No way! That's awesome. Definitely send me pics. How old?

I know! She is at 12 weeks right now and she was the smaller one of the litter. They are sending me the papers on her within a week.... She literally is so tiny... her body is as big as Zeek's head.... I can't come up with a name yet... my husband want's to name here Gabby, but I don't know.

For my pets I always go with human names. I have Bob, Frank and now Brady.

Training yesterday went like this:

Overhead BB Press - 2x5, 1x7
Bentover Laterals - 3x15
Face Pulls - 2x12
Incline DB Press - 3x6
Close Grip BB Bench - 2x8
BB Curls - Rest-Pause

What does rest-pause mean?

Rest-Pause?

Hmm, think of it as an amalgamation of 1 and 3 sets. One very popular training protocol that implements RP is Doggcrapp Training. Terrible name. Not a bad training philosophy for hypertrophy.

I toy around with some of the training variables in my own programming.

An example of RP would be:

BB Bench Press

10 reps

rest 15 seconds

6 reps

rest 15 seconds

4 reps

As you can see it's liken to 1 set of 3 sets.

It's a solid training parameter b/c it promotes higher muscle fiber recruitment. The more fibers brought into play, the more chances for growth since, at the end of the day, that's a large component of hypertrophy.

Muscle fibers are recruited based on size. The smaller fibers are recruited first. As intensity/fatigue builds, you'll call on larger and larger fibers. The largest fibers... type II... are the one's that offer the greatest growth potential.

The short rest periods will maintain fatigue at a level which maintains large fiber recruitment, and each rep in the subsequent "mini-sets" in essence simulates 4-5 "regular" sets. The high density (work per unit of time) and less total reps compared to "regular" sets will, in theory, in a number of too technical ways to get into here, enhance the growth response.

Nerdy, but hopefully makes some sense.

Well, we decided to go with Zoey. So we have pets named Zeek and Zoey! I just put pics up in my journal! I really like the name Brady! That's cute! Bob and Frank are like mafia names to me.... bwaahaha! Get your Tommy Guns! Cheesh, I'm a freak...

Workout yesterday went as follows:

BB Bench - 2x3, 1x8 (felt extremely strong)
Cable Flys - 3x15
Single Arm DB Press - 2x12
Weighted Pullups - 3x6
Cable Rows - 2x8 @ slow tempo of 531

Hope everyone had a fantastic holiday weekend. Mine was great... couldn't have asked for better weather. Friday I spent the day working at our gym... which is never exactly work. We filmed a few videos for our site, had some competitions, and some great discussions.

Saturday I spent the day with family and friends celebrating the 4th.

Today I spent the day fishing and enjoying the weather.

I updated the blog this weekend with a quick blurb about America's Got Talent and some basic thinking in relation to exercise.

Diamonds in the rough «

Workout went well. Amazingly I keep getting skinnier yet stronger. I don't get it.

Bench - 1x5, 1x3, 1x4 (last set was the heaviest @ 270 lbs)
Low Cable Fly - 3x15
Single Arm DB Press - 2x12
Weighted Pullups - 3x6
Cable Rows - 2x8 @ slow tempo of 531

====

Earlier today I was really letting something get to me that I shouldn't. It amazes me how misconstrued some people can be about certain happenings.

But then I remembered what someone much smarter than I'll ever be told me...

The only thing good about beating your head against the wall is stopping.

So stop I did.

Steve,
I only have about three weeks left in my bulk using Lyle's generic bulk. I will be trying to cut some fat after. Can you recommmend a cut program?

I realize diet is the key and will need to get back to deficit mode. That should be interesting to see how i react to cutting my calories for the first time in a while.

Thanks,
Matt

Honestly Matt... my typical cut program is reassuring adequate protein is being eaten and lifting heavy stuff using controlled volume.

By adequate protein, I typically trend towards the upper end of the range to about 1.5 grams per pound of goal weight.

By heavy stuff, I mean most of my reps will be in the 80-90% of 1 RM range.

By controlled volume, I mean I'll typically cut out most of the fluff work for arms, calves, etc and focus on the big movements using something like 3 sets of 4-8 where I hit each major muscle group 2-3 times per week.

I'm usually out of the gym in 30-45 minutes.

I'll do cardio at home which really varies on life. If it's a stressful time, it'd be silly to add something like HIIT into the mix. There's only so much stress your body is capable of handling. Stress with job, lifting weights, eating maintenance, etc all adds up. The deficit really compounds the issue since recovery ability is depressed with it. So for me, during a cut, cardio is merely in place to help buffer my caloric deficit... meaning it allows me to eat a bit more food than I ordinarily could. The intensity of said cardio is going to vary depending on many things.

I'm not a program kind of guy. I'm more of a "understanding the fundamentals" kind of guy. Once the fundamentals are understood, it's simply a matter of building something that fits your needs, likes, availability, etc.

Make sense?

Yesterday didn't really go into the gym with much of a plan. I screwed around with squats and RDLs. My legs are fried.

Squats were feeling shotty so I tried to trouble shoot myself. I really need to work on ankle mobility. The moment I stuck some 5 lb plates under my heels to elevate them, it was much easier to keep tight and drop into the hole, which is a major indication of poor ankle mobility.

I've been slacking in that department.

Yes, makes sense. So the lifts i have been using in the bulk program ( squats, leg press, bench, row, shoulder press, pulldowns, dips) essentially fit into a cut routine.

Should I even change the sets and reps in Lyle's generic bulk or just continue to do what I am doing? I realize I needed to focus on diet but is that all it is? Keep lifting what I am lifting and just tweak the diet?

The only thing that really needs to change is volume. Because recovery ability is compromised when you're dieting, it's a good idea to trim the total amount of "work" down. I measure work by sets*reps. There are other ways, such as tonnage, but I like simple.

When I'm bulking, my "routines" will entail:

- heavy work (in the 1-6 rep range)
- moderate work (in the 8-15 reps range)
- sets and reps depend on weight on the bar by generally I'm doing anywhere from 4-6 sets
- I'll add in a bunch of stuff for arms and calves too

When I'm cutting, my "routines" will entail:

- heavy work (same as above)
- much less, if any, moderate work
- sets will be in the 2-4 range, thus reducing total work as indicated above

Why? Simple. It's been shown scientifically and anecdotally that you can maintain your physical attributes (strength, muscle) with much less volume than it took to build said attribute. Starting to see the big picture?

When I'm bulking, I'm concerned with doing as much diverse* diverse work as my recovery ability and body allows to stimulate as much growth as possible.

When cutting, since I'm not going to be growing and my recovery ability is compromised, I want to focus primarily on those things that work best and keeping the muscle I built when bulking. That's typically work in the 80-90% of 1rm range using a volume that is slightly less than that used when bulking. Instead of screwing around with stuff I'd ordinarily use for growth, I'd rather use that time for metabolic work (which can even be light, low rest weight training) to aid in my caloric expenditure.

The number that gets thrown around typically is 1/3 of the volume used when increasing an attribute is what's needed to maintain it.

This is the same concept used in strength and conditioning for athletes. I work with a few wrestlers. In the off season I'll really focus on building up their strength and power. Much of their time is spent under the bar. They'll spend a conservative amount of time doing conditioning work, which works to maintain what they built last season. As we get closer to the upcoming season, I'll bump the volume of the strength/power work down to a level that maintains what we built in the off season and bump up the volume of conditioning and skill work. In a nutshell, there's only so much your body can do and doing everything at once it can't, so you sacrifice to a point where you're no longer improving certain attributes, but you're also not losing them either.

Lyle recently wrote a nice two part article on lifting while dieting here:

Lyle On Weight Lifting For Fat Loss - forum-body-improvements.com (scroll down for part II