OVER 40 MUSCLE

I really put it into high gear today. I love working delts and traps and today I punished both. The leg workout was not quite as intense but I will still be a little sore later today.

Here’s the day (all sets were taken to failure unless noted)

LEGS
Squats … 3
Supreset
     Leg Extensions … 3
     Standing Leg Curls … 3
Standing Calf Raises … 3

DELTS
DB shoulder press … 3
DB rear flyes … 3
DB side laterals … 3
DB front laterals … 4 (last set was a drop set)

TRAPS
Upright Rows … 4 (last set a drop set)
Shrugs … 3

Two things were changed in today’s workout. First of all, I had to do squats instead of the leg press because someone was hogging the machine. This dude was using the leg press, standing leg curl and Smith Machine doing some sort of maniacal tri-set garbage. I had not performed squats in a few weeks so I gave it a shot. I actually did more weight that I did last time I tried them so I guess that was an improvement.

Secondly, I changed up my upright rows a little. Instead of using the Smith Machine (remember the equipment hog from the last paragraph?) or the straight bar, I opted to use an EZ bar instead. This was not the standard EZ bar but one that has an almost U-shaped middle section to it. This allowed me to have a grip almost like a hammer curl really allowing me to get my elbows pointed out and put a lot of pressure on the traps. It felt pretty good so I will do this more in the future. The last set I put on a bunch of 5# plates on each side and went to work. When I would reach failure I would strip a 5 off each side and hit it again. I did this 3 or 4 times until there was about 10# on the bar and I was exhausted. Man what a pump. I think I found me a new finishing move for traps. I am glad I did shrugs before this one. I guess I’m smarter than I look (no comments from the gallery on that one).

Tomorrow is elliptical cardio and Friday I will end up with back and biceps. The week just keeps getting better and better.

Started out the day with an ab workout. I did the standard crunch and reverse crunch for about 50 each. Then I decided to try cable crunches. I knocked out about 50 of those little ditties before hitting the treadmill.

I worked up a sweat today and boy did it feel good. I was a little crunched for time today so I changed my routine a little. Instead of do my normal 45 minutes, I took a page out of bwestgat’s book and did a 23 minutes interval on the treadmill. You know, the one where you stay at a constant speed and adjust the incline every minute for 23 minutes.

Well, today I was successful - and no so successful. I managed to do the entire 23 minutes at 4.7 - 5.0 mph (which is a totally new neighborhood for me). That was the successfull part. The unsuccessful part was that on the last round of inclines I could not get past 3.0 - I was supposed to take it up to 5.0. Anyway, I accomplished something that I had been trying to do for some time now. I was able to jog, non-stop, for over 20 minutes. It was not pretty and I know the folks around me were waiting for me to kill over. They almost got their wish.

I don’t have the distance and calories burned numbers handy but who’s counting. I climbed my first real cardio mountain today.

Two weeks ago I went through Power Week where I concentrated on heavy weights and low reps. Last week I did the opposite and worked on my Rep Range with lighter weights and higher reps. This week is “Hell Week. My goal this week is to shock the living daylights out of my muscles. I will be using supersets, triple-sets, drop-sets and anything else I can think of to take my muscles to the ultimate fatigue level. Today, I started the week off with chest and triceps.

CHEST (all sets taken to failure)
Flat Bench Press … 3
Incline DB Bench Press … 4
Hammer Press … 3
DB Pullovers … 3

TRICEPS (all sets taken to failure)
Rope Pulldowns … 4 with last set being a drop set
DB Kickbacks … 3

I am tweaking my workout program a little for the next 8-week stretch. More weight sessions and an extra cardio session each week. As of right now, I plan on going back to lifting Monday through Friday working a different body part each day. On days that I do not have to work I will be doing cardio after lifting. With my current work schedule, this will allow me to do cardio 5 days every 2 weeks (instead of the 4 I am doing now). I am off every other Saturday so if time permits I can throw in another session then pushing me up to an average of 3 per week.

I am also revamping my nutrition for that 8-week period as well. I have been eating pretty clean all along but have not put anything in concrete and stuck with it. I have hit a weight plateau and I think there are two main reasons for that. First, I am not taking in enough calories to gain muscle. Second, with not eating enough calories, I feel my body is beginning to store fat again, something I cannot have. I am doing cardio two days per week right now for 45 minutes per session and the fat is not going anywhere. I am not gaining weight but I am not loosing any either. Hopefully with a revamped plan, and a new desire to get my six-pack, the next 8 weeks will be beneficial.

Tomorrow I have another date with a treadmill. I already know the outcome.

Had a great one at the gym this morning. Got there a little later than usual. I have always heard that if you want to meet different classes of people at your gym go at different times. Well that is true. I was “Sweatin’ with the Oldies today. I thought all the seniors went early in the morning but I guess I was wrong. Oh well, I still got in a good days work.

I tried something a little out of my comfort zone today. After about an hour of weights I hit the treadmill for about 20 minutes of intervals. I was able to jog just about the entire 20 minutes. That, for me, is an improvement. Anyway, I did 20 minutes, mostly at 5.0 mph and varied the incline from 1.0 to 3.0. I logged 1.46 miles and supposedly burned 146.3 calories. I never have trusted those stupid readouts. The workout consisted of the following:

BACK
Straight-arm pulldowns … 3 sets of 15
Cable Pulldowns … 4 sets of 15 {2 sets wide grip - 2 sets narrow}
T-bar Rows (machine) … 4 sets of 15
Seated Cable Rows … 3 sets of 15

I supersetted each set of back exercises with, what is called at my gym, APE HANGERS. I have read about this stretching exercise recently and how it is supposed to improve your “V shape. After a working set of weights, I went over to the chin-up bar and would hang on the bar as long as possible. I started out shooting for 30 seconds each time. While hanging there I would contract my lats and hold until I had to turn loose. We’ll see how this works on my “V.

BICEPS
BB curls … 3 sets of 15
1-arm preacher curls … 3 sets of 15
Cable curls (drop set) … dropped the weight 3 times for a total of 32 reps

Have a great weekend!

- I was eating God knows how many “unhealthy calories. If it wasn’t fried I did not want it

- Tipped the scale at a whopping 260 pounds

- Fit very snuggly in a size 40 full cut jean

- Had to use a CPAP machine to sleep

- Had no energy, always depressed

- Drank a minimum of 6 diet cokes and nearly an entire gallon of milk a day

- Could not do 1 sit-up or push up and would loose my breath when bending over to tie my shoes

As of today:

- I am on a nutritional plan that gives me all the protein, carbs and fat I need to reach my full body potential

- Weighed in at 222.6

- My 36’s are a little loose. Almost time to get some 34’s

- The CPAP is back in it’s box and in the closet (after all I did have to pay $300+ after the insurnace paid their 80%. I ain’t gonna toss it but I don’t plan on using it either)

- Have done cardio 2-3 times per week since October 2006

- What’s a diet coke. I might drink one every 5 weeks or so. I still have a little milk but it is with breakfast or a protein shake

- Did 75 crunches this morning before cardio and can do a fair amount of pushups before failure

What a difference a year makes. And I am just getting started!

I’ll keep this one short and sweet. Today was weird. I could not get into the leg workout I had scheduled. I did two of the 4 exercises and just lost my drive. Not sure what the problem was. On the other hand, I killed my delts and traps. By far the best, most intense delt/trap workout I’ve had in recent weeks. Oh well, my legs are not lagging so I’ll take the good with the bad and go on.

Here’s how the day progressed:

LEGS (3 sets of 15)
Leg Press
Leg Extensions

DELTS (3 sets of 15)
Dumbell Press
Cable Side Lateral Raises
Dumbell Front Raises

TRAPS (3 sets of 15)
Upright Cable Rows (using EZ-bar)
Dumbell Shrugs

Tomorrow I hit the elliptical for some cardio intervals. Yipee!

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=1533461

I changed things up a little on my chest routine today. First, I started out with decline db presses. I have notice that my lower pecs are not getting the growth and other parts of the pecs so I decided to concentrate on them first. The good part of that was I got a real good lower pec workout. The bad is I pre-exhausted the muscles and did not get a full round on the flat bench. Oh, well. Second, I did not do a lot of long bar exercises today. I concentrated on the dumbbells so I could concentrate more on controlling my core and getting a good push.

Everything else went pretty good. I finished the day with an arm popping tricep workout. this week I am concentrating on my rep range so all exercises were done with a weight that would allow me to hit 12-15 reps per set. Here’s the rundown:

CHEST
Decline DB Press … 4 sets of 12
Incline DB Press … 4 sets of 12
DB Pullovers … 3 sets of 12
Hammer Press … 2 sets of 12

TRICEPS
Cable Pushdowns … 3 sets of 12
DB Extensions … 1 set of 12, 2 sets of 15
Kickbacks … 3 sets of 15
Dips … 3 sets of 6

Between each set of tricep exercises I knocked out 25 decline crunches until I did 100. It beats just walking around waiting for the next set. Tomorrow is quad/calves/delts.

Here the entries from my training journal for this past week.

Highlight of the week: There is no doubt in my mind what this weeks highlight was. On Wednesday I leg pressed 610 pounds for 6 reps. A friend of mine who reads my blogs told me that she did not believe it. She said I was full of BS. I then invited her and her husband to come to the gym with me and I will do it again. I even offered to pay their guest fees. Now the ball is in her court. What ‘cha say Puddin?

Cardio Notes: I was able to go 45 minutes on the elliptical this past Thursday. I remember back last fall when I started this transformation. During my weight-loss phase I had worked my way up to about 40 minutes on the treadmill. One day I talked myself into trying the elliptical for the first time. Not knowing what I was doing I selected the “fat loss program on the machine. I believe it was a 30 minute interval program. I made it to the 17 minute mark and gave up. I was beat to a pulp. Now, I am glad that I did not let that one experience define my entire outlook. Instead, I determined to work my up to doing 45 minutes on that thing … and this week I did.

Strength Notes: My chest days are coming along great. My upper body has always been the weaker body part and I knew I was in for a fight to get it going. I have a goal of bench pressing my body weight by June 1st.  As of this week, I am about 70% to that goal. I hope to be able to accomplish this within the next month. Then, I will be setting my sights on the 300 pound club. I hope to reach that by my 41st birthday in October. I am starting to see some development in my pecs, although, it is nowhere near what I want. It will come … I just have to be patient … which is not easy for me.

Nutrition Notes: It was an average week for nutrition. I did not take a cheat day this week like I normally do. My work schedule got jostled around for this weekend and I had to cover night shifts on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The change in sleep had a drastic impact on my nutrient timing. Like I said, no cheats, but my times were all screwed up. Next week will be better.

“What keeps me motivated is preparing for the next challenge. I always have something in my mind, whether it’s a competition or a solo adventure. Tim Twietmeyer, five-time winner, 100-mile Western States Endurance Run.

I am really not in the mood to do this today. I have the “crud or whatever it is that is going around. Not really sick, just a bad sinus headache and not a lot of energy. Plus, I just found out that an old police buddy of mine was killed today on the job. He was directing traffic at our local high school when a school bus lost control and struck him, killing him. Dexter was one of the good guys and a 20 year veteran of the force. Rest in peace my friend.

As far as a workout, I did back and biceps today for my last lifting day of power week. I am starting to feel the back muscles working now. I have really been paying attention to my form here of late on all my exercises (especially back). I have been feeling the weights in my biceps and delts telling me that my form was off. Today, I must have been right on target because I really felt the Pulldowns and T-bars.

Biceps were another story. Got a good pump but just did not feel like I worked them at all. Maybe next week when I do hi reps they will burn and ache for a while.

Anyway, here’s the rundown:

Wide-grip Pulldowns … 4 sets of 6
T-bar Rows … 4 sets of 6
Seated Cable Rows … 4 sets of 6
Straight-arm Pushdowns … 4 sets of 6

Standing BB Curls … 3 sets of 6
1-arm Preacher Curls … 3 sets of 6
DB Hammer Curls … 3 sets of 6

That was enough to take all the energy I had today. I have to work night shift this weekend and it has already thrown a wrench in my nutrition. I’ll do what I can to make it through the weekend and get back on track next week. No cheating, just a screwed up schedule.

Today, I put in an awesome (for me anyway) cardio workout. I did not make the same mistake on the elliptical that I made Tuesday on the treadmill. I upped the time from 30 to 45 minutes but left the crossramp setting alone. I averaged a little over 161 strides per minutes during the entire workout. My work intervals ranged from 160-200 strides per minute at level 7 and my resting (if you can call it that) segments were from 140-160 strides per minute at level 4 resistance.

Along with the elliptical I put in an ab workout. As a warm-up I knocked out 50 incline sit-ups and incline leg raises respectively. After the elliptical, I put in 50 crunches on the Cybex Crunch machine and 50 rotations (each side) on the torso rotation machine.

Here are the numbers from today:

Minutes: 45:00
Strides: 7275
Calories Burned: 517.9

Back to the weights tomorrow, working back and biceps.