Rubato's Workout/Diet Journal

[Rubato]

11/26/11

I started a diet EFFORT gave me (note - this is what I ate, not what he told me to eat... there was no f-ing way that was gonna happen!)

Meal 1 - 50g whey, 2.5 ounces oats, Ca supplement, multivitamin, extended release B vitamin complex, 5g creatine ethyl ester
Meal 2 - 4 ounces chicken, 2.5 ounces brown rice
Meal 3 - 5 ounces chicken, 2.5 ounces rice
Meal 4 - 1 oz almonds, 1 apple
Meal 5 - 4 eggs, 1 oz almonds, 4 fish oil pills

Back Squats - 3x5 @ 255, 265, 275
Decline situps - 3x5 @ 30, 35, 35
Lunges - 8 deep walking steps with 45lbs in each hand (the biggest weights I had at home)
Leg lifts - 12, 14, 24 (failure)

I will start the exercise program EFFORT gave me Monday. I could not eat literally HALF of what he told me to eat so he gave me a modified diet I am stating today. So far I'm still freakishly full, but I'm plowing through.

Meal 1 - 50g whey, 3 gram oats
Meal 2 - 7 oz ham, 5 ounce brown rice
Meal 3 - 50g whey, 5 ounces brown rice, 1 serving Metamucil
Meal 4 - 7 oz tuna, 1 oz almonds, 1 cup broccoli
Meal 5 - 50g whey, 1.5 oz almonds

Will continue to take fish oil, multivitamin, b-vitamins, creatine, and Ca.

If I can get to the point where I don't feel like I'm going to throw everything up if I do anything too severe, I'm going to do some sprints later on.

 

[Bgarrido]

Work some deadlifts into your routine, they work all your muscles and you'll pack on muscle quickly

 

[EFFORT]

Look forward to following your progress

 

[Rubato]

Exams have kept me from being diligent about updating this. I have been doing the work, just not reporting it. I will have much more time to do this after finals next week. I also decided not to change my routine too much until school let's out. I don't have time to learn anything different right now and have been getting at least some results with what I've been doing. The routine will change after next week too.

Honestly, I haven't had the time to devote to maintaining EFFORT's diet. I was good until Wed when I had to start studying hard for my biochem exam and it's unlikely that I'll be able to make that a good habit and develop a preparation strategy for the meals until the end of next week.

11/29/11

Barbell Bench Press 3x8 - 140, 140, 150 (last rep was the rep that screwed up my shoulder)
Incline Bench 3x8 - 155, 160, 165
Decline Bench 1x8 (normally 3x8) - 165 (I only did one set)

I stopped after this because I could feel there was something wrong with my shoulder. I did not do skulls either because I didn't want to further aggravate my shoulder until my dad looked at it.

11/30/11

9 minutes of interval training. 6 sets of full out springs at 30 seconds with 60 second rests in between sets.

12/1/11

Due to my shoulder injury, I sat out while my wing did wide grip pullups and military press. What I did do though was:

Curls - 3x8 - in each arm, 35, 40, 35
Deadlifts - 3x8 - 155, 165, 175
Preacher curls - (I do not know the weight of the curved bar so it is not added) 40, 45, 50

12/2/11

Today was a rest day... unless you count 2 hours of my advanced ballroom dance class this morning. And that probably counts. Keeping a dance frame in waltz for several songs in a row takes more than you think.

In any event, my shoulder is feeling much better. It was slightly sore after ballroom dance, but I have full range of motion back and have some stretching/physical therapy exercises a physical therapist gave me. I should be back to normal soon.

 

[Rubato]

My shoulder is still bothering me so on the advice of my dad and a physical therapist I have been seeing (as well as the wonderful people on this board

I will be taking at least 1 week off from all upper body training. I will also be going to see an ortho doctor to get an MRI of my shoulder. My dad thinks there is a less than 5% chance I tore my infraspinosus or supraspinosus muscle/tendon but wants me to get it checked just in case.

12/5/11 Diet - All eggs/chicken organic and free range

Meal 1 - 4 eggs, 3 oz oats
Meal 2 - 6.5 oz chicken, 5 oz brown rice, 1 medium apple
Meal 3 - 6.5 oz chicken, 5 oz brown rice
Meal 4 - 50g Whey, 1 large yellow pepper, 1 oz almonds
Meal 5 - 4 oz tuna, 2 fish oil pills, 1 serving Metamucil

12/5/11 Workout

Leg Press 3x8 - 290 (way too low), 380, 400
Leg Extension 3x8 - 170, 180, 190
Leg Curl 3x8 - 160, 160, 150

Also, do you guys have any ideas for how to season the rice? Right now I'm just boiling it down in a pan, and that's fine, but it gets bland day after day. Have you guys ever tried adding spices or anything like that?

And have you ever incorporated another grain in to your diet like barley, millet, or couscous?

 

[Rubato]

12/6/11 Diet

Meal 1 - 4 eggs, 2.9 oz oats (I emptied the box.... time to get more)
Meal 2 - 7 oz chicken, 5 oz brown rice
Meal 3 - 7 oz chicken, 5 oz brown rice
Meal 4 - 50g Whey, 1 large yellow pepper, 1 oz almonds
Meal 5 - An unspecified amount of almonds, maybe 3 ounces. I'm about to pop and don't have time to make anything else as I study for my final exams. I also ate an enormous pear.

I don't feel like my body has adjusted to this increase in diet yet. I've never eaten this much in my life, even when I was chubby, and believe it or not, I'm not gaining any weight... I've been in the low 160's since I first asked for advice.

I did a nutritional profile of what I'm eating and I'm taking in about 3200 calories, a lot of fat, carbs, protein, and cholesterol. And by a lot, I mean well over 100% beyond the daily recommendations. Cholesterol is like 5x+ the daily recommendations. My dad has expressed concerns over this, but we'll find out how all of this is effecting my levels at the end of the month when he does a blood workup on me including a lipid profile, crp, and BUN/creatinine. I found an article on pubmed that suggests while the ethylester form of creatine may be better absorbed, it also has a tendency to equilibrate to a high degree in to creatinine in the acidic environment of the stomach. The lab tests will show what's going on. If my creatinine levels are blowout level, I'll switch back to monohydrate.

Also, I found some articles suggesting the high levels of DHA/EPA (2+ grams daily) resulted in a pretty decent level of downregulation of the expression of natural killer cells and lowered overall immune function. When I have more time, I will research this more and post what I find after finals.

12/6/11 Workout

I went cycling. About 3-3.5 miles in 25 minutes outside in this frigid weather. I should have worn more clothes!

 

[Kerpal]

Check your squat depth, you shouldn't be squatting 100 lbs more than you deadlift if you're hitting full depth (top of thigh at hip joint below top of knee).

 

[Rubato]

Check your squat depth, you shouldn't be squatting 100 lbs more than you deadlift if you're hitting full depth (top of thigh at hip joint below top of knee).

The reason for the low weight isn't because I can't do more, it's because the first time I ever deadlifted was this past thanksgiving. I'm trying to make sure I get the form down before I go heavier so that I don't injury myself (as I did with my shoulder). I've also been doing squats for a while and have not been doing a comparable amount of work on my lats/lower back, so I would expect my deadlifts to be weaker (maybe this is a poor assumption though. You may know better than me).

Anyways, due to my shoulder injury, I won't be deadlifting any at minimum until a week from today.

 

[Rubato]

I took last week off as a rest week because of finals, my shoulder injury, and I haven't had a rest week since the semester started. I went to go see the ortho doctor my dad sent me to and he said I was fine. He said don't lift anything that hurts when you lift it.

I resumed lifting this week, but it hasn't been incredible. I tapered off my Ritalin and Klonopin wayyyyyy too fast! I started the taper on Friday and was clean by Monday. Needless to say, I felt like literal crap for most of the week. I don't think I'm ever going to take another benzo/z-drug again unless the world as I know it is about to end. Getting off of them is just not worth it.

12/13/11

Straight bench 3x8 - 185, 185, 185
Incline Bench 3x8 - 155, 155, 155
Decline Bench 3x8 - 155, 155, 155

I was dead by this point and my shoulder was hurting. So I let the skulls go.


12/16/11

My pecs are still sore from that lift on Tuesday... it really did me in! I can't believe how much more lifting energy I had while I was on the Ritalin.

Standing Military Press 3x8 - 95, 115, 115
Wide Grip Pullups - 8, 8, 8
Deadlifts 3x8 - 185, 185, 185
Bar curl (no idea what the bar weight is) 3x8 - 70, 70, 70

I've been feeling terrible since I finished the lift ended about an hour ago. I'm still not over the hill coming off these drugs. I'm going to try and lift again on Sunday and hopefully I'll recover faster.

 

[Rubato]

12/21/11

I'm finally started to feel better after that withdrawal. What a waste of like 9 days. My memory about what's been going on in my life since finals ended is really spotty. Not worth it.

This is what I did today and it was fairly limited as I only have access to my home gym right now.

Regarding the back squats... I lowered the weight this time because I want to make sure my technique is solid. It turns out that the weight I did today probably isn't too far off from what I want.

Back Squats 3x8 - 205, 225, 225
Decline situps 3x8 - 25, 25, 25

 

[Rubato]

Revamping things for a new start tomorrow

NOTE: If anyone sees any red flags here, please advise me accordingly.

I am going to start Anthony Ellis's 12 week program tomorrow. I went through my diet plan and revamped things just a little bit.

The caloric intake 3438 calories.

As of this morning, my nude weight is 164.2

Ellis said to take your weight and multiply it by 18

That puts me at 2956 calories.

My diet was also 5 meals, this calls for 6 meals.

Ellis also said to proportion your meals so you're getting 40% of your calories from protein, 30% from fat, and 30% from carbs.

Given the caloric needs of the diet, that left me at a ~ 20g. deficit for fat and protein, and 60 for carbs.

So. I modified things a bit. Ideally, I should have:

Protein - 296g
Fat - 99g
Net Carbs - 222g
Calories - 2956

I ended up with:

Protein - 309g
Fat - 94g
Net Carbs - 175g
Calories - 3002

Here is the meal breakdown

Meal 1 - 5 oz oats, 1 oz Almonds, 1 1200mg Fish Oil Pill, Ca Supplement, Multivitamin, Creatine Monohydrate (will add some carbs)
Meal 2 - 52g Whey (on lifting days [Mon, Wed, Fri] 30g Waxy Maize that will add 30g carbs and 120 calories), 2.5 oz Brown Rice
Meal 3 - 7oz 90/10 Ground Beef, 52g Whey, 1 Fish Oil Pill
Meal 4 - 7 oz Chicken, 2.5 oz Brown Rice, 1 Fish Oil Pill
Meal 5 - 7 oz Chicken, 1 cup chopped Broccoli, 1 oz Almonds, 1 Fish Oil Pill
Meal 6 - 7 organic eggs, 1 oz Almonds, 1 serving Metamucil (will add some carbs)

That is pretty similar to the diet EFFORT gave me. I think the only difference is spreading the fish oil pills around, subbing out 5 oz of Brown Rice for 52g of the Whey, and spreading the overall diet around to 6 meals rather than 5.

My workout tomorrow (and the next 6 Mondays) will be as follows:

All sets run:

-2 light weight 8 rep warmup sets
-4 work sets with 6-8 reps, 4-6 reps, 2-4 reps, 1-2 reps
-1 burnout set using first weight, 6-12 reps)
-1 superset to positive failure (6-12 repts)

Exercises
-Flat Bench Press with incline dumbbell flies superset
-Shoulder Press with shoulder raises superset
-Shrugs to failure
-Dips to failure with triceps pushdowns to failure
-4 sets of ab work

How's this looking guys?

 

[DanZy]

What ab work are you doing?

 

[NorwegianDJ]

I did anthony ellis' program for a good 6-7 months. Of course I gained a lot, like 8kgs. However, afterwards, I did Starting Strength for 4-5 months and gained 7 kgs and cut 3 in just over a month (which is included in the 4-5 months). From my experience with both programs, the Skinnyguy workout is inferior for beginners.

 

[Rubato]

I did anthony ellis' program for a good 6-7 months. Of course I gained a lot, like 8kgs. However, afterwards, I did Starting Strength for 4-5 months and gained 7 kgs and cut 3 in just over a month (which is included in the 4-5 months). From my experience with both programs, the Skinnyguy workout is inferior for beginners.

I will check that out, but I'm not familiar with it and I'd like to get started on a more consistent routine ASAP.

I am not sure what your definition of a beginner is, but I've been lifting pretty consistently (about 3x per week) since June this year and most of last year and the year before. The problem with my lifting has always been that I never knew what I was diet. My diet was very light and weak, I would spend months in the gym and have very little results to show for my efforts, and eventually, after a about a year of seeing myself gain maybe 5 pounds of muscle, I would quit. I started a little bit more intelligently this time and probably gained 5-10 pounds of muscle in my last 3 months or so. That made me happy because I've never gained that much before.

So like I said in my first thread here, you guys know better than me. But I want to get started on something today. So if this isn't it, let me know what I should be doing instead... thanks!!

 

[Rubato]

12/26/2011

Nude weight - 164.0 lbs (I can't believe I didn't gain any appreciable weight after the last week... My diet was AWFUL)
Body Fat - 7.1%

Meal 1 - 5 oz oats, 52g whey, multivitamin, calcium, 1 fish oil pill
Meal 2 - 2.5 oz Brown Rice, 30g Waxy Maize, 1 oz Almonds (out of creatine)
Meal 3 - 7 oz Beef, 52g Whey, 2.5 oz Brown Rice

Now, I don't want to sound like a wimp, but there is no way I'm going to be able to do this exercise program during school. I didn't think about how long it was going to take... and it took over 90 minutes! After incorporating a better diet, I was getting better results than I had ever been getting in my life on my old routine. I'm taking the MCAT this spring and when school starts, there's just no way I'm going to have 4.5 hours to spend in the gym. I'm not a competitive body builder wannabe or anyone like that. I just want a better build and better physique (which, I realize is not a simple feat).

So does anyone have any routine they can suggest that is shorter but will still generate good results?

As for my sets today:

Bench - 2x8 at95, 1x7 175, 1x6 175, 1x4 185, 1x2 185, 1x26 95. Superset incline dumbbell flies 1x8 25
Military Press - 2x8 55, 1x8 95, 1x6 115, 1x4 115, 1x2 115, 1x21 55. Superset side raise 1x8 25
Shrugs - 2x8 95, 1x8 175, 1x6 175, 1x4 185, 1x2 185, 1x21 95.
Dips - 18, 18, 16, 17. Superset triceps pulldowns 1x8 82
Decline situps - 4x8 25

I also noticed I had a hard time matching cadence on my sets when the weights got heavy. Like on the bench, I don't have as much of a problem getting the weights down slowly, but there is not much of an upwards "explosion" at all. Does this mean I need to go to lower weights or is there some magic trick?

 

[Rubato]

I haven't posted on here in a long time. I'm still working out and eating the diet. I've gained about 5 pounds and I'm really starting to see the progress. I haven't been posting here because I keep my own paper journal and really, it's redundant and time I don't want to spend. Besides, there's no sense bragging about my how I just broke 200lbs on the bench all over the internet is there?

I remember the first time I ever did bench was with my youth pastor and he was a jacked guy... he loaded up about 240 on the bench and expected that I could do it, 15 years old and never ever having benched. He helped me get it up and I proceeded to drop it on me and crack one of my left ribs.

I was repping 205lbs yesterday. I'm happy with the progress I've made.

I'll continue to post periodically and let you guys know what's up.

This is about where I'm at now:

Bench - 185, 195, 205 (3x8)
Deads - 195, 205, 215 (3x8)
Squat - 215, 225, 225 (3x8)
Incline Bench - 175, 175, 175 (3x8)
Decline Bench - 185, 185, 185 (3x8)
Preacher Curl - 65, 65, 75 (3x8)
Skulls - 65, 65, 65 (3x8)
3x8 Situps with a 25lb weight

 

[Rubato]

I'm at 168 even. I'm up 8 pounds now and I don't feel that much fatter. I've been eating like a horse and my scale says I'm still below 8% body fat. I almost don't believe it because I'm pretty sure I've gotten a little heavier, but I feel like I'm getting bigger too. My weights are also up on every exercise.

If I wouldn't have had that medication problem to contend with over break and had been more consistent with this, I would be farther along. But I haven't regressed, so as long as I keep going forward, I'm moving the right direction.

 

[pondersaizi]

I was good until Wed when I had to start studying hard for my biochem exam and it's unlikely that I'll be able to make that a good habit and develop a preparation strategy for the meals until the end of next week.

 

[Caleb22]

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[Fuglydude]

How do you explain the strong bench but weak DL? Is your form okay?? To give you an idea my max 1 RM for bench is around 255, and my max DL is 480. Something doesn't seem right when your bench and deads are about the same.

Also I doubt you're 8% bodyfat during a full bulk cycle. If you are, then you're an extremely genetically gifted human being!

Heres' a few bodyfat% visual guide link:

http://www.leighpeele.com/body-fat-pictures-and-percentages

http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/5844/1285211969867.jpg

http://www.exer-phys-club.com/bfguidearticle.html