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Body Stats (Beginning/Current)
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Height: 5'8/5'8 (0 inch increase)
Weight: 130/137 lbs (1 pound increase)
Body Fat Percentage: 6.4%/6.6% (Extremely little increase)
Lean Body Mass: 121.7/128 lbs ( ~1 pound increase)
I'm on the Cross-Country and Track team, but this year I decided to branch out and play soccer. Little did I know, that the soccer practices would be extremely...taxing (I'll use that word). All in all, soccer practices make track practice look like a walk through the park, and during a practice I'm burning much more carbs/sugars/calories than anything else I do. My gains are going to decrease a little bit because of soccer practice because running lowers muscle gains, but that's okay. I think for high school I'd rather be stronger and leaner for my sports. Overall, because of soccer I'm just eating and drinking more. I'm up to about 3200 clean cals with 100 oz of water a day.
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Lifting Stats (Beginning/Current)
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Barbell Bench Press: 110/140 (5 pound increase)
Barbell Parallel Squat 135/210 (10 pounds increase)
Barbell Deadlift 90/185 (50 pound increase)
My project is mainly on strength gains, and it's working very well. My bench press went up another 5 pounds, and this lift is definitely increasing the fastest for me, as I'm adding about 5 pounds a week to my max. Hopefully by the end of the summer I can bench 155-160, which would be awesome for my weight. My squat is steadily increasing as well, and I'm making sure my form is near perfect before putting on more weight, as a I get help from the guys around me to watch my form. My deadlift took the largest lift, as it rose about 50 pounds. I decided to bite the bullet and try much more weight, and it worked.
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Diet
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My diet hasn't really changed. I'm just eating a lot a lot a lot. 3200 cals isn't really that hard, as I'm just eating healthy caloric dense foods. I eat twice as much at meals, ect ect. Water is extremely important. I can tell that being more than hydrated for soccer practice gives me a phenomenal advantage. Too bad I didn't drink more water during track! I'm sticking to JUST healthy foods for my calories. No junk food, no pop, no unhealthy anything.
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Overall
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This week I learned a few things. First, too any guy that's looking to get stronger, the key is to eat. Lifting doesn't matter if you don't eat, and eat healthy. You CANNOT worry about getting fat, because as long as you lift and run every once and a while, you must have extra calories to rebuild torn muscle fibers while working out, and you will not get fat if you eat healthy. The key is the diet, not the lifting. Also, if you don't use proper form, don't expect any changes. Form is everything, and I found this especially with bench press. In addition, I also learned that I should be eating more carbs. If you don't have enough carbs, your body will then burn your protein for energy, which is an oh no.
I think most high school guys that want to get stronger, only train ONE specific area. This is a no-go. So you want a bigger bench? Don't JUST practice benching. I think a lot of guys think "I want a bigger bench, so I'm going to bench everyday". Nope, you'l only get weaker. If you want a bigger bench, 1) eat lots, eat healthy. Plenty of water. 2) TRAIN BENCH A MAX OF 2 TIMES PER WEEK. Your diet will do the rest. 3) Workout the helper muscles for the lift! To push the bar up, you need strong triceps, so do tricep and shoulder exercises. You need to work helper muscles to lift more.
This week has been great, and I hope you guys continue to have an awesome summer. I hope everyone's projects are going pretty well, and I look forward to seeing you guys this year :)
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