Chest

Tonight was the last workout at Gold's Ann Arbor before heading out for the summer in California. A friend commented today that I'm crazy for actually making gym time on the night before I leave. I dunno...I love chest days, and I figure that if I don't make the gym a priority all the time, I'll slide into making it a priority none of the time.

Good workout tonight. Afterward, Matt and I went for a good protein-filled dinner at Mongolian BBQ. As a birthday/going-away gift, the manager (who is also a new buddy) comped the entire meal. NICE!!

Without further ado...tonight's numbers:

Monday, April 28, 2008 - Chest

Exercise	Cory	Matt
DB flat press	90 x 10 x (L/R) : 90 x 7 x (L/R)	60 x 10 x (L/R) x 2
DB incline press	80 x 9 x (L/R) : 65 x 3 x (L/R)	60 x 10 x (L/R) x 2
Decline bench	225 x 9 : 225 x 7	155 x 10 x 2
Cable cross	40 x 20 x (L/R) : 42.5 x 15 x (L/R)	40 x 10 x (L/R) : 42.5 x 10 x (L/R)
Iso decline press	180 x 15 : 230 x 15	180 x 10 : 230 x 5
Pec deck	130 x 10 : 150 x 10	130 x 10 : 150 x 10
Incline fly	50 x 12 x (L/R) x 2	45 x 10 x (L/R) x 2
TOTAL	22,715	17,100

Chest

Good chest day, at least in that the numbers continually go up little by little.

Today's numbers:

Wednesday, April 23, 2008 - Chest

Exercise	Cory	Matt
Flat bench	185 x 10 : 225 x 5	155 x 10 x 2
Decline DB press	60 x 12 x (L/R) : 60 x 15 x (L/R)	60 x 10 x (L/R) x 2
Incline DB press	60 x 12 x (L/R) x 2	60 x 10 x (L/R) x 2
Cable cross	35 x 15 x (L/R) x 2	35 x 10 x (L/R) x 2
Decline bench	135 x 12 : 135 x 15	135 x 10 : 135 x 7
Incline fly	45 x 12 x (L/R) x2	45 x 10 x (L/R) : 45 x 5 x (L/R)
TOTAL	17,000	12,945

Chest

Okay night tonight. Nothing exciting. Tonight's numbers...

Monday, April 7, 2008 - Chest

Exercise	Cory	Matt
Flat bench	185 x 10 : 225 x 5	155 x 9 : 135 x 10
Decline DB press	60 x 15 x (L/R) : 60 x 12 x (L/R)	60 x 10 x (L/R) x 2
Incline DB press	60 x 12 x 2 x (L/R)	60 x 9 x 2 x (L/R)
Cable cross	37.5 x 12 x (L/R) x 2	32.5 x 12 x (L/R) : 37.5 x 10 x (L/R)
Decline bench	135 x 15 : 155 x 10	135 x 10 : 135 x 6
Incline fly	45 x 15 x (L/R) : 45 x 12 x (L/R)	45 x 10 x (L/R) : 45 x 7 x (L/R)
TOTAL	16,900	12,525

Chest

The theme for tonight seemed to be s-l-o-w. I was talking to powerlifter buddy Dominic, who said that every once in a while, he spends three months slowing everything down (which, of course, means dropping the weights and working back up). He suggested, when doing it seriously, a cadence of 10 seconds down, 2 seconds rest, 10 seconds up, 2 seconds rest. This minimizes any advantages to the lift you would gain through momentum, inertia, or bouncing. The lift is ALL YOU. I slowed things down for almost all of the lifts tonight, using a 5:2:5:2 cadence. WOW... I don't know if I'm up for the next three months of doing it, but it certainly was an experience that I'll throw in regularly from now on.

Also started adding back in some small amounts of abdominal work at the end of the workout. I haven't been doing Pilates for a while, and have let the ab work slide tremendously. I can tell, too, and think that the lack of natural tension and strength in the abs and core may be contributing to a bit of fatigue and pain in my lower back.

And as a follow up, I posed the "Should I be using a weight belt" question to two experienced lifting friends. One gave me a non-answer. The other looked at what I've been doing and said, "yes...you should be using a belt." That was more helpful. I ordered a belt from Elite Fitness Systems, on his recommendation. It should get here relatively soon. I'll post about what I think of it, and whether I think it makes a difference.

So, here are tonight's numbers:

Tuesday, April 1, 2008 - Chest

Exercise	Cory	Matt
Flat bench	185 x 10 : 135 x 10	155 x 10 : 135 x 10
Decline DB press	55 x 15 x (L/R) : 55 x 12 x (L/R)	55 x 12 x (L/R) : 55 x 10 x (L/R)
Incline DB press	55 x 15 x 2 x (L/R)	55 x 12 x 2 x (L/R)
Cable cross	35 x 12 x 2 x (L/R)	35 x 12 x (L/R) : 35 x 10 x (L/R)
Decline bench	135 x 10 x 2	135 x 6 x 2
Incline fly	40 x 9 x 2 x (L/R)	40 x 10 x (L/R) : 40 x 6 x (L/R)
Torso rotation	150 x 15 x 2 x (L/R)
Abdominal crunches	100 x 20 x 2
TOTAL	31,290	12,400

Chest

Nothing major to report today. Just another chest day (which I really do like a lot.) Only thing of note was that we both must have been a bit tired, since we dropped down several pounds on most of the dumbbell work. Don't know why it is, but the steam simply wasn't there tonight.

The numbers:

Monday, March 24, 2008 - Chest

Exercise	Cory	Matt
Decline bench	225 x 10 : 225 x 7	155 x 10 x 2
Flat fly	55 x 10 x (L/R) : 45 x 10 x (L/R)	40 x 10 x 2 x (L/R)
Incline DB press	70 x 10 x (L/R) : 70 x 7 x (L/R)	55 x 10 x 2 x (L/R)
Decline press	230 x 10 : 250 x 10	230 x 10 x 2
Pec deck	205 x 10 x 2	205 x 9 : 190 x 8
Incline fly	40 x 10 x 2	40 x 10 x 2
TOTAL	18,705	16,465

Chest

Today's numbers:

Monday, March 10, 2008 - Chest

Exercise	Cory	Matt
Decline bench	185 x 10 : 225 x 5	135 x 10 x 2
Flat fly	50 x 12 x (L/R) : 55 x 12 x (L/R)	35 x 12 x (L/R) : 409 x 12 x (L/R)
Incline DB press	70 x 12 x (L/R) : 60 x 10 x (L/R)	60 x 10 x (L/R) : 60 x 9 x (L/R)
Decline press	230 x 12 : 250 x 12	200 x 12 : 230 x 7
Pec deck	220 x 10 : 225 x 5	175 x 12 : 190 x 12
Incline fly	55 x 10 x 2	45 x 12 : 45 x 6
TOTAL	19,660	16,990

Chest

Monday, February 24, 2008 - Chest

Exercise	Cory	Matt
Flat fly	50 x 8 : 45 x 10	32.5 x 9 : 30 x 11
Decline press	200 x 12 : 230 x 12	180 x 10 : 200 x 10
Incline fly	45 x 12 : 50 x 8	40 x 10 x 2
Decline bench	185 x 10 : 185 x 7	155 x 10 : 135 x 10
Incline DB press	65 x 8 : 65 x 10	55 x 10

Chest

Of course, trying something new. I've been reading Building the Perfect Beast...Naturally by Author L. Rea and Eric R. Broser. It looks like a good, steroid-free but effective and intense program. The first part of the process, though, is to find out the one repetition maximum (1RM) for each of the major muscle groups. This is done by choosing a weight that you can lift 10 times or less in a reasonably isolated exercise. There are several regression models that will calculate your 1RM based on the weight and reps. To see what kind of variance in calculation techniques are out there, the Online 1RM Calculator is maintained by a French powerlifting group and documents at least 24 different calculation systems (all drawn from exercise and physiology literature, so we can assume that they are at least more resembling of science than religion.)

After calculating the 1RM for each muscle group, you can then go back to that muscle group and see how many times you can lift 85% of your 1RM until fatigue. The number of repetitions (within a range) will indicate the dominant muscle fiber type in that muscle group. Knowing this allows you to set appropriate weight and reps-to-failure goals in creating routines. Since the goal is to take the muscles to failure, and the greatest gains are achieved by microtearing the greatest number of fibers, it makes sense to choose the combinations that will hit the dominant fiber type.

Instead of including them in the daily workout lists, I'll save them up until we've gone through the list and made the calculations. Stay tuned!

Today's numbers:

Monday, February 18, 2008 - Chest

Exercise	Cory	Matt
Decline bench (F)	175 x 10 : 185 x 10	155 x 10 : 135 x 10
Incline DB press - 45º (F)	60 x 10 x 2	50 x 10 x 2
Flat fly	35 x 10 x 2	30 x 14 : 30 x 13
Incline fly - 60º (F)	40 x 15 : 40 x 10	30 x 15 : 30 x 13
Decline press (M)	180 x 12 x 2	180 x 11 : 180 x 9

Chest

Main thing to note about the workout tonight is that Matt pointed out that he thinks we're doing too much shoulder work on different days. We had discussed before that we would split shoulders over back and chest days, but it's crept into more of the workouts, and he's beginning to feel burned out on shoulders. I'm not to that burned point yet, but I'm probably not far behind. As a result, we're going to consolidate the shoulder work onto chest days. That will make for a bit longer workout, I think, since I don't want to cut back on chest work for the sake of shoulders. We'll see how it turns out in practice.

Tonight's numbers:

Monday, January 21, 2008 - Chest

Exercise	Cory	Matt
Decline bench (F)	155 x 10 x 2 : 185 x 10	155 x 10 x 2 : 135 x 10
Incline DB press - 45º (F)	60 x 10 x 3	55 x 10 : 55 x 9 : 55 x 5
Flat flyes	30 x 10 x 2 : 35 x 10	30 x 12 : 27.5 x 10 : 30 x 10
Decline press (M)	180 x 12 x 3	180 x 10 x 2 : 140 x 6
Incline flyes - 60º (F)	35 x 12 x 3	35 x 10 x 2

Chest/Shoulders

Tonight's numbers:

Monday, January 14, 2008 - Chest/Shoulders

Exercise	Cory	Matt
Decline bench (F)	135 x 10 x 3	135 x 10 x 3
Incline DB - 45º (F)	55 x 10 x 3	55 x 10 x 2 : 55 x 6
Flat flyes (F)	30 x 10 x 3	30 x 10 x 3
Superset: Shoulder press (M)	75 x 10 x 2 : 75 x 4	70 x 10 x 3
Superset: Lateral raise (M)	75 x 10 x 3	70 x 10: 50 x 8 x 2
Incline flyes - 60º (F)	27.5 x 10: 35 x 10 x 2	27.5 x 10 x 3
Decline press (M)	180 x 10 x 2	180 x 10 : 90 x 10

Chest/Shoulders

Again, trying something new tonight. I found a chest and shoulder series on bodybuilding.com that focuses on supersetting. What Matt and I found is that this workout really hits the chest well (but we'll have to add in some more shoulder work), and gets us in and out of the gym in record time. We both said that we wouldn't want to do supersets every time and need some variation. We also want to see how we feel tomorrow and the next day to see if the chest is sore.

So, for tonight:

Monday, January 7, 2008 - Chest/Shoulders

Elliptical	3:58 / 0.5 miles
Superset #1: DB flat chest press (F)	65 x 6 x 3
Superset #1: Wide grip barbell row (F)	135 x 8 x 3
Superset #2: DB incline press (F)	55 x 8 x 3
Superset #2: DB chest fly (F)	30 x 10 x 3
Superset #3: Medium grip bench press (F)	115 x 10 x 3
Superset #3: External shoulder rotation (M)	25 x 10 x 3

Chest/Shoulders

Good day yesterday. Hard day today. I think that celebrating New Years Eve was the culprit for making today difficult. I didn't drink, but the combination of not sleeping a lot and eating pizza (which was burning a hole through my chest an hour later) put me in a bad spot today.

At any rate, here's the details for yesterday (December 31, 2007) and today (January 1, 2008)

*For future reference, (F) denotes freeweights and (M) denotes a machine

Monday, December 31, 2007 - Chest/Shoulders

Elliptical	7:31 / 1.0 miles
Decline bench (F)	135 x 10 : 205 x 10 : 225 x 5
Low dumbell flat press (F)	60 x 10 : 60 x 10 : 60 x 5
Seated dumbell shoulder press (F)	25 x 20 : 30 x 20 : 30 x 12
Seated incline dumbell press 45º (F)	45 x 10 : 45 x 10 : 45 x 10
Shoulder press (M)	50 x 10 : 60 x 10 : 65 x 6
Lateral raise (M)	50 x 10 : 60 x 10 : 65 x 10

Tuesday, January 1, 2008 - Cardio

Eh...I didn't go. Between getting over the major upset stomach and the lack of sleep, I decided that it would be better to not stress out my body, eat a little and be gentle to my stomach, and try to put my sleep cycle back on track. (Thank you, melatonin.)