Hi guys, a little bit of background on me and the first half of 2019. I'm a master student in computer science, currently working on my thesis and hopefully graduating before the end of the year, I live 30km from Rome in a small town, I've been working part time as a PT in the local gym over the last couple of years but my contract expires this month and I'm looking to take a new step in my life, I'd love to work in the field of Data Science/Analysis but we'll see. I've had a few step backs in my life, I'm 32 right now and this is my second "career" change so things haven't been easy especially over the last few months but I'm getting things in order and by 2020 I hope my life will be a little more organized :).
Enough with the personal stuff, as far as training goes I have been struggling since Jan to be consistent and hit the plan so I've been going back and fourth with nutrition and training and eventually just dropped 2 kgs from the 97 of Dec '18 to the 95 of June, following AJ's minicut made me click and I finally had 6 weeks of consistent training and nutrition where I dropped a bit over 4 kgs so we can call it a minicut and now I'm onto a bulking phase, committing for the next 6 months to gain at a steady rate looking to gain about 1 kg/month but I'll evaluate based on pictures and adjust gaining rate accordingly.
I dropped 0,8 kg/week for 5 weeks at an average of 2550 kcal, which means about 3350 kcal maintanance. Here are the starting macros:
TD: C525 F60 P240
NTD: C300 F120 P240
Current split is Upper/Lower/Push/Pull/Lower, I'm looking to dedicate a bit more volume on lats, hamstrings and calves, this is the result of asking thoughts around on my starting conditiong (AJ was of one of those people of course!). Basically the upper day starts with back movements and on pull day I'll have a bit more volume than push day, which is placed in between just because i will be doing some sort of hip hinge on both of those days, I'll take a day of rest after the first lower so that I have 2 days of full recovery for my lower back.
I live in a small town and the only gym we have is very limited on equipment so I paid an yearly subscription in a huge gym in rome (it's called BIG so you get the idea!), I decided to go there on upper/lower/pull so those session will be slightly higher volume with more machines. Here's todays' session:
Hammer strength ISO D.Y. Row 1x5-8, 2x8-12
Life Fitness Dual Pulley Pulldown 2x8-12, 1x15-20
Life Fitness Wide Grip Seated Row 3x10-15
Technogym Horizontal Chest Press 1x5-8, 2x8-12
Superset 1:
Life Fitness Triceps Extension 4x10-15 (might take this off as it bothers my elbows)
Life Fitness Overhead Biceps Curl 4x10-15
Superset 2:
Life Fitness Lateral Raise Machine 4x10-15
Life Fitness Reverse Pec Deck 4x10-15
Metabolite work:
Dual Cable Pullover 1x10-15 + 2 RP
Gym80 Plate Loaded Fly 1x10-15 + 2 RP
Since arms and shoulders aren't a priority I'll switch the superset order from session to session so that over the long term I'm giving both the same "priority". I won't be tracking the metabolite work in my spreadsheet, I might even change technique from time to time I'll just make sure that I get a good pump there. I'll use a pullover machine where I'll actually track numbers and aim for PBs on pull day.
Any thoughts on initial set up is appreciated guys, have a nice day!