TweetWednesday and Saturday

So I had Wednesday and Friday off from work which was nice long weekend. I've had some technological difficulties this weekend with my cell phone going to crap and internet in my house being weird. Either way both days I had really good exercises and my strength is up across the boards which is awesome. I hit weight that I've handle in the past but it feels easier or I'm able to do more reps which I'm excited about.

I took the 5 days off from work to make sure my recovery was top notch as well. I did some extra stretching and foam rolling Thursday morning since I didn't go to the gym. I didn't set an alarm all weekend and slept as much as I could. And once a week I take an Epsom salt bath. I figured coupling all of that with the extra food for the holidays that my body would be ready to rebound and grow going into the depths of winter.

But I woke up yesterday with a bad sore throat which turned into a full on cold. I was hanging out with my g/f last night and shivering and then sweating. I was very uncomfortable and didn't sleep much at all last night. I'm going on like 3 hours of sleep as I type this and my head feels like it's 100lbs. My ears are blocked and I just feel blah. Today is supposed to be legs and back day but I'm still undecided on what I want to do. I may skip the gym and go home and relax or I might go and take it easy in hopes I just wear myself out and I pass out tonight.

TweetMonday

So I was wiped out after work. I skipped the gym and went home to try and feel better. Got my new phone in the mail so I spent much of the night setting it up. My brother is still in for the holidays so I ate with him and my mother which was nice. I thought at about 7 or 8pm that I was starting to feel better. Then right before bed my chest and stomach got pretty warm and my face felt flushed. I was hoping after a good nights sleep maybe I'd wake up and feel better. Nope, woke up this morning and my chest feels like it's on fire. After some sleep my energy levels are a lot better and not as drowsy but the chest thing sucks.

Yesterday at work one of my co-workers force fed me these energize C things, it's a powered vitamin c and electrolyte drink which I'm not sure has helped but I may go back to them today and see if I can get this things to go away.

TweetTuesday

Lat pulldown 4 sets
Close grip cable row 4 sets
Rope extension 4 sets
Leg press 4 sets
Standing Calve Raise 4 sets
Leg extension superset seated leg curl 4 sets
Low cable row superset with goblet squat 3 sets

So I wasn't feeling good at all and decided to hit the gym to see what I could do but mainly to break a sweat. I used to always train when I had a cold because I felt like it made me feel better. I'd break a sweat and somehow any fever or anything I had would go away. Never really going intense just enough to get some increased sweat going. As I get older it's been harder and harder, so what I did last night was focus on the squeeze and worked pretty fast through sets. Certain times during the workout I felt good and other times I couldn't breath during a set. At some points I was dizzy between sets but I wasn't going super heavy at all. The goblet squats really put my over the edge though, I was sweating and my nose was running during the sets. It wasn't a good site. Either way I got in some work which I was happy about.

TweetWednesday

Preacher curl machine 5 sets
Incline DB curl 3 sets
BB curl 3 sets
Cable preacher curl with ez curl attachment 3 sets
Reverse BB curl 3 sets
DB hammer curl 3 sets

After being away from the gym Sunday and Monday and a few days last week I felt like I needed to do some lifting. I didn't know what to do because I did legs and back the day before. I was tossing different things around and figured I'd do arms. But once I got there I was thinking I didn't want to fatigue my triceps for chest and shoulders today so I just did a lot of volume for my biceps. I'll do my arms again on Saturday. Still feeling sick so it wasn't anything earth shattering but it allowed me to do a few movements I don't normally do on arms day. Got a nice pump and was able to get a sweat going. After the lifting portion I did some farmers walks with kettlebells. It wasn't the weight I normally use so I went 2 minutes on and 1 minute off. 1 minute of the kettlebell walk I did a suitcase carry and the 2nd minute I held the kettlebells up around my upper chest/shoulder area.

Last night I started to feel better. My nose is still clogged but my chest started to burn less. Hopefully I'm 100% by the end of the week.

TweetThursday

Seated Side lateral raise 4 sets
Standing shoulder press 4 sets
Reverse peck deck 4 sets
Hammer strength press 4 sets
Decline hammer strength 4 sets
Low cable crossover 4 sets
Landmine press 3 sets

Still not 100% but feeling better, it was nice the gym had the heat on so it took the chill out that I had. Had a fairly productive workout for what it was. I felt myself getting a bit better as the workout went. The gym was also empty so I had free reign over basically everything I wanted to use. Just a note on the landmine press so what I did was angled the BB into the corner just like when you do t bar rows. I started the movement by doing a shoulder press movement with one arm, then switching to the next arm, and then I'd use both arms and do a center press for the chest. Also have to leave town tomorrow morning which means no gym which sucks and a family friend passed so next week may be hectic too. I need to get back to hitting the gym each day, so much stuff going on around the holidays.

TweetWeekend

No gym on Saturday, went out of town with the girl. We went back to where she went college and shopped for Christmas. So even though I had no workout I did a ton of walking. I wore sneakers because I knew it would be walking but still by the end of the day I was worn out. The worst part was I didn't drink nearly enough water and felt dehydrated which made me really tired.

Sunday I didn't go to the gym but I'm getting carpeting in my house this week so I had to move a bunch of stuff to other areas of the house. Mostly upstairs. So it was like a constant farmers walk up and down the steps. I still have more to do but I actually was sweating from it.

Excited to get back to a routine today at the gym though.

TweetMonday

Leg extension superset with lying leg curl 4 sets
Squats 4 sets
Standing Calve raise 4 sets
Weighted pull ups 4 sets
T bar row 4 sets
Straight bar pulldown 4 sets
Kneeling rope lat pulldown 3 sets

Felt good to be back in the gym and not be sick. I had lower back pain all day at work but nothing was stopping me from getting in the gym and getting to work. After the leg extension and leg curl I just left my belt on the whole workout to help keep things tight so I didn't hurt anything more than it already was. The workout was good and my strength maybe down a tad was still pretty good. My body felt fresh. Overall it was nice to be in the gym and I'm hoping the rest of the week feels this way.

The last two weeks have been a disaster in terms of getting to the gym and I think my body shows it in the mirror. But nothing some hard work this week can't really reverse. Might be good in the long run to have those days off to stay fresh and not need any time away from the gym as we hit the depths of winter.

TweetTuesday

Side lateral raise 4 sets
Standing shoulder press 4 sets
Reverse peck deck 4 sets
Flat bench press 4 sets
Incline bench press 4 sets
Cable crossover 4 sets
Landmine press 4 sets (one arm at a time, then both hands in the center of chest)

Felt amazing to be back. Strength is right where I want it, but of course I'll take being stronger. But the numbers I was hitting were good and the pump in my chest was killer. The workout seemed to fly by. I thought I was going to run really short on time but I wanted to do landmine presses so I fit them in. Went home and did a nice stretch for my chest and shoulders.

Also each night this week I've been moving stuff from my main floor either upstairs or downstairs so it's sort of an extra little workout. At one point last night I was spent from carrying stuff all over the place.

TweetWednesday

25 minutes of Farmers walks

Again I'm doing 1 minute on 1 minute off and it seems to work pretty well. Creates a good challenge because the weight becomes difficult after awhile and you look at the clock at 30 seconds and feel like you should only have 4 seconds left.

Other than that not to much to report, I gotta get myself on a scale because it's been awhile just to see where I'm at. Also thinking about getting away from a traditional bodybuilding routine if I can. I still want to hold on to the main lifts but I would like to do more tire flips, box jumps, and athletic type movements. It's just going to be difficult in my gym that doesn't have much, I'm slowly looking and piecing things together as to where I can do some of this stuff.

TweetSo the last couple days I haven't really run updates....I went to the gym Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday as normal. Workouts have been good and progress has been solid. Time on the other hand has been tight. We had some snow and I've been doing the holiday thing with my lady and leaving town here and there. Works been super busy.

Only updates I really have is that my weight hasn't changed much. Diet hasn't been the best with the traveling and I have taken off more days than I want to from the gym. On the positive note I think my arms are slowly growing which was one of my main goals for the winter and my lats look to be bigger or atleast more full than they were. I'll take it

Today marks the last day for Sparta Nutrition Hercules and my preworkout right now is I force Max out, anyone who follows me knows it's one of my favorite preworkouts on the market since it has everything I look for in a preworkout and no beta alanine which I think is a plus

TweetWednesday

10 minute farmers walk
60 crunches
5 minutes farmers walk
60 crunches
5 minutes farmers walk
weighted side dips
5 minutes walk
60 crunches

Felt like I haven't had a cardio day in awhile. Went back to what I was doing in the summer sort of. Just had fun with it a bit, I used lighter weight than I do on weight training days but held on to the weight for longer. Went with kettlebells that have a slightly fatter grip on them. Also switched up the way I was holding them, sometimes it was a suitcase walk, other times I had them around the shoulders, and once in awhile I would walk with the weight in a position like I was doing a kettlebell front squat. Just went with it to enjoy myself as much as I could.

Haven't really gained any weight which is odd but whatever.

TweetOnce again I was away from a computer for a few days. Thursday was a good day at the gym. I was pretty pleased with my weight that day. I was dialed in and the workout reflected it by the end. Saturday on the other end wasn't the best workout. Woke up to some snow so I went and shoveled that and headed to the gym. Usually on Saturday theres this loud mouth guy there so I just go upstairs and use that part of the gym for my arm workout. But I saw one of the guys there that I like chopping it up with and decided to stay downstairs. Him and I flip tires in the spring and summer together and motivate each other. I made the mistake though, the loud mouth wouldn't shut up and that guy seemed like he was drained from his workout. So no real motivation was happening. My workout wasn't great as I wasn't really focused on the weight and the order in which I was doing things.

With that said I'm not up much weight and have been trying to increase calories a bit more. I think I gained some fat since Thanksgiving but I'm no where close to where I was when I started cutting last year which is a positive, if I can sneak out a few more lbs before New Years I'll be pretty happy.

TweetMonday

Leg extension superset with lying leg curl 4 sets
Squat 4 sets
Standing Calve raise superset with t bar row 4 sets
Straight bar pulldown 4 sets
Lat pulldown superset with goblet squat 4 sets

So my mother asked me to cut the gym short to help her with something last night. I still figured I could get in my normal workout but right after my squats I looked at the time and saw I was close on time to I had to turn it up a notch. That's why you'll see supersets in there. I wanted to try and get in a good enough amount of volume in order to make the workout worth it. I didn't do any cardio and think I did ok. The one problem I had was the squats, my groin felt like it was pulling everything I got below parallel and I was stretching it out in between sets which is where I think I lost some time. Other than that I think the workout went pretty well.