Week 3 Day 5 - Hater Gunna Hate

17/04/15 Day 19 – Biceps, Calves & Abs

Today was the final day in the Y3T section of training. On reflection, I absolutely LOVED these past three weeks, they have taught me a lot about training, about how to push myself and where in my weaknesses lay. So if you have never tried this amazing style of training, check it out!

Onto today's session:

Ez Bar Wide Grip Bicep Curls – 3 Sets x 15-20 Reps (Dropset each set, 15-20 Reps Per Drop)

Ez Bar Close Grip Bicep Curls – 3 Sets x 15-20 Reps (1^st Set Dropset, 15-20 Reps)

Seated Calf Raises – 1 Set x 15-20 Reps (Dropset, 15-20 Reps)

Standing Calf Raises – 3 Sets x 15-20 Reps (Dropset each set, 15-20 Reps Per Drop)

Incline Reverse Crunch – 3 Sets x 15-20 Reps

Exercise Ball Knee Tucks – 3 Sets x 15-20 Reps

Cardio - Interval Training 15mins Total

So today was a very fast paced session, due to me working a double shift. The intensity is high, the rest was low and I smashed my way through it, lovely.

Starting with the Ez Bar Wide Grip Bicep Curls I put the focus into getting out everyone of my reps on both the standard sets as well as my drop sets, I did this because I personally feel as though the internal head of my Bicep lets me down. The internal head giving you that lovely peak look that Arnold was famous for during his hay day. So squeeze the bar up, fix those elbows tight to your waist and follow my lead, try getting every one of those reps out. Pump guaranteed!

Moving to the Ez Bar Close Grip Bicep Curls was very different indeed, for me its not an exercise I do very much, as I though it put a bit of strain through my elbows, turns out I was absolutely fine, the elbows stayed locked out, which allowed me to put emphasis on the external head of the Bicep, which is what this exercises is used for. I strongly believe that working these various muscles in a singular training session is very beneficial for people like myself who are progressing the entire body as a whole, locating the weaknesses and solving the problems.

As my arms started to relax, the lactic acid flooded out and the tightening pump slowly loosen to a point where I could more my arms, I moved on to the Seated Calf Raises. The seated calf raise is probably another new favourite of mine, never having used the machine before starting this new programme and joining my new gym (Underground, which is incredible), I have come to actually enjoy it, but alas only 1 set today, but boy did I make it count, squeezing at the top of the movement and slowly lower till I found the stretch in my Soleus (this is known as a stretch reflex), and shooting back to the top of the movement again.

After finishing on the seated raise, I moved a whole 2ft to the Standing Calf Raise machine, and here I faced some serious punishment. The one thing I will say about doing these kind of dropsets is that I seriously punishes you for trying to lift heavy, starting on around 55kg for my normal set (which is relatively heavy for me) I then tried working through my drop set at 45kg's, nope,40kg? Nope, 35kgs? Nope, until finally I could actually push out the rep range at only 30kgs! That's a 25kg drop in one set. So remember as I have said before, leave your ego at the door, don't worry about anyone else in that gym, what they think of you, or what they lift, you are your own person, you develop what you can. “Haters gunna hate”.

So finally finishing my gym work with the wonderful Ab workout! I personally preferred the Incline Reverse Crunch over the Exercise Ball Knee Tucks, as I felt they really tested my core a lot more than I thought, I could feel how my abs were constantly engaged throughout the whole of the reverse crunches, feeling incredibly tight on both my concentric and eccentric phases and if you have read any of my blogs so far, you will I love eccentric movements.

In other news I had my protein arrive today, which was absolutely incredible, I have chosen the Toffee Fudge Sunday by The ProteinWorks, if you haven't check out these guys yet, they have incredible prices, deals, great customer service and quality that well, speaks for itself.

But its time to shoot off to work, so I'll catch you beautiful people later, have a good day one and all.

Happy Lifting,

Matt