Chest and Tris

Killing it tonight - told the plates to have some Fruity Pebbles, those yabba-dabba b!tches.

Bench:
wu
185 x 2 x 1
215 x 3 x 5
*interrupted by some fat woman, sent over by the trainer, to ask me if I needed a spot...
215 x 5 x 1 cuz I was over the top p!ssed.

Incline (Smith):
150 (I think? ) in plates x 5 x 6
*...I was still in a rage.

Dips:
bw-20 x 6 x 4

Giant Set to finish - had to get the aggression out before I left:
Tri Pressdowns (Straight Bar) / Cable Lat Raises / Overhead Tri Rope Ext
70 x 2 x 10 / 20 x 2 x 12 / Stack (50) x 2 x 15

Out.

Never interrupt me when I'm ready to lift. Bad move on the trainer's part thinking he was joking around with me. He'll get a whooping the next time I hit the gym. Inexcusable. Getting angry helped the rest of my night and I hit everything strong yet methodical...not out of control.

Back and Bis from yesterday...

Yeah...yesterday's workout. Forgot all about logging it here.

Back/Bis:

Deads:
wu
225 x 2
285 x 1 x 6
285 x 0.975 x 1
*Grip let me down on the last set. Almost locked it out but had to set it down. Hands were sweating, which leads me to believe chalk might have been a good assistant. I have pulled in the 400's before, but my back isn't up to that right at the moment. I try to not use straps for these kinds of weights so that my forearm/grip strength isn't compromised.

I will use straps for the remaining lifts though, because I want the target muscles to wear out before my grip does.

BB Rows:
195 x 8 x 4

Lat Pulls:
150 x 8 x 3

Seated Wide Grip Row, chest high:
*A guy I chat with on another board does these and I thought I'd give it a go as a variation. I found weaknesses, as I was really squeezing to get reps even with low weight. I'll be using these a bit more frequently to help correct those weaknesses.
70 x 10 x 3

"Navy Seal Special" Curl pyramid:
*Check out Kevin Levrone's blog - some dude Roger, who's a retired Navy Seal in his 60's, does these with an empty bar. Talk about burn. Goes 1, 1-2, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4, etc...up to 1-10.
1 set of 1 up to 1-10, empty bar.

That was it. Warm as hell in the gym tonight...phew. Early warm spell here combined with people who aren't sure how to use the heating system properly...lol.

Lack of Updates?

Sorry for the lack of updates over the past couple days. Between work and some other traveling, just haven't gotten here.

Got some more truck goodies this weekend, so soon we'll be updating what's all going on there and talking about the future plans. Getting cued up to hit it strong this week in the gym too.

As a side note, I'll be adding a little cardio in just to help my conditioning a little. I don't believe in cardio as an exclusive fat-loss tool; that comes from eating and lifting right. But I'll take a little benefit from it in that regard but I'm looking for the conditioning benefit mainly.

Chest/Tris/Shoulders March 16

Blah. Tired tonight and it showed.

Bench:
wu
225 x 2 x 1
225 x 1 x 1 <<< felt like a ton.
195 x 3 x 4
*I couldn't get my groove. Long day at work (started at 6AM) combined with being a bit off on nutrition (not that I was eating crap - think I just got not enough of the right stuff) did not help.

Incline (Smith):
*I decided to do some slow negative work with relatively light weights...
(plates) 90 x 6 x 4

Dips:
bw-120 x 3 x 8
*back to upping the assist again...#%$%#!!!

Overhead Rope Extensions for kicks and giggles:
60 x 2 x 8

Lat/Front Raise:
15 x 2 x 8

Out.

Back and Bis for Monday 3/14

Back to the grind - literally. Someone get outta my d@mn way! And what's with the 30 sets of 20 on the cable machines? Aren't you just wasting time, really?

Back/Bis:

Deads:
wu
225 x 2
275 x 1 x 7

BB Rows:
185 x 8 x 4

Shrugz:
185 x 2 x 10

Chins:
bw-120 x 3 x 5

Machine Row Drop Set:
170 x 6, 150 x 6, 130 x 8

BB Rack Curls:
85 x 2 x 8

High Cable Curls:
25 x 2 x 8

Done. All in all a good workout. Hard to get to stations to do what I intended because it seems one guy likes doing nothing but cables. I would prefer seated row over machine row, but this guy frustrates the hell out of me - no other way to say it. He gets on the lat machine (which converts to seated cable row) and spends an hour just dong tricep pushdowns. I don't get it. Why waste the time? Anyhow.

I need to do body stats soon. I was also down a bit on energy today by botching my carbs at lunch. We'll survive. Time for food.

Inspiration..

“I hated every minute of training, but I said, "Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”
-Muhammad Ali

What is it that you want to be champion of? Training for a contest you want to win? Training for personal goals, like I do?

Work hard this week and do the things to succeed. Working hard now will pay off when you reach your goals.

Chest/Tris

Chest/Tris:

Bench:
wu
5 x 5 x 185
*just getting back in the groove of things here a bit is all. Took longer rests between sets to be ready to roll and didn't rush things.

Smith Incline:
*I would have done incline DB's but every place was taken...
4 x 8 x 110 (plates)

Dips:
*I was already feeling toasty in the tris so I just grabbed a short set here...
2 x bw-60 x 7

Overhead Rope Pulls:
2 x 10 x 42.5 (stack of split stack machine)

Pulldowns:
2 x 12 x 42.5 (stack of split stack machine)

Done.

I feel good about it tonight. A little more tricep work than normal but necessary. I think my triceps are my limiter on my bench, so I tried giving them a bit more work tonight. Don't get me wrong - the king is bench, but directly hitting the shoulders or tris is sometimes worthwhile to help get the bench up.

New week, new effort

Back to 3 days and the tried and true push pull.

Pull:

Deads:
5 x 6 x 225
*Just some mid-range/light work tonight. We'll up the ante next week.

BB Rows:
4 x 8 x 175

Lat Pulldowns:
3 x 8 x 140
*really wanted to focus on these tonight, felt like I was getting too far all over the place so I backed down a little and focused on pulling through the elbows.

Rope Lat Pulldowns:
*yeah, yeah...saw Levrone do these and it piqued the curiosity...
2 x 8 x 50

DB Curlz:
2 x 10 x 40

BB Curlz in the rack:
2 x 15 x 45 (empty bar)

Out.

Bicep exercises were what they were - I was spent by the time I got to them. I normally don't do much direct bicep work anyhow.

Good pull night otherwise. Next week I'll adjust a little bit more and hit it just a bit stronger. I want to throw in some variations as well as what I did tonight. I always go a bit slow coming out of a layoff, no matter how long.

Tried and True...

Starting tomorrow it's back to the tried and true. I will be breaking my workouts down into the long-used "push/pull/legs" split again. I traditionally keep it around the big three and figure this is how I will work it:

Mondays - Pull:

I like starting the week off with a challenge. For whatever reason when I break this split down I like training back first thing in the week. Probably because back takes me a bit to recover from and honestly, back is my favorite to work.

The day looks like this:

• Deads - varied sets/reps but never more than a set of 6 reps. Not much sense going beyond that.
• Row variations - typically barbell first, then fill in the gaps afterward with either dumbbells, low cables, body weight inverted, etc. Again, sets and reps based on what I feel like that day.
• Lat work - pulldowns, chins (sometimes both), rope lat pulldowns, etc.
• Direct bicep work - kept to a minimum since they're a synergist in the big pull exercises, but hitting them with a couple sets each of maybe two curl variations doesn't hurt.

Wednesday - Push:

Probably my least favorite day, but because it's my least favorite I need to work doubly hard at it so I excel. Typically...:

• Flat bench - varying the reps and sets and even throw in some DB's, but again I don't do the 15 rep variations. Meaningless to me. Put some weight on the bar and move it = mass on the ass.
• Incline Bench - again, variations here include DB's and the Smith machine, but it's again a number of sets and work them hard.
• Dips - a staple of a good tricep workout, in my opinion. Whether assisted, body weight, weighted bench, they're good for mass.
• Maybe another direct isolation exercise for triceps - like rope pulls or DB extensions, but nothing that requires a lot of sets.
• Perhaps some light raises or shoulder pressing to get some blood to the shoulders - but not a lot of direct work. That's what benching is for.

Friday - Legs:

By far my second favorite of the week. I'm traditionally strong in these lifts anyhow and always have been for some reason. I do keep it very simple and limited to a few lifts though:

• Squats - king of all, I keep the weight on the bar and pound out a number of sets. As far as back squats are concerned, I use variations like sumo stance to help work the various muscles used. Again, weight on the bar = mass on the ass, so I don't get too shy about what weight I use here. Yes, my goal is lean - but putting muscle on helps. And it's not like muscle mass gets added by leaps and bounds - it's a slow process.
• Front Squats - I've learned to replace leg pressing with this. Partly because to load up the leg press machine is a PITA, partly because I like the work I get from this better.
• SLDL's - as if I didn't do enough to my legs, I come back with this lift. Hammer the hamstrings with it, or it's closely related cousin the RDL.
• Assistance - from there I move on to things like pull-throughs, adductor/abductor work, and some other "core" items. The core is more than abs - it's the glutes, the groin, the hips, low back - so I try to do some work to strengthen that.

In a nutshell, that's what we're going to be up to for the next unspecified period of time. I will probably ride this for 12 weeks or so. Eating will be super clean, or as super clean as possible, to make the most of getting lean on this. I will add that information in a later post.

Finishing Up...Rest...

I took this week as an opportunity to rest. I've been excruciatingly busy at work this past week, and next week is looking to be similar with the boss on vacation. That's alright though. We'll still get work done.

I am going to be adjusting my training a little. I have been doing upper/lower split work for about 9 weeks (most of which was not recorded on the blog), and I like to juggle my training about every 8-10 weeks or so. It's not for "muscle confusion" as I don't believe in that BS. It's just about making sure that I don't mentally get bored with what I'm doing and making sure that I'm giving my body the best chance to grow.

Diet was decent this past rest week, though I do really need to watch the opportunities to cheat. Gotta keep it tight.

More to come...peace.