The Day After

Good lord yesterday's workout kicked my ass hard! The lunges especially have left me pretty damn sore today. I can only hope that I'll recover enough to do HST Day 2 tomorrow.

I was slightly in ketosis last night when I checked, but this morning it looks like I didn't quite make it. If I wasn't sore, I'd have hit the gym and probably managed to get there, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. I'll check again tonight, and maybe day two of low carb will get me there, but if I do Day 2 of HST, I can pretty much guarantee I'll be in ketosis again as it will burn off any remaining glucose I have stored.

Strategic Deconditioning, HST Day 1 and Low-Carb

After a week on vacation in Seattle and Whistler Canada, basically my version of Strategic Deconditioning but with a lot of Snowboarding thrown in, I hit the gym this morning for Day 1 of HST. Ouch.

I've adjusted my lifting schedule so that the exercises I got stronger in were heavier, and overall, I've adjusted almost all my lifts from 5% down each day from my max to 4%. The result of this was that on Day 1 my work-out was intense, and on some of the lifts I barely managed to do my required 15 reps. I'm hoping the later is because it's day 1 and my muscles really are deconditioned, but if I find over the next few HST days that I can't do 15, I'll probably need to recalibrate my schedule and start over.

I start back on low-carb today as well. Have two pounds of roasted turkey from Costco thawed in the fridge and ready to go, while the woman is prepared to cook me low carb meals again for the next six weeks. Fun!

Totally put on weight during my vacation, hopefully a good portion of it water. Weigh-in this morning was back up to 238 :(

Final Day Before Vacation

Weighed in at 131.5 lbs. I'm thinking that I might be a bit heavier today despite still being in ketosis and not having eaten enough yesterday because I was either more hydrated this morning (or less dehydrated after my workout, which was less intense than my lifting days) or because my muscles are still pumped up from yesterday's lifting (which also means more water). Anyway, a little over a pound a week over the last six weeks is not a bad run. I just have to do this three or four more times :P

HST 17 & 18

Finished up yesterday with my max 5 rep weights, and discovered a few where a little too light, but most were just about right. Also did what I believe was a personal best 205 lb squat at 5 reps. My right wrist complained on my 195 bench and I couldn't do my reverse wrist exercises/lifts at all because of the injury in my right hand (which I think is the same as the wrist one). Bummer.

I may just jump back into HST again now, but we'll see...

Final weight over the last two weigh-ins: 231 lbs

Not bad. Now I'm off for a vacation to Seattle and Whistler in Vancouver!

HST 16 and low carb

Somehow I missed a day in there... not sure when, but it must have been in the last couple of weeks as things have gotten quite busy at work. Anyway, today was day 16 and I made it through, although I have to say it started out slow. I didn't have a lot of drive to power through my lifts until towards the end. The lifts are getting heavier, so they are harder, but you don't always feel ready to do lifts unless you've warmed up with lighter weights. By the second half of my work out I was definitely warmed up and things felt good, but... well, I just didn't have as much power today for some reason. Anyway, about two hours after the work out I did a ketone test and it was redder than I've ever seen one. I was in super-duper ketosis, that despite having a couple bits of pancakes at breakfast a few beers last night. I guess whatever glucose I had was burned off during the work out (they are getting pretty intense now that the weights are within 10-15% of my max five reps).

Anyway, 5 minute elliptical machine warm up, followed by lifts, including continued extra sets on the seated cable pull-up machine, then I did two minutes of jump-roping, one minute of jumping jacks and finally 10 minutes on the bike.

Weight-in - 233.5 with very damp cotton t-shirt but nylon shorts

HST Day 13 and 14

Good workouts, obviously getting heavier and harder. I'm really feeling them in my muscles the next day now. Haven't been doing front squats because I don't think legs can take it, but have been doing seated pull-ups to hit lats more than one set of assisted pull-ups seems to be doing.

Fell off low-carb for almost a week, but back on.

Day 13 - 236.5
Day 14 - 234.5 back in ketosis (clearly water-weight)

HST Day 11 and 12

Monday's HST workout was okay. I cheated hardcore on lowcarb this weekend with Beer, Burgers, Nachos, Ice Cream and Cookies, so by Monday morning I actually felt kinda crappy... who knew that junk food sometimes makes you feel bad? Anyway, despite the large amounts of carbs, I was feeling a bit lethargic and unmotivated, but I made it through anyway. I could still feel the workout on Tuesday, so I didn't go to the gym, and I realized I was low on potassium because some of my muscles came close to cramping up a few times, so I picked up a bottle of the the stuff from Wallgreens.

Today, day 12 was my last day of 10's and I'd say about half the exercises were challenging... I should pull up my graph and go through them now before I forget... okay, in reviewing them, there are actually few exercises where I maxed out at 10 reps, but most were at least challenging, and doing them quickly back to back is definitely a pump. It's also fun because the weights are finally starting to get respectable as I'm starting to approach my max weights. It will be interesting to see if any of my max 5 weights have gone up or down.

I capped my workout off with 10 front barbell squats with two 25 lb weights on a full barbell (total 95 lbs), which is up 30 pounds from my workout on Monday, and it felt good. I'm going to keep adding weight to this exercise and figure out where my max is, but I don't want to rush it because I want to A) let my body adjust to the new exercise (tendons and such need to be allowed to grow stronger) and B) I want to make sure my form remains good.

I also added a seated pull-up exercise to both work-outs (been doing this for awhile), doing 160 on Monday and 170 today.

After my weekend of debauchery I weighed in at 138!
But today I weighed in at 134