Powerlifting Journal: October 2021 - Back to Repping 405s
This is the inaugural article for the Powerlifting Journal. As early subscribers will know, the original idea for the premium newsletter was a concept called “ironvesting.”
It was a word I made up to reflect my love for powerlifting and investing. I backtracked from this concept to focus the premium newsletter entirely on my training as an investor—studying cultures and owner-operators of public companies. But I couldn’t shake powerlifting out from my head as it was an equally crucial part of my development as an investor and person in general.
With that, the premium newsletter is going through an evolution to start including monthly updates of my journey in powerlifting. This might delight some and annoy some. But I hope your subscription and trust in me was as much about the person writing as much as the content.
I will share more details on the evolution in the Tuesday newsletter. But without further ado, please take a look at the inaugural powerlifting journal. As this is the first report of its kind, it doesn’t have a paywall.
The Powerlifting Journal is a monthly update on my strength training, nutrition, and recovery. My obsession with becoming stronger became the foundation for everything I did. I discovered value investing because I was looking for a field in the business world that resembled the parts of powerlifting I loved. Every job interview I’ve had in accounting, consulting, investing, and writing revolved around my powerlifting career.
The Preamble
I started strength training in 2008 out of high school. To give you an idea, my high school gym had 12 squat racks. The U.S. Winter Olympic team came to train there in the 2010 Winter Olympics and my fitness instructor had strength coached the Canadian Olympic Wrestling and Snowboarding team. I got really lucky with my start.
I started competing in 2012 and set a couple of junior world records in 2012 and 2013 for the Squat. It’s because I started early and powerlifting wasn’t a popular sport. I was there at the right time.
That’s not to diminish the fact I trained at 6:30 am every day in high school and trained 4 hours a day all throughout university. I didn’t have a coach and figured things out with the help of the internet and making lots of mistakes. Starting early in an unpopular sport gave me such a leeway to see success despite mistakes.
I tore my meniscus in 2014 and spent two years seeing various doctors who misdiagnosed me. I got surgery in 2016 and got my first powerlifting coach in 2017 to help with the rehab and rebuild. My orthopedic surgeon said I wouldn’t be able to lift 400lbs again without a meniscus in my left leg. I went on to squat 450lbs at 145lbs bodyweight to win my first open meet in 2018 and came second in all men.
Having learned a lot working with a powerlfiitng coach for two years, I decided to blow everything up and restart in 2019. I wanted to go back to programming training for myself and have fun lifting instead of obsessing over competing in a sport. I couldn’t care less if I could make it to the world stage. As powerlifting grew, the sport became more about “moving the maximum possible weight” instead of pure strength.
The Journal
I decided to train the way I wanted to use methods that I thought would be fun. I’m not an expert on anything. Just like with my investing, I’m just a curious person trying to be better.
All I can tell you is what I’ve done thus far. I’ve squatted 3x my bodyweight and deadlifted 4x my bodyweight in a drug-tested competition. I’ve trained for 10+ years and never taken a year off.
When I broke my collar bone, I cycled every day. When I had knee surgery I did pull-ups and upper body isolations until I was cleared to rehab. No gyms in COVID meant 2-hour love fests with kettlebells 5x a week.
My results are completely suboptimal for someone who has trained for as long as I have. I’m sure anyone with decent genetics with a proper coach will far outpace my development over a five-year period. But I’d rather not train than delegate my health development to someone else. The fun for me is both lifting heavy weights and learning more about my body in the process.
I consider powerlifting to be an essential system in my life. How well I invest, write and build relationships are all influenced by powerlifting. This might confuse you. When I say powerlifting, I’m referring to my entire health system. I’m referring to my mental and physical health. I’m referring to how I sleep, what I eat, and everything from stress and mood.
I see the building of wealth and strength as a harmonious system and I make sense of most of my investing through my understanding of how I develop strength. That’s a lot to say for someone who hasn’t received any professional training other than lifting for a decade but that’s how it is. But I would never trust a skinny strength coach and a poor investor. That’s just how I think.
With that, I plan to share everything I’ve done to become a better powerlifter—and subsequently a better human being. As the name suggests, it will read similarly to a journal. Rather, a reflection of a month’s journal entry with thoughts for the next month.
The Goal
I don’t train with annual strength targets. I focus on being injury-free, having fun, and becoming stronger slowly. I’ll stay at weights I can do until I feel mentally ready to move on. It’s not aggressive but I’m not trying to prove anything to other people. Getting injured trying to impress others is idiotic and I want to do my best to avoid that.
Yet, I would be lying if I didn’t have a long-term goal in mind. I would like to squat 4x my bodyweight, deadlift 5x my bodyweight, and bench press 2.5x my bodyweight. This will keep me honest. My definition of strength is not the absolute weight someone lifts but the ratio to their size. Bigger people should lift more since they were blessed with size.
If I can hit these goals in five years’s time I would be happy. I would also like to hit these numbers while looking like I hit these numbers. That means building muscles and looking strong. There’s a long way to go there for this narrow-shouldered 5’5” lad.
The fact is, I need to achieve optimal health to be able to do everything else I want in life. A healthy body and mind will also cost less on the purse and whatever wealth I build will be best used by a healthy self. Health is the foundational system to everything else and working towards my goals will require the best out of myself.
The Detail
I mentioned earlier that I blew up everything in 2019 to go from moving weight to getting stronger. The details are everything here. This is to explain what I’m trying to achieve with the stated goal.
This is what I mean by the following:
Squat: Using a low-bar setup with flat shoes. I will use all equipment allowed for “raw” powerlifters (i.e. wrist wraps, knee sleeves, belt) as safety comes first.
Bench Press: Flat shoes and shoulder-width grip with competition pause.
Deadlift: Conventional stance with flat shoes. I will use all equipment allowed for “raw” powerlifters (i.e. wrist wraps, knee sleeves, belt) as safety comes first.
This classification matters because it’s moving away from the way I lifted in meets (and trained 7-8 years doing) that is optimized to move the maximum amount of weight. That means I’m learning to train myself differently as of 2021 and that is a new journey on its own.
October 2021 Highlight
The following are the results from this month.
Training Period: September 26, 2021 to October 30, 2021
Estimated Bodyweight: 150lbs
Heaviest training set this month:
Squat: 405lbs x 2 reps
Bench Press: 255lbs x 3 reps
Conventional Deadlift: 460lbs x 1 rep
Over Head Press (OHP): 145lbs x 4 reps
Daily average fast: ~17.2h
Daily average sleep time: ~7h 10m
Daily average Calories Burned: ~2,700
Reflections and assessments follow in the subsequent segments divided into:
Training
Nutrition
Recovery
Training
Outline:
The framework for this month’s training was six days a week. It was split between four days of strength training and two days for weaknesses and cardio.
Training schedule:
Sunday - Day 1
Monday - Day 2
Tuesday - Cardio/Pull
Wednesday - Day 3
Thursday - Cardio/Pull
Friday - Day 4
Saturday - Rest (i.e. full day of writing)
Exercise selection divided by movement patterns:
Days 1 & 3: Squat + Vertical Push
Days 2 & 4: Hip Hinge + Horizontal Push
Cardio/Pull: Vertical Pull + Horizontal Pull + Shoulder Rotation + Cardio
The squat includes the competition squat and its variations. What do I mean by competition squat? I’m referring to how I would squat in a powerlifting competition. You might be wondering if there is more than one way to squat. There sure is.
Here’s a non-exhaustive list: high-bar squat, low-bar squat, front squat, safety-bar squat, Zercher squat, pause squat (for every variation listed prior), tempo squat (of all kinds of sequences), etc.
Now, a competition squat for me is a low-bar squat wearing flat shoes. But I will use different variations to develop strength for my competition squat. Generally, the competition squat will be the strongest variation for the lifter.
The vertical push movement will encompass shoulder dominant movements like the overhead press (also known as military press or shoulder press). I neglected this movement for the bulk of my lifting career.
It was shortsighted and building strong shoulders would’ve prevented many shoulder injuries over the years. After another shoulder injury preparing for my 2018 competition, I finally decided to dedicate training days for shoulder development.
Hip hinge is the movement for deadlifts. The deadlifts have a competition form and its variation (much like the squat). There are conventional deadlift, sumo deadlift, trap-bar deadlift, Romanian deadlift, straight-leg deadlift. Other hip hinge movements that are non-deadlifting but still train the same biomechanics are kettlebell swings and good mornings.
I competed with a sumo deadlift from 2013 to 2019. I had been a conventional deadlifter when I started in 2008. As the name suggests, it’s the stance most start out learning.
Here’s what a sumo-deadlift looks like.
I switched to lifting sumo in 2013 because the wide stance allowed me to better utilize my leverage. It was more technical so the learning curve was steeper. But I was able to lift 100lbs more this way and it worked for powerlifting—as it’s a sport that’s more about “moving” the most weight than raw strength. That was why I switched back to conventional deadlifts at the end of 2019.
Though my sumo deadlift max was 525lbs, I knew my conventional wasn’t anywhere close. That movement utilized more of the body and becoming a stronger conventional deadlifter would take longer. But I felt the carryover to overall strength development would be greater.
I had to ask myself: why was I powerlifting? It wasn’t to compete. I don’t even like going to competitions. It was always about becoming the strongest person I could be and if I felt I was not strong because I was a sumo deadlifter, then I had no choice but to revert to training my conventional deadlift. That’s some context on the difference between two common stances.
The horizontal push pattern is any chest dominant exercise. This includes the stereotypical favourite exercise of every guy: the bench press. I think it’s a stupid exercise because it seems to be such an impractical movement that has barely any carryover for strength development to other movements. But, an upper body strength component for powerlifters is the bench press so I train it. Besides, having a big chest isn’t bad either.
Still, it’s my worst lift and it doesn’t help that I’m choosing to train in a suboptimal manner. That is, I’m choosing to bench press with a shoulder-width grip with a standard back arch. I could widen my grip and arch my back further to limit the range of motion to ‘move more weight.’ But that would go contrary to actual strength development.
Vertical pulls are pull-ups and chin-ups. Horizontal pulls are any rowing variation whether using a dumbbell or seated on a cable machine. The shoulder rotations go over various forms of internal and external rotations of the shoulder joint at various angles at 90 degrees.
There’s your brief overview of the movement patterns and the kind of exercises I would train in those days. Now, how were sets and reps decided for the days?
In October, each training day focused on a heavier intensity for the major exercise of each movement pattern. That meant:
Day 1: Heavy overhead press + moderate squats
Day 2: Heavy bench press + moderate hip hinge
Day 3: Heavy squat + moderate vertical push
Day 4: Heavy deadlift + moderate horizontal push
I should also add a caveat that I’m not calling the "Cardio/Pull” days “training days.” It’s not that those days aren’t important. They are. But it’s an easy 1-hour session intended to be relaxing given the light weights involved. They’re more like hygiene days. Back to talking about training days.
The heavy days also had greater volume. The level of intensity and volume are the two tools utilized for using stress to ignite development. Intensity is the use of heavier weights. Volume is the use of more sets and reps in those sets.
I programmed the volume to be higher on days for the heavy lifts. That meant I would do the most squat volume on Day 3 with Day 1 being an easier day on squats with a moderate intensity and volume.
Day 3’s squat session would typically have 10 work sets. Work sets do not include the half a dozen warm-up sets. Those warm-up sets came after my 15-30 minutes of dynamic stretches, mobility work, etc. to wake the body up for the upcoming stress.
The rest times between each work set (I’ll refer to them as sets going forward because only work sets matter) was at least 5 minutes. The average time to replenish our adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is about 5-10 minutes so I take the bare minimum.
Training is about clean and near-perfect execution of each rep of every set and the rest times must also be respected. Why bother doing a set at all when the body isn’t ready? It would be a waste. Strength building is serious work and time must be ‘made’ for training. It’s not something to get out of the way. It’s not a chore. It’s a privilege. Basic biology dictates 10-minute pump sessions or 30-minute fitness fads won’t work.
The top sets for the squat and deadlift were 1-2 reps. The top sets for the bench press and OHP were 3-4 reps. This schematic was a continuation from the years of training data analyzed during the 2017-2019 season when I worked with a powerlifting coach who was part of the Reactive Training Systems (RTS) team.
The first three work sets of every heavy training session ramped up to the top set, which aimed for an RPE of 9. RPE is the Rating of Perceived Exertion and it was popularized in strength training by Mike Tuscherer, the founder of RTS—hence why I chose to work with this team.
The RPE was introduced as a method for lifters to auto-regulate their training. Back in the day, training was very strict to doing preset weights, sets and reps for each allocated training day. There was a rigidity to the structure. That worked fine for beginner programs. But as I became an experienced lifter, it resulted in greater fatigue and injury.
Auto-regulation allowed the lifter to have weights and sets fluctuate for each training day. So, the training day of every week wouldn’t actually be identical because the lifter would feel different day-to-day and week-to-week.
By auto-regulating, the lifter listened to his body and went heavier than intended on days he felt great and vice versa. It was designed for experienced lifters who had a greater understanding of their body. It was a bottom-up approach that made perfect sense to an investor who used a bottom-up fundamental research approach.
Here is an example of how Day 3’s squat session on October 28th went:
Competition Squat:
370x2@ 7
390x2@ 8.5
405x2@ 9
370x4@ 7
370x4@ 8
370x4@ 9
3sec pauses
315x3@ 8
315x3@ 8.5
315x3@ 9
Here are some training videos from the week prior when I did the exact same sequence:
I had a top set of 405lbs for two reps and that felt like an RPE 9. An RPE of 9 means it was so difficult that I felt I had one rep left in the tank. That would mean I forecasted 405lbs for three reps would be an RPE of 10.
After hitting the top set, I did three back-off sets. I stressed my central nervous system (CNS) with the heavy top set and now my body was primed. The back-off sets were where the major strength development would come as that was where I would pound out the volume work at submaximal weights.
As you could see, I lowered the weight by just less than 10% off the top set to do quadruples per back-off set. I kept on going until I hit an RPE 9. The previous week, I did four sets at 370lbs until I hit RPE 9.
After the three sets, I wanted to add more volume so I decided to do a much lower weight with 3-second pauses in the hole—bottom position—of the squat. The weight was much lighter but I introduced the pause element to add greater difficulty so the RPE was still high despite the lower weight and rep range per set.
The pause squats had historically been very helpful in developing my weak point, which was the three inches coming out of the hole of a squat. The weak point was determined by where the movement was slowest…where I would feel the ‘grinding’ element.
That was how the training program was designed. Now, let us dive into how it worked out.
Reflection & Assessment
Squat
Squats had the best development in October. It was a slow start returning to the gym in July of this year. The heaviest squat set was 325lbs for a triple by the second week back.
The top set switched from triple to doubles a month later in August to help gauge RPE accurately. By mid-August, I was getting comfortable with 365lbs for a double as the top set.
That progressed to 380lbs for a double by September. Unfortunately, I pulled an abdominal muscle between my ribs while doing back-off sets. The guess on the cause was from building up too much pressure. It wasn’t an uncommon injury for powerlifters.
The injury set me back as I couldn’t squat, let alone lift my arm above my head, for a couple of weeks. I finally made it back to squatting doubles for 365lbs by the end of September. Given that progression, the 40lbs of strength development from a set of 2 reps at 365lbs to 405lbs in just 5 weeks was phenomenal.
Another indicator for a great development was how smooth the back-off sets felt at times. The third week of October had the best training session for my squat.
The squat sequence looked like the following:
Day 1:
1 set for 4 reps @ RPE 7
1 set for 4 reps @ RPE 8
1 set for 4 reps @ RPE 9
Back-off sets start 10% less top set
Back-off sets are 5 reps. Do as many sets until I hit RPE 9
Day 3:
1 set for 2 reps @ RPE 7
1 set for 2 reps @ RPE 8
1 set for 2 reps @ RPE 9
Back-off sets start 5-10% less top set
Back-off sets are 4 reps. Do as many sets until I hit RPE 9
Second Back-off set reducing weight by another 5-10% for 5 reps per set until RPE 8.
On days when I felt sluggish, I opted to change the back-off sets in Day 1 or Day 3 to three-second pause squats for three to four reps. I never wanted to tax my legs till failure so the intention was to continue practicing the movement with a lower RPE limit so stop myself from overdoing it.
The result was ~5 sets for ~24 total reps on Day 1 and ~10 sets for ~32 total reps on Day 3. That’s 66 total reps moving sub-maximal weight 75-93% of my 1 rep max (1RM).
Bench Press
The bench press saw minor development. I was pressing 245lbs for a triple to start the month and ended with 255lbs for a triple by the end. Historically, bench pressing four times a week was necessary for me to see continued development.
It still meant one day for competition bench press but three other days with variations like close grip, paused, feet up, chained, etc. Every variation tackled a different part of the movement and targeted different pushing muscles as well.
I had hoped two days of dedicated shoulder work (i.e. vertical pushing) would supplement the two days of bench work foregone to see similar progress. But that didn’t appear to be the case.
I did multiple sets of 245lbs for triples until I hit an RPE 9. But when I moved up to do 250lbs and 255lbs, I immediately hit a wall and could only manage one set of three reps at the top. The first time I hit 255lbs, I had such ugly form I repeated the weight the week after. But the strength gain seemed negligible. I couldn’t muster any confidence at the top sets.
By changing the bench sessions from 4x a week to 2x a week, I increased the volume on each bench day in hopes I wouldn’t lose the total volume I would’ve pressed if I did it 4x a week. That meant most bench days had 7-10 sets regardless of heavy or moderate days.
Most of the back-off sets were 4-5 reps around RPE 8. There were various moments of error where lack of focus resulted in one lost rep in odd sets.
In hindsight, the total weekly rep count floated in the 60s. But that was because I supplemented the barbell bench work with more dumbbell bench work afterward for higher reps of 8-10 per set, adding an additional 50-80 total reps in a week.
While I programmed pause work for both deadlifts and squats, I didn’t for the bench. Both bench days focused on the competition bench setup only. Going forward, I plan to introduce variations as well as return to four days of benching a week. It will be interesting to see if there is better development after the switch.
In October, a horizontal push day had two exercises dedicated to the movement. For example, after 10 sets of barbell bench, I would go over to do another 5 sets of dumbbell bench work. The same was the case for the vertical push day. Going forward, I’m thinking of spreading it out so all four training days will have one vertical push and one horizontal push.
The idea is something like this:
Day 1: Vertical push (heavy) + horizontal push (moderate)
Day 2: Horizontal push (heavy) + vertical push (moderate)
Day 3: Vertical push (heavy) + horizontal push (moderate)
Day 4: Horizontal push (heavy) + vertical push (moderate)
Day 2 will be the competition bench day while all the other horizontal days will be a variation. Day 4 will be the closest variation to the competition lift.
Bench was quite lackluster and it was a month of figuring out the scheme wasn’t working. It wasn’t just a matter of slow development but the back-off sets had gotten harder and the movements felt slow.
I consistently found myself pumping out back-off sets at 225lbs for 5 reps with ease. Yet, as soon as I went past 240lbs everything felt heavy and technique broke down—along with my focus.
Deadlift
The deadlift suffered very similar results as the bench. I started the month with a top set at 440lbs for two reps. But I stalled at 460lbs for a single. It’s fair to say no development was made the entire month. It was stagnation if I’m being generous.
Given the development with my squat, the deadlift lagging was surprising. But I think there are a lot of problems with my technique. While the squat saw minor changes—I moved from heeled shoes to flat shoes for similar reasons as moving from sumo to conventional deadlifts—the technique didn’t change drastically.
The muscle and energy use was comparable in the squat. However, the deadlift moving from a sumo to conventional setup was completely different in technique. It used different muscle groups and I was seven years behind in practice compared to the squat.
Considering that, it made sense the squat progressed fastest. Still, it was quite disheartening because 460lbs was a warm-up weight when I used the sumo stance.
Moving over to the conventional stance also meant I had to be careful with overall stress management as well. Because my competition squat used the low-bar set-up, it was going to put greater stress on the lower back and hamstrings.
This was fine when I had a sumo deadlift because it was a more upright position with more quad use. However, the conventional deadlift would put greater stress on my lower back and hamstrings, making me train those areas even further.
In an attempt to lower the overall stress, Day 2 (the moderate deadlift day) was dedicated to pause deadlifting. It was a three-second pause (or hold depending on how you look at it) with the bar just under my knee cap before completing the lift. Day 4 was dedicated to the competition deadlift.
Day 2 had ~5 sets between 3-5 reps with intensity in the RPE 7-8.5 range. Day 4 had ~8 sets with 2-4 reps per set with intensity in the RPE 8-9 area. The average total reps per week were in the 40s. The question worth considering is whether the lower volume on the deadlift helped with my squat development, limited it or wouldn’t have mattered all together.
Most back-off sets floated in the 3-4 rep ranges. This was intended to protect my weak hands. But with the use of straps, that wouldn’t have been a problem.
The low rep ranges at RPEs of 8-9 in most sets resulted in a higher intensity despite the lower volume as well. As you can imagine, doing sets for three reps at RPE 8 is a much heavier weight than doing sets of five reps at RPE 8.
This was how I trained my sumo deadlifts and I saw the best responses with low rep sets at heavy weights. However, I’m learning conventional deadlifts are a different beast altogether.
It’s also become apparent that my weak point in the conventional deadlift is the start. While the sumo deadlift is known to have a slow starting point, the conventional should’ve felt faster in comparison. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel a slower speed with my conventional deadlift.
To combat this weakness, the next month will replace the paused deadlifts for deficit deadlifts where I deadlift while standing on a raised 1-2 inch position to build greater strength at the bottom position. I’ll also experiment with greater volume for the deadlifts at lower intensity. That would look like back-off sets of 5 reps at RPEs of 6-8. It will also help with practicing proper form as well.
November should look like this:
Day 2 - Deficit Deadlifts
Top set for 4 reps at RPE 8
Back-off sets for 5 reps until REP 8 is reached
Day 4 - Competition Deadlift (i.e. conventional)
Top set for 1 rep at RPE 8
Back-off sets for 4 reps until REP 8 is reached
I experimented with introducing kettlebell swings intermittently as an accessory exercise after the primary deadlift exercises. The plan for November will be to keep them as the accessory lifts for Day 2 and 4 aimed at achieving a total of 50-75 reps in 4-5 sets.
I was considering taking a deload week in November to give my body a full week of rest. But I’ll be traveling to Vancouver for all of December so that will be when I take the reload week given I’ll have limited equipment there. It’s also the holiday period so physical relaxation combined with mental relaxation should be a nice reset.
Nutrition
Fasting
I fasted for 534 hours in October. That’s 17.2hrs per day. The longest fast was 23 hours and the shortest fast was 15 hours.
The minimum goal is 14hrs with the unofficial goal at 16hrs. I’ve been practicing time-restricted eating for 3.3 years now and it’s a happy part of my system. My first meal floated between 11-1 pm on most days and the second meal ended between 7-9 pm.
I learned it was critical to end my fast earlier than I wanted to because of my training. I prefer training in the mid-afternoon. But I found myself being groggy and sluggish at varying occasions. My theory was because my breakfast was too heavy and/or I didn’t give myself enough time to properly digest everything.
This theory popped up when I had an amazing training session after eating two bbq pork buns for my first meal a few hours before training. They were a sweet and salty blend on white bread. Naturally, they were going to be the fast digestive kind with the fatty pork acting as the slow digestive component to give me energy for the lifting session.
I started testing how I felt after giving myself 2-3 hours before training after my first meal. On average, 3 hours was enough time to digest and get past the immediate feeling of sluggishness the digestive process brought on for my body. Drinking a lot of water after the first meal and getting a brisk walk of 5-10 minutes in after helped expedite the process as well.
I also took out the daily bowl of greek yogurt, blueberries, and granola I had as part of my breakfast. The theory was that the yogurt was taking too long to digest and it made me feel a little bloated, even if it was lactose-free. So far, I’ve been feeling lighter and have had a clearer head without the yogurt than with.
Food
Without the yogurt, my first meal of every day comprised of bacon, eggs, and toast. This was the case for 27 days of the month. The dinners were a continued variation of high protein affairs where scoops of lentils made up for any deficiencies in fiber and protein.
I didn’t count calories. I focused on eating satiating and calorically dense foods. With a feeding window that was sub 8 hours, that meant I wasn’t hungry often.
That naturally reduces the calories I consumed. It also made every feeding period a conscious decision where I increased how much I ate based on how tired my training session was each day.
I admit this wasn’t the best month. It may actually be my least disciplined month in 2021. I think I ate cookies or chips (sometimes both) every day for ~400 calories worth. I also had two pints of beer in October. Other than these abnormalities the daily intake was the usual:
Daily liquid consumption:
Water: ~4-5L
Tea: 1 cup of peppermint tea for digestion
Coffee: ~2 cups, black
Supplements on strength training days (4x a week):
Protein powder: New Zealand Grass Fed Whey Isolates
Omega-3 pills: 600mg
A quick note on supplements.
I dislike seafood. But I like my joints. Hence, I try my best to remember to take ~600mg a day. I think the recommended dose is 1,000mg. I’m taking the “a little is better than none” approach here.
I buy all my protein from Canadian Protein. They are the only brand that has an ingredients page that makes sense. Also, Canada’s regulation on supplements is far superior than the U.S. My understanding from those in the industry is that the U.S. practically doesn’t have any and an FDA approval is a joke.
I don’t want anything fancy in my protein. I just need protein to ’supplement’ my diet so I like the basic product that gives me just that instead of the ones that give 50 other whatevers I can’t even pronounce.
I get isolates because I’m lactose intolerant and these ones don’t give me any bloating whatsoever. Grass-fed makes sense and New Zealand…well because it’s my body and anything premium should be spent on food first before everything else. I never understood people who bought designer bags and bought discount groceries. It’s idiotic.
Calories by Mirror
While my Fitbit estimated I burned ~2,700 calories per day in October it’s just an estimate. Fitbit uses my age, gender, weight, heart rate, and steps to arrive at this number. The consensus appears to be that Fitbit overestimates so maybe ~2,000 is a more accurate measure.
I didn’t wear my Fitbit when I’m squatting, bench pressing, or in the sauna as well so that would result in some muddled data there. Either way, aiming for an intake of ~2,500-3,000 calories is probably ideal for my body given how much energy I expend.
Another indicator was the mirror. I measured my body composition by staring at the mirror in the morning. If I liked what I saw, then I was good. Despite the daily cookies, I was still able to see four of my ab muscles with some fat around the hips, maybe an inch of thickness when I pinched it. I was thankful the damage was minimal despite my complete lack of discipline with the snacks.
As I typed up the majority of this report, I was fuelled by a glass of milk and shortbread cookies. Still, I am surprised that I am the leanest I’ve ever been. I don’t feel as strong as I did when I lived in Calgary (my theory is the 1000m+ altitude living compared to ~50m in Toronto) but my body has never felt better. Not just in how it looks but there is a kind of lightness to my step.
Recovery
Sleep
My primary tool for tracking sleep was my Fitbit Versa 2. That was until the heart rate sensor broke in the middle of October.
Thankfully, Fitbit released its new Charge 5. It appeared the consensus of reviewers on Youtube (my favourite is the quantified scientist’s video here) rated the Charge 5 as the best sleep tracker on the market. I got the new tracker by the last week of October, only missing eight days of sleep tracking for the period of September 26 to October 30.
My daily average sleep time was 7h 10m. The lowest was 6h 2m. The longest was 9h 10m. The shortest and longest sleep days of the month were back to back. It was as if the body knew it had a deficit.
What concerned me was the poor quality of my sleep. The first few weeks had an average sleep score of 80 (out of 100). But the last few weeks of the month floated around 77 with a few days in the 60s.
Fitbit determines sleep scores as follows:
Total time slept out of 50
Restoration (% of time sleeping heart rate is below resting) out of 25
Deep and REM out of 25
While my time slept was decent, my score for Deep and REM were consistently low. One cause might’ve been my bedtime.
I tended to fall asleep around 1:30 am. Yet, the days I had decent Deep and REM sleep were when I fell asleep before 1 am. For that, I would have to prepare for bed by 12 am so that I could start winding down. I learned reading my kindle in bed to be helpful in winding down. But that also required the book to be something that could be choppy in transition.
The protocol in October for good sleep had been:
No caffeine after 4 pm
Blue-ray blocking glasses on after 8 pm
No screens in bed
Eye-mask in bed
Hot showers before bed to cool the body
Morning Movement Test
I experimented with doing pull-ups in the morning as a means of waking the body up and resetting the mental clock. Going on a morning run during the COVID lockdown period was beneficial for garnering deep sleep and I hoped to replicate this effect with the morning pull-ups. I started by doing 50 pull-ups every morning. But I found that distracting from the morning journal and writing I liked to do.
The solution may well be to take a long morning walk to a coffee shop and do my work there. That will guarantee some movement and sunlight (hopefully) to reset the melatonin clock.
My Addiction
I always have it in the back of my mind to stop drinking coffee after 2 pm. But I love coffee. Some people like alcohol, I like my coffee.
Still, I was been able to cut down to one cup of coffee on non-strength training days with some green tea to curb my addiction ever so slightly. The green tea as the replacement for the second cup of coffee helped with the lower caffeine concentration and anti-inflammatory effects as well.
By limiting the intake to 2 pm, that would guarantee half of the caffeine to have left by 7-8 pm. By 12-2 am it would be completely out of my system.
Late Sugars
Another hypothesis I have for the poor quality of sleep has been the amount of sugar I’ve been consuming at night. The rule of thumb is to consume sugars, alcohol, and caffeine earlier in the day than later as all will deter the quality of sleep.
With my awful cookie habit, I made the decision to consume them with milk at night after my dinner. This too makes dessert a silly practice that will make one gain unnecessary weight but hurt sleep as well.
So, the solution for November is to prepare for bed at midnight (at least aim for it) and to stop eating sugary snacks after dinner. Both are a failing of discipline. If I was effective at executing my work during the day, I would not need to push so hard at night. I imagine this has reduced my discipline at night, leading to weakness with the cookies.
Sauna
With COVID restrictions coming down, a welcomed reopening was the sauna at my gym. Only 1 person was allowed a given time so that made it tricky for timing after a ~3-hour training session. The workaround was to use my cardio/pull days as sauna days with the intention of trying to get one session per week.
I managed to get three sauna sessions in October for 15-20 mins per session. With training intensity increasing, I could feel the inflammation building up throughout my body.
The sauna sessions were a welcome reprieve and helped manage the tightness everywhere. The goal will be to increase sessions to at least twice a week in November until restrictions lift and I can do it daily.
I’ve also noticed an improved quality in my sleep on days when I’ve had a sauna session as well. This would be in line with research on heat therapy. I would hope to see further improvement in muscle and strength development as the sauna sessions increase as well.