Been continuing to eat more food as I started in mid to late June and it has shown on the scale. I’m eating big meals along the paleo line with extra carbs from sweet potatoes and then sneaking in protein shakes with coconut milk in between meals. This is working really well for adding bodyweight. I’ve been teetering around 178 lb. lately which is about the highest bodyweight I’ve seen in my life. I have to admit though from being as low as 160 lb. just over 18 months ago to being around 170 lb. for the past year it is weird to see the scale climb bit by bit over the past several weeks. It almost invokes a panic that I’m getting fat. I’ll take some tape measurements soon to see where the mass is going to, but from the mirror it looks like a good bit is headed into muscle. My goal is to hit 180 lb. before tweaking the diet to reduce bodyfat. I’ve never been super lean before, but I have never really given it a go to try and get lean. I wanted to make sure I was eating plenty for a while before trying to lean out with any diet changes. My goal right now is to eat plenty of food and then some.

Weight graph for the past few weeks:

June-July 2011 Weight Graph

 

Training for this week was a bit time compressed with the holiday on Monday. I ended up not lifting as planned on Monday and moved Monday’s workout to Tuesday. Also, this week I picked up my Hi-Temp bumper weights which had been on order for a while. I was originally trying to get the weights in the proper colors used by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), but Hi-Temp was having trouble getting the materials in for the coloring process. So, I had to get them in black if I wanted to use them soon. The weights came in metric weights: 10, 15, 20, and 25kg which works out to: 22, 33, 44, and 55 pounds respectively. The bumper weights were back home in time for a snatch and power clean session on Friday.

I’ve been maxed out on the weights I had available for deadlift as it took everything I had to hit 300 lb. Now with the bumper weights I will be able to add weight to the bar and see if I can’t break some PRs.

 

Tuesday, July 5:

Press: reps of 5-4-3-3 at 140 lb.

 

Wednesday, July 6:

Deadlift 2 sets of 5 reps at 300 lb.

 

Friday, July 8:

Snatch: Worked up to a heavy single at 60kg (132 lb.) and then 3 sets of 1 rep at 50kg (110 lb.)

Power Clean: 5 sets of 3 reps at 90kg (198 lb.) – Really felt good to hit some power cleans, I’ve missed doing those.

Pullups (neutral grip): 3 sets at 10 reps

Ring dips (supersets with pullups): 3 sets at 10 reps

Hi-Temp Bumper Weights