JOLIET JERRY'S DORM ROOM

So the first week of my "comeback" is behind me now. All I can say is, "Holy volume training, Batman"! I had been doing low volume, heavy weight, high intensity training since the beginning of this year. It was a real surprise to me just how much lighter I needed to lift due to a combination of increased volume and the fact that I hadn't really been training for a month or more. Every workout this week was good and I was approptiately sore in the days following. The leg day was a little different. I have never thrown up as the result of a workout, but this leg day was the closest I have ever come and I was unsure that it wouldn't happen but thankfully it didn't. The soreness I experienced in the days after this workout was more severe than anything I remember. The workout was Tuesday and I could barely walk up the stairs in my house on Wednesday and Thursday. Monday was the first day that I was completely recovered from the workout...just in time to do it again today (Tuesday)!

The program, which follows the Rock Hard Challenge from M&F, is exactly what I needed at this point. It is detailed, regimented, and specific. Training is four times per week and I have been training following this split:

Monday = Chest, triceps
Tues = Quads, hams, calves, abs
Wed = Rest
Thurs = Shoulders, abs, calves
Fri = Back, biceps

Most body parts are trained with 3-4 exercises, 12-16 sets per body part, with progressive reps (example: 6, 6, 6, 10, 12, 12). The program progresses in intensity throughout a 12 week period. In the beginning, cardio is done three times per week at 30 minutes per session with medium intensity. In the second week, the time increases to 45 minutes. I am trying not to read to far ahead, but eventually it gets up to as much as 5 times per week for 60 minutes. The cardio went well and I did it on M, W, F. When it increases to four times per week, I will just do it on weight training days.

The nutrition plan is also progressive. It is a calorie/carb cycling program where there are high, medium, and low calorie days. I have followed the program pretty closely and where I deviated from it, it was by not eating enough. I ate completely clean all week with no problems. On the weekend it was difficult simply because I didn't want to take the time out to prepare the foods I needed so I ended up skipping a couple meals. I will deal better with this. The diet is okay, but there is fish for dinner on two out of three days and I am not THAT big of a fish person. I have dealt with it okay though. I read ahead and the month two diet offers more protein variety, introducing 95% lean ground beef and pork tenderloin and reducing the fish consumption.

As far as supplements, there really are none. I have a mostly full bottle of lipo 6x so I am using that until it's gone then will replace it with caffeine and green tea or if I feel the lipo 6x is working I may continue with that. I have been taking a shake before and after working out and that is all...everything else is whole food.

It feels good to be back. I am trying to not be ruled by the scale, but I lost about 4 pounds in the first week. I will keep after it and I know that by the end of this first month I will see significant differences, then only get better in subsequent months.

Thanks for reading and keep training hard.