X-Rep.com’s BodyBlog

We haven’t worked lats and midback together in a long while, so we knew today’s gym session would be interesting—a full-back hit with low reps. We kept our reps controlled, as we’re still very lean and susceptible to injury, but the heavier weights felt great and we even got a pretty good pump…<  (For the full-detailed blog, go to our X Blog page.)

Dieting is rather torturous, but there’s an anabolic upside after it’s over: When you loosen up your eating, you can get a huge muscle-mass rebound—if you train correctly. Our mass-rebound program of choice is the X-Rep Power/Rep Range/Shock Workout (pages 103-114 in the 3D Muscle-Building e-book). It’s got it all—low reps, high reps, drop sets, negative-accentuated sets and supersets—spread over three different workout weeks. This week is Power, so it’s low-rep straight sets. It felt great today, the perfect re-entry program!  (For the full-detailed blog, go to our X Blog page.)

Our peak day was Wednesday, so we hit the photo studio hoping to be in razor-sharp condition while holding as much size as possible. Results? Jonathan was early and Steve was late. In other words, Jonathan needed a bit more time to get that crisp look—he still had a slight layer—while Steve was very shredded but had lost some muscle size because he had peaked earlier. It’s one of the problems when you have two guys trying to peak at the same time, both with different metabolisms. Steve gets lean quickly and tries to hold it, fighting like crazy to keep his muscle size, while Jonathan methodically loses fat; if he tries to speed things up, he loses muscle size too.  (For the full-detailed blog, go to our X Blog page.)

We were looking forward to today’s workout because it’s our last before out shoot tomorrow. More vascularity has been showing up daily, so we knew we’d see new veins on everything we trained today—and we did. Even on delts and lats. Today we did higher-rep subfailure pump sets, often in pre-exhaustion fashion (supresetting an contracted-position isolation exercise with a big compound midrange movement—light weights)…  (For the full-detailed blog, go to our X Blog page.)

The goal today and tomorrow is to pump the muscles with lighter subfailure sets to accelerate glycogen refilling. We think we are right on track for Wednesday (see photos in Friday’s blog). Jonathan needs a bit more detail and Steve needs a bit more muscle fullness. Today’s session should improve on both of those elements…  (For the full-detailed blog, go to our X Blog page.)

Wednesday of next week is our target date, so we were stoked today to hammer every bodypart. Next week will be light pump sessions to refill the muscles with glycogen. We took some in-the-gym shots today, which we will try to post over the weekend or on Monday. A few changes in the workout today that made it one of our best…  (For the full-detailed blog, go to our X Blog page.)

One week from our peak day. We still see a slight layer, but we’re confident that with some skin color, carbing up and pump workouts next week, as well as daily cardio, we’ll be spot on come next Wednesday. Only one minor change to today’s workout—the order of the last pec exercises… (Go to our X Blog for the full details.)

It appears that once we set a deadline for peaking (next Wednesday), the vascularity began appearing like crazy. Is it coincidence, or is it the power of the mind? Whatever the cause, we’re glad to see it, and we have a week to make it more prominent. With that in our heads, we made a few minor changes today… (Go to our X Blog for the full details.)

We were excited from the get-go today because we could see more vascularity after our first warmup set. Everything is on track for our target of next Wednesday. Great workout, and we even added weight on a few exercises, which is exciting considering how lean we are… (Go to our X Blog for the full details.)

We were off yesterday and it was a lower-carb day, so we looked very flat going into the workout—vascularity was barely visible. Once we got pumping, however, the veins were streaking down our arms—and even started showing up on our delts and pecs… (Go to our X Blog for the full details.)