though.

Hard to hate when it's a weak point for both of us.

It'll improve quickly now that your form is better, I think.

Yeah agreed. I'm pumped to get back to 2 plates, gonna shoot for 4 weeks. We shall see what happens.

7/20/14
Off day

- Did some overtime last night, working total of 65 hours this week but still gonna fit in the gym time and eat correctly. No excuses.

Macros
2,216 calories
45g fats
219g carbs
36g fiber
253g protein

My take on my program (going on week 5) so far is that it's good but definitely eye opening. I'm not doing remotely close to the amount of volume and I'm seeing decent results. I always felt the need to do crazy amounts of volume and basically over work my body so it gets stronger. Maybe it's not necessarily true, I dunno. Something to think about going forward. I am still doing low weights for everything including bench so I'll be interested where I end the program at week 12.

Also, have some random things on my mind...

1- I think back in 2010/2011 there was an article I read that said there were traces of heavy metal found in muscle milk, did they get rid of these two ingredients in muscle milk? I think cytosport's defense was that it was naturally occurring metals which could be found in foods as well. However, that's just ******ed to knowingly include that in protein. WTF is the purpose of that?

2- I don't understand what everyone's obsession is about protein intake. It's a grey area, obviously but isn't it the same with metabolism? I know these are two separate topics so I'll split up my concerns.

2a- With protein intake, I just feel given the research it's safe to assume getting 1g per lb of body weight is safe. Maybe it's a tad more than is absolutely necessary for effective muscle growth but who the fack cares? No one, no one knows the exact number so why are people so anal about this number? No one cares about any other macro or micro nutrient to that degree. I believe it's more important to know how much is too much or how much is too little.

2b- For metabolism, I feel like these is a good amount of misconceptions/confusion. Ok, let's say Saw goes on a deficit for 2 years and obviously has lost a good amount of weight. People would say that his metabolism has changed and shouldn't be as slow now. Is this necessarily true? I don't think so. I tend to think if he goes back on a small surplus he will gain weight again. The only true way to test his metabolism is testing out his maintenance levels at a certain weight and seeing if it's higher than previously assuming activity levels are the same? Right or wrong?

Regarding 2a - I don't think people care about it as much as you think? I dunno, I feel like hitting 1g/lb LBM (I know you do total BW) is just so easy that I don't even track protein anymore.

2b - I don't understand what you're asking. You mean my metabolism should be SLOWER right? If I deficit for 2 years then yes of course it would slow down. If I bulked for 2 years it would speed up. How much is a different story. But yes I definitely agree that testing it out is always the best way to verify.

2a- Perhaps that's true and yeah 1g/LBM is redic easy. So, you only track calories then?

2b- Oops, I worded that wrong but you know what I meant. Ok cool, that's what my question was. I'm asking because I'm actually the same weight I was last year at the end of my cut and I'm eating a lot more.

Calories are really all I "think" about for the most part (other than general good sense stuff like eating lots of veggies and other nutrient dense foods). I don't care about my fat/carb levels at all really anymore, and I'm never low on protein since it's the starting point of how I compose all my meals. Technically I track all macros though because any tracking software I use just pulls it from a database and adds it all up.

Yea I would assume you have more muscle, so even at the same bodyweight your metabolism should be higher. Might be tough to compare activity levels too though, that can change a lot, both from exercise and NEAT.

I dunno tbh, muscle mass seems comparable but hard for me to tell. I know for a fact I'm eating more but activity level is hard to judge because I forget my cardio last year. I think i didn't do much because I remember at the end of my cut I was cheating on cardio and my diet way too much. This year that wasn't a problem though.

As long as you're eating a reasonable diet, your macros should automatically turn out somewhat decent as long as you count calories.

I'm pretty much eating 150-220g protein and 60-90g fat daily just by counting calories and not paying attention to macros (mfp counts them anyway, which is why I know these numbers)

Yeah that's fine. I personally like to track everything but I'm sure that will change in the future when I don't have such a "set" schedule.

7/21/14
Week 5 day 1
Weight: 163.2

- Felt pretty good today and had maintained a solid pump throughout the workout. Went a bit higher on bench and it felt super easy in comparison to doing less weight 4 weeks ago.
- I had to reset my maxes so here is what I have them at currently.

Bench 240
Squat 215
DL 345
OHP 140

- Essentially, I added 5 lbs to all upper body lifts and 10 lbs to lower body lifts. I had to totally reset my squat number though since week 1 I had my max at 175.

Push ups 5x3 explosive

Bench press 4x6 70% rm @168
175x6 x4

Decline bench 1x10 3x5
205x10
225x5
235x6 lift off guy didn't touch bar
235x4 prob had one more in me

Flat flys 3x12
40x12
45x12 x2

Push ups 3xMax
35
26
21

Dips 3xMax
25 x2
21

Rope Pushdowns 4x10
50x10
42.5x10 x3

Macros
2,578 calories
48g fats
333g carbs
36g fiber
223g protein

Mostly just bustin ur balls with that 1/3 remark. Like others pointed out, they might even be close to being whiteboard-eligible.

However, I do go from dead hang to slamming my chest to the bar. With a very narrow (supinated) grip so in reality those pullups of yours were maybe something like 50-70% of my rom.

7/22/14
Week 5 day 2
Weight: 162.4

- Dropped some weight, seems to be fluctuating quite a bit recently.

- Over did it slightly on my first working set. I feel 70% shouldn't be hard at all so I dropped down and even at 255 I was still above the 70% mark.

Box jumps 5x3 explosive

DL 4x6 70% @241.5 lbs
265x6 raw
255x6 x3 raw ez

Front squats 5x5
165x5 x5

Seated Leg curls 3x8
110x10 x3

Macros
2,545 calories
51g fats
322g carbs
33g fiber
224g protein

Guy hit me straight in the feels

Been pretty busy recently so been slacking with logging/ workouts/ diet. Went to a bachelors party recently and we are having another party night before the wedding so that's all happening this week.

7/27/14
Week 5 day 5
Weight: 164.6

Warm up cardio stair master
14:23 (200 calories burnt)

Box jumps 5x3

Squats 4x6 70% (150.5 lbs)
155x6 x4

BB lunges 4x10
45x10
95x10 x2

DB lunges
35x10 x2

RDL 4x10
95x10
135x10 x3

Hyper extensions 4x10
x15
25x10 x2

Wow, your bench is 240 and squat is 215? I don't mean this offensively at all, you obv have sick results, but curious about the discrepancy. Idk if there's a standard relationship between bench and squat 1rm but I'd expect squat to be at least 25% > bench.

Edit: Also 240 for a guy in the 160s is absurd