Richard Gibney's 365 Days of Fitness: Day 299

Day 299 With tomorrow being workout number 300, I wanted to save myself a bit today, so that I could make my tomorrow really count. I thought about joining my group tonight but I had a really hard one planned for them, so I used a 30 minute window in my afternoon to spend a little bit of time on the bench.

The normal bench press stations were preoccupied so I set up our keiser rack for bench press. The Keiser rack is different than a standard rack in that instead of using a bar loaded with plates, you use a bar attached to cables that move against air resistance. This creates a unique challenge for the user. When someone moves a bar that is loaded with iron plates they are working against the inertia of the load they are moving. The bar and the plates have mass, meaning that although it takes work to get them moving, eventually they take on momentum. The beginning of the movement is always the most work, but the end is less difficult because the momentum helps move the load. With the Keiser system the resistance is constant from beginning to end. Air has no mass and therefore it cannot take on momentum. This means that per rep your body ends up doing more work.

Today's Workout:

Exercise 1: Keiser Bench Press (45 lb Olympic Bar Added) Set 1: 135lbs of Pressure x 8 Set 2: 110lbs of Pressure x 10 Set 3: 125lbs of Pressure x 10 Set 4: 135lbs of Pressure x 8 Set 5: 140lbs of Pressure x 6 Set 6: 140lbs of Pressure x 6

Exercise 2: Tubing External Rotation (Super-setted with 1st 3 sets of Exercise 1) 3 sets / 15 reps per side

Exercise 3: Tubing Internal Rotation (Super-setted with 2nd 3 sets of Exercise 1) 3 sets / 15 reps per side

Normally when I use the keiser system I use a very light bar specifically designed to be used with the air resistance. However, today I decided to use a normal 45lb Olympic bar, but for some reason I forgot to factor in that this would make things harder. My first couple sets felt much harder than I thought they should, then I realized that I was moving 45lbs more than I thought I was. 45lbs is not that much but as I mentioned before using air resistance makes things harder, so any extra weight is plenty.

There wasn't a lot of variety today, but it was challenging enough. Tomorrow, I should have plenty of energy for my workout. As I mentioned yesterday the plan is the 300 workout. I took one of my clients through a modified version, so I have an idea of how it will go. I anticipate it being tough but I think I should manage pretty well.