Body And Fitness Blog

I had a bit of time to kill this afternoon, being that I am a fairly laid-back, self employed chap, and so decided that as I had missed the gym in the morning – lie in caused by one too many glasses of wine celebrating my divorce – it would be a good idea to get my session done in the afternoon.

As I was supposed to be working on some stuff, I figured I should only nip off for an hour, ensuring that I didn’t waste too much of my afternoon on personal stuff when I really should have been working, I’m so conscientious!

Squat

The first exercise I did in my super-quick one hour workout was a leg exercise, in fact probably the best compound leg exercise there is – the mighty squat! Unfortunately the gym I went to today doesn’t have a proper squat rack, so I had to use the smith machine, which is fine, but not as good as a free weight squat in my opinion. I did three sets of 80kg for 10 reps each set.

Shoulder press

The second exercise was the shoulder press, and important exercise in any all over body workout. This is best done using a barbell, doing a standing barbell shoulder press, as it’s a more compound movement than a seated machine press, though today I did mine using a seated machine. I did three sets of 60kg for 10 reps each set.

Seated rowing

I had to use a strange seated rowing machine today, rather than a typical seated row, where you pull on a handle attached via a cable to a stack of weights, this machine had a seat and a chest rest, and you pulled the handles in toward the chest rest, which pulled on a cable to lift the weights stack. I suppose it was a bit like t-bar rowing but with the weights on a stack lifted by a cable. I personally found it a bit funny and not as effective as your typical seated row. I did 75kg for 3 sets of 10 reps.

Close grip pulldowns

What I really wanted to do was chin-ups, but the gym didn’t have any chin-up bars so I opted to do close grip cable pulldowns, which is one of my favourite exercise, mainly as it seems to be the one exercise where I can lift a lot of weight. My aim is to be able to do three sets of ten chin-ups by the end of the year, so I opted to set the weight at my bodyweight, currently 90kg, and try for three sets of six reps. Unfortunately I managed two sets of five reps and one set of six reps. I expect I’ll be able to do my three sets of ten reps on chin-ups much sooner than the end of the year!

Chest press

I would normally opt for a decent compound exercise like bench press for the chest, but the gym I went to today didn’t have a proper bench-press bench, so I opted instead to use the chest press machine. I normally bench 70kg, though I did manage three sets of ten reps last workout, so would have been looking to put the weight up this workout. On this chest machine, I started with 67.5kg and it was too light, I then tried 75kg and that was still too light, so in the end did three sets of ten reps at 82.5kg. I don’t for a minute think that this will translate into a heavier bench for me, just a simple quirk of using machines with their leverage and cams making it easier to lift heavier weights than usual.

Abdominals

I must confess to being really lazy when it comes to doing abdominal exercises, I tend to do a few sets at the end of my workout, today was no exception. I only managed a plank for sixty seconds and then thirty reps of crunches.

Other useful posts:

• Dymatize Elite Whey Protein Isolate Review
• Bicep And Tricep Workout Friday 1st May 2009
• Training Journal: Monday 9th February 2009
• How Much Protein Should I Eat To Gain Muscle
• Full Body Workouts – Are They A Good Idea?