Progress Log: Week 30

The good news is that out of the past four weeks, there were only two of them that saw me out of action in the gym; and one of those weeks was spent busting my tail with a solid week of lawn work in 90 degree weather.

What I did drop the ball on, however, was tracking my diet. A few extra pounds were gained from the beginning of the month to the end, but this is the story of the health journey, right? Life happens. Sometimes we miss things and sometimes we fail…and this is okay.

The thing we don’t do is give up.

Details

Mode

It’s a high rep/low weight week.

Sunday

Got up and was at the gym by 8 am. Got a message from Alicia right as I hit the parking lot and immediately turned around and went back home. The week had been especially long and rough on both of us, in different ways. I decided to take the day off and focus on family time with my fiancee.

It was the correct decision.

Monday

Chest and Biceps – so the stars for the week are the dumbbell flyes.

I’m accustomed to doing heavy dumbbell flyes, where my sets are more like 1-3 reps, 3-5 reps, 5-7 reps. The high rep db flyes are relatively new for me. I’m now looking at doing flat db flyes for 55 lbs at 7 reps, 45 lbs at 12 reps, and 35 lbs at 7 reps. My incline db flyes are just a bit below that at 45×9, 35×14, and 25×21. I’m making fast gains here.

I’ve moved over to the decline weight plate machine for my decline pressing, as there isn’t a free weight decline station at this gym and I already do heavy decline presses on the Smith machine during my heavy weeks.

This week was 155×11, 135×16, 115×21…this means my next time through my high rep cycle will see me boosting up by five pounds in each set.

I love when this happens.

My dumbbell one-armed preacher curls will be seeing a bump up next time as well as this week was 30×11, 25×16, 20×21.

It was a very good session.

Tuesday

Legs and Shoulders – so, honestly? High rep shoulder day just hurts. I don’t look forward to it at all.

Why?

Well I’m now at the point where the weights are getting heavy and those reps feel like they stretch out forever.

I have to keep in mind that the human shoulder cap is actually a relatively small set of muscles, compared to say, the chest or back…but those shoulders are involved in every single movement performed by the chest and back. So my shoulders actually do not get any kind of a break throughout the entire week, ever.

I start with superset cable external and internal rotations. I started doing these as therapy after my shoulder injury a few years ago and continue to do them as warm-ups and preventative exercises. The weight is getting pretty heavy here now, however. When I first started doing these many years ago, I could do heavier weight on my internal rotations than my exteral. I decided to go for balance here, however, so I keep the weight similar for both exercises. I’m at the point now where this looks like 55×9, 45×14, and 35×19. Keep in mind that this is an exercise usually reserved for therapy and is normally done with resistance bands, versus heavy weight.

Then I move straight on over to dumbbell raises from all angles: front, lateral, and rear.

For the sake of balance, I keep my weight progression consistent through all of them, which looks like 30×9, 25×14, 20×19, to date. Form is essential here and I keep it strict.

By this point, I’m sweaty and grumpy and still need to do legs, but high rep leg day is actually pretty fun because I don’t have to load and unload a ridiculous amount of plates. lol

I focus on refinement work…narrow leg presses, single leg extensions and single standing leg curls, and thigh abduction and adduction.

It was a productive session.

Wednesday

Back and Triceps – not gonna lie, I’m kind of in love with the lat pulldown machine at this gym. It’s really freaking versatile and efficient. Wide-grap pulldowns, narrow-grip, reverse narrow-grip, plus a rock-climber option. It’s comfortable, smooth, and I seriously feel it in every spot I expect to feel it. I’m ready to move up in weight for all three variations that I do as I hit 160×11, 140×16, and 120×21.

My biggest success on this day, however, is really humble. It’s the back hyperextensions. For the longest time, when I was suffering through my mysterious leg condition, hypers on the machine at my old gym were painful in a bad way on my knees, so I stopped doing them for about 2 years. This new hyperextension bench is much more comfortable and easier to adjust. In addition to my body weight, I’m now up to 25×12, 10×17, and 5×21.

I’m also getting ready to bump up in my cable one-arm tricep pushdowns (65×11, 55×16, and 45×21) as well as my cable straight-arm pushdowns (115×11, 105×16, 95×21).

Another really good day.

Thursday

Work took over the day. This is probably fit for a longer post. A lot of things are going on at work that will be seriously impacting my time resources in the future.

Friday

Got in a good 30 minute early morning walk.

Hit the gym in the afternoon for a Circuit Training session with Alicia. I can’t begin to describe how happy it makes me feel to share time like this with her. She’s new to weight training and was skeptical at first, but she’s starting to get really enthusiastic about it as she sees how quickly things start to change with just a little consistency.

We had an excellent 1.5 hour session and then rewarded ourselves with hydromassages, which is a perfect note to end a gym week on.

Saturday

Today is fun times. We have a double date planned with a pair of good friends and I’m really looking forward to it. There’s also a campout happening at another friend’s farm this evening. We won’t be camping out, but we may swing out there to say hey and gather hugs from everyone.

Diet

Yeah I didn’t record thinsg this week. It wasn’t my best week, for sure, but I”ve had worse. I’ll start back up on this tomorrow.

Day	Caloric Deficit/Gain	Protein	Water
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday