Someone asked, why am i not posting any arm routine.

well because there's none. i don't do them. unless i have some spare time before needing to go back and get ready for work. but most of the time, meh.

still bigger than most of the curlbros at least.

Week 12 of cut (well first 2 weeks didn't go well).

Decided to try deloading for the week. everything reduced by 10-20% (working set). though set count remains the same but rep count increased from 5-8 to 8-12, except for deadlift maintaining it at 5 reps.

This post has been edited by axtray: Sep 28 2016, 08:35 PM

Current stats from the last bodyshot post.

Drop 1 kg, 82 to 81kg. All the lifts still remain the same thankfully.

too skinny la bro.... bulk bulk bulk

Lol next year definitely. Now just focusing to get as lean as possible but maintaining the strength gain during the bulk. If lucky, maybe even increase abit.

That remaining bit of fat on the stomach is a bitch. Even at my lowest weight last year (72-73 kg), the love handles at the side were still there, annoyingly.

Understand the feeling. I was abt like u also 93kg-70kg. Ppl always say i m sick.... Wtf... Now im slowly bulking. Dont wanna miss the newbie gain 'train'. Approximately 1 year left if broscience of 2 years newbie gain stands true lol

lol not sure where i'm at for that broscience. since was lifting haphazardly. only last year started going seriously.

i screwed up my bulk by 1) reducing the workout days from 6 to 5 (because of ramadhan) and 2) maintaining the same volume of food (was at about 4k calories). gained unnecessary belly fat for nothing. still pretty disappointed until now.

go for it dude. the goal is 1/2/3/4. if you've achieved this, congrats man.

3 more months until the cut deadline. and so far since starting the cut (around early Jul), lost about 4 kg. however the abs are generally alot more visible. but the veins around the chest has yet to popped like when was at 75-76kg. so long way to go sadly.

Another problem is i love my food too much and don't think can do what I did last year, hitting 2.3-2.5k calories everyday. so still maintaining at 2.8-3k.

Because of that, decided to ram up the workout intensity for the remaining months starting last weekend. Adding 2-3 additional workouts for each major body parts. So now each day session, gonna have approximately 45-50 sets total.

Workout principle still remains the same, 5-6 reps for main heavy compound and 8-10 for isolations or lighter compounds.

Happy to say that strength still remains the same for all major lifts. Squat form, managed to push the same weight for the last 2 consecutive session pretty comfortably. usually will have 1 good and then the next 1-3 sessions will be bad. Hopefully will finally fix this issue once and for all soon.

This post has been edited by axtray: Oct 12 2016, 03:04 PM

shoulders and legs

Military standing barbell shoulder press.

still manage to push 67.5 kg 3 set of 1. then 65 kg for 3 sets of 2 before dropping again to 60 kg for a few sets of 5 and then 55 kg for a few sets of 6-7 reps). though felt like going to die. not sure if the extra volume of the diet has finally starting to affect the strength.

for the legs, 3rd consecutive session and felt pretty good. still pushed the same weight (up to 120kg) for the same amount of sets and reps. and this is after completing all the shoulder routines. so am actually pretty happy with this.

From the recent sessions, can safely conclude won't be getting any stronger during the cut. was fun seeing the numbers going up, shoulder presses especially.

Chest - so far managed to maintain the same weight for all the workouts sessions.

Back - deadlift actually improved. managed to get an additional rep on the last set. However starting to struggle with the last few sets of bent over rows.

Shoulders - already starting to struggle to push the 1RM for the barbell standing shoulder military press. But for seated DB shoulder press, still managing the same weight for the same sets and reps. The rest of the isolations still going strong.

Legs - for now still pushing the same weight pretty comfortably. The isolations on the other hand (quad curls etc) actually had improvements.

This post has been edited by axtray: Oct 19 2016, 06:32 PM

push exercises started to suffer as of late. especially the OHP. not only progress had completely stalled, but now can't push the PR weight for 2 reps anymore. sad

on the plus side, squat has been pretty consistent. not sure if the goblins are all gone now, but putting alot of emphasize on the warmup did pay off. the negative side, by the time the weight hits 110 and 120kg, pretty spent already. yea, so not very optimal for now. but still happy that the sets finally includes weight above 100kg (as compared to last time, only happens like on a reallly good day only)

and today of all day, still pretty sick (since 2 days ago) but still decided to go to the gym anyway. shoulder focused and legs day (means hit all the shoulder workouts first and the only hit the legs). Felt pretty damn bad when started the squat but still managed to finish everything. at the end, decided to try 130kg, and lol failed. managed to push it halfway only.

damn the 3 pl8 dream will probably have to wait till next year when the bulk starts again.

This post has been edited by axtray: Oct 27 2016, 06:57 PM

Just reconfirmed today that the 80 pounds seated db shoulder press for 2 last 2 weeks wasn't a fluke. This is also after completing the 5 sets of 5 at 32 kg, 3 reps @ 34 kg.

The only thing is, shoulder performance seems to be inverse to the squat performance. Struggling to replicate the performance again. F*ck me.

This post has been edited by axtray: Nov 20 2016, 11:58 AM

As much as i am ashamed to admit, the cut this time was a total disaster. Totally lacking self control with food. Even though did lose quite abit of fat gained during the bulk, but I'm not as lean as I'm hoping to be sadly

Since this is already the last day of November, I am restarting the effort for December. 30 days cut challenge.

This post has been edited by axtray: Nov 30 2016, 05:17 PM

Shoulders and legs yesterday. Broke PR 3 times for dem squats. Damn it felt good. Especially when on a much stricter diet regime.

Only had an hour for the workout since had to rush somewhere.

Shouders, did the usual ohp (60kg 5x5) and then a 60 kg 2x2 with 5 second tempo (up and down).

Then did side lateral raise as accessories.

For legs got itchy to try 1rm since 120kg felt pretty easy. Managed to push 125, 130 and 135 surprisingly. 5 kg more to 140 kg goal.

Overall, was expecting the workout to suck for the weekend due to the strict diet. But what a surprise.

I know I'm on a cut and all. But it's seriously annoying to see the deadlift stalling when other lifts are improving

How do you maintain bench press strength during a cut? Do you change your training routine? I find that if I try to cut some weight, I regress on bench press, stall on squat but actually improve on deadlift.

i did read somewhere last time that when you're on cut, its very normal for pushing movements to get weaker first as compared to pulling. so yea, pressings, squats etc the lot. reason, if im not mistaken something to do with we're more used to pulling movements on with our normal daily life as compared to pushing. so the pushing strength are the first to go thanks to that.

for my case, i don't think i do anything special. low rep counts for compounds, high for isolations. training fasted. maybe its just lack of focus i guess due to low energy which is the very reason why cutting sucks.

How much of a deficit are you going for? I believe when cutting it's best to reduce training volume and increase intensity, training to increase maximal strength. But I have no experience to back that up though. I've been recomping/permabulking since day 1.

hm deficit, there are weeks that i think i was on maintenance 3000-3100 while most are around 2800-2900. and the very reason why my cut didn't go very well this time sadly

though i maintained the exact routine i did for my bulk, even increased most of the set counts from 3 to 5 and occasionally 6.

Decided to raise the white flag for my cut. not gonna bother to do it until end of the month as initially planned. apart from lots of things going on around this time of the month (team dinner, water disruption etc) which i would love to use as the excuse, been lacking discipline espcially over the weekend with SO.

Good thing is, gonna start bulking much earlier than planned. and this time, gonna last for a good 5-6 months which just gonna be 300-500 surplus over maintenance as opposed to last time, which was around 4000-4100 calories.

training intensity gonna remain the same. 6 days a week combining both strength and hypertrophy.

bodyweight goal, need to raise the weight to at least 87-88kg but this time, the abs are staying. hopefully when i start cutting again, can get decently lean at 84 kg which has been the goal weight with fully visible abs.

lesson learnt that bulking during the fasting month was a mistake. so this time gonna make sure that the cut slots in just nicely during the month.

lifting goals, 1/2/3/4. achieved 1 and 2 for both overhead and benchpresses. now gonna focus on squat and deadlifts. by the end of the bulk, hopefully can start repping those weights for at least 3-5 reps easy. would be awesome if can ohp bodyweight too.

This post has been edited by axtray: Dec 21 2016, 11:37 PM