Results matching “Bird”

That was fun.

After it reached midnight before I had a chance to do the usual monday routine, I opted to leave the workout until today. A few hours' sleep works wonders.

Intent on growing accustomed to lifting heavier weights, I chose high rack pulls as today's max exercise - this time from just above the knee. After working up to a healthy 145kg I realised that I didn't have any plates left to load onto the bar. Probably just as well; the 145 was definitely close to the limit.

The remainder of the routine consisted of regulars - Romanian deadlifts (still steadily bringing the weights back to pre-platform levels), Seated Good Mornings (always fun in a sick sort of way) and a bit of ab work.

The superb summer weather today seemed to delight the thousands of tourists shuffling along the Royal Mile, and it managed to persuade me to do a little shuffling myself and engage in a cool evening workout.

The cooler air allowed me to slightly increase the tempo, and I worked through a similar pattern to last friday with the addition of a bit of calf work (the calves seem to have been forgotten a bit lately) and a little more ab work. Always a fun way to finish things off.

Old habits die hard. Whilst doing a little web work this morning I was inspired to consume a cup or two of coffee. Having moved from a regular 8-10 cups per day to around 1-2 per month - a pretty drastic change by any standards - I was more than a little shaky after downing 3 strong cups in about 10 minutes.

I knew I'd overdone it slightly when songs like Motörhead's 'Ace of Spades' seemed slow.

Once the pulse returned to normal (I wasn't about to engage in a bit of live testing of the effects of caffeine consumption on weight training) it was time for a bit of pressing.

As my last attempt at setting a new bench press max was something of a disappointment, I decided to approach it from a slightly different perspective with the floor press. After setting a new 1RM at a higher level than that for the bench press, I'm satisfied that the previous session's shortcomings can be chalked up to nothing more than 'having a bad day'.

The floor pressing was followed with a little triceps work in the form of seated extensions, which I must say are starting to move higher on the list of favourite exercises.

Finished off by hitting the upper back with some supersetted pull-ups and chin-ups (always a good combination for producing a bit of sweat), and a few heavy shrugs.

Or not, as seems to be the case when enjoying the pleasures of Zercher squats. I decided to bring this one in as today's max exercise, and quite happily worked up to 70kg before the inner elbows started complaining. With a towel wrapped around the bar I continued to 85kg before calling it a day.

A few sets of Hack squats were next in line, with the intention of keeping the quads warm whilst giving the elbows a much needed break. Closing out the heavy stuff came regular Good Mornings - which have enjoyed a few weeks' vacation from my workouts. Still keeping weight increases slow and steady with these.

In yet another example of the rapidly changing weather here, this morning's cool misty air became warm and humid just in time for this afternoon's workout. The result? Another fine sweaty session.

The low reps/increased weight emphasis seems to be working well, partly as it provides a more accurate way to measure progress and partly due to the nice ego boost that accompanies the throwing of more weight on the bar.

After getting nicely toasted with help from three of the usual Friday players - box squats (accompanied by Sebastian Bach screaming the strangely appropriate 'I got no monkey on my back'), Romanian deadlifts and seated good mornings - I decided to try out the interesting looking Compound Dumbell Lifts that Kris mentioned yesterday. Certainly glad I left these until the hamstrings/lower back were already well and truly warmed as they are deceptively evil. An excellent find.

After several hours of braving the constant rain here I was definitely in the mood for a bit of box squatting. Assisted by the first day for weeks without any trace of heat or ridiculous humidity, and with the rain dampening everything but enthusiasm, I worked up to a new box squat max.

Fortunately the major hamstring soreness following last week's torture session failed to appear this time, and I happily set up for a few sets of step-ups. As the bruise currently forming on my left forearm will attest, these are somewhat trickier with sweaty hands (the bruise is from hitting the side of the rack as I caught the bar).

With the hams crying out for more I hit a few sets of Romanian deadlifts, once again off a low platform; before closing with my favorite ab exercise - the hanging knee raise.

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival kicked off today, and amid the street performers peppering the Royal Mile I saw a bit of chainsaw juggling. Quite impressive.

Suitably revved up (yes, I know) I hit the iron on another warm day here (the relative heat usually lasts for around two weeks per year) and followed pretty much the same routine as last week. The only new entrant this time was the Bradford press, which teamed up with the Neider press for a quick shoulder-killing session.

Musical inspiration this time came from Matt, who suggested a new album to add to the ever-expanding workout collection - 'Get Born' by Australian band Jet. Good, simple rock.

Phew. There's a rather large pool of sweat slowly drying on the floor here; largely resulting from the extreme humidity at the moment.

With an appropriate measure of cool water on standby, I followed the same routine as last week; albeit at a much faster pace (the other major factor in the pool of sweat) and with shorter rests between sets. This was the hamstring-burning combination of box squats, romanian deadlifts, seated good mornings and the ever-popular GHRs (with push-up assistance). If the soreness following last week's session is any indication, tomorrow should be a lot of fun.

Note: the dynamic and isometric stretching weren't included in the above time, but they still found their way into the workout.

As triceps strength seems to be a major factor in overall bench press performance, I gave them another thorough going over today. This combined with the fact that it's been a while since I found myself doing floor presses suggested the combination of close-grip floor pressing as today's max exercise.

This actually felt a lot more natural than normal close-grip presses, partly due to the restriction of the floor. I can see myself working this one in to the routine as an occasional workhorse rather than simply a max lift.

As per last week, the tricep work continued in the form of seated triceps extensions and dips. The seated extensions are always interesting - the setup of the bench racks (which are unfortunately welded on) means that anything less than a perfect movement ends up hitting the racks. The upside of this is a slow, strict movement.

A few sets of chins certainly got the sweat hitting the floor, largely due to the music playing at the time - 'Jump Around' by House of Pain, which seems to encourage any movement to be done to the pace of the song.

Having successfully woken up the biceps whilst doing the chin-ups, I killed them off with a few sets of barbell curls. Seems as though the left arm has a bit of catching up to do there, so it looks like a bit of dumbell work is on the cards.

As my hamstrings are yet to entirely forgive me for last friday's assault, today's session was a quad-centric affair.

Having recently sampled the simple delight of the Hack squat I figured I should get an idea of my current maximum before I churn out too many sets. Beginning the lift is perhaps the hardest part of these - especially once the weight starts to increase - and I can see myself doing a few behind-the-back deadlifts just to get used to it. Frustratingly, the fun ended shortly before arrival at the 100kg mark.

With the quads nicely warmed, it was time for a few sets of Zercher squats and low step-ups. Keeping the Zercher theme I followed these with some Zercher Good Mornings; which always feel a lot more natural than the standard barbell Good Morning.

Once again, the abs had the pleasure of bringing the workout to a close; this time with a combination of crunches and kneeling plate twists.