Experimentsinthecrucible

[experimentsinthecrucible-blog]

Quick Update: Day 5 on Velocity

So, 5 days into the velocity diet, i have stayed strictly to the plan, as well as staying away from white carbs and wheat (where possible) i have however been capping out at about 50-80 grams of carbs daily.

Feel pretty good, had some long hard days working 2 jobs as well as keeping it going in my own training. 

My fellow coaches and I are pushing the limits of our current programme, Partner resistance, pre exhaust exercises have pushed us hard. I have also kept up with my Daily Kettle Bell swings (100 reps a day @ 24kg) to say the least my body is tired. Day 5 is a day of resting and recovering.. my body is welcoming it with open arms.

Remember, Rest, Mobilize and stretch if you want to grow and gain.

Stay Awesome

JD 

[experimentsinthecrucible-blog]

The Velocity Diet

Happy New Year! 2015 is gone and dead, long live 2016.

2015 became a year for change for me, I swapped careers (finally moving back into the fitness industry after a 4 year hiatus), and I swapped lacrosse teams, heading back to Liverpool and started down a path of exploration and personal growth, a path that in part bore the creation of this blog. 

2015 also saw a huge change in my diet and training routines mainly due to working two jobs in order to kick start my fitness career.

It seems crazy to say it, and I certainly get some weird looks from those I explain it to, but since working in a gym, I have really not had time to train. in order to make my new job a reality I have willingly sacrificed the spare time I had to train, in order to train others.

I love coaching and I would certainly do it again, the people i coach make it worth it and come February It will be my main career and I will once again have the time to train hard every day and work towards my personal goals away from work... walking the walk so they say.

To assist with this I am going to commit to the velocity diet. Although a seemingly fad diet, a number of respected trainers in the industry have tried and reviewed the diet and i was convinced to try the protocol by a review by Dan John, I have been reading through alot of his work lately and his results on the diet were enough to convince me to take the leap.

I expect the results to be reasonably impressive, I am combining the diet with an intense 3x a week lifting routine @Raw Strength Gym Warrington as well as 2x a week Kettlebell conditioning and a weekend lacrosse game.

I come into this weighing 104kg and boasting about 25-32% BF (3 separate measurements taken between callipers, Navy Seal BF% protocol and bioelectrical impedance) 

I will be tracking my daily energy, mood, hunger levels and will be taking weekly body measurements. I’ll try and keep the updates coming complete with graphs and eventual before and after pics.

The diet in short is 5 to 6 high quality protein shakes (I am using MP Total Protein) and 1 cooked meal a day of 400-700 calories.

My daily menu looks like this:

Breakfast:

2x Scoops of Total Protein

3x Small Scoops Total Nutrigreens

2x CLA

2x Fish Oil

Lunch: 2x Scoops of Total Protein

1 ½ x Scoops of Inulin

Mid Afternoon (3pm):

2x Scoops of Total Protein

2x CLA

2x Fish Oil

Preworkout:

3x BCAA

Dinner:

400-700 cal Cooked meal or Muscle Food Ready Meal + Veg

2x CLA

3x BCAA

Prebed:

1x Scoop Micellar casein 1x Scoop Impact Whey

Wish me luck! it’s going to be a interesting 2 month roller coaster im sure! 

JD

[experimentsinthecrucible-blog]

Experiment #1 Half an Hour Deadlift Challenge

First experiment complete - not so much of a life changer but one designed to push your body, instill some much needed grit and fortitude (half an hour is a long time when your counting the seconds) and give you plenty of time to analysis your deadlift technique.

the program was created by Dan John and posted on T-Nation link below:

https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-take-the-half-hour-deadlift-challenge 

The program goes thusly. you perform 2 deadlifts every minute for 30 minutes. the recommended weight on the bar was 140kg (308lbs) so thats what i stuck to. 

There are two strategies you can try. Either perform 2 reps on the minute, or do 1 rep every 30 seconds. I experimented with both of these during the first 10 minutes but decided that getting both reps done at the start of each minute allowed me more time to breath, stretch and rest before the next set.

For me 140kg isn’t the heaviest, but it is hardly a weight to be scoffed at, especially when your going to be doing 60 heavy reps in a relatively short space of time.   

Overall it wasn’t the hardest test, i did however spend alot of time working on my form, the 30 or so seconds between sets allowed me to stretch and analysis what i had been doing.

I also performed each rep while trying to create as much tension in my abs and glutes as possible, filling my lungs with as much air as possible... the next morning i felt just as much DOMS in my lats, abs and neck as i did my back!

on the subject of DOMS however, i hardly felt anything the following day, simply the after effects of the pump on my back, abs and glutes.

either way i survived and will be trying it again when i have limited time before coaching. I plan on upping the weight next time, will post a video of the next attempt! 

JD

[experimentsinthecrucible-blog]

Enter The Crucible

I will briefly explain the purpose of all this while giving you some background on me.

I get excited by fads, more so nutritional and fitness fads that’s not to say I jump on them straight away, but I certainly take notice of anything that gets the general populous excited.

Once it has my attention that’s where I start to get nerdy, I want to know everything, the science behind it, the validity of the person who started it, the results achieved so far, right down to the meal plans and workouts suggested… you get the idea.

So I’m a geek, I get it, I love and work in fitness but I also love video games, comics and music, I listen to a whole range of podcasts daily and enjoy all forms of self-learning.

When it comes to experimentation, to date I have tried a whole variety of diets and workouts, the slow carb diet (Tim Ferris – 4HourBody.com), the 5x5 Strongman workout plan (stronglifts.com) to name a couple of the more famous.

However, now I am working full time in the fitness industry after a four year gap, I am interested in trying and documenting my various successes and failures again… I will do it so you don’t have to!

Don’t expect a huge variety however, more like a single path of thought over the course of one diet or workout plan at a time. Success in my opinion comes from a single minded course towards a goal, adding other variables not only confuses matters but also destroys the validity of the experiment.

This is simply prep. I have a couple of things I want to try in 2016, im big on goal setting and resolutions differ only from goals semantically, that and we only set them once a year, where really you should be smashing a goal/target/resolution out of the park every month or two.

With that the following are in the tank to try out next year:

Nutritional Experiments

-          The Velocity Diet

-          The Renegade Diet

 Workout Experiments

-          Occam’s Protocol

-          German Volume Training (alternative with KB’s)

-          10’000 Swings

-          Daily Deadlifts

I hope you keep following, reading and learning along with me!

JD