As I entered the gym I told myself to concentrate. My workout results (everything done with 45 seconds rest between sets):
| Exercise | Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 |
|
Front Squat (ss) |
140×10 | 140×10 | 140×10 |
| Wide Grip Seated Row (ss) | 135×11 | 135×11 | 135×11 |
| Suppine Hip ext. w/leg curl (ss) | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Barbell push press (ss) | 95×10 | 95×10 | 95×10 |
| Dynamic Lunge (ss) | 32.5×10 | 32.5×10 | 32.5×10 |
| Upper Body Russian Twist (ss) | 11 | 11 | 11 |
I finished off with HIIT cardio — 5 minutes of warm-up, 4 intervals of 3 minutes each, 5 minutes of cool down.
Today I felt pretty strong. I am focused on beating my previous workouts and that drives me towards my goals. Later today I plan to sit down and create some new goals.
I'm finding that the idea of beating my previous workouts (espoused by the book The New Rules of Lifting) really helps with the intensity of the workouts. Instead of worrying so much about increasing the weight with every workout (something that isn't always possible) I focus on just beating what I did on the previous workout. Looking at my current day's workout, I will explain how I beat my previous workout.
Front Squat: I increased the weight from 135 to 140.
Wide grip seated row: Previous workout I did 3 sets of 135×10 and this workout I did 3 sets of 135×11.
Suppine Hip ext. w/leg curl: I added one rep to each set. This is a great hamstring workout. The link http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1546556 (scroll towards the bottom) has a good video of this exercise. Give it a try!
Barbell push press: I added 5 pounds. See http://www.myfit.ca/exercisedatabase/viewanexercise.asp?exercise=Push+Press+&table=exercises&ID=75 for how to do this exercise.
Dynamic Lunge: Last workout I did 2 sets of 32.5×10 and 1 set of 32.5×9. This time I hit 10 reps on all 3 sets.
Upper body Russian twist: I added 1 rep to each set. See http://golf.about.com/library/weekly/aa052506a.htm for how to do this exercise.
As you can see, small improvements each time you do a workout lead to bigger and bigger gains. For instance, 3 weeks ago I was lifting 105 on the front squats, meaning I've added 35 pounds in 3 weeks. This happens because I'm working each time in the gym to beat my previous results. One major point regarding motiviation and beating your previous workouts–you feel incredible when you continually beat what you did in the gym the previous time. Each time you workout it feels like you can't possibly do any better and yet the next time you hit the gym you do better. It helps to keep your intensity high.
