February Blog ArchivesFebruary 29, 2008 Here is my workout from Thursday:
As you can see, my deadlift wasn't quite up to par. I was shooting for 15 reps and only got 7 reps. I was disappointed that I didn't get a least a few more. It was a weak performance. The only positive was that they were done almost completely continuous. There was very little resting in between reps. Oh well, that is my beginning point for the year. From here on out I plan on adding 2 lbs plus 1 more rep to each workout. If I can do this till the end of the year I will be well ahead of my goal of 455 lbs x 15 reps. Keep on progessing. That is the goal.
Today is deadlift day. To me, my workouts are always based around squats and deadlifts. I do one of these at each workout. I alternate reps and sets but one big lift is done each Monday and Thursday. Todays is high reps, regular deadlifts. I am going to be upping the weight to 431 lbs. This will be 26 lbs more than my last high rep workout and 1 lb more than my previous best. My goal is to get 15 reps. This year I am trying to do each rep in a more continuous manner. I am trying to keep the rest between each rep to a minimum. My goal this year is to hit 455 lbs x 15 continuous reps. I am off to workout.
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Here is yesterday's workout. Everything went up in weight and/or reps.
After spending over 7 weeks now cutting, I am surprised I am still able to keep the weights/reps moving up. It hasn't felt like I am on a cut diet. Although I am getting really tired of the food, my energy when I workout has not decreased. I plan on cutting for another 5 weeks, which will put me at 12 weeks total. Then I will be back to a more normal type diet. No more brocolli for breakfast.
After my brutal rack deadlift session last Thursday my back has been extremely sore. My lower back hasn't been that sore in a long time. It has taken me the whole weekend to get back to feeling normal again. I think I added a little to much weight, a little to fast. For today's workout I will be doing standing push presses. I will be increasing the weight by 2 lbs and going for 15 rest pause reps again. This slow weight progression should get me up in the 170's by the end of the year. At least that is what I am aiming for. Gotta bring my shoulders up this year. Also today will be half sqats. I added these a few weeks ago and am really enjoying moving bigger weight. I am hoping to get up over 400 lbs by the end of the year. Slow and steady. All my lifts will reach their all time highs this year.
Yesterday's workout included rack deads. I had forgot that I messed the weight up last time which made it 10 lbs lighter than it should have been. That meant that my jump this week was 31 lbs. I decided that I was going to go for 506 lbs(a new PR) at this workout. Well, I made 3 sets of 3 reps but only got 1 rep on the last 2 sets. It was a little to much for me. The first 3 sets were strong and smooth so I am thinking next time I should get 5 sets of 3 reps. I will be adding 2 lbs to the 506 lbs and shooting for the 5 sets x 3 reps. Everything else went good with increases in weight and/or reps. Here is yesterday's workout:
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Today is my rack deads day. I plan on adding 26 lbs to my previous workout weight. This will total 506 lbs. This will be 1 lb more than I ended the last year with. And then I can begin moving toward my goal for this year. My legs are still very sore from Mondays workout. Hopefully this won't be a problem during my workout. I will also be doing incline bench press, reverse pullups, dips, and crunches.
My legs are still extremely sore from my squat workout Monday. I am usually worse 2 days after my workout and that holds true today. Even walking is a problem. That was my highest weight for the highest amount of reps I have ever done so it was a good feeling. I welcome the soreness. Just hope that it gets somewhat better by tomorrow for my rack deads day.
I made it. Yesterday's goal was 255lbs for at least 30 reps. I did 31. They were a bit slower than I would have liked but the weight never left my shoulders. After about the 15 I was beginning to doubt myself. It was feeling heavy. 31 reps is alot on the squat. But I kept focused and kept plugging along. It is a much better feeling to rack the weight and know I made it than to rack it and know I gave up. High rep squats are more mental than anything else. Besides the squat, everything else went up in weight/reps. Everything is on track and progressing as planned.
Todays workout includes high rep squats. I have been moving up in weight over the last month or so and have finally gotten back to where I was at the end of last year. Today I will be adding 20 lbs to the squat and plan on hitting at least 30 reps with it. We will see how it goes. It always sound easier when I am writing about it compared to when the weight is sitting there for 5-10 minutes. I do enjoy the mental aspect of high rep squats. They are one of my favorites.
Yesterdays deads about killed me. I di get my 15 reps with 405 lbs. 9 were touch and go and the last 6 had a little rest between each rep. I was hoping to get more touch and go reps but 9 was all I could get. By the time I was done with the 15 rep, my whole back was dead as well as my cardiovascular system. I took me awhile to recover. I was glad to get all 15 though. The next time I do these I will be jumping up 26 lbs which will be 1 lb more than I ended last year with 15 reps. The rest of the workout went as planned with increases in weight/reps in all exercises. All in all a great workout.
This year I had changed my workouts to include benching from the bottom position in my power rack. I would start in the down position and press up. This technique has bothered my shoulder so I am switching it up to a regular bench press. Starting today I will be doing regular flat bench press. I will be doing 5 sets of 3 reps with a 30 second rest between each set. This should aleviate the problem with the shoulder. Also today is high rep deadlifts. I am going to be doing 405 lbs and will see how many reps I can get with that. My goal is 15 reps. We will see how it goes.
I am in my 6th week of the my cut diet. Things have been going good as my body as adapted to the feedings. I am no longer stuffed all the time and the carb load meal has gotten easier to finish. I am proud to say that I have stuck to the plan 100% thus far. I have not missed one meal and have not cheated at all. I believe the plan is working and am going to stay on it for an extra 4 weeks to reach my desired leaness. I am looking at reaching 8% bodyfat by the end.
Had a great workout yesterday. I had very high energy and felt strong throughout. All my lifts went up as planned. As you know, since the beginning of the year I have been on a cut diet. I am trying to get down around 8% bodyfat. I thought that being on a cut diet I would get somewhat weaker in my lifts. Because of that, I had lightened the weights I was using before my cut diet. Well, my strength has not decreased and I am gradually building back up to my normal weights. I plan on moving past my previous best in the next couple of weeks, all while cutting down. This cut down diet has worked great. Here is Monday's workout:
Today is leg day for me. And for legs today it is 5 sets of 3 reps of half squats. My last workout I hit 325 lbs so this week I think I am going to bump it up to 335 lbs. Last workout went very well so I think I should be able to hit this. Also, on the list for todays workout is standing push press. As I have said before I am really weak at this exercise. I am looking to add big weight to it this year. I am going to take of video of it to put on my video page. This should keep me motivated to push myself and bring it in line with the rest of my lifts.
As I said yesterday, Thursdays workout was my Rack Deads day. I was going for 485 lbs x 5 sets of 3 reps. Everything went just fine until a few hours later I realized that I had only loaded 475 lbs on the bar. Dumb move. I am not sure how I managed to do that. I did do all my sets and reps but I was down 10 lbs from where I wanted to be. Next time I am going for 506 lbs which will be my personal best. Everything else yesterday went great. I was up in reps and/or sets in all lifts. Here is yesterday's workout:
Todays workout includes one of my favorite exercises - rack deadlifts. These are done in my power rack with the pins at there lowest position. That leaves the bar right below the knee caps. Since I started using these in my routine a couple of years ago, my back has responded nicely. There is nothing like pulling big weights and this exercise allows for some of the heaviest. My plan today is to use 485 lbs for 5 sets of 3 reps. This will bring me in line to hit my personal best at my next workout. Then it is on to my 2008 goal of 535 lbs for 5 sets of 3 reps.
Starting this last Monday, I have added another 45 minute cardio session. I have been on my cut diet for over 4 weeks and wasn't seeing the results I had hoped for. Hopefully this cardio session will get me loosing the fat. I am not sure of what my bodyfat is as I do not have a way to measure it. I am going to have to look into getting something so I can keep track. Right know I only track my progress with the mirror and scale. I have met my goal of not cheating over the last 4 weeks. I have eaten every meal on schedule and have not swayed from the diet at all. I plan on keeping this up for the next 5 -7 weeks.
Yesterday was my high rep squatting workout. I am back up to 235 x 25 reps. The next time I do them I will be adding 20 more lbs. This will put me at 255 lbs and will be shooting for at least 30 reps. My goal this year is to hit 275 lbs x 50 reps. I think that this is doable. Also yesterday I switch from one leg dumbbell calve raises to one leg calve raises done on my smith machine. I needed a change and this will allow for me to use heavier weights. My dumbbells only go up to 70 lbs. As for the rest of the workout, I added 5 lbs to my dumbbell shoulder press, so my reps went down and I hit 14 reps on the EZ bar curls instead of 15. Here is Monday's workout:
Thursday workout went ok. I missed my rep target for my bench and pullups. Made it on my close grip bench and deads. The deads made me very sore. I was sore from the top of my traps down to my lower back. At the end of last year I pulled 430 lbs 15 times. Although I made all 15 there was alot of rest between each rep. My goal this year is to end the year doing 455 lbs 15 times but with alot less rest. It is going to take some getting used to as 365 lbs left me light headed. They were pretty much straight through. Here is what I did on Thursday -
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