Warped Fireside Chats

It was a night not un-like many nights before it. The wind was restless, intermittent, choppy. The moon hung low on the horizon as I raced my Explorer through the low lying hills of the Southeast Arizona high plains desert. After a 90 degree day, the typical low 70 degree evening was welcome and begged for all four windows to be down. The resultant cooler wind flow was just enough to push a small amount of electric stimuli throughout my body. I had already consumed three tablespoons of BCAA’s, so the veinage (my word) was already ripping through my arms. I knew at that point, I may very well have been on my way to the best pump, EVER!   

Boston’s, “Find your way back,” eased its way onto the Sirius. “The twenty minute drive will be worth it tonight,” I said out loud, to no one in particular just before yelling at the top of my lungs, “YYYYYEEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHHH!” and throwing both my hands in the air for just a second.

Suddenly and fully at the mercy of instinct, I quickly grabbed the wheel and yanked hard to the left. An aversive move which just barely kept me from hitting the mule deer that jumped right out in front of me. Once the impact had been safely avoided and my adrenaline level had returned back down into the normal range I enthusiastically stated, “wildlife, that’s what I’m talking about!” You see, up until two months ago, living in the Suburban landscape of Phoenix, AZ, that is something which never happened. There might have been the occasional near-miss with an elderly chap on a moped, but never a deer.

Five minutes out from the gym, I began to focus on the evenings muscle groups: Biceps, Triceps and Forearms. Yes my friends, potentially my favorite complex, I love me some arm pumping. As a precaution, I will also go on to tell you that my workouts are not for the faint of heart: Typically geared more towards pumping them up as big as they’ll go, rather than utilizing mind crushing weight in order for muscle break down to occur, I not only force as much blood into them, I push my cardiovascular system to its fullest. Sinister, evil, nasty, brutal: All words that many onlookers have used to describe my fast paced, never let up pump-fest, I call a workout.

How is it done? How can one man push that much blood into one set of muscles? Read on…..

A few thoughts before starting:

• Always stay mentally focused on the muscles you are working
• A consistent, piston-like movement for all exercises enables monster blood levels to be attained
• Don’t stop, fully exhaust the muscle being worked during each set
• If it doesn’t hurt, it’s not done
• Low to No rest in-between sets
• Once warmed-up start with the heavy stuff, pump out as many as you can, strip some weight and keep on going
• Add up the weight you’ve moved after the workout by multiplying amount of weight moved by the number of repetitions

The exercises (All supersets; All descending sets to failure):

• Alternating dumbbell curls
• Overhead dumbbell triceps extensions
• Alternating Dumbbell wrist curls

• Hammer strength preacher curls
• Hammer strength triceps dips

• Standing barbell curls
• Skull Crushers
• Close grip bench press
• Standing behind the back barbell wrist curls

• Dumbbell hammer curls
• Alternating overhead dumbbell triceps extensions
• Alternating reverse grip wrist rolls

• Reverse grip barbell curls
• Pulley rope triceps push-downs

Total workout time: 27 minutes

Total weight moved: 31, 500 pounds

Arm size pre-workout and relaxed: 17.5

Arm size post-workout and jacked: 19.7

Net blood pushed into arms post workout: 275 gallons (may not be actual)

Casually meandering back through the hills on my way home, the temperatures were now down into the high 60’s. A light sense of euphoria crept its way into my mental state as my body, and more specifically my arms, seemingly had attained a status the big man upstairs originally designed for them. As my arms enjoyed the extreme tightness, I embraced the feeling as if it were the first time…..I allowed a slight, up-to-no-good smile, to work its way onto my hardened, stubble covered face.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at 7:02 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.