The last few weeks have been very busy and I have been trying out a few new exercises. That’s not strictly true, I know all the exercises but the Repetitions and Intensity have changed. I’ve been doing what’s called Compound exercises. There are 10 in total and consist of the following exercises Deadlifts, Curl (drop Sets), Squat, Stiff Leg Deadlift, Power Clean, Flat bench Press, Incline Bench Press, Military Press Ups and Bent Over Rows.
A compound exercise works a multitude of muscles rather than isolating a certain set of muscles. If worked under a heavy load you will be working cardio as well. As long as you keep the intensity up, work until failure and keep the rest periods short you will burn fat at a high rate. The advantage with this type of training is that you will still be burning fat for the next 24 hours in the recovery process. That sounds good to me.
The four exercises I have been working on have been the Curl drop sets, incline bench, deadlifts and abs. To be honest it has been quiet painful at times, good fun and very challenging but hard to complete. At the end of this week I added an exercise called 21’s, so it’s been very hard on the biceps this week. The deadlifts went very well and I combined those with abs exercises and pull ups. It’s been a while since I ached when I walked but the deadlift managed it. I was very pleased with my first set of deadlifts but they soon started to drop off. My aim was to complete as many sets in the hour as possible. I completed 8 sets @ 80 kg and my best rep was 25, that dropped down to 10 reps on the last set. The pull ups I kept at reps of 3 and the abs in reps of 20. It was a very hard session but very enjoyable. As for the curl drop sets they are very painful on the biceps and this exercise was combined with press ups and pull ups. We started off with 40kg on the EZ bar and curled it to the max. Followed by an assortment of press ups from wide, mil, staggered, leg raised to diamonds in reps of 10 and then 3 reps of wide pull ups. Each time back to the EZ bar we dropped off 5kg and curled again to the max. The weight is dropped off until it’s just the bar you are curling. You certainly know you have worked out at the end of this session.
The incline bench press is also done in combination with abs and done to the max. The incline bench had 90kg on and this never changed. Once again we tried to get as many sets done in the hour as possible. This time the wide pull ups and the abs were also done to failure/max. For some reason this session seemed easy, well, compared to the others I suppose it is.
Towards the end of the week we started doing 21’s. This time these were done in conjunction with the incline bench press, press ups, pull ups and abs. This proved to be a very hard set and we could only get 4 sets completed in the hour. 21’s are much harder than I thought, with 10 kg on the EZ bar you do a curl, pass the bar to your partner and he does a curl. He passes it back to you do two curls and so on until you reach 21 reps. We then did an assortment of press ups in reps of 10, then the incline bench press with 70kg to max and followed by 5 reps of pull ups from wide, narrow over grip/under grip to mixed grip. The last set was cross over abs with a 10 kg weight. In order to get 4 sets in you have to go at it. My cardio was working at its limit or that’s how it felt.
The last couple of weeks have been hard work but it’s been worth it. I had one glitch this week and I couldn’t be bothered with lunch, I had a bowl of chopped up melon and that was all. Half way through our work out and I felt terrible. My tank was empty and I was paying the price for not eating. I should know better, I’ve been in the situation where I wasn’t eating and training and it doesn’t work. I made up for it at tea and had two sirloin steaks and very nice they were to.
I go on leave in a couple of days and I’m really looking forward to it. I have nothing planned for the bike but I do intend on getting as many miles in as possible, I’m just hoping the weather is good for my leave period. My youngest son is about to embark on his own adventure with his first road bike, I’m looking forward to being a part of that and he will soon realise just how important it is to being fit if you want to get the most from your bike.
Time will tell !!
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