Tyler’s Workout Log – The PHAT Experiment – Day 2 of 28 – Hypertrophy Push

My second volume-based push workout.  Almost everything progressed by 1 rep.  It’s not bad, but it’s not extremely good either.  I’ll certainly take it, though.  I’m curious to see how next week’s goes.

Tyler’s Workout Log – The PHAT Experiment – Day 1 of 28 – Hypertrophy Legs

For the last three weeks, I’ve been refining my own version of Layne Norton‘s PHAT (Power Hypertrophy Adaptive Training) lifting methodology.  Essentially, it has you doing two days of heavy (around 5 rep) lifting and then three days of hypertrophy (around 10-15 rep) lifting per week.

My only tweaks were to make it slightly more applicable to real-life movements and put a stronger emphasis on single-legged movements.  Also, I’m not a fan of 15-20 rep sets, so I try not to go over 14.  I’ll do a later write-up explaining this in more detail.

The results from the last three weeks?  0.38lbs of muscle gain and 1.78lbs of fat loss.  At least that’s what the 7-site body fat caliper protocol says.

Tyler’s Workout Log – Day 27 – Hypertrophy Upper-Body Pulling

It was a good day.  Sadly, I was a little thrown off by the fact that I couldn’t ride my bike today.  The back tire was flat with a small piece of glass in it.  Somehow, I didn’t notice the exact moment when I got the glass stuck in there.  It’s not like I live in a slum or anything, but there are often broken shards of glass on the sidewalks.  I’m just thankful the air pressure held up long enough for me to ride back home from wherever the glass was.

Regardless, I still got in a bunch of sets for the pulling musculature.  🙂

Tyler’s Workout Log – Day 23 – Hypertrophy Upper Body Push

This was the most volume I’ve used for pushing for a very long time.  As a result, my pushing musculature fatigued a lot as the workout progressed… which was the point.  🙂

Tyler’s Workout Log – Day 22 – Hypertrophy Legs

Ok.  I added a couple more exercises, and this wasn’t easy at all.  I hope it feels better next time because I got to the beginning stages of nausea.

Oh well.  It was still fun.  🙂

Tyler’s Workout Log – Day 21 – Hypertrophy Upper-Body Pulling

Well, 25 sets of ten reps later, I can feel the soreness coming tomorrow.  At the same time, it felt good to get out some of my frustration at recently losing muscle mass.

The decision to do this was largely based on a recent article in one of the journals that we receive from the National Strength and Conditioning Association.  My NSCA certified friends may have read it.   Basically, a couple Exercise Science PhDs from Taiwan wrote about how to create muscle growth.  While sharing everything they said in its entirety is beyond the scope of this blog, they proposed a new theory on how muscle grows.

Tyler’s Workout Log – Day 17 – Upper Body Hypertrophy

This felt really good!  I’m glad to finally be pursuing some muscle growth again.

Tyler’s Workout Log – Day 15 – Hypertrophy Legs

A nice day of progression.  However, I did sweat through my whole shirt.  Lol.  It just looked like it went from a lighter olive color to a darker olive color.  Gross?  Yes.  Somewhat awesome?  I like to think so.

Tyler’s Workout Log – Day 11 – Hypertrophy Upper Body

This is a long one.

Tyler’s Workout Log – Day 9 – Hypertrophy Legs

To add to my neck troubles, I woke up with allergies.  So, I had a headache and some level of fatigue along with the neck problems.  Great.

I thought about it and realized that working out for high reps on legs wouldn’t make my neck, headache, or fatigue any worse.  So, I went and pumped out the session.  It wasn’t all that fun, but it was necessary.  Also, I haven’t done higher reps for quite a while.  As a result, these numbers were pretty terrible.  Ha ha.  But it’s all good in the neighborhood.  At least it will be easy to progress from these.

Tyler’s Workout Log – Day 3 – The Failings of Yesterday Become My Catalyst

I worked out today, and it felt great.  However, it’s hard for me to celebrate because Lisa tested my body fat yesterday, and we found out that I lost two pounds of muscle mass.  I lost two pounds of muscle the previous month, too.  So, I’m four pounds of muscle less than I was two months ago.  Great.  Everything I preach about health and fitness involves gaining muscle mass, but I’m here losing it.