[Cameron Thomas]

@JC456 That’s a very interesting point actually that I think I might definitely consider taking on board if I don’t successfully ward off these issues over the next couple of weeks!

I think with my habitual eating I simply made the issue worse when I was suffering badly… I was still attempting to get meals in and these literally just compounded in my digestive tract and made the pain 10x worse.

I appreciate your input mate.

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[Cameron Thomas]

UPDATE – 7th November

Another day of no stomach pain / digestive disruption which is a step in the right direction… I’m praying this Friday they stay away as this seems to be the day it wants to creep up on me for whatever reason!

BUT, as I mentioned in my last update this really has been a blessing in disguise. I’ve used this opportunity nutrition wise to really be accountable to the foods I can digest optimally, I’ve never had ZERO gas until these past few days and cannot remember the last time hunger has been high between meals whilst eating such a substantial number of calories.

Long term I think what I will learn from this is going to be invaluable moving forward, I’ll be sure to post up my full diet moving forward once I solidify meal composition & food sources etc but in all honesty I will almost definitely be open to food rotation on a daily basis because I do feel this is something massively overlooked from a digestive health perspective.

Foods I’ve been experimenting with (all low FODMAP):

Jasmine rice
Thai black rice
Potatoes/sweet potatoes
Rice cakes
Gluten free pasta
Gluten free bread
Gluten free oats
Jam (strawberry, natural only)
Maple syrup
Ground rice

Cod
Salmon
Chicken
Hemp protein
Vegan protein powder
Beef
Eggs

Almond butter
Dark choc

Also worth mentioning that I’ve brought protein down (direct sources) from 250g to around 180-190g which I can only assume has had a considerable effect on the improvements to digestion!

Today’s recovery workout:

1x Reverse band hack squat
1x Seated leg curl (using seatbelt)
1x Lying hack squat
1x Banded V Squat good morning (hamstring focus)
1x Leg extension
1x Toe press
1x Elbow supported machine curl

Bodyweight:

From the weekend of sporadic eating and no training, I thankfully only dropped around 3lbs. I’ve spent this week so far putting in extra calories in comparison to where I left my baseline intake in an attempt to bring my weight back up to around the 215lbs mark which I should be able to achieve by the end of the week without throwing excessive amounts of food in aimlessly.

Feeling a little more positive with the direction things are now moving.

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[Cameron Thomas]

Excited to follow along Ryan…

Where are you expecting endogenous T levels to return to during your time off?

Have you managed to recover them to a respectable level in the past?

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[Cameron Thomas]

UPDATE – 6th November

Well.. it was all going too well, wasn’t it! I was afraid something like this was going to happen. So the weekend before last, AND this past weekend just gone, I’ve suffered from some sort of digestive disrupt that manifested itself in pretty severe abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhoea, gas.. the lot!

The first rodeo I still managed to train as it didn’t really affect my physically other than the discomfort, but this weekend just passed the pain was debilitating and prevented me from really doing anything at all from the Friday through to the Monday. Still somewhat able to put food down, but during Saturday night the pain was unbearable enough to the extent where a trip to A&E was in order.

Nothing highlighted from immediate testing carried out there, nor any diagnosis from seeing my GP today (what can you expect hey..) so still up in the air about WTF this really is but yesterday & today have seen me back to somewhat of my normal self with suffering from much fewer symptoms.

So far my only intervention has been to eliminate high FODMAP’s from my diet entirely and to lower protein intake, assuming that it could potentially be gut/digestion related.. which I have actually had some success with, whether or not it will prevent these symptoms from arising again I can’t say, but my appetite and the rate at which my body is absorbing these meals with zero gas has never been this efficient.

One positive to take away at least!?

The plan of action is to keep a pretty detailed food diary, see what I can tolerate best.. and use this information captured over the course of a couple of weeks to nail down a structured nutrition plan that I can follow and manipulate macronutrient wise moving forward into my off-season.

Currently, I am adopting a somewhat ‘flexible’ approach in order to do this, with a protein target in mind and simply equating calories with carbohydrates and fats across 5 meals per day.

On a positive note…

Today was my first day back in the gym and since I’ve already taken 4 days off (forced rest, but rest nonetheless), I’ve decided to round off this week with a deload/recovery approach to training having suspected that me pushing for too long has dug me into a pretty big hole could potentially be manifesting itself in this stomach disrupt.

The simple plan is, significantly pull back on volume… one working set per exercise which would mimic my normal top set working within a 5-8 rep range.

Today’s workout was as follows and I took PR’s for this mesocycle across the board:

Chest, delts, triceps & lats

1x Banded dip chest focused
1x Close grip football bar press w/ chains
1x Lying floor cuffed cable cross ext
1x Seated cable fly
1x Lying cable lateral raise
1x Machine rear pec fly
1x Neutral grip chin

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[Cameron Thomas]

UPDATE

So… this update is actually from the 29th October so I’m late with posting this one!

But wanted to make sure you guys see where we are up to at this point before updating with what’s been going on since.

UPDATE – 29th October (6 weeks post show)
⁣
6 weeks post-show sitting at 217.4lbs on wake this morning after a weekend of pretty relaxed nutrition. Last update I was averaging 214.1 so a fairly big jump which now puts me 14.7lbs over stage weight. ⁣
⁣
Now only a lb away from the weight I started prep, quite clearly in a much better position body composition wise which means only one thing… there’s a considerable amount of tissue that’s been clawed back since then (from the level of muscularity I reached in 2017!)⁣
⁣
TRAINING: I had my mind set on deloading this week, but with numbers still shooting up despite very poor recovery conditions this weekend… I honestly think there is a lot more in the tank regardless of whether or not overtrained by this point. Training is what’s keeping body comp in a good place & in honesty I’m enjoying the opportunity to create significant energy demands so I have more breathing room with social events. ⁣
⁣
NUTRITION: No changes to my baseline nutrition intake for a good couple of weeks now, simply because off-plan meals have been a little bit more frequent and so the sporadic bolus of additional calories has seen bodyweight consistently creep up. ‘Optimal’? Arguably not, but I’m yet to notice any detriment to performance which will predominantly be the number one factor in most of my decision processes. ⁣
⁣
Progress pictures attached for critique.

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[Cameron Thomas]

Been slow on the updates…

Few things have thrown me off my groove which I’ll update on soon, as well as uploading my most recent progress pics!

Small set-back which I will overcome.

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[Cameron Thomas]

My current rebound cycle is:

275mg Test E
75g NPP

I was previously running 20mg Tamoxifen daily and 12.5mg Aromasin E3D but I’ve now removed both of these since Oestrogen came back in range and Oestrogen related sides seem to be at bay!

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[Cameron Thomas]

Hey man, you’ve got it bang on there.

Of course I’ll consider whether any other variables may have caused performance to regress/stagnate, but if trends are pointing towards under-recovery (those trends being multiple rotations of strength regression or stagnation) then that will tell me that volume is potentially too high, or that other factors are holding back my recovery capabilities and need tweaking/optimising (diet, supplementation, sleep, etc).

But as strength increases, the hypothetical ceiling of MRV (maximum recoverable volume) will slowly become lower and lower, as each working set will cause more systemic fatigue.

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[Cameron Thomas]

Great log!

Any progress pictures?

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[Cameron Thomas]

20th October – UPDATE

214.8lbs on wake, slight drop after yesterdays off-day where calories are now taken back a touch.

Push today, but I added a little extra lat work to gauge where I can take overall weekly back volume as I feel recovery there is at it’s highest relative to other body parts. I’ll use the logbook as my main determining factor here as always!

Session was as follows, all numbers progressed either by reps or load (mostly load AND reps, because things are firing right now)

4x Banded dips chest focus
4x Football bar press chained (tricep focus)
2x Lying cuffed cable cross ext
4x Seated cable fly
4x Lying lateral raise
4x Machine rear delt fly
6×4 Rope rear delt pulldown
2x Neutral grip chins weighted
BFR biceps
BFR calves

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[Cameron Thomas]

“Advanced – 0.25-0.5% bodyweight gain per month”

For me that would equate to 0.5lbs per month… how on earth would you even attempt to reliably track or even achieve that!

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[Cameron Thomas]

19th October – UPDATE

Weight up again today.. 215.6lbs (I had sushi last night).

Feeling pretty damn battered from yesterday’s workout, but nothing got in the way of beating numbers across the board again today. I was VERY tempted to run my lower body day macro’s for today’s upper body day but I decided to hold back, my stubbornness got the best of me.

I feel as though I need to be stubborn on holding back on the tools that I have to push strength and body weight up (food being a big one!) for when they are most needed, and currently strength is on the rise as is bodyweight, so an increase would purely be me making a decision out of emotion and not rationalism.

One thing I mentioned on my IG story today was the fact that I am in serious need of a deload… I can’t remember the last time I took some time-off or spent time in a period of reduced volume but it was definitely a good few weeks before prep. Fingers crossed I can hold out until when I plan to finish this first phase of my off-seasion because I’d like to time it towards the front-end of a cruise phase so that the body is primed to train damn hard whilst I battle to hold on to tissue.

Today’s upper body workout was as follows:

4x Flat bench (strength programming)
4x Hammer lat pulldown machine
4x Hammer incline machine press
4x Hammer low row
3x Floor db press
Superset with
3x Cable row close mag grip leant forward 90 sec between sets
6×4 Cable rope pullover
4x Incline bench facing away cable cross tricep extension
6×4 Single arm overhead db ext
4x Incline bench cable lateral raise
6×4 Rope face pull
BFR biceps
BFR calves

Brutal session as always and as strength creeps up, they certainly don’t get any easier!

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[Cameron Thomas]

18th October – UPDATE

Woke up at my heaviest weight of this rebound yet.. 215lbs. 3lbs shy of starting prep weight now and still have lines in my glutes, go figure!

Things are seriously firing on all cylinders and I’m SO grateful right now that health markers are allowing me to capitalise on this phase, because I truly think I can take a massive step forward in progress in a pretty short amount of time.

Today’s workout did not disappoint, promised myself I had to make up for a disappointing deadlift performance the week prior, and that’s exactly what I did! Logbook numbers beaten across the board.

Still 40kg off of PR territory on deadlifts, but in contrast, I’m using half the anabolics and weighing 20lbs less. So there’s wiggling room.

The workout was as follows:

4x Conventional deadlifts
4x BB back squat
4x Squat press
3x Leg ext SS w/ Quad focus db walking lunge 60 sec rest
4x GHR SS w/ Hip adduction 90 sec rest
4x Seated calf raise
2x Db preacher curl single arm
2x EZ bar curl
6×4 Rope hammer curl

There’s definitely scope for more quad volume here to replace some of the quad volume from Wednesday’s leg session, as they weren’t 100% recovered in time for this workout despite having lowered volume on Wednesday.

The only issue being with the deadlifts & free bar squats, this session is a 3 hour marathon.. so fitting in any more volume here is likely to be in the form of replacing some of the sub-max sets with sets that are closer in proximity to failure.

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[Cameron Thomas]

17th October – UPDATE

213.4lbs this AM.. bodyweight has been holding at that number all week which is very rare for me!

Rest day today and having now reduced calories on RD’s compared with training day’s I’m anticipating a drop tomorrow.

Progress pictures from this week attached!

4 and a half weeks post-show, the rebound continues.

Deadlift day tomorrow.

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[Cameron Thomas]

16th October – UPDATE

Back into the normal routine as of today after a busy weekend, good to be back in my ‘home’ gym… always great to get around and train elsewhere but when your married to the log-book it’s no secret that deep down it plays on your OCD a little bit. (Ok.. a lot!)

Woke up at 213.6lbs today, which is lighter than expected after eating ‘off-plan’ twice over the weekend, combined with training output being lower than normal AND being sat on my ass all day watching the show… I thought weight would have creeped up, so I’m happy on that front. Took some pictures today which I’ll upload tomorrow.

The response from the new diet set-up has been great so far, hunger is high, digestion already seems to have improved (subjective assessment) from the smaller, more frequent feedings and also reduced vegetable intake.

Not sure if I mentioned but I am essentially running an elimination diet approach to my vegetable intake to assess which I can best tolerate and at what volume. Currently opting for low FODMAP options, in particular Kale and at a maximum of 100g at each serving.

Chest, delts and tri’s were on the cards today. A pretty low volume workout when you consider the sub-max sets but considering I train full upper body on a Sunday and also on a Thursday, this is slotted in as a day for the body parts currently being prioritised so volume/intensity is auto regulated depending on strength progressions.

4x Banded dips (chest focus)
4x Football bar press with chains (tricep focus)
2x Lying cuffed cable cross ext
4x Seated upright cable fly
4x Lying cable cuffed lateral raise
4x Machine rear delt fly
6×4 Rope rear delt pulldown
BFR biceps (30-15-15-15) 30 seconds in between
BFR calves same setup as above

Overall a VERY good workout and progressions taken across the board excluding the last 2 ‘volume’ sets on the banded dip. I think I jumped into the first volume set a little too soon after finishing set 2 which is taken to failure… Note taken to ensure I give myself long enough to recover before going into those volume sets to ensure I can maintain the reps needed across those last two sets without them being taken to complete failure. As the aim here is sub-maximal work (1-2RIR) across set 3 and 4, with a consistent load & rep-scheme and keeping tight control on the rest period between them as to ensure the stimulus illicit an adaptive response as load/volume are progressed (considering mechanical tension is not the primary driver of hypertrophy we are targeting here).

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