Intensity for immensity - Sickness for Thickness - sizeBIGGER!



Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Back to Monday

Looks like this week will run normal with no workout changes. Monday is Chest and Triceps and we started with Flat Bench, then Incline Dumbbells and then onto Dips, which we hadn't done in a bit, ending with machine Flies.
We always like to mix it up as much as possible, never starting with the same exercises. Last Chest workout we started with Incline barbells, then onto Flat Dumbbell, followed with pullovers instead of Dips.

Mixing it up keeps you growing I believe, plus it keeps it interesting all the time, instead of the same thing over and over. This way here, your body never gets a chance to get "use to it". And there are some many different movement you can do for a muscle, there in no way to do them all in one workout.

Break it down...

5sets/Seat calf
5sets/Flat Bench (last set just the bar as many as we could)
4sets/Incline Dumbbells
3sets/Dips
4sets/Machine Flies
4sets/Dumbbell skull crushers (these were real nice)
4sets/Cable Push downs
4sets/Cable French Curls w/ a straight bar
5set/Standing behind the back wrist curls


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Sunday, March 27, 2011

Legs to Legs

Last Sunday we trained Legs, but I wasn't too good to myself the night before. It was our neighbors birthday celebration at a place in Boston and I drank a little too much and unfortunately, I ate to little too and that's the worse combination. Up at 9 still not feeling good, had coffee and 3 potatoes to help soak up the booze and just before training at 11:30 I had a Carbo Force with 2 scoops of protein and told the guys to lead, I'm just going through the motions today

Big Bobby is still banging out legs with us, so the 4 of us started with leg presses. Alex mentions something about standing on the apparatus, so I jumped up on the machine when he was doing his last set. This machine was already at it's limit with only 11 plates each side, Alex ripped it apart like it was nothing, hitting high double digit reps!

Of course, I had to have Alex jump on the machine now for me, which I ripped apart. You see my thinking here is, lets give it all I can, while I can, so I can get as much out of this workout as I can, because my head is spinning and I feel like I have to "let go" in both outlets.

Next was the Hack machine, then weighted Sissy Squat and when we hit Stiff legged bent over row, I couldnt' even do 2 reps, my head spun so fast being bent over. I jumped back in on extensions and curls and calves and made it to the end.

The moral of this story, just because you don't normally drink, doesn't mean when you do drink, you can drink A LOT!

Still waking up at 232

5sets/Leg press
4sets/Hack
4sets/Sissy (I did 3)
4sets/Stiff legged) (not me)
4sets/Leg Extension
4sets/Seated leg Curls
5sets/Donkey Calve

This week we had to change it up a little. Tuesday started Chest and Triceps and we started to add a high volume rep, I'm talking triple digits at the end of some exercise (when it came to mind), for instances, the last set on behind the head French curls, we took just the bar and did as many reps as we could, not telling each other how many reps we got until we were all down. This little challenge caused us to "set the bar high" no matter if you are first or last, you just wanted to keep going rep after rep, to blow the number out the door. What an insane pump you get too!

5sets/Seated Calf
5sets/Incline Barbell bench (last set just the bars)
5sets/Flat Dumbbell bench (last set with 35's)
4sets/Flat dumbbell files
3sets/Dumbbell pull
4sets/French curls (last set just the bar)
4sets/Skull crushers
4sets/Push downs
4sets/Standing behind the back Wrist curls

Wednesday we trained Back and Traps and started with Calves, then leg curls, then Shrugs, then Dead lifts, then Bent over rows. We always forget how hard it is to do bent over rows after you have just trashed your Calves, Hams and have just Dead lifted, until you do your first rep and realize you can't hold yourself up in a bent over position. By the way Big John pulled 6 plates aside on Dead Lifts, that is 585 pounds, nice pull Animal!


5sets/Standing Calf
5set/Standing one legged curls
5sets/Shrugs (last set just the bar)
5sets/Dead lift (6 for John)
5sets/bent over rows
4sets/Wide Grip Pull downs
4sets/low rows
Abs

Friday Shoulders and Biceps went something like this...
5sets/Seated Calf
5sets/Seated barbell press
3sets/Reverse Seated barbell press
4sets/Dumbbell side and front raise combinations
4sets/Seated dumbbell rear laterals
4sets./Stand straight barbell curls
4sets/straight bar preacher
3sets/Dumbbell hammer curls
5sets/seated barbell wrist curls

And now back to Saturday for Legs and it was just Alex and I for this one, we kept it simple with Squats and Presses

5sets/Squats
5set/Leg press
5sets/legs extension
4sets/Stiff Legs
5sets/Seated Leg Curls
5sets/Donkeys

It looks like there at two National Shows in July, one in NJ and one in PA. not sure which one I will do, I may do both... In any event, I will start this madness April 18th, which should give me plenty of time to get in shape for July!

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Saturday, March 19, 2011

And it moves

Have you ever noticed that your pain likes to move around from place to place and you hardly ever train injury free. That pulled muscle pain I  have in my forearm, (though is still there slightly), now has moved to a pulled muscle between my shoulder blades, you know the one that you feel through the center of your chest as well. Yeah that's the one, where you cant put your chin to your chest and sleeping becomes a challenge when you have to roll over. But my forearm feels great today considering we trained Biceps last night. I wonder where it is going to next!

Rear dumbbell laterals on a incline bench started Shoulders, then onto seated side doubles laterals. On the last set, we did a drop set 6 times for 8 reps, starting at 35's. Standing Shoulders presses were next and here is where the pain decides to change location. Funny thing about that is, while doing the presses, I had no pain or felt any pulled muscle, it was after each set I felt everything, so you know I kept going!

Keeping it simple

5sets/Seated Calf
5sets/Rear Double Laterals
5sets/Side Double Laterals (last set drop set 6sets/8reps)
5sets/Standing Barbell Shoulder press
5sets/Straight bar peachier curls
4sets/Dumbbell curls (3 for me, forearm was toast)
3sets/ Wrist curls
3sets/Reverse wrist curls

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Thursday, March 17, 2011

Nothing a little ibuprofen can't handle

After Chest and Triceps Monday night, I ripped something in my right forearm. The next morning I couldn't even bring my cup of coffee to my mouth. I guess that's why God gave us two arms. I loaded up on ibuprofen a couple times and I was ready to bang out Back and Traps last night!

We did end up finishing our high volume week with legs a couple of Saturdays back... If you ever wondered how many times you can squat just the bar, well for me, it's was 111 times... although I could have probably got more (not much more) I felt 111 was a nice number to stop at. When you're doing triple digit reps, besides the pain you have to get through, its a huge mind game you have to play with yourself as well

Last night I weighted in again at 237, the heaviest thus far...

Because of my forearms I opted out of Dead Lifts, this make now the second time in a row, not dead lifting... i'm really jonesing for that movement now...

We started with Calves, then to Legs Curls. These two movements back to back really work well together. Then it was onto Traps. I like starting with Traps as opposed to ending as people normally do. At the end, you always find yourself not having much energy and your grip is pretty much toast after 15-20 sets of Back. Bent-over rows is a nice segue-way after doing shrugs, your whole Back feels nice and thick after the two. We ended everything with cables, starting with Wide Grip Pull downs, Close Grip Low rows and Reverse Grip Pull downs.

Break me down

5sets/Standing Calf
4sets/lying leg curls
5sets/Barbell Shrugs
4sets/Bent Over Rows
4sets/Wide Grip Pull Downs
4sets/Close Grip Low Rows
4sets/Reverse Grip Pull Downs
Abs

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Friday, March 4, 2011

Again again...

We continued with the high volume sets for Wednesday's Back and Thursday's Shoulders and Biceps workouts

What we did was 3 sets, the first two we used a light weight and did as many reps as we could, I'm talking as much as 100+ in some sets, going WAY into the pain barrier.

Then the last set we bump the weight up almost double, if not, triple in some exercises. You think because your muscles are so gone and there is so much blood in them, that there is no way you are going to be able to lift heavier weight, but you can and we did

You see the first two sets are hitting the slow twitching muscle fibers and the last set hits the fast twitching muscle fibers and believe me, there is a difference and it's real noticeable when you go from a weight that you did a 100+ reps, then to a weight that you're good for 8-12 reps.

Break me down

Today's wake up weight 232.6 (heavies thus far waking up)

Back:
3sets/Standing Calf
3sets/Lying down leg curls
3sets/Shrugs
3sets/Bent Over Rows
3sets/Pull Downs
3sets/Low Rows
3sets/Wrist Curls

Shoulders and Biceps:
3sets/Seated Calf
3sets/Standing Shoulder Press
2sets/Seated dumbbell side laterals - 1set/machine sides
2sets/Lying down incline rear laterals - 1set/machine rears
3sets/Standing barbell curls
3sets/Machine preacher curls
3sets/Reverse grip curls
3sets/Reverse wrist curls
Abs

What I've learned is, if you can get past the pain and I mean PAIN, you get to a point where the muscle becomes numb and you are able to continue to triple digits.


I think going forward, we might try for a while, doing the first set (the warm up) as many reps as possible, with a weight to do at least 50 to 100 reps, then continue on like we would normally and increase accordingly. This way here we are assuring that both fast and slow twitching muscle fibers are being hit...

It's mind boggling how my whole body feels right now!


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Tuesday, March 1, 2011

I can't touch my face

I don't know how to write this one...

I though just for the hell of it, we would do as many reps as we could with the warm up weight on flat benching (135) well that turned into everything. You know we don't count our reps unless we count our reps for a reason and we usually just go to failure. But this time we went to failure and counted... talk about volume.

We started with the flat bench 135 and did anywhere from 25 to 40 reps and went up to 185 and did it again, as many as we could do, then back down to 135 for the last set, trying to get as many reps as we got the first set. We did this on the smith machine too with inclines and then on dips, doing as many as we could for 3 sets, trying to beat each other or just trying to beat our own numbers. We ended chest doing dumbbell pull overs, as many as we could with 60's the first set, then 80's for the last set, doing well over 30 reps.

For Triceps we started with skull crushers with a straight bar having just 10 pounds on it and do as many reps as we could for 3sets, doing 30+ each sets, same with French curls and we ended on push downs with 50 pounds and did 2 sets of as many reps as possible. I was able to get 46, then 55 and Alex was just about the same, but John first set was 50 reps and with a little incentive (me motiving him on the side) he was able to do 105 reps on his last set!

Talk about a blood pump, I can't remember the last time I put so much blood into a muscle, boy what a great feeling!

Break me down

Scale me 234.4
4sets/Seated Calf
3sets/Flat bench
3sets/Smith Inclines
3sets/Dips
2sets/Dumbbell Pull Overs
3sets/Skull Crushers
3sets/French Curls
2sets/Push downs
Abs

Workout time 1hr 30m

I'm in the shower last night, my pump was gone at that time, but I still couldn't touch my face and even today I feel like I have something on the back of my arms

Again, again, lets do this again!

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