Archives for September 2008

After not being satisfied at all with my Friday workout, I spent some time discussing things with my trainer, Carlos DeJesus.  Carlos suggested that I mustn't be getting enough recovery time between workouts for me to lose the fire at this point.  It has been 3 weeks on the H.I.T. program for me.  Carlos has stated that I must be working extremely hard to get to this point.  As a result of the discussions this weekend with Carlos, I am going to be cutting back to two full body workouts each week–one on Monday and one on Thursday.  This will allow for maximum recovery time.

I must say, I entered the gym today completely motivated.  I hadn't felt this way in a week.  I attacked the weights like a hungry tiger would attack a raw steak.  Let me take you through the workout and you will see what I mean.

I sat down at the Thigh extension machine and put the pin at 190 and then added 5 pounds for a total of 195.  I began my slow 3 second ascent and 3 second descent.  I controlled this for 9 repetitions.  My thighs were screaming in pain.  The heat was apparent in my legs as they were turning red from blood rushing to the muscles.  I pushed a 10th repetition out of my legs with great form.  I then pushed an 11th repetition out of my legs with wonderful form.  I hit my 12th repetition and I thought "I need to go for another" so I gave it a shot, but the 13th repetition was not to be.  I had hit complete failure on this exercise.

I moved to the thigh curl machine.  I put the pin at 150 pounds.  I cranked out 5 repetitions before I could feel lactic acid forming in my hamstring area.  I pushed hard and managed to pump our 4 more repetitions.  I tried for the 10th, but it was not to be and I was unable to get the weight up.

After using the entire rack for my standing calf raises on the previous workout, I switched to using the leg press machine for my calf raises.  I loaded the sled with 340 pounds and proceeded to push myself in brutal fashion.  At around 10 repetitions my brain said I should give up, but I pushed on.  At 15 repetitions my legs were quivering, but I continued to push forward.  I managed to push out 25 repetitions before having to put the safety back in place.  I got up from the sled and my legs were a quivering mess.

Next up was squats.  Even though I've been rolling, my lower back was still a bit stiff, so I went a little easier on the squats, getting 8 reps at 225 pounds.

For my Quad Blaster set I added weight and still managed to get in 10 repetitions before hitting complete failure.  When I say complete failure on the Quad Blaster, I mean that I was able to go down to the low position of the movement, but not able to lift my body back up, so I collapsed to the floor.  It is true failure.

All the exercises continued in this fashion.  Every single muscle group was stinging with pain by the time I was done with the workout.  I was shaking all over and even felt like throwing up the breakfast I'd had before the gym.

So what are giant sets?  Are they really large sets with alot of repetitions?  No, a giant set usually consists of a number of different exercises for one particular body part done in tandem.  You do set one of one exercise followed by set one of another exercise, etc.  With giant sets you use moderate weight and there is little to no rest between exercises.  After completing one set you will rest for 2 to 3 minutes. 

Let's say you were in the gym and you were going to workout your back.  You would sit down at the seated cable row and do a set.  You would then complete a set of lat pull downs.  You would follow this with a set of chin ups.  Finally you could do a set of bent over rows.  This would be a giant set for your back.  You would now rest and then repeat the same exercises. 

A giant set increases the intensity by forcing the muscle group you are working to work extra hard.  You are basically blasting the muscle group with several exercises all at one time. 

As with other techniques, you can combine the techniques you've learned with the giant set to increase the intensity even more.  You could do timed repetitions or drop sets to increase the intensity of a giant set.  However, for obvious reasons, super sets cannot be combined with giant sets as they are far too similar to one another to be combined into one process.

Give giant sets a try for serious intensity and a pump you won't soon forget.

This method is one of the most commonly used methods for upping the intensity of a lifting workout.  If you were working your arms, you could efficiently use super sets to work your biceps and then your triceps.  You could start out working your biceps by doing alternating dumbbell curls and then immediately go to skull crushers to work your triceps.  When you complete one set of each exercise you have completed one super set and you would then rest  before starting another super set.

This methodology is common with workouts today because it allows you to get more done in a shorter amount of time.  It makes your gym time more efficient and the intensity level much higher.

You can then take the first two methods of increasing intensity and apply them to the super set technique.  It is possible to use a drop set as part of the super set.  You can also use timed repetitions with the super set.  Coupling either of those two methods with the super set is going to give you one very intense burn in your muscles.

Today I took my first spinning class.  It was intense.  I was sweating profusely and my heart rate remained high the entire time.  At the same time, when you do the spinning correctly, it works your legs, hamstrings and glutes.  It was a massive cardio workout. 

Additionally, after consulting with Carlos DeJesus about the lack of fire in the belly during Friday's lifting, I have decided to cut back to two days a week lifting.  Carlos had told me originally that this might happen.  He warned me that recovery would eventually become an issue.  To quote Carlos:

"The stronger you get, the harder you can train
That's what intensity is.
If you are stronger and can train harder, you will still need recovery time.
And as you get stronger and can train harder you will still need more time for recovery.
There is no guarantee that three days should be your Training Model with this type of intensity.
There should be no assumption that 3 is better than 2 days."

I noticed that it was taking me about 20 seconds to complete an exercise to 10 reps.  I would do 3 sets for a total of 60 seconds of work on the muscle group being trained.  When I switched to the 3 x 3 cadence I was able to drop down to 1 set.  You see that meant I was taking 60 seconds to complete 1 set of an exercise.  This was equivalent to the workload for 3 sets of an exercise.  This type of intensity allows you to get in and out of the gym quickly.

Time under tension is extremely important when lifting.  Your muscles work harder the longer they are kept under tension.  Time repetitions increase the time under tension naturally.  You also get to do a nice, slow, controlled rep, insuring that your form is accurate.  This leads to greater growth from the better form that you are using.  My legs have grown 0.5 inches in 3 weeks using the timed repetition method of intensity.  I've even added 0.25 inches to my biceps, a muscle group I could never get to grow in the past.  I've even lost an inch in my abdominal area and that is a result of holding in my abs when doing certain lifts as well as blasting them with the ab mat (I use timed repetitions on my ab work as well).

A drop set is when you take your exercise to the point of momentary failure, switch to a lighter weight and take that to the point of momentary failure and continue on down to the lowest weight.  When using dumbbells this can be a set number of drops as determined by you before you begin.  When using a barbell it ends when the bar is empty.

So you decide to make the curls more intense by using drop sets.  You know that you can curl 30 pound dumbbells for 12 repetitions.  You grab a pair of 30's and put them on the ground.  Next you grab 25's, 20's, 15's, 10's and 5's.  You line them all up on the floor so they are in order by weight from highest to lowest.

You step up to the 30's and you begin your set.  You get to 13 reps and you fail.  You immediately put down the 30's and immediately pick up the 25's and begin working again.  You continue this until you have gone to failure at every single weight level.  Only do one set like this in your bicep workout, but it will be a set that makes the entire workout extremely intense.

Another approach to drop sets is to have 2 weights you want to work with.  In the example of the curls, perhaps you'd have 30's and 20's lined up.  You would take the 30's to complete failure, set them down and immediately take the 20's to complete failure. 

Working out with drop sets is a sure fire way to increase the intensity of your workouts.  Whatever body part is subjected to this method will be screaming and on fire by the time you are done.  You will spur on growth like non other.  In addition, drop sets are a great way to get over a plateau in your training.  I personally enjoy using this technique on lat pull downs, curls, bench press, overhead press and many other exercises.  Give it a try and let me know your thoughts.