[Cameron Thomas]

Hey Will

Hope all is well?

Quick question about when you tested your serum GH with medichecks, was the measure you got back NG/ml?

I have just had mine back and the reference range is a maximum of 2.5 UG/L which meant it was pretty useless for detecting super-physiological levels of GH 🙁

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[Cameron Thomas]

Day 16 UPDATE.

How’s it going guys, another quick update after what was a pretty awesome training rotation. It was back to the upper body / deadlift day / arms & delts half of my 8 day split which is always the most physically demanding, hence the most fun!

It’s been a pretty hectic week for me so I’m super happy I was able to fit in some really good productive workouts around my schedule.

I literally spent the last 2-3 days packing to move back to University, packing for my holiday (which I’m now on!) whilst trying to organize meals for over the weekend… but I made it work!

I spent Friday onwards in London as I visited the Integra Personal Training studio for an exercise mechanics course organized by RTS, which may I say was another extremely insightful look into the world of biomechanics.. the sh*t that I live for!

Then it was a 2am start to head to Gatwick to catch a 7am flight, and we all know how that can mess up our eating pattern! All fun and games though ☺

–

Let’s get to some training, best workout of this rotation was definitely the deadlift day which I got in at Muscleworks, Bethnal Green. Home of the only strive leg extension I’ve come across in the UK, which is pretty much the OG of machines designed that allow manipulation of the resistance profile. So needless to say that was a very fun, and brutal session (since it was about 30 degrees in there).

Training recap:

Thursday – Upper body (chest focus, lat focus, side delts & BFR arms)
Friday – Arms, side & rear delts
Saturday – Deadlift day (quads, hamstrings/glutes, calves & side delts)

The workouts being as follows:

Upper body

2x Incline hammer press 4-6 | 6-8
2x SA machine row 4-6 | 6-8
2x Flat Db 4-6 | 6-8
REP PROGRESSION ON TOP SETS
2x Chins 4-6 | 6-8 (Last set RP which was added this week)
REP PROGRESSION ON TOP SETS
2x Seated upright cable fly 12+
(holding the cable with no attachment with shoulder joint internally rotated, cables set up at a height to align with lower pec fibres)
2x Cable lateral raise 6-8 | 8-10
(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)
REP PROGRESSION BOTH SETS
BFR Arms
(cable cross extensions and incline dumbbell curls. 30-15-15-15 with 30 seconds rest between sets followed by occluded stretch)

Deadlift day @ Muscleworks Bethnal Green

2x Seated hamstring curl 6-8 | 12-15
2x RDL 6-8 | 12-15 (First time programming this movement since training with JP!)
2x Front squat 6-8 | 8-10
2x Cybex squat press 15+
(2 min rest after top set, drop one plate and match reps)
1x DB DS Strive leg extension 20+ in total
BFR calves
(bodyweight calf raises, 30-15-15-15 with 30 seconds rest between sets followed by occluded stretch)
HIIT Upright bike 5x 10 seconds on 30 seconds off

Arms & rear delts (Pure Gym, most loads chosen by feel)

2x SA DB hammer with body leaning to one side 6-8 | 10+
(leaning body to ensure alignment of shoulder & elbow matches the line of force of the dumbbell)
REP PROGRESSION BOTH SETS
2x Seated cross cable extension 6-8 | 10+
(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)
2x Incline cable curl 8-12 | 12-15
2x SA lying DB extension 8-12 | 12-15
REP PROGRESSION BOTH SETS
2x Cable lateral raise 6-8 | 8-10
2x High cable rear delt fly SS with
(focus on challenging shortened range)
2x incline bench dB rear fly
(focus on challenging lengthened range)

–

I haven’t been able to monitor bodyweight for a few days which is annoying, last time I was able to my week 2 average was down around 1.2lbs on week 1.. slightly under the 2lb mark I’m aiming for on a weekly basis so there are a few changes to be made going into week 3 which I have begun implementing today.

Nutrition changes:

20g carbs taken out of upper body training days
20g carbs taken out of non-training days

Cardio:

x2 30 min seated bike on rest days

–

As you can see it’s nothing major, just enough extra expenditure and drop in energy input that should see me illicit a good chunk of fat loss this week I hope.

Supplements both health wise & enhanced still remain the same, and these won’t change until I move into week 4.

As promised – the prep roundup video giving a brief rundown of the above will be on my YouTube channel very soon and as always I’ll get the link on here as soon as it is. This will have highlights from my upper body workout from this rotation, that was also a great one.

–

Any questions, don’t be shy!

Hope everyone’s training is going awesome because I know from the looks of a few of you guys IG pages your going at it which is very motivating for me.

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[Cameron Thomas]

Day 12 UPDATE.

Mid-week update for you guys, really getting in the groove of things from a training perspective now and I certainly feel as though my bodies adapting to this calorie intake with hunger not being as much of an issue now.

I eat 4 meals a day so by the 3-4 hour mark the hunger definitely sets in, but logistically this suits my schedule well (so I’m not cooking & eating all day and can be somewhat productive with my time).

Calories have remained the same as I mentioned in the roundup video if you guys have checked that out, the only changes this week have been rotating my vegetable sources in order to ensure I’m covering a spectrum of micro’s & phyto’s. I’ve simply swapped organic spinach, onions, courgette and peas with organic kale, cabbage, aubergine and broccoli.

What I’m really looking forward to over the next couple of weeks is settling back into my routine in Sheffield where my workouts will be in the same gym, so the logbook can be monitored far more meticulously. I’m currently in and out of different gyms so it’s been difficult to really nail down progression on many movements.

But with that being said, workouts have been great, as is recovery! Which is surprising considering I’m still running the maintenance dose of 100mg, however I do think the addition of 2iu’s GH each day has assisted with this. The benefit of the GH being that it’s aiding my ability to protect tissue until hormones are eventually increased that will occur at 9 weeks out.

Attached to this post is a little post-workout gym shot after chest & delts on Sunday.

–

Training recap:

Sunday – Chest, side delts, biceps
Monday – Back, rear delts, triceps
Tuesday – Quads, hamstrings & calves

The workouts being as follows:

Chest, side delts & biceps

3x Barbell incline 4-6 | 6-8 | 8-10
(different gym so I couldn’t reverse band these)
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)
TOOK A PROGRESSION HERE ON THE DROP DOWN SET OF 2 REPS
2x Seated cable fly no attachment 12+
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)
MATCHED REPS TOP SET, REGRESSED BY A REP ON THE DROP DOWN

Back, rear delts & triceps

3x SA cybex 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 Barbell row 4-6 | 10-12
THIS REMINDED ME OF THE JP DAYS!
2x Machine rear delt fly 6-8 | 10-12
2x SA machine tricep extension 4-6 | 6-8 |
(temporary movement until I am based at the gym I will be consistently training at)

Quads, hamstrings & calves

3x 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)
10KG PROGRESSION ON TOP SET, 2.5KG ON DROP DOWN – ADDED AN EXTRA WORKING SET
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)
REP PROGRESSION ACROSS BOTH
2x Leg extension 6-8 | 10-12
REP PROGRESSION ACROSS BOTH
2x SL lying hamstring curl
REP PROGRESSION ACROSS BOTH
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)
REP PROGRESSION ON TOP SET, ‘PUMP SET’ NOT LOGGED

–

Bodyweight has been fairly stable and currently my weekly average is down 1.6lbs from last week, no crazy drops but it’s still gradually coming off. The aim is to ride this same calorie intake all week and take that to at least a 2lb drop, after that I think it’ll be time to make some adjustments to illicit a further drop.

On a side note I have an exciting week ahead, I’m attending the RTS Foundations of Exercise Mechanics seminar on Saturday in London, which should be very cool. Then I’m off on holiday to Madeira for 5 days Sunday morning & the mind-set to get peeled is stronger than ever!

Hope everyone is having an awesome week so far.

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[Cameron Thomas]

Hi guys!

Exciting news for you guys who are following along!

Over the weekend I put together my ‘weekly prep round-up’ video for YouTube where I give you guys a more visual insight into the methods I’m using to monitor all of the variables of prep covering where things were at for week 1 & any changes to be made going into week 2.

The video also includes a physique update where I run through the mandatory poses, and also FULL workout highlights from the Deadlift day @ Crayfords with Sam Corio to include some brief commentary around my thought process approaching top sets, execution cues etc.

I’ve included time stamps in the description so that you can jump to the most relevant aspect that you’d like to see.

I’d love to hear your guys feedback if you do check it out, and I would HUGELY appreciate giving it a share on your Insta story if you enjoy the content!

Here’s the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSY-IG76Qmo&t=787s

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[Cameron Thomas]

Mike!

If you go back to the first post buddy, or one of the first ones from the log with all of the attachments – there’s a snapshot of the excel document that outlines all my current supplement regime in detail!

Any questions on that give me a shout.

It may seem quite extensive, but I am essentially covering my bases from what I deem to be ‘essential’ from a health perspective and then anything on top is what I can financially justify to aid performance/recovery/sleep.

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[Cameron Thomas]

Day 9 UPDATE.

So guys, another training rotation in the books to wrap up what was the first week of prep!

Bodyweight has been falling consistently and today I weighed in at just over 212lbs which puts me at a 5lb drop from last week (last weeks average minus this weeks average).

I’m not 100% sure of roughly where I’ll need to be at onstage to be in the type of condition I want to be in, but my best guess is probably around 190lbs which means a 2lb per drop per week is adequate.

With that being said, I’m not going to be making any changes at all going into week 2 from a nutrition, cardio or NEAT perspective because enhanced supplementation is still very low and I’m cautious that dropping too much now will be putting muscle tissue at risk.

The only change I may potentially introduce is an extra working set here or there on body parts that I feel recovered well this week, I want to maximise the opportunity whilst calories are at there highest during prep to maximise my output and the potential growth response I can get from training.

–

Training wise it was another great rotation, I met up with Sam Corio another Junior Bodybuilder (coached by JP) and we trained at Crayfords Weights and Fitness down in Essex which is a pretty amazing facility to say the least. They’ll be some highlights of this session on my weekly prep roundup which will be on my YouTube channel over the weekend. Might I add that Sam is a great guy and we bounced off of each-other like we’d known each-other for years, it goes without saying that his quads are THE most impressive quads I’ve seen in person so… leg day motivation for the next 12 weeks! Go give him a follow on IG if your not already.

Despite tweaking my neck (AGAIN) during deadlifts, the workout was damn brutal (in the best way) which at this point of prep, with assistance still minimal, is exactly what I need to force this tissue to stick around.

Unfortunately, I think it is going to be a case of re-programming my deadlifts or removing them from my rotations entirely until I can pull without aggravating whatever is going on around my cervical/thoracic spine, but I’ll leave out what I’m thinking from that perspective for another post…

–

Training recap:

Wednesday – Upper body (chest focus, lat focus, side delts & BFR arms)
Thursday – Arms & rear delts
Friday – Deadlift day (quads, hamstrings/glutes, calves & side delts)

The workouts being as follows:

Upper body

2x Incline hammer press 4-6 | 6-8
2x SA machine row 4-6 | 6-8
2x Flat dB 4-6 | 6-8
(temporary movement until I am based at the gym I will be consistently training at)
2x Chins 4-6 | 6-8
2x Seated upright cable fly 12+
(holding the cable with no attachment with shoulder joint internally rotated, cables set up at a height to align with lower pec fibres)
2x Cable lateral raise 6-8 | 8-10
(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)
BFR Arms
(cable cross extensions and incline dumbbell curls. 30-15-15-15 with 30 seconds rest between sets followed by occluded stretch)

Arms & rear delts

2x SA DB hammer with body leaning to one side 6-8 | 10+
(leaning body to ensure alignment of shoulder & elbow matches the line of force of the dumbbell)
2x Seated cross cable extension 6-8 | 10+
(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)
2x Incline cable curl 8-12 | 12-15
2x SA lying DB extension 8-12 | 12-15
2x High cable rear delt fly SS with
(focus on challenging shortened range)
2x incline bench dB rear fly
(focus on challenging lengthened range)

Deadlift day @ Crayfords

2x Deadlifts touch and go 6-8 | 12-15
2x Life fitness lying hamstring curl 6-8 | 12-15
2x Reverse band precor hack squat 6-8 | 12-15
2x Unilateral hammer strength leg press banded 6-8 | 12-15
(bands set up with daisy chains to place tension only at the last 45 degrees of knee extension)
2x DB DS Nautilus leg extension 20+ in total
BFR calves
(bodyweight calf raises, 30-15-15-15 with 30 seconds rest between sets followed by occluded stretch)
2x Cable lateral raise 6-8 | 10-12
(delt top-up work as I had to re-jig my workout order for the leg session with Sam)

–

From a general overview of this week as a whole, there’s not anything huge to note really. One thing I have noticed is my appetite is pretty damn high right now, which isn’t an issue at all for me really from an adherence standpoint.. But I think I’ll most likely be increasing my vegetable intake ever so slightly at some point in the near future to counteract this – which I’ll be sure to update you guys on if & when I do and whether or not I reap any benefit from this.

I’ve attached my progress pictures as of this weekend and as you can see I’ve certainly tightened up a little already which is cool.

This week I’ll be keeping a very close eye on how my performance from a logbook standpoint holds out, as that will determine whether I bring in any more higher calorie days at this point to slow down the scale movement.

Time to push through another week, I hope everyone’s had a great weekend and your all prepared for some sweaty ass gym sessions this week with the heatwave weather forecast!

Have a good one guys.

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[Cameron Thomas]

BLOODWORK.

Got the full blood panel back that was taken during my rest week last week and I’m very happy with where everything is at ahead of things being kicked up a notch in a couple of weeks.

I’ve attached the blood-work from last Wednesday which was taken having not trained for 4 days. To give you guys some context, this is a picture of my health markers following 20 weeks of dosing 250mg Testosterone per week, x2 12.5mg Aromasin per week & 20mg Tamoxifen ED. Followed by a 5 week period of dosing just 100mg testosterone with no AI or SERM leading up to week the bloods were taken.

I’ve also attached my full blood panel at the end of 2017 for comparison, this was taken after a 6 month hiatus from all assistance.

Positives to note:

In general, the entire blood panel is a positive because 99% is in range!

But these being the areas commonly affected most, I try to keep a close eye on the following…

ALT – still ever so slightly elevated from training induced stress I would presume, but another 2-3 days out of the gym and I’m confident this would have been well in range.

HDL – this is in a great place and this always takes a hit for me so it’s very good to see that in range.
Triglycerides – are down since before starting this years gaining phase.
Oestrogen – is in the middle of the range reinforcing my decision that an AI wasn’t necessary during this cruise phase.
Kidney values – all in range.
Full blood count – all in range.

I’m no expert by any means at interpreting bloodwork, so if any of you guys see anything I don’t and can provide any more insight, it would be greatly appreciated.

–

Regardless of now having the ‘all clear’ from a health standpoint, I’m still going to see out this cruise for the first three weeks because I’m thinking more in terms of the bigger picture – from what I will benefit from spending time holding on to this muscle tissue under lower testosterone levels, rather than thinking about the short term pleasure of looking a few % better for the show in 12 weeks!

Update from the last 3 days of training coming tomorrow, hope you guys have had a great week so far and enjoyed today’s amazing weather.

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[Cameron Thomas]

@jdh – It’s all good, I’m not sure you can for people who have a space in their display name? Who knows!

I thought I remembered reading you were coached by Ben on a post somewhere, that’s cool – he’s a monster. I’m the same with regards to arms being very slow responders in general & I can also sympathise for having a very time-consuming job! (luckily it’s over now)

There’s always going to be trade-off between what’s sustainable relative to you as an individual, so it sounds as though your currently working with what you can recover from and hopefully taking a step forward no matter how small it may be compared to what you could if your joints allowed. So from that perspective, progress is better than stagnation isn’t it!

I wish I was bulletproof! I’ve been suffering with neck issues for quite sometime now which is concerning me if I’m honest. I’ve had lot’s of opinions, treatment (chiro, physio etc) and all have written off any potential for disk damage but the fact I’m seeing very little improvement and I keep tweaking it just tells me something along the line is causing dysfunction.

The most annoying thing is it seems to be deadlifts that sets it off.. and I f*cking love deadlifts. Pulled again for the first time since my rest week & tweaked it again… Pretty much concluded after today that it’s going to have to be sub-maximal sets provided they are pain-free, if not then I’m going to have rule them out entirely.

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[Cameron Thomas]

@jdh – Yeah as I mentioned above, 2.5-3 hours in the gym was the norm.

But being a student I could afford myself that luxury, I used to come back from those sessions, smash my post workout meal and sleep for 1-2 hours!

In retrospect my lifestyle back then (eat, sleep, train, sleep, study a little) was probably the ideal environment to grow muscle, hence why I made arguably my best chunk of progress during that period.

Sounds like a plan to me, what kind of approach are you currently following?

On this particular split biceps were tagged on to the end of leg sessions along with abs & calves on upper body days – which actually worked pretty well. But in my opinion these splits weren’t designed for and aren’t particularly ideal for individuals who struggle to grow their biceps/triceps (if that is something they are specifically aiming to prioritise).

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[Cameron Thomas]

Mr Fox, thank you for chipping in!

The quality of IG content is going to be improving over the next couple of months I hope, I’ll be placing a big focus on it so I appreciate the feedback so far.

It’ll be a pleasure to bounce our ideas off of each other on here for sure.

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[Cameron Thomas]

My pleasure Raol – anytime, honestly!

At the end of the way, what’s going to dictate our volume is how hard we can train. Because it’s always relative to an individual, your perception of ‘hard’ is going to be very different to another person’s and that will then impact how many sets the individual can actually recover from!

So from the sounds of things, you must be training damn hard and that’s awesome.

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[Cameron Thomas]

I agree Danny! Thank you for following along buddy – it’s an exciting couple of months ahead both in terms of prep & some of the content I’ll be putting out so I’m glad your along for the ride.

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[Cameron Thomas]

I agree that having parameters set similar to the above is a great way of auto-regulating the timeframe of a bulk!

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[Cameron Thomas]

Do you know if you have any specific allergies or intolerances to any of the foods your eating?

Bloating would suggest disrupted digestion which the above would lead to, or it could be caused by a variety of other things…

I’m sure a few people could weigh in on this who are little more clued up on the digestion front.

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[Cameron Thomas]

Significant results can be made from 200mg in my opinion and the less hormones you use to add muscle tissue, the more you will likely be able to hold on to once you re-establish natural function or drop to a dose to mimic what the body would normally produce.

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