Thursday, February 12, 2009

ME Upper Body


After a long layoff, the hardest part is just getting started again. Today, at 12: 01 AM, I finally got back into the gym. In the future, I probably should never take a layoff this long. 2 weeks tops, maybe. I'm up to 220 lbs, and I'm weak all over the place. On the plus side, my rib was fine the whole session, so I think it's fully healed. Psychologically, it felt great to be touching the iron again.
The Virtual Meet is in 21 weeks, enough for seven 3-week waves. My request has been approved by my chain of command and I should have flight information in a week or two. Barring something way out of the blue, the trip is a go.
Training wise, I may do something like what I did last time which was like Westside for Skinny Bastards III but with no speedwork. Like what worked for my squat, I will stick with the flat bench press on repetition day for the 21 weeks, and use everything else for maximum effort days. I'll stick with the deep front squat and arched back good morning for 21 weeks on repetition day, and switch between DL/box squat variations for maximum effort days. Accessory work will be just about the same but instead of doing a bicep movement on both days, one of those days will be for triceps to push my bench up. Aerobics, I will figure out: I do now that my goal weight for the Virtual Meet is 200 lbs flat.
Flat Bench Press (195b): worked up to a 185 lbs 3RM
DB Shoulder Press (65b): 45x8, 45x7
Assisted Pullups (Average Band): 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 reps
Hammer ISO Row (Elbows In)(127b): worked up to a 110 lbs 6RM
DB Shrugs: (72b) worked up to a 70 lbs 2RM
Barbell Curls (95): 80x5x5
To make the workouts easier to decipher, especially on rep days, I will soon do like I used to and put the 1RM in parentheses after the lift. If it is an actual 1RM, it will appear as is. If it was calculated using Brzycki's formula ( weight lifted/[.0278 x number of reps at that weight] minus 1.0278), it will appear with an "b" after the number.
The lifts that stay the same for the 21 weeks use a planned progression (see Excel spreadsheet above) so those maxes will show up in parentheses with a "p". As you can see from the attached spreadsheet formula [ =(A3+10)*0.9] for the 4th week, the max used to calculate week 4 is 10 lbs bigger than it was at the beginning, and 10 pounds are added around every 4th week or so. For dumbbell lifts, it is a 5 lbs planned progression. For me, this is easier than always having to test a lift, especially since ME days do that for the main lift.

2 comments:

John said...

Good luck with your comeback, Alberto... I know from personal experience how much strength you can lose from a long layoff. Hope to see you stay the course and put up some good numbers at the virtual meet.

lscrewy said...

Hey,
Guess who's back? I am finally getting back into things. I just wanted to stop in and say hello. Tell everyone I said Hi.
Lou