Workout: What did you do today?

[DJChameleon]

I went back to the gym this morning and it felt so good. I can't believe I missed it so much. I didn't complete a full chest day workout because I accidentally hit my funny bone like my elbow and I'm like damn. I just got back to the gym to get a stupid injury lol. I'm doing full cardio sesh tomorrow.

[Guybrush]

Shit workout today.

Just not that into it.

Might be time for a break. See how it goes rest of the week.

You've now taught me that the occasional shit day is to be expected, so that was actually quite helpful 🙂

You'll soon be back on the beef horse, my swollen brother 💪

I went back to the gym this morning and it felt so good. I can't believe I missed it so much. I didn't complete a full chest day workout because I accidentally hit my funny bone like my elbow and I'm like damn. I just got back to the gym to get a stupid injury lol. I'm doing full cardio sesh tomorrow.

Ouch! I guess some aches, pains and occasional smacks just comes with the territory.

Good luck and speedy recovery to you and your funny bone!

[grindy]

Pull day today. I realized that I cheat a little bit on heavy weighted pullups. I slightly and relatively slowly raise my knees when I get tired and I assumed it's just to improve the tension in my body, but nope. Turns out that gave me a bit of momentum and gave me 1-2 reps more towards the end. Don't think this is a huge issue but I'll be mindful of this in the future. My pull ups are getting more and more difficult as I'm gaining weight and it's a bit frustrating but obviously I'm still getting stronger and I'm looking forward to the numbers shooting up when I'm cutting.

[jimmy jazz]

You've now taught me that the occasional shit day is to be expected, so that was actually quite helpful 🙂

You'll soon be back on the beef horse, my swollen brother 💪

Oh yes it happens. Just one day is normal, if it's the same for the rest of the days in doing this week then I will take a short break.

[Guybrush]

Pull day today. I realized that I cheat a little bit on heavy weighted pullups. I slightly and relatively slowly raise my knees when I get tired and I assumed it's just to improve the tension in my body, but nope. Turns out that gave me a bit of momentum and gave me 1-2 reps more towards the end. Don't think this is a huge issue but I'll be mindful of this in the future. My pull ups are getting more and more difficult as I'm gaining weight and it's a bit frustrating but obviously I'm still getting stronger and I'm looking forward to the numbers shooting up when I'm cutting.

For pullups, I'm doing partial reps now which means to keep going even if I can't get all the way up. I just do what I can and kinda get lots of failures in with the final partial reps. When I'm just hanging and twitching, I stop 😄

It does feel kinda sloppy (eventually) and it's probably not smart or feasible for every exercise, but might be good in a few (like chin-ups / pullups).

[DJChameleon]

Tuesday I did my cardio session which was weighted jump rope for 18 minutes. 3 minute rounds with 30 second breathing breaks. I was so exhausted near the end that I wanted to quit at like 15 minutes in but I pushed through the end bit.

I'm so happy to be back in the gym that I think this week I'm going to go five times this week then next week I will go back to my four days a week. The combination of having my own ride to get to the gym along with my MIL being around because she's on vacation from work has given me a bit more freedom from having to be the sole caretaker during the days for my grandpa in law. So I'm going to take full advantage of it during this three week period.

[DJChameleon]

Ouch! I guess some aches, pains and occasional smacks just comes with the territory.

Good luck and speedy recovery to you and your funny bone!

Thanks it was such a silly injury but it did stop me from completing my chest day routine. I think Today(Wednesday) like in a few hours, I will go and attempt my regular chest day routine again. My PT did say I should be doing chest day twice a week and I sort of agree with him but I don't know how to incorporate that into my 4 day a week routine.

I usually do chest day then cardio day then I switch between shoulders/leg day or back day then back to cardio for the last day.  I don't know how to fit chest day in twice a week without touching on another body group.

[grindy]

Thanks it was such a silly injury but it did stop me from completing my chest day routine. I think Today(Wednesday) like in a few hours, I will go and attempt my regular chest day routine again. My PT did say I should be doing chest day twice a week and I sort of agree with him but I don't know how to incorporate that into my 4 day a week routine.

I usually do chest day then cardio day then I switch between shoulders/leg day or back day then back to cardio for the last day.  I don't know how to fit chest day in twice a week without touching on another body group.

Do an upper-lower split.
On upper you superset push and pull movements.
Example:
Upper Day 1: Chest Press varation 1 ss Row variation 1, Overhead Press variation 1 ss Pull-Downs, Curls variation 1 ss Tricep Pushdown
Upper Day 2: Overhead Press variation 2 ss Pull Ups, Chest Press variation 2 ss Rows variation 2, Curls variation 2 ss Tricep overhead extension

Just realized that lateral raises are missing and they are quite important for side lat growth but you can either tuck them in at the end or superset them with some leg exercises on your leg day. As for cardio day, I don't think this makes sense. You can do 20 minutes of cardio at the end of each workout.

[jimmy jazz]

Dunno if you're considering this Deej but when you're working each muscle group twice a week, it doesn't have to be twice every calander week. Meaning over a random period from a Monday to Sunday you may only work a couple of muscle groups once, but there are still fewer than 6 days between each workout. So it is twice every 7 days.

Agree with Grindy about the cardio. Do it after you train for a shorter period but consistently after your workouts.

[DJChameleon]

Do an upper-lower split.
On upper you superset push and pull movements.
Example:
Upper Day 1: Chest Press varation 1 ss Row variation 1, Overhead Press variation 1 ss Pull-Downs, Curls variation 1 ss Tricep Pushdown
Upper Day 2: Overhead Press variation 2 ss Pull Ups, Chest Press variation 2 ss Rows variation 2, Curls variation 2 ss Tricep overhead extension

Just realized that lateral raises are missing and they are quite important for side lat growth but you can either tuck them in at the end or superset them with some leg exercises on your leg day. As for cardio day, I don't think this makes sense. You can do 20 minutes of cardio at the end of each workout.

Dunno if you're considering this Deej but when you're working each muscle group twice a week, it doesn't have to be twice every calander week. Meaning over a random period from a Monday to Sunday you may only work a couple of muscle groups once, but there are still fewer than 6 days between each workout. So it is twice every 7 days.

Agree with Grindy about the cardio. Do it after you train for a shorter period but consistently after your workouts.

If I'm only working out 4 times a week based off of the schedule I set earlier yes technically chest will end up being twice a week sort of. If I did it every Monday, idk my math feels a bit off still seems like once a week.  Once in a 7 day period.

Also shorter cardio yes there is no way in hell I'm doing 20 mins worth of cardio after a tough workout session. Especially if I was working with my trainer that way. He pushes me til my body is exhausted. I just want to leave the gym and go home to shower. When I work out without him, I usually do 10 mins cardio post work out even if I'm tired. It's not the same level of tiredness that my trainer gets me too but it's still painful.  Today I did the 10 mins on the elliptical at the end and my arms were bothering me so much. It was a good pain like the whole no gain no pain feeling but woof it was rough. I barely made it through the 10 mins, I got to the 6 minute mark and wanted to go home.  I pushed through the pain though.

[jimmy jazz]

That's what I mean, you don't have to do your chest every Monday just cos it's Monday. You do it whenever your cycle calls for it.

This is what I'm doing atm and how it would spread over two cycles:

Day 1: Chest/Tris
Day 2: Quads/Hams
Day 3: Shoulders/Calves
Day 4: Back/Bis
Day 5: Rest Day
Day 6: Chest/Tris
Day 7: Quads/Hams
Day 8: Shoulders/Calves
Day 9: Back/Bis
Day 10: Rest Day

And repeat obviously.

So as you can see a calander week wouldn't allow me to do every muscle group twice but every muscle group is getting trained twice in a 7 day period. I could cut this down to 8 days if I removed my shoulder/calf day and did those exercises with chest and legs but I already explained this way makes it easier for me to hit them harder and not half arse what I'm doing.

How long have you had a routine and stuck to that plan without going in there not knowing what you're supposed to be doing? Cos it sounds like you're going in and thinking 'I feel like doing x today' rather than 'today is y day'.

[grindy]

If I'm only working out 4 times a week based off of the schedule I set earlier yes technically chest will end up being twice a week sort of. If I did it every Monday, idk my math feels a bit off still seems like once a week.  Once in a 7 day period.

Also shorter cardio yes there is no way in hell I'm doing 20 mins worth of cardio after a tough workout session. Especially if I was working with my trainer that way. He pushes me til my body is exhausted. I just want to leave the gym and go home to shower. When I work out without him, I usually do 10 mins cardio post work out even if I'm tired. It's not the same level of tiredness that my trainer gets me too but it's still painful.  Today I did the 10 mins on the elliptical at the end and my arms were bothering me so much. It was a good pain like the whole no gain no pain feeling but woof it was rough. I barely made it through the 10 mins, I got to the 6 minute mark and wanted to go home.  I pushed through the pain though.

One of the unfortunately many usual mistakes PTs make, is rushing clients through a ton of exercises with little regard for training structure and proper rest periods. Clients feel exhausted and sweaty afterwards and think that this was a very productive workout, when in reality very little to no muscle and strength gains have been achieved. Could this be the case?
I can kinda understand being too fucked for cardio after a very intense leg day but after upper body this is unusual. And if your arms bother you too much on the elliptical, you can always switch to some legs-only cardio.

[grindy]

Push day today. On this push day my main lifts used to be heavy barbell overhead press and incline dumbbell chest press. But last week I noticed that the limiting factor on the chest press were my delts and not my pecs, which were the actual target muscle. My delts were still too tired from the overhead pressing. So today I switched to flat bench and immediately noticed a huge change in my pec activation. Gonna keep it that way for the foreseeable future.

[DJChameleon]

One of the unfortunately many usual mistakes PTs make, is rushing clients through a ton of exercises with little regard for training structure and proper rest periods. Clients feel exhausted and sweaty afterwards and think that this was a very productive workout, when in reality very little to no muscle and strength gains have been achieved. Could this be the case?
I can kinda understand being too fucked for cardio after a very intense leg day but after upper body this is unusual. And if your arms bother you too much on the elliptical, you can always switch to some legs-only cardio.

I can always do the elliptical without using the arm things and just do my legs but I've never done it that way. I also had that conversation today about the rest periods between sets and how short or long they should be. I was working out with some new buddies today and they say they rest for a full minute but my PT is against that for the type of program he has. The maximum I should be resting is 30 seconds and the workout is built for efficiency. No one or at least I don't want to be spending all day in the gym doing hour plus workouts. Maybe that's why your workout days are so long when they don't need to be.

[Guybrush]

I read up on optimal rest between sets and in my case, it seems to be 2-3 minutes so that's what I'm doing. I might be adding some time due to age as I'm reading 40+ guidelines 😅

Hurt my right arm somewhat during today's exercise. I was doing dumbbell pullover with 25 kgs wights on a dumbbell, 10 x 3 reps, and I think that's what messed it up. Probably shouldn't have done the bench presses after. Wanted to get some pullups in, but didn't feel good.

How do you guys feel about dumbbell pullovers?

If anyone's confused, it's this one:



Seems not great for shoulder health? Plus think I'm kinda already getting them, and maybe in a better way, doing ab-wheel workouts.