CK's Journal - The Road To Achieving a 1-Star Rating

jebus


sounds like a good night out pal. i did my resit exam today and it went pretty well, but had a night in tonight so going out tomoz instead, not gonna go to mad though.

im gonna weight myself properly on monday, see what my bodyfat % is (im guessing ~20%) and decide whether to lean bulk or cut from there.

your shoulders pretty much fine now then yeh? i can see the weights are coming up nicely, wel done mate. ive never liked decline press, always felt unnatural to me. i find incline really good for building my chest up, a few months back when i started doing it my chest really started to fill out.

Yep it was a fun night! Well done on the exam, I'm sure you'll do deadly! Yep shoulder feels great thanks! Felt a bit dodgy after the Decline press yesterday but it's grand now. How's your lifting going?

Everything looks to be going very well around here, nice one :-)

Pull

Deadlift
100kg x 10
100kg x 10
100kg x 10

BB Bent Over Rows
52kg x 10 (+2kg)
52kg x 10
52kg x 10

Wide Grip Cable Pulldowns
13 (of 20) x 10
13 (of 20) x 10
13 (of 20) x 10 (+1)

EZ Curls
32kg x 10 (+2kg)
32kg x 10
32kg x 8

Incline DB Alternate Curls
14kg x 7
12kg x 10
12kg x 10
12kg x 8

Abs + 30 mins cardio. Great session.

Cheers Stevie! Yep things are going well thanks, strength is up with every session and I can see I've put on some size even since the pics at the start of this journal. I'm loving the iron at the moment! Hope your training is going well for you too!

im gonna start training with one of my mates today. we're gonna be using his home gym which has the lot and im gonna be using my treadmill loads to get ripped . i was gonna be training with another guy but he's training to join the royal marines now so its not really what im after, even though im gonna be cutting. im going back to a four day split now as that what my mate is doing.

What kinda cardio did you do CK?

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Howya, normally I just do ~30 mins low intensity steady state on a bike or cross trainer. I tend to avoid running on account of my sh1t knees!

I'm going away for a week or so in the morning, down to my folks' holiday home down the country, so I won't be posting for a while as I'm not sure if they have the internet down there.

Also the house is in the middle of nowhere and I believe there isn't a gym within hours of it, so I will not be able to hit the iron for the week. However the house had some work done on it recently so perhaps I could find some heavy construction type objects lying around that I could improvise with (cinder blocks, logs, etc.). I'm going to be doing cardio and core work every second day and hopefully I'll be able to do some strongman/crossfit type improvised workouts using bodyweight and/or whatever I find lying around the garden! Could be pretty fun actually! If it turns out the place does have the internet I will post up my workouts.

Later dudes!

Push

(First workout after 2 weeks off, during which time my diet went to sh1t. Understandably my strength was through the floor. So annoyed. Never again)

Bench Press
75kg x 10
75kg x 10
75kg x 6 (-2)

Incline DB Press
26kg x 10 (+3)
26kg x 7
26kg x 6

Flyes
12kg x 9 (-1)
12kg x 7 (-2)
12kg x 6

DB Seated Shoulder Press
20kg x 6
18kg x 6
18kg x 4 ()

Cable Tricep Pulldowns
130lb x 10
130lb x 8 (-2)
130lb x 7 (-1)

I realised I've been doing the same exercises for the last 3/4 months so I've decided to mix them up a bit. Routine will stay the same, just going to swap some of the lifts with other variations to shock my muscles, keep them guessing and hopefully stimulate some more growth.

So on Push day I'm going to replace the Bench Press with DB Press, and replace Incline DB Press with Incline Barbell Press. And on Pull day I'm going to replace Barbell Bent-Over Rows with DB Rows, and Hammer Curls with Incline DB Alternate Curls.

Major DOMS today, but can't wait for the gym tomorrow.

Why not decline instead of incline bench?

Actually I had thought about doing Decline bench instead of Flat bench, but wanted to try some Flat DB pressing for a while instead. I may substitute decline bench for flat db pressing every once in a while. But to be honest I absolutely love Incline bench so I really don't want to drop it!

Pull

Deadlift
100kg x 10
100kg x 10
100kg x 10

DB Bent Over Rows (each hand)
32kg x 10
32kg x 10
32kg x 10

Wide-Grip Pulldowns
130lb x 10
130lb x 10
130lb x 9 (-1)

EZ Curls
32kg x 10
32kg x 9 (-1)
32kg x 7 (-1)

Alternate Incline DB Curls
12kg x 10
12kg x 10
12kg x 10

Single Handed DB Preacher Curls
12kg x 8
12kg x 7
12kg x 6

Narrow-Grip Cable Curls
100lb x 10
100lb x 8
100lb x 7

Ridiculous session. Felt ok during the Deads and the Rows but strength was down again on all other exercises. I'm never taking more than a week off again. Also as you can see I went a bit overboard on the bicep isolations at the end, and the reason for this is that I simply couldn't get a pump. I reckon it's because my strength was down a bit and as a result the weight was just about too heavy to get into the 'pumping' rep range (7 reps on the EZ curls, 6 reps on the Preacher curls, etc.) No matter, I've been eating everything in sight and I predict that I will be back to my pre-holiday strength by the next session. Until then I'm training Legs on Thursday and I can expect some red minuses is that session too, ah well!

Legs

Squat
70kg x 10
70kg x 10
70kg x 10 (+1)

Standing Calf Raise (Smith) (+5kg)
75kg x 10
75kg x 10
75kg x 14

Leg Extensions
140lb x 10
140lb x 10
140lb x 10

Leg Curls (+10lb)
140lb x 10
140lb x 10
140lb x 9

Good old session. Strength was up from last time I did legs, which is surprising.

Push

Dumbbell Press
32kg x 10
32kg x 10
32kg x 10

Incline Bench
60kg x 7
55kg x 9
55kg x 7

Seated DB Shoulder Press
18kg x 7
18kg x 6
18kg x 5 (+1)

Flyes
12kg x 10 (+1)
12kg x 10 (+3)
12kg x 8 (+2)

Tricep Pulldowns (+10lb)
140lb x 10
140lb x 9
140lb x 8

Great session. I wasn't supposed to be training chest again until Sunday, but I'm working all day Sunday and my gym will be closed by the time I finish, and plus I'm going out on the piss tonight which makes tomorrow a right off as well. Very happy with my session, but some of the lifts were a bit messy because this was my first session doing them. I wasn't expecting to get a full 3x10 with 32kg DB's on the DB Press, so next time I'll move up to the 34's probably. Also on the Incline Bench I wasn't sure of what weight to use, 60kg was a shot in the dark, but was slightly too heavy so next time I'll start off with 55kg and aim for 3 x (8-10).

Now, drinking time.

Good to see the weights/reps going up mate. Keep it going.

Weighed in at 94kg this morning, so that's a 2kg gain in the last month. Not sure how much of that is lean, but I'm happy regardless

Owen, cheers man, it's always nice to get encouragement like that!

Pull

Deadlift
100kg x 10
100kg x 10
100kg x 10

DB Bent-Over Rows (+2kg)
34kg x 10
34kg x 10
34kg x 10

Wide-Grip Lat Pulldowns
130lb x 10
130lb x 10
130lb x 10 (+1)

EZ Curls
32kg x 10
32kg x 10 (+1)
32kg x 9 (+2)

Incline Alternate DB Curls
12kg x 10
12kg x 10
12kg x 10

One Armed Cable Pulldowns (Supinated)
80lb x 10
70lb x 9
70lb x 6

How're the high rep deads for ya mate? Not a fan personally..

Owen


How're the high rep deads for ya mate? Not a fan personally..

Ah I quite enjoy them tbh, my form kinda goes to sh1t on the last rep or two so I usually wear a belt for them to avoid doing any damage. But I'm enjoying them tbh yeah, I've put on a good bit of mass since I started doing them so they must be working anyway! They're seriously fcuking hard though, more tired after three sets than I am after doing an hour long run!

Legs

Squats
70kg x 10
70kg x 10
70kg x 10

Front Squats
40kg x 10
40kg x 10
40kg x 7

Standing Calf Raise (Smith)
90kg x 10
90kg x 10
90kg x 10

Leg Extensions
140lb x 10
130lb x 10
130lb x 10

Leg Curls
140lb x 10
140lb x 10
140lb x 10

Quads are in bits now, just the way I like it