So I figured I would start a training log because I think it will be cool to look back on in the future but more so because I sometimes get the urge to write my thoughts on training and nutrition down somewhere. This will be a place where I can do that and hopefully engage in some productive discussion along the way. I’ve also updated my log with some pics because I know some people like to mentally put images to a name.
May 22/2013 - Calves Shoulders (Yes I do train calves. No they do not want to respond… However I have recently learnt a few things that I think will help with that)
Calves:
A) Seated calf raise machine - 4x20
B) Standing calf machine - 4x8-10 (superset with tibialis raises in between sets)
C) Toe presses on leg press machine - 4x10 full 10 bottom partials
Shoulders:
A) Unilateral reverse pec deck - 4x10 each arm
B) Reverse cable cross overs - 3x12
C) Seated lateral raise machine - 3x10 full 10 bottom partials
D) DB laterals with chest supported by incline bench - 4x12
Current Split -
Chest/Tri
Shoulders/Calves
Back/Bi
Shoulders/Calves
Legs
I cycle through this and take rest days whenever I feel the need to. This could mean that I end up training everyday for 3 weeks straight at one point and then at another point I might only get in one cycle in 2 weeks. It just depends what life throws at me at the time. Psychologically, I can’t handle having a set schedule because I beat myself up over missing a workout even when I know that it won’t make a difference in the long run.
Random Thought - Rethinking “Progressive Overload” For Bodybuilding
Anyone concerned with building muscle in targeted areas of their body needs to rethink the term “Progressive Overload”. Just because you added weight to the bar since your last workout does not mean that you have stimulated more growth, and here’s why:
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Neurological Factors: When weight on the bar is the primary motivation, we tend to decrease the amount of repetitions per set in order to achieve a PR. It is well known that neurological adaptations can allow for increased strength in the absence of muscle growth, especially in these lower rep ranges.
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Biomechanical Alterations: This is the essence of powerlifting. I believe it was Dave Tate who has said that he could put 50 pounds on your bench press just by changing your technique. No, you did not add any muscle during the time it took to alter your technique. Enough said…
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Any other method of reducing the amount of work performed in order to allow for an increase in weight lifted (eg. Not controlling the eccentric, Bouncing the weight, Elastic Recoil, Reducing lever arms, etc.)
There are too many ways to increase bar weight without actually putting any increased demands on the muscle fibers themselves. For this reason, bodybuilders need to approach the progressive overload principle with an internal (muscular) focus rather than an external (bar weight) focus.
Muscles don’t ‘care’ about weight on the bar. They do ‘care’ about how much tension they have to produce and how long they have to produce that tension.
I recommend that every bodybuilder develop a basic understanding of torque because it is the torque around a joint that determines the amount of force a muscle must produce. For example, let’s take a look at the DB lateral raise. Person A uses 20 lb DB’s but they perform their laterals with a bent arm. This shortens the lever arm and reduces the torque placed at the shoulder joint. Person B uses the same 20 lb DB’s but straightens their arms in order to lengthen the lever arm and increase the torque around the shoulder. Person B likely has bigger Delts…
Random Thought - Shoulder Training
If you would have told me even just 6 months ago, that any type of overhead pressing is unnecessary for bodybuilding purposes, I wouldn’t have believed you. However, after playing off of ideas from JM’s Mountain Dog style training, I have come to the conclusion that this statement is true.
It’s common knowledge that most gym rats and BB’ers have overdeveloped front delts and underdeveloped rear delts due to all of the pressing movements that we do.
A simple solution to this problem, which seems to be working well for me, could be summed up as follows:
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Ditch the straight overhead pressing movements - They are redundant and cause many people shoulder pain over time.
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In addition to your regular ‘Chest Day’ movements, add in a high incline pressing movement (two or three notches from vertical). Don’t feel the need to take this movement all the way down to the chest if you feel discomfort or like the tension is coming off of the target muscles. 6 inches short of touching the chest is roughly ideal.
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When in doubt: Do more for rear delts* than for side delts. Most rear delt movements will also hit a good portion of the lateral head. Plus, a lot of that 3-D look comes from a highly developed rear head.
Now, keep in mind that this advice is for someone purely interested in developing the shape of their deltoids and not for someone involved in a strength sport (where OHP certainly has it’s place).
- People always say “You need to go ‘light’ for rear delts”. Well I say that weight is relative. Sure the weight used might be light but the tension placed on the rear delt should be high. You need to go light enough that your traps/rhomboids/teres don’t take over but heavy enough that you feel you are stressing the delt.
May 23/2013 - Back/Bi
Back:
A) Wide grip chins - 4 sets of bodyweight (short of failure)
B) Wide grip lat pulldown - 2x8 1x8,6 (drop set)
C) Neutral grip seated cable row - 3x10
D) Prone shrugs superset with band pull aparts - 3x15 each exercise
E) Wide grip seated rows - 3x12
F) Straight arm cable pulldowns - 2x15, 1x20
Biceps:
A) BB curls - 3x8
B) DB hammer curls - 3x15 each arm
C) Close grip cable curls w/ V bar attachment - 2x15, 1x20
May24/2013 - Calves/Shoulders
A) Calves:
B) Standing calf machine - 6x8-10 (superset with toe raises in between)
C) Toe presses on leg press machine - 8x10
A) Seated calf machine superset w/ bodyweight calf raises - 3 rounds of 12 and 20 reps respectively
Shoulders:
A) Single arm reverse pec deck - 2x10 pronated grip, 2x10 palms in
B) DB laterals - 3x12
C) BB upright row - 3x8
D) Six ways - 2x10
May 26/2012 - Legs
A) Superset leg extensions w/ seated leg curls - 4x12-15
B) Back Squat - 1x10,1x8, 3x6
C)Lying leg curl - 4x8-10
D) Leg press machine - 3x20
E) Single leg back extensions - 3x8 per leg
F) Leg press w/ feet high on platform - 3x10
G) Leg extension - 1x50
Notes: Good workout. Had a huge cheat meal and rest day on saturday so I was able to get in a bit more volume than I usually would. If you’re wondering the cheat ‘meal’ was: A large pizza (half bacon cheeseburger/ half philly steak), 20 home-made mrs. Fields cookies, A large ice cream sundae w/ peanut butter, chocolate sauce, brownies and marshmallow.
May 27/2013 - Calves/Shoulders
Calves:
A) Seated calf raise: 4x20
B) Standing calf machine: 4x8 supersetting tibialis raises in between sets
C) Calf press on legpress machine: worked up to a hard set of 5 and then did 3x25 bottom partials with that weight.
Shoulders:
A) Unilateral reverse pec deck - 5x10 each arm
B) Lateral DB swings followed by full DB laterals with a lighter weight: 3 rounds of 25 partials and 8 full reps
C) DB reverse flyes - 4x10
May 28/2013 - Chest/Tri
Chest:
A) DB incline press - 4x8-12 ramping up in weight each set
B) BB bench press - 1x12, 4x6-8
C) High incline smith machine press - 3x10-12
D) Incline cable flyes - 3x15
Triceps:
A) DB overhead extension - 3x12
B) Bodyweight dips: 3x12-15
C) Cable rope extensions - 5x10-15
May 29/2013 - Calves/Shoulders
Calves:
A) Seated calf raise - 3x12
B) Toe press on sled - 4x20
C) Toe press on leg press machine - 3x10
Shoulders:
A) Reverse cable flyes - 3x10-15
B) Unilateral reverse pec deck - 3x10, 1x20
C) 45 degree reverse laterals superset w/ standing laterals - 4 rounds of each failing in the 6-10 rep range
May 29/2013 - Biceps
Biceps:
A) DB hammer curl - 1x15,1x12,1x10,1x5 each arm (increasing weight)
B) Seated dumbbell incline curl - alternating arms, 3 sets of 5,4,3,2,1 with the same weight
C) Standing DB curls - 3x10 each arm
Notes: Got called off work today and had some extra time on my hands so I decided to hit a little bicep work today instead of doing them with back tomorrow. Short and sweet.
May 30/2013 - Back
Back:
A) Bodyweight pull ups - 3x6-10 (none to failure)
B) Wide grip lat pulldown - 4x10
C) Smith machine row - 1x15, 1x12, 1x10, 1x8 (increasing weight)
D) Reverse facing lat pulldown with neutral grip attachment - 3x12 (great move for keeping tension on the lats)
E) DB prone shrugs superset w/ standing shrugs - 3x15-20 each exercise
F) Straight arm pulldowns - 3x15
Notes: Really good pump today and I’m leaning out a bit so I saw some detail that wasn’t showing before. Very motivating.
May 31/2013 - Legs
Legs:
A) Leg extension superset w/ seated leg curl: 2 x warm-up, 3x12 (not to failure)
B) Front Squat - 3x10
C)Back squat - 1x10,1x8,1x6 (ramping weight)
D) Lying leg curl - 2x8, 1x6 6 (drop set)
E) DB romanian deadlift - 3x12 (I stop short of lockout on these because I have dominant glutes and I can feel the tension come off of my hammies when I lockout)
F) Leg extension - 1x50 (just so that I could walk out of there with my quads feeling full of blood lol)
Notes: Fast pace. Good pump. Normally I train calves/shoulders in between larger body parts - so that should have been today. But, I am planning on going camping this weekend, so figured I would get legs in there while I could.
Random Thought - Cheat Days and Dieting
With my current goal being to get and maintain a very good level of leanness - I have been following a high carb/moderate protein/low fat diet with calories being quite low for 6 days of the week. It’s been working, but I keep seeing people who weigh the same or less than me and dieting on much higher calories. I’ve always suspected that I just had a slow metabolism relative to others.
However, it recently hit me that my cheat days might actually be doing me more harm than good. I’ve always dieted hard throughout the week and then let myself have a ‘free day’ on the seventh day as a reward and method of keeping my sanity. I’ve justified this by convincing myself that I am boosting my metabolism, increasing leptin levels, restoring glycogen, bla bla bla, etc…
After adding up my last cheat day, the calories came out to around 10,000 calories! Yes that is a comma in there after the zero. And, since my body seems to absorb every calorie that I put into it unlike some ectomorphs, I have concluded that this cheat day is practically a method of taking two steps forward only to take 2 steps back again.
I have decided that I will get rid of these cheat ‘days’ and simply try to follow the diet plan and eat well as often as possible. If I have a slip up here and there, so be it, I just don’t need to use that as an excuse to order a large pizza and inhale a tub of icecream in an effort to ‘boost my metabolism’.
Just some [healthy] food for thought…
Training Split Update
I’ve decided to go back to a sort of push/pull/legs split. It looks like this:
Day 1) Chest/Shoulders/Tris
Day 2) Back/Bis
Day 3) Legs
Rest days are taken whenever necessary. Not scheduled.
I feel that this is the optimal split for me because it allows a high frequency of training for every body part while still allowing a sufficient amount of volume and exercise selection for each body part.
June 3/2013 - Chest/Shoulders/Tris
Chest:
A) BB bench press - 1x10,1x8, 4x6
B) Incline smith machine bench press - 3x8-10
C) DB squeeze press - 4x12
D) Pec deck - 3x12-15
Shoulders:
A) Reverse pec deck - 1x15,1x12,1x10,1x8 20 (drop set)
B) Standing db lateral raise - 3x12
Tris:
A) Rope push down - 4x12
B) DB overhead extensions - 3x12
June 4/2013 - Back/Bis
Back:
A) Wide grip pull up - bodyweight x 4 sets
B) Reverse facing neutral grip pull downs - 4x12
C) Pronated grip straight bar rows on the low cable row - 3x10
D) Pull down machine - 4x10-12
E) Prone shrugs - 3x20
Biceps:
A) Hammer curl - pyramid up and then back down with 20-30 sec rest intervals - managed about 6 sets of 10lb intervals
B) Concentration curl machine - 4x10
June 5/2013 - Legs
Legs:
A) Back Squat - worked up to a heavy set of 3 with lots of warm-up/technique sets. Finished with 2x15
B) Leg curl superset w/ leg extension - 4x10-12 each
C) DB romanian deadlift - 2x12
D) Standing calf raise - 4x12 (did toe raises during rest periods until my shins were on fire)
E) Bodyweight calf raises - 2x25
Abs:
A) Standing cable crunch superset w/ partial leg raises - 3x20ish
June 6/2013 - Chest/Shoulder/Tris
Chest:
A) BB bench press - worked up to a hard set of 3
B) Incline DB press - 3x8-10
C) Pec deck - 3x12 with double peak contraction on each rep
D) Incline machine press - 3x10 full 10 bottom partials
Shoulders:
A) Reverse cable cross over - 3x12
B) Standing partial laterals - 3x25-30
Triceps:
A) DB overhead extension - 3x12
B) Rope push down - 4x8