Pikey's progress

Pikey

Sorry yes it would normally be although by EPH I meant a variant EPH 25 which is Ephidira (If I’ve spelt that correctly), caffeine and white willow extract (which is a natural variant of aspirin) I find this more effective than straight Ephedrine which always makes me feel decidedly odd and I get a metallic taste in my mouth after a couple of hours. Where as this stuff gives me a slight buzz and suppresses the appetite a bit.

Just give a quick update, I seem to have improved quite a bit over the weekend, finally got round to taking the hair of my legs, as usual quads are well in front of the rest of me condition wise with striations all over. Now why don’t I look like that everywhere ;-)
I’ve previously dropped protein drinks all but post workout at week 6, I’m going to keep them in the diet this week and take a look at the weekend as I think I tend to drop a lot of muscle in the last few weeks which I can ill afford to do.

Shattered today and got another early start and drive to Bristol and back tomorrow so living out of the cool box as usual...

Pikey

Well usual chaos on the motorways yesterday ended up in a queue on the M42 where it joins the M6 while a caravan was removed from the central reservation and again on the M1 where a truck had lost a load of big rolls of what looked like brown paper, but in a round about kid of way worked for me as I was able to keep all meals bang on schedule still 8 hours driving for a 45 minute meeting isn’t ideal. Managed to have a snooze before the gym and then had a Cracking arm workout only about 8 sets for triceps and 6 for biceps but they where mullered, very intense and enjoyable, feeling good as my abs where showing through my vest and my arms where well pumped.

Woke up in a good frame of mind, managed 8 hours sleep and only woke up twice, normally once dieting it’s every 1 ½ hours needing a pee, I’ve dropped 600 grams yesterday which judging my condition it is fluid. As I said the other day I’m keeping the diet constant at the minute while it’s working I’m reluctant to change anything

Right off for a shower and a shave then work… Quads tonight… Leg day love it!

Pikey

Yesterday I started the day feeling great, mainly due to a good nights sleep, I normally wake every hour and a half or so but more or less slept through, then I trained Quads…

Warmup then 3 working sets on reverse hacks, toes over the back of the plate, these were twenty rep sets, the first set was pretty straight forward with the last 3 reps being hard, the second was first ten reps ok then one lot of 4 and 2 of 3 by that I mean I was just pausing at the top of the rep and taking a deep breath at 10th 14th 17th etc, felt very hard and I started to feel dizzy and sick, then the third set which was about the first seven smooth a couple of two or 3 stints and then from about 12 a pause between each rep, stars in front of my eyes by now and feeling decidedly light headed.
Quads with a reel deep pump too
Second exercise was leg press on a vertical carriage with a sled that raises toes up, this really throws the intensity into the lower quad area, two sets to positive failure, something over 20 reps each set – can’t really remember properly as was a bit jaded by now –
Then 3 sets of triple drop on leg extensions each rep squeeze at the top and lower as slow as I could last set to negative failure – properly in a bad way by now, dinner was wanting to say hello
To finish two sets of walking lunges, only light dumbbells at this point and the pump went so I expect that means Glycogen depleted which wasn’t really where I wanted to be.

Sat down a while and had some amino’s and some fruit juice to get some glycogen back in, once I felt half way ok drove home…

H is an absolute star and had chopped up some veg when I got in, so I cooked 500 gram of Turkey mince with onions and peppers as H had already boiled off 125gram of brown basmati, I chucked it in with the mince etc and whacked some black pepper in, I didn’t bother sorting the weight out and just had a nice plate full and crashed on the settee.
I went to bed about half nine, around midnight I woke up ravenous so went and finished the rest of the Turkey mince etc.

I’ve put about a pound on overnight but I think that’s down to the carbs so late on, I can’t see a negative impact on condition and quads, hams and Glutes are aching nicely. I still feel drained so might have a slight reefed today. Not having dieted loads I’m still on a steep learning curve so am always hesitant to refeed even though I know it’s the thing to do…

Tall

ha ha - thats a proper workout mate!

Do you ever go slightly deaf temporarily after an intense session...?? I get that sometimes...

Pikey

Normally when I’ve gone way beyond I get bright lights in my eyes and feel dizzy, I've never gone deaf but expect it just the brain complaining in another way. I have been known to throw up, at one time this was a regular occurrence –
As a kid just starting out I’d read a book and articles by the Barbarian twins John and David Paul, I think, …They advocated some rather extreme principals to training…being young and impressionable I though that sounded like the thing to do.

I used to have a terrible habit of holding my breath through the positive phase of heavy squats which burst capillaries in my face and Lord knows where else and I’ve passed out a couple of times too, thankfully in a power rack while squatting or with good spotters.

I’m a lot older and a little wiser now, I train hard but realise when enough is enough - last thing I need is another injury, one Pec looking like the dog’s chewed it is quite enough for me…

Pikey

Decided to have a marginal reefed today and see what happens so I’m going to go for 300gram complex carbs, using oats and rice. I had my second lot of 100 gram of oats in water with some vanilla protein mix which ends up a tasty mess at about 1400 and will go for another at 1700 then this evening 300gram of turkey mince and 100gram Basmati rice so not quite 300.

Not totally on thread but as I'm excited about it …
I needed to feel good as in alert as I’ve picked up my new bike today and it’s got a lot more grunt than the old one. So not gone mad and been out all day as I didn’t want to miss meals and not fair on H, as its forward controls and drag bars etc I wanted to get used to it before I had H sat on the back...

We’re going to go to Cineworld tonight, bit of a domestic ;-) I fancy Superbad and H recons it’s going to be puerile humour (that’s me) and prefers the look of 1408… but I might get scared… We’ll watch 1408 as she puts up with enough with the diet …

Tomorrow H is running Robin Hood half, I feel bad about not going but want to get a good cardio session in.

Back on thread...

Next week I’m going to cut carbs by about 35 grams per day across meal 3 and 7, and see what happens for a few days.
I’ve started having a couple of sun showers this week and will have a couple per week . I’m also trying some Pharminex Melanotan bloody hell does that sting or what! I seem to be tanning up fast and I’m not sure if this is typical but I’ve been sleeping much better than usual.
I’m at that point where I think I’m on track – the bloke looking back at me from the mirror looks a bit drawn and not a lot like me but not experienced enough to be 100% sure.

Pikey

Thought I’d give a quick update, I ended up with 340gram of carbs yesterday, all clean stuff as I said mainly Basmati and oats although I did have 200gram of baked spud. It’s worked nicely and I got the results I’d hoped for, I look fuller this morning and haven’t lost any definition so quite pleased with that, I haven’t jumped on the scales because as I’ve said before its too easy for me to get obsessed with that and being a NABBA show I’m not aiming for a weight class.

I usually have about an hour lay in bed and get up at 6:30 at the weekend, I got up with H this morning as she’s got a half marathon. Made her a nice stack of American pancakes, when she was eating them with bananas and maple syrup I was salivating still egg whites aren't so bad and I always enjoy oats with water. And no I didn't have any but it was very tempting when I was breaking the ones she didn't eat up for the dogs (so they don't swallow them whole and perform the usual trick of bringing em back up onto the carpet and then chewing them, Bullies what characters they are)..Then watched the Brach Warren DVD wow that man has some muscle, maybe not the most aesthetic physique out there but for pure density especially his legs…II could pick any look and flick a switch that’s what I’d like to look like … If only hey.

Plan of attack today is go and do some cardio, I normally do it before I eat but will be better than not doing it apart from anything else the dogs are a bit hyper if they don’t get a good run round, then I think off for a sun shower .
Going back to my usual regime food wise today.

sunnymaster

like your tattoo very much

Pikey

Cheers, I assume you mean the tribal work on my left shoulder / upper arm – it’s a stylised war mask… I’ll have to work out how to post a decent sized picture up as my favourite is the fantasy dragon on my back – doesn’t do much for the muscle definition though...

I’m toying with having more but don’t think they’re helping with the competitions as it is, as I tend to like big pieces.

Pikey

32 days out now and things are beginning to bite. Couldn’t parallel park for the life of me yesterday and I could fall out with my shadow

Had a nice bit of feedback in a roundabout way several of the faces in the gym think I’ve grown significantly in the last few weeks, so the gossip is what’s he using….
Of course it couldn’t have anything to do with training or diet…
My upper arms have put some size on as have my quads but in the main as the muscle separation is better it looks like I have when I have a vest on.

That said I weighed myself this morning for the first time in a week and wished I hadn’t, I’ve managed to put 2.5K on over the week whilst dieting. I’ve been carb cycling and generally shifting things around and just going on how I look and feel. The reason I wished I hadn’t is I can’t help questioning how I’m putting weight on and didn’t I ought to be loosing it….?

Still going to keep cycling the carbs for a while and see what happens, I’m positive that I’m carrying more muscle than I have previously at 32 days out and that I am at least as lean.
Previously I’ve survived on 130gram a day for weeks at a time, which I think has taken way to much muscle off.

We’ve changed the training around this week
Monday Chest
Tuesday Arms and Calves
Wednesday Legs
Thursday Back and Shoulders
Friday Monday’s workout

Cardio is still at an hour per day. Toying with the idea of training twice a day but this will mean dropping the early morning cardio and I’m not sure that it’s the right thing to do. Will see how I’m looking at the weekend.