[Kiera]

Wicked Legs/glute session today. I gave squats a miss as I’m training legs a lot right now given I can’t train much upper, so I’m making one of my leg sessions a hack/leg press focused session to give me a little bit of a rest from squatting.

I trained again today with my friend a wellness Pro who passed my ‘strength level requirements’ to train with me haha. (that’s a total joke but she is very strong which makes it much easier to train with her and be pushed). I also very rarely train with anyone but it’s been a nice change these last few sessions and quite nice to be pushed on exercises I usually wouldn’t push myself on too much.

The session consisted of

Seated hamstring curl
Lying hamstring curl
Standing calf raises
Hack squat
Adductor
Leg Extention
Sissy squats
Glute Drive machine
Abductors

And then to finish off the evening I went for sushi ☺️

[Kiera]

You can input the different sources of proteins into a cronometer app, there you’ll see the breakdown in micronutrients for each one. Quite often meat will have much greater profiles and be better as it’s lower fodmap and digests better.

[Kiera]

Deadlifts moved so well today.
220kg x 5 (4 sets)
200kg x 10 (final sets)

My working sets moved really nicely and the 4th set on 220kg didn’t feel too much different from the first.

Right now I’d like to set some goals for my deadlift but will have to see what my MRI results show on Thursday. The goals will still be there but they may be pushed back depending on the outcome. My shoulder does feel a lot better so fingers crossed.

[Kiera]

I’ve always used stair-master through all my preps and during off season too! Id taper off towards a show and switch it for incline walking maybe 3 weeks out but up to that point it’s all I would use. Everyone’s recovery is different but the only time I’d find it hard is directly after legs. If you can I’d recommend trying to do your cardio separately to your workout, cardio AM, workout PM but that’s not always possible. Other than that I’d recommend having your leg day as your rest day from cardio or if you struggle with the following day more make that your rest day.

[Kiera]

Rest day for me today, while I’m waiting to find out what’s up with my shoulder/bicep I’m only training legs and back so I’m finding rest days are more frequent, especially as my leg and back days are pretty brutal and need minimum 2/3 days to recover from before training them again.

I went into the gym to hit a bit of cardio, calves and pick up some meal prep but other than that pretty quiet day.

Tomorrow I’m on some fun deadlifts. Working sets of 220kg and a back down on 200kg for 10.

[Kiera]

Hi Kory,

You can do what Oscar has suggested that is a great idea and you could also get creative with resistance bands. You could loop them under the bench and through each dumbbell which may take some getting used to and you might need to start with a lighter wight depending on the resistance band you use but would definitely work.

[Kiera]

Hammies, Glutes and cardio for me today. Was quite nice training hamstrings separately. Usually i train them at the back end of legs with a few warm up sets before i squat and usually it’s just hamstring curl or RDL’s when my deadlift intensity isn’t too high.

Today i did lying hamstring curl, seated hamstring curl and light deficit RDL’s will 3 second eccentrics @ 100kg.

For Glutes I stick to the Nautilus glute drive machine as i connect so well with it. I use Coach Kassem’s KAS sets on all my sets and i’ve seen a huge improvement over the last few months. I found that reducing the weight and focusing on the active range really helps me connect with them.

[Kiera]

Hey Guys,

Not a great day for me today (training was great) but spent the best part of this morning on the phone to 1. the bank back in the UK and 2. my insurance and the hospital.

I won’t bore you too much with all of it but i had someone use my identity to take out a £6000 loan back in November and i have only just been informed now through a letter redirected to my parents address back in the UK. So that has been fun to deal with haha.

Secondly, i went for my MRI last night at 10.15pm and when i arrived i was told the MRI had not actually been approved, despite being told it was by the nurse who booked me in. Any how long story short after 3 rejected MRI applications and speaking to 6 different people i was able to find out that it was rejected due to not taking conservative measures.. basically meaning they wanted me to attend multiple sessions of physiotherapy and shoulder rehabilitation for several months before being allowed an MRI if it did not improve. I have no clue why a surgeon who specialises in Orthopaedics who recommended i have an MRI, because he thinks after our consultation that it is a SLAP tear, isn’t enough reason to get one but i think it may be due to not having any severe bruising, swelling or deformity to the area.

I got it done regardless and i can claim it back from them if it happens to be a tear and if its not a tear then they can keep the money because i’d pay triple not to have to have an operation haha.

That pushed training back to late this afternoon, i’m not a fan of training after 3pm any more much prefer midmorning/ midday sessions. The gym is stupidly busy after 3pm. Squats today and we went up 5kg on high bar.

4 sets x 5 reps @ 160kg (paused) Followed by leg press, leg extension, sissy squats and calves.

While i can’t train chest i have separated hamstrings from quads and so tomorrow i will do a hamstring and glute day.

[Kiera]

I would decrease your calories to your rest day calories (non training day calories) and i would try and get some steps in if you can. I know it may not be ideal but walking will help keep blood flow, will keep you mobile and will keep your heart rate a little elevated instead of being completely sedentary. Obviously only do this if you can, otherwise there isn’t much you can do but luckily you are 9 weeks out and a few days of rest and recovery isn’t detrimental right now. Rather recover and be back to 100% than push yourself and prolong your recovery.

[Kiera]

Hi Samual, can you give us a little more context so we can help more!
What training have you been primarily doing powerlifting or bodybuilding?
What is your current split? You’ve mentioned you’ve done 5×5 but what does the program look like?
How is your diet?
Are you training consistently, how many days?

[Kiera]

Rest day for me today , still went to the gym to do some cardio and pick up my meal prep and then dragged Max to an outlet mall here that we haven’t been to yet which he hated and I loved haha.

I’ve got my MRI tonight at 10:15pm (so late). So I think I’ll probably hear back from the surgeon tomorrow after he’s looked over the results.

My shoulder/bicep is feeling a bit better. I still can’t push but doing daily tasks doesn’t aggravate it as much. I’m not sure if it’s due to the inflammation going down or what but I guess we will find out soon.

Tomorrow I’m on legs ??

[Kiera]

So not training something is going to prolong the time it takes to heal. You need an imflammatory response to encourage healing. Active rehab.

Isometric holds are great.

– where do peptides come into this? You can use these alongside the active rehab to aid the recovery – You see peptides travel to areas of inflammation, – you need to maintain to inflammatory response right the way through.

[Kiera]

Finally got a call from the hospital for my MRI appointment. It’s tomorrow at 10.15pm. Very happy to finally get that. It’s only been 9/10 days but has felt like forever.

Looking forward to getting some answers so I can plan for what’s next.

Today was deadlifts, glutes and cardio.

Jumped 5kg on my deadlifts from last session and did

4 sets @ 215kg x 5
1 final set @ 195kg x 10
Really happy with how these are moving.

I should also mention that I came of cycle at the beginning of last week when I realised I probably wouldn’t make this meet coming up. I was running 20mg Ostarine and 15mg Primo.
I value my femininity a lot and will not run a cycle for the sake of it.

I’m looking at competing (depending on the outcome of the MRI) in July/August time, so I will fit in a 6 weeks cycle between now and then and will do another meet prep cycle around 10 weeks out from the comp I do.

[Kiera]

Anything you go into a cut/dieting phase using you will be set to use it throughout your prep as long as you don’t increase it. For example, I don’t use any of these 0 calorie sauces, instead I stick to a consistent amount of tomato and bbq sauce and it doesn’t affect a thing.

I’d only be cautious about bringing things into your prep/diet that weren’t there to begin with but 0 calorie spray is definitely not something you need to worry about even if you did introduce it mid prep.

[Kiera]

What an awesome rest day.
Woke up to a message from the hospital saying they have resubmit my MRI application and I should hear back with an appointment slot over the next 2 days. So that’s a step in the right direction at least and hopefully will have some more answers this week.

Then this afternoon went to the Burgr factory which is owned by our friend. We went with a group of mates to celebrate its 3rd year of being open. He created an awesome 20lbs burger and a 15 thousand calorie pancake tower ? DEFINITELY not a macro friendly restaurant but probably the best thing I’ve tasted! .. it’s fair to say I will be doing a lot of cardio tomorrow and I hope all that extra food will make my deadlifts super strong haha.

Deadlifts/glutes/cardio for me tomorrow.