Toolman's Log

Well, trying to log all my workouts here became too much work so I'll just post updates. I just finished the ten's portion of my sixth HST cycle, and while I've met or beat most of my strength goals, I'm not seeing the weight gain I would like and for this I'm looking very closely at my diet. Currently, I'm taking in at least 3300 calories a day (up from about 2500 two months ago), and keeping my protein intake around 250 grams. All of my protein sources are lean, coming from chicken breast, lean ground turkey, tuna, egg whites, cottage cheese, and whey protein powder, with the occasional steak. Carbs are mainly oats, farina, whole grain pasta, and brown rice. I've been monitoring my intake and gradually increasing calories from about 2500 to where I am now, and the damn scale seems to be stuck. Granted it's a cheap digital scale but I should be seeing something. Physically, I feel great. My muscles are hard and tight, though I still carry too much fat around the middle which I'm not worried about at this point and in spite of which I think I still look more muscular now than I did two months ago when I last took pictures. Maybe what's happening is I'm losing fat at the same rate as I'm gaining muscle, but I doubt it. I think I should be gaining both. I was also expecting a growth phase this week, based on my past cycles, but it seems to have happened early this time. Anyway, I'm just going to have to bump up my calories some more and see what happens.

I've picked up Lyle McDonalds Ultimate Diet 2.0 and will see what new information I can gleen from that. Maybe I'll find something to get me growing again.

In regards to training, I've been implementing the warmup protocol I posted up thread and am happy with that, and I've dropped the AM/PM split. I found it pretty exhausting and think the volume was just too high, so I switched to a two-day split instead. Also, for a couple workouts I was playing around with the FST-7 (Fascia Stretch Training) techniques, and wonder if maybe I have been screwing around ("experimenting") too much in the gym. Maybe I should go back to one of my earlier cycles where I was getting good results and stick with that. For now I go back to the gym tomorrow for two weeks of five's, and have decided to throw out those exercises that are less productive and/or where five rep sets may not be appropriate. This is my plan for the next two weeks:

Workout A (Legs/Chest)
Squats
Leg Press
Leg Extensions
Incline Dumbell Press
Hammer Strength Chest

Workout B (Back/Shoulders/Arms)
Close Grip Pulldowns
Deadlifts
Shrugs
Dumbbell Press
Superset:
One-arm Tricep Extensions
Barbell Curls
 
I ran into the same problem of stalling weight gain at the end of this second cycle. When I looked at my diet I realized I hadn’t increased my calorie intake to account for the weight I’d gained.

Just a thought, I’ve had very good results from doing my Shrugs separate from my Dead Lifts. I find my Traps and Grip respond better to the increase in frequency so if you haven’t before you might try moving the Shrugs to your “A” routine and see how it works for you.

Just curious, is you’re A/B split going to be 4 or 6 days a week?
 
I ran into the same problem of stalling weight gain at the end of this second cycle. When I looked at my diet I realized I hadn’t increased my calorie intake to account for the weight I’d gained.

Just a thought, I’ve had very good results from doing my Shrugs separate from my Dead Lifts. I find my Traps and Grip respond better to the increase in frequency so if you haven’t before you might try moving the Shrugs to your “A” routine and see how it works for you.

Just curious, is you’re A/B split going to be 4 or 6 days a week?

Thanks for the info, Grunt. Maybe you're right that while I have been increasing my calories, I may not be increasing them fast enough. I'll try to get them up to about 4000 next week and see what I weigh at the end of the fives.

In regards to traps, I've been doing barbell shrugs as a pre-exhaust prior to deadlifts on my A workout, and dumbbell shrugs as part of my shoulder routing during my B workout. I've had good results with this and find that deadlifts aren't suffering at all from being last in the routine. Looking at my most recent pics taken earlier this week, my back and traps are making the most noticeable improvements.



I think four days a week on this split will be enough. I think I would enter into an overtrained state doing any more than that.
 
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