Inside the Mind of Deserusan

Seated Dumbbell Raises: 40b’ers x 10 x 3
Seated Underhand Anterior Deltoid Raises: 30lb’ers x 10 x 3
Hammer Strength Shoulder Presses (single arm): 90lbs x 15 x 3
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Cleans: 135lbs x 10 x 3
Reverse Pec Dec: 200lbs x 10 x 3

This was a fairly straightforward shoulder workout. I’m laying of the heavy weights for a bit which is obvious so I’m trying some new superset combinations. Following a shoulder press with cleans was pretty taxing despite light weights. I highly recommend trying this after a normal military press.

Hammer Strength Angled Pulldown: 270lbs x 10 x 3
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Bent Over Dumbbell Dead Rows: 60lb’ers x 10 x 3
Close Grip Pulldown: 200lbs x 10 x 3
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Wide Grip Seated Rows: 200lbs x failure x 3
Wide Grip Pulldown: 200lbs x failure x 3

Alternating Dumbbell Curls (rest pause): 40lb’ers x 10, 6, 4
Concentration Curls (rest pause): 30lb’ers x 10, 6, 4
Rope Hammer Curls (rest pause): 100lbs x 10, 6, 4

Standing Calf Raise: 300lbs x 20 x 4
Seated Rotary Toe Press: 300lbs x 20 x 4
Seated Rotary Toe Press (single leg): 90 x 20 x 2

Man things are crazy recently. Between my job, the new dog, and just trying to get some sleep I feel like I’m running like a chicken with its head cut off. On the upside life is going great and I couldn’t be happier. However, getting to the gym has been tough over the past few weeks but I guess my body could use a break. I’m back at it though and my back is pretty sore right now from yesterday. It’s time to up the calories again and start facilitating recovery!

Flat Dumbbell Bench Press: 80lb’ers x 20 x 3
Incline Barbell Bench Press: 225lb’ers x 20 x 3
Flat Dumbbell Flyes: 40lb’ers x 20 x 3
Bent Over Cable Flyes: 40lbs x 20 x 3

Seated Toe Press: 180lbs x 20 x 3
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Standing Raises: BW x 20
Single Leg Rotary Toe Press: 100lbs x 20 x 3

I really don’t know why I went with low weight and high reps with this workout. All I know is that I’m really sore from it today. It was a nice change of pace and my joints are probably a bit relieved as well. For the next few weeks I’m going to back off some of the heavier poundages just to chill out a bit.

I spent this past weekend in DC for the 4th of July and had a great time with Vanessa. I thought it was pretty cool that President Obama had a huge party on the South Lawn which we saw from the Elipse. Even better, the Foo Fighters were playing live which are actually considered  a local band in the DC since Dave Grohl is from Northern Virginia. To round out our pop culture experience caught a glimpse of the new Real World cast and their new house which is filming close to Dupont Circle. Honestly, I haven’t been into the Real World in over a decade but couldn’t resist in getting my picture taken in front of the house. All in all, the weekend was great.

Seated Dumbbell Laterals: 50lb’ers x 10 x 3
Smith Machine Military Presses: 245lbs x 8 x 3
Seated Dumbbell Presses: 100lb’ers x 8 x 2
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Upright Rows (wide grip): 75lbs x 10 x 2
Bent-over Cable Laterals: 40lbs x 8 x 2
Reverse Pec Dec: 200lbs x 8 x 2

Barbell Shrugs: 315lbs x 10 x 3
Dumbbell Shrugs: 100lb’ers x 10 x 3

Leg Press Toe Presses: 450lbs x 20 x 4
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Step Toe Presses: BW x 20 x 4
Seated Toe Press: 130lbs x 15 x 4

I haven’t worked in early in the morning in forever so it was a nice change of pace to get in there at 6AM. Typically I’m there around 7pm and it’s just slammed so when I walked into a virtually empty gym it was a nice surprise. Not having to wait for machines is something I’m not used to here in Brooklyn.

Leg Press: 900lbs x 20 x 3
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Seated Leg Extension: 200lbs x 20 x 3
Barbell Back Squats: 225lbs x 20 x 3
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Dumbbell Walking Lunges: 30lb’ers x 20 paces x 3
Single Leg Curls: 50lbs x 10 x 3
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Single Machine Leg Press: 200lbs x 12 x 3

I’ve been playing with a few compounds as of late so I decided to try them under high volume conditions. I don’t want to shift my workouts out of an anaerobic modality but wanted to see how well volume training would be received with newer formula that’s in the design phase. All in all, it was impressive. I’ve always leaned to towards higher volume workouts. It takes a while for me to warm up and I don’t like resting in between sets. In retrospect, I had been overtraining for years because of this but now have a good handle on when to end the workout.

Close Grip Pulldowns: 200lbs x 10 x 3

Bent Over Rows (4s contraction hold): 225lbs x 8 x 3

Seated Machine Rows (4s contraction hold): 200lbs x 10 x 3

Dumbbell Rows: 100lbs x 10 x 3

Wide Grip Pulldowns: 200lbs x 10 x 3

HammerStrength Pullovers: 140lbs x 10 x 3

Single Arm Curls: 40lb’ers x 10 x 3

Bent Over Bar Curls: 50lbs x 12 x 3

Concentration Curls: 30lbs x 10 x 3

Since I’ve been busy over the past few weeks I’ve lowered my intensity in the gym a bit. The reason being, my focus just isn’t there. I’m not making a big push to get bigger at this point but am just trying to maintain a bit and see if I can’t enhance the quality of my muscle a bit. This is why you are seeing some higher rep ranges, longer contractions, etc. Over the next weeks you’ll notice I’ll be increasing slow negatives and the tempo of rep performed.

I’ve been fairly busy as of late working on a few patents for various sports applications. It’s quite an undertaking but in today’s day and age, it’s the proper step to ensuring your "ideas" aka intellectual property don’t fall into the hands of others. Believe it or not, a hobby of mine has been studying the legal maneuvering of supplement companies as they defend themselves against intellectual property infringement or enforce it. A lot of this doesn’t spill over into public knowledge but you really gain a respect for those companies trying to be novel and protecting their intellectual property. It’s not easy, especially in an industry where knock offs are very  common. Companies are so brash as to even copy the exact look of a competitor’s product and copy their marketing ad copy almost verbatim. It is what it is I guess.

Pec Dec: 150lbs x 20 x 3
Dumbbell Bench Press: 120lbs x 10 x 3
Incline HammerStrength Press: 270lbs x 10 x 3
Decline HammerStrength Press: 270lbs x 10 x 3
Cable Crossovers: 40lbs x 20 x 3

Tricep Pushdown: 150lbs x 12 x 3
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Overhead Reverse Grip Extensions: 100lbs x failure x 3
Single Arm Overhead Cable Extensions: 50lbs x 12 x 3

Calf Press (Incline Leg Press): 450lbs x 20 x 4
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Standing Toe Press: BW x 20 x 4
Rotary Calf Press: 200lbs x 20 x 4
Rotary Calf Press (single leg): 80lbs x 20 x 4

This was my first workout in about eight days. As of late I’ve been super busy and some highlights of my busy lifestyle include traveling to DC for GMP seminar and working on some intellectual property. More or less, when you get into a groove you have to roll with it. My body needed a break anyway and since it’s now fully healed and recovered I’m back in the gym 100%.

My new puppy has kept me extremely busy as well. The first week or so we had him he needed constant attention. So much so he had pretty bad anxiety when we weren’t around which was downright obnoxious. Fortunately, he’s toughened up a bit and can be left alone in small spurts now. We also hired a dog sitter to come in the days I’m not working from home to play with him a bit and feed him. I was surprised to find out it’s not that expensive.

Life is pretty crazy these days. My career has really taken off and while the demands are high, I decided to up the ante a bit and buy a beautiful little puppy with Vanessa. He’s a French Bulldog named Axl. No, we did not name him after Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses. I like Hebrew names and Axl is a variant of Axel meaning “father at peace.” I’m not one for naming a dog Biscuit or Spot. I prefer human names because dogs are a member of the family and should be treated with respect. Axl is a fairly masculine name and isn’t really something you hear that often so it seemed like a good fit for our boisterous little boy. Hopefully Rich doesn’t mind it if I bring him to the office a few days….lol.

Bringing Axl into our lives is also a great opportunity to share with all of you out there my interest in pet supplementation and physical fitness. Obesity is an epidemic that just doesn’t effect humans, but also pets. I’m pretty sure all of you have seen quite a few "fat" dogs and cats recently. I’ll be touching on this subject in future blog entries where I’ll be reviewing various pet supplements and giving some general tips on how to blend your pet’s lifestlyle with your own journey into leading the fit lifestyle. Enough of that though. Here are some pictures of my little pride and joy named Axl!

Workout Song of the Day

Dumbbell Laterals: 65lbs x 8 x 2

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Front Dumbbell Raises: 65lbs x 8 x 2

Barbell Military Press: 225lbs x 8 x 3

Seated Dumbbell Presses: 80lbs x 10 x 3

Single Arm Cable Rear Delt Raises: 40lbs x 10 x 3

Standing Calf Press: 300lbs x 20 x 3

Toe Presses (Leg Press): 600lbs x 20 x 3

Rotary Calf Press: 250lbs x 20 x 3

Single Leg Rotary Calf Press: 80lbs x 10 x 3

Man am I busy. I have to take a second to apologize for not updating my blog for a few days. What has kept me from my normal blogging activity is work. Fortunately, we’ve made a couple of breakthroughs in the R & D department and of course, that means no rest for the weary.

Laying Leg Curls: 160lbs x 10 x 3

Stiff Leg Deadlift (Smith): 315lbs x 8 x 3

Front Squats: 315lbs x 8 x 2

Hamtractor: 150lbs x 8 x 2

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Leg Press (high foot placement): 900lbs x 12 x 2

Single Leg Curls (FST-7): 60lbs x 10 x 7

Decline Sit-ups: BW x 20 x 3

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Hanging Leg Raises: BW x 20 x 3

I split up leg training so I could focus a bit more on my hamstrings which this workout is indicative of. You are probably wondering why I threw front squats in their and it’s primarily because the deep stretch really hit my gluts and hamstrings like a normal squat. It’s more or less for variation. I should mention that I am presently alpha testing a few compounds and they seem to be working well. I wish I could say more at this juncture but my lips are sealed.