To Whom It May Concern

To whom it may concern,

Today is Christmas Eve and my gym is closed until Monday so I’m going to regurgitate some of my most recent training sessions on to this here log.

First some back story,

I first started weight training three years ago while in grade 12. My high school had a pretty small weight room with one bench, a few dumbbells, a nautilus station, and a lat pulldown/seated row station. The program I followed was from a Men’s Health booklet (I think it was part of a promotion) that led to others noticing a change in my physique (scale went from 168-172 over the course of 2-3 months… If only I’d had squats and milk!). My routine include bench, flies, seated row, lat pulldown, leg press, and curls (oof). My strength gains were insignificant as by the end of the school year I doubt any rep maxes had improved by more than twenty pounds. For my fifth year of high school (had no idea of what to take in uni) and first year of uni (probably should have thought more about what to take in uni) I worked out in two week spurts (which were never within two months of each other).

This brings me up to the current year where I have been much more consistent with my workouts and much more informed in setting them up (after two years I finally left the articles and looked into these forums… I mean T-Cell Alpha). Earlier in the year I was doing a two-way split twice a week (I hope that means workout A and workout B twice a week). I’ll post the first two here as a reference point for both my knowledge of training as well as my strength.

Workout A
Deadlift
155/12
185/10
205/6
235/3
245/1

DB Flies
20/15
30/12
35/10

Scullcrushers
70/4 x3

DB Supine Tricep Extensions
25/12

Back Extensions
35/7
bw/10 x2

Workout B

Front Squat
115/5
135/5
155/5
185/3
195/5
205/3

Seated Row
88/7
99/7
110/7
121/5
132/1

EZ Standing Curl
70/7
70/5
70/3+3

Standing Calf Raise Machine
110/17
140/15

Hammer Curl
25/12
25/6
20/12

That would be a typical workout of October-November (I did Dan John’s 40 day program in September… although obviously not for 40 days). Lately, however, I have been doing my routine has been along the lines of a more orthodox split that I came across in the T-Cell on page four of this thread.

This is a three way done twice a week where you in your first work set you aim to fail between 4-6 reps, you then lower the weight by 10% on your next set and go to failure, on the next set you again lower the weight by 10% and rep out. The original protocol called for failing between 5-9… I liked the lower reps and figure its an insignificant change either way.

Here is what the split looks like

Chest/Back

DB Press
70/8 65/10 60/10 (have no platemates so I try to make it as close to 10% as possible… should have gone heavier)
DB Row
70/6 60/8 55/12
DB flies
45/4 40/5 35/10
Seated Row
132/5 121/6 110/9+2

Arms
Standing EZ Curl
70/8 60/12 50/16 (I think I’ll start using the adjustable bars rather than the fixed weights from the rack)
Tricep Extension From Floor (rest the weight on the floor between reps)
80/10 70/16 60/12
Offset curl (I start in a hammer curl and supinate my hands as I raise the weight… I also hold the DB with my thumb jammed as up and index finger jammed against their side of the DB…I’m horrible and describing it but just think C_C)
35/6 30/8 25/8
Tri Pushdowns
60/8 50/7 40/17

Legs (either DL or front squat)
DL (mixed grip) 315/2 335/wouldn’t leave ground 275/5 245/6 225/3
Back Ext
10, 12, 15 (BW)

That is what I’ve been doing for about a week and a half now (continued my old split into dec) and is what I’ll continue to do until at least the end of January at which point I may start the original program posted by Modok in the thread I mentioned earlier or something like EDT, (figure if i go from always going to failure to never going to failure SOMETHING might happen… and I’ll be honest Charles Staley does a really good job of marketing) or 531 or starting strength.

I welcome and encourage any comments/questions and hopefully will soon be able to get this horrible newbie odour (Canada, we sure spell funny eh) off of me.