Monday, April 11, 2011

Week #9 done - biceps, abs, shoulders and back

Well, week #9 did indeed finish with a bang - a doubled-up day yesterday consisting of shoulders day and back day. But first, a rewind to Friday.

Friday was biceps and abs day. Friday was a kickass workout. I even threw in a "finisher" - seated cabled straight-bar curls (2-handed). I love hitting this exercise last as an "exhaustion" exercise when nothing else that day depends on biceps. This one really kills you and seems to help trigger a massive recovery effort. Solid progressions were had everywhere, from single cable curls to straight-bar standing curls to dumbell hammer curls. Also, I managed to bang out decent progressions on DB wrist curls. I definitely paid for those the next day (Saturday) when I drove for almost 6 hours with minimal breaks. Abs were another exercise in awesomeness, especially with kneeling cabled crunches. I love the "whole stack" burn I get doing those. You get up after your third set and you just feel epic.

Sunday (after we returned home from London/Toronto) was both shoulders day and back day. Shoulders day was pretty freaking amazing, considering how bagged I was. Overhead press saw more progressions again (likely going to wrap with an opener this week of 150 x 12), and so did seated barbell press. Dumbell flyes are getting kind of ridiculous for the weight I can do, but the progression keeps coming and I'm not arguing. Finally, trap shrugs. Wow. I'm actually going to drop 20-30 lbs for the last day and really slow down the rep, make my traps work for it. Nothing was injured but I'm at one of those "re-adjustment" phases where I noticed I wasn't quite getting my PCP this week on my opener set - so I made sure I hit it with the next two!

Back day was kind of fun. With leg day being today, I didn't want to do deadlifts and risk overtraining my hams and quads (as well as back), so I switched up to Romain Chair hyperextensions (with a 60lb dumbell) and then did my seated cable rows. I skipped my "finisher" here as I was super-bagged at that point and didn't want to risk an injury. However, with today being "only legs", I'm considering hitting my back "finisher" of bent-over DB rows. This works as this is week 10 and I'll be taking at least a week off.

In classic form for myself, I'm officially 50/50 as to whether or not I'll do another cycle of THT 2.0 Refix. I'm undecided as to whether I'll do HIT 3.1/3.2. I don't want to get bored with 2.0 Refix, but I'm loving the big overall workout I get doing it. I love the compact all-in-one setup of HIT 3.1/3.2, but I'm going to miss stuff like Smith machine benches. This is truly the joy of MuscleHacking, however. Mark gives us plenty of options to change things up and challenge ourselves. :)

I'll just have to keep myself (and you) guessing until I start my next cycle!

Have a great week folks! Lift smart and train hard!

Adam

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