Archives for workouts (page 16)

The weather was the kind of cloudy stuffy concoction that leaves you sweating profusely without even seeing the sun’s sidekick Ray. By extension, everybody was walking around the gym looking mighty soaked. I jumped right in and had the usual with dessert, while having distorted fantasies of training in the rain.

200th entry. Time flies, again and again.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Please note that this workout was powered by pasta carbonara.

All the desperate thumbsaving in the world could not have gotten me in top shape for this workout. As I dug my fingers into my pecs in contemplation, I also noticed that I had some deep soreness remaining there… from the speed benches (no!!!!) I presume. Fighting reason, I did much the same thing as when I was up against the same predicament two weeks ago; hit the bench and started close-gripping. Got a grindingly inefficient double with 90 kg/199 lbs, then did a half hearted attempt at 95 kg/210 lbs. The left shoulder made it very clear that I was not to push this one up. Might need to skip DE Bench this week to let this clear out. Brain re-activated.

If my bench workout was non-exciting, the grip work that followed was the polar opposite. After some wrist curls, I played around with different grip setups. The gym does not have any loading pins, but a pushdown handle worked well for holding plates. Took a chrome plated 10 kg/22 lbs dumbell and attached it to the pushdown handle, holding a 5 kg/11 lbs plate, with a wire (left, top), and then wrapped my fingers around the top end of the dumbell for holds. Worked great! After doing reps and negatives on my CoC grippers, I tried pinching weight plates with the gripper (left, bottom), both thin metal 0.5 kg/1 lbs plates and thicker 2.5 kg/6 lbs plates. You really have to keep the gripper tight to keep the weight from falling, but I suspect strap holds are even more challenging.

Me like forearm pump. Over at Power&Bulk you can find others with the same perversion.

Next week I am scheduled to meet with the back therapist again, so it was high time I got my current rehab routine on video (2.7M); the first entry-level program clip is here. Was happily unaware of the fact that the gym is closing 7pm Sunday, which helped me dig down and train fairly “fast” as I arrived at 6.30.

The rehab routine calls for balance board standing and squatting as the first exercise. Since there is no board at the gym and I am not quite ready to stand on a stability ball, these are not on tape. Should have replaced them with kneeling on the ball of course, but alas my memory…

Some quick key notes on the exercises: on both the muscle activation and the upper pulley twist the objective is to try to keep the waist stable and non-moving, for which purpose there need not be a dung load of weight. In contrast, on lower cable twist the idea is to get a large twisting motion in the waist to occur, which, according to my therapist, will train the rotators et al. in a much more functional way than any of those waist twist machines found in gyms (I call it the ab twist machine). Note that the arms should move in close to the body on these; save the full swing for the golf course. A big rotation is also the aim of the walk outs, i.e. turn with the arm. Finally, on the ball hypers the sole of the feet need to be against a wall, otherwise you’ll tip over.

Tomorrow, ME Bench. The rack lockouts I did on Friday did indeed not cause much soreness, but did not think far enough to realize that the massivish overload for the shoulders would cause them to tighten up further. Frantic thumbsaver action going down.

After two weeks of chain rattling on the speed bench, the unchained bar was almost a supersonic blur today. The usual nine sets later, I wanted to do something I haven’t done in ages. It boiled down to dumbell floor presses, illegal wides or rack lockouts.

Picked lockouts off the fifth pin knowing that their slight recovery demand would allow me to go heavy without putting Monday’s max effort bench work in jeopardy. Besides, I was quite curious to see what kind of tonnage (haha) I would be able to budge after not having done any heavy lockout work in over half a year (did 120 kg/265 lbs in December, with a 130 kg/287 lbs PR from November when done as the first exercise). I soon found myself with a traction problem as it was hard to dig the feet into the floor wearing only socks, having left my training shoes back at Toffe’s Gym. Still, the 120 kg/265 lbs take off was defiantly smooth, so jumped straight to the record weight of 132.5 kg/293 lbs. Got the bar to bend promisingly, but no more.

The initial disappointment wore off once I realized that I had indeed not done much to try to get a stronger lockout. And why should I? I don’t have a lockout problem and don’t use a bench shirt, so my bench stands little to gain from building the lockout as I cannot get anything that heavy off my chest in the first place. That being said, lockouts are fun and a good way to overload the ever so essential triceps. Those with lockout sticking points must be happy people. The rest of us go back to more essential exercises, while trying to figure out what to do about the longer and longer training times. The obvious, perhaps?

Back in Helsinki as in back to glute ham raises. As of yet, I haven’t come up with a way to do these at Toffe’s gym, but perhaps I can use the pins for leg support once I get that rack built. The mini bands I ordered from Elite Fitness Systems precisely one month ago haven’t arrived yet, which is strange considering that they were to ship within 24 hours by airmail. Otherwise this would have been a prime opportunity to try band-assisted GHRs. The ball bearings on the lying squat machine were too fried to allow for more than one heavy set, but otherwise this was a decent workout.

To make up for the drowned ME SQ/DL workout, I decided to superset that workout with today’s DE bench work. Today’s weather was an interesting blend of fiery showers intercepted by brave rays of sun. As I had an evening train to Helsinki to catch, I had no choice but to get underneath the bar at 4pm. The first three sets were done under a cloudy sky, the next few ones in rain and then suddenly, sunshine again. Then repeat. For what it’s worth, here’s the weather forecast for Vaasa, Finland on which Toffe’s Gym is so dependent.

With a sizeable sleep deficit and a rain drenched squatting platform, I did my lunges with caution. After 9 sets of lunges, supersetted with 9 sets of speed benching with chains, I was feeling tender enough. Some pull-up negatives and board balancing and that was that.

Some days you feel dandy and are prepared for soaring to new heights, until you actually start flapping. Did not need more than the barbell itself to realize that the usual spot on the front of both shoulder had again turned into tight knotty bands (blame the chains?). Being all pre-occupied with my back, I have lately come to neglect the shoulder massage, so here we are again. The tightness can usually be dissolved within a day or two by massaging hard for one minute several times a day, i.e. normal trigger point massage. I still find a tennis ball excellent for the job, but have also started to use a so-called thumbsaver I bought from the Thera Cane central for $6.95. Made of wood with a pointy rubber head, it is perfect for staying on the spot and going deep. Doing this with a thumb works, but after that you have a strained thumb on your hands… The thumbsaver is also small enough to be easy to carry around in your pocket, and, unlike the tennis ball, you don’t need to have a wall handy.

Felt the shoulders could handle some work without going spastic; sets of five on close-grip benches were suddenly basking in a very attractive light. Worked up to 5 @ 80 kg/177 lbs, then it was time to bail out. Not wanting to beat the shoulders any further, I just did a single set of JMs before moving into the usual back and forearm work. Just for fun, I tried lying rows with the chains hanging double from the sleeves of the bar. Unlike benching, this movement gets harder the further up you get, so a good explosive start proved imperative if I wanted to get the bar to touch the board. Quite nice actually.

For the first time, I tried some plate curling for the forearms. The idea is simple: grip a weight plate in a pinch grip, then do a normal curl with it. Although it looks like a biceps exercise, the real deal is trying to keep the wrist from bending backwards during the curl. I found a 10 kg/22 lbs plate a little too much, but pinching a 5 kg/11 lbs and a 2.5 kg/6 lbs plate together was just enough. I highly recommend this one. There are several variations on the theme, from curling the plate with a finger through the hole via curling with a board to wrist curling plates.

And oh yes, skipped Sunday’s rehab workout as my hamstrings and pals were all tied up from Wednesday’s lunge workout.

I have now joined the chain benching tribe albeit with a little too tiny a chain. The extra 7 kg/15 lbs added by the 1/2″/13 mm chain was hardly noticeable when going all out on the speed bench, but I could really feel it when doing a few slow warm-up reps. I could also feel it in my ears; ear plugs would not be a totally ridiculous idea. Here’s the video (0.5MB).

I took this opportunity to switch back to normal 3-rep Westside speed benching from the Blakley speed benching I’ve done lately. I conclude that on good days the preliminary slow-medium-fast rep scheme feels good, but when feeling sluggish the slower reps have a tendency to make the bar feel needlessly heavy. I could not really see any difference in bar path consistency between the two methods either, as measured by chalking the middle of the bar.

Did some heavy french presses with the EZ bar, an exercise I have nearly forgotten since being bit by the JM bug. Pull-ups is an exercise my ego hoped I had forgotten. V-bar pull-ups used to be easy back when I was a light 75 kg/166 lbs dude, but with 20 kg/44 lbs more on my frame it does not really help that I am now much stronger on pulldowns… Did as many half-assed reps as I could muster. Perhaps this is where I really could make some good use of bands, i.e. for band-assisted pull-up work…

Some bicep and forearm work. The End.

I’ve never been a fan of lunges. In my search for free weight exercises that I could use to keep my legs in some kind of shape during rehab I’ve come to reconsider their worth. Not much load is required to go heavy, in fact repping with just the bar was fairly taxing. Lunges are also somewhat of a balance challenge, so they fit right into the mix. It remains to be seen how my back reacts when I progressively up the weight, but for now they definitively join the GHRs as a main squat/dead exercise. In contrast, a few reps of Romanian deadlifts with only the bar told me that they are still far from being an option. No surprise there.

Finally got my first ten repper on the walk outs. I always fail on these when I can no longer keep my body straight, so this is definitively a big stability improvement over the 5 reps I started out with. I am also approaching a minute on the ab holds. The balance board squats are also becoming easier by the workout. Core hardening is rewarding once you realize how pitifully weak you have been when it comes to such elementary stuff as keeping your body straight straddling a canyon.

Not wanting to tax my old dangly Weider bench too much, I opted for a triple max on the JM Press instead of any heavy benching. As I think I have the technique down fairly well by now, this seemed like a doable equation. Put a boulder on the other end of the bench to keep it from tipping over. Wasn’t too pretty (video 1.4MB), but worked up to a triple at 47.5 kg/105 lbs. Then tried 50 kg/111 lbs, but as the first rep took a lot of effort I didn’t try for more. Perhaps it’s just me, but max triple attempts seem to gravitate towards a final double or single… The heaviest I had done before was sets of 5 with 42.5 kg/94 lbs.

Worked fairly quickly through 5x5 on the bradfords and lying rows, but then the workout started slowing down as I started experimenting. Side raises sitting on my new stability ball with the feet on the balance board proved shakier than doing them kneeling on the ball. Added some wrist curls to supplement the grip work, but there is still a lot to be desired on that front. Might consider doing forearm/grip work as extra workouts to help de-bloat my workouts.

The good thing about having your own gym? You get to select the music. Kalmah.