Exercise Log 2.17.14 (Chest Day, No Cardio)

Started my “light week” with the previous back workout, a week of primarily high intensity, low weight, high volume exercising. For the last couple months I’d been doing primarily heavy weight, low reps which is great but it’s good to switch it up. I may extend the light workouts a cycle or two, just to get more out of this period.

Anyways, lots of volume and intensity and it’s working great. It’s been exceptionally tiring actually, which is great as it proves the essential point that it’s worthwhile.

So today was chest day, and it was fun!

Declined Bench Press: 4 sets of 12 reps @ 115lbs.

Flat Bench Press: 4 sets of 12 reps @ 125lbs. Did some split sets in the last two sets due to getting tired. Focused on slow, formed reps. My notes said 135lbs, but I distinctly recall 125 so that’s what I’m recording. As a contrast if I was doing 5×5 I’d do 145.

Inclined Dumbbell Press: Couldn’t find an inclined press machine open, it was busy, so did dumbbell presses instead. 4 sets 16 reps @ 35lbs. This had a good upper pec burn.

Floor Dumbbell Press: Did this with a 45lb pair of dumbbells, intended to use 40 but forgot my weight levels (normally I do 50-60 so wanted a notch lower, but 45 wasn’t *that* much lower). Still it was a perfect set. Felt a lot of strain in the pecs as I wore on with this exercise knowing my muscles were really fatigued. So aimed for 80 presses and did that in the following sets: Set 1) 16 reps. Set 2) 12 reps. Set 3) 12 reps. Set 4) 10 reps (50 total). Set 5) 14 reps (64 total). Set 6) 10 reps (74 total). Set 7) 10 reps (84 total).

Inclined Dumbbell Flys: 4 sets of 12 reps @ 25lbs. Slowed the tempo to a very slow pace on the initial downward motion for the fly (5-1-2) on the last set for an extra burn.

Seated Cable Flys: 3 sets of 16 reps @ 25lbs. This had an unusual amount of burn and fatigue on my chest due to a very slow tempo in the eccentric part of the movement and just very force focused concentration in the pec.

Reverse Flys / Side Raises: 4 sets 16 reps each exercise @ 15lbs. Slower tempo again, something like a 2-1-3 or 2-1-5 tempo. Very slow to work reverse delts.

Reverse Fly Machine: 3 sets of 12 reps @ 75lbs. Extremely slow tempo and very very slow tempo on the last set.

Very intense, short workout and it was fantastic. Writing this two days after and my chest still hurts. Proves you can do good chest workouts without the heavy workout. I feel I will be much better on my heavy workout after this week of light work, and that’s the point!