Hypertrophy III, Day 1, Workout 12

I've been looking over my new routine for next month, and it looks like "wave loading" gets the best feature of "undulating periodization" where I'll be lifting heavy, medium and light weights all in one day. At the least, this will give my body something new to do. At the worst, it's the kind of thing that can make me puke especially finishing up an exercise with 15-20 rep sets.

And Happy Halloween, by the way. Maybe this time next year I'd have lost enough fat and put on some more muscle mass to be true to this blog's namesake. These days I'm more of the Bulk than the Hulk.

Hypertrophy III, Day 2, Workout 11

For some reason my abs and lower back were firing on all cylinders today, which made my "heavy" leg day easier than usual despite my increasing the loads at the final sets. Well, I certainly ain't complaining, and in fact, I hope it keeps up until the middle of November when this phase ends.

Hypertrophy III, Day 1, Workout 11

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Hypertrophy III, Day 2, Workout 10

I've decided to go back to working out mornings so that train myself to wake up (and sleep) earlier (again) and that I can have a better chance of hogging the equipment before anybody else shows up in the gym. It's especially critical in the next phase where, for example, I'll have six sets with 3 minutes rest in between of each. Couple of those sets are 1-reps, which means I'll have to keep going for max reps and that means I'm gonna need a spotter every time.

When this thing get so complicated?

Hypertrophy III, Day 1, Workout 10

Couple of firsts today:

• Four reps at 214lbs. at the Incline bench press. It helped that the one who spotted me knew what he was doing. He said I could've cranked out two more reps, but in retrospect, doing that would've tired me out for the rest of the workout. On the other hand, it's about time I can press more than my body weight. Chest has always been a laggard ever since Day 1, and so I hope I can keep up the pace in the next phase.
• Two four-rep Barbell push press sets at 174lbs. Seeing that I couldn't even get the bar off the ground two weeks ago, this time I swallowed my pride and used the power cage in case a mishap occurred. I also wanted to know if I could even do the reps in the first place and in fact bombed out on my first attempt. I managed to do it when I didn't waste my time getting the first rep done and my momentum going. In any case, I can train my cleans in the next phase when I'll be doing Barbell shoulder presses, which will necessitate me to use lighter weights.
  

This is why I like low-rep/heavy-weight days. Too bad I've got only one more to go next month, but switching up exercises all part of the fun.

Hypertrophy III, Day 2, Workout 9

Well, that was the first high-rep lower body workout that didn't leave my legs trembling afterwards. Took me the better half of this phase to adapt, but it looks like things are just going to get worse when I start the Strength Phase next month. The thought of three 15-rep Bulgarian split squat/Step up with no-rest-in-between supersets is quite simply terrifying.

Hypertrophy III, Day 1, Workout 9

It's been months since I've gone to the gym before work, and thanks to the cooler weather we've been having, it wasn't as much as sauna as I remembered it to be. The reason I went so early is that I wanted to check out the sale at the mall during my lunch break. Basically, I need new pants to replace the ruined-beyond-repair ones I have. Too much thigh-on-thigh action, I'm afraid. Hope I can get a good deal or two.

Hypertrophy III, Day 2, Workout 8

I've been able to move up quite a bit on my Heel-raised back squats now that I've learned to better distribute the load away from my knees, but the exercise is still pretty tough on my quads. Though I got my thighs parallel to the floor, I'll try getting my ass lower to the ground next time like I was doing at a lighter weight.

Hypertrophy III, Day 1, Workout 8

Fighting off a cold and having stomach problems didn't make today's workout any easier, but on the bright side, things could've been worse. I'll just have work on cleansing my system over the next two days and hope for the best.

Hypertrophy III, Day 2, Workout 7

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Hypertrophy III, Day 1, Workout 7

Aside from the steaks I had last weekend (one on each day and one was a freebie, hehe), I treated myself to a 2-hr. massage instead of the usual 1 last night, and if I didn't have to immediately go somewhere else, I would've stayed in the room and just lay down on the cot for a bit longer. I also usually don't like deep tissue massage done on my legs (I prefer no oil shiatsu), but it turned out to be for my own good as my legs were still really sore from the last lower body workout I did.

Since I had a feeling I'd be coming home late last night (and I did), I applied for a half-day leave before leaving for work yesterday so I could wake up late and come in after lunch today. Three guesses where I was the latter half of the morning.

I had a mostly pretty good upper body workout this morning marred only by my being unable to get 174lbs. off the floor for my Push presses. I couldn't get the momentum to smoothly pull the weight nor the movement to get my body into position. Oh well, I've got two more chances in this phase to get to 184, but 204 is definitely out of the picture.

Hypertrophy III, Day 2, Workout 6

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Hypertrophy III, Day 1, Workout 6

While it's nice not having to do cardio during the Hypertrophy phases, my endomorphness is beginning to catch up with me. (Hit 202lbs. last Friday.) Problem is, whenever I'm home, I prefer impact cardio (jogging outside) to lower impact (treadmill) or even no impact (seated bicycle) cardio. I believe the reason why impact cardio is detrimental for those trying to build mass is that it "shakes down" the developing muscle. The elliptical machine is a great compromise, but I only have access to that in the gym. I'll have to decide what to do when my cardio days fall on the weekend. I'd rather not the leave the house.

Hypertrophy III, Day 2, Workout 5

I haven't specifically decided what I'm going to do for this major milestone, but one will definitely involve one BIG juicy steak. Cost, be damned.

500, here I come!

Hypertrophy III, Day 1, Workout 5

Not much to report aside from wanting to sleep the rest of the day.

Hypertrophy III, Day 2, Workout 4

So far in this phase, I'm liking the 5-set/8-rep combination the most; the least is 4-set/12-rep (shocking, I know). I'm trying my best to abide by the dictated rest times and the 2-3 second "negatives", both of which turn "light" weights (comparatively to what I was doing before) into dark soul-sucking matter.

I posted the more-than-usual number of progress pics for September like I did last year (Damn, I actually looked thin.) based on what I did when I started this blog two years ago.

And lookee here... something I haven't done on this blog for ages (although my Excel file's continually updated). I've put in the comparison from last October's as well to see how I've done for the year.

Height	5'3"	Sep 07	Oct 06
Weight	201.5 lbs.	+3.5 lbs.	+26.5lbs
Chest	44.25"	+0.75"	+3.75"
Neck	16.25"	no change	+0.625"
Upper Arms (unflexed)	15.75"/15.5"	+0.25"/+0.25"	+1.375"/1.25"
Upper Arms (flexed)	16.375"/16.125"	+0.375"/+0.25"	+1.25"/1.125"
Forearms	12.25"/12"	+0.125/+0.125"	+0.625"/+0.625"
Waist at navel	40.5"	+0.5"	+5.5"
Hips	44.5"	+0.5"	+4.5"
Thighs	27"/27"	no change/no change	+3.0"/+3.0"
Calves	16.125"/16"	+0.125/+0.125"	+0.375"/+0.25"

Comments

• Creatine just loves bloating up my body. I broke 200lbs. a few weeks ago, and 9 out of that 26.5lbs. I gained over the year was just from the past two months. (Before August, I was averaging 1.75lbs./month.) Also, it's no coincidence I started packing on the pounds when I started doing Deadlifts September of last year, and most of the growth had gone to my thighs and hips.
• Although the 5.5" jump in my waistline is somewhat bothersome, part of that is from my back getting thicker and my butt getting bigger and higher. My torso had to compensate my giving up the use of the weight belt, which incidentally is now too small for me. (Luckily, I have a bigger belt that I got as a Christmas present last year.) Also, I haven't done any cardio at all during the two Hypertrophy phases. I'll be starting that again once I enter the Strength phase in the middle of November. (Oh joy.)
  
• In the meantime, I'll try to keep the fat in check as much possible and switch to a dedicated fat loss program once I'm finished with The New Rules of Lifting (NRoL) next year. It was a choice between Tom Venuto's Burn the Fat; Feed the Muscle and Alwyn Cosgrove's Afterburn Training, but I ended up buying Chad Waterbury's The 10/10 Transformation. (I'm a cheap bastard.) I've already skimmed through the e-book, and it looks like I have 12 weeks of hell in store. I had thought about stopping the creatine and protein shakes for the duration, but when I looked at the nutrition section, I saw they were prominently featured. Go figure.
• Still, it's not all bad. I'm enjoying having all those 16-plus measurements in the table, especially of my arms' since I haven't done a single bicep curl or tricep extension since I started NRoL. (Fine, I did try a couple of sets of Tricep pushdowns at one time or another to see if I could still do 200lbs.) Now that I've made it it to this level, I just gotta know how well 17" works out for me. Not too sure about 18" though with me being as short as I am, but then again with my ginormous ass, they may just be the thing to balance that out.