ned flanders gym progress thread

Background - Lifted on and off for a few years, nothing consistent or serious. Had been getting fat and weak in the last two years so decided to make a change this year. I have never dieted with any sense of personal accountability outside of crash diets so this is something I'm looking forward to. I like reading these threads so I figured it was time to make one. I'll try to update once per week.

Bodybuilding diets seem to be pretty straightforward, take BW*12 to find a caloric range to cut weight in (BW*15 to maintain, BW*18-21+ to bulk) , split calories relatively close to 35%/45%/20% from protein, carbs, and fat respectively. [Myfitnesspal has some rounding errors on the caloric values of food listed, which made things annoying].
If I did this with just chicken, rice, whey, vegetables, and butter it would look like. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this -

1.5c brown rice = 239g carb, 23g pr, 2g fat = 1102 cal
16 oz chicken = 0g carb, 130g pr, 16.2g fat = 748 cal
whey (4 scoops) = 12g carb, 80g pr, 8g fat = 440 cal
broccoli (1cp) = 31 calories ~ 8 g carbs
*butter (3tbsp) = 36 g fat = 300 cal

daily totals = 251g carb (1004 cal) ; 242g protein (968 cal); 62.2g fat (559.8 cal)

At a BW=222# I'd need 2664 calories/day to cut. This gets me 2295 calories.

The other *369 calories I'm just going to get from butter (100cal/tbsp) since the ratio of macros I'm going for is 35/45/20 and this diet is low in fat as it is. That puts it at ~2600 cal (close enough)and 37/38/21, again, close enough.
I will try to do this 6 days a week and not be retarded on the seventh day. If you guys have diet input, please chime in.

Goals for 2018 - 1xBW overhead press, 2x BW back squat. Cut to 210# by August and hopefully be under 200# by January. Currently at 222#.

Today's workout

5/10/18
OHP 125# 5,5,5
SQ 125#8, 175#5, 195#5, 215#3, 235#1, 255#1:: 195#3,3
Chinups 3,3,3

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Cut workout short after work. Need to find huge dumbbell for rows.

5/11/18
OHP 125#3 130#3 135#1 125#4
SQ 125#8: 175#5: 195#5: 215#3

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I'm not a diet guru, but I would caution that you scale your strength goals down to a more realistic level (unless you have some serious experience and past strength you did not disclose in your OP). Especially since you are going to be eating in a caloric deficit.

A 1x body weight overhead press is some serious strength, especially if you are weighing over 2 bills. Even if you push-press, 2 plates overhead will be a long road if right now you are only hitting 135 for singles. Same with your squat. Aiming for a 450 squat by the end of the year when right now you're only hitting 255 for 1. You're talking above-intermediate level strength within a year when you are just beginning now, unless you experience some crazy beginner gains over the next few months.

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(05-11-2018 04:28 PM)General Stalin Wrote:  I'm not a diet guru, but I would caution that you scale your strength goals down to a more realistic level (unless you have some serious experience and past strength you did not disclose in your OP). Especially since you are going to be eating in a caloric deficit.

A 1x body weight overhead press is some serious strength, especially if you are weighing over 2 bills. Even if you push-press, 2 plates overhead will be a long road if right now you are only hitting 135 for singles. Same with your squat. Aiming for a 450 squat by the end of the year when right now you're only hitting 255 for 1. You're talking above-intermediate level strength within a year when you are just beginning now, unless you experience some crazy beginner gains over the next few months.

It might take two years or longer to hit that (it might take five years), but I don't know when I'm going to hit that, if ever, so might as well set the deadline short to maintain focus and adjust from there.

The diet stuff is new to me so if I start having problems, something is going to be adjusted. Outside of crash diets I have never bothered restricting calories. If the scale weight stays the same and my lifts go up, that's good enough. If I only lose 2# of fat a month while being able to lift, that's good too. I can't compromise on cutting out carbs since I dig ditches for a living (the job is grinding and strenuous enough to necessitate "daily maxes"), but restricting them is a possibility.

I don't plan on being over 200# for the long term either, but again, I don't know what a good weight is for me and my frame. It might be 160# for all I know.

Everybody says when you decide to cut down you have less LBM than you think, and there's 6' 1" tall men out there who weigh 145# lean.

My 1x BW OHP goal is mostly because once I hit that level, I can transition to learning gymnastic style full handstand pushups on parallettes and not ever necessarily be tied to a barbell to get a solid upper body workout in.

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How tall are you?

How fussed are you about absolute body weight, vs relative strength-to-weight? E.g. are you dead set on 2*BW and 1*BW at 200lbs, or would you be fine with the same ratios but at 80kg BW? Depending on height, you might be better off ripped with insane strength-to-weight at 70kg to 85kg, than fat and strong with shit strength-to-weight at 90kg to 100kg. OTOH maybe you wanna get jacked.

If you literally only care about 1*BW OHP and 2*BW squat (and maybe being above a certain bodyweight), with longer term goal about HSPU, then I'd say replace OHP with HSPU as your main press -- the transfer from HSPU to OHP is greater than vice versa, and you'll be working directly on your longer-term, more fundamental goal. No way you're gonna be weak overhead if you have HSPU's for reps. Maybe throw in some chin-ups, pull-ups, Gironda pull-ups for conjugacy and back activation, which helps with OHP. Maybe some of Sommer's handstand wall runs and those wall press-up to handstand things he used to talk about.

I could do (belly to wall with hands no more than 6 inches from the wall; never nailed freestanding handstands) HSPU's for like 10 reps when I was in my teens at about 70kg, but never trained OHP and probably couldn't have done more than 45kg or 50kg for a single. But I probably could have trained up to 55kg in a few weeks learning the movement.

If you went all-out for 7 months just aiming for 2*BW squat and 1*BW OHP, and would settle for 70kg BW (if feasible for height), that'd definitely be achievable. Depends how much you care about mass.

Good shit in other threads about Gymnastic Bodies etc btw.

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I'm 6' 2" (188 cm or so), about 100kg. Far from lean.

I'm not really fussed at all about bodyweight (70kg might be too svelte though - 75kg or 80kg sounds more reasonable). An increase of strength to weight ratio would be ideal.

It makes sense to me to just aim to get as jacked as possible and do my best to lean down since (1) I'm never going to be Dorian Yates and (2) it takes so much time and effort to build muscle anyway there's no way somebody could get 'too jacked' to do basic gymnastic stuff unless they were using steroids.

A pound of muscle burns an extra 7-10 calories per day, so in theory putting on an extra ten pounds of muscle but doing nothing different, diet wise, would have somebody lose about ten pounds of fat per year. So two years of lifting weights with some light caloric restriction and I might end up right at my target weight.

The overriding annoyance factor is that I'm on medications that make losing any weight difficult and slow. In years past I'd just skip breakfast, lose about .5kg-1kg per week without any issue, and slim down to 85 kg doing nothing else. I try it now and just feel weak and cold and after three or four days I can't get out of bed. It's just going to take some time.

The way I see it (and Jim Bathurst from Beastskills agrees to an extent) is that it wouldn't make sense from a strength perspective to ignore increasing overhead pressing strength (in the meantime) irrespective of bodyweight given that it's probably going to take a long time to cut weight. That and progressive overload is very easy to program. Very easy to get enough training volume in too. He basically says "get your press up" in his HSPU 101 blog post, if it's still on the internet.

If I switched to HeSPU progressions right now there'd be no way I could get enough training volume in to grow. In (2012, I think ..?) I spent about eight months doing nothing but handstand stuff against a wall, pushups, and HeSPU progressions, stacking books .. never quite nailed the HeSPU. Weighed 90kg. In just four months of throwing weight overhead nearly every day I'm almost at the same level (2x grinding HeSPU reps at 4cm of books under head) I was six years ago but 10kg heavier, delts and triceps are way bigger too.

I'll try handstand wall runs some day but that's going to be a work in progress. Maybe in six months. I do duration handstands against the wall for 60-90s randomly during the week for skill training but nothing serious.

Thanks for the tip on the Gironda pullups, they look useful. That would definitely help with eventual front lever progressions. Regular chinups are pretty difficult right now lol but that will make an appearance eventually.

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5/12/18
OHP 125# 3,4,4,4: SQ 125#8 175#5 195#5 215#3 255#1 Chins3,3,3

5/13/18
OHP 125# 4,5,4: SQ 125#8 175#5 195#5 215#3 235#1 Chins +35# 1,1,1,1 : bw 3,3

5/14/18
Took day off, tired from squatting six days in a row. Some random trash OHP work.

5/15/18
Random OHP, ate a few pounds of barbecued meat

5/16/18
HeSPU work, ab wheel, l-sit, arms, played with dog. Found giant plate loaded dumbbell for rows in storage. Left giant plate loaded dumbbell for rows in storage. Random overhead work.
Did some deadlift. Pulled an easy 315# double overhand on the deadlift, then an easy 335# mixed grip on the deadlift, ran out of trash plates loading and pulling 345#, looked for more plates to try 365# and couldn't find any. Resolved to buy another set of 45s. Grilled, took nap.

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5/17/18
5/18/18
5/19/18
5/20/18
5/21/18
5/22/18

Sick as a dog, slept like fifteen hours a day and didn't bother lifting.
Did some OHP though.

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5/23/18
5/24/18
5/25/18 -- OHP 105# x10
5/26/18
5/27/18 -- BTN 105# x6 ; OHP 105# x10
5/28/18

Still hacking shit up, work was miserable. Summer colds are the greatest.
Having a hard time eating, down to 218# in shoes. Going to try to put in a real workout today since not squatting for two weeks is a fast track to getting the AIDS.

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Not listed, hit arms and forearms basically every day.

5/29/18 -- rest
5/30/18 -- rest
5/31/18 OHP 105# 10,8,7; SQ 105#5, 155#5, 195#4; Chinups 3 (gtg), ab wheel
6/01/18 OHP 105#9 ; Chinups 3; ab wheel x8
6/02/18 OHP 105#8 BTNx5; Chinups 2, 3, 3; ab wheel x8
6/03/18 OHP 105#9,9; Chinups 4, 3; ab wheel
6/04/18 OHP 105#8; Chinups 5; ab wheel
6/05/18 OHP 105#8; Chinups 4; ab wheel
6/06/18 OHP 105#9; Chinups 4; ab wheel
6/07-10/18 (rest)
6/10/18 OHP 105# 7,6,7,5,5,5 ; did chinups and ab wheel, N/A

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What is your arms and forearms workout? Have you by any chance saw Jeff Nippard and OmarIsuf arm workout? Very interesting choice of exercises there.

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(06-12-2018 01:28 AM)sterling_archer Wrote:  What is your arms and forearms workout? Have you by any chance saw Jeff Nippard and OmarIsuf arm workout? Very interesting choice of exercises there.

I have limited equipment so it's 35# kettlebell hammer style curls, then I try to gun for a 50 rep set of kettlebell forearm curls. Sometimes I just do a ton of kb curl style clean and press. These suck much worse than a similar 35# dumbbell hammer curl routine. Soon I'm getting a 200# dumbbell set and will be able to do some cool shit.

For forearm curls I thread a heavy duty shovel handle through the kettlebell and balance it on my knees.

Straight sets of 50 rep curls are what's recommended by a lot of internet guys with sick forearms. If you can't do 50 straight reps with the minimum (35-45# or whatever) then you just do enough volume to get fifty total reps, then every workout attempt to increase the top set until you get to one straight set of fifty reps, then increase the weight.

I do these unilaterally too for heavier forearm curls (one arm at a time) ... but forearms seem to only respond to high volume so it's hard to say if these do anything.

For arms I sometimes do barbell curls with the 105# for sets of 5-8 but nothing consistent. A few years ago I worked up to 135# on the barbell curl for a set of 5 with a little english. Badass lifters in the old days could strict barbell curl 200+ pounds so that's a fair goal to shoot for.

You can put noticeable size on your arms by trying to do one 100 rep set of barbell curls at the end of every workout, maybe 45# to start with. I don't remember how far I got with that goal but doubt I exceeded 50 reps.

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I forgot to mention several times in my progress thread, but I started last week doing frequency method. If by any chance you haven't heard what that is, I will explain. Basically I read 2 weeks ago in the Greyskull book about it and I said that this must be a good addition to my SS routine.
Anyway, you do from Monday till Friday bodyweight chinups and pushups. But you don't have to do them one after another. You can stretch this workout throughout whole day. Chinups start with 6 x 4 reps and pushups with 4 x 20. Each week you either put another set or increase reps per set.

The logic behind is the following. Working out with weights is taxing and you can do it couple of times per week in order to progress, but bodyweight exercises require a lot of volume and are not so taxing. You can easily do them after working out with weights.

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(06-12-2018 03:52 AM)sterling_archer Wrote:  I forgot to mention several times in my progress thread, but I started last week doing frequency method. If by any chance you haven't heard what that is, I will explain. Basically I read 2 weeks ago in the Greyskull book about it and I said that this must be a good addition to my SS routine.
Anyway, you do from Monday till Friday bodyweight chinups and pushups. But you don't have to do them one after another. You can stretch this workout throughout whole day. Chinups start with 6 x 4 reps and pushups with 4 x 20. Each week you either put another set or increase reps per set.

The logic behind is the following. Working out with weights is taxing and you can do it couple of times per week in order to progress, but bodyweight exercises require a lot of volume and are not so taxing. You can easily do them after working out with weights.

I quite like this idea. It chimes with something I've been thinking about for a while. I've a job, kids and very little free time, so if I miss a workout or two I'm fucked basically.

Pullups, Situps and Pressups I can fit in throughout the day quite easily (but as and when I can). I might revisit my workout plan with a view to adding DAILY bodyweight exercises so that even if I miss my weights workout, I'm safe in that I've at least done good work with the bodyweight stuff.

Balancing weights, cardio, bodyweight stuff is a huge headache for me and always has been. Even more so now that I've added stretching to the mix. I don't like to specialize too much, but I can't drop any of it as it's all essential.

I'm thinking of having a daily 'base' routine of bodyweight stuff and stretches that I do every day no matter what, because as you say, it's less taxing (CNS-wise) than heavy weights. Using that as a base, I'll add one or two weights sessions, then one or two cardio sessions. Commuting to work on my bike would solve the cardio problem in one fell stroke so I really need to stop putting that off!

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Just to mention, Johnny Pain (Greyskull) even recommends burpees in together with chinups and pushups. I recommend reading his book and chapter about frequency method. This stuff correlates with a lot of things I read about bodyweight exercising, so it's not that Pain has made everything up. One of the things that goes in favor are street workouters. You can literally see same people in the parks almost every day. Why would they workout so often and not just couple of times per week like people do it in the gym.

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Greyskull is pretty good though a little complicated for my liking, there's a copy around my lifting library somewhere. Frequency method sounds a lot like a revamped grease the groove (GtG™). Those are good ideas for anybody looking to backload volume into their training program without having to drive to a gym in order to do two-a-days.

It's a very good move to do some kind of 15 minute routine upon waking, maybe pullups, pushups, situps/ab wheel, all done in giant sets. I know of a guy who does handstand pushups in sets of 10+ done in giant sets with chinups and has the physique to show for it.

Forgot to mention though it's in my notes, I dropped down to 105# on the OHP because while I was making good progress on 125#, doing ten reps of 105# feels the same as 5 reps of 125# but is less of a mental grind after busting ass all day at work and there's still plenty of good gains to be made. Once I can push twenty reps with it I'm going to increase the weight. Or 5x15. I'm unsure. If I didn't work twelve hour shifts at the local shithole I'd be putting weight overhead every day instead of an average of probably five days a week but that's life for you.

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Do you have pullup bar at home?

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(06-12-2018 03:38 PM)sterling_archer Wrote:  Do you have pullup bar at home?

I have a pullup bar, it's suitable even for tuck front levers and stuff like that. I have the barbell and enough plates for it to be useful too. I don't see the point of spending 30-$90/month for a good gym membership when an entire barbell set and accessories (dip station, pullup bar) among other things can be bought or built for under $500.

Bugenhagen has his take on it. I haven't seen the whole video yet but he's strongly recommended home gyms in the past.





If I ever had to move or had to do a lot of hotel living for the job I'd build a pair of these. They're not perfect or suited for everything but if you have to get reps in these will get the job done.

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For me it was free. I cut off old bar that was once part of small metal bridge over a creek and mounted it between tree and wood shed. Home gym is a cool idea, but problem is where to put squat rack or cage and plates are shitload of money.

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A barebones basic home gym setup (power rack, bench, barbell, and sufficient plates) will run you a few grand easy. And that is basic. No dumbells or specialty equipment. Granted you can do a lot for you strength and physique with just a barbell, rack, bench, and a lot of weight.

I would not be able to stay on task or keep up a strict routine working out at home either, personally.

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Forgot about keeping yourself in line too. It is true, I got subpar results working out at home, because there was no one around.

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A shitty homegym with 500lbs of weight (barbell, plates, 800 lb limit power rack with pullup bar on it, bench, deadlift platform) can be had for $1200 in the Midwest. I imagine it would be similar to most of the continental US.

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In US maybe, not so here where the lets say equivalent of 370 pounds costs 1000$. Of course for the new ones and probably without a bar.

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Home (garage) gym for me. Started with a standard bench, barbell, dumbells and then just built it up from there over the years, picking up weights and accessories as cheaply as I can.

Finally getting myself a power-rack (with pullup bar) was the best move I made. In my garage I now have a rack, two benches, nearly 400lbs of weights (cast-iron), exercise bike, running machine, punchbag, barbells, dumbells, kettlebells, sandbag, dip-belt, ab-roller, selection of 'captains of crush' hand-grippers, mirrors.

I just pick stuff up second-hand or in the sales as I go, the whole lot has cost short of £500 (666 dollars).

I get the argument that you aren't always as motivated when training at home. That can happen, but I've always managed fine. I've even had training partners come and go over the years and this is where you make the most progress undoubtedly with the competition element kicking in.

For me, you can't beat the option of just being able to walk through a door into your garage when the feeling strikes you and just bust out some pullups or go for a personal best on the bench just because you're in the mood! Better than the inconvenience of driving to a gym, waiting on others and putting up with time-wasters and weirdos. But I understand that some people are lucky in having access to great gyms with a great crowd and all the camaraderie and social benefits that brings so if that works for you, enjoy!

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Did you buy plates new, or they are also from sales?

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(06-15-2018 06:28 AM)sterling_archer Wrote:  Did you buy plates new, or they are also from sales?

I've still got my first ever small set of plastic vinyl weights that I bought (asked for at Christmas!) during my mid-teens. After developing a love for it (not that I was a fast-gainer mind!) I saved up and bought a set of cast iron plates from Argos (catalogue shop in the UK).

From then on, I've found it hard to pass up the opportunity to let bargains go by without snapping them up, because iron plates bought new are expensive. I'm lucky in that through my job there is an online board for selling junk and fitness gear come up on there all the time. There's also a factory clearance shop that I drive past every day that regularly tries to get rid of old stock (incl weight plates) for next to nothing. I've often thought about buying/selling it for a profit but keep putting it off.

All my plates are different makes, different designs and colours but they all still fit on the bar! Yeah, aesthetically my 'gym' is a fucking eyesore so I can see why people would buy new, uniform, tidy gym gear if they can afford it.

Incidentally, once you have enough plates, you should invest in the smallest weight plates you can fit on the bar! 0.5's are the smallest I've found. When I was obsessing over the bench press I would add these tiny weights to the bar each workout or two so that I was continually making progress. The idea being that these small amounts soon add up to 5, 10, 15lb on the bar. It's a tip I was told years ago by an old gym-hand and it's served me well ever since.

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