Exercise Log 3.1.14 (Chest Day + Cardio)

Quick log for today’s chest day. Felt like the workout was real good, and feeling now my workout attitude is more focused on solid reps. I had a troublesome issue with my right shoulder the entire day, as mentioned I was feeling unusual recruitment of it in presses and curls and I’ve been doing some static stretching to loosen it up so it’s not trying to dominate my right arm actions. I did work through it and it went fine and did at some point lower the weight to be careful.

Flat Bench Press: Set 1) 5 reps @ 135lbs. Set 2) 5 reps @ 145lbs. Set 3) 5 reps @ 155lbs. Set 4) 2 reps @ 165lbs and two failures at 175lbs. I felt real good and optimistic about breaking my new PR today, but fell only slightly short of a successful rep. I think in a week or two I’ll have it. Set 5) 8 reps @ 145lbs. My final set was a drop set to get off the bench as I had a queue, would’ve liked to nudge in one more set, but with the shoulder it’s probably best I didn’t. Inbetween the first couple sets I did a brief stretch of my right delt to loosen it up a bit, and I think it helped.

Flat Dumbbell Flys: 4 sets of 8 reps @ 30lbs. Was slow and careful with my right shoulder issues.

Dumbbell Overhead Extensions: Love this one and it felt good on the shoulder. 3 sets of 8 reps @ 50lbs.

Declined Bench Press: 3 sets of 8 reps @ 125lbs.

Dumbbell Bench Press: I don’t do this often on the actual bench, usually my dumbbell presses are on the floor. I’m kind of fail at kipping back with the weights in my hand, and with the weak shoulder I just wasn’t pressing 60lbs which is what I wanted to start with. Kind of lame considering how many people I see doing 90lbs+, but it’s never about what other people do, it’s about how you challenge yourself. Anyways, I tried a technique I got from Scott Herman that I have yet to try, and it was awesome, that being the first set drop set.

Normally when people do drop sets (sets where you drop the weight and go again right away, sometimes multiple times) they do it at the end of the exercise. Well Scott advocates a fun practice of doing it right after the first heavy set, then dropping a couple times, then proceeding with normal heavy (as you can go) sets. He does this to increase the burn, and I felt like it really did.

Set 1) 8 reps @ 50lbs -> 8 reps @ 35lbs -> 16 reps @ 15lbs (slow tempo). Set 2) 8 reps @ 50lbs. Set 3) 6 reps @ 50lbs (was failing due to shoulder fatigue).

Alright I’ve been neglecting a proper shoulder phase on my chest days, but I wanted to be cautious with the fatigued shoulder. So onward to shoulders…

Arnold Press / Bent-Over Reverse Flys: 3 sets of 8 reps presses & 10 reps flys @ 20lbs.

Side Raises: 3 sets 12 reps @ 10lbs. Very slow tempo something like 2-2-5.

Innies & Outties / Pushups: When shoulders feel sore it reminds me to throw in the often underloved innies & outties. These super light weight shoulder rotations work your rotator cuff muscles and just give them a little love. I always superset these with pushups, and do them all on the floor. 3 sets of 10 reps innies & outties each arm / 15 reps pushups. Given all the shoulder and chest work, I could barely complete the last few pushups, and that is the hallmark of a good workout is when you’re doing a fundamental exercise like pushups and you just are spent. It’s like the oven timer on your stove going *ding*, you’re all done.

Went for a relaxing 2 mile walk with a friend just before dusk. Counts as cardio, but wasn’t really the run I had intended to do. Sometimes you gotta change things up!