[Damian Zhang]

80kg

Up at 6am, start writing financial reports at 7am, going for the injections at 8:30am, back at 11, full on work til 5, and then crack on with LISS cardio. Going to do additional walking.

Strength is increasing, mood is very stable, can see more and more veins on upper body, 6 pack is looking a little more defined. Holiday is mid July, so want to look the best for that then I need to think what to do next.

I think I may go back to strongman training near where I live, I don’t fit the community at all, and some lads have been less than welcoming, however, some are lovely, all sports its the same. I just love lifting heavy weight, it’s my thing.

[Damian Zhang]

Is every other thing the exact same in the days n workouts ?

Potentially due to the shoulder joint mechanics etc doing laterals first may well be giving you more movement n opening the shoulders up providing better flexibility and movement thus giving more power.

I always have laterals before presses

I have a nice little routine with each workout, always the same, log everything and monitor everything. I agree about lat raises prior presses, it does work, odd, but it works, warms everything up. In terms of chest – I can flat bb benchpress no issues first, same with back/leg day, deadlifting at the start is fine. It’s literally just the shoulders.

[Damian Zhang]

Sounds pretty common sense to me buddy and not odd
Just go with the order you can stream together the most progress with

Thanks 🙂

[Damian Zhang]

To add to what the team have said here, if ever you are unsure with the treatments that are being offered it’s important that you ask all the relevant questions you have to the healthcare professional as they will be able to give you a deeper insight as to why they are suggesting the treatment, recovery time, short term and long term effects. Then from there you can make a better decision as to what you want to do treatment wise

After having experience with mental health profs giving medication out like candy and suffering from it, I do generally ask alot more questions, I feel sometimes like I have to be a detective to ensure what they are offering is right, it all looks positive in terms of treatment and then naturally physio will help too.

[Damian Zhang]

Cortisone injections are best for quick pain relief and reducing inflammation. It wears off over time, and in some cases the pain can often be worse when it returns.

PRP focuses on more long term healing by promoting tissue regeneration.

Cortisone offers temporary relief, whereas PRP offers more sustained results as it targets the underlying cause of pain.

Thank Clare, I am having both at the same time, so fingers crossed the PRP does the magic.

[Damian Zhang]

Thanks all, yep completely agree, the bicep apparently has fluid in it and the tendon below isn’t too happy, physio is a good shout. Just a small bump in the road 🙂

[Damian Zhang]

I’d look at your exercise order here and what exercises are needed. If I was to do a shoulder press variation I’d only choose one and then allocate more training volume to other exercises. It sounds like you have the formula for you iso work first then pressing so I would definitely stick with this as this is what works well for you so well done for identifying this

Thanks Marc! I tend to just stick with the compound shoulder press regarding presses, will stick to what works 🙂

[Damian Zhang]

Hi Damian,

I think the important thing here is that you’ve tried it both ways, and you’ve identified which works best for you.

Why that is the case could be down to many factors, but the thing that impacts the quality of your sessions is knowing which order helps you perform best.

On an aside, do you not even have a set of squat stands in the gym that you can unravel the bar from?

Thanks Rich, believe it or not, just a smith machine, have requested numerous times and given not a pleasant response. I do to a bodybuilding gym from time to time and they do have everything there.

[Damian Zhang]

79.1kg

Work’s been going well, all positive feedback, very pleased.

Training dipped for a day, I believe this was down to the BPD/stress, but pulled myself back up 2 days ago and really focusing on putting more controlled aggression into my lifting.

Having PRP and a cortisone injection into the bicep area on Wednesday, which I have not been given guidance for recovery but it seems Dr Google is 3ish days of rest, can do cardio and legs. Apparently caffeine is a no no for 2 days before PRP, so not having caffeine from midday today and apparently again need to not take caffeine for 3 days post PRP, this is going to be hard lol, we all have our vices.

Nutrition is nearly there about 95/5% former being clean and latter being shite, but again closing the gap further and further.

Off to Ripped Gym, Basildon this morning with a friend, it’s not healthy staying at home on my own, as my partner has been constantly away on and off for most of the month and her parents are staying with us end of June to end of October, I am going to use 2025 to be more social, and go out and be more independent.

Really pleased with leg progress, I am doing 3 reps at 145kg at bodyweight of within 79kg. Jordan mentioned single leg curls, bloody hell, they work! thats all I will say, cheers Jordan!

[Damian Zhang]

@allisontestuhotmail-fr @primitivegymnasium Jordan

Appreciate your responses – Ryan & Jordan – I went to the gym yesterday, with quite a large amount of aggression due to the stress I was feeling – it worked, performance was perfect, form was good, I just put everything I had into the workout.

Allison – I agree, it is due to that reason to be fair, I am very much trying to be very understand balanced towards this personal issue.

In terms of putting on muscle, I have a holiday at the start of July, then I am going to start clean bulking, I have cornered abit of time this evening to go through the unlocked education via Jordan to tonight.

Thanks for your help guys, do actually appreciate it.

[Damian Zhang]

Hb – stop the sugary stuff. Have you changed any supplements also ?

As being honest if you train hard , doing cardio and eat clean rest of the time I’d be shocked a couple of cookies pre bed caused this

Low heamoglobin – we’re the other blood count numbers totally fine ?

We’re are iron numbers
Vitamin B12 numbers

If in range are they right at the bottom ?

Iron tablets are not fun. I would potentially look at vitamin B12 injections

How is your blood pressure

Hey Peter,

I changed protein powder and creatine brands, but this is quite frequent and normal for me, I generally don’t use other supps apart from the normal vits/minerals. The low haemoglobin does worry me, as I do generally feel very tired everyday regardless of say 4 caffeinated coffees a day and thats a sedentary job with hard graft in gym – 5 days lifting and 2 days rest (rest is walking 10 – 12k steps). The rest of the bloods are in completely normal range, the Dr wasn’t concerned about the haemoglobin and when I mention I feel really tired still, he throws iron tablets at me…which cause ungodly effects.

I did find two bits:

– Stress at work is through the roof and relationship is tricky regarding stress frequently.

– Muhdo health said I had a genetic trait for type 2 diabetes.

– Need to check blood pressure.

– Whilst I requested iron / ferritin / vitamins to be checked, they didnt check these…they did check serum sodium / potassium and both were optimal.

My grandad died at 40 due to eating too much sugary food, my genes whilst very grateful to come from a strong irish background but they do follow my grandad very closely.

Would you suggest a private bloods MOT considering NHS are not offering a proper look? I’ll look into the injections, I did briefly hear these were really beneficial.

[Damian Zhang]

Re-comping can happen to a certain extent, but will depend on a lot of factors as to how significant or how long you can do so.

Training age, body fat levels, diet, genetics will all come into play.

There will come a point where, if you’re not eating enough for a sustained period, that training will suffer and you risk losing muscle mass.

You need to decide whether losing fat or gaining muscle is your priority. Either get into a deficit and commit to losing fat for a short period of time, or get into a surplus and commit to building muscle. Trying to do both won’t be sustainable long-term.

If, however, you are happy with how you look at the bodyweight you’re at right now, then you can maintain. You may re-comp a little initially, but you won’t make significant progress with your lifts or look much different.

(And I’m pleased you took my advice on rest days and can see the benefits!)

Hi Claire, this makes sense, thank you! I will have a think 🙂

[Damian Zhang]

Hi folks,

Thanks for the replies;

– I am not using a metal ball in the shaker – will try.

– So shake hard for 30 secs, no froth, really nice and thick but there are clumps in – checked storage, it’s fine, not using super cold water etc.

– I’v not got the metal ball so will buy a new shaker and use that.

I did try to lower the protein serving to 1 scoop rather than 2 and it was better last night.

Apart from that the flavour and nutrition is tip top.

[Damian Zhang]

Hi mate, I rarely jump in on convos, as not an affliated TBJP coach..but…Jordan is really spot on. Stop dirty bulking it’s BS and a way to find yourself with alot of fat and more importantly poor health conditioning. Eat clean – again guys on here nailed it – yogurt (0% fat – high protein – I found Danone via Tesco really good), wild rice, brown rice, jasmine rice, turkey, 5% fat mince, salmon, tuna, white fish, chicken breast, game (if your posh), lots of mixed veg, list goes on. But it does work both ways for losing and gaining weight right.

[Damian Zhang]

Hmm I’ve never an issue always worth emailing and sending pics to the customer service email

Thanks Meg