Saturday, 31 January 2015
10 min + 28 min, 228 lbs.
3/3 cadence
leg curl: 110 x 10c
leg extension: 120 x 11c
leg press: 250 x 9e
Cybex chest flye: 110 x 14c
Cybex chest press: 220 x 2/6c
[Switched machines.]
Cybex MP: 90 x 1/6c
[Switched machines.]
T-row: 125 x 9c
pullover: 90 x 7c
bb curl: 100 x 1c / 90 x 2e / 80 x 5c
[Switched bars to find the right weight.]
cable tricep extension: 70 x 7e
farmer carry: 85 x 70 steps, 23 steps
+ + +
Wednesday, 4 February 2015
10 min + 24 min + 3 min, 228 lbs.
3/3 (or 3/4) cadence
leg curl: 110 x 10c
leg extension: 120 x 12c
leg press: 250 x 12c
Cybex chest flye: 120 x 10c
Seated chest press: 220 x 8c
[Lost time on these trying to figure out the Cybex plate weights and then waiting for a guy to finish with the machine that I could make sense of. Probably need to raise the seat a bit next time.]
bb MP (seated): 90 x 6e
[Man, I suck at presses.]
T-row:
[oops, forgot to do this, but that worked out on a different level; see notes below]
pullover:
[skipped these, for same reason explained below]
bb curl: 80 x 6e
cable tricep extension: 80 x 9c
farmer carry:
[did not do these either]
----
Had I done my usual eleven exercises, I surely would have exceeded thirty minutes, but I chose to skip some exercises today for a couple reasons.
First, since I have begun coaching crew, I have been "the fitness coach". As a result, I have been doing jumpies, running, pushups, planking, crunches, rowing, etc., on my off-days, and have felt some soreness in my run-up to tonight's workout. I'm also starting to feel some aching in my lower calves (shin splints... again??).
Second, for the past few days I have felt some achey tension in my upper back, probably due to the pressure on my shoulder blades during pullovers, T-rows, and farmer carries. So even though I had slated T-rows for tonight's workout, it's just as well that I skipped them.
On top of all that, I continue to read as much as I can about High Intensity Training and made an executive decision to implement one of its most central but most neglected principles (which I'll put into my own idiosyncratic words): rest is more important than any one exercise. In terms of frequency, less is more. So I nearly put tonight's workout off another day, but I'm glad I did it. Despite the pains, I could tell that rowing (ergs and calisthenics) has increased my fitness.
Oh, two other things:
1) I had a small epiphany last week: alternate primarily lower-body and primarily upper-body HIT workouts. This will allow even more time for recovery, without succumbing to full-on multiple splits.
2) The programming wars will never end, of course, and ultimately pretty much every program "works", but the reason I am so "into" HIT these days is twofold: first, it achieves what other programs do in less time, and, second, it prevents injury better than other programs. A lot of noise is made about the fact that many, even most, of the bodybuilding greats did not (strictly, or perhaps ever) practice HIT.
Yet the point remains that the greats could have achieved the same results in less time. More than that--my little epiphany--I would be surprised if anyone who ever really committed to HIT ever went back to a different type of training. Apparently, Schwarzenegger did try (one workout of) HIT, with Arthur Jones, but he never dug into true HIT-failure--and then gave up on the method. But I have a feeling that once a serious lifter has seen how effective HIT is--and no, Dan John, with all due respect, HIT does not mean "Nautilus only" training--he would not return to some other method... UNLESS he simply decided HIT is too demanding.
I have seen remarkable progress, both in terms of strength and body composition, since beginning HIT a mere five weeks ago (if not just more than a month), and I have loved how much time I can save with it.
