2 hour chest workout waiting for the pool to open

I took the Austin and Jacob swimming at the bubble and planned to lift a little, but the pool didn't open for two hours so I lifted for nearly two hours. Chest was the workout and it was insane:

Flat Bench: 12 x 225, 8 x 245, 6 x 265 (all slow and pause at bottom)
Incline Bench: 12 x 135, 8 x 155, 6 x 175
Cable Flys: 3 x 8 x 60
Incline DB Press: 12 x 40, 12 x 50, 12 x 60
Machine Flys: 10 x 180, 2 x 8 x 220
Flat Bench DB Flys: 12 x 40, 2 x 8 x 45
Push ups with all of Austin's weight sitting on my shoulder blades (+68 pounds): 3 sets of 15

This was the first time that my chest cramped up throughout the remainder of the day. However I haven't been terribly sore as I would have expected. Probably because I didn't do high weight low reps, but did get quite a bit of fatigue.

I hope everyone's Christmas was enjoyable and that you had some quality time with your family. Mine was wonderful and had a fun time with friends and family and ate too much crap.

Oh my back

Today - I did some deadlifts, and by the last set my lowerback was rebelling.

Deadlift: 4 sets of 2 x 8 x 225, 6 x 245, 4 x 275

I did these without wraps this time and my knees weren't having a problem at all, it was my lower back after the sets that was really tight. I think I'm going to stretch between sets so I can loosen up those lower back muscles. Yesterday I went ahead and ordered a tighter fitting bench shirt along with some new knee and wrist straps. I wanted to go get some bands from elite too, but a whole set is $150, so I'll have to wait before I get those.

Shoulders at the Bubble

Today I worked through lunch and went to the bubble on the way home. Here is what I did:

Military Press: 3 sets of 8 x 135
Cable Front Raises: 12 x 50, 2 x 8 x 70
Lateral Raises: 10 x 30, 8 x 30, 6 x 35
Incline DB Rows: 8 x 50
DB Shrugs: 3 x 8 x 50
Upright Rows: 3 x 8 x 115
Seated Rows: 8 x 160, 6 x 210, 8 x 180
Bent Over Rows: 10 x 135, 8 x 185

I felt really good about this workout considering that I did it in less than an hour. Abs still store from Monday! Tomorrow - deadlifts.

Thicker than expected frosting

Sometime when I feel great after a workout, I'll top it off with "frosting". Today's frosting was much better than expected. Considering that my abs were considerably sore from yesterday's workout, I decided against doing legs today as I could sense that Abs are kind of important in doing squats. So I opted for Chest today (and it was my week for using the Titan Fury shirt which I use every fouth chest workouts).

Flat Bench (Focus on completely STOPPING at the bottom - NO BOUNCING ALLOWED WHATSOEVER!):

8 x 245
8 x 255
6 x 275
5 x 295
4 x 315
2 x 325
1 x 335

I noticed that my feet and legs are NOT used at all. On the 325 set I tried putting my feet further back forcing me to use my legs a little, but I ended up moving them back into a neutral position on the way down as my thigh was starting to cramp up.

After these sets I did 2 more sets of just 135 focusing on keeping my heel and toe forced into the floor and almost push my body up the bench. My butt stayed flat on the bench and I'm not sure if that is right or not. I almost need a face to face session with a professional. I've read about the positioning, but it is difficult for me to figure out how to do it.

At this point I almost used up my entire hour, but I wanted to top off the workout with something great. So I figured I would do as many push ups as I could without pausing at all. I could slow down a tad, but as soon as I locked out my elbows and paused for even a fraction of a second, game over. My goal was to do 50, but I ended up pushing out 65 of them and probably did it in about 50 seconds.

I was pleased with today's workout and noticed that the bruising from the shirt is not happening any more. I think my triceps are getting used to the tight fit. I'm going to wash the shirt and hope that it shrinks (Its a size 54 with my actual chest size being 50). If it doesn't fit tighter after that, I'm going to try selling it on Ebay.

When all else fails - do Abs

I forgot my camera today, and I wanted to film my leg work this week so I had to opt for something else. My entire upper body had some residual soreness from last week so I had to think of something that would be "overtraining", so I figured I would do abs (which I honestly have never done in an isolation workout). There are some advantages to working out without a partner (all alone for that matter) and that is you don't have to be embarassed with someone watching you struggle like a lame school girl.

I remember the good old days lifeguarding at Deseret Gym, with my favorite US Marine, Mike Carroll. This guy was in top notch condition. I remember the Infrared Body Fat Percent machine pegged him at -3% body fat. How can you have negative body fat? Anyhow, I remember him teaching me tons of calisthenics that he used to do as a marine and how we used to be machines doing them together. One of the exercises was flutter kicks so I started out doing those:

Flutter kicks: 4 sets of 25 (4 count)
Legs up crunches: 4 sets of 25
Captain's Chair: 2 sets of 15 (crappy form and too fast), then slowed down and did 4 sets of 5
Bicycles: 7 sets of 15

Those bicycles were bad! I didn't get a burn from those, just a wedgie and I could barely get my shoulder blades off the ground. Touching knee to elbow was totally impossible as my flexibility and gut just wouldn't allow it. Today was completely humiliating, however it was kinda fun.

Abs are without question my weakest muscle group next to my legs, so I really want to set a goal to do them isolated like this at least once a week. I think from now on my routine will go like this:

Monday: Chest
Tuesday: Legs
Wednesday: Biceps/Triceps
Thursday: Abs
Friday: Shoulder/Back/Neck

This way I can rotate my muscle groups in a way that should prevent overtraining. I totally respect you guys out there who do abs on a normal basis and can do sit ups without breaking a sweat.

Work before play

Tonight is my company's Christmas Party, here at the facilities. Instead of driving all the way back home and then back again, I asked Cathi to just come straight here. The bonus is that I also was able to work through lunch and then lift right before the party (We have lockers and showers of course). I figured I needed to make sure to get some variation of deadlift in this week so I did:

Deadlifts: 3 sets of 10 x 225, 2 x 6 x 275
Military Press: 3 sets of 8 x 135
Seated Close Grip Cable Rows: 3 sets of 12 x 130, 8 x 180, 8 x 200
Standing Preacher Bar Rows: 3 sets of 8 x 115

Probably took only 35 minutes to do, but I didn't want to overdo it in case I show off to Cathi a 1 rep 335 bench(I'll be in party clothes and don't want to have to worry about needing a spot).

Arms at the Bubble

Standing Preacher Curls w/Armblaster: 3 sets of 12 x 95
Standing Cable French Press: 3 sets of 12 x 80, 10 x 110, 8 x 130
Incline Dumbell Curls: 3 sets of 12 x 30, 10 x 35, 8 x 40
Dips with Weight: 3 sets of 12 x 35, 10 x 40, 8 x 50
Concentration Curls: 3 sets of 12 x 30, 10 x 35, 8 x 40
Dumbell Kickbacks: 3 sets of 10 x 25, 8 x 25, 10 x 25
Alternating Dumbell Curls: 3 sets of 8 x 35, 6 x 40, 8 x 40
Close Grip Bench: 3 sets of 15 x 135, 8 x 185, 6 x 205

The grip on the close grip bench was 6 inches or so apart so it was difficult balancing the weight, but it went up fine. Had a great time with this workout.

No Legs - just Chest

My glutes are sore from Monday. I figured it would be a good opportunity to try some chest with no legs whatsoever.

Legs up Flat Bench: 4 sets of 15 x 135, 12 x 185, 10 x 225, 8 x 245
Dumbell Flys on the floor: 4 sets of 2 x 12 x 40, 2 x 8 x 45
Floor Presses: 4 sets of 8 x 225

Four sets of various push-ups: 15 diamond pushups, 15 clap pushups, 15 fist pushups, 15 decline pushups

Tonight is my only chance this week to go to the bubble. I'm going to do Biceps and Triceps so that should be fun. Today was a good day.

Procrastinate not the day of your leg work

Usually Monday's are my anticipated chest days. But today I had promised myself a focus on legs this week. I even was hoping for a "killer" leg workout. Unfortunately I fell far short of considering this a "killer" workout, however I did do a couple of new exercises, and also focused on form rather than weight. Here is what I did:

Alternating between:

Bulgarian Squat: 4 sets of 2 x 8 x 50, 2 x 8 x 40
and
Box Squats: 4 sets of 12 x 135

At this point I was ready to throw in the towel. I was fatigued and lost all motivation, but I did not succumb to my lazy thoughts and did one more superset alternating between:

Dumbell Side Step Ups: 4 sets of 16 x 60, 8 x 60, 2 x 10 x 60
and
SLDL: 4 sets of 8 x 135

The chair for doing the Dumbell Side Step Ups was too wide and not very stable so I didn't like those at all. I did enjoy the SLDL's though. I almost did just two sets though because I was drained.

So while I did get through my goal sets for today, I definitely did not exceed my plans. I do believe though that I will be sore since I've done a couple of exercises that I have never done before regardless of the light weight. I did not leave psyched up and happy about today's work, but I wasn't cussing myself out either.

Deadlifts and Ping Pong

Today I was looking forward to doing some deadlifts and doing some shoulders:

SLDL: 4 sets of 8 x 225
Military Press: 4 sets of 8 x 135
Dumbell Lateral Raises: 4 sets of 8 x 35

Instead of doing another exercise or two, Bala convinced me to play a few rounds of table tennis with him. That sure was fun and it went very well. This week has been quite an "off" week with lifting only three days this week and not very much either (except for Monday). My chest is still a tad sore and happy with the intensity of it. Next week, my focus will be to do a killer leg workout.

I hate Squats!

Today I knew I had to do legs and as the time grew near I was tempted to bag it altogether, but I did get off my fat butt and did the following:

Squats - 12 x 135 fast, 6 x 225, 6 x 245 slow

Man were those hard! At that point I had completely lost all motivation and I admit my attitude was extremely lame, but I was in no mood to to leg presses or anything else. I don't know what the source of my issues with legs is, but a few possibilities are:

• Not having a partner
• Having childlike leg matter
• Lack of confidence from doing Squats without being in a cage.
• I don't like having all that weight resting on my neck, it just doesn't seem natural!
• More and more, but enough of my whining and excuses!

After the squats I tried out the jump rope I bought over a month ago and haven't even really tried. I did three sets of running in place with the jump rope at relatively high speed. I was frustrated with my timing. A second grade girl would have laughed at my attempts. I did get a slightly elevated heart rate, but nothing to consider aerobic as my three sets probably totaled 100 jumps and about 1 minute of total execise.

Not a good day at all. I'm looking forward to deadlifts tomorrow though.

Wide Grip Chest

Today I wanted to focus on wide grip of everything:

Flat Bench: 12 x 225, 8x 255, 6 x 275, 7 x 275 (2 blocks), 8 x 295 (4 blocks), 8 x 315 (6 blocks), 35 x 135
Incline Bench: 12 x 135, 8 x 185, 8 x 65 (Dumbells)
Decline Dumbells Flys/Press Superset: 3 sets of 8x 40, 8 x 50, 4 x 60

This was a great workout and it was harder with the wider grip. I sure was shaking like it was heavier than normal, but it went up so that's good.

Here's a video of the entire workout (18M), except for the first two sets of flat bench.

Getting back after two days off

Today I did a little bit of arms:

Alternating Dumbell Curls: 4 sets of 10 x 35, 3 x 8 x 40
Preacher Curls: 3 x 8 x 95, 8 x 105
Standing Cable Curls: 3 x 8 x 50, 8 x 60
One arm Cable Curls: 12 x 20, 3 x 8 x 30

I also missed out on free pizza the company was offering because they were late delivering. The entire company was downstairs in club Tomax (standing room only) and everyone was just standing around waiting for pizza. What a waste of time. I waited about 5 minutes and went lifting instead. I was hoping there would be leftovers, but that was wishful thinking. My neck is still sore, but the rest of my aches have subsided considerably. I never did get that massage that I wanted.