No-Man's Land Offseason Log with ZK

[zacharykane]

Sunday was leg day with my training partners, first time in a couple weeks so I was in a good head space to push hard. I'll do my best here to recall what we did for weights as we just kind of ended up throwing more and more weight on every exercise we did.....

Banded Lying Leg Curl - 25 x 8, 50 x 8, 75 x 8, 100 x 10, 100 x 10 (this was done on a Strive lying leg curl, so the weights were spread to the middle and end range of the motion)
Banded Leg Extension - 90x 10, 135 x 10, 180 x 10, 225 x 15 (Another Strive machine, again the weight was stacked to make the peak contraction the hardest)
Pit Shark - 200 x 10, 400 x 10, 600 x 10, 720 x 15 (this was mostly quad focused, last set was a grinder)
Leg Press - Several feeder sets, I can't remember what exactly, but last set was 11 plates per side for 15 reps on a Nebula Leg Press
Pendulum Squat - 90 x 10, 135 x 10, 180 x 10 (This was done with a 3 second pause on each rep in the hole and at the top flexing the quads, holy burning quads)

 

[tripleOT]

I had to youtube pit shark. Wish my gym had one of those!

Doing great ZK:headbang:

 

[zacharykane]

Thanks man!

And the pit shark is such a great piece of equipment! I've seen them popping up in more in more gyms lately, so hopefully your gym will invest in one soon! There's so many things that can be done with them besides just belt squats!

I had to youtube pit shark. Wish my gym had one of those!

Doing great ZK:headbang:

 

[zacharykane]

Once again I was able to beat the log book yesterday! Some sets were real grinders and I was torched by the end of the training session, but I felt pretty good about what I was able to do. Starting this week I'm going to slowly start adding in some more gear. And by more gear I mean like a tiny bit of primo, lol.


Nautilus Flat Press - 290 x 9, 5, 3
Cable Upright Row - 82.5 x 15, 8, 5
Reverse Grip Bench - 205 x 10, 5, 3
Pull-ups - 10, 6, 4
Cable Row - 231 x 8, 3, 3

 

[zacharykane]

Rest day yesterday, so that means just some cardio. Lately cardio has been playing with my dogs and taking them for walks. We just adopted a puppy and I'll be honest, I completely forgot how much energy they have! Our older dog has a new found joy of being energetic now too, but she hates walks and fetch and only wants to play tug. That's all fine and good but she's an 80lb staffy, so I have to really dig in to not get pulled to the ground! Great grip strength training, lol.

Got the go-ahead from my team around me to start ramping up the gear. Right now the plan is as follows:

50mg EOD Test/NPP/Mast/Primo
50mg Day Proviron
25mg S4
10mg GW
2iu GH upon waking
2iu GH pre-training
10iu (5iu in AM, 5iu in PM) Lantus

Not a ton of gear, but I've been making progress on only 10mg of test prop a day for the last 8 weeks, so hopefully I see a nice jump here!

 

[zacharykane]

Arms and legs were on tap yesterday. I didn't push quads too hard as they were still fried from my session on Sunday along with some achy knees, but still beat the log book on hamstrings. Go figure, my one decent body part, lol.

Yesterday I also started with the test/npp/mast blend, very smooth and zero PIP today from it. Anxious to see how I will respond in the coming days and weeks!

Alternating Dumbbell Curls - 40 x 10, 6, 4
Hammer Curls - 40 x 10, 5, 4
Standing Calf Raises - 230 x 12 (this took 3 1/2 minutes, holy ouch)
Seated Leg Curl - 200 x 12, 6, 3
Smith Machine Squat - 150 x 10 (Feet way out in front, all quads on this)

 

[zacharykane]

Got a couple of workouts to post up, one from yesterday and today's leg day. Slight deviation from traditional DC training splitting legs out like this, but it's more about the time with my friends than being so rigid I can't change my training plans a bit.

Log book was beaten again on Saturday and today's leg day was super solid. I had to bow out on doing hack squats though, my right knee has been a bit cranky so I decided not to push it. I don't remember weights for what we did on legs, heavy is all I know, so I'm just putting the exercises down.

Saturday
Nautilus Decline Press - 280 x 12, 6, 3
Dumbbell Shoulder Press - 85 x 12, 6, 2
Hoist Seated Dips - 225 x 20, 8, 4
Close Grip Pulldowns - 213 x 8, 4, 2
Wide Grip Cable Rows - 231 x 10, 5, 3

Sunday
Lying Leg Curl
Nautilus Leg Extension
Leg Press
Squat Machine Super Set with Leg Extension

 

[zacharykane]

Weight is starting to climb a bit after adding in some additional calories and bumping the gear up, morning weight is around 204. Appetite is still crazy high which I'm honestly shocked at as my appetite always sucks during the offseason and has been one of the big things limiting progress in my opinion. So I'm doing everything I can to keep that rolling and hopefully get my offseason weight up to a lean 220-230. REALLY hoping for 230, but we'll see how things pan out. I don't want to be a sloppy 230....


Yesterday was just some biceps and calves, legs were still fried from Sunday and my knee was still angry, so wasn't wanting to push them and end up making things worse. Good thing because today was the first time in two weeks it wasn't severely hurting in the morning. Beat the log book again, and have no consistently been able to train arms for a couple months now and some progress is finally starting to show.

Barbell Curls - 70 x 15, 8, 6
Pinwheel Curls - 45 x 10, 6, 4
Seated Calf Raises - 115 x 8, 45 x 10

 

[zacharykane]

Destroyed the log book yesterday, and today I feel completely wrecked as a result, lol. My A1 workout is by far my toughest one, and I was anxious all day long before getting into the gym knowing what I was up against. Luckily everything is clicking very well for me right now! Diet, sleep, recovery, stress and supplementation are all on point!


Incline Smith Machine Press - 270 x 8, 4, 2
Nautilus Shoulder Press - 340 x 12, 6, 4
Close Grip Bench Press - 225 x 10, 6, 4
Medium Neutral Grip Mag Bar Pulldown - 231 x 6, 3, 2
Rack Pulls - 495 x 10

 

[zacharykane]

Leg day Sunday! Once again I paid zero attention to the weights, it was a lot, I know that much. Leg press I stopped counting at 9 pps.

Seated Leg Curl - 6 sets, last two were working sets, last one was leaning forward to work the hamstrings from the stretched position

Leg Extension - 6 sets to warm up quads

Leg Press super-setted with Hack Squats

Pendulum Squats super-setted with banded leg extensions - these lit my quads up, I don't recall them ever burning this bad.

 

[zacharykane]

Yesterday was an upper body day, once again some serious nerves going in knowing the numbers I was up against. I solidly beat them again though, kind of nice being back on the super supps, lol.

Bodyweight is finally starting to climb a bit more as well, woke up this morning at 206 which is nice. Heaviest I got last year was 213 after a heavy cheat meal, drinking a bunch of water and wearing clothes. So I feel pretty confident that this offseason will be much more productive than my last. Simply because of the fact that I'm one, not getting sick every day and two, it'll be about 3 times longer than any other offseason I've previously had.

Nautilus Flat Press - 310 x 12, 6, 5
Upright Cable Row - 93.5 x 12, 8, 6
Reverse Grip Bench - 225 x 10, 8, 3
Weighted Pull-Ups - 25 x 10, 5, 3
Close Grip Cable Rows - 236 x 8, 5, 4

 

[zacharykane]

Kind of a lame workout yesterday, just some arms and calves. What made it kind of sucky though was we had to take our dog to the emergency vet after some complications with her TPLO surgery and she wasn't doing well at all, so it was hard to get over my anxiety of the situation and get in a solid workout. Still beat the log book but I honestly couldn't wait to get out of there which is very unlike me.

Alternating Dumbbell Curls - 45 x 8, 5, 4
Hammer Curls - 45 x 10, 6, 4
Seated Calf Raises - 135 x 12 (two sets)

 

[zacharykane]

Tough one yesterday and changed up one of the back exercise to try and focus on lower lats a bit more. Felt a lot more like myself yesterday and had a nice jump in strength. For seated shoulder presses I just did one all out set as getting bigger dumbbells into position without a spotter is a bit of a struggle for my midget self.

Nautilus Decline Press - 300 x 10, 7, 5
Dumbbell Shoulder Press - 90 x 18
Hoist Dip Machine - 245 x 20, 10, 6
Close Grip Pulldowns - 231 x 8, 4, 2
Hoist Row (Partially Supinated Grip) - 225 x 15, 10, 8

 

[tripleOT]

Hey Zack. How long are your workouts generally? And what does the rest period time wise between sets usually look like?

 

[zacharykane]

I'd say most of them are clocking in around the 1 hour mark with the exception of legs.

For warm up sets I take at least 2 minutes between sets, as I'm usually kind of moving around/walking and trying to shake out some cobwebs. When I get to my working set though, I do a 30 second break in between each round, usually for 3 rounds. I'm basically all type 2 muscle fiber so there's very little room between full-strength and complete failure, lol.

Hey Zack. How long are your workouts generally? And what does the rest period time wise between sets usually look like?

 

[zacharykane]

Couple of workouts to catch up on here; Sunday was legs and yesterday was some arms, calves and abs. Weight is slowly climbing steadily at this point as we really start to nail down the nutrition aspect of things. Current goal is to try to push the weight up another 5-10lbs without loss of conditioning before we do a small little recomp. That would put me at around 215-220 depending on where we pull the plug and clean up my physique a bit.

Sunday was a pretty rough leg day, I don't remember the last time I felt sore over my entire body from a leg workout. I only remember weights on the top sets of hacks and leg press, so I'll put those down, but there were a lot of warm up sets working up to those weights.

Overall though, still beating the log book each workout and increasing the time of the weighted stretches after my working set. I think I'm at the upper limit of my connective tissue with arms right now though, so I'm probably going to focus on getting a few more reps out of my work sets for a couple weeks and then either change exercises or try and go up in weights again.

Legs

Standing Single Leg Curl - 6 sets
Banded Leg Extension - 6 sets
Leg Press - 11pps x 15
Hack Squat - 5pps x 15
Walking Lounges - 3 sets (100 yards each approximately)

Arms/Calves/Abs

Hoist Preacher Curl - 120 x 15, 10, 8
Reverse EZ Curl - 80 x 12, 5, 4
Toe Presses on Leg Press - 360 x 8
Hoist Crunch Machine - 6 sets, working up to full stack for 18

 

[tripleOT]

How is everything going ZK? Have a good thanksgiving bro. Enjoy your family.

 

[zacharykane]

Hey man, Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family as well! Everything has been going really well, work has just been crazy for me the last couple of weeks, and I got one more week of crazy to go before things finally calm down! But then I might be relocated for work again, so that's always fun....

How is everything going ZK? Have a good thanksgiving bro. Enjoy your family.

 

[zacharykane]

I have been absolutely slammed at work and haven't had much time for anything outside of work, gym and sleep. I'm missing a few workouts but I figured I would post up my most recent one. Last week I had a minor pec strain so my log book didn't get beat on some chest or tricep exercises unfortunately, but luckily this week all seems well and I was back to beating the log book.

My weight has been slowly creeping up too, nothing crazy, 206.6 this morning, but I've definitely been recomping as I've been progressing through this offseason, so I'm not really overly concerned about weight. Especially since I still have plenty of offseason to go.

Incline Smith Machine Press - 310 x 8, 2, 1
Nautilus Shoulder Press - 410 x 15, 6, 2
Close Grip Bench - 275 x 7, 2, 1
Pronated Mag Grip Pulldowns - 231 x 8, 3, 1
Rack Pulls - 545 x 15

 

[zacharykane]

Last few day's worth of workouts to post up, I've been going through final inspections for the building I'm trying to get open, so my stress level has been sky high, but luckily that's translated fairly well to getting after it in the gym and beating the log book. My weight hasn't really climbed much, but I seem to be losing fat and recomping, so I'm guess the primo is really kicking in at this point and the tissue gain is catching up with the caloric surplus.

Barbell curl - 90 x 10, 6, 5

Rope hammer curl - 66 x 10, 6, 4

Standing calf raises - 360 x 6, 4, 4

Hoist Seated leg curl - 260 x 10, 6, 2

Free motion Leg press - 720 x 15, 8, 6



Hoist flat press - 305 x 12, 7, 5

Cable upright rows - 104.5 x 12, 7, 5

Skull crushers - 85 x 15, 7, 5

Rack chins - 75 x 15

Cable rows - 253 x 6, 4, 3



Hoist curl - 185 x 15, 8, 6

Hammer curl - 55 x 8, 6, 4

Leg press toe raises - 270 x 15

RDLs - 315 x 11



Nautilus decline press - 320 x 8, 5, 4

Dumbbell shoulder press - 110 x 11

Hoist dip - 285 x 20, 12, 6

Close mag grip sup pulldowns - 253 x 6, 3, 2

Hoist row - 285 x 15, 12, 8