Wed 3/12 - Cardio (first time in 2.5 months!)

Cardio:
I decided to actually do some cardio at work over lunch. I was going to walk on the treadmill, but it was warm out so I headed outside. Started off running for about half a mile, but knees were killing me. I switched to walking for about 40 minutes and then picked up running again for the last 1.5 miles.  So, call it 2 miles of jogging with a walk. It was real windy and the sand from snowstorms was whipping me in the face at times. Not pleasant, but great to get outside for some fresh air.

Nutrition:
I weighed 183.6 this morning.

		Prot	Carb	Fat	Cal
TOTALS:	Grams	235	215	26	2,056
	Calories	939	860	237	2,037
	Percent	46%	42%	12%	`

Tue 3/11 - Upper (Inc rep PR)

Mon 3/10 - Rest
I weighed 185.6 this morning.

		Prot	Carb	Fat	Cal
TOTALS:	Grams	215	345	41	2,591
	Calories	861	1379	372	2,613
	Percent	33%	53%	14%	`

Tue 3/11 - Upper
Workout: LA Fitness
(85#Inc)7,7,9,6 Great. PR w/ that 3rd set of 9
(195#PullDn)3x8,120x10 Weight bump, but too heavy
(50#IncFly)9,8,8 Weight bump - Very good
(88#SeatRow)3x8
(LegRaise)2x20
(115#OHP)8,6
(58#RopeExt)3x10
(10#RDelt)3x10
(40#Curl)2x10
(100#Crunch)2x10
62 min + 12 w/u = 74 mins

Sarah and I went to the gym after work. Re-starting a small cut today so the only real carbs I ate today was an apple on the way to the gym. I wasn't sure what to expect, but figured low carbs for just today shouldn't affect my WO too much, but I did have a bit reduced volume planned (this was because the amount of time we had as well).  We started w/ incline and the first felt easy. I ALMOST grabbed 90#DB's and should have given them a shot. I didn't and got a rep PR with 85#'s. The 3rd set I got 9 reps, but REALLY had to work for that last rep. I was feeling good so I decided to do an un-scheduled 4th set and hoped to get 7 reps. I got 6 (with help I think). Pecs were spent. Sarah got 5 reps across with 40#DB's which was a big PR for her!

I bumped up weight on pulldowns and it was heavy. I should've stuck w/ 190. I bumped up the weight on incline fly's to 50#DB's and they felt really good. Sarah did 2 sets of BB bench and scrapped the 3rd becaue her shoulder was bothering her a bit. We'll have to keep an eye on that. Seated rows were good and we supersetted w/ leg raises as usual. I only did 2 sets because I was already feeling really fatigued. No carbs was catching up w/ me.  I had overhead press written in but didn't know if we'd actually do them. Sarah started and her shoulder didn't feel right so she racked the weight. I did 2 sets w/ little rest.

We finished up with some tri, delt, biceps and abs. Beach work.  Great WO. My shoulders seem to be doing OK with less pressing. I haven't been doing decline or flat bench in hopes that incline and fly's will be enough for now until they "heal".

Nutrition:
I weighed 185.0 this morning. Kept most carbs and majority of my calories for post WO tonight.

		Prot	Carb	Fat	Cal
TOTALS:	Grams	245	232	32	2,186
	Calories	979	928	286	2,193
	Percent	45%	42%	13%	`

Sun 3/9 - Upper (Great Incline)

Sat 3/8 - Rest (in Winchester for a workshop most of the day)
I weighed 183.6 this morning.

		Prot	Carb	Fat	Cal
TOTALS:	Grams	239	327	27	2,508
	Calories	956	1308	245	2,509
	Percent	38%	52%	10%	`

Sun 3/9 - Upper
Workout: LA Fitness
(85#Inc)7,7,7,7,6 Great
(88#SeatRow)4x8,65x10 Good
(LegRaise)3x20
(45#IncFly)3x10
(190#PullDn)3x8,120x10 Weight bump
(58#RopeExt)4x10 Loved this new movement
(25#RDelt)3x10
(40#Curl)2x10
(20#LDelt)2x10
(115#IsoRow)3x10
(100#Crunch)2x10
(30#Rope)15/+5,5,5,5
85 min + 10 w/u = 95 mins

Sarah and I went to the gym in the am. We went a bit late because of the time change. Since last WO I didn't go heavy on incline, I wanted to try to go heavy and get a fair amount of volume. I wrote down 85#s for 5x6 on the WO. I normally try to do sets of 7 reps with this weight, but I've never done 5 sets so I thought 5x6 would still be really tough. Firt set I did 7 and it felt good so I decided to just keep going and see how long I could maintain. I got 4x7 (which I've done before once) and 5th set could only get 6, but I am very happy with that. Good effort. Sarah did a good job w/ 40#DB's for 5 sets.

I kept it heavy on seated rows today and did 4 heavy sets instead of 3. Combo'd these with leg raises and did sets of 20 instead of 15. I did incline fly's while sarah did BB bench again. I'm hoping switching to fly's will save my shoulders. I've also cut out decline for the time being until they feel better. Fly's felt really good again. Sarah bumped weight on bench, got 10 reps her first set (huge PR) and then was disappointed that she bumped up weight but didn't also beat reps from a lower weight.  She's a tough sell on how these things work :)

I bumped up the weight on pulldowns and they felt good. 3rd set I was definitely struggling to get last couple of reps though.  Today for tri's instead of overhead tri extensions w/ a DB, we did them with a rope on the pulley. This was the firt time I've done them and they were GREAT! I don't know if they work quite as well as DB's for me going really heavy, but they are so much easier on my shoulders and lower back. These will stay in frequent rotation. Sarah liked them too.

We finished the workout with some accessory work. I threw in a couple heavy sets of iso rows too while Sarah was doind abs and PT work. Awesome WO. Time for some sushi at a place not as good as Dolce :(

Oh yeah, if you notice legs/lower has been absent from the WO log, that's got to change. Gotta get back to work on my knee and some leg press and dead lifting.

Nutrition:
I weighed 183.0 this morning. Planning on eating a lot today to fuel and recover from the heavy workload today.

Fri 3/8 - Upper

Thu 3/7 - Rest
I weighed 184.0 this morning.

		Prot	Carb	Fat	Cal
TOTALS:	Grams	233	395	29	2,763
	Calories	934	1580	262	2,776
	Percent	34%	57%	9%	`

Fri 3/8 - Upper
Workout: LA Fitness
(135#OHP)3x5
(180#PullDn)3x8,120x10
(70#Inc)10,10,8,7,7
(88#SeatRow)3x7,65x8,8
(LegRaise)3x15
(45#IncFly)10,10,8,8
(85#OHTri)10,8,7
(40#Curl)2x10
(10#RDelt)3x10
(100#Crunch)3x10
83 min + 10 w/u = 93 mins

Went to the gym with Sarah after work. I was really fatigued from our WO on Wed. I was sore, but it was more just a really good fatigue from going heavy last WO. Felt great! So, today I was going to stay fairly heavy on pull movements, but lighten it up on incline to give my chest and shoulders a break. We started with OHP and I warmed up w/ a couple sets working up to 135 for 3x5. Hadn't done OHP in a couple weeks so this was great!  Heavy pulldowns were good. Worked hard and followed it up w/ a light set that I really squeezed and held at contraction. Great!

Next we did incline. I was going lighter today and was torn between 70 & 75 pound DB's. I knew I wanted 5 sets and didn't want to go to failure so I went w/ 70'. Good call. They got heavy, but felt great.  I went heavy on seated rows and followed up w/ 2 light sets where I held and squeezed at contraction again. Superetted these with leg raises. Feeling spent already.

Sarah did BB bench and I did 4 sets of incline fly's. These felt great tonight, and were easier on my shoulders than doing bench. I went a little lighter on OH tri's tonight becaue I wanted more volume and I can't get that w/ 90# DB's yet.  Finished off the WO w/ some beach work and called it a night.

Nutrition:
I weighed 183.0 this morning. Was really looking forward to some Sushi from Dolce after the WO. We called from the gym to order ahead. Phone was disconnected. Stopped by the restaurant and newspapers are up in the windows. NOOOOO! The BEST sushi place in town is closed. Really sad.

		Prot	Carb	Fat	Cal
TOTALS:	Grams	214	444	74	3,289
	Calories	857	1776	666	3,299
	Percent	26%	54%	20%	`

Wed 3/5 - Upper

Tue 3/4 - Rest
I weighed 185.0 this morning.

		Prot	Carb	Fat	Cal
TOTALS:	Grams	243	404	41	2,966
	Calories	974	1614	365	2,953
	Percent	33%	55%	12%	`

Wed 3/5 - Upper
Workout: LA Fitness
(85#Inc)7,7,6,6,5,4
(65#Inc)2x9
(Pulldown)180x9,190x6,6,160x8
(75#Bench)10,9
(45#IncFly)2x8
(SeatRow)88x7,7,7,65x10,10
(90#OHTri)8,7
(10#RDelt)2x10
65 min + 10 w/u = 75 mins

Went to the gym with Sarah after work. Earlier today I decided that since my weight dropped back down quite a bit the last 2 days, I wasn't going to cut all week. Therefore, tonight I wanted a good hard WO with lots of chest volume.  I planned to try to get 5x7 at 85#'s. Well, it wasn't very close to happening. I've gotten 4x7 several times and didn't come close to that tonight. I wish I could say that I did the reps I did tonight because I was keeping a rep in the tank on each set. That just ain't true. I struggled to get what I got! Even though I was a bit disappointed in the reps, I was pleased with the effort and volume. In hindsight, I probably should've tried 80#'s for 5x6-7.  Sarah had similar results. For some reason, neither of us had it tonight on incline. Bench was OK. I would've liked to do another set or two, but my R shoulder wasn't having it. Fly's were good.

I went much heavier than normal on rowing, and so glad I did. Felt great and back was pumped. I thought I'd have to cheat a LOT with these weights, but my form was actually still pretty good. Plan was basically to do 2-3 heavy sets and then 1-2 back-off sets. It was good to do this tonight. It made me realize that I really haven't pushed the weights very hard on rows (not like I do on incline anyway). Yet my back continues to progress faster than chest. What am I missing? I may just have to try higher volume on pressing. My shoulders aren't going to like that much.

Finished up with some quick heavy tri work and rear delts before we ran out of time.  Overall very pleased with this WO. No fluff. Just good heavy work. Nice!

Nutrition:
I weighed 184.0 this morning. After tonight's WO I'm trying to get enough cals in to recover.

Mon 3/3 - Upper

Workout: Golds
(80#Inc)8,8,8,8 Very nice
(65#SeatRow)4x9
(75#Bench)10,10
(45#IncFly)2x9
(155#PullDn)3x8
(85#OHTri)2x10
(20#LDelt)2x10
(90#IsoRow)3x10
(30#Rope)3x12
(210#Crunch)3x10
(40#Curl)2x10
(10#RDelt)3x10
67 min + 10 w/u = 77 mins

Had a great weekend skiing at Liberty with Gregg, Hayden, Elena and Sarah. Was feeling a little beat up this morning and we had a snow storm last night and I was feeling like sitting on the couch working and relaxing all day, but also really wanted to work out after having the weekend "off". Because of the snow, LA Fitness was closed, but our stand-by Golds was open so we worked out there today.

Incline went really well. I used 80#'s and got 4x8 w/ good controlled form. This matches my PR from last bulking cycle and it wasn't a killer. I've definitely gotten stronger this cycle. Nice progress. Seated rows felt good. This machine at Golds is REALLY smooth. Bench was good and my shoulders felt OK. I wanted to do another set or two, but shoulder is feeling pretty good and didn't want to do anything to change that so I did 2 sets of incline fly's. Bumped up the weight on these and they were really good. Sarah did 4 sets of barbell bench.

Pulldowns were good. The DB's are different than at LA fitness and they didn't feel very comfortable for overhead tri's so we just did 2 sets. My favorite iso row machine is here at Golds, so we took advantage of that and did 3 sets. Finished up w/ some abs, delt and curls. Sarah did t-twist instead of curls. My lower back was a bit sore, so I swapped them out. I went heavier on crunches than I've ever gone here so abs are getting stronger too. Nice.

Very good WO. It's a little difficult to judge the weights at a different gym and while using different equipment. For example, the incline is set steeper here than at LA Fitness, pulldown machine weights are different, etc. But, we got some really good work in today, and I'm very glad given what I weighed this morning...

Nutrition:
I weighed 188.0 this morning. I didn't eat terribly over the weekend and know I burned a lot of cals skiing, but weight was so high this am. Probably mainly due to eating sushi late last night and then a huge bowl of froyo right before bed. I should stabilize back down w/in a day or two.

Sat/Sun 3/1-3/2 - Ski Wknd at Liberty

Great weekend skiing with the kids and Sarah at Liberty. We had great weather and all skied together Sat and Sun.  All of us were able to more/less ski the same runs and it worked out really well to stay together throughout the weekend.  Really wonderful time. This was my first time skiing in about 20 years and it came back to me rather nicely. The skis these days are SO forgiving and easy to use.