Not good enough

Giving up.

Does it really work?

Bad results again. Does it really work? I'm eating quite a lot i feel, so that shouldn't be an issue... or is it?

Worst session ever :(

Don't know why, but all exercises went really bad this time, the muscles gassed really early!
The only exercise to increase was the last, front pulldown. But that is ONLY because I had an extended rest after the cable row, because the grip I wanted to use was taken.

Surplus calories -> increased results

I'm pleased with the increased results after starting to eating a lot more. It seems to increase at the same rate as before. Let's see if it keeps going like that!

Enough cutting

Enough cutting calories, now I will start to eat surplus, and try to actually put on muscle... let's hope it works, as I think I'm a hard gainer.

lower arms died

Bleh, no luck with the straight bar grip on the cable row... my lower arms quickly died, even later on the front pull down.
Squats went decent. However, it's pretty clear the extended fasting and the calorie deficit over a week is making gains in muscle mass very difficult. And this seems to be the case even though I'm giving myself two feeding days after training.
Perhaps I need to try with even more feeding days, but for the moment I really want to get my body fat even lower. I do think the extended fasting has had effect on the body fat percentage, so I'll keep it up for a while longer.
But I'm really starting to look forward to eating a lot and hopefully seeing the gains start happening again!

I'm using EAA and creatine nitrate supplements, and also some omega 3.

Could be stricter with the diet though. It might be the case that I'm eating to much carbs on training day, and not enough protein.

Two eating days, five fasting days

After training I eat a surplus of calories for two days, then for the rest of the days until the next training session I fast (with a calorie deficit).
I will use the 16 hour fast most days, but also try out 36 hour fast once or twice a week.

This last training session went a little better, perhaps because I have been snowboarding for a week and eating quite liberally (even though still using 16 hour fast), sometimes longer.
I think I will change the grip on the cable row. I have been using a cable row attachment, and i will change it to a straight bar intead. The cable row attachment does not allow me to pull all the way to the stomach, it's too heavy. I think it's better suited for the front pulldown only.

Forced increased weight in squats

Lean gains

Continuing the lean gains approach with fasting until lunchtime, and for the last few times I have fasted even longer. The longest I went so far is not eating until 16.30, without problems. Only had coffee before that.
I do think I'm losing fat.

Weak, but eating is going well

Am I getting weaker? I'm most disappointed by the bad results in squats. :(

But the lean gains approach to reducing body fat is going better than the conventional method. Simply waiting until lunchtime (or even later if possible) to have my first food intake of the day is a lot easier than having a small breakfast.
I just drink a cup of coffee with a small amount of milk, and artificial sweetener before lunch.

Leans gains

Read about a method I will try on leangains.com
Basically you don't eat from 21.00 to after about lunchtime the next day. Then you train, and then eat for 8 hours. However, you should of course still maintain a calorie deficit.
I think this might be easier for me to actually keep up, so I have begun trying it out already.

Back to normal eating again

So, I haven't really seen the improvements I wanted from eating a calorie deficit. Of course, it might simply be the case that I didn't do it long enough.
But it really takes it's toll mentally to always want to eat more, and also the gains are not very good in the gym. So, I think I will just eat plenty (paleo) instead, and see what kind of gains I can get with HIT. So I will perhaps eat more than I need, to make sure I'm taking in a calorie surplus, to ensure growth.
I'm hoping introducing sprint training once (or twice?) a week will still take away some fat... we will see!

I didn't do the overhead press, because my shoulder was a bit overworked from the MMA training (not sure what did it).

Sprint training?

Just watched a Mark Sisson talk and it reminded me that I'm not doing sprint training, which he (and others) say is really good for losing that last fat of your body.
Perhaps that is what's missing in my training. And he advocates doing it once a week, so that's not a lot of work really, for a supposedly very big benefit.
Guess I'll have to try it!

Of course, Mark Sisson does not think calorie deficit is the way to go to lose body fat, instead sprinting and eating more fat is his advice. Hmm, we'll see.

Eating day

So I had an eating day, a day off the -1000 calorie deficit, where I'm allowed to eat as much as I want. I put that day on the same day as a workout, to have the most benefit from it. And I think it did have some benefit, since on average the work output increased a bit, whereas on the last workout I stayed on the same level. And hopefully the body got more energy/protein to build from for my next workout.
However, tomorrow I'm going back to the deficit. It's going to be a hungry day! ;)
I've been eating and feasting on paleo foods but also a big load of berries during the day... probably way to much. I should probably be stricter on future eating days, and get the energy surplus from fat instead, but damn those berries taste good! :)

-1000 calories...

After talking to a friend who has done this many times in his fighting career, I decided to follow his advice and go harder on the calorie deficit since I was not seeing results (fast enough?). So I will aim for minus 1000 calories per day; before I was aiming for minus 400-500.
I'm expecting to do really bad on the next workout session. I'll probably go down in work output.
Still training mma 2-3 times per week, about one hour sessions. Sometimes I go for a brisk one hour walk.
I will however incorporate an "eating day", on which I'm allowed to eat as much as I want or more... but still keeping in paleo. I will have the eating day on the same day as my workouts, so that they take less of a negative impact... hopefully!

Calorie deficit affecting workout results

Well, on average I stayed on the same level as previous workout... no increases, no decreases on average. This is to be expected of course, since the body has very little energy.
I did surprisingly well on squats (nice increase!), although I managed to slightly chip a tooth during this workout, not sure when that happened. I also filmed squats and bench press to show you how I train.
Normally when I do squats I do put on the safety pins, but this time I simply forgot. It wasn't a problem though.

In any case, it really does show on the results that I'm in a calorie deficit; most exercises stayed the same or decreased. Front pulldown is the last exercise and it's really taking a beating there!

Here's a video showing what my training looks like. The idea is of course to have complete muscle failure.
Because of the angle of the video it does look like I'm not going very deep in the squat, but it is just above 90 degrees, which is pretty normal. After the squats I have trouble standing up. :P

Calorie deficit

Started actually counting calories, trying to stay on about 400 cal deficit per day.
Let's see how the next workout session goes!

Don't trust anyone nor anything!

Yesterday I only ate two times; omelet in the morning, and two small steaks with blue cheese in the evening... but then a whole lot of dried berries. So less protein, and a bit more carbs than usual.
So I was a bit worried about how I was going to fare in the workout session today. Since I now start with overhead press, and was at my home gym, it was time to increase the weight I though. I went for the 20 kg bell bar (fixed weight). Of course I had to measure it, and sure enough, it was 21.25 kilos! Anyway, that exercise went good.

Then I started warming up for squats in the smith machine (I just do three really quick warm up sets with increasing weights and decreasing reps). I felt weak. Usually I feel stronger than this while warming up. This is going to be a tough one I thought while shaking my head and sighing. I put the normal weight on, and yeah it felt heavier than usual. I gave it all I got, and at the end did less time under load than previously. That figures I though, while I recorded the time and weight.
I then moved on to bench press... and for some reason I though I would measure the total weight. What? Why does it show up so much heavier than before? There must be something wrong! Finally I figured it out... they had actually re-calibrated the smith machine I was using, so that the bar alone now weighs 17 kilos instead of about 7! The funny thing is, the other smith machine in the gym was not changed, it still was only 7 kilos.
So I adjusted the recorded weight and hey, I didn't do worse after all, in fact I did quite good!

Front pulldown clearly went back a bit though. I felt quite tired in my lower arms this time. I guess it's showing that it's the last exercise... it's the punching bag of the exercises now, getting bullied by the others!
On seated row I stayed on the same calculated Work level, however I did increase the weight used... so that one is a bit unsure.

Work = √( time * weight ^ 2 )

I have observed that each time I increase the weight on an exercise, my calculated amount of Work decreases. I think this points to that the concept of work and how I measure it is not describing reality so good. It's not likely the case, that I happen to be weaker each time I increase the weight, but otherwise continue to get stronger when I only manage to lift the same weight for a longer period of time.
So basically what this implies, is that the weight used matters much more than the time it is lifted. They are not both linearly related to the Work output. In other words, if you increase the weight by 50%, you are not just going to see a 50% decrease in time under load, but rather an even bigger decrease!
So I changed my Work formula in hope of it describing my advances more realisticly. Since weight matters more, the formula should look like
W = √(time * weight x) 
In words, this is the square root of weight to the power of x, multiplied by time under load.
Now, x is some exponent that descibes how much weight matters when it comes to the work performed.
Now, in physics work would be measured by force times distance of course. But I use time instead since it does require work to even hold the weight in statically. And I'm doing super slow movements, so this should be ok I think.
Anyway, right now I've decided to set x to 2. Why? Because it gives the same increase in Work as if I just follow the curve from increases in time (when weight has not increased). So basically I'm saying that I should be able to increase the Work output at the same rate, even if I increase the weight used (and the time under load will of course decrease).

I have no idea if I'm looking at this the right way... any comments appreciated!

Exercise order change

I'm now doing the overhead press first, the aim being that it will progress better then. And it did have an effect on the results of that exercise. However ,because of the switch up, front pulldown results suffered. This is probably because now I do cable row and then front pulldown. This is quite heavy for the biceps, as opposed to earlier when I had the overhead press in between, which gave my biceps time to rest.
But as Body by Science says, the important thing is simply to completely exhaust the muscles.

Some fatloss

I'm eating a bit more (fat and, protein) on training days. I've noticed results from (very) restricted carbs in terms of reduced body fat. But I'm looking forward to eat normal again, and see even better results in the gym.

Felt strong

Felt strong today. It showed on the results as I upped the weights on some exercises but got the same time or better! Well, except for the last exercise, overhead press. It basically stayed the same. I felt during that exercise, that chest and even legs were totally exhausted, and at least the chest got so fatigued (again) that I believe it impacted the overhead press negatively.
I should also note that today I ate a small portion of cooked food for breakfast (minced meat, coconut oily, creme fraishe, and a little bit of veggies in it), instead of my usual two boiled eggs. So perhaps that helped?
Perhaps I'll see less increase when I go back to eating eggs in the morning.
Or did my body adapt to the low carb intake? Can I still gain muscle while losing more fat?

It seems the last exercise (overhead press) is not making much progress. It's probably because it's the last exercise in the program. I might have to move it to be the first exercise. This is what is recommended, either by body by science or on www.baye.com.

Win some, lose some

As in thaiboxing, you win some, you lose some. On average slightly up though.

Weak

Felt a bit weak, and fatigued quickly on several exercises, even though some improved. Pretty sure it's because I'm eating extremely low carb and also cutting back a bit on the fat intake, so that my total calorie intake is below normal.

I changed the grip on the front pulldown, to a more natural grip (V-shaped handle). It certainly helped.

Measued resistance - adjusting recorded results

I measured the smith machines bar bell weight, and I will approximate the machine in both gyms with 7 kilos. I'm adjusting the results from all workout on the affected exercises; squats and chest press. They weigh almost the same.
I also measured the actual weight on cable row and front pulldown, and doing the same there.

Going forward... and backward?

This was a strange workout in terms of results. I hope it only has to do with the fact that I went for a run (4 km) two days before, and I had not fully recovered. I don't usually run, so that really took a toll on my body, even though the timed result from the run was actually not that bad, considering I hadn't done it for a while (23 minutes is my record time, this time I did it on 24).
However, looking at the graph, the results are still pointing upwards in total. It looks more as if the previous workout had some really high values.

The front pulldown was really really bad this time. My lower arms just died, and I couldn't continue. The grip felt really unnatural. I think I need a more tilted grip, rather than a straight bar like I used this time.
The benchpress was far worse than last time, but better than the time before that. Hmm.
As for the seated row, I increased the weight, but the calculated amount of work was the same as before, so it's hard to tell if I progressed.

On another note, I bought a digital scale for travelbags, and used it to measure the actual weight of some machines, and bars with fixed weight marked on them. Some machines actually show the correct weight, but most don't. No surprise there. A surprise was that a barbell with fixed weights that said 17 kg actually weighed more than 18 ks.
So what I will do is start using the real weights, so that I can somewhat reliably follow the results produced in two different gyms with different brand machines.

Cutting carbs

Yep, want to get rid of some more fat. Focusing on protein rich food, cutting back a bit on fat, and trying to eat no carbs at all (no fruit or berries for instance). Feeling weaker than normal.
I'm not really sure my calories intake really is below what I burn off, since I'm not weighing and counting food. I just go by feel here really. I do feel a differance though, but that might be just because I cut back on carbs so that it's closer to zero.

Gym at work

I trained at the gym near my workplace. The smith machine barbell might not be the same weight as in the other gym were I trained the previous two times, near my home. I'll have to check this out. Anyway, next workout will be at the home gym again, so let's see how that goes.

Also, I think the regression in overhead press result might have to do with the fact that I started the set and then stopped, because I wasn't sure if the timing device I use had been started. I then started the set again, and was probably already a bit fatigued... oh well.

You might also notice the front pulldown set is missing. I did do it, but because the weights are totally different, I didn't know what to use.. and I changed it during the set. So yeah, I did the set to failure, but the TUL was irrelevant, so I simply skipped recording that value.

The drastic drop in body weight I'm pretty sure has to do with the fact that I drank some alcohol on friday... :)

Seated row - when to stop?

Seated row: the bad result is because I really didn't know when to stop doing it. The problem is that I can keep going and going, and each rep I can pull it less and less towards me... so when do I stop? I guess this time I stopped much earlier than the previous workout. I think in the future I will stop when I can barely move it at all. Otherwise it's so hard to tell when the set is finished!
What do you think?

Starting high intensity training

...after reading Body By Science. Well, actually trained one time before this, but this is the first time I start documenting the results on each workout.