GoPro or GoHome

Is the attitude you need when hitting the weights hard and its a great blog title when you want to show off your new toy, the GoPro Hero3.

It's a mini video camera that has a waterproof housing, can shoot at wide angles, (like a fish bowl effect) and can mount to a bunch of harnesses. One for your head, your chest, your bike, your surf board, to name a few. I have a chest mount and I thought it would be a great idea to show our workouts from a slightly different perspective.

Monday we trained Chest/Biceps/Forearms/Calves, but I had the resolution too high at 1440 and all I got was sound.

Wednesday we trained Dead-lifts/Traps/Back, but again I had the resolution too high at 1080, this time I got a video picture, but no movement

The camera does not come with a display, you can by a LCD back for it, (which is coming) so you don't know what you have until you plug into a computer or hook it up to a TV with an HDMI cable (which is coming)

3 times a charm

Yesterday (Friday) we trained Shoulders/Triceps/Forearms, check it out...

Notice at the end, Alex is doing his new exercise to help balance out his quads, his quads are getting so big, they cause him to fall forward when he walks

Today was legs...

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Just another weekend

Friday night shoulders and triceps followed by Saturday morning legs!

We started with standing shoulder presses alternating from behind the neck to in-fronts, 5 sets, 2 sets 25's (warm ups), then 45's, then 45 with a 25 (185lbs) too heavy for me, so back down to 45's for the last one. Then we did 4 sets dumbbell side laterals, climbing up from 25's to 45's super setting them with standing behind the neck presses using 25's. This really put my shoulders on fire. Machine rear laterals and then some dumbbell front raises for me and they all did seated straight bar front raises.

Triceps were all cable work for me, having my elbow the way it is right now, it's easier if I break away from the pack at this point and do my own thing, straight bar push downs, rope from the bottom (like a French curl) straight bar kick outs while leaning forward and reverse grip push downs.

I need to use real light weight and just go for volume. My elbow is in need of a scoping, unfortunately, I have some loose fragments, one as big as 8mm. Hoping to have this done soon.

We ended on the end of a bench doing wrist curls and doing a super set with the gripper. Not sure if your gym has one or you have ever seen one, but it is as it’s called. You basically bring two parts together by way of your hand squeezing and you use free weights to make it harder. It really puts some blood into your forearms. Especially used with a wrist curl movement


No picture this time for Fridays shoulders and triceps, but I got some nice footage for legs!

Let’s start today’s workout with squats and let’s do 5 sets and crawl our way up to 315

4 sets of hacks, 2 plates, 3 plates, 4 plates and 5 plates

Leg extension, leg curls, stiff legged dead lifts and ended it all with seated leg curls super-setting with donkeys

3 sets of crunches and we are done!

Self recording...

And it's always nice to see Hassan and Kristin Terry making a appearance here at the Gold's gym in Natick... good people!




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Wait for it...

5:30 comes across the phone, a text from big Jon telling all of us what time we are training. I looked forward to this every time. For the most part we all are pretty flexible, after 5 and no later than 6, if we can help it (with a 15 minute grace period for those who are late). Big Jon is our team doctor, no really, he is a NP (Nurse Practitioner) and as much as we would like too, we can't have him telling his last patient of the day, to come back in the morning, to finish the stitches, nor can he be rushed to make mistakes. So we let Jon tell us what time we are training.

Once I see the time over the phone, it is game on and knowing I probably already thought about my workout the day before or even after the last workout, It's on my mind again and I can't wait to get to the gym.  

Next to legs day comes dead lift day. I get pretty pumped up for both. We do legs on Saturdays and do dead lifts on Wednesday, mid week, just barely enough time for your legs to heal.  But it's not just dead lifts, its traps and back too! 

We start with dead lifts, 1 plate, 2 plates, 3 plates, 4 plates 5 plates. I was feeling a little stronger today than last week and was able to grab 4 reps of 5 plates, this time around, last week I don't think I got 2.

Next were barbell shrugs for 5 sets and after that we start back. 4 wide grip pull downs, 4 machine bent overs (free weights).

 

Dave our team handyman hooks up the Gold’s Gym with one of those t-bar mounting brackets you screw down to the ground and stick a Olympic bar in. Yes, this brings back memories from when I was a kid in my bedroom, sticking a pillow in the corner to protect the wall, stacking up my cement weights onto one end of the bar for t-rows. Needless to say, we broke that in last night, started with 3- 35lbs plates and worked our way up to 7. Then came reverse grip pull downs and we ended everything on the donkey machine

I can't wait to get that text come tomorrow for Shoulders and Triceps!

  

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Is it Monday yet?

I like Monday's especially when it's over and I had a great workout. Its a nice way to kick off the week!

Chest and biceps was the damage last night. I try to never repeat a workout and last night was no different. We started with flat bench. I'm having an elbow issue and it’s preventing me from some movements and this is usually one of them, but it wasn't feeling too bad, so I took advantage of situation and banged out 5 sets before moving to inclines on the smith machine. I watched a u-tube video not too long ago of Dennis James doing these pause sets at the end. Dennis would bring up the stoppers, so that the bar would rest on them right at the point of the full stretch and when he couldn't do any more reps, he would rest the bar on the stoppers for a second, then do another rep, again and again. It’s was a lot harder than he made them look in the video, but I'm always looking for ways to shock the muscle and that’s just another way.

After those we hit flies, flats and inclines. I would have liked to end chest with dumbbell pullovers, because I believe this movement is a staple and should be done every week or at very least every other, but because of my elbow being fucked at the moment, I had to pass on that for yet another week. Off came the compression sleeve and we started standing crooked bar curls, then preachers, followed by dumbbell hammers and ended on seated calves

That’s all she wrote today, looking forward to dead lift Wednesday!

p.s. those pictures where taken a few weeks back, I’ll try to be more current going forward.

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I'm back...

I took a little time off from the blog, but not from being a bodybuilder. I'm still hitting the weights hard, along with Alex and Jon, but we have added a couple more to the wrecking crew. We now have Dave and Donnie, Dave was a 300+ guy and when he came aboard a few months back, he was over 315. Now as of today he's weighing 299, the goal is 5 pounds a month and the way he is so focused on his food and the way he trains so intensely, I can see this goal being obtained every month. Donnie on the other hand is a guy who is too strong for his own good, this guy has a powerlifting back ground and if you were to look at him, he's not an overly big guy, I mean he's big, don't get me wrong, but he's defiantly not as big as he is strong. We find ourselves having to step him back, because he tends to over do it and hurt himself. It's just a matter of adjusting his approach to the sets, sometimes I think he rushes up the weight too fast and he's not fully warmed up

Alex is bigger then ever (if you don't ask Rodney) his arms have to be over 20" now, I wish I could put on body fat like him and keep a small waist, like he does. I would look like a fat beer belly biker dude, if I ate like him... rumor has it, he gets up every night around 2am to eat cookies... maybe that's the trick!

Big Jon, is getting bigger, standing over 6'5" weighing 250+lbs, under 10% body fat is not a small guy, thank god for Donnie, now Alex and I don't have to try to push Jon on the weight, we have Donnie for that

As I mentioned last, I'm taking off this year from competing, planning a family trip to Italy and Spain for two weeks. I plan on coming back May 2014 to win the Jay Cutler Classic held in Boston, then head to the Master Nationals in July held in Pittsburgh, where I am shooting for top 5 this time around. In 2011 I placed 7th out of 24 and in 2012 I took 9th out of 30, so I will be happy with a top 5 placement come 2014.

I've been working on all my weak points, like my hamstrings (especially my side view) and dead-lifts really do that trick, I'm starting to get a nice ham drop from the side (who said you can't build big legs after 40)

Speaking of legs, (my favorite day) here is a breakdown of the damage done yesterday...

We started with walking lunges with just a broomstick to keep the upright posture. There is a nice strip of astroturf at the Natick Golds gym that is 25 yards long and we did that 10 times non stop, thats 250 yards of lunging. After that I couldn't get to the leg extensions faster enough to get the lactic acid out of my burning quads. We then went back and forth in between extension and lying down legs curls for 4 sets. Squats came next working our way up to 315 (except for Donnie who needed to go to 405 until he felt an ouch in his back, dropping him back down to 315) Leg presses came next 4 plates, 7 plates, 10 plates (all she holds) ending with 7 plates, then came 4 sets of hacks, followed by 4 sets of stiff leg dead lifts, ending everything going back and forth with seated legs curls and donkey calf raises
As always 3 sets of crunches ends the workout

Stay tuned for more updates


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