Training Day Fifty Three

It's been a fairly warm day today, and our apartment seems to suffer from this by making things real sweaty. Combine that with a fair bit of indoor studying and you have yourself a not-so-pleasant situation. That's why today's visit to the gym was a highly anticipated event. Feels good to sweat for all the right reasons!

Today's quad workout:
- 5x8 Squats
- 3x12 Leg press machine
- 2x12 1x9 Leg extensions (One leg at a time)

Quad pic taken prior to heading to the gym.

I'm not sure if I'm running low on energy, or if it's just the fact that I've entered squats into my workout that made me feel like I was completely drained today. To be honest, I felt kind of off even as I started doing the warm-up sets. In any case, the legs got a good beating and I'm eagerly looking forward to tonight's cheat meal.

Training Day Fifty Two

Had an earlier workout than expected today. Started this morning with two gym instructions, upon which I decide to do my own workout straight afterwards. I need to keep things neat, tidy and effective now that I got a lot of things revolving around me.

Today's delts and calves workout:
- 5x8 3x12 Calf raise machine
- 4x12 Calf raises (Smith machine)
- 3x20 Standing calf raises
- 5x5 Seated shoulder press (Smith machine)
- 3x8 Dumbbell front delt raise
- 3x8 Dumbbell lateral delt raise
- 3x8 One arm dumbbell lateral delt raise
- 3x8 Bent over one arm dumbbell rear delt raise
- 3x12 Reverse fly machine

Calves pic taken at home after my workout.

I decided half-way through my calf workout that I was going to give them a good pounding. Ended up with 15 sets, where the last three were done with a fairly high amount of repetitions. Hopefully this kind of work will eventually pay off - especially since my calves are in the "need-to-grow-category".

Training Day Fifty One

Yet another day of conducting my experiment at the University followed by a workout. Today's workout had triceps and hamstrings on the menu, and yet again I was able to keep a fairly high intensity.

Today's posterior muscle workout:
- 6x8 Stiff-legged deadlifts
- 4x12 Horizontal leg curls
- 3x8 Seated leg curls
- 4x8 1x6 Triceps pushdowns (horizontal bar)
- 1x12 2x8 Cable bent over triceps extensions (with rope)
- 3x8 Dumbbell one arm triceps extensions
- 3x8 Dips machine

Triceps posing - post workout.

I was probably a bit out of focus today as I had a hard time remembering how many reps I pulled off after each exercise. But, hopefully, most of what's written down is correct. I also got some good pointers for my hamstrings workout today. It seems as if I've been positioning my feet slightly incorrect during my workouts. After some fiddling around I finally got it right and had myself a real good hamstrings workout. You gotta listen to learn and learn to listen!

Training Day Fifty

It's been an exciting day as I've just recently started conducting my experiments at the University. I'm right now studying the human memory and it's relation to memory cues. Conducting any kind of experiment is - to say the least - time consuming. On top of that, you have to suite your schedule to when people have time to participate, and not the other way around. Hence, I've spent the entire day at the University rigging my experiment and trying to get people (who aren't already booked) to participate. Due to this, I had a long day in front of me before I could finally hit the gym. Afterwards I was booked for a gym instruction and ended up eating lunch in my car straight after that. In any case, here's today's workout!

Today's back, forearms and trapz workout:
- 5x6 Lat pulldowns
- 2x4 1x3 Chins (supinated grip)
- 3x12 Cable row machine
- 3x12 Bent over cable pullover
- 5x12 Supinated barbell wrist curls
- 3x12 Reverse barbell biceps curl
- 4x12 Dumbbell shrugs
- 3x12 Barbell upright row

Lat spread pic taken at home after my workout.

I was actually surprised by the intensity I was able to keep during my workout considering how tired I was when I arrived at the gym. The weights felt light and the movement was controlled. The only part that didn't end up that thorough was trapz.

Training Day Forty Nine

It's that time again. The one time a week where the biceps bulging cravings come to surface. If you've ever felt it, you know it's nothing to be ashamed of. So, let's get down and dirty and reveal what was in store for today!

Today's biceps and chest workout:
- 5x5 3x8 Incline dumbbell chest press
- 4x12 Standing cable chest flyes
- 3x8 Dumbbell preacher curl
- 3x6 Dumbbell hammer curl
- 3x12 Super EZ-bar biceps curl

Pic taken at home after my workout.

Today's biceps workout was actually pretty decent. I tend to have some issues with targeting that particular muscle group properly. Adding to that, it's also been a part that's not growing all too well. The chest part of the workout was slightly sloppy as I did engage a fair bit of delts - especially during the last couple of sets of chest flyes.

Going through the old stuff

Memories, memories, memories... In times of strict dieting it's nice to be reminded of what's ahead and what could be accomplished with a lot of hard work. Today, I went through some old pictures, taken with my mobile cam prior to hitting my "end date", which was 25:th of Juli 2011. As many of you have seen, I had some great pictures taken that day, with a much more professional cam (see here). So, here's a bunch of not so professional looking pictures taken at the gym 7 days before I stopped cutting. Enjoy!

Side chest

One more side chest

Triceps pose

Front pose

Crab

Back double biceps

Back lat spread

Looking at the pictures brings back a lot of memories. Adding to that, they also remind me of how much harder I need to get in order to get to where I used to be. Hopefully, this time, I can do it with a bit more finesse and avoid getting the "all too skinny look".

Cheat Day Four

As you might have just read, I took away a few calories from the diet today (see here). This change will be - as I explained in one of my previous entries - accompanied by cheat day number four. I personally see the day before going even lower on the calorie intake as a good opportunity to stuff myself with some awesomely delicious items. Which brings me to today's dietary deviation of doom: A bag of candy!

Some of my favorite candy - soon to be devoured!

Just as when I had the pizza a few weeks ago, there's no real nutritional information to get hold of. That is, unless I'd look up the nutritional information for each and every piece of candy in my bag, weigh it, and then sum up all the calories - which is more than I'm willing to do. Instead, I'm assuming chocolate candy contains about 550 calories per 100 grams, and gummy candy about 360 calories per 100 grams. Through that assumption, I'm doing a rough estimate and setting my bag-of-candy weight limit at 250 grams (8.8 oz). This should - according to my awesome calculations - put me roughly at my 1000 calories limit.

In the usual manner, I tend to have a general idea about as to why I've chosen this particular day as my cheat day. I've already given one good reason further up in this entry, but, adding to that, I'm also taking my girlfriend to the movies tonight. We'll be watching Avengers in 3D. Now, if that's not a reason to stuff my face with calorie rich treats, I don't know what is. Oh, and the fact that this was quad day too doesn't really hurt either.