5 And 1

...those are the numbers of significance from my last training cycle.

Upon closer examination of my training, it appears I can push it hard for five weeks, followed by one week of active rest.

Before Z, I couldn't get a bead on how my body would cycle. Recently, I've concluded that each microcycle can last about 10 days before a change and/or deload period, within the larger 5 week macrocycle.

Upon closer investigation, it appears that I one microcycle can last approximately five training sessions before I need to change it. Over this past cycle I noticed that after these five training sessions, I need to take an extra day of recovery--active recovery--Z-based.

One week ago today, I had my last heavy training session of that cycle. Since then, I've done two kettlebell workouts and one Olympic lifting session. The amount of muscle growth that I've seen this week has surprised me--Once again proving that even the simplest of programs can produce results in advanced trainees.

I'm applying these parameters to my next macrocycle, with the emphasis still on hypertrophy and strength. The last one yielded approximately 7lbs. of quality muscle. It'd be nice to see that much again. If that's the case, the end of the next cycle will put me almost on top of 230lbs. This means if I can keep everything timed appropriately, I could very well be 240lbs by the end of March.

Christmas dinner should help that along nicely.

This particular cycle I'll focus on Front Squats and Snatch Grip Deadlifts. I couldn't pull heavy and Back Squat heavy on this last cycle. I haven't decided exactly the loading parameters yet, but they will be based around 3s and 5s.

Getting back to Christmas, Merry Christmas.