Musings on Diet, and Old School Strength

Man, this week is just freaking magical!  I've dropped 4 pounds since getting back from a hiking trip, and I'm at a rock solid 200 pounds. Everything is working (hate to use the cliche but) synergistically.

I've been following the 10 Day Green Smoothie Cleanse Diet.  I won't do 10 days, but M-F, with weekends for clean eating.  I'm adding a ton of protein powder to my smoothies to stay anabolic as I cut.  Despite a radical reduction in carbs and caffeine intake, I feel amazing.  Strength and stamina are up.  Joint pain is down, Abs are getting more and more defined.  Love handles are 95% GONE. Even my cheeks are starting to get lean.  I'm much less chipmunkish and worked my way to weaselish. The smoothies taste like a mixture of compost and yogurt, but the results are astonishing!!!!

So my buddy uses a heart rate monitor and discovered that we burned about 750 calories today in our 1 hour old school workout.  It's so simple, I feel foolish for trying to outsmart myself all these years.  Paul Carter, Dante Trudel, Jim Wendler, and Mark Ripptoe would smack me upside the head with a collective "NO SHIT!"

Today:

  1. Vertical strength superset: 4 sets, progressively heavier, with last set being rest-pause to absolute failure
    a. overhead press
    b. pullup (prone grip)
  2.  Arms supperset: Monday was 5x5.  Same weights as Monday but working 5x6
    a. dips
    b. barbell curls
  3. Deadlifts:  4 progressively heavier sets.  Last set NOT taken to failure.  Just doing clusters (singles with a 10 second break between each) till I got to rep target.
A note on Deadlifts:
I've discovered I can't push hard every week here.  If I do, I actually regress.  My back ain't what it used to be.  So next week, I'll crank out flatback gooodmornings.  In 2 weeks, it'll be deadlift again, with all the same weights, but looking for more reps per cluster on the last set.  Doubles is plenty.  I won't increase the weight on deadlift till that last set is continuous reps.  Slow and steady on deadlift pays huge dividends.


For whatever reason I can make progress on squats week in and week out for months, but deadlifts are an "every other week" affair. Sucks that I had to learn this at 40 years old instead of 18, but such is wisdom.

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