THIS WEEK
Week 9. Conversion phase is live on bench. The squat showed up unannounced and reminded me it hasn't gone anywhere. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I hit a PR on a day that felt completely unremarkable — which, it turns out, is exactly how it's supposed to go.
This issue is about that. Plus the full training logs, what I've been eating, and a physique check that surprised me a little.
THIS WEEK’S STORY
THE PARADOX OF ADVANCED STRENGTH
There's something nobody tells you about training at an intermediate-to-advanced level. When you're a beginner, PRs happen when you're fired up. Hyped. Anxious in a good way. You need to feel something to perform.
That changes.
On February 28th I attempted 132.5kg on bench press — a new PR. I hadn't slept great the night before. I wasn't nervous walking in. There was no ritual, no pre-lift music, no moment where I stood at the bar and told myself this was the day. I just warmed up, worked up through the ramp, and did the lift.
Clean rep. Slow and controlled. RPE 9. Done.
Here's what I've come to understand about this stage of training: PRs happen on average days. Not because average days are secretly special, but because you've trained consistently enough that the weight is no longer an event — it's just the next task on the list. The bar goes up because the work was already done weeks and months before you got to that session.
I also knew walking in that 135kg was probably available. And I didn't attempt it. That might seem like leaving something on the table, but it's the opposite — holding that in reserve is what makes 135kg more likely to go up the next time I touch it. Neural consolidation. Repeatability. The program doesn't reward heroics. It rewards consistency.
Current estimated 1RM: ~135–137.5kg. The 140kg goal is close. Not this week. But close.
BEGINNERS PR WHEN MOTIVATED.
ADVANCED LIFTERS PR WHEN NOTHING FEELS UNUSAL.
ON THE BAR THIS WEEK
SPEED BENCH · 102.5kg
This was the neural volume day — not heavy, but intentional. The plan was 3 sets of 6 at 102.5kg with explosive intent. The bar had other ideas: 10, 8, 7. When reps exceed the target range that cleanly at a given load, it's a signal worth noting. The 132.5kg session two days later proved it wasn't a fluke.
FULL TRAINING LOG · WEEK 9
FEB 24–28, 2026
| Tue Feb 24 · Bench Heavy Volume | ||||||||||||||||
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| 117.5 × 3 × 4 @ RPE 8.5 — strong consolidation. Speed set fast. 132.5 exposure on track for later this week. |
| Wed Feb 25 · Squat Heavy Exposure | ||||||||||||
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| 132.5kg @ RPE ~8.5 clean. 140kg double — first rep smooth, second rep a true RPE 10 grind. Confirms estimated 1RM above 145kg. Maintenance squat is doing its job. |
| Thu Feb 26 · Bench Speed / Neural Volume | ||||||||||||||||
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| Planned 3 × 6. Hit 10/8/7. That's a green light for Friday. |
| Fri Feb 27 · Recovery | ||
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| Treated seriously. Not a gap in the schedule — part of it. |
| Sat Feb 28 · Bench Top Single — PR Day | ||||||||||||||||
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| 132.5kg — clean, slow, controlled. RPE 9. No grind. Backoff volume completed without issue. 135kg was there. Didn't touch it. Right call. |
NUTRITION · WEEK 9
EATING IN JAPAN. TRYING TO GAIN WEIGHT.
I did a physique check this week — actual video, not just mirror glances. Pulled up a photo from around the same time last year. Same bodyweight on paper: 80kg then, 80.3kg now. Very different picture. Leaner now, noticeably more full and dense. Stronger everywhere. So the scale isn't the whole story.
That said, gaining weight is genuinely my current challenge. I spent a few weeks in the 81–82kg range after adding a 4th meal to my weekdays. Then week 8 happened — schedule issues, missed meals — and that weight came off fast. Which tells me it was probably water, glycogen, and food volume rather than real tissue. The leanness that followed confirmed it: no strength loss, just a lighter, tighter look.
This week I experimented with moving the 4th meal to the post-workout window — right after my morning session, before lunch. The sizzling beef and broccoli you see in the photos was that meal. I had it three times this week. Simple, reliable, high protein — easy to grab near the gym without eating into work time.
A week of eating in Sapporo · Post-workout beef · Home shabu-shabu · Real life, not a meal plan
Lunches this week were mostly home shabu-shabu — thin-sliced pork from the supermarket, boiled, over rice. That's it. It's become my go-to lately because the prep is almost zero: bring water to a boil, cook the pork, done. The vegetables alongside it were prepared by my wife, and I'm genuinely grateful for that. She keeps several small vegetable dishes ready — kabocha, broccoli, spinach, bean sprouts — so when I sit down with whatever protein I've cooked, there's already a balanced plate waiting. That system makes eating well at home far easier than it would be otherwise.
The rice base runs through almost everything. For anyone training hard and not on a low-carb protocol, Japanese rice is an underrated performance food — easy to digest, consistent energy, and it pairs with nearly any protein without much thought.
WEEK AT A GLANCE
| Weekly Snapshot · Week 9 | |
| Training | 4 sessions · Bench PR · Squat double at 140kg |
| Energy | Consistent. PR day felt like any other session — that's the point |
| Eating | 4th meal experiment moved to post-workout window. Feels sustainable |
| Physique | Noticeably leaner vs same weight one year ago. Same scale, different body |
| Next week | Continue conversion phase. Let 132.5kg consolidate before chasing 135 |
ONE THING WORTH YOUR TIME
WHAT I’M READING & USING
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UNTIL NEXT WEEK
132.5kg is in the log. 140kg is still the target. The gap between those two numbers is getting smaller — not because I'm forcing it, but because I'm not. Week 10 starts Monday. Same process, different week.
If you're training seriously and this resonates — share it with someone who'd get it. That's the only way this grows.
— Paulo · Sapporo, Japan