After a longer absence due to a lot of school work and personal stuff, I'm back here and want to start my own training log now, for there are nmany smart guys on this forum whose advice is worth a lot.

First a little bit about me: I'm 6ft high and weigh around 73kg, which is already a big progress I achieved since I went completely paleo and started to lift big. But I want to pack on some more muscle and strenght while increasing my overall health and wellbeing, so I want to go even further.

At the moment, I'm following the EDT program, and I'm totally amazed. It's a great program, as it really hits the sweet spot between strenght, hypertrophy and cardio. Simply great!
I can deadlift 80kg and squat about 55kg with proper technique, although my squat still lacks the explosiveness I want so I think I'll cut the weight down a little bit and will focus on technique and power.

Let's start with today's workout, which I will do in two hours:

Warm-Up: Rowing Machine (1000m in about 4 minutes)

PR-Zone 1 (15min.)

Back Squat 50kg
Overhead Dumbbell Press 10kg

PR-Zone 2 (15min.)

DB Bench Press 17.5kg
Bent Over Barbell Row 30kg

3x 120s Plank


I'm always open for suggestions and critique, so don't hesitate to tell me your opinion. I'm looking forward to discuss about other member's plans and achievements, too.

Let's go!

@Wlfdg: Thank you!

Well, the first thing I have to say is: Today's workout sucked. I felt unusually lame and weak on the squat and especially the DB-Press, but I finished the first PR-Zone. After that, I started the second one- and quit after four minutes. I think I just needed all the time to realize that today simply wasn't the right day to train. I slept rather bad the last two nights and it's incredibly hot here at the moment (summer in southern Germany is not that great at all).
I will use the next two days to eat a ton of food, try to get my sleep in order and will hit the deadlifts on saturday. I even wanted to sprint tomorrow morning, but I'll only do that if I should wake up feeling exceptionally energized (as I still have Friday to hang around the whole day ). Yet I guess it's better to take all of the two days up, enjoy a relaxing morning hike with my dogs and refresh my mind as well. The last two weeks were hard.

By the way, I'd like to name some of the goals I want to achieve untill this autumn:

- Bringing up my Deadlift to 100kg at least 5x5 with perfect technique
- Bring my squat up to bodyweight at least
- Increase overall fitness levels
- Pack on some muscle along the journey

I'm still thinking if I should drop my 1 x a week sprinting session, because I have a slight feeling that it might be an obstacle to recovery from the squat sessions. What do you think? I mean, EDT gives you quite a good conditioning program as well...

I usually sprint once a week, not on a certain day, but never the day before a spuat before. But as my last squat workout was yesterday and was just crappy, I think some hill sprints today will boost my mind a little bit. I've surely overcome my tendency to do too much stuff, but two consecutive days without some kind of real physical effort? Impossible, at least as long as I'm not sick, injured or had very bad sleep  

Lack of sleep has been killing my training for a couple weeks.

meat, salad, cheese, eggs...

i thought cheese was on the "do not eat" list from a paleo standpoint?

Quote from: Woodspirit on July 19, 2010, 06:43:31 AM

meat, salad, cheese, eggs...

i thought cheese was on the "do not eat" list from a paleo standpoint?

That's correct, but some people still include high fat dairy in their intake (the so called "lacto-paleos"). I can get behind it, but I do note that it stalls my weight loss. Nutritionally, dairy is ok if you can tolerate it.

The class trip was quite funny, I had a good time. Even the food choices were more than acceptable- I had scrambled eggs and fruit for breakfast, meat & veggies for lunch and the same for dinner. The only cheats were some cheese and a good dose of red wine (good red wine, I don't drink any cheap shit). Okay, maybe even more than just a good dose, my friends and I went heavy on the wine, but compared to most of my classmates who swallowed all that vodka orange and other mixed crap, our french style wine evenings were just a joke
So, after 4 days, I hit the gym again. I weighed myself, and I'm at 72.7kg. Time to go up again
My performance wasn't the best, but I didn't sleepn a lot the last days. Nevertheless, that nasty feeling of weakness I felt the last two gym sessions was gone. I felt I was just tired, but otherwise in good form. I increased the weight on my deadlift up to 80kg, and In managed it quite well, although the elevated push-ups sucked a bit.

But I have to think about my plans for the next months. I made some good progress with EDT, but summer vacation will start next week, so I'll travel around a lot and won't be able to stick to a strict workout plan. My idea was to use that time to work on my sprints and overall conditioning and just hit the weights when I'm at home to maintain my strenght levels. Then, in the beginning of september, I'll totally focus on weightlifting again and try to gain as much strenght and muscle as possible during autumn and winter.

I should eat more fat as well. I'm eating up to 2lbs of meat, a good amount of nuts and lots of vegetables and fat (lard, coconut oil & milk) a day. On workout days I have a good portion of fruit, too. But it seems like I have to eat even more to gain more muscle. Let's see.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I think getting the best out of crappy days is kind of an art. I think I'll just have a 30 minutes session on the rowing machine the next time I enter the gym and just feel like I can't handle anything.