Weekly Weigh-in (Week 67)

Sunday yet again and time for the weekly update.

This week saw the completion of my first race, the warrior dash. For those who don't know it's a "mud run" with an advertised 3.4 mile course and a collection of obstacles along the route. Runkeeper tells me the course was closer to 3.3 miles than 3.4, which fits up with the rather different course layout that we ran compared to the posted map. The obstacles were also different from what was on the map. Regardless, it was a blast and I'm likely to do it again if I get the chance. My time came in around 48 minutes, which is slightly higher than I was expecting but not a problem, my goal was to finish plain and simple and I did that.

This week also marks the end of my bulking experiment, so it's time for some results and some analysis. I put in a total of around 3 and a half hours of total gym time over the course of the experiment, which is even less than I figured I'd end up at. Over the course of the protocol my weight values went up consistently as represented by this helpful list:

• Close-grip lat pulldown: 75 -> 105 (40% increase)
• Shoulder Press: 45 -> 85 (90% increase)
• Chest Press: 85 -> 115 (35% increase)
• Leg Curl: 45 -> 75 (66% increase)

Some good numbers, consistent increases across the board. The numbers would possibly have increased more if I had been better about my caloric intake, about 80% of the time I made my overall calorie goal, but I only made my protein goal perhaps 30% of the time, and that's being somewhat generous. Even despite that I made good strength gains and seem to have made some reasonable mass gains to go with it.

So where do I go from here? Probably going to do some testing with Slow-Carb mixed with testing out the 6-minute abs stuff from 4HB. I'm really not needing to add more mass now so much as redistribute what I've already got so that it looks better. 

So what does the scale have to say about all this progress? Today the numbers came up at 209, up 2 pounds from last week, and 7.1% body fat, down half a percentage since last week. Since the start of this experiment I've gained 12 pounds of muscle and dropped 5.2 pounds of body fat. For the amount of time I put in I'd say those are some pretty fine results. Only time will tell what the future holds. Until next time, be the you you want to be.

Addendum: Sadly, due to a couple issues this didn't get posted until Monday morning. Sorry about that. Look for pictures to show up by Wednesday.