Sun 10/21 - Cardio & Weekly Recap

Cardio: Walked 43 mins.  Legs were a little sore from heavy leg press, plus burnout set and high rep dead lifts I think.  I've really been neglecting cardio lately.  Understandable, I guess given the volume and intensity of workouts the last 3 weeks.

Nutrition:
I weighed 176.2 this morning.  Calories were a little lower today because no WO.

		Prot	Carb	Fat	Cal
TOTALS:	Grams	216	222	36	2,064
	Calories	865	887	321	2,073
	Percent	42%	43%	15%	100%

Week ending 10/21 Recap:
This finishes my first 3-week cycle on the Full Body Stripped Down Hypertrophy program.
5WO's, 1 walk, 0 runs.  I had some GREAT workouts this week!  I'm really pleased with my progress on this program.  I set a bunch of PR's this week and have been able to keep adding weight to the bar in generally every movement.  I'm honestly shocked.

Some highlights (for me):

• 40lb weighted dips 5x5, 20lb weighted dips w/ reps of 10,10,10,8,7
• Deadlift 265X5 (after 4 sets of 245lbsX5)
• Bench 215X5 (after 4 sets of 205lbsX5)
• Leg Press w/ 6 45lb plates 4X10

Some lowlights:

• Left elbow is pretty painful and is limiting pullups (and other pulling exercises)
• Both shoulders are barking at me
• Limited cardio

Bottom line is this protocol is doing wonders and building on the foundation I had.  I'm eating a lot more (up to 1,000 calories a day more than I was) and staying just about as lean, while gaining weight (Lean Body Mass (LBM)).  I think I'm pushing too hard though, and going to failure too frequently for the volume of this program.  My body is telling me so.  I'm going to try to press on for another 3-week cycle and then have a 1-2 week de-load where I lower volume by 1/3-1/2.

For the next 3-week cycle I'll be changing up a few exercises.  I'll focus more on incline bench instead of flat bench (but will still do some of both) and work in more shoulder work (military press) and less dips.  I'm still undecided if I'll keep pullups, or switch to something like close grip pulldowns.  This will probably be dependent on what my elbow can best tolerate.

This week I've kept protein in the 240+grams/day range and carbs at about the same (220-300) and fat pretty constant at about 40g/day.  My diet will stay more of the same as this past week while monitoring weight to make sure I'm not gaining too rapidly (ie. adding to much fat).