23 Aug Tucker Loken – Contest prep 8 and 7 weeks out
Another productive couple weeks in the books. Bodyweight has been steadily dropping around 2 lbs per week from 223-221, and 221-219.
8 weeks out – 550 carbs daily
7 weeks out – 500 carbs daily
[wa-wps]
Strength has been maintaining well, and like I said in my last post I did a bodybuilder deload week 8.
I mentioned how I’ll deload before in the Powerbuilding plans, but this time I still had to maintain a high level of intensity.
The key idea of the deload is to insure that you don’t get injured and that you don’t overload your CNS from heavy lifting for weeks on end. You still need to maintain a similar level of calorie burning in order to keep the fat loss consistent though. The easiest way to do this is to be selective with the lifts that will be the most taxing on the body. The lifts that will move the most weight and make you strain the most are without question the Big 3, along with some other alternatives like the leg press, heavy dumbbell press, barbell rows etc.
Pre-exhausting the muscle groups with small isolation exercises is the easiest way to go in order to still get muscle stimulation, without taking a lot out of your CNS. I kept things simple and basically just reversed the order of my workouts. Instead of starting with squats and heavy movers for legs, I started with hamstring curls, leg extensions, GHR etc. and then moved on to hack squats and finally squats at the end. Same thing with back and chest days – I started with little movements like face pulls, reverse flies, lat pullovers, pec flies, machine press and all of those in order to fatigue the muscle, so that when I moved on to doing the big movements I was already tired and wouldn’t be able to do as much, but could still feel the muscle working and be intense. This kind of forced “weakening” of the muscles made me feel safe to still challenge myself on squats, bench press (pin press because my elbow is still healing up) and deadlift variations because I was using half the weight I normally would. It worked great and I felt not only strong and recharged in a full body/CNS way, but my knees, hips, back and shoulders also felt like they go the rest they needed.
Still warming up like usual with the McGill 3, and all the glute bridges, banded walking, goblet squats and thoracic mobility Paul Oneid gave me to target my particular core weaknesses.
8 weeks outÂ
Chest
Cable pec flies 15,12,10
Machine pec flies 15,12,10
Incline hammer strength machine press 15,12,10
Dips – 3 sets of as many as I can do with bodyweight while getting a good squeeze and leaving 1-2 reps in the tank
Flat DB press – 100lb dumbbells for 3 sets of 8-12
BB Pin press – 4 sets with 225 taking the weight slow and pausing at the top and bottom. I didn’t pay attention to reps and just practiced the motion and kept a couple reps in the tank each time.
Back
Reverse pec deck 15,12,10
Face pulls 15,12,10
Cable lat pullover SS w/ DB lat pullover 15,12,10
Lat pulldown 12,10,8
Reverse grip single arm lat pulldown 12,10,8
DB rows 12,10,8
Chest supported T-bar rows 12,10,8
Deficit dead lifts – Kept it light and just did sets of 5 with 225 and lowered down very slowly on the eccentric, focusing on keeping my glutes, core and P-chain engaged. I’ve only just been getting back into doing deadlifts again regularly since finally addressing some back issues, and man was it an ego shock that 225 felt heavy after a couple sets!
7 weeks outÂ
This was a little bit different story. I felt so fresh that I got after it a little too hard and started off with a balls to the wall workout. I was super drained after only a few day lifting in a row, to the point that even after I just did an arms and calf day, it took me forever to catch my breath post workout, then I went home and napped for an hour, and I had a headache for a couple hours after that as well… Lifting on a calorie deficit is hard! It’s been a while so I’ve got to remember how to moderate my intensity so that I get the most out of my workouts without overstraining myself and end up being inconsistent and taking unscheduled days off.
Legs
Front squats – worked up to a top set of 4 with 455. I should have just hit 3 good ones on my own since that would be a PR. But my friend had some fresh nose tork and I basically stuck my whole nose into the bottle on accident and… needless to say… I wasn’t thinking straight. Besides feeling like I was going to sneeze the entire time I went for a 4th one and he helped me finish it and I felt woozy for the whole rest of the workout. Good thing I had him there to keep pushing me.
Pause back squats – 3 sets of 6 with 315 for a long pause in the hole, and then a rep out of 12-15 reps for a fourth set.
Deficit dead lifts – worked up to a top set of 5 with 365
Stiff leg dead lifts – 12,10,8,6 – I usually would have done hack squats here but I tagged along with my friends workout and decided to get some more hamstring work in.
Leg extensions – 15,12,10
Looking back, I should have taken it easier on the front squats, and probably stuck to my routine and gotten more quad work with the hack squats since I would be hitting hamstrings again later that week on my back day, but I was so fried after the heavy squats I didn’t have much left in me and just hit some leg extensions for a finisher and called it a day. Silly move on my part but live and learn.
Chest
I’ve been hitting chest as frequently as possible in order to keep the muscle I have and potentially build some more. It’s been working thus far because pin press feels easier and easier each week, and on my second chest day this week I was able to hit the 150 lb dumbbells for some solid reps. I was extra pumped on that because I haven’t done heavy dumbbell work as a starter exercise more than a couple times in the last year or so, and when I did I just pumped out the 120’s for sets of 10-15.
Day 1
Pin press (with feet up on the bench) – 5×5 with 315. These actually felt pretty light, but I still feel off balance starting from a dead stop so I just focused on control and making the movement nice and clean.
Incline DB press – 4 sets of 100’s for 8-12 reps
Incline hammer strength press 15,12,10,8
Dips machine – 15,12,10,8
Cable pec flies 15,15,12,12
Day 2
Flat DB press (with feet up on bench) – top set of 6 with the 150’s and then had a spotter help me balance them for an extra couple reps. Since this movement is still so new to me I’m not worried about hitting it regularly since I’ll be getting some quick gains from not doing it for so long.
Weighted dips – 3 sets of 6 with 90 lbs worth of plates on my waist. This is a new favorite exercise too. Anything more than bodyweight used to hurt my shoulders, but it felt great and I got a good stretch with no pain.
Neutral grip incline DB press – 4 sets of 8-12 with 75 lb dumbbells taking it slow and feeling the muscle
Single arm machine press – 4 sets of 8-12. I position myself at a diagonal angle in the seat so that instead of pressing straight forward, I press slightly across my body for better pec engagement.
Cable pec flies – 3 sets decline and 3 sets incline of 10-15 reps. I had some energy at the end of the workout and wanted to get some good blood flow, so I played around a little with where the pulley was and what angle I pulled from.
Latest posts by Tucker Loken (see all)
- Tucker: Another Normal Log Update - March 1, 2019
- Tucker: A Normal Log Update - February 16, 2019
- Tucker: Making Do - February 4, 2019
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.