The keto diet's basic tenet is if you keep insulin levels low in your bloodstream, then you will stave off hunger and lose weight as a consequence.
As it applies to strength training, the keto diet is almost mandatory if you plan on lifting more weight. My argument is that for the simple fact the stomach can only handle a fixed volume of food and since protein consumption is absolutely necessary for muscle building, one must adapt one's diet to a ketogenic diet.
Typically keto diets are high fat, moderate protein and low carb. The strength trainer's diet is high protein, moderate fat, low carb. High protein for muscle building. Moderate fat to keep blood insulin levels stabilized which facilitates muscle protein synthesis. Low carb again to keep blood insulin levels low.
This represents the perfect ketogenic meal for while working out and up until 48 hours after the workout. It's chicken and guacamole. The guacamole has tomatoes, onion and avocado so it's not perfectly ketogenic but it's pretty close because it has only 50 grams of carbs. If you still feel lightheaded after eating this, eat a couple slices of bread to feed your brain glucose.
I'm beginning to think that during your workout, what matters most is how low you can keep your blood insulin levels. I used to think that an abundant protein intake was necessary for making personal records in your lifts but now I'm beginning to see that when you keep blood levels low, not only is the need for protein less but also I feel much stronger because my blood insulin levels are kept from spiking too high thanks to the use of avocado during the workout.
Without question, the first 48 hours after you workout heavy you will need to stuff your gut with fatty beef if you hope to gain muscle and get stronger.
After those 48 hours what happens then?
I workout every 72 hours approximately. That means I got 48 hours of copious beef consumption but what happens after that? I still got 24 hours left until my next workout.
The answer is eggs. I'll go to Dunkin Donuts and get egg and bacon on plain bagel. That'll be my main staple protein source for those 24 hours leading up to my next workout.
My reasoning is that per egg there are only 4 grams of protein but as far as amino acid profiles go, there is no food more perfect than an egg. They have all the amino acids in small proportions but they will satiate your muscles' constant hunger for protein without overdosing. Too much protein will cause your body to expel it, and when that happens you're watching all of your expensive protein being flushed down the toilet.
Of course as you get stronger, that 48 hours time limit for protein intake will become irrelevant as you will be in constant need of protein to get stronger. Then you'll run into the problem of not getting enough protein ever.
The mere fact that I can put a McDonald's double quarter pounder in a car, leave it over night and then come back in the morning and eat it for breakfast without getting food poisoning should at least make you ponder for a brief moment as to what they're putting in that burger meat.
But hey I'm all about candid honesty so I have to be truthful no matter how unpalatable the facts are: McDonald's double quarter pounders no cheese no bun no salt made me stronger.
The training was the same, the rest intervals were the same. The only difference between the first and second workout is that I used McDonald's double quarter pounders no cheese no salt no bun as a post-workout protein source for the first 48 hours after my workout for the time proceeding my 10/27 workout. For the
10/21 workout I used steak from a Mexican restaurant as a post workout protein source.
As far as I know cows have no significant differences between them as far as protein content goes, so maybe it's the preservatives McDonald's puts in their burgers that gave me the strength gain. Who knows?
Gym 2017/10/06 07:31
Bench press 205-.2, 235-0, 255-0
Standing shoulder press 175- , 135-.1, 185-0
Standing behind the neck shoulder press 185-0
Lat pull front 110-.3
Lat pull back 200-
Lat row 250-.1, 250-.2
One legged leg press
Right 65-1
Left 65-1
Stiff legged deadlift 425-0
Gym 2017/09/30 09:21
Bench press 220-0, 235-0
Standing shoulder press 155-.1, 175-0
Standing behind the neck shoulder press 115-.1, 125-.1
Lat pull front 110-.1
Lat pull back 120-5, 160-1.2, 200-.1
Lat row 250-.2
One legged leg press
Right 65-.1
Left 65-.2
Stiff legged deadlift 425-.1
I use a rating system to document my lifts. One full with good enough form repetition counts as “1”. Two quality reps with decent form count as “2”.
Any number with a decimal point in front of it represents a partial rep or a miss.
A “.9” represents a rep with not very good form but I still completed it. A “.4” means I got the weight almost half way up. A “.3” represents the bar traveled far less than half way. And “.1” means I barely cleared the weight from whatever it was resting on or I barely came out of the hole with it or I slightly budged it off my chest. A “0” means no movement of the weight just force being applied to it but it stays stationary -- essentially turning it into an isometric movement. Any number I failed to mention, just remember a “1” is a complete rep and a “0” is isometric.
Work out notes:
Not much to say really. I'm back in the gym.
Bench press remarks:
I'm beginning to think of the bench press as a movement that is just not isolated to the front deltoids, triceps and pectorals.
Rather it is a symbiotic cooperation between triceps, pectorals, and all of the heads of the shoulder deltoid muscles which include the front, lateral, and rear deltoid.
Hence my workouts reflect that thought. I do shoulder presses, behind the neck shoulder presses, and bench press on one day. Then the next workout I do decline bench press.
The rationale behind this is the bench press has too many micro oscillations in the bar path to constrain it to the just the front deltoid. True, off the chest the bar path comes straight up the first two or three inches but then it gently arcs upward toward directly perpendicular to over your head closely mimicking the shoulder press movement.
Further what if you're maxing out and the bar path becomes erratic while you're struggling to push the weight up. Your elbows and shoulders don't maintain perfect form. They take on positions that kind of approximate the behind the neck shoulder press. The elbows tend to flare out. The elbow joints take on sharper angles, and tricep muscle recruitment dominates over front deltoid and pectoral involvement -- just as it does when one behind the neck shoulder presses.
The behind the neck shoulder press is accomplished by putting the bar on the back of your neck as if you were squatting. Then with both hands press the bar off the back of the neck in a vertical movement towards the ceiling. It emphasizes tricep, forearm and wrist strength which are all important to the bench press.
Another reason is the law of radiation. This simply means flexing one muscle tends to contract the surrounding muscles. Wouldn't it stand to reason that if you had strong thick lateral and rear deltoids, then your front deltoids would contract stronger and more forcefully and enable you to support heavier bench press loads? That's why I do the shoulder press and behind the neck press and decline press in addition to the bench press to increase my bench pressing weight.
Intra-workout protein intake:
I've totally ditched the powdered crap in the tub protein shake, and I'm using fatty steak as an intra-workout protein supplement.
The reasoning is two-fold. First, the powdered sh$t in a tub protein shake does exactly that: it makes me crap my guts out while I train. It probably has something to do with the nasty emulsifiers, and artificial preservatives and sweeteners and God knows what else the unscrupulous sh$thead protein manufacturers are putting in their sh$tty protein powder. All I know is that dried protein powder in a tub makes my anus vomit.
Rarely do I have problems with eating steak while I workout. No more liquefied protein sh$ts in the middle of my training sessions which shortens the duration of my workout. Good riddance to the nasty dried powder crap in a tub.
The second reason I've converted to steak is that steak is less insulinogenic especially when it's greasy and fatty. This helps thwart your body releasing insulin hormone into the bloodstream which will in turn help assimilate dietary protein into the muscles.
This video can explain this concept better than I can:
I recently started using this post workout to combat soreness, achiness, and inflammation.
It works pretty well. It's almost like I didn't workout. Probably around ninety percent of my joint stiffness and muscle aches have subsided.
It's not one hundred percent effective but still it's better than nothing.
I took two tablets approximately six hours after my workout. I then went to sleep and woke up the next day relatively pain free.
As with any drug, there probably is a point of diminishing returns and my body will develop a tolerance to bromelain but I don't know when that will be, so I'll remain in blissful relatively pain free ignorance.
Only bad thing about it is since I use my level of post workout soreness as a gauge to tell me when to workout again, the bromelaine reduces that achiness and inflammation and consequently I won't be able to tell when I can go stress my muscles again. Oh well. Always a catch.
I eat the steak and over-easy eggs along with the rice and beans pre-workout, and I wash it down with Diet Coke.
Intra-workout:
I only eat the steak and eggs while I'm working out. Meats and eggs have a very low insulinogenic effect which is good because you don't want to sugar crash while you workout because it will weaken your lifts and hence you won't get strong.
As you can see, I only have a limited amount of steak so I try and pace my eating, so I can have some for all three phases of workout supplementation: pre-, intra-, and post-workout.
Workout Equipment:
This is my deadlift station. The big rebar loop hanging out of the concrete block is good for single- and double-handed isometric rack pulls. Unfortunately there's no way to gauge if I'm getting stronger with isometric movements, but I can swear I feel that rebar giving way like I'm bending it upwards.
The smaller rebar loop on the bottom makes for a nice Ass-to-Grass single- or double-handed isometric deadlift. I try to get my center of gravity over that loop, sink either one or both shoulders way back like I'm stuffing my hand or hands in my backpockets, and activate my glutes and calves and try to bend that rebar upwards.
Dip station:
Put either hand on one side and the other goes on the other side. Dip in between the concrete blocks.
Lat Station:
Wrap one or both hands around that angled pole and then plant both feet on the edge of that sheet metal base, use your torso and legs as dead weight to provide some resistance, and shred your lats and biceps until they burn like battery acid.
Pullup station:
Wrap both hands on top of that horizontal piece of steel and you got your pull up bar.
Some notable mentions:
I use that curb in the first picture for uneven pushups. They serve as a progression to eventual one hand pushups.
The other pictures just show some gripping points that I could contract large muscle groups with isometric deadlift pulls.
Pistol Squat station:
Steady yourself by latching the hand closest to your leg you're trying to pistol squat with. Then slide the hand down the pole as you lower your body to the ground.
Hand protection:
I don't want to mangle my hands so I wear these gloves.
All protein powders are crap. They make me crap. Who knows what all they put in that crap.
There’s no FDA regulation of any supplement company here in America, so the protein powder making companies can put any goddamn thing they damn well please. They lace their supplements with oral steroids. They cut the protein with cheaper protein powders to make you think you’re getting a better protein bang for your buck. All in all, I hate those bastards with a passion.
What’s the solution you ask?
Just handle it like you would any other good for nothing bitch you have the unfortunate chance of meeting in your life: kick that piece of garbage to the curb and replace it with something better.
What’s better than the supposed almighty protein shake that all those shills on youtube constantly bombard you with on a daily basis you ask?
How about the real thing smartguy is my answer to you.
What’s real protein you ask?
Real protein is beef, chicken, fish.
You see, I haven’t been going to the gym like I like to so I do ghetto workouts in the middle of a parking lot that has a chainlink fence, cars, a couple poles with street signs attached to them. I mostly concentrate on bodyweight exercises except when I’m trying to deadlift a car. I got these heavy duty gloves from Walmart and I wrap them around the fence poles and concrete rebar in this parking lot, and I yank on them and do pushups and dips on them to get my workout.
Another thing I do while I’m working out is eat my pre-workout meal of steak and eggs, rice and beans. Then while I’m working out I continue eating my steak and eggs but forgo the rice and beans. You only need the steak and eggs to provide the body glucose without a severe insulinogenic response.
Notice one thing. I’m not drinking protein shake crap. I’m eating dead cow flesh while I’m working out. And honestly I can’t tell the difference between protein shake and steak as an intra-workout supplement. I shove the steak in my mouth after busting out pushups and my body has no problem using that steak to repair muscles and tendons and ligaments and provide a source of glucose for energy reserve replenishment.
So yeah, “f” the protein shakes. “F” the protein powder making companies. “F” those lying bastards on youtube prostituting themselves out like whores to the protein powder making companies.
Is steak more expensive than that sewer water protein shake you ask?
You bet your sweet bippy it is. But I’ll take savory good tasting cow carcass over that crap that they shove in those tubs and market that nasty sh*t as something healthy that’s going to give you those most sought after gains.
You could always try tuna from a can or a bag of chicken for your intra-workout protein source. They might possibly be cheaper.
There is no question you need to mix up your movements to avoid repetitive movement injury. The problem is finding the right accessory movements that will have carryover to your bench press that will lead to making strength gains in your chest press.
I was experimenting with dips in my last workout sessions, and I was noticing definite progress and increase in my bench press strength.
The way I would do dips is I would get on the dip machine at the gym and go all the way down with elbows bent at a severely sharp angle with my forearms hinging at the elbow and not stopping until I hit the the bicep with my forearms and then I would push myself up.
The use of the above machine allows you to acquire that severe acute angle in your elbow joint which is necessary to mock the angle joint your elbows take on while bench pressing. That's the movement that needs to be accomplished if you expect strength gain carryover to the bench press.
If you want to add more resistance to the exercise once you master a severe bent angle elbow position dips with both hands, switch to a one handed dip. You can accomplish this because the knee pad on the machine will support your weight.
After you master the one arm dip, experiment with added resistance provided by a weight belt.
If you don't have access to a dip machine, then recruit somebody to hold your ankles and tell them to raise you while you're pushing up.
If you're aiming for an aesthetic look for your body, you have to severely curtail and measure calorie intake.
Probably the worst times for disciplining yourself not to eat is right after the workout. Your body is craving glycogen and to a smaller extent, protein.
How do you satisfy that hunger?
Eat. Simple.
But what if you don't want to eat because you're trying to maintain a lean body?
The solution is simple. Take the fish oil multivitamin cocktail of pills that I recommended in my previous posts.
So right after you workout, eat approximately 100 grams of fast absorbing sucrose in the form of candies so you can mainline glycogen to your liver and replenish its glycogen stores.
About an hour later, you'll feel hungry again. Now take the fish oil multivitamin cocktail: four 1000 mg fish oil pills and one multivitamin.
If you feel hungry again after this concentrate on eating salads without any carbohydrate or protein and a maybe a hint of salad dressing to satisfy any cravings for fats.
If you follow my advice for drinking a protein shake during a workout, then you shouldn't need to eat any protein until the next day because the protein in the shake should more than compensate for your protein needs for building muscle. Although the next day you're definitely going to have to consume red meat and chicken and keeping consuming them for the next 48 hours to build and repair muscle fibers.
After 48 hours post workout, your body is probably in a positive nitrogen balance because of all the protein you have been eating, so slack off on the protein and consume more carbohydrates, fiber and fats and supplement as need to stave off hunger with the fish oil multivitamin cocktail as a meal replacement.
When you choose to skip a meal and replace with fish oil is up to you.
Skipping dinner is probably easiest because all you have to do is sleep afterwards.
Forgoing lunch is probably the hardest because you have to fast and survive on the 80 calories supplied via the fish oil pills for a solid twelve hours between breakfast and dinner. I usually take an afternoon nap when I opt for this method because of the enervation I endure while I'm fasting.
A little raccoon climbed on top of my roof and took a crap.
From that minute action, life has given me a second chance.
I don't know why he left his turds up there. The cynic in me says he did it because he's a dumb animal and he could give a damn where he leaves his droppings.
The optimist dreamer in me says that because I held this blog for ransom, somehow the universe listened upon my cries for help and decided to give it to me.
So I have decided to release my strength training without steroids back onto the internet. Whether it gives you any help or seriously injures your body is up for you to decide.
