Ludlum3k’s BodyBlog

Today was a rough day, had no sleep last nite (up all nite on the phone with ‘the wife’). Couldn’t go to school cuz I was too tired. I knew I needed to do some chest work, so I gathered up the energy to workout in the basement (again). I had a quick, short workout, just enough to exhaust the muscle, starting my new 3 week routine that focusses on upper chest. Problem with working out at home is I don’t have a spotter (which is important on chest days) and I have the dumbells that you need to add weights to, and with the spiral collar it makes it really hard to get them into possition for presses, because I can’t rest them on my legs. Therefore, I went lighter today .Anyways, here’s what I did…

Incline Bench Press
1 x 12 x 135
3 x 10 x 155
Flat DB Press
6 x 80
8 x 70
10 x 60
DB Flyes
3 x 12 x 30

My favorite workout of the week, BACK, and as usual it didn’t disappoint. Anyways, nothing really worth mentioning today so here’s the workout

Neutral-grip Pullups
8 x BW
6 x BW
5 x BW
4 x BW
3 x BW
T-bar Row
2 x 6 x 180
1 x 10 x 135
BB Shrugs
2 x 10 x 315 (F –> R)
2 x 15 x 225 (F –> R)
Close-grip Pulldown
1 x 10 x 120
2 x 12 x 100
Straight-arm Pulldown
3 x 10 x 50

Today was a nice shoulder day, probably the ‘relatively’ easiest workout in my opinion. I’ll admit my shoulders aren’t as nice as they could be, however, since I’ve been properly working out the last year or so, they’ve seen some of the greatest gains. Many people consider shoulders one of their favorite body parts, and devote much of their attention to them, but me, I don’t favor them. Probably because of the lighter weights being used, I dunno. Anyways, here’s the layout of this week’s workout, a couple minor changes…

BB Shoulder Press
2 x 8 x 135
6 x 135
–> 2 x 135 (rest-pause)
–> 1 x 135 (rest-pause)
Arnold press
3 x 10 x 40
DB front raise
3 x 10 x 20
Reverse Pec Deck
8 x 85
10 x 70
15 x 55
Cable Upright row
3 x 10 x 115
DB Lateral raise
3 x 12 x 20

And now I get to look forward to my favorite day of the week, BACK!!!

Wednesday… Leg day… Same as always. It hurts, I feel sick doing it, I just want to leave, but I fight through. Here it is:

Squats
1 x 10 x 135
3 x 8 x 225
Hack squats
2 x 6 x 180
1 x 8 x 140
1 x 10 x 90
Superset:
     Seated Calves
     3 x 12 x 180
     Standing calves
     3 x 25 x BW
Leg Curls
2 x 10 x 130
1 x 12 x 100
Leg Ext
2 x 15 x 130

Had a hard time getting motivated today, got a lot on my mind. When I got ready to go to school and go to the gym, by the time I left the house, I was just in time to see the bus go by. I turned around and went back home. I figured I’d workout in my basement but when I got home, I wan’t really feeling like doing anything. It’s not like I was not motivated, I actually really wanted to workout, but I was feeling weak for some reason. I watched tv for a while, and eventually my energy came back. I went to the basement and pumped my guns. It was a little bit different from last week’s routine, but I liked it. Here it is:

Barbell curl
2 x 15 x 45
3 x 6 x 95
Skull crushers
3 x 10 x 70
Incline DB curl
12 x 30
10 x 30
8 x 30
1-arm Overhead tri extension
10 x 30
10 x 25
10 x 20
Superset:
     Concentrated curls
     3 x 12 x 20
     Bench dips
     3 x 15

Today was yet again a chest day, with a lil bit of abs on the side. For some reason, I wasn’t performing as well today as I did last monday. Maybe it’s just because of the difference between the school gym and my home gym. It was all pretty standard, added an extra set of incline db press to compensate for the lack of reps in previous sets. Here’s the rundown

Bench press
1 x 15 x 135
2 x 8 x 225
1 x 6.5 x 225
Incline DB press
9 x 75
8 x 75
6 x 75
5 x 75
Dips
3 x 8 x BW
Pec Deck
3 x 15 x 70
Incline Reverse crunches
3 x 10

Today I was walking around Bayshore mall and passed by GNC and decided to pop in to look around, as I always do when passing a nutrition store. They had a table outside with samples of a couple of products. I had one of their chewable vitamin C pills, tasted just like any vit. C pill there ever was, I tried a papaya extract pill and loved the taste so I took two more lol. But the product that caught my eye was the Cytomax. I know that cytosport is a brand I trust and love, especially for flavours of their products, but I must say, it tasted bad… Not a product that I would like to have in my repetoire. But it’s all good, it’s just an energy drink like gatorade, so it’s not like it’s a product i’d normally use anyways. I was just surprised to see that cytosport would make a product, not to mention and energy drink, which normally taste good no matter who makes it, would be so disappointing. But that didn’t stop me from taking two more samples when I left the store lol. Anyways, I got a GNC card so I can use it for the occasional time I go there and actually have money to spend there. I looked at the prices there, and BB.com still beets them in the end, gold card or no card.

Friday was back day, my favorite day of the week. Not only is it the most convenient because I had bath my classes in the sports complex, immediately followed by a back workout, but it’s a friday meaning the weekend has begun. Felt good doing back, it’s been a while. Tried to use a new arrangement of exercises, and wow, usually it’s rare to feel your back being sore the next day, but since I’m writing this post a day late, I can say that it is being felt nicely.
I started with neutral-grip (aka hammer-grip) pullups, where I tried to work my way to a total of 25 reps. It’s a technique that was outlined in this month issue of Muscle & Fitness, where it suggested to try and reach 35 reps, but me being a heavy man, 25’s good for me for now. Instead of barbell shrugs, I decided to do dumbell shrugs, since it’s been a while (and all the squat racks were in use at the time), plus they make me feel good when I hold the 125 lb dumbells in my hand - the heaviest dumbells we have at our gym, so they’re a nice boost of confidence. Also, I tried straight-arm pulldowns as a finisher. Before when I tried them I didnt really feel them work, but this time, it worked nicely as a finisher, made my back feel pumped like it was arm day again. Anyways, here’s the rundown.

Neutral-grip pullups
7 X BW
6 X BW
5 X BW
4 X BW
3 X BW
T-bar row
2 x 6 x 180
1 x 10 x 135
DB Shrugs
3 x 15 x 125’s
1 x 40 x 60’s
Close-grip pulldown
1 x 10 x 120
2 x 12 x 100
Straight-arm pulldown
3 x 10 x 50

Today was my first day back for shoulders. Started the day by having breakfast and went straight to the gym. Starting with barbell push press, it was a little hard cuz my legs were still sore so I lost some of the explosiveness. Because of that I decided not to go heavy and stuck with 3 sets of 8 reps, instead of pyramiding up to 2 rep pushes. The rest was pretty standard, except I tagged on an ab exercise at the end to kill some time. Here it is.

Barbell push-press
3 x 8 x 135
Arnold Press
12 x 40
8 x 45
6 x 50
Dumbell front raise
3 x 10 x 20
Reverse Peck-Deck
8 x 85
10 x 70
15 x 55
Cable Lateral Raise
2 x 10 x 30
1 x 12 x 25
Incline Reverse Crunches
3 x 10

UGH!!! Coldest day of the year so far, and it had to be on leg day. Went to school, sat through two boring classes, dreading the fact that I have my week’s deadliest workout coming up, Legs… Entered the gym feeling confident, stretched, and began my warmup set of squats. Seemed to me my warmup set was harder than it usually is, probably because I’m still adjusting to my new and improved form. First working set went nice, so on the second set I decided to use a more narrow stance, see if it helped. Right from the start of that set, I could really feel my left quad was fatigued, but I forced out the set anyways. Third set went back to normal stance still feeling my left quad. It wasn’t a bad pain, just thought it was odd to only be in my left leg. Moved on to hack squats, because I was trying to focus more on my quads today. Hack squats are new to me, and a lot of people at my gym feel that machine is for girls, but if you do it right it hurts like hell. Went all the way down, made me tired as hell, but toughed it out. The rest of the workout was pretty standard, added an extra set of leg extensions at the end for the final burn. Almost froze my hands off while walking to the bus while eating my white bread and protein shake. Here’s the stats for this workout.

Squats
1 x 10 x 135
3 x 8 x 225
Hack Squats
1 x 10 x 90
2 x 5 x 180
1 x 10 x 90
Superset
   Seated Calf Raises
   3 x 12 x 180
   Standing Calf Raises
   3 x 25 x BW
Stiff-Legged Deadlift
3 x 10 x 135
Leg Extension
3 x 15 x 130