Week 1 Update and Notes
Week 1
A few things to remember:
I am not - and never really have - taken progress photos. Here’s why:
If I like what I see, the plan doesn’t change but it creates an emotional peak. On either side of peak is always a valley.
If I don’t like what I see, the plan doesn’t change but it creates an emotional valley.
I do think getting into the habit of taking progress pictures is valuable to people new to the process. It will help you see the changes you’re making over time and can help keep you motivated.
Most of my photos are someone else grabbing a photo or, more likely, a still shot from video. Again, I’m lazy.
General Activity Schedule:
Sunday: Hike or climb with Mike and Jason
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Gym
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Gym
Friday: Train (Martial arts and weapons) with Mike and Jason
Saturday: Gym
Week 1:
Total Time In The Gym For The Week: 70 minutes
Sunday:
Hike up to “The Flag” - 60 minutes total
Monday: Rest
Tuesday:
1 Set:
Chest Fly Superset with
Incline Bench
1 Set:
Straight-arm pulldown superset with
Reverse grip pulldowns
1 Set:
Chest Supported Row
(This was planned to be deadlift, but changed it once I realized the whole strength thing. Given the current level of strength, it would take me 7-10 days to recover from a real set of deadlifts - so swapped it out for something that requires far less resources to recover from).
Principles:
Resource allocation.
Restraint.
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday:
1 Set:
Leg Extensions superset with
Leg Press
1 Set:
Lying Leg Curls
Friday:
Train (Martial arts and weapons) with Mike and Jason
Saturday:
1 Set:
Lateral Raises superset with
Read felt machine reverse fly
1 Set:
Straight bar bicep curls superset with
Reverse grip pulldowns
1 Set:
Tricep pushdowns superset with
Dips
You’ll notice I went full Mike Mentzer this week. That wasn’t the plan but it was by design.
The plan is what we expect the path to be given what we know, the design can be more fluid. For example, I realized on the first day that I retained MUCH more of my strength than I had thought.
The plan was to do 2-3 sets of each to gauge how much strength I currently have and “ease” into a higher intensity.
The design of the methodology is to decrease sets as strength goes up.
So when strength is higher than the plan expected, the sets will decrease by design.
Hope that makes sense.
You’ll also noticed I am not including my reps. I am happy to share the methodology behind it, but blindly following someone else’s set and reps would be the ANTITHESIS of this whole thing.
You should NOT swipe my workout because it’s mine.
You’re welcome to, but…
The point of this whole thing is to use principles to figure out what works best for you.
From a concept/principle perspective, here’s what I recommend for bodybuilding stuff:
Philosophy: Mike Mentzer
Mechanics: Ben Pakulski
If you start to adopt some Mentzer philosophy and learn Pakulski mechanics, you’ll probably get better results than you’re getting now.
Additional notes:
I have no idea what my weight is doing right now and I don’t care…
Its going to flux because new stimulus will create inflammation and all that jazz, so the day to change isn’t really informative to me at this point
My calories are still fluctuation due to events, so even if I knew my weight, it wouldn’t matter because I don’t have control over the lever (food) that would influence or change it.
Frequency of exposure, again.
I am truly shocked at how much strength I’ve retained and how much better my joins feel than they have in the past.
The new methodology requires significantly less cognitive resources than what I’ve done in the past. I So much so, that I think people will struggle with how simple (not easy, but simple) it is.
I also believe this method would help/be more important for women than for men. We have a preponderance of data that suggests that would be the case. I will probably never test it because I’m lazy and I’m not about to try and convince some woman to try something and then have to pay attention/track/etc. Happy to discuss why I believe this is the case another time.
Tangentially related:
Women work so much harder than men do in the gym. All the dudes are so busy trying to figure out who can see them, the women are running circles around them in the “getting shit done” department.
That’s all for now, folks.
Nic