Dumbbell upper body

Today was an interesting day in the gym. Since I wanted to do something a little different than my normal tuesday workouts, I decided to focus on dumbbell work in order to get a new stimulus in.

If you want to look like this - nothing but isolation curls. 

I started with dumbbell flat bench, working up in sets of five until I was using the 70's. These were pretty heavy, so I stuck with them and just kept doing sets of five without TOO much rest, until I failed (which was the 5th rep of my 8th set). Overall, these were fun, I got a lot of pretty heavy reps in which is really cool. I like dumbbell bench because it teaches you how to simply muscle the weight up. Great technique is incredibly important to a good bench, but at the same time there is a lot of benefit to just being able to muscle up a heavy weight, without leg drive or perfect tightness.

After the heavy sets, I switched to incline bench, and did 3 sets to failure with the 45's, and a fourth et to failure with the 25's. These were more or less just to hammer my chest, get a good pump and work my bench from an angle I don't normally use.

This guy looks pretty badass, I must admit

Next up were kroc rows. Went really heavy with these today, using the 100 lb dumbells. My form was horrendous and I had to pause once or twice, but I managed to row the Hundo for 25 reps each arm. I still love this movement - no matter how horrible my form, going heavy for  ton of reps just FEELS like it's making my back grow way better than anything else I've ever done.

Next, I put 85 lbs on a bar and did strict presses with it - I did a set on the minute for 5 minutes. The first two sets were 10 reps, but then I got pretty tired and the next few sets were a struggle. Which is fine really, my main goal was just to tire out my shoulders, so I did my job.

Finally, I wanted to feel out some pullups today. They felt shitty. Granted, my back was wrecked from the kroc rows, and the bar i was using was shitty, but I still really HATE pullups. BUT, I'm going to try and hold back my hate until I get home, and on friday I can test them out when I'm fresher and I have a better bar. Hopefully they will feel a little better... but if not, then I'm just gonna have to work really hard to make them my bitch this summer. I'm thinking tuesdays, I'll do low reps (3 maybe) for a bunch of sets (10?), and then friday I'll do something like 3 sets to failure. Depends how they feel I guess.

Pullups, why am I so bad at you? I will own you one day. 

Anyways, solid day. I think my back is gonna be insanely sore tomorrow. Can't wait to go home.