PCT Week 1 - Day 5
Decided to switch things up slightly today. I'm struggling to get all squat reps I did at end of cycle. Instead of 5 reps I only got 4, but still happy, thought I would lose more strength. Bench today really surprised me. Did 5 reps today at the same weight I did for 3 reps at end of cycle. Instead of bent rows I went to weighted pullups to ease my back a bit. I was already quite sore from the full squats.
Been a long time since I did weighted pullups, but I was doing sets of 15 bodyweight pullups no prob during cycle. Put the chain belt on and loaded it up with 55 lbs and got 7 reps. Was fairly happy with that. I'd like to get it up to 75 or 80lbs eventually. I also do pulldowns on the machine but I can do the whole stack plus all the rubber weights with more than 10 reps, so kind of hard to add any strength with that exercise. The weighted pullups are quite fun, I think I have a new favorite exercise.
Well, my cycle goals were to gain some lean mass, strength, and minimize fat gain. Looks like I succeeded moderately on gaining lean mass, surpassed my goals on strength, and failed moderately at minimizing fat loss. More concretely, I wanted to be able to rep 225 on bench, 315 on full squat, which I can do easily now. I'm quite happy with that. My new goals will be to rep 275 on bench, 365 on squats, 405 on DL. I currently weigh a slightly pudgy 184lbs, tiny love handles and all. I'd like to get to 7 or 8% bf and keep the strength. Right now I'd guess I'm about 16%.
One interesting thing I noticed, now that I'm off I do feel less aggressive, but I also feel like a load has been taken off my back. Perhaps the reduction in blood pressure? I just feel lighter, more natural, and easy going. I'm actually happy to be off. I was getting sick of popping tons of pills all the time, drinking huge amounts of water and creatine twice a day, reaching down to feel tiny nuts, finding tons of hair on your hands after shampooing. Also somehow I feel like the cycle has improved my cardio, even though I did minimal cardio during the cycle. After each workout now, I'm jogging for about 10 minutes, then running for 5 minutes. Even though I feel a bit winded after the run, I know before the cycle I'd only last 2 minutes running and feel like crap afterwards, maybe part of that also has to do with the keto diet I was using at the time.
I'm just sort of blabbering now. Time to end it.