Week 5 Day 3 - Short & Sweet

29/04/15 Day 31 – Back

Powering though this week of German Volume Training saw me take on Back day, a muscle group I am incredibly found of. Following in the footsteps of previous days today was all about high volume, big weights and little rest periods allowing for sustained pumps, muscular fatigue and some serious gains to be made.

Getting into today's session, it's short and sweet but will be leaving you with nothing left in the tank! Here it is:

Chin Ups – 10 Sets x 10 Reps (60 sec Rest)

Bent-Over Rows – 5 Sets x 5 Reps (90 sec Rest)

Barbell Shrugs – 5 Sets x 20 Reps (90 sec Rest)

Cardio – Interval Training 15min Total

Firstly I would like to point out that the Chin Ups are intended to be weighted, but I however am unable to achieve 100 Reps of wide grip chin ups with my own body weight let alone extra weight. For my training I was using a light weight resistance band, this allowed me to keep up with the high volume style of the first exercise, Chin Ups. While performing the exercise I made sure that my range first and foremost was perfect, squeezing the elbows down towards my hips allows for full engagement of the Latissimus Dorsi (Lats) which is that muscle being targeted. When doing high volume training like these its very important to stretch in between sets and try to increase the blood flow to the muscles being used, it will prevent heavy lactic acid build up and allow you to fully utilise the muscles potential. In between sets I made sure to stretch out and hold my arms over my head, helping to drain the toxins from the muscles and aided my Venus return (click here to find out more).

After a serious stretch out I moved through the packed gym floor to the racks, here I performed the next exercise in the routine which was the Bent-Over Rows. Due to the nature of this exercise I always recommend a few warm up sets to get the lower back warmed up, as when you will start to go heavier you may well be putting some serious strain through these muscles. Remember – It's always better to be safe than sorry. After a few warm up sets I donned my straps, got some plates on the bar and cracked on. I wanted my focus to be about stretching and contracting the lat with every single rep, pushing the bar ever so slightly forward on the bottom phase of the exercise give your lat a fuller contraction and therefore means you will get more from the exercise.

Finishing off with the Barbell Shrugs means that you can go all out here, get some big plates on the bar as I did, get those straps out if you haven't already, as at this point much like myself your grip will probably start failing, so be careful. Even though this is a smaller muscle group it does not mean you can just throw the weight around, be careful, cautious and make every damn rep count for something.

Hope everyone has had a wicked Wednesday and look forward to an amazing Shoulder session tomorrow!

Happy Lifting,

Matt