Brian Westgate’s Journey

Well it is the last day of February, yah.  I saw the sun, yah, and now it is snowing like crazy outside, boo.
Today I finished my week of isolation work.  I did shoulders, traps and abs.  I have noticed that my ab muscles are getting bigger from all this ab work, now I just have to loose some of my weight so I can see them better.  Anyway here is what I did today:

side lateral raises 3 sets of 10.  I hold onto a bar with one hand and lean away from the bar.  With the other hand I lift a 40 lb dumbell up from my leg to shoulder hieght keeping my arm slightly bent.  This way I can really concentrate on the medial head.

Front cable raises 3 sets of 10.  I don’t normally do these because my front delts are already well developed.

Rear lateral raises 3 sets of 10.  I do this sitting down leaning forward and starting with 40 lb dumbells below my legs.  I lift them up to my sides in a large arc.  My rear delts are definately stronger since I started concentrating on them to get them in line with my front delts.

dumbell shrugs 3 sets of 10 with 120 lb dumbells.  On the last rep I always hold the shrug for a count of five then drop the weights and do a set of 10 shrugs with no weights.

decline leg raises 3 sets of 15

cable crunches 3 sets of 12

Taa daa.  That is it for my isolation week.  I am enjoying the workouts so far because I never know what I am going to do the next day.  So it is exciting and forcing me to try things I haven’t tried in awhile.

Those of you suffering from the February blahs read on…  
Are you hitting a plateau?  If so there are a few things you can do to break through it.  First try some interval training for your cardio.  Intervals work when it comes to removing fat.  But they only work if you push it to your limit.  Intensity is key.

Eating can be the hardest thing for many people.  So what can we do to get you back on track?
The key for me is planning ahead.  There is a plethora of excuses that we can come up with to not eat right or workout.  I call this excusititis (You probably read a post on this once before).  We all have it, some of us have it worse than others.  But there are ways to prevent it from happening as often.  I call it planning ahead.  

Every night (and I mean every night) before bed I plan out what I am going to eat the next day.  Actually I plan this in the morning.  I do this so I can make a large dinner that will allow me to make leftovers.  That way I cannot fall back on the excuse that I had no time to make a lunch, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah.  So I will take out a huge tray of chicken that morning or steak or whatever (all lean of course)  I will cook it up that night and enjoy a great dinner.  Then before I go to bed I make my meals for the next day.  This may include wraps or cottage cheese, yogurt and fruit or whatever.  It has to be simple and fast.  When I am at work I am busy so need something fast to eat at 10:30, 1:00 and 3:00.  

By planning ahead like this you have no excuses because the food is there and you can eat it.  Because you are eating every 2-3 hours as well those donughts and cookies that everyone else is bringing aren’t that appealing because you are full so it is easier to day no.  Bang another excuse blown away.  

I do this with excercise to.  For example when I go away for a few days, I phone around to the hotels to find out if they have a gym or treadmill or one close by.  I plan my day out to ensure I get a workout in.  This all takes a lot of getting used to and I always say you have to do something 21 times to make it a habit.  I am there so this seems easy to me.  But when I look back at where I was I always had an excuse, "my back is to sore", "I am away from home", "I’m to tired today", etc, etc, blah, blah, blah.  So we all suffer from excusititis and those of us who get things done plan ahead to ensure we can deal with every excuse with a plan of action.  Good luck and let me know if this helps you.

Today was day 2 in isolation week.  I did back and biceps and it went well.  I am used to doing a lot more for my back but what the hey I’ll give this workout a try.  I have also added antoher double bicep pic for month 2 so check it out.  Here is my workout for today:

10 minute run for a warm up (7.0 mph at 2.0 incline)

Pulldowns for three sets of 10 - my back workout suffered today because I forgot my wrist straps.  My fingers give out before my back does.

Seated cable rows three sets of 10 - I know these last 2 aren’t really isolation excercises but the back doesn’t have a lot of isolation excercises.

straight arm press downs 3 sets of 10

bicep cable curls 3 sets of 10 - I used a machine that allowed me to do each bicep sperately but at the same time using cables.

concentrated curls 3 sets of 10 - these were harder than I remember them.  I do them sitting with my elbow pressed against my inner thigh.

Reverse curls 3 sets of 10

Tomorrow is legs….

I was talking yesterday about my isolation workout for my chest, tris and abs.  I must say I am sore so it did work.  My lower abs are especially sore from the inclines reverse curls.  But I knew they would be because they were almost cramping in the gym.  Ouch.  So tomorrow is back and biceps and I am looking forward to hitting the isolatino excercises really hard.  Take care and keep lifting.

Well I decided to go for a 28.5 minute run.  It was sunny out and my dog is looking fat and lazy so we went for a run and it was great.  Doing 5 km’s felt great.  Have a great day everyone.

Well I didn’t make it to the ski hill today.  I have too many chores to do before the week starts anew.  So now I am sitting here debating what I should do today.  I have worked out 6 days in a row and should probably take a day off but I have a strong urge to get into the gym to either weightlift or go for a run.  Hmmmmm. What will I do……..

I will be heading to the ski hill tomorrow so I decided to hit the second week a little early.  I did chest, tris and abs today.  Mostly isolation work.  It was different I’ll give it that.  I know that the compound excercises work for me.  I’ll let you know if I am sore tomorrow or not.
My gym has expanded and now has 2 gyms in town.  I decided to go to the new gym today.  I didn’t really like it.  It is meant for a typical person who is not that strong doesn’t do a lot of free weights because they don’t know how and has lots of machines.  They only go up to 100 lbs dumbells and they don’t have a lot of the machines and free weights that I like.  I need a hard core gym with lots of free wieghts, T-bar rows, incline and decline crunch stations, whatever but this gym is missing all that.  Not impressed.  Anyway I digress.  Here is my routine for the day:
inclined cable flyes 3 sets of 10 (1 warm up set)
cable flyes 3 sets of 10
pec deck 3 sets of 10
Sitting tricep pressdown machine 3 sets of 10.  Thought this would be a great machine but it ends up I can do the entire stack (270 lbs)
tricep pushdowns 3 sets of 10
over the head tricep extensions 3 sets of 10
incline reverse crunches 3 sets of 15
cable crunches 3 sets of 12

All weird excercises and I am not sure how well it worked but it is good to try things I have not done in awhile or ever.
I still believe the basics are the way to go but we’ll see…

I have started a new workout this week that I saw in M&F.  As many of you (including me) are finding, February seems to be a month of very little gains.  So, I have decided to do something only slightly different.  
First of all I am adding a little bit more veggies to my diet and hence a few more calories.  That is OK because I would like to gain a few more pounds in muscle before summer.  That way I can spend my last month or two cutting before it is time to hit the beach.  
The workout I found in the most recent issue of muscle and fitness is very similar to what I have already been doing.  The big difference is that every week I will be hitting my muscles slightly different.  Today is the last day of the first week for me and I have been very sore so I know that varying it up is working and working well.  It is a 4 day split which I find works well for me.
Here is what I will be focusing on for the next 12 weeks:

WEEK 1: Multi joint excercises

WEEK 2: Isolation excercises

WEEK 3: Basic movements first

WEEK 4: Isolation moves first

WEEK 5: Heavy low reps

WEEK 6: Light high reps

WEEK 7: Low volume

WEEK 8: High volume

WEEK 9: Long rest periods

WEEK 10: Short rest periods

WEEK 11: Fast explosive reps

WEEK 12: Slow reps

I am hoping that this variable training workout will spur new muscle growth and strength but will also educate everyone reading this on the number of variables you can through into your own workouts to keep your body guessing and never doing the same thing day in and day out.  By changing one variable a week I will monitor waht seems to work best for me.  By doing this methodically and only changing one thing every week I will be isolating the change and watching my bodies response.  By doing this I hope to learn even more about how my body responds than I already do.  SO if anyone is going to try this let me know how it is working for them and make sure you keep your eating in line and your cardio going.  Good luck and stay healthy.

Today was the last day of my first week doing multijoint (compound) excercises.  I did shoulders traps and abs today.  This workout seemed to be the easiest of the days.  So next week I will be doing a week of single joint excercises.
My work out was:
Smith machine barbell shoulder presses 3 sets 10 @ 145, 155 and 155 lbs (I did 2 warm up sets)
Dumbell presses 3 sets of 8 (60 lbs dumbells)
Wide grip upright rows 3 sets of 10 @ 120, 130, 130 lbs
Smith machine shrugs 3 sets of 10 @ 205, 255, 255 lbs (last rep of each set I hold up for 5 seconds)
hanging leg lifts 3 sets of 10 (had to run outside in the snow and hang from my daughters play sets - no excuses!)
declined crunches 3 sets of 12.

Again this was an easier workout compared to the last three but they get harder as I go through the program.  Lots of fun!

I have started a new workout this week that I saw in M&F.  As many of you (including me) are finding, February seems to be a month of very little gains.  So, I have decided to do something only slightly different.  
First of all I am adding a little bit more veggies to my diet and hence a few more calories.  That is OK because I would like to gain a few more pounds in muscle before summer.  That way I can spend my last month or two cutting before it is time to hit the beach.  
The workout I found in the most recent issue of muscle and fitness is very similar to what I have already been doing.  The big difference is that every week I will be hitting my muscles slightly different.  Today is the last day of the first week for me and I have been very sore so I know that varying it up is working and working well.  It is a 4 day split which I find works well for me.
Here is what I will be focusing on for the next 12 weeks:

WEEK 1: Multi joint excercises

WEEK 2: Isolation excercises

WEEK 3: Basic movements first

WEEK 4: Isolation moves first

WEEK 5: Heavy low reps

WEEK 6: Light high reps

WEEK 7: Low volume

WEEK 8: High volume

WEEK 9: Long rest periods

WEEK 10: Short rest periods

WEEK 11: Fast explosive reps

WEEK 12: Slow reps

I am hoping that this variable training workout will spur new muscle growth and strength but will also educate everyone reading this on the number of variables you can through into your own workouts to keep your body guessing and never doing the same thing day in and day out.  By changing one variable a week I will monitor waht seems to work best for me.  By doing this methodically and only changing one thing every week I will be isolating the change and watching my bodies response.  By doing this I hope to learn even more about how my body responds than I already do.  SO if anyone is going to try this let me know how it is working for them and make sure you keep your eating in line and your cardio going.  Good luck and stay healthy.