Fri., 1/31/14, Legs

I got in a killer quad pump this morning. It was not the most intense, because I had not trained legs in 8 days (the gym was closed because of a freak snow storm- on the outer banks of NC.) But, it was totally focused and brought an insane pump:

squat: 45-20; 95-15; 135-12; 225-10; 275-10; 315-10; 365-7
leg press: 450-15; 660-12,12,12
leg extension: 90-20,15,12 (very short rest periods)
stiff leg dead lift: 95-7,6; 135-12; 225-5 (At this point I just racked the weight and said I'll do hams tomorrow, because my quads were so shaky that I could not control the weight.)

Tue., 1/28/14, Back and Biceps

I got in a good pump this morning. Again, it was not the most intense workout (as I'm still recovering from being sick last week.) Here's how it went:

close-grip underhand pulldown: 90-20; 120-15; 150-12; 180-12; 210-10; 240-6
row: 135-10; 185-6; 235-6
seated wide grip row: 130-15; 150-12; 170-9
preacher curl: 40-15; 60-12; 80-6,6
1 arm machine curl: 95-8,6; 65-12

Mon., 1/27/14, Chest and Triceps

I got in a good pump this morning. I had a cold end of last week through the weekend, so this was not a hard workout- I'm not trying to throw myself backwards. It was focused and controlled. Here's how it went:

smith machine calf raise: 90-20; 140-20; 190-20; 240-20; 280-20,20
incline hammer strength press: 50-25; 90-15; 140-15; 180-12; 230-12; 280-6
bent over cable fly for upper chest: 70-12; 80-12; 90-10
flat dumbbell press: 50s-15; 60s-12; 70s-12
rope pushdown: 70-20; 100-15; 130-8
lying 1-arm dumbbell extension: 25-12,8,6

...and boom! That  was it. I got an excellent pump, with no failure sets and it took about 45 minutes including abbs and calves.

Thur., 1/23/14, Legs

Today's workout was pretty chill. After last weeks crazy workout, I didn't want to over do it. The focus was just on feeling the muscle, challenging it and pumping the blood into the area. Here's how it went:
squat: 45-20; 95-15; 135-12; 225-10; 315-8; 405-5
stiff leg deadlift: 95-15; 135-12; 225-10; 315-8; 365-6
calf press: 180-30; 360-25; 450-20
   super-set with leg press: 360-20; 450-15

Tue., 1/21/14, Back

It was hard this morning. I was sore, stiff and achy. But, I did it any way. The pump was good once I got going. Here's what it looked like:

Medium grip pulldown: 90-20; 135-15; 165-12; 180-12; 195-12; 210-9
rope pull high: 120-12; 150-10
rope pull low: 150-12; 200-9
barbell row: 135-6; 185-6; 235-8
close grip pulldown: 210-15

Mon.,1/20/14, Chest and Calves

I got in a great workout this morning. It was a very painful 10-15 minute calf workout with almost no rest at all- just rep after rep, set after set. I'm doing some different stuff with calves, with the thought in mind to just engorge the muscle with blood and inflict as much pain as I can on the muscle. So, here's how it went:

1-calf press: 90-50,40,30,20,20,20; 180-15,15
incline dumbbell press: 20s-20; 35s-15; 50s-12; 65s-10; 80s-6; 100s-16
bent over cable fly for upper chest: 80-12,8,10
Free-Motion cable press: 60-12,12,8
dip: 12; 45lb-6; 90lb-6
pullover: 75-12

Sat.,1/18/14,Shoulders

I designed this workout to put the least amount of stress on the joint as possible while keeping constant tension in the delt head to give a ridiculous pump and shock the muscle into new growth. Here is today's version:
Thorough warm-up with cable and dumbbell internal and external rotation and lateral raises for all 3 heads.
lateral raise: 15s-44, 22
dumbbell front raise (simultaneous): 15s-33,22
seated cable rear raise: 30-35,25
Hammer Strength shoulder press: 100-15; 190-10; 240-8
military press: 145-10
Note that there is only 30 second rest periods. It only took about 20 minutes from start to finish.

Fri., 1/17/14, Rest

Yes, after yesterday's brutal leg workout it is time for a day of rest. So, I did 20 minutes of cardio (which I do just about every day) and 20 minutes of stretching. And I will eat just as much food as I do on a workout day to recover the muscles. The legs are sore!

Thur., 1/16/13, Legs

This was a very hard, very taxing workout. I may have gone a little too far with it actually, as I sat with my head over a trash can white as a ghost, not able to see straight and trying not to puke for a while after the workout... I can't say that it is recommended (at least not all the time..haha.) It was a short intense workout, with focus on really nailing 3 exercises and only 1 working set each. Here's how it went:

squat: 45-20; 95-10; 135-10; 225-6; 315-30
leg press: 450-10; 680-10
deadlift (these are kind of a hybrid deadlift/stiff-leg deadlift to work hamstrings): 135-10; 225-10; 315-20

1/15/14, Arms

Tight.... that's the only word that comes to mind. I got in a killer pump this afternoon. I put a lot more intensity than I have been into this arm workout. I still backed off a little a couple times to avoid feeling the shoulder, but it was a good, hard workout:

curl: 30-20; 45-15; 65-6; 85-6; 105-6
super-set with rope pushdown: 60-30; 70-20; 80-15; 90-12; 100-10; 120-10

spider curl: 20s-12; 30s-10
super-set with lying triceps extension (with elbows at 45 degrees): 80-12,12

concentration curl: 60-8; 35-12
super-set with seated overhead triceps extension: 110-10,6

cable curl: 100-23
super-set with pushdown: 150-15

wrist curl: 50-30,10
super-set with reverse wrist curl: 30-20; 20-15

Notice I really warm up the elbows and pump blood in the area, especially on triceps. I have not trained my fore arms in years, they do get enough work from training everything else. But, as you may guess, I'm not really into  just enough at this point. It's on. Everything needs to know, it has to grow. So even the fore arms are getting a few sets of isolation work for a while.

Tue., 1/14/14, Back/ FOOD Update

I got in a great back workout this morning. I was really shooting to hit it from a lot of angles, so I did a bunch of different exercises and not many sets each:
row: 45-20; 95-15; 135-10; 185-6; 235-14
pulldown: 150-12; 180-12; 210-10
incline dumbbell row: 70s-9
seated row: 170-15
standing rope low row: 140-15,10
Double D-grip pulldown: 200-10

Here's what my diet looks like right now, this is what I ate yesterday:
meal 1: 5oz chicken; 1 1/2c oatmeal
post workout: 40g whey protein; 5g glutamine; 5g creatine; 65g waxy maize starch
meal 2: 6oz chicken; 6oz sweet potato; 1/2c oatmeal
meal 3: 5oz chicken; 1c brown rice
meal 4: 6oz 93% lean ground beef; 1 egg; wrap; 1/2tbs mayo; spinach; mustard
meal 5: 5 eggs; 9oz potato; apple
meal 6: 40g casein protein; 2 tbs peanut butter; 1c 2% milk; 3oz sweet potato; apple
Between 3800 and 3900 calories; about 300g protein, 420g carb and 105g fat.

Mon., 1/13/14, Chest and Calves

This is my first day of my new split and taking it to the extreme. It felt good. My focus is really on feeling the muscle. I'm doing several warm up or feel sets on the first exercise and 1 total failure set. On the exercises following I may do a feel set or 2 and then 1 or 2 failure sets. Here's how today went:

1-calf press (on leg press): 90-40,40; 180-30; 270-15
calf press: 450-25,17,16
incline dumbbell press: 20s-20; 35s-15; 50s-12; 65s-10; 80s-6; 100s-16
bent cable fly (for upper chest): 80-12; 100-6,5
flat dumbbell press: 60s-15; 70s-10,8
dip: 12; 45lb-8
cable fly (for lower chest): 80-12
pullover: 70-12

Fri., 1/10/14, Deltoids and Arms

It was a great pump this morning. The intensity was not crazy, but the muscle were full and tight! I'm toying with some new ideas for shoulders to really shock the muscle into growth and not stress the joint too much. I'm hitting each delt head with an isolation movement with very high reps and then doing a press with much lower reps. Here's what it looked like today:

laterals: warm with 3s and 5s; 15s-40, 30, 20 (30 second rest)
incline rears: 20s-30, ?
dumbbell front raise: 10s-?; 15s-30
Hammer Strength shoulder press: 90-20; 180-12; 270-5

cambered bar curl: 40-20; 60-15; 80-8; 100-6
super-set with ling triceps extension: 40-25; 60-15; 80-15; 100-10

rope hammer curl: 100-15; 120-8; 100-8
super-set with rope pushdown: 100-15,8,6

spider curl: 25s-?, 5, 6
super-set with incline dumbbell rotating extension: 25's-10,8,8

1 arm dumbbell preacher curl: 20-15
1 arm reverse pushdown: 55-20

Thur., 1/09/14, Chest and Back

I got in a great pump this morning. Again it was not the most intense for me, because this is the second chest and back workout this week and I'm hitting everything twice. Today my calves, hams, inner back, traps and triceps are all very sore, so getting started was a little slow this morning- ha ha. I'm excited about this off-season, I can tell I'm already stronger and feeling good (apart from very sore muscles.) I've been eating around 4000 calories a day this is what it looks like (Tue., 1/07/14):

meal 1: 5oz. chicken; 1c oatmeal; apple
meal 2: 5oz chicken; 1/2c oatmeal
meal 3: 5oz chicken; 1/2c oatmeal
post workout: 35g whey protein isolate, 5g glutamine, 5g creatine, 60g waxy maize starch
meal 4: 5oz chicken; 8oz sweet potato; 1/3c granola; tbs. peanut butter
meal 5: 8oz beef; carrots; peas; mashed potatoes (a pile, next day was legs)
meal 6: 5oz chicken
All chicken is breast.
Totals about 4000cal- 315g protein, 450g carb and 100g fat.

Wed., 08/01/14, Legs

I got in a great leg workout today. It was not the most intense, because I will train legs again Saturday. It was only the basics- one focused exercise per muscle:

Tue., 1/07/14, Delts/ Arms

I got in a killer pump this afternoon. I was having trouble holding my telephone to my ear after the workout- that's a pump! My workout was very unorthodox because I did not have much time to do it in. Here's how it went:

I did 2 very high rep sets (like 30) for each delt head: laterals, machine rear laterals and barbell fronts.
Then I did a tri-set I have my clients do a lot that (all of my clients are going to be mad at me for this) I have never actually done. I made it up because it is a very efficient and effective way to pump the delts and arms: seated dumbbell press, seated dumbbell curl and lying dumbbell extensions on a flat bench with no rest. I did sets of 20, 15, 12, 6, 6 and 6.
After this I went from one machine to another for biceps, triceps and deltoids with no rest using various weights and rep ranges until I was fully pumped. It was good!

Mon., 1/06/14, Chest and Back

I got in a great pump this morning. This week is a conditioning week where I will train everything twice with a little less intensity than usual. So today was chest and back:

bent over cable fly (for upper chest): 30-20; 50-12; 70-10; 90-10; 110-8
super-set with medium pulldown: 80-15; 110-10; 140-10; 180-10; 210-10

incline dumbbell press: 70s-12; 85s-10; 100s-6
super-set with row: 135-12; 185-10; 235-6

crossover: 80-10,10,10
super-set with seated row: 150-12; 170-10,?

pullover: 60-12,12,?

Thur., 1/02/14, Legs

It has been exactly 2 weeks since I trained my legs, so I didn't go too intense. It was a good pump. I only did 3 exercises:

squats (obviously): 45-20; 95-15; 135-10; 185-10; 235-10; 285-10; 335-8
stiff leg deadlift: 45-15; 95-15; 145-15; 185-12
calf press: 180-30; 360-20,20,15,15,15,15 (with 15 second rest periods)

One exercise for each muscle, nothing to failure- it was good and I'll feel it tomorrow.