Different cycle – mid week rest

I’ve been doing this Phoenix workout and come back around to the 2nd week already. It’s ordered to have the rest day mid-week. I messed it up last week, but this week I should be able to get it right and put the rest day tomorrow. My HRV is a bit down this morning as I had an afternoon deadlift workout, but hopefully I can muster enough energy for today’s leg workout. It’s not actually too tough, and I’m going to make a sub for those lunges where I am falling over. Will also experiment some with the Bulgarian squat today and loading.

The workouts have some intensity and I’d like to keep it up, as my body is a bit beat, but I just need to really keep up through Saturday with a rest day, and then head into the rest kind of week. The rest week just cuts volume and intervals. Hooray for that. 2 Weeks of pushing hard, and then 1 week to get right at lower volume. 

I can see that I’m building some capacity here, and it kind of sucks, but so far the body seems to be responding. I’m gonna fall off the creatine after Saturday and give myself the 2 weeks to really diet down during 1 rest and 1 work week. I think now, best I can hope for is 223. I’d take it… basically 5 lbs from where I am today. Track, track track…

Some observations:

• not deadlifting every other day seems to be helping the hip some … duh. Also couch stretch nightly for several minutes seems to help. Floor time while watching tv … yea that too
• Deadlift day, followed by leg day is tough, but since your not squatting heavy it seems to be okay. It’s one of the few things I dont’ like about this plan. Deadlifts were easier yesterday. 
• 1 Minute hard rides on the Airdyne are tough. It took at this week to get used to doing those hard pushes and you still might not be adjusted. 
• You must take this to completion, it’s partially about weight loss, and partially about capacity building. I see the value in the capacity building, and feel good that I can do it with the bike. This was key, albeit with the rower, during the PB thing. I ended up more fit, despite not running. 
• I like the Airdyne better than the rower for this. They both suck, but the Airdyne is a little less sucky…
• I should be trying to add in the 30 minute climbs at the end of the workouts… but time
• There is a recommendation in the plan for +50 that I may end up taking if I start burning out. Cut the circuit day if your 50+ and not recovering. So this first pass through, that wasn’t an issue. Will check in on this one Saturday. 

Circuit training with intervals is hard

Well that was much harder than I thought it would be. I haven’t done a workout like this in a long time, so it probably was needed. The Garmin says I’ll need 3.5 days to recover. Probably not that bad, but tomorrow will likely be an extra rest day

So 2 minute pushes on the Airdyne… Glad I had the 1 minute pushes this week to get me primed… this was hard. Especially doing a 2 minute push on the Airdyne after a short reset doing Goblet squats. Wow

So hopefully this is what I need to kick start some fat loss. Onwards…

Halfway week 1

Two strength sessions and a shortish cardio. On the 2nd workout I’ll go through exercises and evals

• Heel raised Squat – did goblet squat. Definitely have more reps in this
• Bulgarian Squat – Actually this went really well. Granted… bodyweight, but hold on to rack like a ‘Hatfield’ squat, and off you go. I am almost convinced that swapping this and using my old bar to try to do this. Single legs is good… the only issue I have here is that running extra sets as part of this. 
• Alternating DB Reverse Lunges – still balance problems with this – I’m never sure how to get this right
• Single Leg Calf Raise – Hurts the ankle, this sucks ankle is still gimpy
• Airdyne – measuring calories now and marking them in my sheet
• Roll outs – good, tough
• Plank Knee to Elbow – hard, one side at a time
• Side Plank – hard, bend knees

Cardio was done on the wrong day, I was supposed to rest after the leg day

Today is bench day. This one has the lease amount of questions in it. The lying shoulder dislocates and fly’s using the straps will be the only exercises that I haven’t been doing regularly. 

The next day is circuits… fun. Challenges here are farmers walk

Monday is supposed to be long cardio — we’ll see, that is likely gonna get pushed at least 1 day. 

I adjusted… ouch

So I did today’s workout as prescribed. I’ll work through the list as it went

• Deadlift 280 4×6. Hit all reps, no problem. Could probably add a little more next time, but the weight felt about right. Last reps were tough, but not terminal.
• Circuit 1 – some small issues, but went well
  • Close Grip Chin ups – Started at +25 – 4 reps. Too much, then 3 Reps– , then bodyweight at +4. Let’s drop 10 lbs from the vest next week and see how it goes. Try +15, and see what that looks like
  • Bench supported row – 45 lbs 3 sets of 8. Will up to 50 next time, 45 worked though
  • Inverted Row – BW 10,10,9. Very controlled, good tempo, I’m not quite sure how to adjust this one, good for now. 
  • Airdyne – 60 seconds — pushed, need to figure out like a more precise distance measure on the computer. I could see where I was roughly pushing too…
• Circuit 2 – Abs
  • Knee tucks with the ab dolly — really liked this, it was tough. Controlled , about 6 reps over 30 seconds. As I was going through the sequence each round got progressively harder, I found that . Rest 15s and then on to
  • Swiss Ball crunch – like the other one, a little harder to get to 30s than the previous
  • Swiss Ball Oblique – not sure I did this right… but same deal
• The optional MAF cardio did not workout today, had to get on some other stuff

So tomorrow will be a leg day… need to wait till evening because recovery and all… If I were squatting heavy tomorrow, this workout would look really tough… but the way I will end up doing it, it should be very manageable. Figuring out a good weight on the split squats and lunges will be good . It’s very similar to the prior days. 

Thursday will be a light MAF day and Friday is scheduled rest, Saturday and Sunday are Push and Circuit, and Sunday is more Cardio followed by today’s workout. The mid-week rest and 2 strength days in a row will take some getting used to. How will the body adjust…

I will adjust…

So I went through a plan from 9/22 thru 1/20. It was primarily centered around strength, and it was successful. After being sick, and then being in the midst of a weight loss challenge, I made a slight mistake to stay with the pure strength programming. I am adjusting mid cycle, fat loss must be prioritized for the next several blocks until your 215 or below. Without getting to the test week, I’m pretty sure I am already knocking out a rep or two increase. But lets go back to this after your nice and lean. 

So I’ve thrown the plan in to the spreadsheet, today is a rest day and I’m ready to go tomorrow afternoon!!! 

The week tomorrow is as follows, and I’ll comment with weight suggestions and adjustments

• Deadlift – 4 x 4-6 -Been doing 310 , thinking of taking 20 lbs off which is still on the heavy side but should be easyish at a normalish tempo. 
• Close Grip Chin ups -3 x 3 to 5 reps. I’ve been doing with a 25lb vest on the pullups, chin-ups are always harder, so I will try 25, but think I may have to take out 5 lbs if I can’t get more than 3 on the last set. 
• Bench supported Rows – 50 lbs 6 to 8 reps.. Use tempo to make this work
• Inverted Row.. — this is an ‘oh shit, how do I do this with the room in the basement in a circuit fashion… you’ll figure it out. Bar and no weight should be 10 to 12 , make higher if needed
• Airdyne — 60s , should be interesting
• Swiss Ball Knee Tuck – I think a knee tuck on the ab dolly is more likely. I’m going to bet this will be super hard for me
• Swiss Ball Crunch – yup, that will work –
• Swiss Ball Oblique Crunch – new one for me, this should work

And since I’m commenting on this , lets look at day 2 as well

• Heel raises Squat 4 sets of 4 to 6 – This is the hardest one to account for during all this. This is one of those occasions I wished I had a leg press. I’m thinking at least this first week, a super controlled Goblet Squat with the heaviest bell I’ve got (63). 
• Bulgarian Squat – This is likely a split squat . This is always a challenge with balance for me, so it will likely be just a split squat . Remember to keep it wide-ish, and load appropriately. 
• Alternating Dumbbell Lunge – 3 sets of 10 to 12. I think this becomes a reverse lunge, as it’s just a better exercise for me - Part of me wants to do something a bit more glute focused, but I’ll stick with what’s written. 
• Single Leg Calf Raise. 15 to 20 on a single leg isn’t going to happen , but I’ll try. May 
• Airdyne – same thing — don’t push too hard, just hard enough
• Roll out – Good one that you know well
• Plank Knee to elbow – Another good one, haven’t done in a long time
• Side Plank – I suck at these, will be good to improve. 

And then the last day

• Bench Press – Was doing 208, likely down to 188 for the 6 reps. If I hit the numbers add weight next time
• Decline Dumbbell flyes – too much time to adjust bench from decline to incline (see next), so just flat for now, or perhaps on the floor! Nope — changed my mind, lets do this with the cross over symmetry bands
• Incline DB Bench – Weight is all setup for that already. 
• Pushups – max reps is tough in a circuit after above
• Airdyne – 60s don’t push too hard
• Active Hang – easy goes it
• TRX FAce Pulls – band pull aparts instead. 
• Lying Shoulder Dislocates — excited to try these!

And since I’m doing the whole thing, circuit day

• Pushups – 10 should be super easy, but make them super clean
• Plank – 60s is tough for me
• Walking Lunges might be troubling – perhaps I sub this to my hip thing
• Inverted Row – Max reps! 
• Farmer Walk, once around the basement with either the KBs or dumbbells. Not enough room to carry the trap bar around
• Goblet Squat – 1/3 BW would be a bigger KB than I have. I could setup a dumbbell with this and might help my squat weight issue… I’d say start with the 45 on this and just do it right
• Airdyne – 2 minutes hard… that’s something. A 2 min push after all that should be interesting

Now that I’ve typed all this out… it’s best to keep the weights right where they should be. Anything more will wipe you out. 

Time to adjust, or finish block?

I did my cardio – 40 minutes combining bike and tread. 

After writing my previous post, I’ve decided I’m so burnt out on the strength stuff over this past week, it’s probably a good sign I’m not at the right place and should do something focused on Fat Loss over the next 3 weeks and beyond until I hit my goal of 215 lbs. Lets do a full good cut and then do the strength rotation. The prior strength round was great, but I think I didn’t give it enough time going back into it. 

So I got the program, and it looks like it could work for me. It’s called Phoenix, it seems to be a variation on a few things I’ve done in the past, but definitely different enough to not know how my body will react.  The lifting slightly more often at a bit higher rep, but adding in some more interval type stuff during the weight days. Ie… there is a sequence on day one where you do some chest and row exercises, and you finish by doing a 60 sec row or AirDyne ride. This will be a nice challenge. This happens during each strength workout. 

I like this program too, because we get 3 very focused strength days, and a circuit round at the end of the week. 2 days of just cardio, but the option to add 20-30 minutes of MAF at the end of the Push and Pull days! Perfect. The workout evolves in to adding in some 30/30 intervals at the start of the strength workouts sessions…  This happens at week 7, and ramps up over the last 6 weeks. Whether I need that or not we’ll see, I imagine I can get to my desired weight with what’s programmed without that but we’ll see how things are going. It might be a case of , lets take this all the way and try to get super lean. 

Anyhow… I’m just a little torn, on thinking I should at least finish the current block with 1 more week of Alpha before switching… but also I’m realizing I am ready for something newish… and I can still keep up the bench and weighted pullups as part of it, just a bit less frequently. 

There is one smallish problem in the program— leg day is a little messy for me :

• Heel raised back squat – may need to become a heel raised goblet which is the same as
• Bulgarian squat – will likely just be a split squat

In the later blocks you get a similar thing with a front/back squat — i’ll just need to figure it out. 

Couldn’t finish

So this past week workouts were 6 sets 1,2,3,1,2,2 at the prescribed weight. That’s 6 sets of bench, weighted pullups and deadlift for 11 reps. I

It’s followed up with 4 sets of accessory work… It doesn’t sound tough, but now that I have the deadlift worked up to a heavier weight, it’s freaking draining. I didn’t finish any workout this week. Closest I came was the mid week one with the back accessory work on Thursday morning. I got through most of that.

Next week it gets easier, 1,2,3,1. Then the following you simply add a rep to the last set, and then then another, and then the week where you try to make some magic happen… week 7 — 1,2,3,1,2,3,1. Unfortunately to do this straight through is not possible for me… I can’t be doing any of the higher amounts during that week, so the hope is just to take some extra days of purely focused cut with some heavy lifts. More to come on this. 

The other part of this, and I didn’t experience this as much as last time (or I don’t remember), is this driving my appetite through the roof on this high volume week. I am grazing way more… but yea, I burned a lot of calories. 

Lots of niggles still… mostly shoulder, hips and ankle are the buggers at the moment. The shoulder been adding some additional stretching in the evening. I feel like there was a program along with the band work that fixes this before. The ankle is just time and compression. Good enough to start at least splitting my treadmill bike time. I think 20 minutes on tread today and 20 minutes on bike does it right. 

Despite being in the midst of a strength cycle again, my primary goal is to get down below 220. So I need to get smarter about this.  I think after this cycle, I’m going to need to do something a bit different again. I know my body won’t be able to adjust to doing another round for a few months. So figuring that out will be key. I’d like to get down to 215, I know I feel pretty good at that weight, and damn are you carrying muscle again. 

Extra rest day – Plan through weigh loss challenge and end of Feb

So I took the extra rest day hoping that I can do 4 rather intensive days straight now. The schedule is

1. Lift, highish volume (Thur)
2. Cardio – low volume (Fri)
3. Lift, highish volume (sat)
4. Cardio – medium-high volume (Depends on ankle) (sun)

So I plan to do my lift session here around 9am, and then off to a quick checkin at work.

Diet is in check! Unknown on the creatine water weight, but we’ll see. 

Now the plan going forward

• Week start 1/23 – Drop in volume somewhat, start doing AM 30 minute treadmill climbs every day prior to breakfast. Every other day evening 30 minute rides. Everything is at MAF ! 
• Week start 1/30 – Similar volume to previous week – Continue AM 30 minute treadmill climbs, every other day 45 minutes rides (you may swap the AM climb to 45 minute if your ankle is holding up) 
• Week start 2/6 - A larger increase in sets — depending on how you handle it will drive a few a things. 
• Week start 2/13 – Your at weigh in week, so you’ll do a 1-2 workout lift taper, cut calories from Sunday -> Friday limit carbs for weigh in. For this week, the only thing you do is the ‘1,2,3,2’ portion of the workout
• Week start 2/18 ish -Carb back up after weigh in and start in high volume week – 1,2,3,1,2,3,1
• Week 2/25 – Your back to ‘1,2,3,2’, but with higher volume accessory lifts… then you taper and test. 

So you have 6.5 weeks of plan, which you follow up with who knows what. The test week is kind of a rest week, so it’s only a few days rest after test.

Some goals for lifting this go around (referencing my Dec 23 post). 

• Deadlift – 310×9
• Bench Press – 208×9 (Camber bar)
• Pullups – +25 x 9

So basically a 4 rep increase after all is said and done. This would be a pretty massive success especially if my weight is down in the 220 range. 

The goal for weight is to get under 220 mid February with a bit of a drastic cut that week. Then roll back up to around 220ish. This is all total speculation. I know my body well enough to say I might be even be underestimating this, but I also know myself well enough that things aren’t operating like they did 4 years ago… body is different slightly older… a bit more muscle, a bit more fat, a bit more wrinkles.

After this one, I think I break from Alpha for an unknown period (maybe another 1 month break, up to a full 3 month break). I’ll look through some of my stuff, but I tend to think I’ll do something kind of in-between Alpha (perhaps 1 day that has that strength low rep stuff), and 2 days of more high rep 8-15. It becomes increasingly hard to program, because I want so much to hang on and even improve strength while prioritizing other things (like bodyweight pullups or running or something else). Doing all this , while not burning out. 

Thinking out loud… the right thing to do would be to continue to prioritize weight loss until you hit around ~10% bf. My old trainer has some programming guidelines that I need to purchase. It’s probably rehash of what I know… but sometimes even getting a slightly different perspective helps me move forward. 

Sore today – maybe cardio

Ended up at home today. Will likely get on the bike and perhaps walk a little today. HRV is trending right again! 

In the office tomorrow, and maybe good for a rest day. I am more sore than I’ve been in a while, and need things to clear. 

Diet is on… need to push starting next week with additional daily low intensity cardio. That means 2x a day for about 3 weeks… gotta get up at 6am and get the extra slow cardio in. 

I am on the creatine, and will stay on through first week of Feb (stop Feb 7-10, and give your body a full 10 days to clear the additional weight). I am working hard, and there is some cursory evidence out there that it could benefit muscle retention while cutting. May mean a lb or two higher this next week, but imagine that will all balance out to make it not look like I’m losing weight. I feel like the way I’m lifting I need to extra push. I have not had good luck with this before, but we’ll see this time. 

First tough workout… incomplete, but feel great.

First higher volume workout today. 1,2,3,1,2,2 on the core exercises, plus sets of 8. I took lots of rest between sets and ended up going 1:05. I know my body, and anything over that right now is basically shit, so instead of 4 sets of 8 of Romanian deadlifts and squats, I only ended up doing 3 sets of rdeads, and 1 set of squats. Under a little faster tempo for this workout I could do it, but I’m still just getting back from being sick, and the body is not fully adjusted.

Niggles the same. Hip is okay, but shoulder is a little wonky. Not as bad. Been doing the stretch routine and hopefully can make some progress there over the next few weeks. Get that shoulder niggle back in place. 

Cardio tomorrow, or possibly a mid-week rest day. We’ll see how the HRV reacts! 

Weight was 228 this morning, a little uptick on some sloppiness and lack of umm… bowel movements. Looking forward to a final Feb 17th weigh in. I’ll continue workouts as planned, however for February I’ll work towards a MAF cardio every AM for 14 days straight, and perhaps cut a bit more carbs each week and a little calories. Force myself to a 220 weigh in. This also means, my body won’t be able to support the increased volume scheduled for the week before the 17th… I’ll likely need to push that a week and swap it for lower volume. I feel like I am smart enough to not mess the plan up enough this way.