Carb Backloading and Training Update

Screw Carb Backloading, it sucks balls and I want to stab it in the eye with a fork! I gave it a run and everything was great: I was pigging out every night, I was dropping fat, my energy was up and I was having some solid gym sessions. But man...as soon as school started up, it began to look like an intermittent fasting protocol and I started to feel like shit.

"grab a fork and make the first attack...lights out"

I really am happy with the backloading system, but it just wasn't working out for ME due to MY schedule and MY unwillingness to spend the extra time cooking and packing food. I live in a remote part of the Philippines and can't just pick up a tub of protein from GNC at the mall after work, so it's a lot of cooking and dining out for me. Sometimes you just need to make adjustments on the fly. So at this point, I'm just doing my no diet-diet. It's pretty simple; just eat like a normal human and do your best to make wise decisions.

To compensate for that added stress of school, I gutted my whole program after my last cycle. Man...that last cycle and plowing thru all of those heavy doubles during exams really, really sucked ass. I was so happy when I finally wrapped up the last session. Now I'm back to my “go to” program. I scaled down my assistance work to the “bare bones” essential movements and nothing more. I took maxes for my assistance lifts and then cut the start weight to 50%, and programmed them for increases. I also cut my training maxes pretty deep (20%).

My TITANIC ego is taking a major beating right now with all of the weight cuts, but I know I'm being smart about it and it'll pay off down the road. Everything feels light and easy (and) I know that I'll be able to roll past the new year strong without stalling. Side note: isn't it funny how the new year usually represent a goal line for people like “us” (and) a starting line for everyone else?

Yeah, that's about the right size.

School in the Philippines: Culturally Biased Tests (weird stuff)

I'm pursuing a 2^nd degree here in the Philippines and this semester I was required to retake Sociology for some reason...I guess because the course name was a little different. I took “Intro to Sociology” back in the day and the required class for my degree here is called “General Sociology with Family”. It's pretty much “same shit/same smell” in my opinion, but they let me slide on several other classes, so I just bit the bullet and rolled with it. For me it's really a sociology/anthropology class and has some value because I'm re-learning the same thing from a different perspective.

Furious Styles knew about that culturally biased testing shit back in the day!

So we had prelims this week and I did okay, but the Sociology test was actually the most difficult; not because the material was complex, but because the questions were presented from a completely different viewpoint. A whole bunch of shit was weird to me, but I'm going to throw out this example.

Anomic and Egoistic suicide: Now the simple definitions are as follows:

Anomic Suicide: Something happens in you life where you end up with a shitload of freedom and you basically don't know how to act, because the rules all relax over night. The example in the book is a dude that hits the lottery and can just do what he wants.

Egoistic suicide: You feel cut off, alone, isolated and detached from the community,  so you kill yourself.

The question on the test was something like this: (majorly paraphrasing)....Your parents kick the bucket and you're all alone to make your own way in the world, so you off yourself. What kind of suicide is this according to Durkheim?

I'm thinking...”Shit..if Mom and Dad kicked the bucket I'd feel alone and disconnected...it's obviously egoistical, right?

Not so fast Skippy/ Rickey!

RICKEY!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a matching test and Egoistic suicide isn't and option...and Anomic Suicide is the only match in the category, so I verified with the teacher that my test paper was correct. So...yep...strange to me or not, that's how they roll here. Loss of parents would represent sudden freedom, as opposed to feelings of isolation because they are gone. Makes sense?

"They punched the clock on ol' Rick!"

Lazy Guy Programming

I'm probably the laziest mother fucker on the planet when it comes to programming. I use some common sense when I plug in assistance work, but I also REALLY try to minimize plate loading and moving around in the gym when I write my programming. I'm more of a camper guy...I like to unpack my shit, plant my ass in one place and go to work.

Just a leftover photo of Elisabeth Shue that never made it from my CPU to a previous post. My gift to you...lord have mercy....

I was at Pizza Hut yesterday pounding my post workout meal, and thinking about my session and thought...Damn...I didn't leave the rack for an hour and a half and still probably made 10X the progress of everyone else in the gym. To the untrained eye, I just mindlessly squatted for an hour or so. But in reality, I did my work sets and 2 assistance movements: I worked up to a heavy double (maximal strength work...check!), did 4X3 pause squats (addressed my weak spot out of the hole with some dynamic type work...check!), and did 5x10 burn outs at 50% (hypertrophy work to increase my strength ceiling and some extra grove work...check!).

Now I'm 30 minutes out of the gym and everything's pretty fried: quads, hams, glutes, abs, lower back, upper back, and erectors. I'm ravenously hungry and systemically trashed...so what the fuck else do I need to do? I didn't dick about moving all around the gym and I didn't have to load any plates after my top double, because after that I just stripped weight. Now that's what I call training economy.

I do the same crap every session whenever possible. Deadlift day for example; pull, stiff legs, and shrugs. It amounts to the same thing: I do my heavy pulling from the floor, strip it down for stiff legs, then use about the same weight for high rep shrugs. I hit the main movement, hit the assistance I think drives my deadlift, and never leave the platform. Now that's lazy man thinking right there!

FYI: here's my current schedule:

Day 1: Squats, pause squats, high rep squats
Day 2: Chins, abs (at home)
Day 3: Deads, SLD, shrugs
Day 4: Bench, press, row

That small home session floats with the bench session depending on my schedule and when I'm in town. I'm not even close to dead set on a schedule. I hit it when I can, but it usually works out to be every other day or so, and I try to squeeze in lighter daily conditioning. Conditioning everyday? Yeah...why not, a few sets of burpees or skips aren't going to infringing on recovery. Just gotta be smart and go easy.

"Go get big, strong and lazy"