Great Two Months - Coaching by Mehdi

[guru]

A little more than two months ago I enrolled for Mehdi’s fitness coaching. The first thing that impressed me was the amount of information he asked from us. Current lifts, last 5 workouts, body measurements, pictures, diet & the objectives. He sure has a very systematic approach to the coaching.

Here’s where I was before the start of the program –

* Squat: 75kg - 5x5
* Bench: 45 kg – 3x5
* Overhead Press: 32.5kg - 3x5
* Deadlift: 75 kg 1x5
* Dips: BW – 15, 9, 7


Here’s where I am today –

* Box Squat: 70kg - 3x5
* Bench: 57.5 kg – 3x5, 60 kg – 1x5.
* Overhead Press: 37.5kg - 3x5, 40 kg – 1x5.
* Deadlift: 90 kg 1x5
* Dips: BW+16.25 kg – 3x5

Squats – Before starting the program, my technique was not verified. I believed that it was good, but on seeing the videos, it became evident that it wasn’t. Mehdi made me switch to box squats & we started from 40 kg, climbing up slowly to 70. Since box squats are quite harder than regular ones and given the fact that I’m doing them with a really good technique, this is certainly a good improvement. Moreover I have not yet deloaded on these. Doing box squats under Mehdi’s constant watch (I posted videos almost every week) removed all the flaws & ingrained a solid technique. I like them a lot & will be continuing doing them. I'm posting videos below -

70 kg Squat - This was the first video I posted for Mehdi.



Although I thought form was good (Vlad thought the same too), Mehdi pointed out how my knees travel forward at the bottom. He also stressed that I need to sit back more. After this he advised to move on to box squats.

40 kg Box Squat - My first ever box squat.



As you can see my shins were not perpendicular here which is a basic requirement of the box squats.

65 kg box squat, set 2 -



This was damn hard that time & I could do only 4 reps on set 3. You can see knees coming forward a bit on the first rep, but the rest of them are solid.

Bench – Technique improved on these too, & I saw a rapid increase in the weights. A week back I surprised myself by benching my BW. No deloads here too yet.

Overhead Press – I was quite sceptical of my form on this exercise, but it was quite pleasing to hear that the form was mostly good. This encouraged me to push weights up, though progress here was hard to come given the nature of the lift. I had to deload once. I will now be going for microloading here & probably on the bench too.

Deadlift – Again, I was not confident about my technique here & as such wary of increasing the weights. I had even deloaded without stalling. However, Mehdi actually complimented me on the technique. This helped me tremendously in pushing the weights till I reached 1.5 BW on these. Grip issues lately have forced me to deload, but that’s an old problem & another story. Videos below for comparison -

Deadlift 77.5 kg, the first video for Mehdi -



See that my back is not straight on all the reps. Also, the hip position is varying.

Deadlift 80 kg -



You can see that most of the things are addressed here.

Diet – Mehdi had a lot of comments on (& probably a tough time with too) my diet. I’m from India & a vegetarian too. That severely restricted the food choice. At the same time he would not know half the foods I’m eating, so we had some hiccups in the beginning. But he said he liked this challenge of diet. After the initial bumps, my diet straightened out a lot & it showed on the measurements too – I lost 1.5 kg weight, 3 cm from the waist & 2 cm on the hips. Since I continued getting stronger (lifting more weights) during the period, almost all this can be safely considered as fat.

Unfortunately I had two one week breaks during the training – one was work related & the other was a planned vacation. They may not have mattered much as far as the lifts are concerned, but were not so great from the diet point. Had I had a continuous two months, the progress would have been more impressive.

To conclude, I’m very happy to have made the decision to undergo coaching by Mehdi. I would recommend it highly over any personal training offered at most gyms. It’s a great value for money & the commitment Mehdi shows in your progress is just great.

[namaste]

Great stuff guru!

I have to say, I was getting annoyed just watching the personal trainers hanging around you and rushing in at the slightest sign of slowing on your ascent. How many personal trainers are at your gym? Maybe it just seems weird to me because I haven't been to a commercial gym in so long.

[mjh]

great post Guru, you've made great progress and can clearly go a long way yet. All the best, and thanks for the great contribution you make to this forum.

[Beppe]

Congratulations Guru, as you'll have the chance to see, you'll harvest satisfying results for a long time following the personal coaching. It is a very valuable foundation for your health and fitness future.
Best wishes and keep going!

[Mehdi]

Thanks for sharing Guru! Was really fun working with you.

[bigwhat62]

good job man. really good work.

[atypical1]

Great job and great success story!

james

[markg]

Excellent suttf guru. The results speak for themselves but it was great to read your story.

[pagangoddess]

Thanks for sharing your experience Guru. Excellent job!

[KIB]

Great posts, Guru. Very helpful to share all that with the rest of us.
Mehdi is obviously as great a coach as I suspected. Good for you for taking advantage of his services.
I'm with Namaste on the subject of the red-shirted guys in your gym: BACK OFF, fellas!
Thanks for this thread, Guru.

[DaveT]

Great stuff Guru. I'm sure one of the biggest things to come out of it is the confidence that you get because you know your form is good. Looking forward to reading your log and seeing how things progress from here.

[guru]

Thank you all, guys & gals.

As some of you mentioned, the progress speaks from numbers achieved, but more important than that is the solid foundation built during these two months which will take me further.

[groundskeeperwillie]

Well I asked about your progress with the 1-2-1 training, and this answers everything! Well done dude.



gkw

[Dada]

Nice work. Gotta love the box squats.