Totally Addicted for Life

Well, my first session with my Trainer was interesting.  We discussed my goals and what I wanted to accomplish which I stated was to gain 15 pounds of muscle and get to 8% BF in 60 days.  Well, once he stopped laughing, we discussed targeting specific weak points.  He evaluated my physique and the areas we are going to key in on are:

Upper Triceps, Top of my shoulders, and of course.. Legs!  He took measurements while I was cold so we would have a reference point for progress.

We decided to work the triceps and shoulder weak points tonight and do legs on Thursday afternoon.

Started with tricep pressdowns doing a couple of warm-up sets.  He corrected my form so that I was targeting the specific area of weakness.  amazing how you think you are doing something right and you are not even close.  Once I got the form down we went into some slow count supersets where you take 10 seconds to complete the target motion.  10 reps positive motion, 10 reps negative motion, the fast positive/negative for 10.  Between each set I flexed for several seconds as soon as I finished a set.  Did three sets of those and had a very good pump.

Next we did some nose crunches starting at the top of the forehead and extending backwards and up.  Did three sets of those for 10 reps with moderately heavy weight.  Then did three sets of declining weights, where I would do ten reps, he would pull some weight off while I had the bar extended, I would do ten more, and repeat until not weight was on the bar.  I did 5 sets the first time, then 6 sets the second time.  Definitely pumped now.

Last triceps was dips using the benches.  These were challenging.  I started at the bottom and would move up 1/5 of the distance, hold for 5 seconds, move up, hold for five seconds.. repeat until about 30 seconds had elapsed and without resting start the same thing going down.  When I finished the downward set I immediately did, well, tried to do, 20 full repetitions.  I think I got to twelve and died.  Did two more of those supersets.  I was just toast when finished.  My upper triceps were just numb.  There was nothing left.

Next was shoulders but the only thing we were going to work was the tops.  He had me do some shoulder raises with dumbbells but completely changed my motion to work the tops.  What a difference.  It took almost four sets before I almost had it right.  Kept trying to use my traps and not isolate the shoulder properly.  Then we did some without weights where he provided the positive and negative resistance, then did negative resistance only then immediately did the DB sets with a fast motion.  Can you say burn.  I think we did three sets.  All I know is the target area was cooked.

Finished with some cleans with the bar for a couple of setts then added 20 whole pounds.  Really all I could do after the earlier sets.  

Based on the fatigue I am feeling this was an effective workout today.  Tomorrow I will go ahead and work out my back.  He did see a weak point I need to address, to get more width on the lats so I have a more pronounced V.  I’ll have to wait for another session to get the exercise for that area, for now I’ll just do some wide grip pull ups to target that area.

note: I will complete a shoulder and triceps workout on Friday morning.  I’ll hit my biceps on Saturday and Chest on Sunday.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.