Friends are great to have!

A guy I met from an online forum that I belong to gave me some great information on how I can easily adjust my plan and continue with my progress. I'm not sure of his real name but he goes by the name Stack Diesel and for very good reason... He clearly knows his stuff when it comes to bodybuilding and I'm grateful for his advice. I'm going to paste his reply to me after reading of my struggles.

Greg,

I've always found it difficult to consume more than 140-150g of protein a day from whole food. Aside from rare occasions, I've always had to supplement with shakes to get at or over 200g/day.

That being said, and after years of protein guilt and paranoia, I do think protein needs have been exaggerated, even as to hard-training athletes. The "1g/lb. BW" rule of thumb was cooked up by a supplement company back in the early 90's and has since become gospel. I don't dispute that it's best to err on the side of caution and consume too much rather than too little, but the most credible clinical study (in my opinion) done on the protein requirements of athletes, by Dr. Lemon, suggests an intake of 1.6g/kg of BW maintains positive nitrogen balance and supports recovery and growth in hard-training athletes (assuming an otherwise energy-dense and nutritionally adequate diet). A 220lb man weights 100kg and thus would require an intake of 160g protein/day. 40g doesn't seem like a big difference but, for me, seems to be the difference between being able to meet my protein needs with whole food and having to rely on supplements. Again, I do agree that it's best to consume too much rather than too little protein, but just some food for thought.

Also, you are killing your legs 5 days a week. Although it may seem counterintuitive at first, most strength and conditioning coaches advise that sprints be performed on the same day as squats/heavy leg training, to maximize the recovery period between workouts. Walking can be done for active recovery/general physical activity on the rest days, but not to the point/pace of turning it into a full-blown conditioning session. If you are doing your 5x5 on M/W/F, I'd suggest sprints on M and F. Do the sprints after your squat workout, not before. Will this compromise sprint performance somewhat? Of course, but something's gotta give, and when you really start pushing up the weight on the squats, you are going to stall hard and fast if you are not getting adequate recovery between workouts.

-Stack

Great advice that I plan on incorporating into my routine starting with next week's schedule.

Many thanks, Stack!

My New 7 Week Mission

All right!

I have a whole new 7 week plan that I've put together for myself. This is serious, repetitive (possibly to the point of boring), provides me with a massive amount of protein - and exactly "what I think" is going to take me to my next level.

Starting tomorrow, April 12th (which is my 38th birthday!) through May 31st, I'm starting on a 7 week mission.

I am going to eat exactly the same foods every day, heavy lift on M/W/F, cardio & sprints on T/Th and rest on Sat. & Sun.

I've entered all my foods into FitDay and have come up with the following results:

Protein: 232g
Fat: 179g
Carbs: 6g
Cals: 2500

Fat: 63%
Protein: 36%
Carbs: 1%

My daily foods are:

1. 6 cage free organic eggs scrambled in 2T of organic ghee

2. 12oz. free range chicken breast sauteed in 2T of organic virgin coconut oil

GYM

3. 12oz. grass fed ground beef or steak

4. 12oz. free range chicken breast sauteed in 2T of organic virgin coconut oil

This will NOT change, nor will I be posting daily menus.

My workouts will remain on the same schedule with my 5X5 lifting program and by the end of the 7 weeks this will add a total of 52.5 lbs. to every one of my lifts.

My cardio and sprints will be out in the woods alternating between mtn. biking and hiking - rain or shine!

I will still continue to post on my workouts, how my day went and other assorted things that come to mind - but this is it. This should, without a doubt, bring me to a whole new fitness level and mindset. I will not be weighing myself again until the end of this 7 week mission... The morning of June 1st.

It will not be easy, but I'm well prepared and pumped!

Inflation can be deadly!

Here we are in the 2nd week of April and we're having some beautiful weather in NY. As I mentioned, I've been looking forward to taking my cardio and sprint days outdoors once it warmed up and today seemed like the perfect day to start. So, I'm thinking to myself, what do I want to do?? Ah ha! I'll go get my Mtn. bike that's been sitting in my parent's shed for the past 3 yrs. (I know, shame on me) and I'll hit the trails for a nice long ride and some all out sprints.

I bought this bike, oh about 13 yrs ago lol. It's a Trek and it was a pretty good bike back in the day... I bought it the same summer I bought a brand new Jeep Wrangler because it looked hip hanging off the back of my new Jeep! Nah, I really wanted to get into riding - and I did for a while - but then... well you know how it goes. It sat for a while, then I got into it again, then parked 3 yrs ago - and haven't touched it since.

So I go to get the bike and the tires were low and needed some air but they seemed to be holding some so I thought a quick trip to the gas station down the road for air and I'd be good to go! I also needed to dust some of the cobwebs off and lube the chain.

Anyway, here I am down at the station, filling up the back tire and BAM!!! IT EXPLODED! Sounded like a gun shot and my ear seriously rang for a good minute or two. The tires had dry rotted and just blew apart on me.

So, I head down to the bike shop to get some new tires and tubes put on and unfortunately they only had one in stock so I'll have to wait until tomorrow when the shipment comes in and my bike will be ready in the afternoon (too bad it's supposed to rain tomorrow!). While I was there, I picked up a new helmet (never had a bicycle helmet but I should be wearing one), a pair of riding gloves and a water bottle to attach to the bike frame. We are looking at a nice weekend though, so I'll go and hit the trails then for my first ride of the season.

In the meantime, it's now after 5pm and getting chilly so I'm not going to start a two hour hike in the woods... I'm going to go to the gym and maybe I'll do my savage bear crawl mountain climbing routine I did the other day. Or maybe I'll try something else... I'll figure it out when I get there.

Bear Crawl Sprints!

We've got the Cybex Arc Trainer at my gym and I love this thing. It's kind of like an elliptical machine but with longer strides and even lower impact - you can use the arm bars for a full body workout or just balance yourself and do legs. I go for the full monty!

At it's lowest incline it simulates x-country skiing, then elliptical, then stair stepping, then hiking, and finally mountain climbing.

Of course, I max it out and put it on 10 (mountain climbing mode) and the resistance up to 100 (also max) and grab the handles on the heart rate sensors and slowly climb the mountain while maintaining my HR at 120bpm (fat burning zone).

I set the timer for 60 mins - and every 5 minutes, i reach forward and grab the front handles and I do a 40 second all out sprint. This raises my HR to about 173bpm at the end of the sprint. The sprints are insane though - It's similar to a bear crawl sprint up a mountain. In 60 mins, it said I burned 1365 calories but I'm not sure how accurate that is... all I know is my legs are shaking and feel like they left my body when I'm done. It's an absolutely insane workout.

Now that the weather is starting to get reasonably warm, I'm going to take my cardio out in the hilly woods and play... I can't wait!

Back to the old neighborhood sweat shop!

Back in February, I made the grave mistake of joining Planet Fatness (I mean Fitness). Brand new place, a few minutes away, open 24 hrs. a day throughout the week, only $10 per month - seemed too go to be true. This place was the oddest gym I have ever stepped foot in. It's really a cardio dance hall more than a gym. First of all, if you get there anytime after 4pm, good luck finding any one of the 100+ cardio machines available to use. The place is packed! Mostly with college kids who dress like they're on their way to a club - hair done, makeup and all.

More importantly, let's get to the free weights area... Wait a minute! What free weights area? Sure they have all the different plate machines (which, I suppose, do serve their purpose - just not my purpose) - again, packed with the college guys struttin' their stuff to impress the girls.

The dumbbell rack stops at 80 lbs.; the fixed bars stop at 60 lbs.; they don't have a weight bench - nor do they have a real Olympic barbell. What!? What kind of place is this... how is a man supposed to get a real workout in a place like this. Well... you don't, nor do they want you to. They want to keep it a "family like atmosphere".

Check this out - they actually have something called a "Lunk alarm". Which means if you happen to grunt or make any type of noise while you're lifting - or god forbid drop or clank a weight... a siren goes off! If you don't believe me, google it - I do not lie!

But wait, there's more! One Friday of each month is pizza night and one Tuesday of each month is bagel Tuesdays. Who are these people kidding?

If you don't like it... go somewhere else - which I did. Adios Planet Fatness, I'm going back to the old standby - my original gym. It's small, it's clean, they have real equipment, an awesome staff and are never crowded. I am so glad to be back!

I did Workout A of my 5x5 today:

Squats 5x5
Bench Press 5x5
Inverted rows 3xF
Reverse Crunches 3x12
Push ups - 5 sets of mixed reps - totaling 48 perfect form, military style, push ups.

I don't think I mentioned this in a previous post but I'm now in week 2 of a 6 week program to complete 100 consecutive, perfect form, push ups. I'm gonna make it for sure by the end of the 6th week.

Needless to say, my chest is on fire right now!

I also added 10lbs. to the bar for each of my workouts to catch up from last week. I should be adding 5lbs. to the bar each time I work out, as per the program I'm doing, but Planet Fatness didn't even have 2.5lb. plates for their smith machine so I wound up having to stay at the same weight for the past two previous weeks - glad that's over with.

Awesome workout tonight!