Results matching “Bird”

This time at least it's on the bench, under the comfort of a loaded barbell. It's good to be hitting the weights once again.

I've decided to switch the training routine back to the 3 day approach; following the pattern set out by Kris with a few adjustments to the accessory day.

Tonight's session was a quick one (well, I am trying to keep the sessions under an hour), largely as both myself and partner-in-crime were testing the waters following a week off. A therapeutic collection of bench presses, triceps extensions, chin-ups and shrugs ensued.

Bench press 2×10@20kg, 8@30kg, 6@50kg, 4@60kg
Dumbell tricep extensions 2×10@6.5 (each side)
Chin-up/pull-up 17/7 @bw
Shrug 10@60kg, 10@80kg, 10@110kg, 20@90kg

Time: 36mins

Yet Another Brief Workout. I managed to survive the bulk of tonight's session before the pre-workout pizza made serious threats to make a reappearance. Lesson learnt - post-workout pizza can be great. Cramming a large dose of flour, cheese and tuna down your throat just before lifting is asking for trouble.

Opened tonight with a little shoulder prehab/rehab (depends which shoulder you're referring to), in the form of some standing L-Flyes. Looks like that's set to become a regular movement around here; hopefully more for prehabilition reasons than anything.

The main exercise tonight was a simple flat bench press, with speed set to explosive. At least for the first couple of sets. General fatigue started making an appearance during the final set - endurance? What endurance? Time to add more GPP to the mix.

Got the blood pumping with a quick set of Gorilla Chins (combination of chin-up and hanging knee raise), as well as making certain that the air in the room was well circulated.

Finished off with some dumbell rows, which caused the near-reappearance of the pre-workout pizza; but were otherwise fine.

With monday's groin strain beginning to feel less painful, I decided to test the waters with a quick squatting session. Together with my flatmate, I slowly worked up to 60kg with no noticeable effects.

Followed this with a bit of butterfly stretching, a pizza, and sleep. The stretching felt good; this seems to have been overlooked following workouts over the past few months. Time for it to make a comeback.

Tonight was a slightly abbreviated repeat of last sunday's routine, however I don't see it being duplicated again in a week's time. Following a couple of comments received recently - not to mention sporadic shoulder pain - I'll be reconsidering several movements; at least when using near-max weights.

Of these exercises under review, several of which made a brief appearance tonight (before I thought better of continuing); the major players are :

Wide-grip bench press
I was doing this solely in the interest of variety, though the wide grip puts the shoulders under a little more stress than necessary. Other bench press varieties will be rushing in to take its place.

Tricep dip
The inability to vary the separation of the bars isn't doing me any favours with this movement. The dip will be taking a back seat for a while, whilst various presses and extensions take over.

Upright row
There are several trap exercises that don't place the arms under savage internal rotation. Expect to see more of the humble barbell shrug, and the wonderful Hise shrug.

Incline bench press
Another bench press variety that seems to cause more pain than it should. As with the wide grip benching, this usually appears solely out of a desire for variety.

In addition to giving the above exercises a reduced role in my workouts, I'll be adding a few rotator cuff rehab/prehab movements - primarily the seated/standing L-Flye - to strengthen that largely unloved group of muscles. A bit of shoulder stretching is also on the cards.

Decided to open today with a few higher-rep sets, checking whether I was about to be subjected to another bout of shoulder pain. With none eventuating I worked up to a max single. (Actually I had planned on a double, but getting stapled to the bench a couple of times put an end to that.)

Followed the pressing with a brief upper back workout, which moved along rapidly (plenty of air recycling taking place). Looking forward to a good night's recuperation - of the eyes-shut variety.

Tonight's workout was somewhat shorter than those of the past couple of weeks, but was still enough to get the sweat hitting the floor.

The absence of a box (and the lack of time to construct such a beast) saw me once again engaging in a bit of free squatting, with a sumo stance. At least as wide as the rack allows, which is around 111cm/44". Worked up to a double at 80kg, before the form began to deteriorate. Decided to move on, and leave heavier challenges for another day.

Followed the squats with some Romanian deadlifts, once again using a wide stance, which gave the lower back something to think about (actually it probably had something to do with a bit of back rounding during the final set). The subsequent Good Mornings made it clear that enough was enough. For today in any case.

Dedicated grip fanatics might be interested in strongman Clay Edgin's latest article on tearing a phone book in half. Interestingly he doesn't seem to think the act of tearing is as difficult as acquiring several books for practice.

In a bit of a deviation from last Sunday's routine, we started tonight with wide-grip bench presses. It's been some time since I've done these (at least on a flat bench) and grabbing a couple of reps at just under 90% of my 1RM was enough to keep me happy for now.

Following these were close-grip benches (again on a flat bench) and JM presses, which I've never sampled before; and the few sets tonight certainly weren't enough to feel comfortable with the strange movement. The elbows naturally wanted to stray wide (just have a look at the photograph at left) and keeping close to form proved quite a challenge. Another training session is in order it seems.

With the triceps slightly warmed up (though not as much as they probably should have been - poor form on the JM press didn't help) we followed with some slow and painful dips, before moving on to a brief upper back workout.

Tonight's back routine consisted of chin-ups - always challenging this late in a workout, the magnificent bent rows (with an underhand grip, of course) and standing reverse flys to hit the posterior deltoids. And hit them they did.

With the week having been one of the draining variety, following the same pattern as last friday seemed like a perfectly good idea. With appropriate weight increases, naturally.

The combination of a few extra kilos on the bar and a few extra for myself (pasta for dinner) will see an early end to a hectic week. Sleep, glorious sleep.

It's been a while since I last tried dumbbell bench pressing, and a few light sets today proved to be just as difficult as I remembered. Probably the reason for their prolonged absence - will have to do something about that.

After a bit of warming up with the dumbells, it was back to the bar for the heavier stuff: close-grip bench presses. Love them. These were partnered with a bit of dipping - primarily to keep the blood flowing around the triceps.

The dumbells were unexpectedly tiring, and the back work which finished the set was, well, somewhat lighter than usual. Looks like another solid night's sleep ahead.