Body And Fitness Blog

Thursday - shoulders and run

Started my workout off with a quick five minutes on the rowing machine, just to get myself warmed up.

Shoulders

For my shoulder workout, I started on the shoulder press machine before moving onto the isolation exercises for each deltoid. Here’s the weights and reps for the shoulder press machine:

• 20kg x 12 reps (warmup)
• 30kg x 10 reps (close grip)
• 30kg x 10 reps
• 30kg x 10 reps
• 30kg x 10 reps

All reps were done slowly, taking about 5 seconds per rep, holding the weight at the top and not lowering it all the way so that the muscle is under tension for the entire set. I used to push more weight on this exercise, but I’ve been trying to do the exercise more disciplined and slowly recently, which has resulted in lowering the weight on some exercises.

After I’d finished with shoulder press I went to work on doing some isolation exercises for each of the deltoids.

I started with the weakest part of my shoulders, which is the lateral deltoids. Here’s the exercises, weights and reps done:

• 6kg lateral detoid raises for 10, slow reps, holding the weight at the top x 2 sets
• 8kg dumbbell standing upright rowing for 10 reps x 2 sets

After lateral deltoids I moved onto rear deltoids. For rear deltoids I do posterior deltoid raises, two sets of 12kg for 12 reps each.

Finally, the last part of the deltoids to be worked is the anterior deltoid. For this I do anterior deltoid dumbbell raises, two sets of 10kg for 10 reps each.

Run

Just a quick twenty minute jog on the treadmill, 10kmh steady pace, nothing too difficult, though I do feel like I’m less able to run than I used to be, maybe as a result of the emphasis my training now has on weights rather than fitness. I am keen to keep my fitness levels up and in fact get fitter, but I don’t want to do just fitness work or just weights as I enjoy both. I do feel however, at some point I must decide whether I want to be a fitness freak or a body building meat-head, decisions, decisions…