9.26.2015/Sat

No training today. Had to help pack the truck up for the trip to the shipper in Miami, though. I am very happy to report that even after a day of high volume dumbbell rows, there is only a whisper of pain in my medial epicondyles.

We have to lift a lot of boxes and move a lot of heavy barrels. When I first got to Florida and would help my dad do this every other Saturday, my elbows would have this burning feeling as if the tissue there was being ripped apart. That's mostly gone now. I'd say that it's honestly only 10% of what it was. I'd be a liar if I were to say it's completely gone, but I'm still ecstatic over how much better I feel.

I couldn't sleep last night and ended up making myself a burger at 2 in the morning. I was able to sleep after that. After much elimination and sweating from working in this autumnal Florida heat, I weighed 188. This was a surprise. I am barely eating at all these days.

I chalk this up to the potency of the LGD 4033. I'm still getting stronger on the bench (though my squat and deadlift are currently paying the price of my training the squat too frequently).

Bad Squat Advice

My thighs are just now starting to feel normal after I ran myself into the ground with high frequency squatting again. I was using squats as a form of psychotherapy, never a healthy thing. My squats went down because -- surprise! -- squats work the body's largest muscles and all that muscle mass takes a bit longer to recover than the relatively small amount of muscles involved in the bench press (which is the squat of the upper body).

I can squat productively maybe twice per week or so. Just once a week invites soreness. But less than two days complete rest between training days: playing with fire.

Also, I've been playing around with naked knees. That's rarely a good idea either. Though it is less of a problem with paused squats because a pause means a lot less mechanical energy that the knees have to handle at the end of the descent.

Still, fuck all that noise about squatting every day and not wrapping the knees. That's just dumb. Though I won't wrap on days I do nothing but pauses! But regular squats get wraps from now on. Even on the warm ups there will be light wrapping.

Myofascial Release and Not Needing It So Much with Wraps

I believe my aggressive heavy squats with minimal wrapping led to the outbreak of trigger points or knots that I developed in both my vastus lateralis. It seems like these muscles were doing the main job of braking and reversing my descent. Their mechanical limits were apparently exceeded during my last cycle. When I wear wraps, the wraps do a lot of the braking and reversal :) Yeah, it's cheating a bit. But it spares my joints and muscles when they are most vulnerable. It may not build resilience in that bottom range. But fuck that if I'm still getting stronger thighs. I'll just be sure to compete in feds that allow wraps and leave the feds with naked knees in raw to the real men.

My multiple daily genuflexion to the PVC pipe is paying off. The knots are vastly reduced and my quads can operate smoothly and without much pain.

Squat Hopes

My squat has been suffering horribly even as my more intelligent thrice weekly approach to the bench has seen that lift progressing. My brain has been reminiscing over Smolov as a prescription to get the squat moving...but I want first to try just reducing the squat frequency to something sensible and applying the same low volume approach of singles and doubles that I use for bench (and which is adding five pounds weekly like clockwork).

I should probably alternate 5-lb jumps with 10-lb jumps each week, instead of always counting on 10-lb jumps.

MK-677 Gahr1ne

I'm startng on Ghar1ne tomorrow night. I'd been toying with the idea of taking Ostarine with it, but I think I just want to give my body a break from SARMs entirely while just letting this ghrelin mimetic / secretagogue do its thing.