Weightlifting Resources / workout

Well, I did my last workout of 2006 at Gold's Gym, Ann Arbor, the site of many a workout these past few months as they have been sponsoring our Muscle Ventures Blog.  This blog has been kind of dormant while Nancy and I have been faithfully updating muscle ventures once or twice a week with a podcast or video analysis.  I suspect the blog will remain dormant because I just don't have enough time with my learning remix activities and muscle ventures blogging to keep this up.

I started this blog a little over a year ago a hurting puppy.  My mother had died just a few months before.  I was getting beaten down by over training.  Nancy was prepping for her show and was kind of hell bent.  Well, we made it through Nancy's show and started periodized weight training, a sort of god sent antidote to over training.  Then this Fall, Nancy's mother in law, Virginia, died suddenly putting a weight of grief on her and her husband, Jim.  Through it all, we continued put a good amount of effort into our shared activity muscle ventures.  I expect my focus will remain there.  Nancy and I get a kick out of it, and we've had pretty good success with the site.  Last week, Google video indicated that our videos had had 134,000 viewings.

I may come back to this site at some point or incorporate a version of it into Muscle Ventures.  In the mean time, you can follow Nancy's and my adventures there.  Here's the relevant URLs:

• http://muscleventures.com/home for the latest podcasts and video exercise analyses.  Expect about one or two updates a week.
• http://muscleventures.com/video for the latest exercise analyses only.
• http://muscleventures.com/podcasts for the latest interviews only.

So, I noted in our training diary series over on Muscle Ventures that my shoulder was bugging me a bit.  I think I have tendon issues that flare up from time to time.  As Chris Dorr and Andy have pointed out, it has something to do with bringing my elbows out on the overhead press.

Today, I substituted in Arnold Presses for the overhead press.  As you can see in this video analysis, the Arnold press starts with your elbows down by your side and your hands curled up to your face.  During the whole lift, your arms basically go straight up.  It pulls stress out of the front delts and associated tendons.

Today was Day 4 of hypertrophy.  Nancy was unexpectedly not there (see next post).  For the record, here was the workout:

• Bench Press (60% 1RM):  115 lbs./12 reps X 4 sets
• Incline flye (60%):  30/12X4
• Arnold Press (60%): 30/12X4 (I had to drop weight at the end of the second two sets).
• Cable Lateral (60%): 17.5/10X3
• Shrug (60%): 50/12X4
• Prone dumbbell curl (60%): 25/12X4
• Seated Calf (60%): 120/12X4

Arnold and I just completed our sojourn in max strength training.  Maybe the most interesting thing was the eccentric training we did at the end.  In eccentric training, you go beyond what you can lift and just do the negative of each exercise.  We did 120% of 1RM.

So, in the leg press, say you think your 1RM is 545, you would do 655 for 120% 1RM.  Obviously, you can't lift that, so you have to have spotters.  We did that for 5 sets of three reps.

Initially, it's very mentally challenging, you think the weight is going to come down and crush you, but no, you actually control it.  To get maximum benefit, you need to lower the weight slowly.

It is typically the case that you can lower a lot more than you can lift.  The difference is a measure of how far you are from exerting your absolute strength potential in your 1RM.  If you are very good, you can get up to 90% of your aboslute strength potential, but usually you get 80% or less.  Our Muscle Ventures post provides more details.

This podcast inaugurates our workout diary series as we work toward Nancy's competition.

Note how we're using Google video.  You can get the downloadable, ipod compatible version at the original muscleventures article. In this diary, we're completing the medium week of max strength training.  The video cuts across two workouts, one on a sunday morning (ugh) and the other on a friday afternoon (better).

Nancy recently wrote about the challenges of max strength training, particularly the mental component, and you can see them in this diary.