I’ve been on this diet for a week or so now, and thus far I’ve lost 3.5 kilos. (87.5 to 84 kilos) That tells me I’m just about on track with what I’m doing.
Did arms and delts the day before yesterday, nothing too interesting bout that.
Today I did heavy back and pmp work for chest as follows;
Strict bent over row
3x8x100kgs
Weighted pull ups w/fat grips
3x10x10kgs
Meadows row
3x12x45kgs/side Back stretch
all chest flies were done with straight arms
4a Low to high cable fly
4xF
4b High incline DB Press
4xF
5a High to low cable fly
4xF
5b DBBench, only upper back on the bench
4xF Chest stretch
6a Rear delt burns
2xF
6b Side delt burns
2xF
Notes:
A solid session.
I’m really liking this supersets for the same muscle group-thing. It’s a bit over an hour since I finished my session and my chest is still cramping.
I’m also enjoying the fact that these sessions are rather short. This one took 45 minutes including warmups.
Tomorrow will be heavy quads and pump work for hamstrings.
Just an observation, I really don’t mean to come off as a jerk but those numbers on the squat look low for you. I mean, I myself do more than that and I’m nowhere near as strong as you, and they look even stranger compared to your 160 kg row.
My hamstrings are really easy to hog the activation; thus I do most of my squatting in a very quad-dominant way (high bar/front squat, deep and controlled)
I did one set of regular deep squats (beltless) during my volume deload I worked up to triple with 160 kilos
I’m 193cm tall, so the range of motion is pretty long and the leverages are really not that good
I tweaked my lower back a while ago and ever since it has been giving me some a hit if I haven’t been careful with it.
I’m just a weak squatter. Rows are my one dance move, I’m strong with them. Squats, no so much
I understand. There is always some risk involved in investing, the point is to spread that risk out so that a turn in the market won’t kill your savings. With that said, you are “always” holding on to an asset until you sell it, so even if the valuation for that asset decreases you haven’t really lost anything until you sell it off and there is a chance for the asset to increase in value over time.
I’m going to maybe oversimplify things for a bit:
So, say you buy a single stock X at 5 euro, and it decreases to 4 euro. You haven’t lost 1 euro, it’s just that the value of that stock has decreased for now. Before you decide to make the sale, the stock price might have recovered. By buying stocks or funds that belong to different market sectors you are essentially diversifying your portfolio and making your savings less sensitive to bubbles.
So, for instance, if you only buy stock in IT-companies you might end up suffering a great deal if there is a tech bubble and all of those stock prices decline. But, if you have stock in many different market sectors then only part of your holdings are affected by that.
Do you have Netflix? They have a documentary series called “Explained”, they had an episode where they go over this kind of stuff in a ELI5 manner (explain it to me like I’m 5)
Weight was 82.5kgs yesterday morning. Didn’t have any carbs the day before so that number is a bit skewed. Weighted in at 82.9 today.
Yesterday’s training;
Low incline bench
3x6x100kgs
Semi-wide grip bench
3x8x115kgs
Incline flies
4 sets to failure
5a Wide grip Smith machine rows
4xF
5b Ugly rear laterals
4xF
6a Cable pullover
4xF
6b Lat pulldown behind the head
4xF
7 Side laterals
1 long-ass set to failure
Notes:
Even though I was 3 kilos lighter than last time I did heavy chest the weights moved pretty well.
I feel that my chest is looking exponentially thicker now that I’ve started doing stuff apart from pure pressing for it, it’s almost like isolation exercises weren’t actually a complete waste of time.
Overall it was a good session. Trying to get strong as hell on incline bench at the moment.
Looking at this training session reminded me that I haven’t done any serious barbell pressing for the past year more or less.
The barbell bench press never felt right to me and I always preferred Incline db presses.
However, knowing that I’m not doing one of the most used exercises around the world makes me feel like my training is incomplete sometimes. Should I try and master the movement? If so, are there any tips to doing so?
Personally I have only done regular bench for the past three or so months. If you’re not interested in powerlifting it is absolutely fine not to bench.
I’d even go as far as to say that DB variations and close grips are better for building muscle than regular barbell bench, I’m just doing it because at the moment I feel like it - it’s comfortable and fun as it is something new
If you do want to do the BB bench press but it feels wrong try to play around with grip width, different arches and foot positioning to find a comfortable way to press
4a Low to high cable fly
5xF
4b High incline dumbbell bench
5xF
5a High to low cable fly
5xF
5b Wide grip Smith machine bench (only upper back on bench)
5xF Chest stretch
6a Rear delt pulls
3x30-50
6b Long ROM laterals
3x20-30 Delt stretch
Notes:
Woke up with notable shoulder pain, which was odd. Probably has to do with the fact that I slept on the floor last night as I may or may not have broken the bed’s legs once again. Luckily it went away before I began training.
Switched my second and third back movements a bit and it made a huge difference. Last time I did my pull ups with fat grips and a thumb-included grip and it could’ve been better. By removing the thumb from the equation I was able to do a lot more work with my back and it was fantastic.
With meadows rows I’ve usually liked a but more vertical torso angle as it feels great on the lats, but as my lats don’t really need that much extra attention I decided to go more horizontal, and it felt just great on the back as a whole.
After back work I did pump work for chest, only thing I changed there was the second press going from dumbbells to smith machine as flinging up heavy dumbbells in that position (only upper back on bench) feel kinda hazardous.
Did all my flies with straight arms and ended every pressing set in a painfully long negative rep.
Finished up with some delt work, got a pretty nice pump there.
6a Lat pulldown crunch
3x15-20
6b Plank pull-ins
3x12-15
Notes:
Front squat felt pretty solid.
Back squats didn’t feel too good this time. Or the last time, really. I feel that my lower back and hamstrings get involved too much even with such light weight and a quad-dominant set-up.
I’ll probably ditch back squats for a while now in favor of something better. Hack squat machine or SSB squat would be perfect but I don’t have access to either one of those. I’ll probably try DB squats next time.
Did a lot of work for the hamstrings with the metabolic stuff and all, but even with that this session only took around 70 minutes to complete.
Apart from squats this was a pretty great session, I’d say
Last couple of days have been pretty hard in terms of productive training
During my sessions I’ve been really unfocused and just not there, so to speak. Now if I was just training to lift as much as possible this wouldn’t be a problem for me. Personally I find it really easy to perform and to get into that mindset of moving some heavy iron. But trying to stimulate the muscle maximally when focus is lacking feels damn near impossible to me.
Maybe things will change after tomorrow’s rest day. At least I hope so.
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