Yesterday was a planned “Off Day” but I needed to get in for my mental sake. Decided to “steal” a workout session from one of the EliteFTS logs. I decided to do some abs, calves, shoulders with only one pressing movement (to keep the CNS impact pretty low and allow me to hit shoulders again this week).
Abz
A1.HLR’s - 4x 15
A2. Ab Wheel Rollouts - 4 x 12
B. Standing Cable Crunches - 4 x 20
Abz were fried. I must say that my abs are way better now than they were for my show. Some pretty decent deep cuts now showing. I imagine they’d look 10 times better if I wasn’t pasty white. Maybe I’ll hit the tanning salon??
Calves & Shoulders
standing SM calf raises - 8 sets of 6 full range reps followed by 6 partial range reps (bottom up) - 30 second rest periods --used 2pps
then the following delt giant set (5 movements, all back to back)
a. rear db laterals - 15 reps per set @ 20lbs
b. smith machine seated press w/ flex at top - 6 reps per set @ 1pps
c. band pullaparts w/ flex at contraction - 10 reps --Red Mini Band
d. 6-ways - 6 reps @ 10lbs --killer!!
e. band overhead stretches - 8 reps - Orange Micro Mini Band
did 5 rounds of this with 3 minutes rest between giant sets.
Completely SOAKED following those giant sets. Shoulders were on fire.
Finished with 30min LI on the bike.
I’ve been doing 60min LI on the t-mill every morning (fasted) plus a little extra post-workout these days. I really want to get to the lean gain point so every small detail is being considered.
A. Various grip Stretch Pull Ups - 6 x 5 reps - each rep is followed by a stretch/hang of 3 secs
B. 1 Arm BB Row - 4 x 8 x 100lbs
C. HS High Row - 2 x 12 x 90ps/2 x 10 x 100ps
D. DB Pullover - 3 x 10 x 90lbs
E. WG Pulldowns - 15/12/10/8
F. SM Shrugs - 3 x 12 x 185 **12 good reps (pause at strech & contraction) followed by as many quick reps as possible
G. Banded Hyperextension Drop Sets (Average Band, Light Band, no Band)
3 x AMAP at each level. ** fried my erectors
45 min LI on the recumbent bike watching NYY vs TB. Think I actually yelled “YES!!” when Tex hit a Grand Slam to make it 5-0.
Weight is hovering at the ‘mythical’ 170 number. I may be in the 160’s tomorrow.
I missed AM cardio because I was up late the night before and didn’t feel like hammering out the day on 3hrs sleep.
Sent in my updates for my diet and got back ‘No more carbs except cheat meal’. That wasn’t exactly welcome news but I’m spinning that into ‘almost at rock bottom’ so hopefully rebound is soon.
Work’s crazy. I’m doing a CRM migration tonight and over the weekend after just going through a network migration 3 weeks ago (which was BRUTAL). I’m sooooo not looking forward to this.
Anyway, on to training.
Shoulders
A. Rear DB Laterals/Raises - 5 x 12 @ 20lb’rs w/ 30 sec rest
B. Reverse Machine Flyes - 5 x 15+ w/ 30 sec rest
C. Seated DB Press - 2 x 10 @ 70lb’rs, 9 x 65lbs, 12 x 55lbs
D. SM OHP w/ flex - 4 x 10 @ 135
E. Standing DB Laterals - 6 x 12 @ 25lb’rs w/ 30 sec rest
F. Behind Back Cable Laterals - 5 x 10 w/ little to no rest between arms
Basically took me 55 minutes to complete and then booted home to eat and then off to Volleyball. I signed up for V-ball a while back and there’s “try outs” as it’s more a competitive session so they want skilled players. I’m a pretty decent player so I find this all a litle amusing.
The woman running the show came and gave me the speech about needing to ensure players are “quality players”. My best friend (who is also very good) was kinda snickering because he’s played there for a couple years and knows I’d be in the upper echelon of players. Anyway, it took about 5 minutes for me to get the “You’re a keeper” nod. I suppose when a 5’8 guy stuffs a 6’2 guy twice in one rally, you’re qualified as a “skilled player”.
After V-ball (2hrs), I shot back over to the gym and did 45min LI cardio.
[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Hey your thoughts on the dismissal of Francona???[/quote]
It’s hard to say without knowing the real “inner dynamics” of that clubhouse. I could point to a handful of questionable calls throughout September but when it comes down to it, the players need to perform. Anyone who believes it’s the manager’s job to “motivate” players in the last week of a season with the playoffs on the line hasn’t played sports.
A manager cannot “execute”. That’s the players job. Certain players did; Ellsbury, Scutaro, Gonzo, Ortiz to some extent. Others did not; Crawford being the glaringly obvious. Bard another “sore thumb”. Varitek and Salt’s weren’t the best down the stretch either.
You can’t really blame it on injuries either; Buchholz has been out forever and they were smoking hot in July/August. Redding performed well in Drew’s absence. Catching was a platoon job in all reality anyway.
That said if he’s lost the room, then yeah, I guess he has to go, but if it’s making the ‘easy’ move, I don’t necessarily agree with it. I’ve always believed the veteran’s own the room, so I don’t think it’s his fault.
I think this season could really have been a result of the Sox players believing the hype about themselves and not executing (which to me explains the shit April and September months).
I’m not sure who you bring in that’s going to help them “execute” and even if they do, I won’t be praising that guy anyway.
Went in for a quick session before I had to come home and start working again (which I’m doing right now – can’t you tell?).
I actually went in with ‘No Plan’ for Arms. That’s a lie, plan was ATTACK but movements weren’t prescribed.
A1. Standing EZ Bar Curls
A2. Lying Skull Crushers
A3. V-Ups
7 sets
B1. DB Hammer Curls
B2. SM CGBP
4 sets
C. Rope Pressdowns - 4 sets
D. Machine Preacher Curls - 3 sets
E. Machine Dips - 3 sets
F. Standing Alt Arm DB Curls - 2 sets
G. Dips - 100 reps
Had a cool conversation with a BB’er at the gym who has a massively wide back. He’s like 5’3 and his back has to be twice as wide as mine and he weighs 165. He took a look at my back and suggested some things to focus on my “lower” lats; UG Rows (as parallel as possible) and WG Pull ups to finish.
PS: I hate system upgrades.
PSS: I hate that I have to log on tomorrow night at midnight EST to train my Abu Dhabi staff. The joys of management!
I’ve been doing 60min LI on the t-mill every morning (fasted) plus a little extra post-workout these days. I really want to get to the lean gain point so every small detail is being considered.
[/quote]
your attention to detail is paying off. I assume you have your own treadmill?
[quote]mom-in-MD wrote:
how do you decide how many reps to hit? 12-20 is a broad range.
I’m trying to find how much volume I need to ‘feel,’ it the next day, kwim? I can do lat raises all day long. [/quote]
Depends on how I feel MiM’s. If I’m feeling strong, it’ll likely be more towards the 12 rep range. If I am struggling that day, I may lean more towards the 20 rep range. I’ve also pyramid’d the weights/reps from 20 to 12. Lots of variety to be had.
Maybe you should start pyramiding the weight up and reps down and see how that works.[/quote]
I’ve done that a couple times and like it. felt very pumped that I could not moved my arms anymore, but I wasn’t sore the next day. I know soreness is not supposed indicative of anything, but to me it lets me know that I really worked that muscle GOOD.
For ex, side laterals…I’d do 5sx15 8sx10 12sx5. Catch my breath and reverse it. 12sx5 and back down. I would do that 2-3 or times.
Cheat meal last night: First, some ground bison and rice, then 8oz steak and potatoes with gravy, with 5 pieces of salmon sushi, a protein bar and two ice cream bars.
Felt insanely bloated but it gave me super powers for today’s Leg session.
As usual I started with calves/laying curls and then threw some reverse band box squats in after being inspired by Git’s session earlier this week.
A1. Seated Calf Press 8 x 6/6 – 6 full reps with pause at stretch/contraction and then 6 partials (top up)
A2. Laying Curls - worked up to 4 working sets of 8-10 reps
B. Reverse Band Squats to Box(Bench)
Warm up sets of 10 reps @ 135/225/275
8 x 315
6 x 365
3 x 385
2 x 405
–Felt pretty flippin good to have 405 on my back again
Finished with 20 ATG squats with 225
C. Hack Squats
20 x 2pps
15 x 3pps
12 x 3pps+25
8 x 4pps
drop set to 8 x 3pps, then 20 x 2pps
D. Leg Press
warm up set of 15 reps @ 5pps w/ 3 sec negative
1 drop set
15 @ 6pps w/ 3 sec negative
10 @ 5pps w/ 3 sec negative
25 @ 3pps --feet lower and toes pointed outwards
E. DB RDL’s
3 x 12 x 105lb’rs
F. Extensions
3 x 20 @ 50/70/60 w/ 2 sec pause at contractionat each rep
My legs are on fire still.
Awesome session though!
PS: Have a bit of a crush on a girl at the gym that is training to be a firefighter. She actually squats, does deadlifts, millies and benches and then kicks her own ass with some complexes.
PSS: I got hit on by an 18-something at the local sporting goods store this afternoon and I was dressed up like the Michelin Man. Go figure. She was pretty smiley and followed me around and asked if I went to her college. I politely said No but I was old enough to teach at the college.
Today was Chest day. Officially the last time I ever try to train chest/bench press on a Monday night. Did what I had access to.
A. HS Seated Press - 4 x 8 x 1.25pps
–don’t know what it is with this machine but it’s hard to use a lot of weight. to give some idea, I can easily do 8 x 2pps on the Incline and 8 x 3pps on the decline but I’d struggle for a few with 2pps on this one.
B. Inc DB - 4 x 12 @ 70lb’rs
C. Pek Dek - 3 x 15
E. SM Decline - 25/20/12/8 – first 2 sets are not to lockout, last 2 sets are your typical presses
F. Machine Dips - 3 sets --basically try to do 8 reps w/ tri’s and then lean over a bit and hit chest
Drove my lifting partner home (35 min) while having my PoWo shake and then decided to go back and do more (75min) cardio. Yes, I am crazy.
