Abs, Calves, Chest
- Lying Crunches: 45 lbs x 20, 20, 20, 20, 20 (incredible strength, slow and controlled, awesome contraction)
- Alternate One legged Calf Raise: 110 lbs x 15, 12 (max set)
- Two legged Calf Raise: 110 lbs x 30 x 4 (max burn, pump. I need more weight, but this will have to do until I can improvise a system that is safe)
- Incline Bench Press: 55 lbs per db x 12; 60 lbs per db x 10F, 7F (was fresh, got 12 reps first set with 55 instead of 6 reps last time I did these. Can this be considered a strength gain in that case? Well, in light of the fact that I upped the weight to 60 lbs and got ten reps, I would say, “hell yes!”)
Observations:
Interestingly I was really very sore today from yesterdays workout, which was damn heavy. Yet, I bounded around the apartment with the spryness of a mountain goat on the first day of spring. I really had a bounce in my step. Breathing was good as well, with only a hint of tightness towards the end of the day.
So, I decided to train again. I wanted to do abs and calves, with a focus on crunches for abs. The last time I did weighted crunches I used 45 lbs, but I only was getting sets of 10. So, today I wanted to see if I had made a strength gain. In fact, I doubled my strength. I got 5 sets of 20 solid reps, with quality contractions and ROM. I can add weight to this. I may try 65 next workout.
Calves was a bit better than last time as well, but not by much. I increased the weight for my one-legged version of calf raises by 10 lbs. I got sets of 12-15. I will do this again tomorrow or the next day depending on how calves feel.
Chest really surprised me. The last time I did inclines, I recall stating that I would stick with 55 because the weight felt so heavy at 6 reps. So, imagine my surprise when I banged out 12 reps on the first set!!! Upping the weight to 60 lbs and getting 10 reps was even more of as shock as my first set was to failure. My last set of 60 for 7 reps was strong. I can see hitting 65-70 next workout.
Now, whats interesting is that I did chest just four days ago, but I performed FLAT DB Bench Presses. In fact, the last time I did INCLINE DB Bench presses was back on 3-02-07. So, more than three weeks have passed since I did Inclines with 55 lbs, getting 6 reps, but only 4 days have passed since I trained chest. So, the question is how to interpret this. Did I make an over all strength gain in chest, or did I just get stronger in Inclines?
What I will do 4 days from now is train chest again, but only indirectly. I will do dips, if elbows permit. I will not train flat bench for at least 8 days. Then, I will train Inclines another 4 days from that workout.
All in all a very strong day. I had little in the way of much drowsiness today. So that was good. Elbows felt strong. Abs felt powerful.
Keep the train rolling, felluhs!
