NaterMania

You're good at hyping these things up, Sliz. I'm looking forward to the results and (eventual) explanations!

Patrick Smith said:

You're good at hyping these things up, Sliz. I'm looking forward to the results and (eventual) explanations!

Am I? Good

I am a bit nervous, I have no way to know whether any of this will pan out or not. Will know in 7 days... Can't hide from the truth.

All right. At the end of the day, on a stomach full of Pho two hours after eating, I weigh 214.8 (average of 4 weighings) measured in at 6.92% bodyfat according to 7 site measurement (according to averages of 2 separate skin fold measurements at each site... they were all very similar, half were identical and half were .5mm different, with one being a full mm different). My mind is officially blown. I thought I was 10.5-11%. I knew I was lean, but damn. Since that can be off by up to 1.1% apparently it is fair to say that I am between 7 and 8%.

I was a dehydrated 212 this morning, so these are probably very honest measurements. The percentage came out the same with both weights.

Lean mass is 197.3 lbs with 212 and 199 lbs with 214.8 as the weight. We now have our baseline.

Kick off for the case study is in 9 hours. I am nervous, but ready. I will provide daily updates, but measurements won't be taken again until Jan 1st.

I'm nervous too, lol. Way to make Christmas stressful for us!

Patrick Smith said:

I'm nervous too, lol. Way to make Christmas stressful for us!

I know, but my next chance won't be until spring break and then my girlfriend will probably be in town, and I would hate to waste a week of vacation when she is around!

Well, today had some interruptions but overall the first day has gone well. It's still going, won't be over until 1 or 2 am because I started at 10 am today, will sleep 6-7 hours tonight and start the days at 8am from here on out.

Everything feels great, still 212 which as I guessed is my more proper weight. I haven't been hydrating as well as I need to.

Well, I am rehydrating and so far I am noticing that my traps are showing much more separation between the four sections. I have been, and will continue to, focus heavily on trap work but significant progress has been made today. The scaption lifts with 4.5 lbs are getting a bit too easy, will probably go to 5 lbs tomorrow.

Front squats are at 175 right now and are very easy, so tomorrow I will probably progress through the weight up to 190-195.

Deadlifts are staying at 225 because I can feel my hamstring is still not healed.

I have made some discoveries regarding trap healing and retraining that will contradict a bit of what I have said about maintaining a hollow body in the past, because I am finding that for the initial retraining and direct prehab work that it is actually important to maintain an arched back, especially the upper back and neck. This is making a visible difference as well as feeling much, much better and more specific.

Some limitations are my arm, which prevents me from using weighted pull ups in this case study to full effect... I would tear something. Kind of unfortunate, but I can do yewkis, front pulls, and so on which makes me happy. They feel great and are getting significantly stronger.

So far so good.

Arm is feeling better, so is hamstring. Obviously not miraculously healed or anything, but significantly better.

Scaption lifts are up to 5.5 lbs, and there is a visible increase in back definition, particularly in the trap region but also in the lats.

Over all I feel good.

slizzardman said:

Arm is feeling better, so is hamstring. Obviously not miraculously healed or anything, but significantly better.

Scaption lifts are up to 5.5 lbs, and there is a visible increase in back definition, particularly in the trap region but also in the lats.

Over all I feel good.

Hey slizz glad to hear you are doing good. I have a few questions for you.

Do you need some upfront money to get your site going sooner? I would be interested.

Would you be able to make a video of all these new scap lifts your doing? and what your doing to build scap, infrasp, suprasprint, and teres major and minor?

Are you still using the tone-o-matic? Would you be using that to build strength also?

Could you do a short video of what your doing to develop the muscles for a no lean muscle up and iron cross? I have access to a free-motion machine with dual weight stacks.

Are you still doing iso's and extreme iso's?

What do you think of dexa body fat test?

Would bands be superior to a 4 way neck machine for neck training?

Are you still taking 100,000 iu of vitamin d3 a week?

sorry for so many questions in your log, just want to do things right the first time lol

Thanks

:shock: ....wow.

mikelmarion said:

slizzardman said:

Arm is feeling better, so is hamstring. Obviously not miraculously healed or anything, but significantly better.

Scaption lifts are up to 5.5 lbs, and there is a visible increase in back definition, particularly in the trap region but also in the lats.

Over all I feel good.

Hey slizz glad to hear you are doing good. I have a few questions for you.

Do you need some upfront money to get your site going sooner? I would be interested.

Would you be able to make a video of all these new scap lifts your doing? and what your doing to build scap, infrasp, suprasprint, and teres major and minor?

Are you still using the tone-o-matic? Would you be using that to build strength also?

Could you do a short video of what your doing to develop the muscles for a no lean muscle up and iron cross? I have access to a free-motion machine with dual weight stacks.

Are you still doing iso's and extreme iso's?

What do you think of dexa body fat test?

Would bands be superior to a 4 way neck machine for neck training?

Are you still taking 100,000 iu of vitamin d3 a week?

sorry for so many questions in your log, just want to do things right the first time lol

Thanks

In order:

Maybe, but the biggest issue is time and I am not going to have much of that.

Videos will definitely go on the site, as well as explanations of why they are important and how they contribute to overall upper body strength.

I haven't used the e-stim in a long time but I still have it. I should, it would help a bit but I have not.

No straight arm strength videos just yet, sorry. Probably sometime in the future.

Not much extreme ISO work lately, I will get back to a bit of that to stretch out my pecs soon.

Dexa scans are awesome, you should get one if you can.

Bands can be good, but so far I pretty much feel they are identical to the neck machines as far as how things feel and that the neck machines are superior in the sense that they are much more easily adjustable.

Still taking the same D3 dosage, yes.

No problem, questions are welcome!

Hey slizzardman hope everythings coming along nicely in your training and new experimentation.

I was wondering what you used to measure your bodyfat% and also am very excited for the site and I'm wondering when the plans for it to come online?

Thanks for all the interesting reading!

Just some cheapo calipers, so we had to round up on all the measurements.

As for the experiment, so far so good. Collecting good data.

The website is in development, but it is too soon to set an ETA. I am starting several projects, most of which don't require an enormous amount of my attention... the fitness site by far requires the most personal hours and will probably be the last thing up, but it should happen in 2012.

Well, I have been busy studying and working, so I have not been keeping as up with my experiment as i wanted to but the basics are still there. I followed the test protocol for 48 hours which put me into neural fatigue (an interesting experience to say the least) and I scaled way back for 2.5 days or so to allow recovery. After about 60 hours of recovery I felt great and have gotten significantly stronger. I wish I was healthy enough to test max strength stuff, but I am not. Still, even with severely limited training loads results have been good. I have determined a more optimal program that can be tested during the semester, as well as several focused variants.

Will be posting before and after pics next week.

Josh - I sent you a message here a day or two ago in case you didn't see it.

I did, sorry pat! I am sure we can get something going, but I have been studying overtime to be able to have some time with my girlfriend when she gets back in town this evening! I will be in touch by the end of the week.

oh-la-la!

slizzardman said:

I did, sorry pat! I am sure we can get something going, but I have been studying overtime to be able to have some time with my girlfriend when she gets back in town this evening! I will be in touch by the end of the week.

Haha, no problem. Enjoy your evening!

Cole Dano said:

oh-la-la!

Back from the abyss (for now). Well, I did some e-stim on my traps today and I have two comments.

1) OUCH! Well, not pain exactly, but man do I feel it once the stim level is about 7 out of 10! Russian is no joke. Feels good, but the contraction is instantaneous and that takes a bit of getting used to. You never want to have current crossing the spine so I use one channel on left side and one on the right. One pad on mid/lower traps and the other on rear delts/external rotators. Infraspinatus in particular is uncomfortable!

2) My thoracic spine seems to have straightened a bit and it is easier for me to keep my upper spine straighter. I believe it is the secondary stimulation of the uppermost of the three spinal erectors that is responsible for this. I will eventually do a back strip type set up and hit the posterior cervical extensors as well as the mid/low traps on each side instead of the traps and rotators as I believe this will help even more.

It definitely seems to be an activation issue and the e-stim seems to help. It took about 4 cycles of stim before the right traps were fully firing properly but the last 7 were great! Pull ups feel MUCH better now than they did a few hours ago.

I will probably need to do some of this on my upper arms as well to help along the recovery from my arm injury. Will be doing graston work for the first time in ages tonight as well.

Serum test level was 706 ng/dl or something like that, total estrogens were 75, right where they should be. Good measures overall. Free test was within normal range but definitely on the lower side of normal.

I am starting to do a lot of super slow reps and am seeing good results, I wish I was healthy enough to do WOD-style programming. I used a lot of this during my test protocol and had excellent results.

I can now do slow HeSPU from the floor, something like 5-10s smooth press up. I don't have the balance for a full HSPU freestanding yet, as some stuff in my shoulders is still a bit weak, but with feet sliding on the wall I can do those slowly as well, about 4 seconds smoothly. Will be significantly stronger when I can do 6-10s reps consistently.

Test protocol went well, but not as planned. Mostly because I only did 2 days of it. I hit neural fatigue, took 2 days off, and stayed lazy for the rest of the break. I ended up giving studying for MCATs a much higher priority which I feel good about. The main objective was accomplished. I did see the expected results during the 2 days that I followed the protocol, and even with a virtual fast the past few days (not really on purpose, but I haven't been eating much since I've been spending time with the girlfriend and working and such, without the requisite preparations) I am still weighing 212-213 on the low side and 216-217 on the high side, with a bit less fat. My diet has been pretty crappy the past 5 days as well, lots of pizza and whatnot. I definitely felt that a month of strictness would have dropped about 3% bodyfat without losing any muscle, so something like 6 lbs of fat with no muscle loss in the month. That's just extrapolated from some laziness + losing about 1 lb of fat over the course of the first 3 days, which is pretty much right in line with what should be happening according to the numbers (of my protein, carb, fat and total calorie intakes).

3% drop if BF in a month without muscle loss would be super impressive. I wonder if that could even be increased by supplementation with BCAA's...

Doubt it, bcaa has nothing to do with fat loss. It is *possible* that building some extra muscle mass might be possible, which would influence the % change, but it won't change the actual amount of fat lost.

That's true... would an abundance of BCAA's make it possible to actually grow stronger/bigger while losing that much fat? It seems like you have two choices in training: 1) Muscle growth while staying lean, and 2) Cutting down while maintaining muscle. I thought there was a way to merge these effectively?

Patrick Smith said:

That's true... would an abundance of BCAA's make it possible to actually grow stronger/bigger while losing that much fat? It seems like you have two choices in training: 1) Muscle growth while staying lean, and 2) Cutting down while maintaining muscle. I thought there was a way to merge these effectively?

Who said that? You can do both at the same time, they are fundamentally different processes. Anyone who thinks differently is nuts. #1 is what will generally happen when you are where I am at, already big and lean. There's no point in dropping below 6-7% unless you just have a thing for bodybuilding shows.

The protein timing that I keep advocating is your best friend in this regard. You get PLENTY of everything!

One thing that can help immensely is protein with appropriate amounts of Aminogen! It has been shown to boost absorption by around 50%, which is quite amazing. This would be a meaningful improvement.

I can't say for sure that extra BCAA would have no effect, but it will not hurt. Without trying just protein for a few weeks and then switching to the same protein protocol + BCAA around the workout and then Protein/bcaa blend and finally protein/BCAA blend + BCAA around the workout there would be no way to assess any potential additive effects or determine the true benefit of BCAA, when it is most beneficial, and how it affects different nutritional conditions in regards to lean mass gains.

I want to get to 5% personally. Anyways, just wanted to write that your test are really interesting and I am hoping to have the same one done sometime (although right now, I would rather spend the money on stuff that can raise levels...I need more hours.) and that the tips you gave for the neck training were spot on! I don't know how but my press handstand got way better lately. Thanks!