Training hard

After nearly a month I’m finally recovering from the Texas Shredder Classic.  It is the most stressful thing I ever do and the number of hours of work that I put into it in the weeks leading up, along with the sleep deprivation takes a huge toll.

Now I’m really able to concentrate on my dieting and training.  My workouts have been going very well even though I’ve been doing most of them solo for the last few weeks.  Yesterday I was completely trashed after my leg workout.  Speaking of legs, I measured last night and my injured left leg has caught up to my right leg!  I’m not sure if I mentioned on any of my blogs before I got caught up in the Shredder Classic prep, but I started using some occlusion training on my left leg.  I was able to put an inch on it in 4 weeks using the occlusion training that Layne Norton wrote about in Ironman.

Again, my workouts are going extremely well and I’m very sore all the time now.  Here is yesterday’s leg workout:

I started the workout with half-squats in the power rack.  I set the pins so that I could only go about halfway down.  I wanted to get used to the feel of heavier weights on my back.

Half-squats 7 sets 6-10 reps  I did 405 for 10 on my final set

Full squats (below parallel)  7 sets 5-15 reps  my heaviest was 315 for a set of 5 and a set of 6.  Finished with 225 for a set of 15, then a set of 10.

Leg press 8 sets 17-20 reps  Last 3 sets:  810X20, 810X20, 720X17

Hack squats (just started doing these again) 2 sets 12-15 reps

Leg Ext 4 sets 10-15 reps

Lying Leg Curls 5 sets 8-12 reps  (these still hurt my hamstring tendon badly)

Today I woke up still tired from my leg workout.  I felt kinda weak, but after I got going I had a pretty good training session.  Amalia Litras recently put up a “Hyde Park Gym Raw Records” board.  Since I’m weighing just under 181 now I thought I would be the first to put a bench mark on the board for men’s 181 lb class.  I haven’t lifted heavy in a long long time, and I certainly didn’t want to go to an absolute max.  I worked my way up to 270 lbs., which I lifted easily and left it at that.  I think I have 300 in me, but I need to take my time working up to that (342 is my best competition lift in a bench press shirt).

Bench Press 12 sets 1-15 reps.  That included 4 singles, with the heaviest at 270 lbs.  Then 2 sets of 8 at 225 and a set of 15 at 185.

Incline press 6 set 6-15 reps

Pec Fly Machine 3 sets 9-12 reps

Hammer Curls 4 sets 8-12 reps

Pushups 1 set to failure….45 reps (surprised I could do that many at the end of the workout)

 I’ve now lost about 7 lbs over the last 7 weeks and I just measured my bodyfat at 5.0% with the skindex calipers.