Friday/Saturday Summary

Friday was my last day in Madison, WI back home with family and the return to sunny San Diego. Got the lift in a bit early to leave time to chill and make the drive to Milwaukee airport where my sister and husband and I both departed from to go our separate ways.....her east coast and me west coast......departing just 20 minutes apart and 6 gates apart.......we did not plan this either.....just happened to pan out like that!

I got my lift in at about 10am at Golds Gym Fitchburg one last time so here she be.....

LEGS!

6 minute bike warm up.....hip MOBZ, D.M.

Seated Leg Curls (wanted to see if it helped or hurt to do these first before squats today)
4x20-15-12-10 pyramid from 85-115lbs

ATG Squats:
225x8 / 5 sets (+10lbs)

Free Motion Standing Ab Crunch:
4x15 @ 70lbs

Hamstring Hypers w/ 45lb across chest:
4x12

FreeMotion Calf Press:
4x15 at 15 RM

Roman Chair Leg Raises:
3x15

Seated Calf Press:
3x15 @ 1 plate + 10lbs

Leg Extensions:
3x20 @ 20RM

15 minutes elliptical MISS cardio

PNF stretching........gotta get lose for the 6 hours of fly time and sitting my my ass!

Saturday.......Upper Push Day!

10am Olde Gym back in San Diego, CA!

6 min elliptical warm up, pillar prep, D.M., cuff series.

flat bench db pull overs:
3x15 @ 55lbs

hammer flat chest press:
55lbs a side x 10 / 5 sets, + 1 drop set of 15 to fail

cable rope face pulls:
3x20 at 20 RM

seated db Arnold press:
40's x 8 / 4 sets, + 1 drop set of 15 to fail

seated hammer tricep dip:
2 plates a side x 8 reps / 4 sets, + 1 drop set of 15

15 minutes MISS cardio.......PNF stretch......done!

From this workout here onward my workouts will be very much based on the training concepts of specificity and progressive overload. This means that the lifts and exercises I choose will be specific to the muscle group I look to target for strength/size adaptations. 1 major movement per muscle and that's it! Nothing fancy but your basic traditional compound movements will be used. Progressive overload means just what it sounds like.....progressively adding more weight/intensity to the lift at hand to force the muscle to handle bigger and bigger loads in small increments week to week. So what you will see is allot of the same exercises each week and each workout with the same # of sets, almost the same number of reps and the same rest periods. What will change is the weight/loads I use. My objective each workout is to do 1 of two things......either add 1 extra rep for each set for that exercise/movement or to add 5-10lbs of weight to the bar/db etc and keep reps the same. When I fail to see my reps or load increase for an exercise in 2 back to back workouts what I will do is swap that movement out for a different compound movement that's equally as effective as targeting that muscle group/movement.

Over time this will come to work out in what is known as linear periodization where all variables of training are held constant with increases in intensity/load week to week. Volume stays more or less the same. My cardio will also stay very much the same with only 15 minutes post lift with HR under 145 bpm and then on my rest days from lifting no more than 30 minutes (20 actual minutes) of HIIT style cardio. I do not want the cardio (not something that is a priority of my training right now other then general health and ability to perform my job well) getting in the way of my strength, size and lean mass gaining goals or my ability to recover 100% from training day to day.

I will also be posting up my full days meals so that you can all see the specifics of my nutrition and how important that is to supporting my training/recovery day in and day out. Listing my macros is one things but where and what those macros come from is as important or more so then just the objective numbers are. Plus I like being able to look back at my own blog and see what things worked best and which did not so this ends up acting like a log book for me as well! Double win!

So with that said lets post today's grubz!

meal 1:
1 cup hashbrowns
8 oz sirloin steak
2 whole eggs
2 small whole grain waffles

meal 2:
2 large whole grain waffles
2 scoops whey isolate

 meal 3:
large romaine salad
2 cups egg whites
1 large head broccoli
1 tbsp cashew butter
160 grams frozen blue berries

meal 4:
Tandoori mixed grill (spiced chicken, mahi mahi, lamb)
Bombay Indian veggies

meal 5:
2 cups fat free cottage cheese
2 tbsp cashew butter

Macros from last weekend till today are still at 2400 a day. tomorrow I check in with Jason to see where he wants me to go or stay as is. Plus its cheat meal night! Bring on the AYCE sushi please!!


PS.....As of this morning at 7am I was 181.2lbs.....first time I was able to weigh in since last Sunday morning back at the gym in my hometown since we did not have one at home to use.