Uploaded January 2016 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
FREE eBooks: thinkeatlift.com
My Training Program: thinkeatlift.com/ggp
Follow EL Joke: soundcloud.com/el-joke
The main reason I haven't released lifting videos lately is because my training went to shit around mid December. Actually no, just my push workout.
On December 14th, while I was doing my first set of Incline, on rep 4 I got a nagging pain in my left pec. Right around there. I thought it would go away for the next workout, but it didn't. What was strange about it is that it didn't affect my strength in the first set, I could lift just as much as before if I wanted to. But it was really painful after the first 3 reps.
So of course I was not stupid to push through it. Actually a golden rule when lifting is this: Never push through pain. Discomfort is good, pain is bad. Just by following this simple rule you can prevent major injuries in the future.
Anyway this issue combined with the fact that I didn't train or sleep much during the Holidays meant that my pushing strength went down a little and only now it's coming back to normal.
Now, for my push workout, I changed a few things. First of all I started doing Flat Bench as the main exercise instead of Incline. Two reasons for that:
I wanted to give that muscle time to heal
I was constantly disappointed from failing on Incline. I needed a different exercise in order to be excited about training
Another thing that I'm going to do for a few weeks is use straight sets for bench instead of RPT, until my strength and confidence is back up.
The second change is that I went back to Standing Press from Seated Dumbbell Press. This is my favorite exercise, I'm happy to be doing it again. The reason I switched to dumbbells for a while is because at some point you inevitably hit a plateau on a certain lift. After you hit that point, you can't fix the plateau doing the same rep scheme and exercise. You need to make a change to provide a fresh stimulus. You can watch my video on exercise rotation for more details on this.
Because now I'm doing Flat Bench first I do an incline movement as my second chest exercise. I don't expect much progress for this exercise since I'm doing it in a fatigued state but it will do it's job of maintaining muscle size until I go back to incline bench.
Now let's talk about muscle growth.
I'm bigger than I've ever been. Pretty ironic since the last 3 weeks of training sucked.
I'm around 78kg now which means I gained around 4 kg or 9 pounds during the last 4 months in a surplus. I would say only around 1.5 or 3 pounds of all that weight is actually muscle but still, I'm pretty happy about it.
My current relative strength is this:
The great thing about starting your gaining phase very lean is that you can get away with a few pounds of fat and not lose your proportions or definition. I'd say I'm around 12% body fat now. This is the first bulk when I actually allowed myself to eat enough and the good rate of progress is owed to that in my opinion.
This Monday I'm going to Switzerland and France for a week and after I come back I'll be doing a short fat loss phase, probably 3 weeks or so. But we'll see.
FREE eBooks: thinkeatlift.com
My Training Program: thinkeatlift.com/ggp
Follow EL Joke: soundcloud.com/el-joke
The main reason I haven't released lifting videos lately is because my training went to shit around mid December. Actually no, just my push workout.
On December 14th, while I was doing my first set of Incline, on rep 4 I got a nagging pain in my left pec. Right around there. I thought it would go away for the next workout, but it didn't. What was strange about it is that it didn't affect my strength in the first set, I could lift just as much as before if I wanted to. But it was really painful after the first 3 reps.
So of course I was not stupid to push through it. Actually a golden rule when lifting is this: Never push through pain. Discomfort is good, pain is bad. Just by following this simple rule you can prevent major injuries in the future.
Anyway this issue combined with the fact that I didn't train or sleep much during the Holidays meant that my pushing strength went down a little and only now it's coming back to normal.
Now, for my push workout, I changed a few things. First of all I started doing Flat Bench as the main exercise instead of Incline. Two reasons for that:
I wanted to give that muscle time to heal
I was constantly disappointed from failing on Incline. I needed a different exercise in order to be excited about training
Another thing that I'm going to do for a few weeks is use straight sets for bench instead of RPT, until my strength and confidence is back up.
The second change is that I went back to Standing Press from Seated Dumbbell Press. This is my favorite exercise, I'm happy to be doing it again. The reason I switched to dumbbells for a while is because at some point you inevitably hit a plateau on a certain lift. After you hit that point, you can't fix the plateau doing the same rep scheme and exercise. You need to make a change to provide a fresh stimulus. You can watch my video on exercise rotation for more details on this.
Because now I'm doing Flat Bench first I do an incline movement as my second chest exercise. I don't expect much progress for this exercise since I'm doing it in a fatigued state but it will do it's job of maintaining muscle size until I go back to incline bench.
Now let's talk about muscle growth.
I'm bigger than I've ever been. Pretty ironic since the last 3 weeks of training sucked.
I'm around 78kg now which means I gained around 4 kg or 9 pounds during the last 4 months in a surplus. I would say only around 1.5 or 3 pounds of all that weight is actually muscle but still, I'm pretty happy about it.
My current relative strength is this:
The great thing about starting your gaining phase very lean is that you can get away with a few pounds of fat and not lose your proportions or definition. I'd say I'm around 12% body fat now. This is the first bulk when I actually allowed myself to eat enough and the good rate of progress is owed to that in my opinion.
This Monday I'm going to Switzerland and France for a week and after I come back I'll be doing a short fat loss phase, probably 3 weeks or so. But we'll see.
