The results are in...

Firstly, apologies that I have been tardy with my blog posting.  I have been very busy over the past few days, eating a lot, testing out my strength levels, eating meeting with new and existing clients, eating.

So first up the 5 days off felt like bliss, I managed to eat every two hours, by the end of it I was up to 92.6kg and my body fat had stayed at 9%.

The program was designed for functional hypertrophy and it certainly worked in that regard, I think it goes to show what proper diet and supplement protocols can do for you.

Strength wise there have been some impressive results, I managed 3 reps at 60kg on the dips, where as before this was my 1RM, I then proceeded to hit a new 1 RM of 70kg.  One of the biggest was my performance in the leg curls, which I can now rack the entire machine for 10 reps, controlled 4010 tempo.  My back squat went up by 2.5kg to 137.5 (still woefully weak). Incline press I started the week using 38kg, I can now use 42kg dumbbells for 8 reps.  IN almost every exercise it’s a similar story.  Except for one….Deadlift.  And there is good reason for this, I screwed up the test.  I was working my way up through my progressions towards my 1 RM, the problem was it all felt so easy, so I got cocky and continued to jump 10kg at a time between lifts, 170, 10kg below my old PB felt so easy I thought I d just shoot straight for 180 (if a client or friend had said they’d done this would have called them an idiot). 180 didn’t budge, for whatever reason it would not move. And instantly, mentally I had nothing.

Would I do it all again?  Hell yeah.  I am ridiculously busy at the moment, once I have more time I will probably start to workout twice a day, but in such a way that I avoid over-training.  If I do this I will explain how on this blog but for now I am struggling getting in 4 workouts a week, let alone 2 a day. 

Things I have learnt –

1.     The right supplementation protocol can massively help you reach your goal, I would have broken down had I not optimized what little recover I had without the shakes and pills, plain and simple.  I am not a massive advocate of supplements; the majority of people I speak to need to fix their diets first.  But once the basics are sorted, used properly the pills and powders can help.  The quality of the supplement is a huge factor, hence why I went with the Poliquin range, as it is very high quality.

2.     Follow plans to the letter – the only time I deviated from what Poliquin had planned was on the tests and that’s when it went wrong – next time I ll follow the plan to the letter.

3.     Overtraining will have a huge impact on you, mentally and physically.  A high number of people have read the blog and turned around and said to me that they think that they are over doing it. They are not training twice a day, but they have the symptoms of overtraining.

4.     Respect for pro athletes, especially luge and bobsleigh athletes who live this type of program, when they do it, they do it for three months, I did it for three weeks.

Well that’s all for now, I will try and blog again regularly, however with it being so busy right now I cannot promise anything.  Any suggestions on what to blog about let me know.

Time for Rest

It is done.

Two weeks did not fly by.  The final days were a slog.  I continued to loose strength, my weight still held at 90kg – the only of Poliquin’s predictions not to come true, I have gained, not lost weight, but I suspect this is due to my level of supplementation.  I certainly struggled to sleep by the end of it, my appetite completely faded and I certainly felt depressed by the end. 

The depression was the strangest thing, as I had nothing to be depressed about.  Without sounding like a complete tool, I love my job, much more than the investment-banking job I left to become a PT.  There were obvious perks to working for an investment bank, the pay being an obvious one, but I was lucky that I worked with some very nice people, so nice in fact that it was the realization that I was only turning up to work due to the fact that we had such a good laugh rather than the role itself  that made me think that investment banking was not for me.  Undeniable the stress I have placed on my body took its toll mentally; I felt down about nothing, but then found something to be down about – “what if this does not work, I will look like a complete idiot”.   My girlfriend in the end had started to have enough, which was fair.  I think it came to a head when at 5 in the morning I was foam rolling in our lounge to prepare myself for the first workout of the day and she came in to politely ask what time I would be heading off so she could get some sleep.

The whole experience reaffirmed my belief that when you plan your own or someone else’s training their whole life needs to be taken in to account when thinking about how much stress they can handle.  A workout, whichever way you look at it, is stress.  It should be good stress – enough to enforce a change without causing injury or chronic fatigue.  Prolonged periods of stress lead to a chronic rise in cortisol, which usually leads to greater fat storage and damage internally. Someone working 14 hour days, facing long commutes with a new born child is going to find 3 workouts a week more than enough, and the emphasis must be on providing a boost with the workouts rather than overly taxing them, and ensuring that their diet helps them to cope as best as possible through natural food sources and supplementation if necessary.

So how did my body cope, well I now weight 90.6 kg, so up 1.6 kg since the start of the training.  By body fat has fallen.  I use the four-site calculation (which I widely accept is not terribly accurate but a lot better than any electrical impedance test).  I was lean to begin with but I have lost a whole percentage point to now be at 9% BF, it will be interesting as the overfeeding begins (and believe me it has) to see how my BF changes.

Over the 2 weeks I lifted 187,523kg in volume load (load x reps) and completed 2354 reps, and it feels like it. My hands feel like arthritic claws, my elbows and knees feel like they have tendonitis, everything aches.

The 5 days of overfeeding should be fun, I just have to eat every two hours and eat “clean” no grains, just clean carbs from fruit, veg rice and sweet potatoes.  I plan to rest as much as possible between seeing clients. I will try to use this time to read, something that I have had no time for over the past 2 weeks.

I ll post again on Friday at the end of the over feeding, just before I test out my new and hopefully improved body.

Update 3 – Someone has shot my dog.

Someone has shot my dog.  My body is giving up, my elbows and knees are extremely sore, my warm ups are taking longer as my body refuses to ready itself for more punishment.  Eating is a real struggle and sleep…Last night I woke my girlfriend up on numerous occasions to tell her that I had dreamt that my alarm had gone off and I had not woken up, when it did eventually come to me getting up I switched my alarm off and dozed back to sleep for 5 minutes only to wake up and jump out of bed and wake my girlfriend up.  At this point she just laughed and said “You have lost it”. 

My big lifts are tanking – back squats and front squats are both down, deadlift has almost lost 20% of the load off the bar.  Only the Presses have not budged.  My explanation is my misspent youth endless bench pressing (incline, decline, flat), whilst this does seem to mean that they have a high tolerance of volume, it also lead to me having imbalanced shoulders for 3 years and suffering repeated rugby related shoulder injuries until three years ago I discovered Mr Poliquin and his Structural Balance tests.

In preparing this post I re-read the article from which I had got the routine. Reading it this time round this nugget of information stuck out;

I should also mention that there’s research from the US and from Finland showing that at the end of your two weeks of loading with this type of program you actually have a decrease in testosterone levels.   

Awesome so not only do I feel broken but I am also slowly turning into to Eunuch, my girlfriend will be so pleased to hear that (in fact maybe I will wake her up repeatedly and tell her about it tonight).

But there is a silver lining;

But at the end of your period of unloading you have an increase in free testosterone, and there’s a high correlation in the amount of free T you have and the amount of strength gains you make.

Simply put Super-compensation theory will apply to my balls as well as my aching joints and muscles.  Good news all round then.

I have had a couple of questions about the routine, so it might be worth revisiting aspects of it quickly just to clear up a few points.

Firstly – I did not devise any aspect of it, not one exercise, one tempo, rest period, set and rep range. It was all Charles Poliquin’s idea.  I changed nothing because I believe if you are going to follow someone else’s routine you need to test it as the they have prescribed it.  Don’t do 5-3-1 any other way than Jim Wendler’s, don’t Westside any other way than Louie Simmons’ way. There is a reason why these guys are at the top of their games, they know what they are doing, they get paid bucket loads to teach other coaches how to coach and implement their way of training.  You can find the article that this is taking from by going to the below address;

http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/610/Super_Accumulation_Training.aspx

Secondly, the point of this is not to promote this type of training – If you have the time and you are willing to load up on supplements and can be strict with the diet, and have at least 3 years of serious lifting experience and you have worked on your imbalances and have no niggles or injuries then maybe give it a crack.  I am not superhuman, I am not even in the grand scheme of things very athletic, I just have the flexibility in my schedule to fit in this type of training (I work/live in a gym, its not hard fitting in two workouts every other day) and I have the inclination to do this type of thing to myself.

This is planned over-training, with a supplementation protocol to support this type of training.  If you are someone who thinks they are over-training do not tell yourself after reading this blog that it will be ok because you’ll take a few days off and super-compensate, it doesn’t work like that.  This plan drives a freight train past the point of over-training that some people teeter on and keeps going. Super-compensation works due to the amount of overload and subsequent recovery.  If you are over training back off, and look at what you are trying to achieve and figure out if your training is mapped out to get you there.   All to often people do things because they have read them on the internet (ok good point the article that I have based my training on is off the internet, but I have also done the Poliquin Level 2 Strength Course and met one of the guys who trained under Charles as an Olympic athlete, and therefore know the reasoning behind the routine and exercise selections).  You should know why you are doing an exercise; why you are doing them in a set order, why that number of reps and sets, why you rest for 30s compared to 2 minutes, or what the tempo 4010 and 3110 mean.  If you are doing something to your body you should know what it does to you, why it should work and then why it may not.  On top of training stress you need to assess what stresses exist in the rest of your life, are yo working a 60 hour week in a job you hate? Are there other aspects of your life causing you stress? Do you play football on Sundays, 5 a side with the workout lot on Fridays, and still hit the gym 6 days a week?  Overtraining is not simply what happens within the confines of a gym and it is no way of making gains.  Minimum Effective Dose - get your workouts done and structure them in a way that means you get the most benefit from them, if you spend longer than an hour in the gym you are wasting your time, probably resting too long and raising your cortisol levels.

Rant over.

My weight has stabilised at 90.6 kg so the regression in weight seems to have halted, an explanation for this is that my body has been blessed with a heavy dose of supplements since I started this training, beyond my usual level of supplementation.  Whilst I still feel pretty rubbish, I do believe these supplements have made a difference, the Zinc, Magnesium, BCAA and Fish Oils as well as the Glutamine will all become part of my staple routine.  The Post workouts shakes and fish oils already were.  Body fat sites have dropped slightly as well, probably as a result of the reduced carbs since Christmas (PT’s holiday too), this again is part of the plan as carb-starving should lead to a great insulin response once I reintroduce them into my diet in the recovery phase, however I will not be finishing off two boxes of After Eights like I did on Christmas morning I will be using “clean” carbs – Sweet Potatoes, wild rice etc.

In Summary –

Some has shot my dog.

Everything hurts.

I am apologizing to a lot of people for being grumpy.

Poignant Workout Song – Eminem “Till I collapse”  Nothing like angry rap to get you through Snatch grip deadlfts whilst your callus’s tear.

6 sweet workouts left.  

Update 2 - The tipping point

Update 2

“You look like s**t!” – An American friend whilst chuckling.

“You look ill….are you going to be sick?” – My boss.

I have grin that goes from ear to ear, it is my first, and only day off today and it feels pretty special.  My body, however…not so special.  Knees are shot to pieces; having squatted daily it is to be expected. My wrists and forearms are in a lot pain, opening doors is proving difficult.  I have started to get mouth ulcers, another side affect of over-training, as well as the fact I am constantly tired.  My appetite is on the wane and I am beginning to get grumpy.   I will come clean and admit that I hear an inner monologue in my mind (surely not surprising for someone who writes a blog) and my inner voice is not happy, anything and everything is winding me up and I usually like to think I am fairly laid back.  It is even got to a point where I am imagining having arguments in the future with people. 

Yep I am a psycho; I am an over-trained man on the edge.

Most weights are decreasing now, or at the very least I am starting to hit the bottom on the rep ranges and therefore may need to decrease the weights next time.  Anything involving my grip is becoming a real issue, rows/chins and the Snatch Grip Deadlifts is where I have really struggled.  In the last workout on Friday afternoon, I was unable to complete the eccentric lift at 5 second tempo as I could not grip the bar that long, and a considerable amount of weight has come off the bar – 20kgs since the first workout.   The workouts are making me realize that I still have weaknesses to work on, for instance my grip has become a limiting factor in my deadlift. It feels like I am at a tipping point, I feel better for a day's rest, and even like my body is slightly adapting to the frequency.  However, now that I know what is coming this week I am wondering how long my strength will hold out, especially my grip.  I felt well rested before starting last week, obviously now I don't so it will be interesting to see how I hold up.

To summarize

I am getting weaker; holding the bar for deadlifts is becoming an issue. I am delirious with tiredness – one minute I want to punch someone for breathing near me then next I am giggling to myself as I unscrewed literally the hundredth BCAA capsule this week and pore it into my drink.  My body fat sites have decreased slightly, the 1 kg gain that occurred in the first day has disappeared, in honesty though my weight can swing by a kg or so in a few days so its not out of the ordinary.

Shot-my dog- scale : I heard a couple of gun shots go off, rushed to the garden but fido was ok….but I have no idea if the assassin will try again. (this metaphor is getting stretched)

Song of the workout – Music is required to get me through my workouts at the moment, Marilyn Manson’s “Sweet Dreams” is popular at the moment, even though I am not a fan of his in particular.  You will see that I have an eclectic range of music on my iPod, those who have read my twitter feed will know that The Four Tops “Going Loco Down in Acopulco” has popped up before when I was at the bottom of a back squat.

.50 Caliber Update 1.

So I have now completed 3 days of the .50 Caliber training cycle, with 5 of the 18 workouts done.  Today was the first day that I began to repeat the workouts and it is certainly starting to feel like everything I was warned about.  I am already starting to see my strength drop off a little bit and I anticipate that the next time I do these two workouts (Friday) that I will have to take some weight off of the bar.  My weight has increased by a kg (to 90kg), but that is not unheard of as initially my body is responding to the strong stimulus provided by the first three workouts, however as my body starts to realise that there is no recovery period coming for quite sometime I should start to see some weight loss.  

The lethargy is already starting to kick in, and since starting I have not had one good nights sleep, not sure if this is a result of the training or simply psychosomatic as I lie in bed telling myself that I won't be able to sleep. I am managing to keep eating regularly, the only real hitch being that after Day 1 I realised that I would not be able to consume 80 BCAA caps during my workouts (endless gulping in rest periods just made me feel sick) so I have started to unscrew each capsule and take the BCAAs in powder form.  There are two ramifications of this; firstly I look very suspicious as I sit in the Staff room undoing pill after pill and pouring its contents into my shaker, like some drug dealer.  Secondly, for those of you who do not know, BCAA powder tastes horrible, but I am not drinking it for pleasure so down the hatch it goes.

The second workout today was particularly tough as it was the 10 sets of 6 reps of Snatch grip deadlifts, my heart rate refused to drop and it was one of the toughest workouts for a long time.   This is what I wanted, I wanted a challenge to start the New Year, so I am actually bizarrely enjoying my fatigued state. 

Chatting to an S&C coach yesterday raised an interesting point.  He is far more knowledgeable than I am, more experienced (polite way of saying older) and stronger.  But upon telling him what I was doing he responded "No way" in fact there was an F bomb in there but my mum has declared that she might start reading this.  He then said "I couldn't do that, I'd break".  Now this is not some boast about me having more durability, or grit than him, he is Northern so undoubtedly he is tougher.  The point is that if you have numerous injuries, or imbalances this type of training will lay them bare pretty quick, in fact you'll be on your back before you can say "I did my [insert knee/shoulder/back joint here] a couple of years ago and its never been the same since".  I 'd planned this phase of Super Accumulation (which is what .50 Caliber training is) four months ago.  I did Structural Balance work for the first two months to ensure any imbalances that I had, had been identified and that I had worked towards correcting these. I also completed a Smolov Jr Squat cycle before Christmas to get used to squatting regularly.

Structural Balance testing is a training tool used by Charles Poliquin to help screen his athletes/clients to see what imbalances they have which could ultimate lead to poor performance or injury.  There are a series of Upper and Lower body tests which provide the PICP coach with information to make an informed assessment about what issues the client has which need to be fixed to insure optimal functioning of the body.  I have used it with several clients and myself and had very good results with it.  Functional Movement Screening is another system, devised by Gray Cook, which is very popular, that also aims to assess a clients movement patterns and alignment to identify any areas of weakness which need working on.

I would thoroughly recommend that regardless of your training goal you find out what your weaknesses are and work towards correcting them.  It will help you reach your goal hopefully pain free and boost your performance.

Update Summary –

Added 1 kg, strength beginning to decline, it does not feel like someone has shot my dog yet……just that there is some punk kid next door who keep s firing at him with an air rifle. (Please refer to initial article if this makes no sense – I will continue to refer to my imaginary dog in my updates – a Shot-my-dog scale if you will).

Poliquins .50 Caliber Training

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…right?  Well that’s a theory that I am going to test to some extent over the first two weeks of 2012.  With the majority of clients who come to me its about putting in a structure that means they get in to the routine of exercising enough to help with their fitness goal.  In most cases the client is the first to admit that they do not do enough.  With some clients however if can often be about scaling back what they are doing.  This usually occurs with the people I meet trying to put on muscle mass.  All to often they are doing too much and their recovery strategy is far from perfect.  With these guys I usually start with nutrition, in fact that’s where I start with everyone regardless of goal, but specifically with these guys I try to make sure they are getting the right nutrients to recover and grow from the training stimulus. 

Its basic biology – General Adaptation Syndrome states that you apply a stress to an organism (you squat 100kg), the organism experiences a decline in performance (you can only squat 100kg 10 times before failure) you then rest a couple of days before repeating the workout. If you have recovered properly you should be able to squat more. So long as the right stimulus is applied with the right dosage (volume) then a favourable training adaption should occur.  So the recovery strategy is key to this process and a recovery strategy is not a whey protein shake downed within 20mins of finishing – it’s the start and not a great start at that.

So what I am about to do over the next two weeks contradicts my advice to those who I tell that they are overtraining, because I am about to over-train big time.  9 workouts a week, one days rest and then repeat, so twice a day Monday, Wednesday, Friday, once a day Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  I will squat everyday (alternating Back Squatting and Front Squatting).  In the afternoon sessions I will complete 10x6 Deadlifts. My upper body takes a hammering too, chin ups daily, dips and presses daily.  There are only 3 -4 exercise per workout, but with the high frequency of the workouts this is probably as many as I could handle.  The exact details of the workouts are below.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday

Morning Workout

A-1. Back Squat, 5 x 4-6, 40X0, rest 100 seconds

A-2. Leg Curl, 5 x 4-6, 40X0, rest 100 seconds

B-1. Lean-Away Chin-Ups, 5 x 4-6, 4010, rest 100 seconds

B-2. Dips, 4010, 5 x 4-6, rest 100 seconds

Evening Workout

A-1. Snatch Deadlift, 10 x 6, 5010, rest 3 minutes between sets

B-1. Seated Dumbbell Press, Semi-Supinated Grip, 5 x 6-8, 4010 tempo, rest 100 seconds

B-2. One-Arm Dumbbell Row, 5 x 6-8, 2011, rest 100 seconds

Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday Mornings

A-1. Front Squat, 5 x 4-6, 40X0, rest 100 seconds

A-2. Glute Ham Raise, 5 x 4-6, 40X0, rest 100 seconds

B-1. Close-Grip Pronated Pull-Up, 5 x 6-8, 3011, rest 100 seconds

B-2. Incline Dumbbell Press 5 x 6-8, 3110, rest 100 seconds

So why am I deliberately overtraining? The theory is (and I hope its one of those theories that works in reality) that after the planned (heavy emphasis on planned, most people overtrain without realising) you take at least 5 days off and you eat, eat, eat, eat and eat and when not eating you sleep, you recover as hard as you worked for 13 days. The plan is the work of a man called Charles Poliquin, who is big in Strength and Conditioning circles, below is his account of when he used this type of planned overtraining with the Canadian Luge team in the early 90s. 

“I did a strength training version of this program once for the Canadian Olympic luge team. The coach said he had to cut some members of the team because the Olympic gravy train money was over. I told him that after three weeks I’d tell him who on the team had the balls to be a champion.

I walked into the starting house three weeks later and saw five members of the team in one corner looking like someone had shot their dogs. They looked depressed, some were drooling, some had tremors. I told the coach to keep those guys and cut the rest. The other members of the team were on the other side of the room, laughing. They clearly hadn’t followed the program. So the coach kept the depressed guys and cut the rest, right then and there.

The zombies took their five days off. After that, one member of the team, who only weighed 172 pounds, came back and did three wide-grip pull-ups with 126 pounds of added weight. He went on to set an Olympic record in the start. His name is André Benoit, and he is one of my PICP instructors.”

When I took my PICP (Poliquin International Certification Program) Level 2 Andre Benoit was my instructor.  He said if you do this training, you should be depressed by the end of the two weeks, as your nervous system is shot to pieces.  overtraining); your strength should decrease by up to 40%; you should loose weight and you should feel like someone has shot your dog.

Recovery is key, and therefore so is nutrition.  My average day whilst training will look like the below.

Upon waking –      Buffalo Burger, handful of Brazil nuts.

                           Poliquin Uber Zinc tablet

                           Poliquin Uber Mag tablet

                           Poliquin Vitamin D tablet

                           3 x Omega 3 tablet

First workout –      Pre – Reflex Performance Matrix

during which I will have 40g BCAA tablets.

Post Workout –    Reflex One Stop Extreme (55g Protein, 77g CHO 5g Creatine plus more that would take too long to list) + 20g Glutamine, 10g Leucine

Lunch  -               Chicken, beetroot, carrot tomatoes shed loads of spinach

                           3 x Omega 3 tablets

                           Uber Mag

Mid afternoon shake – Whey protein, Green Powder 20g Glutamine, 10g Leucine plus a handful of mixed nuts.

Second Workout – 40g BCAA tablets

Post Workout –    Reflex One Stop Extreme (55g Protein, 77g CHO 5g Creatine) + 20g Glutamine, 10g Leucine

Dinner –               Salmon, Broccoli, Sweet Potato, Green Leafy Veg.

                           Uber Mag

                           3 x Omega tablets

During the Recovery period I will up the Glutamine dose to 80g a day and try to cram in more calories.

So to see how I get on I have recorded the below stats, nothing to shout about, in fact some of it is in fact laughable – typing in my back squat number is particularly painful, ass to grass or not, its weak.

Weight                 89kg

Body Fat              10%

Chest (cm)           106cm

Bicep L/R             35cm (both sides)

Thigh L/R             63cm (both sides)

Back Squat –       135kg

Front Squat -        120kg

Deadlift – 180kg

Incline Press – 110kg

Dips – 150kg (90kg BW +60kg on belt)

Wide Grip Pull Up 115 (90kg BW + 25 on belt)

So these numbers should increase slightly over the two weeks, that said the work out is more of a Functional Hypertrophy workout, so my weight should bump up the most.

Wish me luck as I start Monday 2nd January.

Any questions please ask away and I will try to respond.