1st Bulking Blast Log

[BushLeague]

It’s essentially like a circuit breaker on crack, when the cases go above 10 or so, they fully close the schools, bars, gyms etc until it goes back to 0 and make people do mandatory Covid tests several days in a row.

That’s too bad about your first cycle, how long was everything shut down for?

Interesting. Surprised people still care. Here, more than the states. It's almost like it doesn't exist currently.

Yeah, made it to 10 weeks. 25lbs.
Working in a different province 2 weeks on 1 off made it difficult. Sometimes one province was closed then the other. Or one was open. So I know my province was 3 months and the other was more.

 

[Slowww]

Interesting. Surprised people still care. Here, more than the states. It's almost like it doesn't exist currently.

Yeah, made it to 10 weeks. 25lbs.
Working in a different province 2 weeks on 1 off made it difficult. Sometimes one province was closed then the other. Or one was open. So I know my province was 3 months and the other was more.

Yeah it’s still a big deal over here, a couple cases causes a huge response. The domestic Vaccine only 50% effective here and they’re not really open to using other ones due to political reasons. Wish it was a bit more relaxed/logical but it is what it is.

That’s good progress though for 10 weeks despite the difficulties! 3 months is gnarly for a lockdown or closed non-essential business. What were your stats before and after if you don’t mind me asking?

 

[Slowww]

Tuesday: legs
Weight: 100.5kg 222lbs
Dosing: T/TREN/HGH

Switched From HIT to more straightforward hypertrophy sets with barbell. Honestly pretty fine leg workout. just gonna keep on the blast.

Squats
warm ups to 145kg
Working
170kgx8
140x15
85x 20

Platz squat 110 3x10

Sumo DDL 150kg 3x10

SLDL 150kg 3x10

Calves 180kg 3 to failure

Glute Bridge 180kg 3 to failure

 

[BushLeague]

Yeah it’s still a big deal over here, a couple cases causes a huge response. The domestic Vaccine only 50% effective here and they’re not really open to using other ones due to political reasons. Wish it was a bit more relaxed/logical but it is what it is.

That’s good progress though for 10 weeks despite the difficulties! 3 months is gnarly for a lockdown or closed non-essential business. What were your stats before and after if you don’t mind me asking?

Interesting. I assume come winter time it'll change.

Yeah, they loved those lock downs .
Yeah just under 6 foot. 215lbs and sitting at about 15%
Would like to be 205 before the next blast though.

 

[Slowww]

Wednesday: Back
Weight: 100.2kg
Dosing: T/NPP/HGH/ADEX

Built a simple cable machine at home today for pulldowns and pulley rows, etc. I load weight on it using my plates.

Floor seated horizontal Pulley: 80kg 3x12
Triangle close grip pulldowns: 70kg 3x10
Deadlift: 170kg x8
Rows: 110kg 2x10
Tbar rows: 3x10 80kg
Face pulls 3 sets to failure

 

[Slowww]

Interesting. I assume come winter time it'll change.

Yeah, they loved those lock downs .
Yeah just under 6 foot. 215lbs and sitting at about 15%
Would like to be 205 before the next blast though.

Yeah, hopefully where you are by then it will change. Here I’m not so hopeful hahaha.
Nice! Getting 26 in 10 weeks is p good, I’m sure you can get to 205 before the next one

 

[Slowww]

Thursday: rest/massage
Weight: 100.9kg
Dosing: T/TREN/HGH/BPC/HGH

Left Shoulder has been feeling bad, don’t want an injury. Need to take it easy on the shoulder for a moment. Gonna remove heavy singles for a bit, get my shoulder back to 100%.

 

[Slowww]

Friday: shoulders/biceps
Weight: 100.4kg
Dosing: T/NPP/HGH/BPC

All 3x12

Military press
Lat raises
Front raises
Upright rows

Bar curls
Hammer curls
Drag curls superset twist curls

Shoulder isn’t hurt for push/press movements, only for pulling movements if I pull incorrectly I feel some pain. Gonna keep deadlifts below 200kgs with high reps, keep rows to 100kg high reps as well. Have to continue to keep pulldowns a bit lighter too 12 reps+ but it’s not debilitating at all, just need to help it recover.

As for diet/weight isn’t moving up and I seem to be recomping a bit this week. I can see I am getting leaner during workouts if I don’t wear a shirt, as clear striations and muscle separation, veins, abs are noticeable especially when i film to review technique, which is not the goal.

Will talk to coach about adding more food, I want to see that scale move and it seems like that this diet is enough to keep me at 100kg and maybe increase quite slowly. I would rather be aggressive with the food, as I feel like I’m pushing with training and gear and really don’t mind getting a bit of fat as long as I can get maximal lean tissue gains as well.

The tren and HGH really makes it hard to gain fat, I’m sure if I want to cut in the future with the compound and a severe deficit it should be very easy.

 

[Live_Evil]

Awesome log. Really cool to see someone with similar interests, weightlifting, combat sports, etc..

I skipped through the thread a bit, so pardon me if you've answered these question already.

I'm curious, why are you training in that rep range? When doing the olympic lifts, you should never train any more than 3 reps max. Most sets involve heavy singles and doubles. The really important thing is to perform technical lifts when you aren't fatigued, then utilized other lifts when the fatigue kicks in. And if your primary goal is power, why even play with sets of 12? This is too high to do anything for power, and too low to do much for conditioning unless you really ramp up the number of sets. In fact, that rep range has been shown to reduce the one rep max of intermediate and expert lifters who have trained at 5 reps and lower before switching.

You also need to perform the olympic lifts as often as you possibly can, in order to "grease the hinge", so to speak. I will say though, if you're just going for explosive power and aren't so worried about your numbers on the olympic lifts, you can always do things like snatch high pulls (from the floor) and really build that explosiveness, without having to be nearly as technically proficient.

Nearly every combat sports conditioning coach I've ever known has their athletes do extremely high reps for conditioning. I'm talking 30+. Of course, this should never be the case with olympic lifts, and even something like a squat is too technical, so you're basically relegated to something like a leg press for a squat movement if you're working in that rep range. The lowest amount of reps I've ever seen for mma conditioning was 10, but they still performed 10 sets, with only 30 seconds of rest between, so the heart rate still goes sky high.

Maybe I missed the post and you're just focusing on hypertrophy rather than conditioning or power? I'm just confused why you'd do something like a bro split in those rep ranges with such low volume, if your goal is to be more explosive for combat sports. Honestly, even for hypertrophy the bro split is suboptimal, according to the literature. Your muscles only grow for 48 hours after hypertrophy inducing stimuli, so it's simply suboptimal to train one muscle group once per week.

If I were you, I'd train the olympic lifts first thing, 6 days a week, and just alternate between the snatch and c&j. So snatch on mon, wed, fri, and CJ on tues, thurs, and sat. After the fatigue sets in, move to olympic accessories pertaining to that lift. At the end of the entire session, throw in some hypertrophy specific lifts. For example:

Monday:
10-20 mins of greasing the hinge -- hip on pelvis contact exercise, squat snatch, etc, all with nothing but the bar
5x2 snatch
5x3 power snatch
5x3-5 snatch high pull
Bodybuilding bologna that doesn't impact your olympic lifts like curls, shoulder raises, etc,

On Tuesday, basically copy that same template, only for the clean and jerk and the appropriate accessories. Rather than isolation bodybuilding at the end, front squat or olympic squat for 5x5.

You should really be stretching regularly too.

If you want conditioning for combat sports, you're going to need to train that with a great deal of specificity, and knock off two of your lifting days to do compound lifts at extremely high reps or high reps + alot of sets.

Certainly not trying to shit on you, just offering a bit of advice based on the literature and standard training protocols. And it's entirely possible I simply missed your reasoning for training this way.

Good luck with your cycle and training!

 

[Slowww]

Awesome log. Really cool to see someone with similar interests, weightlifting, combat sports, etc..

I skipped through the thread a bit, so pardon me if you've answered these question already.

I'm curious, why are you training in that rep range? When doing the olympic lifts, you should never train any more than 3 reps max. Most sets involve heavy singles and doubles. The really important thing is to perform technical lifts when you aren't fatigued, then utilized other lifts when the fatigue kicks in. And if your primary goal is power, why even play with sets of 12? This is too high to do anything for power, and too low to do much for conditioning unless you really ramp up the number of sets. In fact, that rep range has been shown to reduce the one rep max of intermediate and expert lifters who have trained at 5 reps and lower before switching.

Thanks, yeah they are fun hobbies what martial arts do you like?
I haven’t outright answered the questions. I am in this rep range momentarily focusing on hypertrophy, just to get body weight up as quickly as possible.

At this point because of my height and leverages, just adding mass to my body is enough to keep pushing up the 1rms in SBD, overhead press etc. Usually I run HIT PPL, (working up to a heavy top set, then backing off and incorporating heavier lifting 1-3 rep range at beginning of workout followed by accessories) trying to push up power and body weight at the moment in the compounds.

I usually don’t do sets of 12+ except on accessories but because of covid the gyms are closed I am just focusing on a higher rep range since I can’t go too heavy without making noise, potentially dropping weights etc. in my home.

You also need to perform the olympic lifts as often as you possibly can, in order to "grease the hinge", so to speak. I will say though, if you're just going for explosive power and aren't so worried about your numbers on the olympic lifts, you can always do things like snatch high pulls (from the floor) and really build that explosiveness, without having to be nearly as technically proficient.

At the moment I still incorporate high pulls during pull days, sometimes snatch grip deadlifts, and so on.

Nearly every combat sports conditioning coach I've ever known has their athletes do extremely high reps for conditioning. I'm talking 30+. Of course, this should never be the case with olympic lifts, and even something like a squat is too technical, so you're basically relegated to something like a leg press for a squat movement if you're working in that rep range. The lowest amount of reps I've ever seen for mma conditioning was 10, but they still performed 10 sets, with only 30 seconds of rest between, so the heart rate still goes sky high.

For 30+ sets i have some for accessories, such as leg press, lat raises, ham curls, and so on. 20+ for squats and other things. I haven’t been doing Olympic lifts much since I started this log actually, as I have been working with a body building coach rather than strength and conditioning coach, and I just get conditioning done with kickboxing or bjj.

Maybe I missed the post and you're just focusing on hypertrophy rather than conditioning or power? I'm just confused why you'd do something like a bro split in those rep ranges with such low volume, if your goal is to be more explosive for combat sports. Honestly, even for hypertrophy the bro split is suboptimal, according to the literature. Your muscles only grow for 48 hours after hypertrophy inducing stimuli, so it's simply suboptimal to train one muscle group once per week.

Yeah right now I am focusing on hypertorphy in order to get to a weight class that better suits my height. However I don’t usually do a bro split, just the gyms are closed. I am doing it for a week hopefully two while I’m in lockdown, and using it to deload. Suboptimal for a week or two to give my body a bit of a break after 8 months without one might be helpful tbh.

Monday:
10-20 mins of greasing the hinge -- hip on pelvis contact exercise, squat snatch, etc, all with nothing but the bar
5x2 snatch
5x3 power snatch
5x3-5 snatch high pull
Bodybuilding bologna that doesn't impact your olympic lifts like curls, shoulder raises, etc,

On Tuesday, basically copy that same template, only for the clean and jerk and the appropriate accessories. Rather than isolation bodybuilding at the end, front squat or olympic squat for 5x5.

Yeah in the past when I did an intermediate Olympic lifting program 6 days a week, and have several books on the topic as well as various training plans. I will most likely get back into it when I have reached my weight goal. Front squat and back squat, DDL, have all gone up significantly since starting the body building, but I haven’t snatched in a while, C&J also has increased a lot without training it specifically.

You should really be stretching regularly too.

Yeah I stretch when I get to BJJ sessions. Honestly putting on this amount of mass quickly has really impacted my flexibility and it is a bit of a struggle keeping the flexibility/mobility up. Same with cardio, I definitely underestimated how adding 25kg in under a year would affect those performance aspects and they were two fears I had starting this.

If you want conditioning for combat sports, you're going to need to train that with a great deal of specificity, and knock off two of your lifting days to do compound lifts at extremely high reps or high reps + alot of sets.

I do make sure to get heavy lifting days in regularly, even though I work with a body building coach he takes my personal goals into consideration outside of bodybuilding so I have some work with a focus on power. I also need to make sure I have heavy compounds in since I will compete in a powerlifting comp in the coming December and outside of this bro split deload it is reflected in my programming.

Certainly not trying to shit on you, just offering a bit of advice based on the literature and standard training protocols. And it's entirely possible I simply missed your reasoning for training this way.

No problem man haha. I appreciate the good intentions. I’m aware of the literature and have read a reasonable amount about s&c, and oly lifting, just not going that exactly in that route to get to my short term goals regarding weight/strength. ATM I am Looking at this as more of a hypertrophy macrocycle and this is the main focus until I can reach and maintain my target body weight.

Good luck with your cycle and training!

Thanks! You too with your training and cycle if you’re doing one too.

 

[Live_Evil]

Thanks, yeah they are fun hobbies what martial arts do you like?
I haven’t outright answered the questions. I am in this rep range momentarily focusing on hypertrophy, just to get body weight up as quickly as possible.

At this point because of my height and leverages, just adding mass to my body is enough to keep pushing up the 1rms in SBD, overhead press etc. Usually I run HIT PPL, (working up to a heavy top set, then backing off and incorporating heavier lifting 1-3 rep range at beginning of workout followed by accessories) trying to push up power and body weight at the moment in the compounds.

I usually don’t do sets of 12+ except on accessories but because of covid the gyms are closed I am just focusing on a higher rep range since I can’t go too heavy without making noise, potentially dropping weights etc. in my home.


At the moment I still incorporate high pulls during pull days, sometimes snatch grip deadlifts, and so on.

For 30+ sets i have some for accessories, such as leg press, lat raises, ham curls, and so on. 20+ for squats and other things. I haven’t been doing Olympic lifts much since I started this log actually, as I have been working with a body building coach rather than strength and conditioning coach, and I just get conditioning done with kickboxing or bjj.

Yeah right now I am focusing on hypertorphy in order to get to a weight class that better suits my height. However I don’t usually do a bro split, just the gyms are closed. I am doing it for a week hopefully two while I’m in lockdown, and using it to deload. Suboptimal for a week or two to give my body a bit of a break after 8 months without one might be helpful tbh.


Yeah in the past when I did an intermediate Olympic lifting program 6 days a week, and have several books on the topic as well as various training plans. I will most likely get back into it when I have reached my weight goal. Front squat and back squat, DDL, have all gone up significantly since starting the body building, but I haven’t snatched in a while, C&J also has increased a lot without training it specifically.


Yeah I stretch when I get to BJJ sessions. Honestly putting on this amount of mass quickly has really impacted my flexibility and it is a bit of a struggle keeping the flexibility/mobility up. Same with cardio, I definitely underestimated how adding 25kg in under a year would affect those performance aspects and they were two fears I had starting this.


I do make sure to get heavy lifting days in regularly, even though I work with a body building coach he takes my personal goals into consideration outside of bodybuilding so I have some work with a focus on power. I also need to make sure I have heavy compounds in since I will compete in a powerlifting comp in the coming December and outside of this bro split deload it is reflected in my programming.

No problem man haha. I appreciate the good intentions. I’m aware of the literature and have read a reasonable amount about s&c, and oly lifting, just not going that exactly in that route to get to my short term goals regarding weight/strength. ATM I am Looking at this as more of a hypertrophy macrocycle and this is the main focus until I can reach and maintain my target body weight.

Thanks! You too with your training and cycle if you’re doing one too.

Awesome! And yeah, the way adding mass impacts your flexibility is actually shocking if you neglect it long enough. I actually had serious knee issues for years because of that.

Man, you definitely know your stuff.

So I started out in kickboxing at 4 when my dad put me in. We watched the first UFC when I was in 3rd ('93) grade and were all amazed, of course. I wanted to train BJJ for years but didn't have access to a gym until I was like 19. At that point I started training, and it's been a blast since then.

I'm definitely still more of a striker, but I love grappling. I also enjoy how you don't have to hurt people in grappling, like, wrestling your buddies when you're all drinking just ends up being fun with no egos involved, lol. I'm 37 now and have a decent amount of experience, even had the pleasure of training with a couple top ten guys over at Jackson-Wink, one of my best friends is a high ranked pro, but my career path pulled me more in the corporate direction than combat. My little brother is an NCAA All American, and ungodly strong. I still train for short bursts just to keep everything sharp, but that just isn't my life currently.

 

[Slowww]

Saturday: chest/triceps
Dosing: T/TREN/HGH
Weight: 100.7

Bench 100kg 3x10 Starting to feel pretty easy until the last couple reps of the last set. Hopefully hitting the 140kg press is gonna become a lot smoother this coming month.
Incline bench
Tricep pushdowns
Kickbacks
Pec flies
All 3x10-12 or failure

hopefully gyms will open Monday. I definitely prefer HIT and PL style training. If they don’t open I’ll do this one more week but I’d really like to see how the bench is moving and clean up the 140kg.

 

[Slowww]

Awesome! And yeah, the way adding mass impacts your flexibility is actually shocking if you neglect it long enough. I actually had serious knee issues for years because of that.

Man, you definitely know your stuff.

So I started out in kickboxing at 4 when my dad put me in. We watched the first UFC when I was in 3rd ('93) grade and were all amazed, of course. I wanted to train BJJ for years but didn't have access to a gym until I was like 19. At that point I started training, and it's been a blast since then.

I'm definitely still more of a striker, but I love grappling. I also enjoy how you don't have to hurt people in grappling, like, wrestling your buddies when you're all drinking just ends up being fun with no egos involved, lol. I'm 37 now and have a decent amount of experience, even had the pleasure of training with a couple top ten guys over at Jackson-Wink, one of my best friends is a high ranked pro, but my career path pulled me more in the corporate direction than combat. My little brother is an NCAA All American, and ungodly strong. I still train for short bursts just to keep everything sharp, but that just isn't my life currently.

Cool that’s a long time doing combat sports! Did you ever do any competitions? Makes sense about BJJ, I feel like it didn’t take off in America until well after other sports did, and even then just a decade ago it never had the same popularity it seems to be having now as a sport. When I first got into jujitsu In high school in the town i lived they had only 10th planet and some classes at a recreational Center. Sadly I could only afford the one at the rec Center at the time and I didn’t know what I was missing. Nowadays they’ve got schools all over the place.

That’s reasonable though, career or family can definitely take a front seat to sport sometimes even if it is something is a priority, just the way things work sometimes. I feel like the same thing happens to a lot of folks going from competing and training being a priority, to having to dial it back a bit as well just due to family life and so on. Jackson wink sounds like an awesome place to train. I never really got into training MMA, but that’s one of the places I’m sure everyone has heard about. Training with top atheletes or champions is also always a great experience and really feels like a sign of good progress haha. Some fond memories I have are getting to train and work in the clinch with a guy who recently got a one championship title, & fighters who did well in Lumphini before I had to leave Thailand due to covid/work things.

 

[Slowww]

Sunday: Legs
Weight: 101.2kg/ 222.65lbs
Dosing: T/NPP/HGH/ADEX

Had really bad sleep this week since starting lockdown. Acne is clearing up with accutane finally. Hopefully soon skin will back to normal, and the only side I really have to manage will be sleep hygiene.

 

[Slowww]

Forgot to mention, today started legs w/ BackSquat 3x8 175kg/ 385 lbs.
After one set at 175kg the weight starts moving pretty easy. Just the first set feels a bit heavier. Really excited to get some nice top sets at 200kg for hypertrophy soon.

 

[Slowww]

Monday: active rest (cardio)
Weight:100.7kg
Dosing: T/TREN

Have been feeling a bit demotivated with the lockdowns/ more tired than usual recently probably because many exercises are compounds with barbell. Too tired last night to get HGH dosed, barely had energy to cook and eat my 5 meals. Did some cardio and this helped a lot, really got my energy up despite feeling tired overall.

Weight gain is still progressing nicely

 

[Slowww]

Tuesday: shoulders/biceps
Weight: 98.7kg

(Last night water was shut off, had to replace two meals with dextrin and protein powder)
Always surprises me how fast I lose weight if I miss a meal. Gonna assume it’s because I didn’t have solid food in my stomach and slept in several extra hours when I hit the same macros. I Haven’t missed two meals in a day in the last 8 months.

Dosing: T/NPP/HGH

I will now start to add MK677 ED in order to get appetite ready for aggressive eating, since earlier this cycle I was experimenting about what timing/dosage since I never ran it with HGH or while using AAS. One pill AM fasted, should be fine. HGH is 10iu bolus fasted before bed. Tendonitis is manageable but still a definite side I experience at this dosage even with NPP.

I’ve felt pretty tired last week and am too lean for bulking for 8 months so. Visible abs etc, starting to get some very deep cuts in some parts of body veins on legs/ribs/calves appearing. Have some space to add calories.

I think the 10iu HGH and tren probably have been big reasons why I’m pretty much recomping and losing fat slowly while eating so much & gaining weight.

When gyms reopen coach will update diet and I will be eating more aggressively.

I want to push up to 105kg soon, so that I can really get to my target weight of 112kg/246lbs on my next blast, & be more conservative/health conscientious with my AAS/HGH use. I’ve still got a couple months left to hit 105 so I have no excuses not to get it.

 

[Slowww]

Wednesday: Back
Weight: 101kg
Dosing: T/NPP/MK/HGH/HCG/ADEX/LGBTQ+

Deadlifts
Rows
Pulldowns
Pulley rows
Rear delt flies

Fuck this tren is transforming into a little sleep demon. Got 2 hours of sleep last night. Mood was a dumpster fire until a couple hours of being awake. Sleep problem has got to the point where my wife brings up tren if I’m a bit of a dickhead in the morning. Says I knew this would happen so don’t be so annoyed about it, it’s my personal decision so deal with it. She is a class act through and through.

Honestly I don’t mind the insomnia, I just get so damned bored trying to fall asleep. I need to get some new books to pass the hours and keep my words/actions in check when I’m being a fucking sleep deprived gremlin in the morning.

Energy is totally fine today though and I don’t feel any fatigue or tiredness about heavy pulls however I feel a bit more anger today and really wish I had more plates at home to Grip&Rip some heavy singles.

 

[Slowww]

Thursday: chest/triceps
Dosing: T/NPP/HGH/MK/ADEX
Weight: 102.2 (new highest weight) going to assume I’m starting to hold water from MK677

Bench
Incline bench
Decline bench
Pec fly
Tricep pushdown
Overhead triceps extension
Kickbacks

 

[Slowww]

Fuck. It’s looking likely that gyms are going to remain closed next week if not two more.

I am pretty conflicted because I feel like I am getting good work in at home, I’m still gaining weight, and adding weight/reps on the bar but I feel like I could probably get higher quality workouts with fewer compound lifts as accessories at the gym in terms of hypertrophy/recovery.

I also cannot train my heavy deadlifts as I’m limited to 178kg that I can put on my bar and I can hit 10+ reps with this weight for several sets (conventional from dead stop), and I really want to build power to start getting a DDL that can be a bit more respectable in the powerlifting comp I will compete in during December. But I’m sure that just adding more muscle to my back is going to help anyways. A bit of a tough call.