As promised, I said I would write weekly recaps of the new lifting program I’m on. Today’s post will reflect on my week 1 updates and experience so far. I’m going to break the post out into three difference sections – training, nutrition, and future considerations. Enjoy!

Training

First up in my week 1 updates is training. Obviously this is the bulk of it. If you missed it, I’ve changed my training to a more hypertrophy-based program as opposed to a strength-based program. You can read more about why in my last post. You’ll have to scroll down to the bottom of the post to find the section.

Anyway, week 1 went as well as it could. There were some surprises, but overall I took the week to figure out the best weight to start with for each of exercises.

This program is much more about proper form, the mind-muscle connection, and higher reps than anything else. For the most part it means lowering the weight to ensure proper form. There were some exercises where I went way too light and others where I had to back off.

Like everyone should with their training program, I made notes on what I need to go up on this week and where I can afford to stay the same. This week will be focused on dialing in those weights a little more.

I will say I was told by Jay going into this that the workouts would be hard and lengthy. He wasn’t lying. 2 of the 3 workouts last week took me about a 1hr 20mins and the third was slightly over an hour. All of my training has been hard in some sense. My previous strength programs were hard because the goal was to lift heavy weights. This particular program is hard in an energy-draining, muscle fatigue way. Nothing really leaves me panting or winded so far which is a nice change of pace.

Surprises

There have been a few surprises with the training program so far.

1. The areas where I was the most sore were unexpected. Those areas have been my hamstrings and triceps. Most of my posterior chain work has been centered around compound lifts. Even exercises that put an emphasis on hamstrings like Romanian Deadlifts and Good Mornings still incorporate other muscle groups. This program isolates the hamstrings more with exercises like Lying Leg Curls and Glute Ham Raises. They felt brutally sore all week.
2. I was pleasantly surprised on Friday to find I did not need any assistance with my Chin-Ups. My program called for 10 sets of 2 Chin-Ups with only 30secs of rest between each set. I can do unassisted Chin-Ups, but I thought for sure I would tire out around set 5 or 6 and need to use a band for assistance. I never needed one, which made me happy.
3. In a shocking twist, I miss doing hill sprints. These were programmed into the strength & conditioning program I was doing before this one. They made me feel leaner, helped me achieve a lower resting heart rate, and helped my lung capacity. I can technically still do them as I have two “rest” days where I can do my cardio exercises of choice. Walking is cool, but I’ve found it just doesn’t have the same effect on me mentally and physically as hill sprints do.

Nutrition

Next up in week 1 updates: Nutrition. There really isn’t too much to report here. My weight remained constant the entire week and I hovered around 178-179 lbs. I’m consuming around 2100 calories per day broken down into 185g carbs/75g fat/170g protein.

Jay mentioned that I’d be hungry and he once again was not lying. Despite those 2100 calories I’m hungry when I go to bed and hungry when I wake up. It doesn’t matter how late I eat dinner – I always feel those hunger pangs when I’m in bed. I’m not talking the slightly uncomfortable feeling of hunger you feel when in a fat loss phase, either. It feels like I haven’t eaten all day even after a full day of eating.

I’m going to see where this next week takes me with my current calories. I want to see if my body adjusts anymore to the new program and if so, how. After that I’ll determine what I want to do with my diet.

It’s been one week so obviously there aren’t any physical changes to report (or show). One thing I have to remember to do is start taking measurements in addition to tracking weight and taking pictures.

If I had to guess, I’ll reluctantly begin lowering calories. My biggest problem area has always been my love handles and now is no different. I’m incredibly self-conscious about them. The hatred I have for them outweighs feeling hungry.

There’s a chance I’ll just have to accept my flaws, though. Even at my leanest they still existed albeit smaller. If I want to get rid of them entirely it’ll like mean achieving and maintaining a sub 10% body fat and there is NO fun in that.

Future Considerations

Stress

Stress is going to play a huge role in my very near future. I’ve been relying on unemployment while I try to build my coaching business into a full-time thing. That’s obviously not something that happens overnight. With the end of the weekly $600 federal unemployment assistance, my financial situation is about to get pretty dire.

My new unemployment payments will be $288 per week, which is a little more than $900/month. My monthly expenses total $2400 between rent, student loans, utilities, phone, groceries, and more. I’ve been able to eliminate some of my financial obligations so it’s not quite as high as $2400, but I’ll basically be surviving on unemployment and supplementing that with what I have in my savings account.

Unfortunately that will only last me so long. Either my coaching business is going to need to explode exponentially in the next 2-3 months or I’m going to have to find a full time job. That would mean going back to building this on the side.

So yeah, as you can see there’s a whirlwind of stress headed my way with this stuff. Stress plays a big role in your progress so we’ll see how this starts to affect me. While I currently feel stress, it’s not that bad yet…

Travel

Before I was let go from my job and while things seemed to start easing up with the pandemic, Katie and I booked a trip out to Virginia Beach at the end of August.

We did it the smartest way we could and booked a house instead of a hotel so we didn’t have to be around other people. We’ll be driving to avoid flying for the same reason. The house has a pool so if the beach doesn’t feel safe we can still chill out without being around anyone.

Regardless, that’ll take out 3 weeks of training in the gym for me. One for the week I’m away and the following two to self-quarantine once we’re home just to be safe. I do have a TRX system and Rogue resistance bands that I’ll be bringing with me on the trip and can do at home. It’s not the same as being in the gym, but it’s better than nothing.

Conclusion

That’s really all as far as my week 1 updates. All in all it was a good first week. The new program been a welcomed change and I am enjoying these new workouts. I’m looking forward to seeing how week 2 goes beginning with my workout later this afternoon.