I couldn’t think of a better title. Sorry. I think it hurts because I was really forcing the hook grip last night and I think I might have mashed it a little too hard. Anyway… it was another long night with some awesome programming, great PR’s, and lot’s of hard work by some good friends. Here’s mine:

• 50 GHDs
• 50 GHBEs (35#)
• 3 minute KB complex (1.5 pood)

Then, we did the the following protocol for dead lift, clean & jerk, and front squats:

• 5 @ 60%
• 3 @ 70%
• 2 @ 80%
• 1 @ 90%
• 1 @ Current 1RM
• 1 @ Current 1RM + 2-5%

A few notes on the fails… my grip totally went away on my dead lift. I think it was actually due to the again faster grip things. I was able to hold on to 465# just fine with just chalk. For the C & J, my hook grip psyches me out. It still feels really weak, so I’ll start to pull, then just drop it because it feel like the barbell is going to fly out of my hands. For the front squat, I really just don’t know my 1RM, so after doing 265#, which felt easy, I decided to jump up. A little too much, I think.

Then:

• 1 set of max reps dips: 16 reps

In other news, little Miss Brenna has actually slept really well during the past 2 nights which has been absolutely phenomenal. The different in how I feel when I get sleep is completely night and day and affects almost everything about my daily life. I can handle things so much better. I am sure that this is true for everyone to some degree, but I do know some people that can operate just fine on 4-5 hours. I am not one of those people. Never have been.

At the suggestion of my good friend Ryon, I am experimenting with the lean gains protocol (http://www.leangains.com) and actually seeing some results. This is very exciting and after the first week of following it, I am compelled to continue on to see what it does for me. I can see (again, in just 1 week) difference both in the mirror and on the scale, which has not really budged for quite a while.

There are some things about this that are not “paleo”, like the use of supplemental protein, but I have always been OK with self experimentation as long as I see good results from it. Hell, I was skeptical about “the paleo diet” a few years ago and decided to give it a shot. If I were stubborn about trying that, I don’t know where I’d be right now.

At any rate, I have learned a few things about my particular eating situation over the past week that I think are really simple tweaks that might work for other people that aren’t seeing results on “paleo” aside from the 16 hour fast/8 hour eat window:

1. I am eating just too much from a caloric standpoint. Robb Wolf talks about “not being a hoover”. As in, it doesn’t matter what eating diet/protocol you follow, if you are a normal size person that has a normal level of activity (i.e. NOT Michael Phelps @ 12,000 cals/day), eating 5000 cals/day of all paleo foods isn’t going to help you drop LBs. Lean gains requires that you count calories to some degree. While I am not neurotic about it, looking at how many calories are in certain things, especially fats/oils has been eye opening. I still use the same cooking oils, I’m just not as liberal with them. Which leads me to point #2.
2. I was not getting nearly enough protein. Both Robb Wolf and Martin from lean gains talk about getting 1-2g/# of bodyweight of protein per day. For dude like, me, that’s A LOT. While I typically don’t like to supplement with whey and things like that, getting at least 200g of protein per day results in A LOT of meat and eggs, so I’ve started adding some whey in on workout days. The right tool for the right job, right?
3. Timing of meals totally matters (for me, anyway). Lean gains is a protocol of timing your eating, not so much WHAT you eat. I suppose it’s not technically “paleo” although it can totally be. It sounds really complicated at first but after a week of working on it, it’s really not that bad. It’s really split in 2 columns:

*This requires finding your BMR and knowing approx. how many calories are in what you eat. I have pretty much ball parked it up until this point, but am slowly figuring stuff out.