SHRED (upper body)

Great day today. First and formost, I weighed in at 225 today, and I look like 225 lbs of straight SHRED. Not really haha. But I do look the leanest and best I have looked in a long time, which is saying something because I have looked so much better recently than I did at 245. I think what I'm doing is clearly starting to work well. Also, killed it in the gym today, give the workout at

Rating: 9

Really great session. Focused and fun. Hit sets of 12 for bench, then triceps, lat raises for shoulders, cable rows and curls for back + biceps, and some situps to boot. Everything in the 10-20 range, and on EVERY singe movement I was burning like crazy and ended up with a really hard set + a huge pump. My one concern is simply that I am doing SO much that maybe I'm not hitting each body part hard enough, and it might be time to start focusing more on 2-3 muscle groups instead of chest, tris, back, biceps, shoulders, every single workout. But I'm not sure yet. ALSO, I did all of that in a little under an hour, which I think is great - I think keeping the pace of the workout up is what is gonna allow me to 1) keep losing fat without adding much cardio or having to "diet" and 2) Build some serious muscle without crazy heavy weights. Keeping rest time down is allow me to really fatigue my muscles, get a huge pump, and have to really squeeze/grind out reps, even though the weights aren't crazy heavy. Anyways, great day. Lets keep at it.

Legs

Good day today. I'll give it

Rating: 8

Really quality pump workout. I had a hard time getting my head into it, and I just did NOT want to do heavy leg press today. So, instead I hammered leg extensions, and at the end of the workout, after literally hundreds of reps, I managed to sack up and do a really great, crazy drop set: 8 sets of 12 in a row. Got a nice pump, felt good. Idk how much it's gonna make my legs grow, I'm still very skeptical about that without the heavy squats. But we will see. Lets keep at it.

Upper body

Decent workout today. Head wasn't as in it as it would have been, and I was kind of tired. But I still worked hard and tried my best to stay focused and do the best I could for the day.

Rating: 7.5

Started with shoulder press, which idk how often I will do in the future... I like the idea of giving shoulders some precedence because 1) I think they used to be a real strength of mine when I was shoulder pressing a lot, and 2) they are one of the most awesome body parts to have huge. But the problem is, working shoulders first makes it harder to do any kind of pressing for chest. Anyways, hit 135 for a strong set of 10 overhead press which is pretty badass considering I haven't done anything close to that in forever. Also hit a bunch more overhead press, then some cable flies for chest because I couldn't really bench after O press - the flies really pumped my chest in an almost uncomfortable way haha. Then hit lat pulldowns, then a few sets of 21's with the curl bar, plus a couple extra sets to finish off the biceps. Then situps. Pretty solid workout, although I think it could have been better with a little more focus, intensity, and better planning. Looking forward to a fun and hopefully restful weekend. Lets keep at it.

Leg work

Good workout for legs yesterday. Really worked hard and kicked my ass, and in a short time too which is always good.

Rating: 9

Really good workout. I was focused and intense. I hit 10 sets of 15 leg ext, 10 sets of 15 hammy curls, then a tabata of leg press with 2 plates per side, which was crazy hard and awesome. Then some back ext to finish up. I wish I kept the reps higher on the leg ext and hammy curl, I think 20 reps just works better on those movements. Other than that, felt like it was a really quality workout. Lets keep at it.

Upper body madness

Great day today. Felt happy, felt strong, worked my ass off

Rating: 8.5

Really had a great workout today. Hit a ton of stuff - probably won't do quite so much EVERY upper body day, but today I just felt like going all out, so I hit bench for chest, seated dumbell press for shoulders, close grip cable rows and pullover machine for upper back and lats, curls for biceps, some pushdowns for my tri's, and then situps for abs. Worked really hard on chest, shoulders, biceps, could have pushed harder on back and triceps, but I still got a lot of quality work in AND going all out on 7+ movements is asking a lot. Overall, feeling big, strong, and happy. Think my beer gut from the last few weeks is already starting to dissipate haha. I can't wait to look the part of the animal I am. Lets keep at it.

I'M BACK

So, it has been a WILD couple months. In terms of training, I have dealt with quite a few setbacks, both mental and physical. I needed a break, for my mind and my body, and some time to create a new relationship with training. And, although I trained in one way or another through the last 8-10 weeks, it is NOW that I finally feel ready to return full force. I know now, more than ever, how and why training is a part of my life, and I am extremely excited to be back at it.

To give a quick summary of the time I have been missing - First of all, my back injury needed rest, and secondly my mind was simply not in a place to put the focus and energy into training that I needed to be putting into training. I needed to rest my body to try and make it heal, and I needed to put more time and energy into friends, family, fun, etc. Physically, the time off did not do what I hoped - I tried to come back to squatting and deadlifting after a long hiatus, and unfortunately my back immediately started bothering me again. However, mentally I am finally feeling great again - I am ready to be training my ass off again. Unfortunately, because of my back I can't train the exact way I want to (the way I always have), with heavy weights and lots of squats and deads.

SO, the new plan is simple - I'm going to avoid movements that load my lower back. This means no squats and deadlifts for a while, and only very light stuff when I do come back. HOWEVER, aside from that, I am basically just going to MURDER my body every workout, and work to get as big and aesthetic as I possibly can. I lost around 20 lbs total over the past few weeks, so I'm sitting around 225, and I think my goal over the next 8 weeks or so will probably be to try and stay at this weight, and just make myself as lean and huge as possible. That means tons of high-rep leg press, leg extension, hammy curls, air squats, back extensions, glute bridges, light squat and dead variations when I feel healthy enough. For my upper body, I can still bench, but I am also goign to try and focus more on movements I tend to neglect - more back work, more shoulders, more dumbell work. Basically: focus is not on strength and the big 3, but rather on getting an insane pump and simply KICKING MY ASS every single workout. I can use the big 3 to get there, but I need to keep my focus elsewhere.

So the goal is to basically get as big and aesthetic as possible. I want to look like a fucking cartoon character by the time I come back. For the next 8 weeks, I'm not going to set any real goals except to try and work my ass off every single workout. Then, once I graduate and settle into a new rhythm of life, I might set some more concrete size goals - Right now I have 30 inch legs and 18 inch arms in mind for starters. I also would like to set a waist goal, as I have been carrying some extra belly fat for a long while and it would be nice to increase my leg/chest/arm size and get my waist down a few inches. Kill two birds with one stone, and go from looking okay to looking awesome.

I think, since I am just getting back on the blog, I am going to keep my blogging goals simple too - I'm not gonna type up every set and rep. Rather, I think I'm gonna rate every workout out of 10, give some brief explanation, and leave it at that. Rating will be based on intensity, productivity, how I'm looking, etc. I'm so excited to be back.

SO to start: today was legs.

Rating: 8

Good workout. I worked really hard, for the first time in forever. Pre fatigued with sets of 20 leg extensions,  then sets of 20 leg press, air squats, hammy curls and finally back extensions. I would have gone heavier on the leg press for more sets, and the air squats, while hard, don't seem very productive to me - I feel like I'd rather do sets of 15 with 95 or so, although I'm not sure that's a good idea yet. Definitely a very intense workout, and I'm happy with it for a first workout back. But I think it will be more productive if I push the weights a tiny bit more. Lets keep at it.

New Beginnings

So I have been absent for a while. Because not only was my back hurt, and my training has merely consisted of bench bro stuff for the last 4 weeks of so, but my life also sort of fell apart for a while. Some life changing events happened, and training took a seat in the way back - I simply knew I couldn't mentally train as hard as I wanted, and because of my back I couldn't physically train hard either, so I embraced it and allowed myself some time off. Mentally. Just got into the gym, did my bench bro stuff, and got out, simple as that.

Well, now it is time to rebuild. My life is changing again, this time for the better. I have lost about 15 lbs from the shift in training focus, and I look pretty great right now. I think I am going to truly start back next week. I'm going to keep eating to lose weight, but I am going to try a little harder to get some more protein in to make sure muscle/strength gains aren't too affected. And I'm going to bench and squat every single day for a while, to work on technique and try and seriously master the lifts. Here's what the template is gonna look like.

squat, bench, deadlift, core

bench, squat, back, core

squat, bench, deadlift, core

bench, squat, arms, core

Try and keep workouts to around an hour and a half. Try and just have fun, work hard, and cut down to around 220. I think I will look AWESOME at 220 as is (that's another 12 lbs of fat), but hopefully if I add in all this extra stuff I will maintain/gain even more muscle, and look even better at 220. Then, after I hit 220 ish I think I will start really pushing myself hard again in the gym. Hopefully that will be 4-8 weeks from now, we will see.

Anyways, hopefully next week I will return to regular posting. This will be my last week being dark. Life is hard and strange and painful, but I am the master of my soul, no one else. Love and passion will reign supreme. And my hate will die with you.

Lets keep at it.