Long Overdue Update

It's been awhile, but only since I've updated. I've actually continued to hit the gym, although I've been on a spit routine for the last five weeks rather than HST. Also, after taking a break from my diet for awhile (during which I put on a lot of fat), I'm back on low carb, but this time around I've tweaked it in that I'm eating a lot of slow absorption vegetables that allow me to stay in ketosis but still give me lots of good nutrients. I also have a cheat night once a week (I was kinda doing this before, but it was more like a cheat weekend, and that was too much cheating!) to give myself a break and keep my body from getting too comfortable with ketosis.

The split routine I'm doing now is:

Tuesday: Back and Biceps.
Wednesday: Shoulders, Calves and Abs
Thursday: Rest or cardio
Friday: Legs
Saturday: Chest and Triceps
Sunday: Rest or cardio
Monday: Rest or cardio

So far in the last five weeks I'm mostly rested on my days off because my legs usually need to heal, even on Thursdays because I kinda hit them hard on Mondays when I do Deadlifts for Back.

What I'm enjoying:

1. Getting leaner. It's slow, a little over a pound of bodyfat per week, but it's still nice.
2. Getting stronger in almost all my lifts.

On HST I was doing full body workouts three times a week, so I never really hit any one muscle group super hard, or I wouldn't be able to do my next workout two days later. On a split routine, you really put each muscle group through its paces, and while that was rough for the first two weeks (I was pretty damn sore), it's been awesome in terms of getting stronger. My favorites so far have been:

1. Dead Lift - I went from three sets (after a warm up) of 185 lbs. with 8 to 10 reps to 255 lbs. with 8 reps this last week. My goal when I started doing Deadlifts (around a year ago?) was to be able to train with my body weight, and now I've blown pass that, yay!

2. Squats - I went from training at 185 lbs. to training at 205 lbs. I'm going to be excited when I'm training at 225 lbs. because it just looks cool having two 45 lb. weights on each side of the bar :P Oh, and I discovered something recently that I wish I'd known before. It's better to squats with no shoes on so you are flat on the ground. My training shoes have a bit of a heel on them, which was causing me to want to lean too far forward during the later parts of my sets. Taking off my shoes allows me to stay more centered and focus on powering up instead of not leaning forward.

3. Leg Presses, and basically all the leg machines - These have been fun becuase I've been adding weight ever week like crazy! Like leg presses, I went from 6 45 lb. weights the first week to now using 11! Seated hamstring curls I went from 130 lbs. the first week to 205 lbs.

4. Biceps - These are getting stronger slowly. Not dramatic gains, but they look good and I'm adding a few pounds here and there.

Now the annoying areas:

1. Chest and Triceps - I just don't seem to be getting stronger with these. I keep trying to mix up the exercises to hit my muscles differently, but I don't feel like I'm getting stronger. The muscles look fine, I have no complaints about size, but I want to be benching 225 lbs. someday, and I'm no where close to that while training. I've been doing more incline sets recently to try and hit a different part of my muscles in the hopes of making some gains, but so far it's not doing much. I suspect my weak link is the triceps, which I'm working on too... hmmm... writing about it now I wonder if maybe my shoulder day is hitting the triceps too much and not allowing them to heal. This week perhaps I'll not do Arnold dumbbell raises on Shoulders day to see if that helps let them fully heal.

2. Calves - I get complements mine when I wear shorts, but I'm only doing 160 lbs. in the standing calf raises and 135 (three 45 lb. plates) on the seated calf raises. I saw a guy doing four 45 lb. plates last week, so that's my new goal (note: I rarely see people doing three plates like I do, but I still want to be stronger than I am and see gains).

3. Pull-ups - Man I just suck at these. I'm doing different grips now to try and work the muscles differently and allow for a break through. I suspect my weak link on this exercise is my biceps, so maybe as they get stronger (which they slowly have been), these will go better.

Dietary break-through! When I'm working out hardcore regularly I find myself teetering on the edge of getting cramps all the time. Increasing my vegetable intake helped, but even though I was taking a potassium supplement once a day, I was still getting cramps if I worked out hard for more than a couple of days in a row, or even sometimes if I took a day break here and there. Then I noticed the RDA of the potassium supplement... 3%. That's it? I was worried about taking more than one out of concern of taking to much but 3%?!? So I started taking about 10 per day to get up to 30% of my RDA and that has helped a LOT! Now I only get muscle cramps rarely, which is nice.

So yeah, things are going well. I'll try to get on here to track my progress.