TweetWednesday

Skipped the gym to cut the grass and do yardwork. As the summer has ended the nights come earlier and it leaves me searching for a minute to cut my grass. It was unruly so I decided that would be my cardio for the day. After I cut the grass I put away my furniture I had on my back deck for the winter. So 4 chairs, a big glass table and a swing. Nothing crazy in terms of heavy lifting but awkward lifting, the frame of the swing is like 8 ft long and super side so carrying that across my backyard was a treat. Broke into a really good sweat doing all of it so I'll take it.

TweetThursday

Leg extension superset with lying leg curl 4 sets
Squat 6 sets
Seated calve raise superset with leg press 2 sets

Leg work felt really good. Really good squeeze throughout the whole workout. I made a note about deadlift that it's difficult to get in the groove in just 4 sets of work. So that's why I pushed more sets of the squat, I was able to push the weight and it felt good to be able to keep increasing the weight with each set. I was dripping sweat towards the end and really felt like the presses finished my legs off, turning them to straight jello

TweetSaturday

Shoulders

Monday

Chest and Tris

I hate long weekends when it comes to the journals because I'll never remember good details of two workouts. What I do remember is going heavy on shoulder presses which felt amazing. Chest workout I went with hammer strengths which I really prefer for the "feeling" of the chest movements. The negatives on the hammer strength feel soo much better than free weights. I feel like I'm getting work both positive and negative portions of the movement.

TweetTuesday

Deadlift 4 sets
Weighted pull up 4 sets
T bar row 4 sets
DB curl 4 sets
BB curl 4 sets
Rope hammer curl 4 sets

Straight bar pulldown 3 sets
Preacher curl machine 3 sets

Really the same routine as it's been for back and bi's. I feel like this routine hits the main spots that I want and covers all areas. Deadlifts felt good again, weighted pull ups are a struggle. I may do those before deadlifts because I feel like after deadlifts I struggled to do the pull ups as good. Biceps felt good and arms looked thick in the mirror which I was happy about. I had some extra time at the end so I did the pulldowns mostly for my neck and posture, the preacher curl machine was right there so I hopped on that quick and did some sets.

I'll have to weigh myself again soon and get an update on my supplement regime as well.

TweetGreat log bro, keep it up!

TweetWednesday

100 crunches
10 minutes farmers walk
weighted crunch machine
10 minutes stair stepper
60 crunches
10 minutes farmers walk

On the outside it doesn't look like an exciting workout and it wasn't but it was challenging. Not sure if it's because I'm doing arms during the week now but the farmers walks, even at a lighter weight than I normally use was a struggle. My grip felt like garbage, probably my forearms being fried. It was difficult both times. The stair stepper also had me sweating pretty heavily which I wasn't expected. I saw the machine and something in my mind said "I haven't done that in awhile, lets see what happens" and I feel like it was a good decision.

TweetAWESOME!

TweetThursday

Leg extension superset with leg curl 4 sets
Squat 7 sets
Leg press 3 sets
Standing calve raise 3 sets

Got to the gym and thought it would be terrible. I had a long day at work and wasn't super excited to do the work. The leg extension and curls felt really good though, the muscles were firing and the squeeze felt really solid. I was still a bit tired but after a few sets of squats I started feeling really good. I decided for the last 3 or 4 sets to push the weight and did a bunch of 1 rep sets, then I would add just a little weight and do it again to see how high I could get, I was pretty happy with the results. Because I went low rep for the squats I did some leg press and stayed above 10 reps each set. It turned out to be a good workout once I woke up a bit.

TweetSaturday

Side lateral raise 4 sets
Facepull 4 sets
Standing shoulder press 4 sets

mixture of shoulder exercises

I woke up and felt like death on Saturday. I had a headache, I was dizzy, my stomach felt off. I forced myself to the gym and kind of just went through the motions to get in the work I wanted to. However towards the end I felt much better so instead of leaving after a lackluster workout I stayed and pushed myself. That's where you see the mixture of exercises. I sort of bounced around the gym doing whatever I saw that I wanted to do for shoulders. By the end of the workout it actually wasn't half bad for how bad I felt in the morning. After the gym, I went back to feeling like death again but that's alrite.

TweetMonday

Incline bench 5 sets
Hammer strength press 4 sets
Decline hammer strength 3 sets
Underhand reverse extension 4 sets
Wide grip extension/kickback 4 sets
V bar extension 4 sets

I'm sort of torn on my chest work. I want to do the compound lifts because obviously we all know that's the way to add size but I really feel a better squeeze and better negatives with the hammer strengths. So I tried to do both and maybe will stick to this. Went heavy on the incline press but kept the reps higher on the hammer strength. I was breazing through my workout when the owner started to talk to me which slowed me down a lot. That's why I did mainly cable work on the triceps which I don't mind since I'm loving the under hand reverse extensions, I really feel the muscle working so much with this exercise. Overall I enjoyed the workout.

TweetWednesday

100 crunches
10 minutes farmers walk
Roman chair leg raises
10 minutes farmers walk
Weighted crunch machine
10 minutes treadmill

A little hiccup on cardio today. I went to what I call the Planet Fitness dumbbell rack at my gym to use the weight for the farmers walks but two guys were using the dumbbells. Usually this rack doesn't get used much. So I decided to use a chain belt and put some plates on it to see that would add some fun to the walk. After about 5 minutes and the plates smashing my knees I decided it wasn't a good idea. I used plates to do the farmers walks which kind of sucked. I held them differently to see if I could get different effects, sometimes I pinched them to carry, sometimes I used the holes in the plates. So all in all it wasn't the greatest cardio day but it was a change.

TweetSaturday

Side lateral raise 4 sets
Bent reverse DB fly 4 sets
Standing shoulder press 4 sets
High row 3 sets
Facepull 3 sets

I really like doing the standing press later in the workout. I used to always do it first since it's a big movement but I feel it's a lot better when some blood is in the shoulders. I get a lot less creaks and crunches coming from my shoulders. Even with a good warm up the shoulder press would have some sot of pop in my shoulder, not that it hurt but I feel like getting some blood in there lessens this and makes the press more enjoyable. I moved fast during this workout, not on purpose but that's why I threw in some extras at the end. all in all a good workout. Had to go to a weeding this week and next weekend so diets been ehhh. I hope once all of this is over I can get it back to where it needs to be.

TweetMonday

Incline bench 5 sets
Hammer strength press 4 sets
Decline hammer strength 3 sets
Underhand reverse extension 4 sets
Wide grip extension/kickback 4 sets
Behind the head rope extension 4 sets

I was feeling drained from the wedding. Even though I passed out Sunday night really early and got a lot of sleep I just had that unenergetic mellow feeling. The workout was really solid though. I went up on all my chest work from the previous week and got an amazing pump on my triceps. So I added just 5lbs to my incline but 20lbs on both hammer strength machines which I was happy about. However laying in bed last night, thinking about my workout I realize I was more concerned with going up in weight than I was the squeeze of the movements, so that's something I need to watch going forward. Overall I was happy with the workout and it was humid so I got in a really good sweat.

Weight isn't really moving much. I feel less and less lean but the scale isn't showing a big jump in weight. I'm hoping that if I feel more and more lean that eventually I'll notice in the mirror a decent size difference but nothing to crazy as of yet.