Plyo doing redcord training

 

Just some random pics...

Front squat day

I love frontsquats. It's a very good way of building quads, speed, jumping power, balance, agility and strength. It puts more stress on the quads and less on the glutes and back. My athletics background makes frontsquats easy to perform due to good flexibility, but still it's hard to keep posture with the heavy weights on.

Here is my sets: 4x245 pounds, 4x265 pounds, 3x288 pounds, 2x310 pounds, 1x330 pounds

And then some deadlifts. Lifted several sets of 380 to 440 pounds

Homemade cinnamon rolls.

It's Saturday and this is my first cheat meal of the week. It's homemade cinnamon rolls with american caramel and vanilla.

Frontsquatlegs by Plyo

This is the frontsquatlegs at todays workout. Twisting the legs a little outwards to get a better view of size and shape, but that also make them look a little odd ;-) Extremely hot and humid at the gym today, and the workout was one of the tougher once I've had in a while. This is what I did:

Squats

Frontsquats

Walking lunges

Standing legcurls

Seated leg ext

Some more frontsquats high rep

Volume back training workout

This was my volume back workout for the week. Had been eating quite bad for several days while putting up some new floors in my house, and not as crisp as I should be. However the workout went OK, and I did 42 reps of 3/4 pullups as a starter. Here are the exercises:

Pullups (3/4 rom) - 42 reps, then 4 more sets
Bent over rows with 140 to 220 pounds
Dumbbell pullover with 90 to 105 pounds
Pulldowns with 140 to 220 pounds
Rack rows for reps

Today at the bodyweight of 180 pounds

This picture shows the contrast to my previous post. 3 weeks until summer.

This was me, fat and bloated, 6 weeks ago ;-)

Soon to be posting some new leaner pics...

Barbell or dumbbells?

Well, I use them both, in most workouts. There are some exercises that are superior with barbells and there are some exercises that are best with dumbbells. In short you get the range of motion with the dumbbells and the ability to twist and turn your arms during the movement. With barbells you get the stability to move higher loads. Here are my favorites to compare.

Benchpress: I usually start out with the barbells and the heavy loads, and when my pecs are fatigued from the barbell, I use dumbbells for increased Range of Motion and stretch.

Shoulders: Here I actually prefer to start out with dumbbells because I can use a true lateral movement with the weights on each side of my head during the shoulderpress. Later on in the workout I add the barbell overhead press for my front and lateral delts.

Rows: In my mind the barbell row is superior to the one arm dumbbell row. I get a better contraction and higher load. Barbell row is, together with the deadlift, my absolute favorite exercises for back thickness. One arm dumbbell row is an exercise I use for from time to time to get a better ROM for the rows.

Biceps: I often start out with the dumbbell curls. It's an more intens exercise then the barbells, and I feel a better effect from the eccentric phase of the barbell curls if I do them later in the workout. So a good routine for me is to start with the alternating dumbbell curls and finish off with some superintense EZ-curls.

What do you all think, agree or not agree?

High load or high volume chest workout

A normal year I train chest with high load 8 months a year and high volume 4 months a year. There is some slight differences between these workouts. For high load workouts I use three or four sets with the same load and just focus on controlling the movement and increase the load for several weeks alternating between adding weight on the bar and adding an additional rep.

For high volume workouts I use a traditional bodybuilders regime where I build up every exercise from 15 reps of light weights until I do one last set of heavy weights to failure and beyond. I also use more exercises and shorter rests between. Here is two typical examples of chest workouts:

A typical high load routine is:

Benchpress - 4-6 reps for 4 sets
Incline dumbbells - 6-10 reps for 3 sets
Dumbbell flyes - 10-12 reps for 4 sets
Weighted dips - 10-12 reps for 3 sets

A typical high volume workout might be:

Benchpress - 15, 12, 10, 8 and 6 reps
Dumbbell press - 15, 12, 10, 8 and 6 reps
Cable flyes - 15, 12, 10, 8 and 6 reps
Dumbbell flyes - 12, 12, 10 and 10 reps
Decline hammer - 15, 12, 10, 8 and 6 reps
Assisted dips - max reps for 4 sets