What's the goal? Gaintaining?

Pretty much. I've been adding 100 calories every week or two since my mini-cut ended, and just haven't really gained any weight; that there may have been an extremely mild recomp is probably wishful thinking.

I'll see how 3200 calories does me this week, I suppose.

Enough with the guesswork. Post N00ds and @Loco already.

Get your **** together.

W8D1

A
Bench: wu, 4x235 (@9.5), 4x2x210, 6x210 (@8.5, 3 minutes)
Facepulls: 9x12

B
Incline Bench: wu, 5x5x170 (LsRPE 9, 3 minutes)
Incline Reverse DB Flyes: 5x10

Dips (bw+35): 12, 9, 8, 7 (1 minute)

Seated DB Shoulder Press (40s): 12, 9, 8, 6 (1 minute)

Low Incline Cable Fly (17.5s): 18, 14, 11, 9 (45 seconds)

Cable Lateral Raises: 18, 14, 12, 10 (60 seconds)

EZ Curl (55 lbs): 18, 15, 10 , 8 (1 minute)

V-Grip Pushdown: 18, 14, 10, 8 (1 minute)

Pretty k. Still working on the last inch or two of ROM down to my chest on bench; might be slightly better this week. Not going to sweat it too much until the next cycle I don't think, but I'll try to be mindful. Increased rest from 2.5 to 3 minutes on the presses since the relative intensity is a bit higher; everything felt reasonably hard but not soul crushing. 100 minutes flat for this, although I had to wait for the cables so that may have added 5 minutes.

Gotcha. I wouldn't expect too much with such a small % increase in kcals anyway, but you know that.

JT,



As requested. As always, I am terrible with anything aesthetically related, so lighting, pose, and general photo conditions are guaranteed to make me look as bad as possible. Dexa would have me as 20+ for sure, even given the fact that I have anti-BTM fat storage genetics.

COCK,

Indeed; I am bad and feel bad. I'll try to make you proud this week.

G4S,

For sure; it started as an exercise for me to figure out where maintenance actually is, and I'm still not sure I've found it. My weight has tended to fluctuate up to around 188 on weeks where I've been traveling (and have had a bunch of protein bars instead of actual meals -- I'd guess the increased fiber intake causes a small amount of water retention, because I don't really look different) and in the 186.x range when I'm home and just stick to a variant of the G4S diet for most/all meals (lean protein + easily digestible carb + lots of veggies). I'd imagine 3400ish would probably be a smallish surplus that might lead to 1.5ish pounds of actual weight gain per month (now that we're in bulking season and all), but who knows.

At least your mirror is clean

Are those abs or ribs?? First time since for either

Enough. Gain to 220 and become a legend!

+1. Bulk for winter.

ETA: Delts and arms looking action figurey.

The realities of natty training are sobering but dem pecs never droopy when lean natty and that is a massive win.

Aidan, color this man Golden. It's about time. Not much progress, but that's natty training for you.

+1

Da loco has spoken. Make it so.

Gun show.

I don't know if loco praising you is a win or not though.

Looks good.

It is one thing to be bad at photo aesthetics. It is something else to severe your arm with a mirror edge for an arm shot though. You do want an unobstructed view...

W8D2 (10/16)

DL: wu, 4x345 (@8), 4x2x315, 4x315 (@7?, 3 minutes)

Front Squat: wu, 5x5x170 (3 minutes)

Single Leg Press (190 lbs): 12, 9, 8, 7 (1 minute)

Hammer Strength Row (108 lbs): 12, 9, 8, 7 (1 minute)

Single Leg Extensions (65 lbs): 18, 15, 12, 10 (1 minute)

Adductor Machine: 18, 15, 12, 10 (1 minute)

Abductor Machine: 18, 14, 12, 10 (1 minute)

Standing Calf Raise: 18, 15, 12, 10 (1 minute)

Kind of a meh day; DL was fine up to the top set, but I lost my grip after the second rep and my positioning for reps 3 and 4 wasn't great. Same problem for the AMRAP. While neither felt hard otherwise, I need to decouple "chest up" and "hips down/back" for the initial rep.

Front squats were solid; last set was maybe @8 at most. Everything else fine.

Re: noodz, thanks to all; it's now slow bulk season.

Not sure how I feel about a pity golden, especially given recent awards haven't exactly been a guarantee of future lifting success.

In that regard, reluctant praise from loco is more valuable than lavish, IMO. Take it as such.

OMG Monte! You are looking so damn sexy! What the hell are you doing a crazy bulk for?

Do you have a brother?

Sort of curious who the asshats are. Podcast guy and KC? You and KC? You and podcast guy? Hmm I could easily be swayed with all those combos.

Monte,

Looking good!! Was worth trawling through all the fitness gobbly ****

JT,

Noted, and potentially cromulent point.

Ladies,

Danke.

Rexx,

Holloliday is referring to the Barbell Medicine guys, Feigenbaum and Baraki; he's mostly ****ting on them because his particular preference for training (minimal 5/3/1 skeleton with whatever else he feels like working on bolted on), while also spergy, is spergy in a diametrically opposed way to some of the rest of us.

10/17: 30 minutes/2.0 miles on the treadmill

FTR I am calling the Barbell Meicine podcasters asshats because they are asshats. They are both doctors which supports my thesis nicely. The substance of the entire 4 hour topic discussion would fit on a couple of post-it notes with the rest being half-hour asides that go nowhere (on loop, ffs), yet at the end the two of them seem to think they should turn that exact text into a book!

There are some decent points practically no one will ever hear because only some sort of sperg would ever actually load up Part 3 (which is the only one worth the time, imo). They even start part 3 by insisting you *must* listen to the first two in order to have any chance of comprehending their towering intellectual wisdom. Then it's just straight two old ladies rambling for another half hour or so before they get to the first practical advice we've heard other than "Don't run novice lp too long".

Probably the only reason I was willing to finish it was knowing KC recommended it. Assuming what they said works for me (so far so good) I'll be glad I listened to it, but I still might leave a flaming bag of doo on KC's doorstep for that.

"Maybe a little long", he said.

W8D3 (10/18)

A
OHP: wu, 4x155 (RPE 9.5), 4x2x140, 5x140 (RPE 8.5, 3 minutes)
Facepulls: 9x12

B
Spoto Bench: wu, 5x5x195 (Ls RPE 9, 3 minutes)
V Grip Pulldown: 4x12
Incline Reverse DB Flyes: 5x12

CG BP (145): 12, 8, 6, 5 (1 minute)

Incline DB Press (50s): 12, 8, 7, 6 (1 minute)

Spoon Press (45s): 18, 13, 11, 9 (1 minute)

Bottoms Up KB Press (12 lbs): 18, 14, 12, 10 (1 minute)

EZ LTE (55 lbs): 18, 15, 13, 11 (1 minute)

DB Hammer Curl (20s): 18, 14, 11, 9 (1 minute)

Everything went pretty well; knees still unlocking ever so slightly when press gets heavy, but outside of flexing my quads and glutes even more, I think it looked pretty good. Spoto was appropriately difficult, and closegrip afterwards is always rough. Got through everything and kept it brisk, and feel good generally.

100 total minutes.

Monte, looking very good. Neither too big no too small. Aren't you somewhere approaching 40 ? The bod of 20 y. old.

W7D4 (10/12)

Squat: wu, 290x4 (@8), 260x2x4, 260x5 (LsRPE @8, 3 minutes)

Deadlift: wu, 280x5x5 (3 minutes)

RFESS (25s): 12, 8, 7, 6 (1 minute)

Widegrip Pullups (bw): 12, 7, 5, 4 (1 minute)

Seated Single Leg Curl (60s): 18, 14, 12, 10 (1 minute)

Felt kind of sluggish today; binged on terrible dessert last night, and I've been staying up later now that NBA is on. Need to tighten that up.

Squats felt bad, but looked ok; 290 set felt a little loose, so I worked on staying tight during each rep during the backoffs, and it felt a bit better. Deadlift felt better; worked on pulling my chest up without my hips moving back and/or dropping; the bar path looks more vertical, and it felt easier, so we'll see how it works with heavier weight.