TweetThursday

Set a deadlift PR. I finally had someone at the gym motivating me to keep going. it doesn't hurt that he's a physical therapist and knows his stuff, so he was also able to watch my form and help me. I don't know how many sets I ended up doing, most of the workout was deadlifts with some other things sprinkled in.

Saturday

Arms workout was good, woke up with a blazing neckache and some dizziness. I got to the gym and it seemed to go away and I managed some nice pumps in my arms. Arms felt full of blood but as soon as I left the gym, BAM my neckache was back. My girl said I looked all sorts of messed up. When I have my neck pain I get terrible bags under my eyes, they look droopy and stuff, that's what was happening but it was bad. I went home and laid in the recliner for most of the afternoon. I did do some foam rolling and took an Epsom salt bath but nothing seemed to touch it, later in the day I just gave in and took some ibprofuren or whatever.

Monday

Monday was another pretty good workout, it was an off day from work and the gym was pretty packed so I went to slower area of the gym and did some different things. If you haven't tried it, if you can dismantle your leg press/hack squat machine, I turn it into a shoulder press machine. Haven't done it in awhile and it's brutal for me with the weight but I really enjoyed using it. Also did some dips for my chest which I haven't done in awhile. My shoulders are actually sore today and they never get sore.

TweetTuesday

Leg extension superset with lying leg curl 4 sets
Squats 4 sets
Standing Calve raise 4 sets
Pull ups 4 sets
Straight bar pulldown 4 sets
T bar row 4 sets
Leg press superset with lat pulldown 4 sets

Having some issues with my squat right now. As I get low into the squat my groin is pulling like crazy with pain. I don't know whats happening, I didn't go heavy on the squat and that's why I had to throw in some leg press at the end of the workout because I wanted to make sure I hit my legs with some heavy weight. The bar work was really good though. My gf thinks since I've been dealing with pain over the last week or so in my groin area and other spots that I should take some time off from the gym. I feel like I've missed days here or there over the last few months so I don't want to take a full week off but my sleep is also iffy which is an indicator for me that I need some time off. Maybe I'll throw in a 2 or 3 day stretch of off days, we'll see.

Tweeti love the extension curl super sets man they are killer. on your groin issue i have had it on and off in the past, even going so far as hitting the pt for it. couple of remedies and none of which involves stopping training. that makes it worse haha. first one is to use a knee wrap to wrap the area and continue to squat heavy. i have done that from time to time with success. lots and lots of adductor pre and rehab work with stretching. i found that helps out healing the area up much faster than wrapping and training through the pain. also check your foot positioning it could be off a tad. hopefully my mishaps will help you out a tad. something also that comes to mind that initially started my problem was a strength imbalance in my outer thigh. my outer thigh was much stronger because i did everything pretty much close stance and my groin adductor area was pulling and causing pain. i just opened my stance up slowly over weeks until it all balanced out

TweetWednesday

10 minutes farmers walks (20 second intervals)
30 weighted crunches
5 minutes farmers walks (30 second intervals)
30 weighted crunches
5 minutes farmers walks (30 second intervals)
60 crunches
5 minutes walk

So I went up with my weight on the farmers walk and decreased the interval time. I thought 20 seconds would be a good amount but it wasn't destroying my grip strength all that much. That's why I increased it to 30 seconds which was a little better. All in all I broke somewhat of a sweat and it was challenging. I'm also short and I keep the DB in the cup holders of the treadmill while I'm not holding them, the extra weight got tough to get up into the cup holders while walking a few times. The year is coming to an end, I think I'm going to finish tonight and Saturdays work out and take Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday off from the gym, possibly Wednesday and Thursday we'll see how I feel.

Tweet

Originally Posted by guns01

i love the extension curl super sets man they are killer. on your groin issue i have had it on and off in the past, even going so far as hitting the pt for it. couple of remedies and none of which involves stopping training. that makes it worse haha. first one is to use a knee wrap to wrap the area and continue to squat heavy. i have done that from time to time with success. lots and lots of adductor pre and rehab work with stretching. i found that helps out healing the area up much faster than wrapping and training through the pain. also check your foot positioning it could be off a tad. hopefully my mishaps will help you out a tad. something also that comes to mind that initially started my problem was a strength imbalance in my outer thigh. my outer thigh was much stronger because i did everything pretty much close stance and my groin adductor area was pulling and causing pain. i just opened my stance up slowly over weeks until it all balanced out

I appreciate the input. I have a guy who I'm friends with at the gym that will watch me and help me with my positioning, it just sucks when he gets to the gym earlier than I do. It could be foot placement. A few months ago I adjusted my stance for squats to a closer stance because it allows me to get lower in the squat for whatever reason. The guy says I have tight heel bands.

I am going to make it a priority to do more accessory work in 2017 though. That's one of my goals. I stretch now, I foam roll and all of that but not enough, most of the actual workout is dedicated to muscle building movements. I may reduce some weight training in favor of mobility work and I think that would cause less pain and improve the main lifts.

TweetHolidays got me again

I worked out Thursday and Saturday. Brought the new years in and haven't been back to the gym yet. Wanted to take some time off to get help heal some injuries, it's been since the first week of September since I really took a few consecutive planned days off from the gym so my body probably needed some break. I will be going back today but I've decided this week I'll just go light and worry about correcting any form issues but more importantly getting some blood into the muscle and doing cardio.

I started the new year with some health and detox type supplements that I'll be using. Apple cider vinegar and pink salt in the morning, iforce thermoxyn detox, threw in some hawthorne berries, and a greens supplement back into the arsenal. Get the year off right and make sure I'm as healthy as possible as I go forward.

TweetWednesday

Side lateral raise 4 sets
Reverse peck deck 4 sets
Wide grip high row 4 sets
Hammer strength press 4 sets
Peck deck 4 sets
Low cable crossover 4 sets

The goal here was to just get some blood in the muscle which I did successfully. Another goal was/is to get some stretching in to hopefully relieve some tightness and improve posture. I did some weighted stretches for the chest and shoulders. I think did some stretches for my back, hopefully to get everything in place. It was a pretty decent workout, no pressure to go crazy, no pressure to fit in a certain amount of sets or anything, just went in there and did my thing. Today I'll do back and legs, Saturday I'll do arms and we'll get back on track next week.

TweetThursday

Lat pulldown 4 set
Chest pad t bar row 4 sets
Straight bar pulldown 4 sets
Leg extension superset with seated leg curl 4 sets
Vertical leg press 4 sets
Seated calve raise 4 sets

Again nothing heavy, just trying to build a pump. Also again did some stretching at the end, the vertical leg press really bothered the groin area so I made sure I stretched it out really good at the end. The stretching felt really good, it wasn't painful it was almost relieving the pain a bit, I need to keep up the stretching and dedicate more time to it. I've been doing it after my workouts but nothing too long just a light stretch but the last two days I put in more time to it and yesterday it really felt good.

TweetSaturday

DB Curl 4 sets
BB curl 4 sets
Preacher curl machine 4 sets
Cable skull crushers 4 sets
Rope extensions 4 sets
Dip machine 4 sets

So I had planned on going light one last time before getting back into the groove on Monday. But I got some samples to review and I'm not the type that wants to go 50% when reviewing a product and possibly give an inaccurate review. So I did my workout like it wasn't a deload type week and had a fairly good workout. I'll touch on some of the aspects of the workout during the review. As I've mentioned it's become a goal to really do some work at the end of my session for more stretching or work to improve posture/pain prevention. I whipped out some YTI's on Saturday because my neck was super tight and after I was done with a few sets and some face pulls the neck cracked like crazy. I went and got a massage later in the day too which hopefully helps moving forward.

onto the review:

PES Prolific- Rasberry Lemonade

First off thanks to the guys at PES for sending my samples to try out.

Taste: This is a big one for me, I have no been a fan of PES's flavors in the past. The flavor this time was good. It was very similar to the Alphamine flavoring imo but a lot less chemical tasting. The word that stuck out to me when drinking it was smooth. It drank really smooth and was enjoyable. The one thing I noticed was that it did have plenty of flavor but each sip I caught myself saying "I wish it had more lemonade flavor, I wish it had more raspberry flavor" The flavoring was not weak but some of the lemon and raspberry didn't come out as much as it could.

Mixability: I didn't notice any problems mixing it. I just went with a cup and spoon and didn't seem to have any problems.

Energy: For me the energy was fine. It wasn't the strongest but it was noticeable. As I get older I don't want crazy stimulants as much anymore so this worked out well. I took it on a Saturday morning and it acted like a strong cup of coffee and got me awake as I drove to the gym. If someone wanted something to really amp them up though they might be a bit disappointed.

Pump: Pump again was fine. It wasn't the strongest pump I've ever had from a product but it was better than not taking any type of pump product. It would be hard to compare to pump type products. I'd say it was better than 1g of agmatine by itself but not quite as good as taking a nitrate product. My biceps got fairly pumped during the first two exercises while my triceps didn't feel a pump until the rope extensions. During the rope extensions though the squeeze on my outter head of the tricep was pretty strong. Pump didn't seem to last that long either.

Focus: This is the main reason why I wanted to try the product. I first must say I think products like this, it's better to have a full tub because it could take some time to get used to the focus aspect of the product and really be able to navigate the focus the best way possible. The focus on Saturday was hit and miss. Some points during the workout I felt pretty focused, almost like it was about to put me in tunnel vision but never quite got there. Other times I felt like there wasn't anything going on in terms of extra laser like focus. While it was decent, it wasn't the tunnel vision I had hoped.

Summary: I took both packets that was sent to me based on the reviews I saw of others. I would say PES Prolific is more of an all around product imo than the best at anything. It provided energy, pump, and some focus but I wouldn't say I was blown away at any of the benefits it provided. This is a supplement that I would probably use though as I'm not looking for crazy stimulant feeling, I think I could better hone in on the focus aspect and the pump provided me with a good enough pump to be happy. I have not looked at the tub to see how many servings but I would recommend two servings, and I would prefer the two servings put into 1 scoop at 30 servings per tub.

I'm out of time but I'll try and get a small review of another sample that was sent to me.

TweetMonday

Squat 6 sets
Standing Calve raise 2 sets
Leg extension superset with lying leg curl 2 sets
Weighted Pull ups 4 sets
T bar row 4 sets
Straight bar pulldown 4 sets

Back to the grind and it not only felt good but I had a really solid workout. If you've been following I usually do the superset at the beginning of the workout to get some blood in the legs quickly and loosen things up more than just the warm up. But people were ont he equipment so I went straight to squatting. It felt really good, my groin was still tight but I did the first 3 sets fairly light and went slow, I lowered until I felt the pull and then really paid attention as I continued to get into the deeper part of my squat to make sure no crazy pain happened. I got to the superset and my legs felt gassed, they worked as a nice finisher as my legs were filled with blood and a bit shaky. I also felt the shakiness during the t bar row, when I lifted the weight I could feel my quads and hams shake a little. I still went heavy for me on the t bar row, probably heavier than I've gone in a long time. So overall I felt like it was a successful day back.

TweetI have been following your journal and glad to hear you are better. Keep up the great work and detailed journaling

TweetTuesday

Side lateral raise 4 sets
Standing shoulder press 4 sets
Facepull 4 sets
Flat bench 4 sets
Incline bench 4 sets
Peck Deck 4 sets

Not the greatest workout here. I think the intensity was right where it needed to be, the weight however wasn't all that great. After I was happy with my Monday workout, I figured the Tuesday workout would of been really solid and the weight just wasn't there. Like I said the intensity was good and I felt pretty good but I missed a rep or two when I was aiming for a higher rep count during certain sets. Nothing to really hang my head on though and I kept pushing. The shoulder pump was really good, my shoulders got super round during the workout, damn I wish they would stay like that all the time.

With the new year I am no longer "bulking" even though I never really got into a "bulk", I just increased my calories slowly and lowered the intensity of my cardio. Last year was such a disaster when I had someone do my diet that I was a bit gun shy to go all out bulk again. So far I haven't adjusted my diet but I am throwing in an extra few minutes on the cardio and staying more active on my day off. Now that footballs over sundays are my off day from the gym but I plan on being active, this sunday I put together shelving in a room and had to move everything from one floor to another and it wore me out to be honest. So that's the plan, come February I'll start to slowly decrease calories just a touch in preparation to cut some fat.

TweetWednesday

20 minutes incline treadmill
5 sets of 25 weighted rope crunches
10 minutes stationary bike

My body was really sore yesterday. My legs hurt from Monday, my chest hurt from Tuesday. So it was nice to be able to go to the gym and just do some cardio. I didn't push it and I was walking on the treadmill but I was going sideways some of the time, taking big steps sometimes....really to get everything stretched out. Doing all of that while on in incline still provided an ok cardio session. The stationary bike worked well to finish things off too, I'm a short guy so the seat needs to be low on these things but I'm sort of in the middle of two settings on the seat height, I stayed on the one that was a bit too low because it brought my knees up high, almost like a high knee walk and it felt pretty good. Still sore this morning in my legs, today I deadlift, so hopefully as the day goes on they loosen up a bit.