Exercise Log 11.8.13 (Back Day + Cardio)

Achievement unlocked: get a good back workout! Today was back day at the gym, which is an awesome day. After warmups I hit the good ol’ bent over rows, did 8 reps of 90lbs, 8 more with 100, and two sets of 8 with 110lbs which is the biggest curl bar available. Then I decided today to do deadlifting fresh, so started with light weight and did two sets of 5 opposing grip deadlifts. Then two sets of 5 with a more “normal” rep weight.

Then I went into doing deadlifts at the weight level I generally have problems, which is currently 225lbs. To my surprise, I aced the set of 5 and plowed through it without major issue. I did up the weight to 245lbs to try for a personal record, but after three attempts I failed out and decided to finish deadlifting with a burn set at a medium weight for two more sets of 6. This was really good I thought as my legs were still feeling pretty worn out from the big day of squats a couple days previous.

I didn’t break any personal records today, but this is absolutely how I felt doing deadlifts today, grunting and all…

Scott Herman activates Super Saiyan levels of power to break his personal deadlift records… this is how every good deadlift exercise feels! Don’t believe me? Try it yourself!

Feeling pretty good, I decided to do some one armed dumbbell rows, 60lb for 3 sets and 65lbs for the last set. Then I hit the T-bar rows, two sets of 10 with medium weight and one set of 8 with heavy. Tried to slow my tempo here to get a deeper burn. Then I went and did seated rows, preferring going heavy for a few sets then did a couple drop sets.

Then to wrap everything up I did some pull-ups. Now believe it or not, pull-ups are my weakest link in my entire exercise routine. They are a great standard exercise but I went into all this lifting before building the strength needed to do real good pull-ups. If you’re a beginner with pull-ups, I suggest watching this video by Scooby…

Scooby tells you in 5 phases how to build up your pull-up strength

Anyways, the way I do pull-ups is now that I can do a couple unassisted, I do regular wide gripped pull-ups to failure (sometimes only 2-3 reps) then I do chin-ups which are easier to round out 7 reps. Well today the first two sets were kind of haggared and not doing well, but around set three with a little bit of fiddling my body just “realized” how to use my back in a better way and I did a bunch of unassisted wide gripped pullups. Some of it was me using my tension to cheat a little, admittedly, which got me swaying a bit but some of it was just fully contracting the laterals. I don’t know if it was the workout today, or the practice, or what but for whatever reason I did a better job of it on set three than I ever had before. I felt so good, I went for another round.

I feel like my body learned how to use itself more properly today, and it felt good. I decided to celebrate by trying out a long run to check my pacing for my upcoming 5 miler. I did keep a lower pace and gassed out on a couple points, but I completed a 5 mile run after all this work… and let me say, the deadlifting plus the squatting from two days ago put a surprising strain on my glutes and hamstrings so I was not 100%… and I felt like I had a good 5 mile run on the treadmill today. So all in all said, excellent workout day all around I’m excited and pumped and that’s what it’s all about!