ExRx.net

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Friday, April 16: Shoulders, Calves, Abs

Deltoid (Front) – Dumbbell Shoulder Press
Main goal here is start with weights above elbows and follow through with arch.

Calves (General) – Lever Seated Calf Extension
Remember to do these slow and extend and return all the way.

Deltoid (Side) – Barbell Upright Row
Start with hands thigh-length apart, bring hands straight up, elbows out.

Calves (General) – Lever Seated Calf Press
Seat all the way back, keep legs straight, try not to use quads.

Deltoid (Rear) – Dumbbell Rear Delt Row
Let arm hang directly at side, lats become involved if too close to "trunk". Elbow should be raised directly lateral to shoulder.

Abdominals
Captain's Chair: Bring knees to chest, then bring knees up to face to engage hips.

Hour-long workout today. Skipped weighted decline sit-up. Planning on changing ab workout around a little, talking to some friends about that.

Sorry if I missed it in your log post, but what are your goals?

As far as goals in the numerical or aesthetic sense, none really. Burning fat would probably be among the highest of priorities, but I am in great shape. The weight training and cardio workouts I have been doing put me at ease - I have always had a lot of stress, between working full time, or just dealing with the fact that my academic major is incredibly tedious and technical - so, really stress reduction is the underlying goal.
When I choose which exercises I do and what reps I try, I'm not looking to bulk up, but rather get more cut. I'm at that stage where eating right and working out regularly isn't giving me any new results, so I have recently gotten a little more serious about my weight training and cardio, and gotten even stricter with my diet.
I love it so far, I love planning my day around my workout and my eating around my body. Makes the whole day feel like it's all about me, and not school or work! haha for this, and many other reasons, I love college! But only one semester left

First, good luck in fitness and school!

Second, just take my opinions as input. You said you wanted feedback! Also, ask several people about fitness and you will get contradictory answers, you just will! So the key is for you to weed through input and use what is useful.

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1. Why the seated calf raise? Intuitively, I would think a standing raise will hit both soleus and gastroc. And I think seated hits only one? Just the little soleus?

2. "getting ripped". I have been very fat and then lost 70 pounds to become well ripped (single digits bf%). I think people jerking around with excess ab work, months of "toning", adjusting diet but not CONSTRAINING it, are wasting their time. And then wondering why noting is happening. Look, just diet down. You will get the abs JUST FINE. I will bet on it. Your body is a machine and diet is a very easy way to change it. Much faster and easier than lifting actually. Do what you need to do. Post a picture here. WEigh yourself every morning, stripped and post-leak. If possible, get your bf% measured (calipers are just fine if done by a good trainer.) You can also go to Lyle McDonald's forums and there is a thread where people will give you your bf% from your photo.

3. Question (not feedack): I was playing with the captain's chair, but could not get a good feel for it and I dislike the jerk in the back. It is appealing that it is fixed and designed for the purpose and has selector plate weight adjustment. How do you like it and how do you concentrate on the motion?

And I think your diet sounds great by the way. Just keep up the veggies and salads to stay full, but constrain the peanut butter a bit.

Write down a diet plan and know what you are eating. this will take you an hour max. But it will teach you to be cognizant of your intake. Anyone taking hours and hours to exercise and doing very particular bodybuilding motions, should be willing to do a little work to understand their diet...not fly by seat of pants.

Once, you have written it down, you can see how much you need to constrain, to get where you need to be. You are an engineer...well this is just a (pre) algebra problem. If equilibrium is 3000 calories, drop your diet down to 2500. You will lose 1 pound/week at that deficit (you could probably safely go down to 1500 and triple the rate, but that choice is up to you.)

making up more numbers...if you are 200# and 13% bf (guess based on your description) and want to get to 8%, then you need to lose 10#. You can make a calculation and then monitor the results with mirror, photos and calipers. You may find you need to lose a little more (sometimes fat seems to come from "inside your belly") or perhaps even less. But you will be able to see changes and measure and adjust goals.

Keep the lifting up while you are dieting. Don't listen to people who say you have to be fat to gain muscle. Sure, if you want to be a sumo wrestler or defnsive lineman or a GFH bodybuilder who only looks good twice a year, that can be your approach. But if you want to be ripped...be ripped. And I bet you still gain strength. (I did and I am 44 yo and not some super testosterone freak at all.)

Your goal is to "culk" as Aragorn would say. to be ripped and stay ripped and work on adding muscle. So go after that. Not the whole be fat, starting strength, play lineman stuff.

Here's my diet plan.



And here I cut it down to 2500 (joys of Excel!)

Back (General) – Dumbbell Bent-over Row
Bracialis – Dumbbell Concentration Curl
Wrist Flexors – Dumbbell Ulnar Flexion
Need to use a lighter weight and do these lifts slower to make sure form is perfect

Back (General) – Face-pulls
Loved these. Adding them to this workout from now on. Thanks to robertscott and jungledoc for that suggestion!



I'll give the standing raise a try this week. The seated raise, no matter how I positioned my feet, used my quads more than I'd like. Especially the day after my quad workout.


I'm not tooooo worried about my abs, because you're right, the diet is what will do that for me and I'm good at dieting. I was actually planning on adding more protein (not getting enough right now, only about 150g per day when I want to be at 250), and will have to be careful about how I do that without adding too many calories. An extra two scoops of whey protein and two more chicken breasts should do the trick, only adding about 700 calories. 700 isn't bad considering the only other things I eat are fruit, vegetables, and a little deli meat.


The big thing with the Captain's Chair that everyone tells me is that it does nothing for you if you just bring your legs to your chest. Everyone argues about whether ab exercises really work the abs, or just the hip flexors. Bringing your knees to your chest will work your hip flexors (giving you the "burning sensation" in your abs without really doing anything for your abs). After you have your knees at your chest, bring your knees up to your face, arching your back. Bringing your legs up slower eliminates the jerk, at least for me, and makes it ten times harder.

After seeing yours, thinking I should make an Excel spreadsheet myself. Trying to finish this semester so my schedule has been a little sporadic, so hopefully I can make a followable eating schedule next month. Thanks for the input!

Need to go easy when it comes around to calf day again: one of the extensors around my left ankle has been a little stingy the past few days. I suspect the pain is caused by the calf exercises I have been doing, since I have never really concentrated on my calves this heavily.

Monday, April 19: Chest & Triceps

Chest (General) – Weighted Chest Dip
These are hard as helllllll, especially after two big chest exercises.

Chest (General) – Lever Seated Fly
Bring the seat down lower. If it's hitting my shoulders, the seat is too high.

Triceps – Dumbbell Triceps Extension One-Arm
Switched to the standing, one-armed version. My form is horrible with the regular Triceps Extension and I get nothing out of it.

Wrist Extensors – Dumbbell Radial Flexion
Lighter weight worked better

I actually had the strongest calves BEFORE lifting and before dieting. They are a weird muscle (small range of motion) and get a LOT of daily work from activity. Although the "numbers on the machine" for a standing raise, went up with time...if you consider what I actually LIFT (including body weight), I was stronger when fat and unexercised. This is different from every other muscle, for me. My quads, arms, etc. all made major gains even while I did massive dieting.

I had a calf strain (almost like a pre Achilles tear) a couple years ago and have to be easy with them. Had worked my way all the way up to 2 times 10, single leg BW plus 62.5 and was making gains every week. So...I decided to jump to 70 (normally I only go up single increments). Big mistake. Set me back all the way to BW on one calf (other fine).

Now, I am actually giving them a couple months off and will only very gradually build them back up. I feel like I have a tendancy to large calves and good genetics in that area. But I need to watch the tendon. The one good thing, is my calves are inherently large versus my physique anyhow...

P.s. I would always get bumps on my shoulders (from the weight) if doing double leg calf raises on the standing (end up with hundreds of pounds). But going single leg kind of solved that. No biggie...just sharing...

Something in my ankle is really hurting whenever I'm doing hamstring exercises or stretching, for example, locking my knees and touching my toes while standing. I felt it last week and it didn't effect my lifts that much, but this week was a pain. Need to look into this before tomorrow (calves).

Sorry about your ankle. Can you describe more? Maybe worth getting it checked out. I know it is a pain in the a..nkle to do so, but, otherwise we can try some diagnosis by Google. ;)


P.s. I was fatter than I said above (have been getting calipered, but the pictures show more fat...just fessing up.)

you could try some soft tissue work

Nervous about my ankle thing still so I took it easy on the calves, maybe did a little too much weight on some things, form could have been better. Totally forgot to do dumbbell shrugs. Whoops.
An "off" week. Hopefully when I reset on Friday I'll be better.