Cameron Thomas
Forum Replies Created
-
Dr Dean!
I trust your having a great time in Tenerife 🙂
A question regarding clenbuterol usage, conscious I sound like a broken record here but…
What is the actual conclusion around whether Ketotifen is required when dosing clenbuterol for say >6 weeks?
I see so many conflicting opinions & yours is one I trust.
Instagram - @cameron_thomas5
Follow along with my 2018 Contest Prep & Off-Season
>> Member Training Journals "Starting from Scratch" -
@jdh – What are your thoughts, pretty damn brutal on paper right!?
Instagram - @cameron_thomas5
Follow along with my 2018 Contest Prep & Off-Season
>> Member Training Journals "Starting from Scratch" -
@jdh – Of course not, I’m assuming he would be happy for me to do so (I hope) as I know he posts his workouts on a daily basis which are very similar.
Here is one of the upper body rotations, the other rotations were structured the same but it would alternate in terms of whether ‘push’ movements or ‘pull’ movements were trained first.
In terms of exercise selection across the rotations, it would rotate between having a little more emphasis placed on higher incline pressing towards the front end of he workout as opposed to horizontal, when it was a ‘push’ focused upper body day. From a back training perspective it would always start with a vertical pull of some kind to kick things off.
Upper Rotation A
Flat DB press – 1 set of 8-10 reps, 1 set of 12-15 reps
High incline BB press – 1 set of 8-10 reps, 1 set of 12-15 reps
Smith behind the neck shoulder press – 1 set of 8-10 reps, 1 set of 12-15 reps
Pec dec – 6×4 set into a stretch, hold for as long as you can giving resistance to the weight aim for 45-90secs
Lat pulldown – 1 set of 8-10 reps, 1 set of 12-15 reps,
Seated narrow row – 1 set of 8-10 reps, 1 set of 12-15 reps,
Single arm DB row – 6×4 set
Tricep zbar pushdown – 1 rest pause set aiming for 12 reps on the first set
Single arm overhead DB extension – 6×4 set
DB standing side laterals – 1 set of 8-10 reps, 1 set of 12-15 reps, 1 set of 20 reps
Prone DB rear delt raise – 1 set of 8-10 reps, 1 set of 12-15 reps
BB Shrugs – 1 set of 15-20 reps
Toe press for calves – 2 sets of 10-12 reps, reduce the weight by 10% for the second set if needed
Standing calf raise – 6×4 set with a stretchInstagram - @cameron_thomas5
Follow along with my 2018 Contest Prep & Off-Season
>> Member Training Journals "Starting from Scratch" -
Welcome back bud!
Instagram - @cameron_thomas5
Follow along with my 2018 Contest Prep & Off-Season
>> Member Training Journals "Starting from Scratch" -
Yeah in terms of working sets, every single set was taken to complete failure!
Every working set was also progressed in some aspect, be it an extra KG here or there or a progression in reps achieved. During that phase it wasn’t rare to see lifts jump in 2.5-5kg every rotation.
In all honesty I can’t say it did, simply because I didn’t rush my workouts and each exercise I made sure I had found my groove before attacking the working set. I’ve carried across this meticulous approach to my training now and I think this is a HUGE thing I took away from being coached by JP.
Anything beyond what you can progress in terms of performance is ‘junk’ volume in my opinion, excluding some ‘pump’ work that has it’s place in addition to your bread & butter movements where progressing load is paramount.
Of course, training in this manner is only sustainable in short bouts as your body takes a beating physically that’s for sure.
Instagram - @cameron_thomas5
Follow along with my 2018 Contest Prep & Off-Season
>> Member Training Journals "Starting from Scratch" -
Hey Raol!
Do you think the volume was low to moderate?
I’d say it was more moderate to high! For example an average upper body session consisted of 18 working sets followed by 3 working sets of calves. With 3 or 4 of these sets being RP sets or 6×4 muscle rounds.
Then the fact that the majority of these are compound movements where the loads I was using were relatively high, so easily 5-7 feeder sets to warm up for each compound movement for major body parts & 1-3 for smaller body parts or when I’m moving from one movement to another.
Add in DC stretches after each body parts and the time adds up!
Instagram - @cameron_thomas5
Follow along with my 2018 Contest Prep & Off-Season
>> Member Training Journals "Starting from Scratch" -
Performance increasing?
Instagram - @cameron_thomas5
Follow along with my 2018 Contest Prep & Off-Season
>> Member Training Journals "Starting from Scratch" -
@Jdh
Thank you man!
I know everyone does ‘Prep logs’ in one format or another, but I figured that if I was to do one then it would be my aim to see it through and make it as insightful into my personal thought processes & mindset as possible.
Instagram - @cameron_thomas5
Follow along with my 2018 Contest Prep & Off-Season
>> Member Training Journals "Starting from Scratch" -
AJ it’s a pleasure to have you following along. It’s going to be very valuable to have the input of your coaching eye that’s for sure, as this is the first time I’ve ‘prepped’ myself!
Instagram - @cameron_thomas5
Follow along with my 2018 Contest Prep & Off-Season
>> Member Training Journals "Starting from Scratch" -
Kody!
Having fun is a BIG part of making great progress in my opinion. So take a step back, what do you most enjoy? How could that translate to making the specific progress that you want to make? And then try and devise a strategy to balance enjoyment and progress. That’s how I plan on programming for future ‘clients’.
This is why the log is here bud, I love these discussions. No one wants to hear about me all the time, it’s great to speak about your training!
My advice would be (general advice, without having access to information relative to you that would enable me to prescribe much more personal advice):
– Take out what you deem to be a waste of volume.
– With the volume that is left over, treat this volume & every set like the holy grail, these are your opportunities to make progress.
– Monitor your recovery capabilities for that volume threshold.
– If you are recovering (performance is increasing), great – there is scope to incrementally add volume over a period of time as another mechanism to stimulate hypertrophy.
– If your not recovering (performance is stagnant or regressing), we need to draw volume back until we’ve reached a baseline where we can progress from.
Does this make sense?
Instagram - @cameron_thomas5
Follow along with my 2018 Contest Prep & Off-Season
>> Member Training Journals "Starting from Scratch" -
UPDATE – DAY 4
Training
First half of my training rotation complete for week 1, which also marks the first few workouts after my complete rest week.. so as you can imagine I’m suffering pretty bad today with full body DOMS!
I wouldn’t stay I stayed away from failure as such, but I managed intensity to the extent where I know there was definitely more in the tank so to speak. Just because we all have learnt the hard way going back into training full throttle after a rest haven’t we.. And with it being very important to recover in time for the second half of my rotation, it was important I managed my expectations of what I could recover from.
Saturday – Chest, side delts & biceps
Sunday – Back, rear delts & triceps
Monday – Quads, hamstrings, calves & HIIT
Today – RESTIn future I will attach my working set loads & reps achieved for each exercise so that I can highlight progressions / regressions for you guys to see how meticulous I am trying to be with maintaining performance.
I should also note that the only sets I list here are working sets, these being sets I take to my own perception of muscular failure (under the parameters of execution staying as close to a 10/10 as possible, when execution no longer allows me to place force where I want it, the set is over). If I have a training partner, portions of the strength profile where I fatigue quickest will be assisted to the point where I can no longer handle the load unassisted through any of the range.
A few abbreviations that may be helpful to interpret the workout logs:
RP – Rest pause (for me this usually means three rest points, with a count of 30 seconds whilst taking deep breaths)
DS – Drop set
DB DS – Double drop set
TR DS – Triple drop set
SS – Superset
B/W – Bodyweight
SA – Single arm
SL – Single legHere are the workouts:
Chest, side delts & biceps
3x Reverse band barbell incline 4-6 | 6-8 | 8-10
(the bands here are set to ensure there is no tension for the last inch at the top of the movement)
2x Incline hammer strength plate-loaded press 6-8 | 8-10
(temporary movement until I am based at the gym I will be consistently training at)
2x Seated upright cable fly 6-8 | 8-10
3x Lying cuffed cable lateral raise 6-8 | 8-10 | 12-15
(bench set at a distance where the cable creates a 90 degree angle with my wrist, when my shoulder joint is at 45 degree of abduction)
2x SA dumbbell preacher curl 4-6 | 8-10
(degree of the bench set to ensure my lower arm is perpendicular to the floor when the dumbbell is lowered around halfway to full elbow extension)Back, rear delts & triceps
3x SA hammer strength row 4-6 | 6-8 | 12+
(LS here is a ‘pump’ or ‘metabolic’ style set where I will perform dual arm reps to failure, extended with partials)
3x SA hammer strength p/d 4-6 | 6-8 | 12+
(LS here is a ‘pump’ or ‘metabolic’ style set where I will perform dual arm reps to failure, extended with partials)
2x Rack pull 4-6 | 10-12
(bar set at bottom of knee cap / top of shin)
2x Machine rear delt fly 6-8 | 10-12
3x Seated face away cable cross extension 4-6 | 6-8 | 12+
(bench set at a distance where the cable creates a 90 degree angle with my wrist, when my elbow is at 45 degree of extension)Quads, hamstrings & calves
2x Reverse band hack squat 4-6 | 8-10
(ideally bands set so that they are slack for the second half of the range of movement
2x Hammer strength upright leg press 6-8 | 10-12
(temporary movement until I am based at the gym I will be consistently training at)
2x Leg extension 6-8 | 10-12
2x SL lying hamstring curl
2x Seated calf raise (Set 1 RP ‘heavy set’, Set 2 high rep SS with B/W calf raise SS B/W donkey calf raise)Any questions on the above, let me know!
–
Bodyweight:
My bodyweight so far has been dropping consistently which is to be expected for the first week. I weighed in this morning at 214.8lbs which is the lowest I’ve seen for quite some time. That’s already a 5lb drop on my starting weight, so I think hovering around the 215lb mark to close out this week I think is favourable!
–
Caffeine intake:
Something I forgot to address on my first two updates was the fact that I’m currently taking zero stimulants, to include caffeine (yep, no coffees!).
I intend to stay caffeine-free until at least 4-6 weeks out, where I hope to benefit from not only a mental/cognitive standpoint but also from the potential uplift in metabolism that has been attributed to caffeine. I had been stim-free 4 weeks prior to starting prep so that would have me at around a 10 week hiatus which I’m sure will have me pretty receptive.–
Sodium and water intake:
Again, forgot to cover this before.
After following Sasan’s prep, I thought the ‘counting grinds’ of sodium per meal was such a basic yet effective tool. With sodium playing such a big role it’s an easy thing to overlook, and staying on top of that now and monitoring how I look as the prep continues I think will make ‘peaking’ somewhat less of a guessing man’s game.
This week I’m adding 8 grinds of Himalayan pink salt to every meal and consuming 6 litres of water a day.
So, that’s a quick update that should have you guys caught up on absolutely every aspect now. As always, anything I’ve missed then do shout!
Instagram - @cameron_thomas5
Follow along with my 2018 Contest Prep & Off-Season
>> Member Training Journals "Starting from Scratch" -
What markers are you monitoring to determine when would be an appropriate time to cut..
Fasted blood glucose to monitor insulin sensitivity?
Caliper sites?And another big one.. the mirror! If your gaining weight, but visibly getting fatter then it’s arguably time to clean things up.
If however weight is stable or rising steadily and performance is still increasing in the gym with little impact on body composition – I’d argue that there’s still some progress to be made.
Instagram - @cameron_thomas5
Follow along with my 2018 Contest Prep & Off-Season
>> Member Training Journals "Starting from Scratch" -
Alistair – I’d agree, when you bring up your upper body to match your legs things are going to get very interesting. If I was doing your programming there would be a big focus on side & rear delts and chest primarily. I think once those become more pronounced, couple that with your vacuum and it’s going to be a cool look.
Were on the same page in respect to less than favourable genetics & a stubbornness to want to progress off of much lower anabolics. I think it makes the challenge that much more fun, and most importantly sustainable. 🙂
Instagram - @cameron_thomas5
Follow along with my 2018 Contest Prep & Off-Season
>> Member Training Journals "Starting from Scratch" -
Hey Josh.
The upper / lower splits are pretty damn brutal especially with the way JP programs exercises, and his philosophy of taking sets to true muscular failure with an underlying principle of progressing lifts.
When you train in such a manner, every single session is more physically demanding than the last, so it takes it’s toll but it’s damn effective when you learn how to train HARD!
From memory we ran:
Monday – Legs
Tuesday – Upper
Wednesday – Rest
Thursday – Legs
Friday – Rest
Saturday – Upper
Sunday – RestFor around 10 weeks or so and then we reduced the frequency to 1 on 1 off when recovery capabilities were diminishing towards the latter end of the training phase which continued for another 8-10 weeks.
Like I said, whilst intensity was VERY high, volume was also quite moderate. Couple these two things and I used to be in the gym for 2.5 hours minimum, which I had no complaints over because I love training.
It’s not for everybody, because not many people have the time (or work ethic) to afford this style of training, or the recovery capabilities for that matter. I was a student at the time with very little to no responsibility schedule wise, nor any stress in general life. I would eat, train, sleep, study far too little, and sleep some more LOL.
If you want to make the most progress possible in overall physique development in the shortest possible time, I’d always recommend higher frequency training.
Instagram - @cameron_thomas5
Follow along with my 2018 Contest Prep & Off-Season
>> Member Training Journals "Starting from Scratch" -
Emil, thank you for the support. This first weekend has been a breeze really, I mentioned on my IG story this evening that during the entirety of my gaining phase I was used to running a fairly high fat diet. This meant food volume was considerably low!
Now I’ve cut out fats I’m consuming to only the trace fats in the steak, beef etc and replaced these calories with carbohydrates, even though calories have been cut by around 500, I feel as though I’m eating a hell of a lot more.
So I foresee the next few weeks being pretty straight shooting which is nice.
Instagram - @cameron_thomas5
Follow along with my 2018 Contest Prep & Off-Season
>> Member Training Journals "Starting from Scratch"