MarkKO's training log

[MarkKO]

That's great news, and having a real end in sight should help you take it a bit easier during the recovery. Any idea how long it could/should take those levels to drop to normal?

Nope, and nor does the doctor. He tried finding out but there's very little information about troponin clearance times.

Biological half-life of tropnin is 120 minutes, so it drops pretty quickly once your body quits cranking it out supposedly. Google says they normally stay elevated for 1-2 weeks post event.

Well there you go. Thanks

[BenM]

That's such fantastic news. And I'm also super jealous of your GP. I still haven't found one who seems very interested in anything except getting me out the door and into the next patient as quickly as possible.

You'll crush it at the meet now.

[MarkKO]

That's such fantastic news. And I'm also super jealous of your GP. I still haven't found one who seems very interested in anything except getting me out the door and into the next patient as quickly as possible.

You'll crush it at the meet now.

Isn't it just.

I got the results back this evening, troponin is down to 93 and I'm cleared of all restrictions by the end of the week.

He's a great GP, we're super lucky to have him. It's a really good practice in general, I think because it's run by a couple of GPs as far as I'm aware.

[MarkKO]

It's Wednesday, I go back to work tomorrow so I figured I might as well head to the gym and start the week and see how I pull up after.

Wednesday bench
5x5x220 lbs, wrapless only because the doc said I may as well wear my smart watch to get an idea of my heart rate so I don't push it too hard.
9, 5, 5, 6 pullups which were harder than expected and it seemed to have something to do with the elbow cuffs I got to help with the biceps pain. Ill have to see how that pans out
15, 10x176 lbs CGBP to a two-board
15, 10x132 lbs T-bar rows
15, 10x four chains/side chain flys
40, 35 facepulls



Well, I noticed that I'm a bit out of condition which is to be expected. I'm also really bad at judging what not pushing the pace is because I got through that in an hour.

I currently feel fine, and if I still do tomorrow I'm good to go.

[MarkKO]

I think it's safe to say I'm good to go. I got through the two days at work fine, although the first day was an adjustment.

Friday bow bar squat
5x5x364 lbs in nine minutes on the nose without pushing the pace so I'm not too out of shape. Left knee started acting up slightly from the last couple of sets onwards. Unfortunate.
5x3x385 lbs DL on stiff bar in three minutes and 38 seconds pushing the pace somewhat.
35, 2x25x308 lbs reverse hyper
2x25 back raises with ROM and tempo to focus on my hamstrings and glutes which just means a slower eccentric and shorter ROM
5x5 pullups, which are absolutely MUCH easier without the elbow cuffs
2x50 facepulls



Bracing above the waist was a bit off both for squats and DL, but that was just me being rusty/lazy. Squats felt a lot less good than they looked, which I think is somewhat to be expected given I haven't squatted or deadlifted in a couple of weeks in a month, I checked, holy crap. Deadlifts were better, just need to remember my lats, and again, a bit over a month. Yeesh. I mean, I know, Xmas week and then hospital, but still.

I'm going to can any quad work outside squats until after the meet (that's effectively three weeks because of the peak). This is a preventative measure, to hopefully stop the quad getting worse. I don't expect it to get better. I tried leg extensions, lunges, sissy squats, air squats, step ups and backwards sled drags. All hurt at varying degrees.

[Hardartery]

I think it's safe to say I'm good to go. I got through the two days at work fine, although the first day was an adjustment.

Friday bow bar squat
5x5x364 lbs in nine minutes on the nose without pushing the pace so I'm not too out of shape. Left knee started acting up slightly from the last couple of sets onwards. Unfortunate.
5x3x385 lbs DL on stiff bar in three minutes and 38 seconds pushing the pace somewhat.
35, 2x25x308 lbs reverse hyper
2x25 back raises with ROM and tempo to focus on my hamstrings and glutes which just means a slower eccentric and shorter ROM
5x5 pullups, which are absolutely MUCH easier without the elbow cuffs
2x50 facepulls



Bracing above the waist was a bit off both for squats and DL, but that was just me being rusty/lazy. Squats felt a lot less good than they looked, which I think is somewhat to be expected given I haven't squatted or deadlifted in a couple of weeks in a month, I checked, holy crap. Deadlifts were better, just need to remember my lats, and again, a bit over a month. Yeesh. I mean, I know, Xmas week and then hospital, but still.

I'm going to can any quad work outside squats until after the meet (that's effectively three weeks because of the peak). This is a preventative measure, to hopefully stop the quad getting worse. I don't expect it to get better. I tried leg extensions, lunges, sissy squats, air squats, step ups and backwards sled drags. All hurt at varying degrees.

The only thing I've heard of helping past knee sleeves (They fix ot for some people, like me apparently so far) and rest, is site injecting BPC157 for a couple of weeks. I am not making a recommendation, past maybe some research. It's not well studied and I have only anecdotal data so far on that, but it's fairly strong anecdotal data so I was and would consider it personally.

[MarkKO]

I think it's safe to say I'm good to go. I got through the two days at work fine, although the first day was an adjustment.

Friday bow bar squat
5x5x364 lbs in nine minutes on the nose without pushing the pace so I'm not too out of shape. Left knee started acting up slightly from the last couple of sets onwards. Unfortunate.
5x3x385 lbs DL on stiff bar in three minutes and 38 seconds pushing the pace somewhat.
35, 2x25x308 lbs reverse hyper
2x25 back raises with ROM and tempo to focus on my hamstrings and glutes which just means a slower eccentric and shorter ROM
5x5 pullups, which are absolutely MUCH easier without the elbow cuffs
2x50 facepulls



Bracing above the waist was a bit off both for squats and DL, but that was just me being rusty/lazy. Squats felt a lot less good than they looked, which I think is somewhat to be expected given I haven't squatted or deadlifted in a couple of weeks in a month, I checked, holy crap. Deadlifts were better, just need to remember my lats, and again, a bit over a month. Yeesh. I mean, I know, Xmas week and then hospital, but still.

I'm going to can any quad work outside squats until after the meet (that's effectively three weeks because of the peak). This is a preventative measure, to hopefully stop the quad getting worse. I don't expect it to get better. I tried leg extensions, lunges, sissy squats, air squats, step ups and backwards sled drags. All hurt at varying degrees.

The only thing I've heard of helping past knee sleeves (They fix ot for some people, like me apparently so far) and rest, is site injecting BPC157 for a couple of weeks. I am not making a recommendation, past maybe some research. It's not well studied and I have only anecdotal data so far on that, but it's fairly strong anecdotal data so I was and would consider it personally.

Oh, cool. I'll look into it and see if it's even available over here and if so, how to access it.

The sleeves absolutely help, and I was a dumbass and.took them off after squatting.

[MarkKO]

I think it's safe to say I'm good to go. I got through the two days at work fine, although the first day was an adjustment.

Friday bow bar squat
5x5x364 lbs in nine minutes on the nose without pushing the pace so I'm not too out of shape. Left knee started acting up slightly from the last couple of sets onwards. Unfortunate.
5x3x385 lbs DL on stiff bar in three minutes and 38 seconds pushing the pace somewhat.
35, 2x25x308 lbs reverse hyper
2x25 back raises with ROM and tempo to focus on my hamstrings and glutes which just means a slower eccentric and shorter ROM
5x5 pullups, which are absolutely MUCH easier without the elbow cuffs
2x50 facepulls



Bracing above the waist was a bit off both for squats and DL, but that was just me being rusty/lazy. Squats felt a lot less good than they looked, which I think is somewhat to be expected given I haven't squatted or deadlifted in a couple of weeks in a month, I checked, holy crap. Deadlifts were better, just need to remember my lats, and again, a bit over a month. Yeesh. I mean, I know, Xmas week and then hospital, but still.

I'm going to can any quad work outside squats until after the meet (that's effectively three weeks because of the peak). This is a preventative measure, to hopefully stop the quad getting worse. I don't expect it to get better. I tried leg extensions, lunges, sissy squats, air squats, step ups and backwards sled drags. All hurt at varying degrees.

The only thing I've heard of helping past knee sleeves (They fix ot for some people, like me apparently so far) and rest, is site injecting BPC157 for a couple of weeks. I am not making a recommendation, past maybe some research. It's not well studied and I have only anecdotal data so far on that, but it's fairly strong anecdotal data so I was and would consider it personally.

Ok, so they're absolutely available over here. You get them online through a couple of services but they aren't particularly cheap because now you can only get them with a prescription from a doctor.

I think the system is similar to the medical marijuana deal in the US before it because legal, so when I go to one of these services the price I pay includes a 'consultation' with a doctor who then prescribes the peptides to me.

It doesn't seem to be a scam or of questionable legality, just a way to obtain the peptides in a legal way because they need to be prescribed. I'll look into a bit more so if I decide I do need to go down that route all I need to do is click buy.

So a little more googling and yeah, nah. It isn't even remotely legal here because no peptides are listed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration as allowed for use on humans. The only legal use of peptides is for research, so any use as a treatment is forbidden. They are also specifically banned by ASADA, the WADA affiliate here which would mean that they're on the APL banned substances list although I have my doubts about how well an in competition urine test would pick them up.

The way those websites get around the legal issues seems to simply be changing their name, changing the web address and hoping like crazy TGA doesn't find out. The peptides aren't criminalised as far as I can tell in that I don't think I'd get arrested and charged if I got pinged for possession but the supplier companies are getting fined to the tune of millions of dollars when they get caught.

[MarkKO]

Different subject.

I'm actually low-key disappointed in myself for how long I didn't squat and deadlift. I know I had reasons for it, but I'm still not happy about my decisions, even though there's a pretty good chance they were the right ones to make at the time.

Anyway, I'm going to make some changes to squat/DL day as a result. Initially I had it running heavy AFSAP for 10 squat followed by short rest DL one week and short rest squat followed by DL against bands the other. Now, I don't think jumping into heavy AFSAP is a smart idea right now because I've had one squat session. I also don't think the short rests for either squat or DL are going to do a whole lot. I've got four weeks until peak starts. The most I can really achieve is to build some fatigue and keep my quad from getting worse.

So all I'm going to do is keep squats at 5x5 and add 11 lbs every week while trying to keep under 10 minutes. That has me hitting 5x5x396 lbs two weeks before peak starts which if I can get under 10 minutes is equal to what I did last cycle, which puts me well within the range of what I need to be at to be squatting 550+ lbs. I then have a week left to either deload or shoot for 5x5x407 lbs in under 10 minutes.

As for DL, I'll add either bands OR 11 lbs each week. So next week, I add bands. The week after bands go off but I go to 396 lbs, and the week after that add bands.

The idea is to just progressively overload both squat and DL moderately aggressively for a short period so I can peak them properly.

This cycle has been educational, and I don't mean that in a particularly positive sense because what I learned I should have already known. Namely, the whole strongman thing. I'm hoping that I can salvage something out of it and with any luck my back will be stronger.

Either way, it is what it is and I've got a shot and setting a better total at 220 lbs which I'm going to do my darnedest to manage. Next cycle I won't fuck around and go back to what I know works.

[Hardartery]

Ok, so they're absolutely available over here. You get them online through a couple of services but they aren't particularly cheap because now you can only get them with a prescription from a doctor.

I think the system is similar to the medical marijuana deal in the US before it because legal, so when I go to one of these services the price I pay includes a 'consultation' with a doctor who then prescribes the peptides to me.

It doesn't seem to be a scam or of questionable legality, just a way to obtain the peptides in a legal way because they need to be prescribed. I'll look into a bit more so if I decide I do need to go down that route all I need to do is click buy.

So a little more googling and yeah, nah. It isn't even remotely legal here because no peptides are listed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration as allowed for use on humans. The only legal use of peptides is for research, so any use as a treatment is forbidden. They are also specifically banned by ASADA, the WADA affiliate here which would mean that they're on the APL banned substances list although I have my doubts about how well an in competition urine test would pick them up.

The way those websites get around the legal issues seems to simply be changing their name, changing the web address and hoping like crazy TGA doesn't find out. The peptides aren't criminalised as far as I can tell in that I don't think I'd get arrested and charged if I got pinged for possession but the supplier companies are getting fined to the tune of millions of dollars when they get caught.

I think it is similar in the US, although there are no consultant fees. You can just buy them and whatever, buyer beware they aren't approved by anyone any more than any supplements are. I knew that some peptides were on the banned list, I was not aware of BPC 157 being banned by anyone, it doesn't really offer a performance benefit. It was developed to help gut biome and was discovered later to be good for tendonitis, supposedly it mimics the fluid in your bursa sac and esssentially lubricates everything enough to allow of recovery in spite of continued use. The problem is essentially inflammation and continued lifting causes aggravation that keeps it inflamed. The higher the Squat volume, the more it's a problem. Some guys swear by light leg extensions, I found them to be mildly and very temporarily helpful. Not squatting for 2 years of pandemic cured mine - at least for now. I have knee sleeves of the basic no performance benefit variet just on case.

[Renascent]

Different subject.

I'm actually low-key disappointed in myself for how long I didn't squat and deadlift. I know I had reasons for it, but I'm still not happy about my decisions, even though there's a pretty good chance they were the right ones to make at the time.

Sometimes you won't know you made a bad decision until you get some kind of shitty result.

I don't lift to compete, and I can understand the disappointment, but you seem dedicated enough to bounce back pretty well.

Better to fight another day, and such...

[MarkKO]

Ok, so they're absolutely available over here. You get them online through a couple of services but they aren't particularly cheap because now you can only get them with a prescription from a doctor.

I think the system is similar to the medical marijuana deal in the US before it because legal, so when I go to one of these services the price I pay includes a 'consultation' with a doctor who then prescribes the peptides to me.

It doesn't seem to be a scam or of questionable legality, just a way to obtain the peptides in a legal way because they need to be prescribed. I'll look into a bit more so if I decide I do need to go down that route all I need to do is click buy.

So a little more googling and yeah, nah. It isn't even remotely legal here because no peptides are listed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration as allowed for use on humans. The only legal use of peptides is for research, so any use as a treatment is forbidden. They are also specifically banned by ASADA, the WADA affiliate here which would mean that they're on the APL banned substances list although I have my doubts about how well an in competition urine test would pick them up.

The way those websites get around the legal issues seems to simply be changing their name, changing the web address and hoping like crazy TGA doesn't find out. The peptides aren't criminalised as far as I can tell in that I don't think I'd get arrested and charged if I got pinged for possession but the supplier companies are getting fined to the tune of millions of dollars when they get caught.

I think it is similar in the US, although there are no consultant fees. You can just buy them and whatever, buyer beware they aren't approved by anyone any more than any supplements are. I knew that some peptides were on the banned list, I was not aware of BPC 157 being banned by anyone, it doesn't really offer a performance benefit. It was developed to help gut biome and was discovered later to be good for tendonitis, supposedly it mimics the fluid in your bursa sac and esssentially lubricates everything enough to allow of recovery in spite of continued use. The problem is essentially inflammation and continued lifting causes aggravation that keeps it inflamed. The higher the Squat volume, the more it's a problem. Some guys swear by light leg extensions, I found them to be mildly and very temporarily helpful. Not squatting for 2 years of pandemic cured mine - at least for now. I have knee sleeves of the basic no performance benefit variet just on case.

Trust our authorities to ruin the fun. All peptides are banned here, but I'll have to dig deeper to find out if they're actually illegal to buy or not. It's obvious supply for anything other than research is illegal but it's really unclear whether buying them is or isn't.

In the interim, my squat volume is relatively low and spaced out so hopefully that'll help too.

[MarkKO]

Different subject.

I'm actually low-key disappointed in myself for how long I didn't squat and deadlift. I know I had reasons for it, but I'm still not happy about my decisions, even though there's a pretty good chance they were the right ones to make at the time.

Sometimes you won't know you made a bad decision until you get some kind of shitty result.

I don't lift to compete, and I can understand the disappointment, but you seem dedicated enough to bounce back pretty well.

Better to fight another day, and such...

Absolutely, and thank you for the vote of confidence.

I have no doubt I'll perform OK, I'm more annoyed at myself for not noticing what happened.

[MarkKO]

Week two of block four begins.

Monday bench
3, 2x281 lbs for what was meant to be 10 AFSAP but reality got in the way
10x220 lbs to salvage something
10, 9, 6 pullups with the nine because the break between sets was longer than usual
2x15x176 lbs CGBP to a two-board and for whatever reason the second set had my front delts hurting a little
75 facepulls



Something is definitely off. I was having a hard time getting decent thoracic extension but that alone doesn't account for that bench drop. My prime suspect in the absence of any injury (because outside of that odd delt niggle nothing hurts) is that whatever virus BS got my gut and gave me the myocarditis is still fucking with me. I know my average weight at last checkin was down about two pounds from my last training week in 2022, and my intake hasn't been low enough to warrant that on its own. So for some reason I'm lighter and im pretty sure it isn't dehydration because I've been on top of that too. I'm going to be very generous in my eating for the next few days to see what happens, and I'll keep on eye on how weights move as well.

[MarkKO]

I've mentioned this before in passing but I'm going to go a bit further now because I've somehow achieved a degree of clarity in the past couple of days.

It's time, or will soon be time, for me to drop some fat again. The clarity I alluded to, such as it is, comes from looking in the mirror and over the last couple of days realising that I haven't gotten any bigger for a while. I haven't gotten any fatter either, which is a win of course. None of this is really surprising since I've been technically in maintenance since around June 2021.

That's when I stopped dropping weight, even though I'd stopped dieting a few months before. It just took a while for me to figure out where my maintenance levels were at. I was sitting around 209 lbs at the time. From June 2021 until August 2022 there was a slow and steady gain, which I'm fairly sure was mostly muscle since my visible body composition hasn't changed much. I topped out around 218ish lbs, and have sat within a pound or less of that on average since August 2022.

Looking back, that's also around the time squat and bench started slowing down somewhat. Don't get me wrong, yesterday's little blip definitely got me thinking. Let's call it a catalyst of sorts.

When I say slowing down, I just mean I had a PHENOMENAL run on squat and bench for nine to 12 months. The handy thing is that I've been training much the same way for over two years now, so that's a variable I can eliminate. That steady, almost linear rate of progress was never going to just continue. What it absolutely did coincide with, and was probably driven by, was me steadily gaining lean mass. That 10ish pounds gained from June 2021 to August 2022, taking me from around 209 lbs to around 218 lbs, unsurprisingly pushed my squat and bench up.

The situation I find myself in now is that I'm not lean enough that I could sacrifice some composition to add another 10 pounds. I could easily gain 10 pounds, but the quality would be way, way lower than the mass that took me from 209 to 218 lbs. The impact on my strength would likewise be of inferior quality. Yet, I need more muscle. I can't really get around that.

All is not doom and gloom, however. I am fairly sure I have enough muscle that I could afford to lose some 10 to 20 pounds or bodyweight without taking a particularly terrible hit to my strength in the medium term. Losing that kind of weight should also not be particularly difficult given how much I move around at work. I could probably drop my calories by 300 to 500 per day and lose that weight in six months or so. I'd be hungry all the time, but that's a given.

This would get me to a reasonably lean body composition. Nothing fancy, but with significantly more room to grow. Get there, and then maintain that for a few months and I'd be ready to repeat the slow building process that happened between June 2021 and August 2022. I would be able to have a really good run and filling out 220 lbs that way.

With the meet coming up in March, that provides a pretty ideal reset point.

Tentatively I would take mid March to mid August to get to 198 lbs, or as close as I can get without shit getting too unpleasant. Say a 198-205 lbs window, with 198 lbs being the absolute lowest I'd be prepared to go to. August through to December would be the period I settle in to that weight. Then I would look to slowly gain mass while maintaining that body composition as best as possible with the goal being to get back to around 218 lbs and ideally 220 or more.

Obviously, in that March through to August period my strength would take a hit, at least on my total. The easiest way I can think of dealing with that would be by dropping my working maxes down to around 90% instead of where they are now which is above 95%.

Anyway, that's it really. As soon as the meet is done I'll plug my targets into Carbon and work through the stages.

[JohnHelton]

I think this is a good strategy. The best way to build muscle without getting too fat is by cycling bulks and cuts. I was doing the same, but then unintentionally I gained weight too quickly at the end of the year (kitchen remodel with a lot of eating out). Now I'm forced to cut. I think bulking and cutting within a 15-20 lb range is the way to go. I'm around 203 lb now and plan to get to the low-mid 180s by the middle of summer. Then I will try to do the slow bulk thing. Like you, my strength tends to really improve while bulking.

[MarkKO]

I think this is a good strategy. The best way to build muscle without getting too fat is by cycling bulks and cuts. I was doing the same, but then unintentionally I gained weight too quickly at the end of the year (kitchen remodel with a lot of eating out). Now I'm forced to cut. I think bulking and cutting within a 15-20 lb range is the way to go. I'm around 203 lb now and plan to get to the low-mid 180s by the middle of summer. Then I will try to do the slow bulk thing. Like you, my strength tends to really improve while bulking.

I'm glad you agree, and also surprised you took the time read it so thanks for that too.

That June-August period was one of the most productive blocks of time I've ever had in the gym and I'm almost certain it was because for the first time I managed to combine knowing how I need to eat with being *just* lean enough to gain lean tissue more than fat; and trained in a manner that provided enough stimulus for muscle gain.

Going forward I think I just need to string together more blocks of time like that. The better I can get my body composition, the better they will work. I'm perfectly happy to diet for six or so months every 12 to 18 months for the foreseeable future if that lets me fill out.

You're absolutely right, the 15-20 pounds range is great. I'm very, very lucky as well with my job because it turbocharges my TDEE so my calorie deficits can be really quite modest to diet down.

[MarkKO]

Wednesday bow bar squat
5x5x375 lbs in seven minutes and 42 seconds, which is a pretty good time and a good start. Definitely sets me up for 5x5x396 lbs in under 10 minutes in a couple of weeks.
3, 1x375 lbs DL on stiff bar against minis and there goes the good start. First set was OK, the second set I called at one rep because it was so much harder.
2x25 back raises
3x25 facepulls



Obviously something is still off, and I figure there is no point in digging myself a deeper hole just to be able to say I can push myself.

On the plus side, my left quad held up very well. It hurt somewhat, but if I squat properly and sit down and a little back it's only slightly uncomfortable. Obviously last week I wasn't paying attention to that and letting my knees come forward more which irritated it.

[MarkKO]

Friday close grip incline bench
3x220 lbs
5x198 lbs
10, 2x8x154 lbs
5x5 pullups
2x10x60 lbs, 2x10x40 lbs, 15x20 lbs tricep pushdowns with failure on rep 16
2x50 facepulls

Energy is still not quite there so I cut some stuff out, but there may be a slight improvement.

[MarkKO]

All that discussion about how I use density got me thinking about my next cycle.

I still haven't quite gotten it working nicely on a three day week. I set it up for four days, and I think I'm about 80% there for a three day week but that last 20% or so hasn't clicked yet.

The main issue is squat day. Bench and secondary upper are fine, because they didn't change. This cycle I messed with exercise selection a little but I've got a fair idea what did and didn't work in that respect. That's fine.

Squat day is a problem though, because I had to find somewhere to put deadlifts and relegated them to practice. I think that's going to at least consider biting me in the arse, if not actually leave teeth marks. The main issue is that if I go in tired pulling after squats is an issue, and like towards the end of last year sometimes the DL gets canned. So this cycle I've deadlifted way less that I need to.

The only solution I can think of is moving deadlift and sticking them at the start of secondary upper. For starters, I could then actually train them. They'd be first up and I'd be fresher. I'll just need to shuffle a couple of exercises around after because I can't afford to drop upper work.

I should probably start mapping it out and doing that for the next couple of weeks even.