Yesterday was my second chest workout day wiht Scivation’s Triphase training. I switched the routine around to match their video found on Bodybuilding.com.

The routine went as follows:

Incline Dumbbell Press
80lbs each: 10, 10, 8, 10, 5 reps

Barbell Bench Press
155lbs: 10, 10, 10, 8, 7, 10 reps

Dips
15, 10, 10, 11, 12 reps

Dumbbell Shoulder Press
45lbs each: 10, 12, 10, 12, 10 reps

Lateral Shoulder Raises
10lbs each: 10, 10, 10, 10, 10

Ab Ripper X Ab routine

Feedback:
I am not feeling as sore anymore. Perhaps it is due to the increased amounts of BCAA and L-Glutamine that I am taking. Or maybe because my muscles are getting use to the training.

Muscle soreness does not indicate muscle growth

This factoid is usually neglected, because most people, including myself, like feeling the muscle fatigue. Because it helps to indicate that our previous training session ment something.

My weight is generally staying the same at around 183-185lbs. However, I am seeing noticible differences in muscular definition. Hopefully these are signs of muscular gain during my weight loss period.

Monday was suppose to be reserved for Scivation’s chest/shoulder workout. However, all of the chest related workout equipment were occupied, so I decided to switch “Chest day” with “Back day”.

My workout routine for today was as followed:

Smith Machine Rack Deadlifts
315lbs: 10, 10, 8, 8, 8 reps

Pull Ups
10, 10, 8, 6, 5 reps

Weighted Row
135lbs: 10, 10, 10, 10, 10 reps

Smith Machine Shurgs
225lbs: 15, 12, 10, 10, 10, 10 reps

Dumbbell Shrugs
80lbs each: 12, 10, 10, 10, 10 reps

I haven’t updated this blog for a week! Shame on me.
I slacked off big time last week. So I will not be counting any progress I have made during that week into this 30 day challenge. My lower back actually started spasming on Tuesday. Therefore, I was unable to go to the gym on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. I actually have chronic lower back pain. So I guess it was just one of those days.

On Saturday, I had quite the “cheat” meal. I never planned to cheat too extravagantly throughout this 30 Day Challenge. However, it was to celebrate my birthday. So I managed to convince my inner conscience that it was okay.

I will be blogging and providing more reports starting tomorrow. I promise!

As I had anticipated, my legs were way to sore to do any cardio work. Instead, I decided to focus all my energy on my arm workout. I was looking forward to training my arms all week. Not only because I feel like they could be a little bigger, but because this would be the lightest workout session of the week. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it was the easiest.

Day 5 Arm Routine:
Barbell Curl:
70lbs: 10, 8, 8, 7, 10 reps

Close Grip Bench Press:
155lbs: 10, 10 reps
175lbs: 10, 5 reps
155lbs: 8 reps

Skull Crushers:
70lbs: 10, 10, 8 reps

Dumbbell Curls:
25lbs each: 10, 10, 10, 10, 10 reps

Feedback

I feel like I could have worked my arms a lot harder. However, this was the end of the week, and my carbohydrate sources have been depleted. I was feeling the symptoms of the “metabolic shifting” phase. During most low-carb diets, the body changes the metabolism to using fat as energy instead of carbohydrates. This causes one to experience weakness, irritation, and various other symptoms. In other words, it sucks.

I absolutely hate leg day. My lower back pain definitely proved to be a problem. Not did I have to be extra careful with the exercise movements, but my lift amount was rather pathetic.

Day 4 Leg Day Routine:
Squats:
185lbs – 10, 10, 10 reps

Stiff Leg Deadlifts:
135lbs: 10, 10, 10, 10, 10 reps

Leg Extensions:
120lbs: 10, 10 reps
135lbs: 10 reps
150lbs: 10, 10 reps

Leg Curl:
90lbs: 10, 10, 10, 10

Lunges:
Skipped – My lower back was killing me at this point

Feedback

Even though the weights were light, the Scivation style routine kicked my butt. I was limping as I walked out of the gym doors, and my legs were shaking as I drove home. Needless to say, I won’t be doing cardio for the next couple of days due to the post-workout muscle pain and fatigue.

This great low carb recipe features delicious and rich creamy mushroom sauce served over steak and eggs, cooked just the way you like them.

Ingredients:

• 3.5 oz of Beef
• 2 Whole Eggs
• 2 Egg Whites
• 1 Portobello Mushroom
• 1.5 Tbsp of Cream Cheese
• 1/4 Cup of Chicken Stock
• 1/4 of a Lemon
• Parsley
• Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper

Cooking Time: Approximately 10 minutes

Nutritional Value:

• Calories: 319 Calories
• Protein: 42g
• Fat: 15g
• Carbohydrates: 4g

Steps:

• Step 1: Cook Your Eggs
  
  Prepare and cook your eggs the way you like them. I personally prefer my eggs in an omelet style. use olive oil if needed for non-stick purposes.

  Tip: Use a silicone spatula
  
  When I worked in a restaurant, one of the line cooks said to me:
  “The spatula is your one million dollar tool.”
  I couldn’t agree more. Not only can you cook very efficient with a spatula, but it also allows you to scrap your bowls and plates clean of foods and sauces. I would recommend a heat safe silicone spatula to prevent your tool from becoming melted plastic.

• Step 2: Plate your eggs
  
  Plate your eggs into a serving dish after you have finished cooking them.
• Step 3: Prepare your steaks
  
  Cut and weigh your beef so that you have approximately 3.5 oz. I have cut them into thicker slices.

  Once you have enough steak slices, season heavily with salt and pepper.

• Step 4: Cook your steak
  
  I personally like my steaks medium-rare. Heat your pan with high heat, and cook the steak pieces roughly 30-50 seconds per side. Use olive oil if needed for non-stick purposes. Plate the steak with your eggs once you have finished cooking them.

The Creamy Zesty Mushroom Sauce

Step 1: Cut your mushrooms and parsley

Cut your mushrooms into thin, long stripes. Rough chop your parsley.

Step 3: Add your chicken stock

Pour your chicken stock into the pan with the mushrooms. Intense bubbling of the chicken stock is normal.

Step 4: Add the cream cheese

Add the cream cheese to your sauce. Use a fork to mix and stir.

Step 5: Add your lemon

Squeeze the juice from a 1/4 of a lemon into your sauce. Continue stirring with the fork.

Step 6: Add the parsley

Once the cream cheese has been mixed into the sauce, add the parsley. Continue stirring.

Step 7: Let the sauce thicken

Continue stirring slowly for approximately 1-1.5 minutes. The longer your cook the sauce, the thicker the sauce becomes. This is due to the evaporation of water.

Step 8: Serve

Pour the sauce over your food. Garnish with a few parsley leaves.

Today I get to start using the Nutrex Lipo 6x fat burner I purchased from Supplements Canada. I have used and liked their original Lipo 6 product. I believe I lost about 20lbs in the first 4-6 weeks or so in 2008 during a fat-loss (aka. “cutting”) phrase.

What does the “X” stand for? eXtreme of course! Not exactly, but hopefully the new and improved Lipo 6x can provide the better fat burning properties than the original.

I actually woke up at 7:00 a.m. today. I use my Nokia 5800 Xpress Music phone as my alarm, and I have various alarms set between 5:00-6:00 am. Unfortunately, my 6:00 am alarm wasn’t “active”. In light of this, the extra sleep was exactly what I needed to make up for the three previous days.

The Nutrex Lipo 6x Capsule

To be honest, I was really let down when I saw the capsule. After all the advertisement and hype surrounding the “enhanced timed released” capsule, I was expecting two crystal clear capsules with radiant “energy blue” balls floating inside one of them. Instead, the capsules look tainted and stained, and the inner capsule doesn’t move at all. I actually thought the capsules exploded or went bad. However, I realized that this questionably yellow capsule was normal after I poured a handful of pills into my hand. Hopefully the fat burners will work a lot better than they look.

Yesterday, I tried to go to bed early at approximately 10:30 pm in order to get about 7 hours worth of sleep. Instead, I ended up waking up at around 2 a.m. and have been awake since. My chest, shoulders, and back muscles are all very sore. Although I feel very tired, I do not feel sleepy at all – fat burners are magic I tell you.

Lost 3 lbs in 3 Days

I stepped onto the scale this morning, and the numbers kept fluctuating between 183lbs and 184lbs. This means I have lost another lb of mass since yesterday – making it a 3lb loss total since I started this 30 Day Challenge.

Cardio at 4:00 AM

Since 2 am, I’ve been either working on my web projects or watching television. I did attempt to go back to sleep at around 3 AM. To my disappointment, it clearly wasn’t happening. I have a habit of organizing and scheduling my thoughts for the day immediately upon awaking. Ever since I started working at home, the amount of projects and tasks I had to do for the day kept piling up. Just thinking about everything I had to do would keep anyone awake.

After laying in bed for about half an hour, I gave up and went to the kitchen for my morning supplementation. I hoped on my treadmill at around 4 am, and jogged on the thing for approximately 25 minutes. Although I had 2 Rapidcut fat burner capsules in me, I did not have the energy to continue the extra 5 minute for a complete 30 minute cardio session. Shame on me, but 3 days of little sleep and intense dieting will do that to you.

Breakfast

I was feeling rather lazy, so I just had a simple salad composed of leaf lettuce, left-over beef and chicken, with a dollop of mayonnaise. According to my calculations, this should equal to approximately:

• 40g of Protein
• 20g of Fat
• 2g of Carbs

Making my first solid meal of the day to be approximately 348 calories.

Prior to breakfast, I had a protein shake composed of 1 scoop of EAS Vanilla protein. The nutritional facts of EAS’s Protein Blend is:

• 24g of Protein
• 1g of Fat
• 2g of Carbs

Which should equal to approximately 120 calories per scoop.

Therefore making my total calorie consumption from 2am to now approximately 468 calories.

Due to my lack of sleep and food, my training session was quite pathetic (again) according to my standards. Since my gym doesn’t have a Power Cage/Rack, I substituted TriPhase’s Rack Pulls with standard Barbell deadlifts.

Back and Traps Training Routine and Log

Barbell Deadlifts
225lbs x 7 reps
245lbs x 7 reps
245lbs x 5 reps
245lbs x 5 reps
245lbs x 5 reps

Free Weight Pull Ups
8 reps
6 reps
5 reps
5 reps
5 reps
*I’m not very good at these*

Bent Over Barbell Row
135lbs x 10 reps
155lbs x 10 reps
155lbs x 10 reps
155lbs x 10 reps
155lbs x 10 reps

Barbell Shrugs
185lbs x 10 reps
185lbs x 10 reps
185lbs x 10 reps
185lbs x 10 reps
185lbs x 10 reps

Dumbbell Shrugs
80lbs each hand x 10 reps
80lbs each hand x 10 reps
80lbs each hand x 10 reps
80lbs each hand x 10 reps
80lbs each hand x 10 reps

Feedback

Basic back muscle anatomy.

Although the weights I lifted aren’t very heavy, I must admit, I was reasonably sore after the workout. It has been a while since I felt muscle fatigue in my Trapezius 1, 2/3, and 4 muscles. My Rhomboids and my latissimus muscles are also quite sore. I suspect this is primarily due to the rep scheme and exercise order of the TriPhase program. Although I usually perform 5 sets per exercise, I usually keep my rep schemes relatively low (3-5 reps). My body is use to the strength/power based style of training, rather than the higher rep hypertrophic style featured in the TriPhase program.

Thanks to SupplementsCanada, I was able to add a few new supplements to my pre and post workout stack. The above photograph highlights the addition of a fat burner (Allmax Rapidcuts Hardcore sample), and Ultimate Nutrition’s CLA, L-Glutamine, and Kre-Aklyn.

Pre Workout Supplementation

My pre-workout stack is rather standard. It includes:

• 1 scoop of Protein Powder (Highly recommended!)
• 5g of L-Glutamine (Recommended)
• 1 x Kre-Aklyn Creatine (Not needed, but is “proven” to help with energy/strength)
• 5g of BCAA (Highly recommended. Avoid the unflavoured versions if you can! Tastes awful.)
• 2 x Allmax Rapid Cuts (Recommended)
• Beta-Alanine (Not needed, I just had some left over from a while back)
• L-Taurine (Not needed, I just had some left over from a while back)


This photograph also shows a Glucosamine pill and 3 fish oil pills.

I took all the capsules with water. I mixed all the powder together and blended it with the Magic Bullet. Needless to say, it wasn’t exactly “delicious” stuff. Then again, makeshift pre/post workout nutrition is rarely ever gourmet stuff.

Allmax Rapidcuts Hardcore


Supplements Canada was kind enough to send me a sample of Allmax Rapidcuts Hardcore. I have a feeling they new I was doing a fat-loss phase. Well, including the Lipo 6x in the order would be a dead give away. Anyways, I just wanted to show the capsule of the Rapidcuts. I thought it was really cool how Allmax printed their logo onto each individual capsule. I believe they won Bodybuilding.com’s award for Best Packaging in 2008. Don’t quote me on this!

PostWorkout Supplementation

My post-workout stack is also pretty standard. It includes:

• 1.5 scoop of Protein Powder (Highly recommended!)
• 5g of L-Glutamine (Recommended)
• 5g of BCAA (Recommended)

Mixed with water in a GNC shaker cup.