Wed 1/29 - Upper (OHP PR!)

Workout: LA Fitness
(125#OHP)5x5 Awesome, PR!
(RDL)185x10,235x8,8,275x8,8 Good
(65#Inc)4x9
(BOR)155x8,185x8,8,8
(60#Bench)13,12
(50#SeatRow)5x10
(75#OHTri)3x10 V. Good
(10#RDelt)3x12
(10#LDelt)2x10
(LegRaise)3x12
(T-Twist)3x12
(Crunch)3x12
105 mins + 15 w/u = 120mins

Sarah and I went to the gym after work again today for another upper WO. Wanted to start w/ heavy OHP and RDL as main movements today. Damn, gym was crowded and a couple of bozos were in the squat/step racks taking 10 minutes between warmup sets. It was freakin' social hour.  Anyway, we finally got hold of the power rack and went to work.

Heavy OHP was great. I got 5x5 at the heaviest weight I've done. Awesome. RDL was pretty good. I should've jumped to 275#'s quicker and done at least 3 sets at that weight. I got Sarah to put on a 45# plates on the bar (135#'s total) for her last 2 sets. Good job, and a big jump for her. I think she knows how this movement is supposed to feel now, and it's not supposed to be easy.  Next we did incline and I went lighter after going real heavy yesterday, and because of my shoulder. 65#'s felt plenty heavy today. The WO was still in my chest from last night (of course, it's only been 24-hours).

I bumped up BOR after the first set felt kinda light, but 185#'s felt real heavy after RDL's today. Whoa. Spent already. Those are 4 big compound movements to start w/ and we were about an hour into the WO already at this point. Could've done some abs and called it a day here...but we didn't. We were going to do some flat bench, but even just the bar killed my shoulder. Sarah did barbell and I did 2 light sets w/ DB's.

I hammered the seated row with a wide grip for 5 sets. Back was on fire. Next we did overhead triceps extensions and these were great tonight with a heavier weight than I normally do. We hit some delts and then did an ab circuit and called it a WO. Abs were on fire for both of us. Torture twists are, well, torture.  Very good WO, but shoulder is disconcerting. It needs rest, but I'm still really wanting to keep pushing heavy loads on this bulk.

Nutrition:
I weighed 182.0 this morning. Ate a lot again today. It's going to be a real bitch when I start cutting after this bulk. Very used to eating 3,000+ calories a day.

		Prot	Carb	Fat	Cal
TOTALS:	Grams	263	476	62	3,460
	Calories	1052	1903	559	3,514
	Percent	30%	54%	16%	`

Tue 1/28 - Upper (Paused Inc PR!)

 Workout: LA Fitness
(85#Inc_P)4x6,70#x10 Awesome PR!
(Pullups)10,10,8,8
(70#Bench)10,10,8
(57#SeatRow)5x10
(185#DecCGBP)8,165x10,8
(90#HighRow)3x10
(75#BBCurl)3x10
(10#LatDelt)3x15
(10#RearDelt)3x10
(25#FrontDelt)2x12
(80#PushDn)2x10
(30#Rope)4x12
(T-Twist)2x20
(Crunch)3x12
104 mins + 12 w/u = 116mins

Went to they gym w/ Sarah after work. Since incline went so well last WO, when I wrote out today's WO I bumped up the weight and wrote down 85#s for 4x6. I thought maybe I'd get a set, possibly 2 at 6 and then drop off or have to drop weight. I was really surprised and thrilled that I got 4x6. It's been a long time since I got up 85# dumbbells and that was for sets of 5 on flat bench, and they certainly weren't paused reps like tonight. Awesome work and a PR I'm really pleased with.  After those 4 heavy sets I dropped to 70#'s and got a great set of 10 for some more volume. Great pressing. Sarah did well here tonight too.

Next up was pullups and I had 4x8 written in. First 2 sets felt easy so I did 10 each set. My elbow started bothering me on the 3rd set so I cut the last 2 at 8. Sarah got 5 on her first set! Awesome. Bench was next and pretty good, but my right shoulder got a little wonky. Next was seated rows and I did them with a wide grip bar tonight. I've been doing too much pulling for back width and I don't really want my back getting wider. I do, however, want it thicker in the middle, hence the wide grip rows. They were really good and did 5 good sets.

I stuck with 185#'s on decline close grip bench for 1st set, but my right shoulder was starting to really hurt, so I dropped weight on the last 2 sets. Going to have to go lighter tomorrow and keep an eye on my shoulder. I had incline fly's penciled in next, but didn't want to put that stress on my shoulder.  The rest of the WO was kinda "blah". I spent my energy on the first couple movements and was kind of in a bummed mood because of my shoulder. We finished up with some high rows, delts, triceps and then some abs.

Great WO overal workout, but I did get grumpy toward the end and was short w/ Sarah. Feel bad about that. These WO's are getting too long. Going to have to make a few tweaks and not try to hit everything with such volume. Might keep the first couple movements the same, but pair down the accessory stuff. We could've called it a WO after CGBP and it would have still been a fantastic WO. I keep making gains, but have to be real careful now about overdoing it. I've been pushing pretty hard for a couple weeks and volume and frequency has been WAY too high to be sustainable for much longer w/o burnout or injury. Shoulder killing me tonight...not good.

Nutrition:
I weighed 182.2 this morning. Ate about 3,000 cals today.  Should've eaten more, but worked out in the evening and didn't get home until 10:30 tonight and didn't want to eat a ton right before bed.

		Prot	Carb	Fat	Cal
TOTALS:	Grams	255	459	42	3,211
	Calories	1021	1835	375	3,231
	Percent	32%	57%	12%	`

Sun 1/26 - Upper (Paused Inc PR, CGBP PR!)

Workout: LA Fitness
(80#Inc_Paused)8,8,7,7 Awesome, paused PR!
(185#BOR)4x8
(105#OHP)6,6,9,125#x6 Very good
(Pullups)4x8
(185#DecCGBP)10,7,7 Great, rep PR
(70#Bench)3x8
(3.5PlSeatDips)4x12
(10#LatDelt)4x12
(90#HighRow)3x10
(10#RearDelt)3x10
(75#BBCurl)2x10
(T-Twist)3x20
(Crunch)3x10
(PushDn)4x10
100 mins + 12 w/u = 112mins

Sarah and I went to the gym this morning and had an incredible WO. This was the 3rd straight full upper WO and I really wasn't expecting much. I thought I'd be more sore/fatigued and have to cut volume and weights. Quite the opposite. Warming up on incline felt good and even though I had planned on starting w/ 75#DB's, I fully expected to get a set or two there and then have to drop to 70#'s. I started with 80# DB's and stayed w/ them and got good reps. My PR WO for this weight was 5x8. I didn't get that today, but these were paused reps which are significantly harder. Felt great about these.

BOR was good. This was the one exercise that did feel heavy today. I stuck w/ plan on going a bit lighter on OHP and just 6 reps. It was feeling easy so the 3rd set I did 9 reps. Then on the final set I bumped the weight by 20#'s and did a set of 6. Great! We supersetted pullups with OHP and this combo was good and saved time. 4x8 pullups was easy and I didn't go near failure because of my elbow. Sarah did 4 good sets of pullups and worked hard.

Last WO I bumped up to 185#'s on CGBP, so today I started there and got 10 reps on the 1st set. Awesome! I dropped reps from there, but still great work. After this we did DB bench and I bumped up the normal weight here too and got 3 great sets. On a roll today! We hammered tri's next on the seated dip machine and supersetted lateral delts. Sarah did a mix of lateral and rear delts (accidentally) :)  Sarah ran to the bathroom before dips and I snuck in a set of incline fly's. Felt great.  We finished up the main WO with hammer high rows (great) and 2 sets of barbell curls.

I was done. We did a quick ab circuit (t-twist and lying crunches) and then I hit 4 sts of try pushdowns (a combo of v-bar and rope). While I did that,  Sarah did some more abs and hammered the leg press. My hip was killing me last night and I was walking with a limp. It was still bothering me today so I skipped the leg press.  Just a fantastic WO. Sarah did great today too on back-to-back upper WO's. She's been bumping weight up on a lot of exercises too. Doing great!  I was amazed how my body held up and how I was able to add weight/reps to a lot of movements the 3rd day. Now I need at least a day of total rest. It certainly helped that I was eating a lot to fuel these WO's. I'm definitely getting to the upper limit of fat I'm comfortable with, but I'm hitting a really nice groove and making some great gains so I'm going to roll with it for a while longer. I'll need to deload soon and rest my elbow, lose some fat...but not quite yet. Really surprised how much I'm enjoying working out with Sarah. She's a great partner and we have a great time in the gym together.

Nutrition:
I weighed 182.4 this morning. Eating a lot again today. Making great strength gains. These macro breakdowns are fairly accurate, but ate dinner out and sushi for lunch, so best estimates:

		Prot	Carb	Fat	Cal
TOTALS:	Grams	233	528	51	3,531
	Calories	932	2110	459	3,501
	Percent	27%	60%	13%	`

Sat 1/25 - Upper/Full Body (RDL and CGBP PR's!)

Workout: LA Fitness
(RDL)225x8,275x8,8,8 Awesome, PR!
(75#Inc)8,8,8 V. Good
(Pullups)10,10,7
(150#PullDn)2x10
(65#Bench)3x10 Good
(155#BOR)4x8
(10#LatDelt)4x15
(DecCGBP)175x10,185x8,7 Great, PR!
(40#IncFly)3x10
(75#Skulls)2x10
(80#HighRow)3x10 Good
(10#RearDelt)3x10
(LegRaise)3x12
(T-Twist)3x15
(Crunch)3x10
(4PlLegPress)3x25 Short rests, brutal
120 mins + 12 w/u = 132mins

Picked up Sarah for another upper/full body WO this morning. Plan is for 3 days in a row of full upper WO's and a little lower body thrown in.  We started the WO today with RDL's. I wasn't planning on going heavy at all. Progression was planned for 185, 205 and a maybe 2 "heavy" sets at 225. Well, I warmed up and was feeling good so I started right off at 225#'s. Felt good, bumped to 275#'s and did 3 sets of 8. I've never done RDL this heavy before. It was work, but felt good.

Next was incline. Started heavier than planned and stayed there for 3 good working sets. Next were pullups/pulldowns. I wasn't going to do any pullups, but did them anyway (common theme w/ this WO was not following the plan).  I did 2 sets of 10 and then on the 3rd set I stopped at 7. Elbow is killing me. Sarah wasn't thrilled w/ her pullups today, but I reminded her that RDL takes a LOT out of the back. Bench was good after that. Next we combo'd bent over rows and after RDL and pullups, they were not easy, but really good work.

Exercise of the day was probably decline close grip bench. Sarah and I both bumped up the weight. Plan was to do 2 heavy work sets. My first heavy set I got 10 reps, so I bumped the weight again to 185#'s and did 2 more sets there. Felt strong and awesome today here. Sarah did great bupming her weight by 10#'s.  Next we did incline fly's supersetted with skull crushers. Fly's were good, skull crushers crushed my elbow. Stopped after 2nd set.

Finally we got back to some back/pull work and did 3 sets of hammer high rows supersetted with rear delt fly's. Love these high rows.  Whoa, WO is getting long as hell today. We were both getting pretty fried by this point.  Leg press was penciled in next, but the machine was taken and I was losing interest and getting hungry (aka grumpy). We did an ab ciruit for 3 reps and were going to call it a day. But, the leg press had opened up by this point so we went ahead and did 3 sets w/ short rests.  These were a bitch. I really got the sled moving and burned out my quads.

Great WO, but way too long and a ton of energy. Glad Sarah was there to keep me motivated. Going to have to eat a lot for any chance to recover for the same type WO tomorrow. Whew...

Nutrition:
I weighed 181.8 this morning. Eating a lot today to fuel these WO's.

		Prot	Carb	Fat	Cal
TOTALS:	Grams	223	449	60	3,249
	Calories	893	1796	539	3,227
	Percent	28%	56%	17%	`

Fri 1/24 - GBR Upper (OHP PR)

Thu 1/23 - Rest Day
I weighed 181.4. Ate more than normal for a rest day.

		Prot	Carb	Fat	Cal
TOTALS:	Grams	232	414	47	2,988
	Calories	928	1655	423	3,007
	Percent	31%	55%	14%	`

Fri 1/24 - GBR Upper
Workout: LA Fitness
(115#OHP)5,5,5,5,7 Great!
(95#OHP)10,8
(160#Pulldown)2x8
(75#Inc)8,7,7,6
(155#BOR)4x8
(10#LatDelt)4x12
(155#DecCGBP)12,10
(35#IncFly)3x12 V. Good
(70#Skulls)3x10 Good
(90#HighRow)3x8
(10#RearDelt)3x10
(75#BBCurl)3x8 Dumb
78 mins + 10 w/u = 88mins

Decided to do a GBR Upper WO today. I haven't started a push/upper WO with OverHead Press in a few WO's, so I decided to start there and take it easier on incline/bench to save that a bit for this weekend. I warmed up and 95#'s didn't feel easy. I was going to stick with that as working weight, but wasn't happy about it. I decided to go with the plan and try 115#'s 5x5. So glad I stuck with the plan. It ended up being GREAT and I got 7 reps on the last set. If I repeat that again next time, it's time to bump weight again. I was surprised because I'd kinda stalled on this lift and hadn't done it recently as priority. This lets me know that sometimes after pressing hard for a while, rest REALLY DOES HELP. So hard for me to put into practice.

So the rest of the WO was really good. I did just 2 sets of pulldowns because of elbows. Incline was good, but I didn't press too close to failure. BOR was really good. I didn't go super heavy, but did reps paused off the floor with heavier weight than usual. Two sets of lighter CGBP was enough and I hammered these. I don't like to go heavy on these when I don't have my spotter..Sarah :) I supersetted lateral delts with CGBP. If I were really pressed for time, the WO could have been over here (in about 50 minutes) and been considered an excellent WO.

Next I supersetted incline fly's (felt AWESOME today) and did skull crushers for the first time in a while. They felt really great. Really worked the long head of the triceps. Will add these more often.  WO was done as written, but I do love me some hammer high rows and the machine was open, so I did 3 sets of them and supersetted rear delt fly's.  I went and changed and was getting ready to leave when I decided it'd be a good idea to do a set or two of curls. I'd purposely left them off because they're tough on my elbows.  One or two sets couldn't hurt, right? First set was painful, but sometimes the elbow loosens up a bit after the first set. The 2nd set was painful too, so of course a 3rd set couldn't make things any worse, right? :) I'm an idiot. Gotta quit doing stupid stuff like that.  Anyway, great WO.

Nutrition:
I weighed 181.2 this morning. Down a hair from yesterday where I ate more than ever on a rest day. I've kinda plateaued this week. I'm sure this weekend will take care of any weight stall :)

		Prot	Carb	Fat	Cal
TOTALS:	Grams	245	473	51	3,338
	Calories	978	1893	455	3,326
	Percent	29%	57%	14%	`

Wed 1/22 - Pull (WO 2 of 2)

Workout: LA Fitness
(BOR)135x10,185x8,8,8,135x12 Good
(75#HighRow)5x10 Very good
(SeatRow)57x10,10,65x10
(65#BBCurl)4x12 Great
(Pullups)2x8
(145#Pulldown)3x8
(35#HCurl)3x10
(10#RDelt)4x12
(Crunch)3x10
73 mins + 7 w/u = 80 mins

2nd WO of the day. This one w/ Sarah when she got home from work. Started w/ bent over row. First set was really a warm up, then 3 heavy sets followed by a drop set. Last set were full stop at bottom. Felt great. The gym was fairly crowded and the plate loaded high row was taken, but there is another one almost as good that has normal pins/plates. Did 5 sets of these and could really feel them working. Sarah is still struggling to feel BOR and a few other back movements. Have to keep assuring her they're still working and she's doing a good job.

Seated rows were OK and we supersetted them with barbell curls. My elbows are bad (especially the L one) so I didn't go very heavy, but these felt great so I did 4 sets.  Next up were pulldowns. I knew Sarah would prefer pullups, but they're hell on my elbows and she can't get enough volume with pullups, so we did a couple sets of pullups and then some pulldowns for volume. Both felt really good. I didn't go very close to failure on pullups.

Then we did DB curls and rear delts. I had to do hammer curls because regurlar DB curls were not possible tonight with my elbow. Finished up the WO with 3 quick, but heavy, sets of cable crunches. I think Sarah's got form down on this one now.

Really good WO, and for the 2nd full WO of the day, I was very pleased with how my body and energy held up. Day off tomorrow...

Nutrition:
Ate a lot today to fuel and recover from 2 WO's.

		Prot	Carb	Fat	Cal
TOTALS:	Grams	257	478	36	3,264
	Calories	1026	1912	321	3,260
	Percent	31%	59%	10%	`

Wed 1/22 - Push (WO 1 of 2 today - DB Inc)

Workout: LA Fitness
(75#DBInc_P)8,8,8,7,6 Awesome
(65#DBInc_P)8,8,7
(65#DBBench_P)8,8,6
(155#DecCGBP)3x8
(15#CableFly)3x10
(10#LatDelt)4x12
(73#PushDn)10,10,8
(25#Rope)3x10
60 mins + 12 w/u = 72 mins

Was planning on going to the gym this morning, but Sarah wanted to work out this evening after work and I enjoy working out with her so I decided to put my Pull WO on hold until later this evening.  But, I was really itching to get into the gym after taking yesterday off, so I went to the gym this morning anyway. Plan was to just do a light Push stimulation WO...keep sets minimal and don't push anything real hard.

Well, I suck at sticking to a plan when it calls for taking it easy.  I started with incline and it felt good. Plan was for 2 heavy sets at 75#'s. I did 5 instead. I beat my prior reps through 3 sets from last WO, so I kept going, then dropped weight and did 3 more sets for 8 total for incline. Felt AWESOME. Loving this paused pressing because I can't really cheat at all so I know exactly where I stand from WO to WO. Next was DB bench. Perhaps I should have gone a little lighter. I noticed that I wasn't really keeping my shoulders packed later in the sets here. Still good work.

I lightened the weight on decline close grip bench today because I didn't have a spot. I did 3x8 and it felt decent.  Next I supersetted cable fly's and lateral delts. I didn't do OHP today because I didn't want to go overboard. This was supposed to be a "light stimulation" WO after all.  Finished up the WO with some heavy pushdowns followed by lighter rope pushdowns.  I really liked this combo better than just using the rope by themselves.

Great incline today. Really pleased, especially because I could've really used another day rest before pushing again.  This WO was also a good length as it was done in an hour (plus time for warmup).  Up next is pull WO with Sarah in a couple of hours. Hope I'll have enough energy for it.

Nutrition:
I weighed 181.8 this morning. Gotta eat a lot today because I'm heading back to the gym in a couple hours for that pull WO w/ Sarah.