Diary "Mass Effect". First week

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

For several months I will train under the remote supervision of a professional trainer Tatyana Prokofieva. Every week I will upload a diary of training and nutrition impressions, and Tatiana will share tips for those who want to get in shape.

The Mass Effect Project is a weekly diary in which I will share what it is like to train and eat according to a strict program. At the same time, my trainer will give advice on nutrition, exercise and talk about how to make your body and life better. In the literal sense of the word.

Tatiana lives in Sydney. I am in Kharkov. We have never seen each other, and our communication comes down to Skype and the training and nutrition program that Tatyana made based on the characteristics of my body. All photographs “before” have been taken, parameters have been recorded. Let's start with this:

In front

Sideways

Behind

The whole project will take several months and will be divided into stages. During this time, I need to increase the amount of muscle mass, reduce the percentage of fat and improve strength. Go?

Diary

The first stage will last a month and a half. It is based on the fact that I will train twice a day, five days a week. The diet is fairly simple and consists of four to five meals, which should add up to 2,000 calories.

According to the coach, the first week of two-time workouts should be easy, the second - more difficult, the third will turn life into hell. To be honest, it got hard already in the first week. In my entire life, I have trained twice a day only a few times, despite the fact that I love to exercise. After the first week, I realized that I expected more from myself.

The second workout in the evening was often a burden. Basically, only the first 10-15 minutes. Then I went into a rage and felt as if I was studying for the first time that day. Surprisingly, the low calorie content did not affect the amount of energy in any way. It is enough not only for two workouts, but also for work, meeting friends and a fairly active lifestyle. I started sleeping less and waking up faster.

The public moment makes itself felt. Realizing that people will follow my attempts to get in shape, I do not allow myself to deviate from the nutrition program. To be honest, this is unexpected. Deep down, I was ready to be cunning in advance and say that everything is in order, at the same time eating up a cookie.

However, there are cookies in the diet. On the day of training, one of the meals looks like this:

1. 50 grams of biscuit biscuits.
2. 150 grams of cottage cheese.
3. Apple or berries.

The first aid kit, which used to contain only pain relievers and vitamins for the cat, was replenished with fish oil, glycine, ginkgo biloba, zinc and magnesium. There are few sports nutrition: creatine, protein, BCAA and glutamine. The last two are still coming from the online store.

Before starting, I thought that the main problem would be the lack of time. I was lucky: the gym is on the first floor of my house and I spend two to three (if ice) minutes on the road. Now I get up an hour earlier and have time to do everything the same as always. An attempt to analyze how I freed up time for training gave a disappointing result: Twitter and aimless surfing on the Internet.

The workouts themselves are much more active than when I did it on my own. It was difficult for me to motivate myself to exercise to the limit, since there was no incentive. Therefore, I regularly went to the gym, ran, but there was no question of overcoming myself. Now each workout is a small test, which I still stand with flying colors.

The only thing I was afraid for was behind my back. It so happened that I still do not know my diagnosis. After some silly workouts a few years ago in the style of "squatting more than friends" or "shaking so that everyone freaks out" I have back problems. Under axial loads (deadlift, squats), breakdowns often occurred. After one of these breakdowns, I could barely move for several weeks.

Therefore, my training last year was based on one key rule: no deadlifts and squats. Having told the trainer about this, I expected a training program in which there would be neither one nor the other exercise. It was not so.

Deadlifts are scheduled twice a week. Monday and Friday. You see, the problem isn't that I didn't want to do it. The problem is, I was afraid to do it. We learn from our mistakes, and getting your back torn off five times is one of those mistakes.

But I decided to follow the program at least until the first case. I didn't expect everything to go so well. I don’t know what it’s connected with: with an active warm-up before exercise, with the fact that I studied the correct technique for several hours, or with the fact that the back went away by itself. I decided not to look for a reason and just be glad that my back doesn’t make itself felt in any way.

Trainer recommendations

A few weeks ago, I received a letter from Alexander with a proposal to prove that, firstly, online trainings are effective (it all depends on how they are organized), and secondly, a well-structured training for a specific person is the key to success. … We started to act. For three months you will be able to monitor Sasha's progress. Moreover, I will tell you in detail how Sasha's training progress will be built.

Naturally, someone will ask why not just put the program in the public domain: let other people train too. My answer is this: you can give a person a fish, or you can give him a fishing rod and teach this fish to catch. The workout and nutrition program itself is just a bunch of exercise and food. It's not a fact that if you are not Sasha, then she will suit you. I want to tell you about the principles of building training and nutrition, so that you can use them if necessary, be able to analyze your mistakes and select the best option (mind you, not the best, but the optimal one).

Every week I will talk about nutrition, training, my expectations from Sasha and discuss his results. I invite you to take part in the discussion. Express your thoughts in the comments, and in the next issues I will answer the most interesting and frequently asked questions.

Today I want to tell you about how I selected the principle of nutrition and training for Sasha. For your convenience, I have made a step-by-step diagram for you.

Step 1. Goal setting

Before starting work, Sasha and I phoned and discussed in detail what exactly he wants, what he expects from training. In general, the goal was clear: I want more muscle, less fat (although there is very little of it), I want to improve strength indicators and generally get interesting workouts.

I always write down in detail what a person says to me at a consultation, paying special attention to how it is said and even in what order. Sasha immediately had two important criteria for drawing up a workout: to be interesting (interesting, did he even notice that he said this?) And to have more muscle and less fat. That is, the improvement of power indicators is more likely from the category of "not bad". Thus, I made the program so that it was interesting to train and there was a noticeable result.

When you set a global goal, it is very important to understand what exactly is important for you: so that training is enjoyable for you or that the result is noticeable in a minimum amount of time? For the result to be external, or is well-being more important to you? Or maybe the satisfaction from achieving certain strength indicators such as the barbell press?

Step 2. Limitations

It's all great when a person works according to the Smart principle and sets specific tasks for himself, but before you do this, you need to understand (and accept) all your limitations.

To begin with, Sasha and I discussed whether he had any health problems. It turned out that there is nothing serious, but there are small features that should be taken into account in the training. Firstly, according to Sasha, as a child he had tachycardia, which disappeared after the operation 10 years ago. For me, as a coach, this means one thing: you need to be extremely careful with intense loads (jumps, sprints). Secondly, Sasha complained that under axial loads his lower back hurts. In this case, it is necessary to understand why this is happening. I asked for a video of the squat and looked closely at the photos again.

The photo immediately shows that Sasha has kyphosis, that is, a curvature of the thoracic spine with the formation of a small hump. At the same time, there is a small anterior pelvic tilt. This can also be easily seen in the photo and video. Naturally, this is by no means a diagnosis, but just my note on some of the features of Sasha's body that I have to work with. I will write more about pelvic tilt and training with various back problems in the next issues.

The next important point when we talk about restrictions is lifestyle and regimen. Sasha's daily routine is quite free, so I had a choice in terms of the number and length of workouts. It happens that my clients have only 2-3 days off for training. It happens that there is no time to train for a long time, so the entire training takes 40 minutes along with warm-up-work-out-wash-change. In general, lifestyle is an important factor in planning a training session.

The last one is the wishes in terms of training. Naturally, in the course of the conversation, I have a rough idea of which training to choose, but at the same time I always carefully listen to the wishes of the students. Someone likes to exercise until the muscles burn. If these people are offered typical powerlifting training, they will have a constant feeling that they are underperforming. There are people who, on the contrary, burn out from multi-repetitive workouts. They are much better at low-repetitions. I'll also tell you more about how to determine which type you are.

Step 3. Setting tasks

The goal is your "want", and the task is "I will." The task should be very clear. Basically, you are testing a hypothesis: if you do this, it will turn out like this.

Sasha and I set very ambitious, but realistic goals in his case. In general, it must be remembered that different people have different characteristics, so the results of two people training according to the same program may vary.

Step 4. Choosing a training scheme

All of the above things, plus coaching intuition, play an important role here. In fact, when a trainer selects a program, it is the so-called scientific guess. No one can say for sure what the result will be in the end. You can only watch and adjust along the way, making the program individual. The better you know your client, the easier it is for him to choose a nutrition and training program. Why double workouts and what are their advantages, I will tell you in the next issue.

Step 5. Selection of food

I won't go into details here either. I will only say that:

Exercise always sets nutrition.

Never the other way around. Calorie content is always determined by physical activity. If someone goes to yoga twice a week, then why does he need the same amount of calories as Crossfit?

Despite the fact that Sasha has two workouts a day, the calorie content is still quite low. This can be explained by the fact that initially its calorie content was only about a thousand kopecks. True, Sasha made a reservation that this was only the last two weeks, and before that it was more fun. Nevertheless, I raised the calorie content only to the level to provide him with energy for a given amount of workouts. Naturally, in just a week, the calorie content will need to be increased. And even when compiling the menu, I paid special attention to my favorite and unloved products.

Feta cheese, lavash, grapes, pasta, bananas - this is what Sasha loves, so there is pasta in the diet. With the addition of calories, bananas and grapes will also appear, and then cheese. I am an advocate of keeping the menu simple but tasty enough. What is the point of raping yourself with unsalted chicken, if then, in the body, this chicken will break down into its constituent macronutrients anyway. If a person loves beef, then beef is better. If a person prefers pasta from cereals, then let there be whole grain pasta or durum wheat pasta. Thus, the likelihood that a person will follow the program is much higher.

In the next issue I will tell you what is the advantage of training twice a day and who is suitable for such training.

Advice

After working out for a week, I realized that I was learning a lot of new and useful information about training and nutrition. There are several sources: first of all - Tatiana's recommendations, then - her own feelings from the process. At the end of each article, I'll summarize what I've learned this week.

1. Taking a few glycine tablets before bed improves sleep and allows you to get enough sleep in less time.
2. The body gradually gets used to any stress. There is a feeling that two workouts are far from the limit.
3. Keeping the rest time between sets is important. More rest in heavy exercises, less in lungs.
4. A teaspoon of butter in oatmeal makes it several times more aromatic and slightly tastier.

If you want to get the same program, but tailored for yourself, write. She also leads her own, where she gives more advice. The second week is ahead, which should be more difficult and more interesting.

I would like you to tell us which article format you are interested in: a more concise or a longer story. And also tell us about what else you would like to see.