Week 4 Day 5 - Always Move Forward, Never Look Back

24/04/15 Day 26 - Biceps & Calves

Finishing off the week of FST-7 Training with a bang! Its been a seriously intense and emotional week, the training has been off the scale, I'm so happy with the progress I am making and have to point out I still have leg DOMS from 4 days ago. So needless to say I will be using this method of training again in the future without a doubt and if you haven't tried it or even heard of it you can check it all out, from the start righthere!

So into today's training, hitting the smaller muscle groups has left me with a crazy pump and a huge smile plastered across my face. Here what it all looked like:

Preacher Curls – 4 Sets x 8 – 10 Reps

Incline Bench Alternating Dumbbell Curls – 3 Sets x 8-10 Reps

Laying Cable Curls – 3 Sets x 8-10 Reps

Spider Curls – 7 Sets x 8-10 Reps (30 seconds between sets)

Seated Calf Raise – 3 Sets x 20 Reps

Leg Press Calf Raise – 3 Sets x 20 Reps

Donkey Calf Raise – 7 Sets x 20 Reps (30 seconds between sets)

Cardio – Interval Training 15mins Total

Remember! - Contract the Biceps/Calves between every set to try and manipulate the fascia

Starting the session off with a nice isolation exercise in the form of Preacher Curls, here I wanted the focus to be on squeezing the biceps at the top of the contraction and slowly stretching the biceps out as I lowered into the bottom half of the range of motion. The slow and focused contraction really allows you to start pumping some crazy levels of blood into the biceps. Watching as the veins were rising, pulsing and swelling through my arms I knew from set 2 this was going to be a session to remember.

Moving swiftly on to sustain the pump I got onto a bench and got under way with the Incline Bench Alternating Dumbbell Curls. I struggled to feel the contraction slightly in this exercise, mainly I believe due to the fact my arms had swollen to the point of it being difficult to even take my earphones out. But I focused deep within the muscle, thinking about a think cable pulley system, much like a crane. This level of imagery really works for me, so if you are struggling to feel the muscles working during an exercise then try it out.

After I completed my 3 Sets I transitioned into the 3^rd and final exercise in my core sets before moving onto my exhaustion set. With the cable in place I got on with my Laying Cable Curls, I really like this exercise as having your arms laying against the floor stops you from using momentum, which allows you to really concentrate on the actually movement, rather than throwing the whole stack up and down by flailing your arms back and forth (and yes I have seen a lot of people do this).

There was only one way I was way to finish my biceps off and that was: Spider Curls, these little beauties are brand new to my training and I have fallen in love with them straight away. They not only allow you to superbly isolate the biceps but they also subject your arms to some heavy eccentric work, due to the range of movement. Well after just one set I had to admit that lifting with my ego wasn't going to get me through this, so I halved the weight, worked to the upper ranges of motion and squeeze every damn rep out until I got it done. Remember! - If you need to have small rests between the last few reps its completely normal, the rest pause principle allows you to work beyond your normal ranges, which obviously will allow you to flood the muscles better and grow.

With the bicep work behind me my new focus brought me to the Seated Calf Raise machine, after a few warm up sets it was time to crack on and get those baby cows working. With my head in the 8-10 rep range I stupidly kept the same mentality here and went really really heavy for 10 reps rather than the 20 suggested, yes I did feel a tad silly, but non the less I still worked myself incredibly hard, made sure I was hitting my 10 second static contractions between sets and started for the first time really to get a bit of a calve pump.

Feeling strangely keen to continue I made my way to the leg press for exercise No.2 Leg Press Calf Raise. With a good few plates on the rack I got underway with my gruelling 20 rep sets, hood up, eyes shut and my mind wide open I steamrollered my way through the first set. With the static contractions starting to make their mark I could really feel the deep burn within the calves, to be fair I usually shy away from this feeling in the calves but with this FST-7 I have learnt to embrace the burn and just work through it, and by the beard of Zeus that is exactly what I did!

Now to finish the Calves off I got my partner to jump on my back and get on with yet another new exercise for the books, the old school Arnold classic Donkey Calf Raises. With such small rest between the sets the lactic acid really started to build up quickly, I can totally see why Arnold used this exercise so much in his training, it hits your calves in such a brilliant and efficient way I couldn't really believe it!

To round off the whole day I chose today for my reefed day, getting in a high carb meal after depleting or lowering your carb intake for the week previous is a great way to spike to metabolic rate back up to make sure you continue to lose fat, but I will go into more detail on diet in tomorrows blog. For now all that is left is to say, have a wonderful evening, enjoy the people you are with, spread the love and have an awesome weekend.

Happy Lifting,

Matt