Richard Gibney's 365 Days of Fitness: Day 147

Day 147 Well after taking a break from the heavy stuff, I got back to moving a little more weight today. My strength work over the last few weeks has been focused on maintaining muscle mass by utilizing a high volume of reps with a reduced load. My goal is still to maintain my muscle mass but my plan of attack for the next while will be to focus on large compound movements that utilize a lot of muscle at one time.

Movements like deadlifts, squats, barbell rows, and heavy pressing movements create a significant anabolic response. Basically your body says, ok that was really hard, I'm going to have to get ready for doing that again, so I'd better get the "juices" going. After a few sets of deadlifts the body's testosterone levels are much higher than they are after a few sets of biceps curls. More testosterone helps you build and maintain muscle, not just in the body part you trained, but in the whole body as well.

I didn't use super heavy weights today because I was breaking myself back into this type of training but as the next few weeks go on I'll get more weight on the bar.

Today's Workout

Superset 1

Exercise 1: Barbell Romanian Deadlift 4 sets / 6 - 8 reps / 301 tempo / 90 seconds rest (185lbs for all sets)

Exercise 2: Landmine Press 4 sets / 8 reps per side / 301 tempo / 90 seconds rest (45lbs for all sets)

Superset 2

Exercise 3: Barbell Bench Press (185lbs for all sets) 4 sets / 6 - 8 reps / 301 tempo / 90 seconds rest

Exercise 4: Prone Leg Curl (135lbs for all sets) 4 sets / 6 - 8 reps / 301 tempo / 90 seconds rest

Rotary Exercise

Exercise 5: 1/2 Kneeling Downward Stability Chop (25lbs for all sets) 3 sets / 8 per side / 201 tempo / 60 seconds rest

I had my conditioning group tonight. I didn't join in for much of the session but I did sneak in about 5 sets of stairs. One of my athletes, Mr. Darren Hong brought his bluetooth portable speaker so we could have some tunes. I decided part of my job would be to keep the tunes going up and down the stairs as my group pushed hard through the Gut Buster (10 sets in 20 minutes).

If time permits, tomorrow will be a double session with some cardio and more strength training. The K100 relay is only getting closer, so I still need a few more runs under my belt but I'm still not planning on compromising on lifting the weights.