I'll be back

After the last few days of disappointment in the gym, I wasn't too optimistic about my prospects for today's back session. As I arrived at the gym to a gridlocked car park, I wasn't even sure I'd be able to make it through the front door so when I eventually made my way to the bench area, I had rather low expectations.

I've never had a gym partner but today my schedule overlapped with the friend who recommended the routine to me in the first place so we performed the exercises together. It was great to have Stacy there to encourage me out of my gym funk and I am convinced I had a much better session today because it. All today's exercises were supersets so there were no opportunities for spotting each other but simply exchanging notes during rest periods improved the efficiency and quality of the workout.

As a routine, I thought today's exercises had a high degree of reliance on secondary muscle groups which might detract from the targeting of the back muscles. For example, close-gripped lat pulldowns place a lot of stress on the biceps whilst the dumbbell pull engages the chest more than the back. I also missed attempting dead lifts which I am finally beginning to make a little bit of progress on. Next time I perform this routine, I will try moving the wide grip lat pulldown and cable face pull superset to the start of the session because one of my major goals is to be able to complete fifteen pull ups. I found that by the time I got round to the wide grip lat pulldown I was quite tired so I had to perform it at a far lower weight than usual.

The only new exercise today was the one armed lat pulldown; I don't think I have the mechanics of the exercise quite right so it didn't feel particularly beneficial. I aim to go through the videos of all the exercises I struggled with during the week tomorrow so I will hopefully get some pointers on how to improve things.

Tomorrow is a rest day according to the routine but as I took a day off in the week and had a disappointing cardio week, I'm going to try an ab session followed by a 10k run. I'll probably throw in some bench presses as they continue to be a source of frustration to me. I'm a sucker for punishment.

A break from the old routine

On returning to the gym after a three week absence (during which I managed to put on an extra 3 kilograms largely a result of consuming copious amounts of pasta, pizza and beer whilst on holiday in Sicily), I thoroughly expected to struggle in every aspect of my workout. Though this was true for a few exercises (my chest press is exceedingly poor) and I noticed a general reduction in stamina, I actually managed to set a few personal bests.

Despite this pleasant surprise, I've decided to change my routine as I've been following it for a while. I'm hoping that in doing so, I may be able to make more progress in areas where I've been struggling for months.

On the advice of a friend who has caught the gym bug and has made some fantastic progress, I've decided to try Erin Stern's Elite 4 week plan from bodybuilding.com. [1] Today was my first session with the new routine and I very much enjoyed it. Day one is shoulders and arms [2] and it contained a number of exercises which I'd never performed before:

Push Jerks

Though I'm used to doing seated shoulder presses with dumbbells, I'd never used my legs to augment the exercise. I managed to do the first five reps at 35kg but found that on the second set, my lower back couldn't handle the same weight again. I therefore dropped it down to 30kg.

Cable Rear Delts Flyes

These were great fun and I managed to complete four sets at 5kg. I'll definitely go higher next week.

Front Cable Raises

I'm used to doing dumbbell raises but there was something about the cable variation which made them more difficult. I have a long standing right shoulder injury which may have inhibited the exercise further. Though I have managed 12.5kg front raises in the past, I only managed 2.5kg on the cables.

Drag Curls

The drag curl appears to place more stress on the forearms than the regular curl so I found this quite difficult. I started off at 20kg but dropped it to 15kg when I was struggled to complete the full 10 reps.

Plank to pull up and diamond push ups

I'd never performed either of these exercises and I struggled to complete even one rep of each so I decided to replace them with a cable row and close grip bench press. My cable row is also rather poor and given the lower back weakness I experienced in the Push Jerk, it's definitely something I need to try and address.

Ab roller

This was another exercise that I couldn't complete, again it appears because my back is too weak.

I'm looking forward to trying new exercises tomorrow. Wish me luck; it's leg day!

[1] http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/erin-stern-elite-body-4-week-fitness-trainer.html

[2] http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/erin-stern-elite-body-4-week-fitness-trainer-day-1.html