Legs in the am went terrible. Forgot how bad I am at am workouts. I even ate eggs and coffee first. Oh well, suboptimal am beats missed workout every time. Only one way to go from here.
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Alright, alright, alright!
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@Basement_Gainz - hope your transformation is going well brother! Many ways to go about it, in my opinion 12-15 working sets per muscle group is a good foundation. Based on your workout there, for an arm day, I would recommend doing 3 exercises per body part at 4 sets each to make sure each part of the muscle gets some attention, or 4 exercises at 3 sets each. Maybe something like this:
Biceps:
Seated Incline DB Curls - 3 sets
EZ Bar Curls - 3 sets
Concentration Curls - 3 sets
Hammer or cross body curls - 3 sets
Triceps:
Close Grip Bench - 4 sets
Rope Pull downs - 4 sets
Reverse grip pull downs or decline bench dumbbell extensions - 4 sets
Of course you can rotate exercises, there are so many to choose from. But, this will allow you to hit each part of the bicep and tricep enough to have well rounded development. Many folks donāt think about movements like hammer curls for biceps, or hitting all parts of the tricep.
Keep up the good work bro!
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How do warmup sets and weights work for this? Like is every set a little more weight taken to like RPE7 (or higher?) or is that 3 working sets at the same weight after a couple warm up sets? Or is your warmup something else then you get into the work (like I usually start with Rope Pressdowns elbows etc ready for arm work)?
Thanks in advance btw
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I agree with @robstein on this oneāsomewhere in the 12-15 set range is the sweet spot, as is ~4 sets/exercise.
I havenāt been following your log, so am not sure what your current goals are or what sort of split youāre using, so the following may be completely irrelevant. With that caveatā¦I would add that the ā12-15 sets over ~4 exercisesā rule-of-thumb should be modified to reflect oneās specific current goals. Something Iāve learned from @The_Mighty_Stu and others is that itās unwise (ie, counterproductive) to try and prioritize every bodypart simultaneously. The upshot being, pick a bodypart or two that you really want to bring up, and program them for the upper end of the set range, and hit them twice a week or so. Butāand this is keyāat the same time, downregulate a couple (or more) bodyparts in terms of volume or frequency (or both). For example, I am currently prioritizing delts and triceps. Each is being worked twice a week, whereas everything else is once/week. Something to consider.
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Iāve never utilized a lot of 15-20 rep range work, BUT, I am a big fan of more sets utilizing more middle range reps to accumulate (stress is accumulative) the volume necessary for hypertrophy gains.
For example, I loved to hit a lot of my meat n potatoes movements in the 6-8 range, but might actually end up doing them for 6 sets each, with no real worry about how many sets in total Iād done in the entire workout.
I know Iāve written about it before, but I honestly think I missed out on a lot of progress in the early-mid 90;'s when everyone was so overly concerned with not doing too much. If youre diet and recovery are on par, then go nuts. Larry Scott once wrote that you know youāve done too much when youāre arms measure less after a certain set of an exercise. Now, Iām not going to tell you to measure your arms after every set of curls, thatās stupid, and ignores many other variables, but, I think:
1- everyone needs to figure out how much volume they can handle, let alone need
2- Experienced trainers will adapt, be able to tolerate, and actually grow from increasing volume. Bill PEarl talked about this a lot.
With regard to your listed arm day routine, Iād recommend very strongly against doing everything in the same rep range. There are pathways to that employ a wide variety of approaches (rep ranges) due to the actual effects they elicit. As such, youād probably be better off setting one movement in a lower range, another in the higher - more pumping blood volume range etc etc.
One last note, and I didnt read through every post or reply in the thread, but seeing your weight at 219, and your calories at 1295 gave me serious pause. My usual M.O. is to let the weights do the work, and that means you need to eat.
S
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Warm up sets - I usually do 3-4 warm up sets before the first exercise of the day for that muscle group. Once I do my warm up sets, Iāll get into working sets. When I move onto the next exercise, I might do a quick feeler set to see what weight Iām going to use for my first working set, but mentally I think of it more as gauging for the weight, as Iām already warmed up, then right into working sets.
Once you get to your working sets, for arms and smaller muscle groups, just my opinion, use the same weight for all sets. If youāre doing something for 8-10 reps for example, with the purpose of ramping up, then the first few sets clearly wonāt be max intensity if youāre leaving enough room to move up in weights. Push hard, get close to failure (without getting there), rest, and repeat. The first working set should be challenging. Keeping in mind for something like arms, if youāre using 30 or 35 pound dumbbells for something, moving up to 40 is a significant increase, moreso than adding 10-20lbs on a ~300lb squat.
Sidenote as I have not been following in detail:
YES! Looking up at your previous posts it looks like your cals are between 1200-1300, is that accurate? Looks like you were between 1800-2100, and lately have been 1200-1300. Is that on purpose, or a couple days of just a crazy schedule or what?
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Thanks @robstein @eyedentist and @The_Mighty_Stu for the helpful replies.
What Iāve learned: 4 exercises for 3 working sets each seems to be the sweet spot. And Stu recommended to vary rep ranges a bit and not settle on one.
As for the calories. Donāt worry. This is a temporary 5 week PSMF diet to shed the first 20-30 lbs a la the ārapid fat loss dietā or āvelocity dietā. A couple reasons for the drastic approach: My triglycerides went from below the range to above it in 1 year (being overfat was going to kill me early). I refused to buy size 38 pants, (36ās are loose again now).
Iām aware that PSMFās are a crash diet and that crash diets are stupid. Going to begin the reverse diet out of it around the 22nd of March adding 50 calories/day per week focusing on increasing carbs.
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This point bears repeating for emphasis. When contemplating going up in weight, donāt get too caught up with regard to absolute poundage. Instead, consider thinking in terms of percentages. So, eg, going from 20# to 25# DBs (say, for strict laterals) is not an increase of āonly 5 pounds,ā rather, itās an increase of 25%. So, using squats as an example a la @robstein, it would be akin to jumping from 400 to 500#ānot the sort of increase most people would describe with the modifier āonly.ā
This is why better gyms stock lower increments for their lightweight DBs (ie, theyāll have 10s, 12.5s, 15s, 17.5s, 20s), but donāt bother with such small increments for the heavier poundages.
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If one is splitting their bodyparts up for a four way split, I think nine to twelve sets per body part is the way to go, but not all of those sets have to be all-out sets, only a few of them.
For small body parts like biās and triās I recommend one ābigā exercise with two āsecondaryā exercises. I also got my best results but doing a small exercise before a big exercise.
As you can see from my leaning-out thread, my arm workouts looked like this:
Biceps
Incline dumbbell curls
EZ-bar curls
Machine curls
Triceps
Triceps pressdowns
Lying dumbbell extensions
Weighted dips
Of course I tried as hard as possible, but the pump from pre-exhaust was amazing. And to anyone who tells you the pump isnāt important, especially for arm growth, donāt listen. 
I know this is nothing groundbreaking but thatās what I did for my best gains becauseā¦ uhā¦ thatās what all the best bodybuilders did and do. @The_Mighty_Stu
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Thanks @robstein @The_Mighty_Stu @BrickHead @EyeDentist for taking the time to write all the advice. Will apply it as best I can.
03-19-18 4:30am after 2T Natural PB and coffee.
Back, trying a couple new movements, 30 sec rest or as close to it as I could manage loading plates.
Single arm barbell row: 25x12, 30x12, 35x12, 45x12
Meadows row: 25x12, 35x12, 45x12
Superset: inverted row/face pull: 10/12, 10/12, 15/12
Trap bar shrugs: 45x12, 135x12, 12, 17
Still bad at morning training, but it will get better.
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03-19-18 9:15pm
Squats at friendās house: 45x10, 135x5, 230x5, 270x5,300x5, 135x31
Hanging leg raises: 10,10,10
Attempts at dragon flags: 1x lol
Plank for 45s
Done. Figured why not hit some 5/3/1 workouts with my friend since heās coming back from a knee injury. This was week one day one and it sucked. Really missing the cals.
Whaa whaa
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Nice lifts and allā¦but the real impressive feat is maintaining friends into adulthood haha
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Thereās 7 billion+ people on earth. Even with a .01% closing rate, thatās a great deal of potential friends.
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Soā¦youāre sayinā thereās a chance!
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3-20-18 9pm chest
Band flies to wake up chest: 25
Flies pronated grip: 10x12, 15x12, 20x12, 25x12 (never been able to do flies without the bicep trying to cheat in. Saw meadows do these with a pronated grip, itās like magic. Top set sucked)
Incline DB bench: 25x12, 40x12, 50x8 too aggressive
Really Wide pushups: 10,10,8
30 seconds rest for all movements. Was going to try dips but since pushups were killer just cut my losses.
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3-21-18 5/3/1 light benching
Bench: 120x5, 140x5, 160x8, 150x12, 140x15
Hanging leg raises: 4x10
Planks
3-22-18 Arms Interupted
Hammer curls: 10x12, 20x12, 30x12,12,12
EZ tricep extensions: 20x12, 40x12, 55x12, 12, 12
EZ Curls: 20x kids crying
3-23-18 5/3/1 deads and arms continued
Today marks 5 weeks of 1200 cals. Time to start the reverse diet.
Deadlift: 135x10, 225x5, 305x5, 345x8, 275x10, 225x15
EZ Curls: 20x12, 40x12, 50x12,12,12
Triceps dips: 8,8,8
Hanging leg raise: 10, 10, 10
Planks with elbows level with eyes
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Did some āantiā training Sunday. Ate really light in the morning to make room for an event in the evening. Wife and I went to a charity battle of the bands at Jergels. It was to benefit a program called ābrain balanceā for kids with attention disorders.
Had a fatty ribeye steak, vinegar kraut, a salad, 4 stouts, 1 bourbon and a great time out with the wife. Back on the diet wagon today. Considering I had about 800 calories in beer alone, the math looks like 1,300 cals yesterday. Definitely missed the protein target.
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03-28-18 9pm 5/3/1. Feeling weak AF. I want more food. Whah, whah. Too bad I want to lose fat more.
Bench: 45x10, 135x3, 145x3, 170x7, 165x5, 145x10
OHP: 45x10, 135x3, 155x3, 175x3, 95x10
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