Body And Fitness Blog

The start of a new year and the start of a new training journal for me! I plan to document my training on this website, giving regular updates on my weight training and general fitness training, as well as upload pics showing my progress.

The reason for doing this is to serve as inspiration to the many out there that get despondent about their own fitness / weight loss goals.

For my training, I am concentrating on doing body building training three days a week, and cardio vascular (fitness) training three days a week, with one complete rest day per week (will most likely do a walk of some sort, but nothing strenuous).

My main training goals at this point are to increase muschle mass. As such, I’ve been reading about Mike Mentzer’s training methods and have decided that I want to incorporate some of his ideas into my workouts. The main concept that I am taking on board is the principle of training each set to failure, rather than just banging out 6, 8, 10 or 12 reps for multiple sets.

The concept that I can’t quite get into my head, or in fact have the balls to try, is performing one set to failure. I guess that I’m afraid that I won’t have done enough work and therefore simply lose my strength over time, or worse put on flab because I’m eating extra protein and carbohydrates to help with recovery. Instead, I’m aiming to do less sets than I would have done as a teenager, but up the intensity of each workout by training to failure, and incorporating pyramid sets, super sets and step down sets.

Monday: chest and shoulders

Chest

• Decline bench, dumbell press: 14kg x 20, 16kg x 15, 14kg x 16
• Level bench, dumbell press: 16kg x 16, 18kg x 15, 20kg x 13
• Incline bench, dumbell press: 16kg x 15, 18kg x 14, 16kg x13
• Incline bench, dumbell flies: 10kg x 16
• Flat bench, dumbell flies: 10kg x 18

That was all for my chest workout. I felt good after it, but I also felt that I should have gone heavier from the start, to try and achieve failure in the 8 - 10 rep range. Next workout, I’ll start heavier and hopefully bring down the number of reps before I reach failure.

Shoulders

• Seated shoulder press machine: 30kg x 14, 35kg x 12, 40kg x 10
• Seated lateral deltoid raises: 8kg x 16, 8kg x 15, 8kg x 13
• Standing anterior deltoid raises: 10kg x 10, 10kg x 10 (couldn’t do third set)
• Bent over rear deltoid raises: 8kg x 12, 8kg x 12, 8kg x 15

My shoulder workout was difficult after already completing a good chest workout, which left me leaving the gym feeling that I could have done more. I felt that I didn’t do enough shoulder press work, I had really wanted to do six sets to failure, going up and down the pyramid, but my triceps were ruined by the chest workout beforehand.

I also cheated slightly and didn’t train to failure on the deltoid raises for rear deltoids until the last set. For my next shoulder workout, I will go heavier on the lateral and rear raises, but leave the anterior weight the same.

I may have to swap chest and shoulders around each week so that one week is chest first, then the next week is shoulders first, such that each muscle group gets fresh triceps once a fortnight.