Christmas Week Blog #2

With Christmas flying through and our days off coming to an end one thing I heard a lot this year “just have a day off, one won’t hurt”

And yes this year I gave myself 2 days off food and training purely down to enjoyment of food over the Christmas period, my Birthday on Boxing Day and for me not having to stress have I got this meal, have I got that meal ready.

For most of us gym enthusiasts people wouldn’t understand the meaning of gym or why we have such an attachment to our local gym it’s our escape, de-stress, turn off from the world and achieve.. that’s why I went straight back on the 27th, not because I felt I should or needed to but because I missed it. For whatever personal reasons we train for us, one of the only sports where it’s you and only you. Your achievements are solely down to you whatever your goals and once you’ve found your path or reason, you can’t stay away!!   

So back to the blog, this year has been particular tough working day and night in the gym all I wanted was time out to reset and enjoy time out with my girlfriend and family. The sessions that were completed were okay they weren’t 100% total energy and focus but they were good with the 2days out and relaxed nature in my diet I still managed to shift 5lbs of fat working off a new total body weight of 229lbs

I wasn’t expecting such a large drop but with my current progress pics I feel a little leaner and less “watery” than last week so for me the drop is ok

Current Shape

December 2018

strength is still on the up

I’m still working with exercises that have a good impact on my body such as tbar rows, rdls and hack squats I like to choose 1-2 exercises that I feel good with and really hammer them through different rep ranges and sets to maintain progressive overload through this off season focus, for me seeing lifts improve on paper gets me really hyped and have a lasting effect through the workout creating a great environment.

It’s old school but I would strongly suggest for you guys to do so.. identify excercises that have a positive effect on you.. log it.. progress! 

Once you see those lifts stalling or making a slight decline, time to back off and deload

Deloading should be reducing sets and not! Weight, don’t sacrifice weeks of graft to then drop all weights by half which could be detrimental to your progress. So for example if you hit 3 working sets on the bench drop to 1 if you hit 1 working set of 15 on the fly I would eliminate the exercise. lastly if you usually hit 3 sets of 15 tricep extension drop to 1 set of 30 something your muscle won’t be used to but equally have a new stimulus on the tricep with a pump set as opposed to a hypertrophy set.

As for the days off and extra kcals my diet and training will remain the Same this week and will commence 27th and get another solid week under my belt.

Lastly

From everyone at SouthCoast we wish you a very happy new year

Marty