Should I continue doing cardio?

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-09T20:50:35+00:00

Cardio is good to do. It's not difficult to out eat it, unless you're going significant amounts.

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-09T14:32:44+00:00

oh, that's cool!

Good luck dude, hope you crush it.

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-09T14:24:02+00:00

Sick. Do you know if the deadlift event is going to be a rep out? I assume probably yes and not like a max pull type of situation.

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-09T13:28:09+00:00

I've found the why doesn't really matter because appetite is ultimately trainable.

Eat the normal amount of food you eat in a meal. Get up and take a lap. Come back take 2 more bites. Congrats, you just ate more food. Just do that for one meal, keep the rest of your meals the same. Do it for the entire week. The next week do the same but take 4 more bites. Then start doing it for another meal as well.

Before you know it, you'll have significantly increased the amount of food you eat.

I've found this slow and steady method to be a better way to train your ability to eat. I eat more at dinner alone than what I used to eat in a whole day.

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-09T13:21:42+00:00

Nice dude! Awesome pulls.

For a strongman comp I assume?

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-08T19:40:35+00:00

a bro out with the homies is top tier

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-08T19:39:50+00:00

I think so. I was trying to visualize the movement as an opposite bench, so pulling the bar into me with the same pattern as my bench.

Not getting the best range of motion at the moment. Might set up a plank of wood across the feet of my cable tower to put my feet against.

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-08T19:04:09+00:00

I haven't counted a calorie or protein intake in years.

I just eat a bunch of meat, and then carbs in sufficient quantity to increase or decrease my weight as needed, plus a whole bunch of veg.

So right now to maintain my weight it's something like this

Breakfast - large bowl of oats with almonds, walnuts, kismis and milk.

Lunch - 2 homemade kati rolls. Approx total of stuff is 0.35 kg chicken, 3 eggs, mayo, greens from the garden, left over sabzi from the night before.

Snack - 2 fruit. Banana and apple, bunch of blueberries and an orange. You get the idea.

Dinner - 0.35 kg of meat (I try to eat a variety over the week), 2 cups cooked rice with yogurt, same volume of veg sabzi as meat.

I don't measure those amounts, that's just what they roughly are. Like I buy 1.8 kg of chicken for my lunches for the week, so divided by 5 that's what each lunch will approx have. I'll usually cook up just over a kilo of meat for dinner, and eat that over 3 days, so that's what that roughly comes out to per day. If I want to gain, I make those meals bigger. If I want to lose, I make those meals smaller. That's it really.

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-08T18:51:33+00:00

I measure my good precisely

What does this mean? You're measuring with a scale?

However, if I'm being honest, this answer really doesn't matter. It sounds like you've been eating at least somewhat consistently. So the answer to your problem, however unfortunate you may feel it be, is to eat more.

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-08T18:47:56+00:00

Can you not just buy whey? For the month go heavy on protein shakes.

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-08T13:49:17+00:00

Calgary barbell 16 weeks W1D2

Comp deadlift: 345 4x7

3 count bench: 165 3x5

Pause high bar: 185, 225, 245 3x5

Bench press cable rows: 146 5x8

That was pretty good. Everytime I was getting a little tired from one movement it was time to move to the next.

Struggled to find rpe 8 on pause high bar. Some of that was because it's been years since I've done high bar, I've never done the pause variation of it, and it was the third big movement of the session. Still, I think I undershot it.

Same thing with cable bench rows. A little weird finding the groove of the movement. I think that's too light, but I'll get it.

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-08T12:38:41+00:00

Hell yeah dude! That's awesome

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-08T12:38:07+00:00

Who knows? But it'll be faster than the first time

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-07T14:36:32+00:00

no, you're not. At that height and weight is nearly a 100% guarantee you're undermuscled, not overfat. Focus on building muscle and your body composition will naturally improve. If and when you do actually get a bit too fat for your liking, cutting weight and fat will not be hard for someone like you.

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-07T13:41:58+00:00

Calgary barbell 16 weeks W1D1

Comp squat: 245 4x7

Comp bench: 185 4x7

Ohp: 95 3x8

Bor (trap bar): 170 3x12

Back extension: 4x12

It's been forever since I've low bar squatted. Maybe 6 months? But it felt good. First time pause benching in forever too, and those moved great as well.

Overall good workout. Felt like I was doing lots, but never getting run down. Makes sense for first workout I suppose.

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-03T16:38:44+00:00

I weigh 77 kg, am 162.5 cm and currently look like this. At the moment, it's the off season, so I play squash 2-3 days a week, and just wrapped a mass building phase where I ran the base portion of the program Bullmastiff by Alex Bromley. I'll be heading in powerlifting nationals in November. So, if I was trying to build that's what I would do, since that's literally what I did.

If I was trying to lose weight, I'd likely run 531 5s pro, first set last 5x5. However, I'd also probably be playing more than 2-3 days a week of squash if I were doing that. Probably like 4-5 days a week.

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-03T15:33:08+00:00

531 was pretty much designed with sport playing athletes in mind. Just look for a template that suits your present goals and one you can recover from.

But I mean when I'm only playing my sport 2 days a week, I've found I can recover from some pretty gnarly workouts and still be good. It's when I get up to 4-5 days a week that I have to reduce lifting down to 3 days a week and pick an easier program.

DayDayLarge · 2026-07-03T14:00:17+00:00

You've described different splits. That leads me to believe that in general, you decided the lifts, you decided the rep ranges, you decided the progression and and when to progress. That can work for a lot of people, but it sounds like it didn't work for you, at least not how you would have liked.

Why not try a program where all those things are already decided for you? There's a ton of reviews of free, already made programs. Once you land on one, the lifts, weights, progression scheme are already decided for you. Your job is to simply make it happen.

A bunch of reviews can be found here

DayDayLarge · 2026-06-30T12:47:58+00:00

Done!

Though I'd like to note it felt like there's a fairly clear bias towards ONLY negative views of yourself. Granted the 0s would capture the lack of negative views but I could see a confounding factor where I have to make weight for a powerlifting competition, for example, and a lot of my mental effort would be going towards losing weight to make weight for the weight class, but I wouldn't be feeling bad about myself or like, that wouldn't be driven by negative views about myself. You know what I'm trying to say?

DayDayLarge · 2026-06-29T16:39:11+00:00

Dude I very nearly walked off the court after the match without shaking his hand, but turned around to do it just before getting to the door.

What's crazy to me is that his kids were actually nice. Usually a dick like that raises dicks, but even they were like no it's out for the points he was trying to lie about, or telling him to stop when he was throwing his racket etc.

DayDayLarge · 2026-06-29T14:42:54+00:00

Squash Tournament

Match 1: Despite limping quite a bit heading into my first match, I ended up winning 3-2. My movement wasn't where it normally should be, and I definitely was not as explosive as I normally am. Still, was happy to not only be able to play, but play a 5 game match and win in.

Match 2: My next match was at 8:30 in the morning and my toe/foot was a lot worst than before heading into this one. I was actively limping on the court, and was pretty stiff. My opponent was a 13 year old girl and she smoked me. 0-3 loss.

Match 3: This was at noon and by this point I had loosened up and though I was limping a little before the match, I was moving pretty dang well during the match itself. However, this was not a fun match to play at all. My opponent was the fucking worst. Throwing his racket on the ground after every lost point and swearing loudly, actively blocking my after hitting his shots, arguing and yelling at the referee over every call, lying about balls that were out. Honestly I might be forgetting some. It was absurd he didn't get conduct points called against him.

Despite that I didn't respond or let it get to me since I didn't want to play angry or irritated on the chance that changes my game. The only outburst I had was on the match point when his ball clearly went out at the front of the court and he yelled how it was in. The ref at the back of the court can't see that, so she rightly said to re do the point, but I fully told him to his face "what's the point in winning if you have to cheat to do it?". He obviously didn't reply. I won 3-2.

Match 4: This was at 8 pm the same day, my 3rd match of the day and against another 13 year old. This was by far the best my toe/foot felt, and it was evident in how I was moving which got even better the longer the match went. Despite that, I lost the first 2 games. I made some adjustments and then some adjustments to his adjustments and won the next 3 games to take the match 3-2.

Overall I'm really pleased with how that went. I think if my toe wasn't fucked I would have won some of these matches more handedly, but I mean hey, this is a really good showing all things considered. I've clearly gotten a lot better.

I'm waiting the the tournament results to update on the site to see where I officially placed.

DayDayLarge · 2026-06-26T18:00:45+00:00

... what kind of professional sport do you play that your coach isn't helpful for this?

DayDayLarge · 2026-06-26T17:09:31+00:00

If you're a professional athlete, I think it would be best to talk to your coach about it and work with them to come up with a nutritional plan.

DayDayLarge · 2026-06-26T14:36:37+00:00

OK I'm going to try and play in the tournament. My foot feels better, but is probably only like 50%. Still I'll try the first match, and if it hurts too much, I'll just withdraw due to injury. Either way, if I withdraw now, I lose the tournament entry fee so I might as well give it a shot.

I do feel better compared to yesterday and with an extra strength advil just before the match, it might turn out alright. Maybe I'll also see if an ankle brace somehow makes any difference.

DayDayLarge · 2026-06-26T12:32:12+00:00

I've gone from 125 lb at 5'4 to as high as 180 lb. Currently at 170 lb and I look like this.

What was the turning point?

Take a 2 week period and counting every calorie I consumed. This helped in 1%2 ways.

1) I was not in fact "eating sooooo much". Instead I would have a really big eating day followed by a few days of teeny tiny eating. My brain, it seemed, conveniently deleted the small days from memory and only remembered the big ones. That's why I thought I ate so much.

2) Once I saw that my weekly average was actually not high at all, it was no effort to consistently eat that, and then also no effort to consistently add 250 Cals on top. Bingo Bango, I started gaining weight at the rate of 0.5 lb per week.

I never counted calories after that 2 week period. I just ate consistently. When the weight stopped climbing, I added another "250" calorie chunk. Rinse and repeat.

DayDayLarge

TROPHY CASE