Sticking to the program you design is key to feeling great about yourself, and to experiencing increased success. This is week number 2 of completing 5 workouts; 3 kickboxing and 2 weight lifting.
My biggest problem is keeping my weight training under an hour, since I only allocate 60 minutes from the time I leave my desk at work to the time I return to my desk. When I started a couple weeks ago, I couldn’t do it in less than 90 minutes. Now I’m hitting it for like 65-70 minutes. For me it’s all about a quick warm-up, a rapid workout pace, keeping the number of sets under 4 for each exercise except the first, a quick stretch, and a quick shower.
Here are some ideas for calf training:
- Seated calf raises on a machine or with dumbbells on your thighs.
- Standing calf raises on a machine, holding a dumbbell in your hand, or on a smith machine standing on a box.
- On a leg press or sled, knees bent or straight.
- Donkey calf raises if you can convince that cutie on the elliptical machine to sit on your back.
- Choose any of the above exercises but do it with one leg.
- To really build them up, superset calves with every single exercise you do each day. All that volume will force them to grow.
Weight Training
My bench press has died and gone to hell. I remember a time in my life where I thought to myself, “This is great! I’m strong enough that I’ll never NOT be able to bench press 225.” Yeah right. This week I petered out at 195. I feel very confident that the next time I bench I’ll blow through 200, but maxing out at 195 is quite embarrassing.
Barbell lunges are great! If you don’t do them, you should. My only problem is that I have to clean and press the weight to get it behind my neck, so I’m sort of limited to the amount I can throw on the bar. I see myself doing sets of 135 x 20 in the near future, if only because I can’t clean and press 225.
I tossed in some extra tricep and chest work this week to try to get my horizontal pressing strength back up to par. You will see me reference x-eyes (cross eyes), which is a hard exercise to explain. I picked it up from some serious powerlifters at college, thanks Joe and Jaques. Basically start in a flat dumbbell press position then drop the dbs down inside your arms, touching the flat portion of the dbs to your chest. Elbows should be pointing to the ceiling at the bottom. Return to top db press position to complete the rep. I’ll try to get some media on here at some point to demonstrate.
Anyway, here’s what happened:
Monday 9/22 – 60 mins kickboxing
Tuesday 9/23 – Warm-up 5 mins elliptical
1a) Bench press – 135 x7, 185 x 2, 185 x 4, 195 x 1, 185 x 3
1b) Seated calf – 45 x 12, 70 x 9, 70 x 7
2a) Flat DB Press – 65 x 10, 80 x 4
2b) Seated calf – 70 x 9, 70 x 9
3) Barbell lunge – 135 x 5, 135 x 7, 135 x 9
4) Deadlift/Hang Clean/Push Press/Back Squat complex – 135 x 4, 135 x 4, 135 x 4
5) Flat X-eyes – 25 x 10, 40 x 6
This workout went a little long because I added some extra exercises at the end.
Wednesday 9/24 – 60 mins kickboxing
Thursday 9/25 – Off
Friday 9/26
AM – 5 mins elliptical
1a) Deadlifts – 135 x 10, 225 x 7, 315 x 6, 375 x 1, 335 x 6
1b) Seated calf – 45 x 10, 70 x 10, 80 x 7
2a) Wide grip pull ups – 0 x 6, (25 x 1, 0 x 4), 0 x 7
2b) Seated calf – 80 x 6, 70 x 8
3a) Flat db press – 50 x 5, 75 x 5, 85 x 5, 90 x 2
3b) 1 leg standing smith calf – 45 x 6, 45 x 7, 45 x 6
For the smith calves I had to stand on this crappy aerobic step and it totally buckled and folded. Note to self: next time use hard box or stack 2 rubber plates to stand on.
PM: 60 mins kickboxing
Overall it was another good week. I’m depressed about my lack of strength, but in two months I should be doing much better. I’m also pretty small, but at this point I think I’d rather be strong and shredded instead of big, with an emphasis on strong.
In some ways, I desire to lift more often. I would almost enjoy tossing in 2 additional weight training days, but I don’t want to do anything stupid to jeopardize my health. Plus I don’t know that I have enough time to lift 4 times a week and kickbox thrice. We’ll see what happens, but for now I’ll stick it out with my current 5 day split.
I’m all about powerlifting, strongman, and MMA, but sometimes I enjoy watching women instead of men. Thusly, here’s a fitness chick doing her routine for your viewing pleasure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSb86JPcdrsTags: Personal
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