LeeB’s u80k Assualt - ***NEW PHOTO PAGE 4 - Sept 06***

LeeB

After what I feel has been a very successful second year of competing (one didn’t place, one first and a third… and a wedding lol), Im now ready to start planning my next years assault on the u80kgs.. I don’t have any shows in mind as yet but I know I want to be coming in toward the top end of the under 80kg weight limit.

Ill put all my plans into this training journal – maybe even some of my PB lifts if I get any along the way. Ill not be updating it too regularly as I think it can get a little anal… but hopefully keeping a rough journal like this will help me think more about my training over the coming year and be more objective about when and where I make changes!! Wish me luck! J

Ive done a little work on my bulking diet but I haven’t got it fully sorted yet (keep your eyes peeled over next couple of weeks). After my last shows I made a note of where I feel I need to improve physique wise and what bodyparts I need to bring up etc. these were:

1 - ab conditioning - especially lower abs, still a little watery. can be tighter!
2 - chunkier bigger abs!
3 - outer triceps are excellent.. rear triceps need bringing in line to balance out and fill out my arms!
4 - biceps still need to come up some more to balance out my to front delt size (i want GUNS not kermit frog arms!!)
5 - lower/side chest by nipple needs thickening/filling out
6 - back thickness (front to back)
7 - find a decent set of lower lats to complete the taper!
8 - higher traps/thicker traps - had an injury for last 2 month so been unable to train them at all!
9 - thicker fuller hamstrings - legs from front are just where i need them pretty much for upper body development at moment - but from behind my legs look skinny so (in my opinion) i think my hams obviously play a big part in this but also my inner thigh is very lacking compared to outer quad sweep which for me is what causes that overall skinny look from the rear! so this will be worked on for next year i promise that my rear leg shots will look like a different person!
10 - more calves to compliment next years legs mark II
11 - another 10kg of not muscle - but QUALITY!

Any further suggestions from the above are much appreciated from anyone who may have seen me!!

I hope to accomplish the above changes with the training routines and split below. This is a very basic layout and does not include sets and reps as I feel this is a very instinctive thing and I want to aim for good form, intensity and progression and not just numbers. Any suggestions from anyone on exercises to improve my above weaknesses are always appreciated. Also any questions on why I have chosen the specific exercises are always welcome too.

Training Routine

Chest
Flat Bench Dumbell Press
Flat Bench Dumbell Flyes
Incline Smith Press or Incline Free Barbell or Incline Machine Press
(above depends on which gym im training in that day)

Back
Seated Close Grip Pull down
(pulling all way through to hit middle lower lats)
Partial Deadlifts
(for mass and also hit lower lats hard)
Bent Over Dumbell Row
Wide Grip Pulldowns
(I like to do 4 exercises for back – even worse ill be training chest & back together.. ouch)

Biceps
Dumbell Preacher Curls
Seated Dumbell Curls
(The above 2 exercises may regularly be swapped for either EZ bar curls or standing dumbbell curls for variety and to hit the muscle slightly differently)
Cable Rope Curls (hammer grip)
Cable Bar Curls (two handed medium grip with straight bar)
(above 2 exercises are supersetted and done with reps of 12-25 for 2-3 sets.. basically until I feel they’ve worked hard enough!!)

Triceps
Cable Pushdowns
EZ Bar overhead presses
One arm reverse grip cable extensions
(ill occasionally add in close grip bench pressing too for power and mass, maybe once every 3 weeks or so!)

Shoulders
One arm bent over dumbbell side raises
Behind neck smiths press
Seated bent over dumbbell side raises
Seated dumbbell pressing
Standing dumbbell side raises
One arm cable side raises
One arm cable front raises
(the above two exercises will be supersetted)

Traps
Dumbell shrugs
Barbell shrugs (sometimes front sometimes rear)

Quads
Leg extensions (warm up)
Squats
Leg Press (toes outward foot position to hit inner thigh)
(will sometimes swap the above for a few weeks with either hack squats or will alter foot position to hit outer thigh)

Hamstrings
Seated Leg Curls
Lying Leg Curls
Dumbell stiff leg deadlift (light for reps and stretch)

Calves
Standing Calf Press
Seated Calf Press
Calf Press on Leg Press Machine

Abdominals
(will always vary but will be done weighted where possible in attempt to thicken up my abs - exercises I will do are: – only 2-3 exercises per session)
Leg Raises
Cable Crunches
Crunches
Bench Situps
Weighted Abdominal Crunch Machine


Training Split
My training split will be as follows. Unfortunately although I aim to train on set days it sometimes doesn’t work out that way due to work and home commitments. The aim is to train as follows:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Biceps & Triceps
Wednesday: Chest & Back
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Quads
Saturday: Hamstrings, Calves & Abs
Sunday: Shoulders & Traps

I like to separate out quads from hamstrings and calves and train 5 days a week – for now my bicep & triceps session will be in the mornings before work (about 7am) and ill have a protein/carb shake about half an hour before this session and another immediately after training! Then my breakfast meal after this.


Now all I need to do is eat well train hard, graft my nadgers off and get plenty of sleep!! Look out for me on stage next year!!

splinter

10k of muscle by someone like yourself should be a piece of piss!!!

Ive done chest and back on the same day a few times and can find it to be a descent workout and not sure why more people dont do it!

Are you doing all those shoulder exercises in one day? Sounds a bit much!! Id include perhaps some upright rows then again im biased and love them lol...

Haney shrugs (behind) for getting your traps to grow higher perhaps or some trap bar shrugs (really wide grip) to get traps bigger.

For your calf imrpovement perhaps hit time 3 times a week? Tis what I do and I get good growth (I usually do smith machine calf raises but normal machine ones are good as well if not better).

A day just for quads sounds a bit funny I do know a few guys that do it but I personally thing quad/hams should be done in the same day as a lot of the exercises work each other anyway.

Squatty

HI mate. Sounds good. What's the ratrionale behind doing chest and back on the same day. Are you splitting them into a.m.and p.m. or both in the same session.

LeeB

shoulders - yeah all on same day - have learned over time that my shoulders respond best to this kind of workout..this is actually scaled down from the amount i normally do! got injuries doing upright rows in past so i stay away - may even have to give the DB Presses a miss as have a slight injury - only trained traps this week for first time in last 2-3 months!! i got this injury after someone decided that rather than "pass me up" a 50kg dumbell for shoulder pressing... he would in fact drop it into my hand from about half a foot above it..... it fukin hurt!! lol

i actually try and hit calves twice a week when bulking (although ive forgot to put it in) ill do one session of volume training (basically 8-10 sets with maximum 4 second rest between sets) - only takes about 10 minutes but man do they burn!! ill also alternate high rep/heavy low reps with this calf session!! - see this journal is making me think more about my training already!!!

quads - again ive learnd over time that my hams/calves respond better when given a session to themselves! in reality i finish quad training at about 7:30pm on friday nights.. then at 10:30am next morning am in gym doing hams & calves... so its just like having a long rest lol

squatty - no chest & back is in the same session - the rationale is that i have trained this way in the past and have had good results and found that i can hit chest hard yet still get psyched up and have no loss of back strength when hitting back - it also means i can incorporate an arms only session into my split meaning i have more of a focus on this 'weaker' area!

10kg muscle a piece of piss?? ask me next year.. i have a feeling its going to hurt!! lol

splinter

Yeah whatever works for you mate, tought luck with shoulder injuries.

Im gonna try that calf routine of yours I normally do about 3-6 sets with like 1-2 mins rest. Will try your calf routine but did you mean to type 40 seconds? 4 secs lol how can you manage to hit 10-12 reps over 8-10 sets with no rest.

LeeB

haha yeah i menat to type 45!!!

i had read alot about how jay cutler uses volume training in his workouts and thought i would give it a try but didnt want to use it on larger muscle groups...

incidentally the 8-10 sets of calves are always on the same exercise in order to keep the intensity on one specific muscle area (with calves standing raises pretty much hit teh entire calf - so i use these to hit ALL the muscle). - and i use a rep range of 15-25! keeping as high to 25 as i can.. the weight doesnt need to be heavy.. just enough to feel a really good squeeze all the way through!

the way volume training works is that lots of high rep sets with little rest between them flushes lots of blood through one specific area of the muscle causing a pump which swells the muscle quickly and makes it grow - i didnt want to use this for larger muscle groups as i felt that to employ it fully and hit every angle could lead to over training!!

......mind you.. i could use it occassionally on SOME exercises only! which focus on specific areas i need to bring up - lower outer chest for instance... hmmmm....

splinter

Right I wanna look more into this! Sounds very interesting I always wondered how Jay would do like 25 sets a body part lol!
I actually emailed him about calves and he told me to stick doing 12 reps with the heavy weight as often I would really stack up the weight yet only do 6 reps however I was not getting that burn really just applying more pressure onto my back.

LeeB

yeah so many people say their calves dont grow and they must just naturally have poor calves... then you realise they are trying to lift stupid weights (ive been there and done it)... when you do this the weight isnt actually travelling through your calf when your pressing - like you say its going down your spine, and onto your shins.. so calves actually are never being worked fully!

splinter

Lee the 8 set calf raise routine burned like ****ing hell never had that feeling that hard before for that long.

Gonna keep doing the one providing i dont collapse lol.

LeeB

its f*kin mint aint it!! lol

squatted for first time in weeks last night... ouch!! my trainer partner cramped up on his first set... haha... hes getting old tho... 58!!! lol

felt a slight twinge of an old knee injury... so kept things low and slow... hopefully its just my body adjusting!!