Okay, so I’m officially one week into my cycle as of yesterday. Nothing drastic to report and I didn’t expect anything. I was hoping for a bit of a “pick me up” that I noticed when I first started TRT, but that didn’t really happen. No big deal.
I have noticed that I’m bit more confident in my lifts. Being 46, I no longer try to just move big weight. I’m concentrating more on making each contraction. This takes way more mental energy for me and I know I loose focus during the workout on a few reps or sets during a session. But, what I’ve seen is I can add a few more pounds and feel pretty confident that I can move it with good form. Some of that may just be mental, but I’ll take it.
Starting weight was 223lbs and today I’m 224lb. I’m hoping not to put on too much sloppy weight. If I can gain just 2-3lbs of muscle it would be a huge success.
Diet has been pretty good. I’m not actively tracking but I have basically the same meals most days and I think I’m getting about 3500/d….roughly about 250g of protein. I have noticed a bit of increase in hunger, not uncontrollable but noticeable.
meals
-pre-work out
Blueberries
Greek yogurt
Whey isolate
1 teaspoon peanut butter
Post workout
Blueberries and yogurt
Oatmeal
Whey isolate
Snack
3 boiled eggs
Lunch
Grilled chicken
Quinoa or Salad or brown rice
Mid day snack
Cottage cheese
Dinner
Variable
My training I’m keeping the same as before. I do a 3day lift and 1 day “active rest” which typically involves a 3-4 mile run. Try to keep the pace around a 9 min mile. Not quick by any means. Sometimes I’ll do the last 1-2 miles in a sprint walk fashion.
Training days. I do a few warm up sets and then I have at least 4 working sets of each lift where I have an RPE of maybe 1-2 on the first 3 sets and then attempt failure on the last set….sometimes I’ll add in a drop set to get more a better pump if I’m feeling it that day. Some lifts it’s not practical to go to complete failure on like squat.
1. Chest
1. Dumbbell bench press
2. Incline dumbbell press
3. Cable chest flyes
4. Dumbbell overhead shoulder press
5. Lateral raise
6. Tricep extension (rope)
7. Overhead tricep rope extension
8. Standing calf raise
2. Back
1. Lat pulldowns
2. Seated ISO Row or Meadows Row
3. Single arm cable row
4. Reverse fly-posterior delta
5. Barbell biceps curl
6. Preacher curl
7. Seated calf raise
3. Legs
1. Squat
2. Single leg extensions
3. Hamstring curls
4. Military press
5. Upright rows
6. Standing calf raise
4. Active rest
1. 3-4 mile run
That is the basic days. One the second cycle thru (days 5, 6, 7) I’ll swap out or change out some lifts for something else. Example, no way I can be ready for a repeat squat session inside of this timeline. So I’ll swap out squat and do leg press and hack squat….maybe throw in a few sets of Jefferson squat etc. Something I can work on good contraction but not have the stress like squat. I can write all of this down in detail if anybody is interested.