March 17: Chest

Awful, just awful. That's all I can say. My plan for Wednesday was to do a few sets of incline bench press like last time followed by incline DB supersets, finishing up with some triceps work. In the previous workout I'd benched 270 on the incline, so my thinking was I'd do three sets at that weight and then move to the supersets followed by weighted dips and some triceps pressdowns.

It didn't work out that way.

I felt really run down and could barely do one rep at 270. I knew that I overdid in my previous chest and triceps workout and was sore for days afterwards, but I thought after a week of recovery time I ought to be good to go for yesterday's workout.

Obviously not.

And I blame it as much on my diet as the overtraining. The fact is, I often simply do not eat enough. I log my food intake on a spreadsheet that I've set up to calculate my daily caloric needs based on Katch-McArdle and Harris Benedict formulas. The spreadsheet then subtracts my total calories and total protein intake from the target so I can easily see how much I need to consume to reach my goal. I had previously set my target protein intake at 160 grams/day, but I've now upped that to 200. My caloric needs to maintain my current weight, according to the formulas, is in the range of 2700-2800 per day. I am often under 2,000, which is not good. And, honestly, given that I'm working out 5 days a week or more, I should probably reassess those needs. I probably should be closer to 3,000 calories per day, but I decided if I were going to err, it would be in the opposite direction.

Yesterday, I realized I had a serious problem because at the time I was getting ready to work out, I'd only consumed 620 calories so far that day. At that point I should have been closer to 1,000 calories. I made up the difference later in the day--after the workout--but, obviously, I need a more even distribution of my caloric intake to maintain my energy level throughout the day--and to boost post-workout recovery. I did pretty well after the workout; it was leading up to it where I fell short.

Today, I'm rectifying that by ensuring that I've got plenty of good food to eat throughout the day, and I'm starting off with a high-protein, calorie-dense breakfast of eggs and turkey sausage.

After my energy collapse yesterday, I did a struggling set of incline bench press at 270, followed up with a set at 250 and then completed four dumbbell supersets on progressively lower inclines. I did the first three sets at 50 and the final set at 45. It looked like this:

Set 1:
A. High incline @ 50 x 8
B. Medium-to-high incline @ 50 x 6
C. Medium incline @ 50 x 6
D. Low incline @ 50 x 6
E. Flat @ 50 x 5

Set 2:

A. High incline @ 50 x 8

B. Medium-to-high incline @ 50 x 6

C. Medium incline @ 50 x 6

D. Low incline @ 50 x 5

E. Flat @ 50 x 5

Set 3:

A. High incline @ 50 x 6

B. Medium-to-high incline @ 50 x 5

C. Medium incline @ 50 x 4

D. Low incline @ 50 x 3

E. Flat @ 50 x 3

Set 4:

A. High incline @ 45 x 6

B. Medium-to-high incline @ 45 x 6

C. Medium incline @ 45 x 6

D. Low incline @ 45 x 5

E. Flat @ 45 x 3

I feel these dumbbell supersets as much in my triceps as I do in my upper chest, and they always leave me exhausted. Given the energy depletion, this was all I did for the day--other than working in four sets of crunches on the Powertec ab station between bench presses and dumbbell presses.

This afternoon I'll do some pull-ups instead of the deadlift workout. Hopefully, I can squeeze that in tomorrow.