I decided that heavy weight training was going to be a priority for me during this transformation as I wanted to maintain as much muscle as possible. I've dieted before where I didn't lift as heavy and ended up losing too much muscle mass and strength. I was going to do my best to not let that happen this time around.
Weight Training
During the 12 weeks of my body transformation, I alternated full body heavy days with full body medium days.
It wasn't quite an every other day alternation as I wanted more heavy days so I used a MWF (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) split where Mondays and Fridays were heavy days and Wednesdays were reserved for medium days. I would sometimes switch this to Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday as well depending on my what else was going on during the week.
Weighted Pullups are awesome
My heavy days were where I worked with a weight that I could do anywhere from 3-6 reps. Medium days consisted of weights where I could get between 8-12 reps.
Cardio
My days off from weight training were reserved for either cardio or rest depending on how I felt. Although, I normally felt great during my body transformation so most of those days ended up being cardio days :)
I made sure to keep my cardio very low intensity so that I my body would not break down any muscle for fuel. By low intensity, I mean doing some easy incline treadmill walking or the elliptical where my heart rate was kept anywhere between 110 - 130 beats per minute.
Cardio gets hot
An easy way for me to make sure the intensity wasn't too high was if I could breathe through my nose and not my mouth. My cardio session would range from 30 minutes, gradually working up to an hour over the course of my transformation.
Intra-Workout Drink
To further insure that I avoided any muscle catabolism, I also sipped on a BCAA/Creatine drink mixed in 24 oz of water during my cardio.
I also sipped on this drink mixture during my weight workouts as well to avoid too much muscle breakdown. The BCAA drink I used was Scivation Xtend
, arguably the most popular BCAA product on the market. I felt drinking the BCAA's and creatine really did help in maintaining muscle and even increasing my strength during a caloric deficit.Example
Below is an example week of workouts.
Format is Set # - Weight used x # of reps
Monday - Heavy workout
Pendlay Rows (Bent over barbell rows from the floor)
Set 1 - 215 x 5
Set 2 - 225 x 5
Set 3 - 225 x 5
Set 4 - 230 x 4
Set 5 - 230 x 4
Front Barbell Squat
Set 1 - 205 x 5
Set 2 - 215 x 5
Set 3 - 220 x 5
Set 4 - 220 x 5
Set 5 - 220 x 5
Weighted Dips
Set 1 - 145 x 5
Set 2 - 145 x 5
Set 3 - 145 x 5
Set 4 - 145 x 5
Set 5 - 145 x 5
Dumbbell Push Press
Set 1 - 85 x 5
Set 2 - 85 x 5
Set 3 - 85 x 5
Set 4 - 85 x 5
Set 5 - 85 x 5
Ab Roller (standing on feet)
Set 1 - 8 reps
Set 2 - 8 reps
Set 3 - 6 reps
Tuesday - Cardio or Rest
30 - 60 minutes incline treadmill walking
Wednesday - Medium Workout
V-Bar Pulldown
Set 1 - 230 x 10
Set 2 - 230 x 9
Set 3 - 235 x 8
Set 4 - 235 x 7
Set 5 - 220 x 10
Standing Cable Chest Press
Set 1 - 95 x 12
Set 2 - 95 x 12
Set 3 - 100 x 10
Set 4 - 105 x 8
Set 5 - 105 x 8
Two Arm Dumbbell Preacher Curl
Set 1 - 40 x 8
Set 2 - 35 x 11
Set 3 - 35 x 8
Set 4 - 30 x 13
Set 5 - 30 x 10
Single Leg Romanian Deadlift
Set 1 - 45 x 10
Set 2 - 45 x 10
Set 3 - 50 x 10
Set 4 - 50 x 10
Weighted Decline Crunch
Set 1 - 50 x 8
Set 2 - 50 x 8
Set 3 - 50 x 8
Thursday - Cardio or Rest
30 - 60 minutes incline treadmill walking
Friday - Heavy Workout
Repeat Monday Workout
Saturday - Cardio or Rest
Sunday - Cardio or Rest
I generally felt great throughout my transformation and never felt burnt out from lack of calories or working out too much.
I also actually went on two vacations during the 12 week period, one to New Orleans and the other to Puerto Rico. I didn't workout or watch my diet at all during these vacations but still made great progress with the combination of my workouts and diet :)
More information on the diet I followed will be posted in a future blog entry.
12 Week Body Transformation - Intro
12 Week Body Transformation continued - Cheat Days
Important Key Points to My Body Transformation
