Rev's Freaky Athlete Log

[Rev]

Oh cool, so set the pins up right off the chest. I kept thinking it was midway but if I set them up right off the chest that would be PERFECT. I could practice exploding with the concetric contraction. I'll definately be doing this next time.

D's right I don't wish to be a powerlifter, although I idolize more of the old-time strongmen that had freaky grip strength and lifted without belts and all that (not to disrespect the modern sport of powerlifting, I know those guys are incredibly strong raw). So basically I want to be as strong as possible completely raw, yet safe in the same token.

On a side note completely unrelated, I keep thinking about creatine and I've never tried it before, but I think I'll just increase my lean beef intake instead and try to do it with whole food.

[Rev]

Bored at Work Workout (aka biceps workout) 2/8/05

BB Curl
60 x 10
65 x 8
70 x 7

[BjsAust]

I'd have added weights to your dips if you can. For max effort day I'd be going for weight rather than reps.

[Ian Kay]

Originally posted by BjsAust:
I'd have added weights to your dips if you can. For max effort day I'd be going for weight rather than reps.

Actually, I believe that even on ME day, the accesory exercises are done in relatively high reps. Maybe I don't remember clearly though. But yeah, if you can add weight to your dips at the expense of only a few reps, I'd "do it". (In my best Ben Stiller voice from Starsky & Hutch.)

[Rev]

Originally posted by RockHard:

quote:

---

Originally posted by BjsAust:
I'd have added weights to your dips if you can. For max effort day I'd be going for weight rather than reps.

Actually, I believe that even on ME day, the accesory exercises are done in relatively high reps. Maybe I don't remember clearly though. But yeah, if you can add weight to your dips at the expense of only a few reps, I'd "do it". (In my best Ben Stiller voice from Starsky & Hutch.) [/quote]Well the westside prescription was 8-12 repetitions, although I admit on the first set I could probably do somewhere around 15-18 reps.

[BjsAust]

No worries then, I havnt read the westside stuff. I figured you just went bodyweight and reps because you werent used to adding weight to them.

[Rev]

It's all good, I appreciate any feedback. I love weighted dips by the way, I think they are one of my all-time favorites. It's almost impossible for me to have a routine with out parallel bar dips in it. Weighted dips are always a good suggestion in my book! peace

[Rev]

Ok this is the final draft.

Monday ME Lower
Good Morning work up to 3-5 rep max
Romanian Deadlift 6 x 5-8
Lunge 3 x 8-10
Ab Pull-Down 2 x 6-10
Hyper Extension 2 x 6-10

Tuesday ME Upper
Pin Press work up to 3-5 rep max
Bent-Over Row 5 x 6-8
Dip 6 x 8-12
Face Pull 2 x 8-10
External Rotation 2 x 10-12

Thursday DE Lower
Speed Box Squat 5 x 3 @ 75%
Stiff-Leg Deadlift 6 x 5-8
Natural Hamstring Raise 6 x 5-8
Leg Raise 3 x 6-10
Hyper Extension 2 x 6-10

Saturday DE Upper
Speed Bench 5 x 3 @ 75%
Cable Row 5 x 6-8
Close Grip Bench 4 x 3-5
Pull-Up 4 x failure
External Rotation 2 x 10-12

I'm counting tis week as week 1, so I'll adjust ME days in 2 and a half weeks, then after that 3 week cycle I'll adjust everything. Took a while to get this fine tuned but this is the final draft and I had to read a lot and get a lot of advice to get the template down and study my other setups to get everything balanced out how I needed it. Oh, and yesturday I bumped up to 3500 calories a day, I'll have anothing body composition check done this weekend and post it. Tomorrow is Lower Body DE day, see you then.

[dawong]

Rev

What are "external rotation" on your DE Upper day. something with the deltoids?

[Rev]

Originally posted by dawong:
Rev

What are "external rotation" on your DE Upper day. something with the deltoids?

I don't know if I titled it right, but what I basically meant is I will be training my external rotators with external rotation movements such as low cable pulley external rotation and l-lateral raises, all designed to strengthen my external rotator cuff. You have a mechanism known as a rotator cuff in your shoulder which aids in rotating your arm internally or externally and adducting or abducting your arms. This muscle can become out of balance pretty easily if you starting pressing heavier and heavier weight pretty quickly which is what I did and not emphasize pulling as much as pressing. So it's just a good idea to keep these strong. By the way, my rotator cuffs are now completely rehabilitated, absolutely no soreness after the last ME bench day!

[Newlife]

Originally posted by DKing:
Rev - if it fits your rack right, pin presses right off the chest are awesome for starting power. It all depends on if you can set it up in a rack right. Floor presses are cool too. Remember that Louie always says the ME lift isn't so much to improve weaknesses its to find them and to test yourself, use your accesorry work to improve the weaknesses.

Danny

I found that by taking 2 sheets of 3/8 inch plywood, I can take a 1 inch adjustment and really fine tune the distance of the supports to match my body. In other words, by playing with the 2 sheets, you can move the support in increments of 3/8's an inch, so you can also have a perfect press height when using the rack.

I have 1 sheet under me and my pins set at 10 and the bar barely touches my chest. Saw this in a gym 1 year ago and thought it was priceless as they seem to either be too high or too low.

On a quick side note, did you see in Pumping Iron when Franco is outside benching 315...Arnold tells a joke and franco sits the bar loaded on his chest, takes a hand off, and starts to joke around too. How the hell do you not let 315 crush you with only 1 hand on the bar....Insane.

[Rev]

Originally posted by Newlife:

quote:

---

Originally posted by DKing:
Rev - if it fits your rack right, pin presses right off the chest are awesome for starting power. It all depends on if you can set it up in a rack right. Floor presses are cool too. Remember that Louie always says the ME lift isn't so much to improve weaknesses its to find them and to test yourself, use your accesorry work to improve the weaknesses.

Danny

I found that by taking 2 sheets of 3/8 inch plywood, I can take a 1 inch adjustment and really fine tune the distance of the supports to match my body. In other words, by playing with the 2 sheets, you can move the support in increments of 3/8's an inch, so you can also have a perfect press height when using the rack.

I have 1 sheet under me and my pins set at 10 and the bar barely touches my chest. Saw this in a gym 1 year ago and thought it was priceless as they seem to either be too high or too low.

On a quick side note, did you see in Pumping Iron when Franco is outside benching 315...Arnold tells a joke and franco sits the bar loaded on his chest, takes a hand off, and starts to joke around too. How the hell do you not let 315 crush you with only 1 hand on the bar....Insane. [/quote]I am going to look into those sheets are you talking about, I also figured I could use mats under the actual bench I put in the rack to raise it's height if I had to a couple inches.

Yeah Pumping Iron clip where Arnold is counting and starts saying random sexual words (i think thats what hes doing anyway)? And Franco laughs and starts talking back to him and the bars just laying on his chest and Arnold's finally like, "ok come on" and Franco blasts it up easy. Of course he could bench 480+ so...

[Rev]

Lower Body ME Day 2/10/05

-Warm Ups-
bar x 15 squat
135 x 5 sqaut

Speed Box Squats 1in below parallel
185 x 3
185 x 3
185 x 3
185 x 3
185 x 3
For fuck's sake guys, I am SSSSSLLLOOOOWWWWW!!! 75% of my one rep max and I was still majorly slowing down in my sticking point. I can tell working dynamic effort is going to drastically help me right off the bat, and for that I am extremely excited.

Stiff-Leg Deadlift
135 x 8
155 x 6
165 x 6
175 x 6
185 x 6
195 x 6
195 was pretty challenging. Grip got real tired on the last two sets, my forearms were PUMPED to the max, I thought the skin was going to bust open on my forearms or something. My low back took the toll today on these, my ROM isn't that awesome on these yet my hamstrings are tight as hell.

Leg Raise
bdy x 8
bdy x 8
I can barely hang onto the bar while I lift my legs!!! All I could get out was 8 until my grip crapped out on me. It will get better, it has to.

Hamstring Raise
bdy x 8
I normally do three sets of this, but on the last rep of the first set my right calf spasmed and wouldn't come unflexed and it hurt like a BITCH! I probably looked funny, I was dragging my leg around punching it frantically, in like 4 seconds it went away and every time I tried to do another rep it would clinch up again.

Hyper Extension
bdy x 10
bdy x 10
First time I did these in a long time, I played it safe with no extra weight for the first time back.

This was a descent workout, I think I found a huge weakness today. My biggest weakness is rate coding. "The discharge frequency of motorneurons. The firing rate increases with more force production and power production." - sci. & pract. of strngth trning, Zat. I think speed-strength is going to help me tremendously, I'm so pumped now. I remember as a kid never being able to run very fast at all, I was always really slow like in baseball and basketball...and I was never out of shape I was a skinny kid. Not that it has anything to do with it, but I'm confident this is going to help a lot.

I am also looking into partitioning. I am interested in it and about to hit up Gq for some info on it. If I am going to maintain body weight to become relatively stronger I might as well try increasing mass while decreasing body fat at the same time just for fun.

[Rev]

Upper Body DE Day 2/12/05

-Warm Up-
DB Tricep Ext.
DB Pullover
DB Flye
Speed Bench x bar

Speed Bench Press 1rep max/67%
135 x 3
135 x 3
135 x 3
135 x 3
135 x 3
These were pretty fun, I also like these as I can really practice technique too as the weight isn't too bad and I have more energy to focus on staying tight. I controlled the decentric and exploded the concentric. At the top of the concentric contraction my shoulder blades would hop off the pad, is that ok? It was just from the momentum. Weird though, 135 in the locked out position was causing my arms to shake the tiniest bit.

Cable Row w/Iso's (overhand)
40 x 8 (3sec iso bar to ab contact)
50 x 8 (3sec iso bar to ab contact)
60 x 8 (3sec iso bar to ab contact)
70 x 6 (3sec iso bar to ab contact)
80 x 6 (3sec iso bar to ab contact)
These are fun too, my scapulae are starting to operate way more efficiently. I can tell they are getting stronger and believe it or not I feel a huge gain in range of motion since I started doing these, much easier to hold the bar against my upper abs.

Close Grip Bench Press
125 x 5
135 x 3
145 x 3
165 x 3
I started thinking about an article I read about how guys study weight training a lot but when it comes to busting your ass in the gym a lot of guys are lacking. So on that thought I was a little nervous jumping up 20 pounds because no one was around to spot me, but I said fuck it I'm a beast and I'll knock this out, and I did, and I'm glad.

Pull-Up
bdy x 10
bdy x 7
bdy x 5
bdy x 4
Nothing much to say about these. I'm contemplating going weighted and lower rep like Rock does.

DB L-Lateral Raise
12 x 10
12 x 10
These felt great, by the way my rotator inflamation is COMPLETELY gone and has been for five or six days. I'm so so so happy! Tomorrow will be Lower Body ME Day, I'm going to hit the Good Mornings and Walking DB Lunges hard and heavy.

[Rev]

I mean MONDAY is Lower Body ME day. And I said I would list my body composition and measurements as I go along so I woke up and measured everything today. Everything is EXACTLY where it was when I last measured which is posted in the beginning of my log. So I guess thats good, I raised my calories from 2500 to 3200 and didn't gain any fat which is good, but I didn't gain any muscle but thats expected, my maintenance is calculated at 3300 per day.

[Rev]

I've decided to switch up my ME and DE lower days a tiny bit which will equal out the quad to ham work since my goals are more oly and front squat oriented. ME day will have db lunge directly after the ME lift and be 6 x 5-8, the romanian deadlifts will be after that at 3 x 5-8. The lower DE day will be changed up by completely taking out hamstring raises and replacing them with front squats, same rep scheme. This is a cool article which has really vital information on muscular emphasis in differeing squat styles. http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=497495

[Ian Kay]

Hey man. Good work so far. On the speed bench: are you using three different grips? The artcile I read called for each set to be a slightly different width. I'm assuming this hits your benching-muscles slightly differently. I've been doing it, though I don't really understand the benefit.

[Rev]

Originally posted by RockHard:
Hey man. Good work so far. On the speed bench: are you using three different grips? The artcile I read called for each set to be a slightly different width. I'm assuming this hits your benching-muscles slightly differently. I've been doing it, though I don't really understand the benefit.

oooooooooooooooooooopsie! thanks for bringing that to my attention, this will make it more interesting.