01/05/15
Day 32 -Arms
First
of all apologies for the lack of blogging yesterday, time was a real
issues and I simply wasn't able to fit it into my day.
After
a pretty rubbish end to my week I took the opportunity to focus my
anger and energy on Day 5 of the German Volume Training workout:
Arms! It was a really short session in terms of number of exercises,
but none the less the sheer volume of work made up for that. So here
is what my session looked like:
Barbell
Curls – 5 Sets x 10 Reps
(60sec Rest)
Ex
Bar Curls – 5 Sets x 10 Reps
(60 sec Rest)
Close
Grip Weighted Dips - 10 Sets x
10 Reps (60 sec Rest)
Cardio
– Interval Training 15mins Total
After
my motivation taking a bit of a beating with a lack of sleep weighing
me down and having to deal with a pretty rough customer at work, it
was fair to say my head wasn't really in the game, but none the less
I got on with my warm up and hoped the outcome would change. After a
few very light warm up sets to get the muscle fibres firing I could
immediately feel a difference in myself, I sometimes forget how good
the gym is to vent your anger and focus negative energy in a positive
action.
I
started with a pretty traditional exercise, the Barbell
Curls. Working my way up to a
reasonable weight through a few lighter sets just allows me to
lubricate the joints and get the muscles nice and lose for the
working sets. When I found the a weight that was perfect for my
working sets I strapped up, drew my focus and attention to the
muscles I wanted to contract (the biceps) and began with the first
phase. I started strong punching out solid reps for the first three
sets, then on the fourth set my muscles began to tighten and the reps
began to become a lot harder to squeeze out. The fantastic yet
annoying thing about German Volume Training is that due to the low
rep nature you naturally want to lift heavy, but then limiting
yourself to short rest periods it becomes increasingly hard
increasingly fast to actually push the reps out. After 5 hard core
set it was time to put the flat bar down and pick up another.
Moving
on to the Ez Bar Curls meant
that I was looking at working a different head of the bicep, as well
as having to deal with the pre fatigue of the previous set. So I
decided to lower my weight from what I was using on the flat bar as I
moved across, this then allowed me to test my muscles capabilities
without the factor of bad form. Remember –
if you are going lighter than usual you can always slow the movement
down to make it harder, work the eccentric phase for longer to get a
sick pump and challenge your muscles like they never been before.
With the last few sets becoming a bit of a struggle I took the
emphasis away from my eccentrics and just worked on getting the reps
out.
With
the final round already here it was time for me to move across to the
parallel bars. The Close
Grip Weighted Dips
are all about testing the muscles through the movement of not only
your body weight but extra weight to over work the target muscle
group. For me, dips are already a bit of a pain, so I took a slightly
smaller plate to work with so I could try to get a few sets in
without failure. Well needless to say my triceps hated me today and
took me a measly 3 sets before I started to fail on reps. At the
first sign of failure I dropped the weights belt off and began to
work with my body weight alone. With such small rest breaks the
muscles do not have time to repair, meaning with every set that goes
by the intensity and toughness also increases. After 2 more
weightless sets I began to fail again, to finish the sets I worked on
some negative reps as a form of mental punishment ( I know I am
cruel) and then decided to grab some assistance bands and finish of
my gruelling sets with perfect form and range.
On
reflection I have really enjoyed this week of German Volume Training
and think it has given me some fantastic ideas to base future
training around. For such an old school training method it still
gives some of the best results, so if you have never tried it or
simply want to try something new, join tones of other people and
e-mail me at: mgonlinept@gmail.com
. Start your future today!
Hope
everyone is looking forward to this bank holiday weekend, I know I
am!
Happy
Lifting,
Matt
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