Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Tuesday- Upper Body

I'm going to be switching directions in a few weeks after my diet is over.  I want to slowly add weight to my frame without adding a lot of fat.  I'm going to be playing around with some different strategies and seeing which way I want to go.  At the end of the day, all of the different ways that have been proposed over the years to add muscle are all effective to a degree.  It's all about progressively adding weight to the bar and/or doing more reps with that weight.  Effort and consistency are two intangibles that if not present, nothing will work. 

For my first go at it I'm going to try cluster sets.  The premise of this program is to work up to a 6RM and then do three cluster sets of 2.  If you're unfamiliar with cluster sets I'll explain.  On military press, for instance, I worked up to a weight that I could do six times and no more.  I then rack the weight, wait 30 seconds, then do another set of two.  I do this two more times and I'm done.  Each workout on this program has 5 different body parts/movements with all of them ending with a cluster set.  Here is my workout from yesterday.

Military Press: worked up to 150x6+2+2+2

Cable Chest Press: worked up to 16 platesx6+2+2+2

Weighted Chin-Up: worked up to 35x6+2+2+2

Chest Supported Row: worked up to 85x6+2+2+2

Close Grip Bench: worked up to 205x6+2+2+2

Each time I repeat the workout it would be my goal to increase the weight used for the cluster set.  This won't happen, but over time there will be an upward trend in not only strength, but also size.

It's Wednesday as I type this and I'm not really all that sore.  In my hard copy log I wrote in how hard I perceived each exercise to be.  I'm pretty sure I have room to go up on almost all of the lifts.  Either way I'm liking it so far.  It's an intense heavy workout and it doesn't take more than 90 minutes to complete.  Always a plus.

Song of the Day:

“Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

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