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After 4 weeks of following the Ultimate Diet 2.0 (UD2) plan, I just wanted to lift "normally" again. By normally I mean normal compared to the UD2's diet and workouts. Being that it is summer now, I do not want to add any additional body fat. Ideally I would still like to lose a couple pounds. For the next 4 weeks I will be eating around my maintenance caloric intake, which means a caloric intake that would cause me to neither gain nor loss weight. But because of my workouts, my nutrient timing strategy and a few supplements, I will indeed be making changes to my body composition. On that note, that's take a look at the diet I will be following.
My current diet consists of two types of days: one where I am hypercaloric (above maintenance calories) and one where I am hypocaloric (under maintenance calories). To calculate my maintenance caloric intake I am simply using the equation 15 calories for every pound of bodyweight, so 210 lbs. * 15 cals = 3,150 calories. My hypercaloric days ("high" carb days) will be on my weight training days and my hypocaloric days ("low" carb days) on my cardio and rest days. One big change I am making to my diet is dropping all dextrose, which I would normally use around my workouts. I am dropping the dextrose (a HIGH glycemic simple sugar) and replacing it with oatmeal and fruit (low glycemic complex carbs) to see if it makes a change in the amount of fat I gain or lose, and because oatmeal and fruit taste better. I have recently become an employee of Scivation/PrimaForce. I began using various Scivation and PrimaForce supplements when they first hit the market. After conversing with the Scivation/PrimaForce CEO Mar Lobliner, I was asked to work with the Scivation/PrimaForce booth at the 2004 Olympia. After working the booth along side with Marc and continued communication with him, I worked the Scivation/PrimaForce at the 2005 Arnold Classic. Soon after the Arnold Classic I became an employee for Scivation/PrimaForce. This job is a great opportunity for me to get into the supplement industry and also help a supplement company that I have supported since the beginning to grow and expand. I already used Scivation/PrimaForce supplements, so joining their team was a perfect fit. The Scivation/PrimaForce lines serve as my "bread'n'butter" supplements, my "meat and potatoes". Along with Scivation/PrimaForce supplements, I will be using supplements from the Designer Supplements line. I have been impressed with my past experiences with Designer Supplements' products and appreciate their innovation, and will therefore continue to support them.
 Scivation
 Substance WPI Lean Green (1 cap/day) Syneburn (1-2 caps/day) GlutaForm (Varies) CreaForm (5 grams pre-workout) Elastamine (3 caps/day) Rebound XT (2 caps/day) ActivaTe (20 caps/day~ BETA version) Glucophase XR (1 cap/day)
Calcium (3 grams/day) Fish Oil (6 grams/day) Multivitamin (1 tablet/day)At first glance this may seem like a lot of supplements, but it really is not. Most of what I take I would consider "The Basics": Protein, Creatine, Glutamine, BCAA, Multivitamin, Fish Oil, Calcium, Lean Green, and Elastamine. Besides "The Basics" I am taking NeuroStim + Glucophase XR for a pre-workout boost, NOxidant as a post-workout antioxidant formula, and ActivaTe + Rebound XT to increase natural testosterone production. I am currently testing out Designer Supplements ActivaTe, a supplement that decreases Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (SHBG), which will increase free-testosterone levels. I ran ActivaTe by itself for 2 weeks and am now combining it with Designer Supplements' Rebound XT, a product that increases natural testosterone production. The combo of ActivaTe plus Rebound XT should create a synergistic effect on boosting testosterone production and freeing up more testosterone and making it active.
I consume 3,770 calories on my "hypercaloric" days and 2335 calories on my "hypocaloric" days. When I calculate my average daily caloric it is calculated as:
So I am averaging maintenance caloric intake each day on a weekly basis. By eating a greater amount of calories on the days I weight train, I am eating more calories when I need them most, to recover from my training. I center the majority of my carb intake around my workouts to take advantage of nutrient repartitioning (i.e. increased GLUT-4 translocation = increased glucose uptake into muscles) and to provide the needed substrate for energy production and glycogen replenishment.
I am lifting weights on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, doing cardio on Tuesday and Thursday, and taking Sunday off as a rest day.
Wed- Deadlift/Legs/Abs Sat- Legs/Abs
1 Bench 3 X 3-5 1 Bent Row 3 X 3-5 2 Incline DB Press 3 X 3-5 2 Rev. Bent Row 3 X 3-5 3 Military Press 3 X 3-5 3 Shrug 3 X 3-5 4 BB Curl 3 X 3-5 4 CG Bench 3 X 3-5 SubTotal Sets 24
"Pump"
Pull-Up 3 X * Dips 3 X *
Leg Press 3 X 20
Machine Crunch 3 X 20-30
1 Incline Bench 3 X 3-5 1 Lat Pulldown 3 X 3-5 2 DB Press 3 X 3-5 2 Rev. Lat Pulldown 3 X 3-5 3 DB Lateral 3 X 5-6 3 BHB Shrug 3 X 5-6 4 DB Curl 3 X 5-6 4 Hammer Ext 3 X 5-6 SubTotal Sets 24
"Pump"
1 Squats 3 X 3-5 2 SLD 3 X 3-5 1 Seated Calf 3 X 3-5
"Pump"
Incline Crunch 3 X 10 I am currently placing emphasis on my upper body. I alternate between doing exercises with the same numbers above. For example, I will do a set of bench press, rest, do a set of bent over row, rest, and then repeat. I do all my "load" sets (sets focusing on using a heavy load) then complete all of my "pump" sets (sets focusing on a strong muscle contraction). I stop all sets about 1 rep shy of failure. Stop just shy of failure decreases the stress placed upon my nervous system and allows me to train more frequently and more intensely each workout without compromising skeletal muscle hypertrophy. That's the plan of attack, now let's go into the week.
  Cable Lateral  Click To Enlarge.I had previously gone up to 315 lbs. for 3 reps on bench press, but my left rotator cuff and pec started bothering me and I dropped in my bench press strength. I have been doing rotator cuff stretches for a few weeks now and I had no pain or stiffness during my bench press sets today. I plan on working my way back up to 315 lbs on bench, then taking it from there. I hit 275 lbs. for 3 sets of 3 reps on Friday, so I haven't lost all of my bench strength yet. Some people feel that the bench press is not a good chest exercise because it involves too much of the shoulders and triceps, but from my experiences with the bench press I disagree. Whenever I have made the biggest improvements in my chest mass I was benching around 300 lbs. anytime you move a heavy weight like that, you are going to grow. The same goes for squats, deadlifts, bent over row, military press, and other compound movements. As you can see, right now I can close grip bench press as much as bench press... we'll see what happens with that. All in all, this was a great workout. The first workout of a new program is always the testing ground where you gauge the toughness of the routine. I went back and forth about whether to split up some of the upper body muscles, but I decided to keep them all together because I have gotten good results from doing that in the past.
Today is a cardio day. I went to the gym and did my cardio on the Elliptical Machine:
This workout setup is different from anything I've tried in the past. Deadlifts serve as an exercise for the entire body, but hit the legs and lower back hard. I am doing pull-ups and dips to provide the upper body with some (not a ton, but enough to create a response) growth stimulus because I am trying to bring up my upper body. Next I go onto some high rep leg work and some "detail" leg work. I have never in my life tried the abductor and adductor machines, but I decided to give them a go since they will hit my legs differently than any of the exercises I normally do. Finally I finish up with some core work on the abs and lower back. This was the first time I have done deadlifts in months. I had worked up to 585 X 3 reps, but lifting that kind of load along with my other training requirements was a lot to handle (increased needed recover time). I have found that I grow best when I do squats and deadlifts in the same week, so it was time to bring back the deadlift. I wasn't too thrilled doing leg press after deadlifts as I was not able to handle nearly the amount of weight I could normally use. I am going to switch leg press to single leg press to go along with the focusing on the "quality" of my legs theme. The abductor and adductor work was definitely different, but I think doing these movements will be very beneficial for me.
Today is a cardio day. I went to the gym and did my cardio on the Elliptical Machine. I thought about starting off with some sprints like I did on Tuesday, but my legs were pretty sore, so I just did:
I felt like an animal today! It wasn't one of those "I've-got-tons-of- energy-workouts", it was better. It was more like "whatever-weight-I-put-on-the-bar-I-will-lift-for-my-intended-reps" workouts. I ended up lifting about 20 lbs. more on every lift than I had intended to. For example, my second chest exercise for flat DB press (after Incline Bench) and I started with the 100 lb. DB's. Easy. 110's. Easy. 120's. No problem. Sadly my gym only has up to 120 lb. DB's... time to add a complaint to the complaint box. On top of this, 3 people commented that I look bigger and more cut and 1 guy asked when my next competition was. I believe this is in part due to ActivaTe and Rebound XT starting to "kick in" by boosting my testosterone levels. I will post my full review of these two supplements in the "Week 4" journal entry. The only thing I am going to change about this workout is incline DB curls to DB preacher curls. I am just not feeling the incline curls right now. Just a couple notes on the above exercise names:
   Smith Calf Raise Click To Enlarge.Despite being one of my lower volume days, this is the hardest workout. I was not feeling 100% today, I felt kind of groggy, but I persevered. I am going to starting doing a 10-minute warm-up on the treadmill before going into my squats next week to see what kind of difference it makes. I usually don't use cardio as part of my warm-up, but I am going to try it out. 435 lbs. on squats felt heavy. My current squat PR is 495 for 3 reps. I plan on working back up to that weight. Everything went pretty smoothly. Today was my first time doing calf raises on the smith machine. I am doing calf raises like this because I maxed out the donkey calf raise and "slanted" calf raise (as opposed to the standard vertical calf raise, which my gym does not have). To do this exercise I stand on the edge of a platform and position the bar the same as I do for squats, and then I perform calf raises. I wasn't sure how this exercise would play out, but it worked very well. Incline crunches were intense today. This is the first time I have done 2 sets while holding a 45-pound plate on my chest. Usually after one set of holding the 45-pound plate I am toast, but I did it today. Swiss ball crunches are always painful because my lower back get worked fairly hard during squats and stiff leg deadlifts. Obvious this is not an injury type of pain (I wouldn't do the exercise then), but rather a pain from fatigue. But you got to work through the pain.
On Sunday mornings, after I wake up and use the bathroom, I measure my weight, waist, and body fat percentage. I choose to do this on Sunday because (1) it is the end of the week and (2) I do not train on Sundays (depends on program). I stepped on the scale this morning and it read 204 lbs. I knew I was holding a good amount of water last Sunday when I weighed 210 lbs., but I was not expecting a 6-pound decrease. Overall I look fuller and more vascular and cut, plus my waist measured 1/2 an inch less and all my skin fold measurements measured 1 mm less than last Sunday, so I know I lost all fat and water.
This was a very solid first week of a new outlook/phase of training. Due to the sheer volume of info in this first article, I would hold off on going into detail about certain supplements, dieting techniques, and my training methodology until later entries. If you have any questions or things concerning my program or are interested in hiring me for online personal training, email me at Derek@scivation.com. See you next week.
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