Old but not out

Discussion in 'Training Logs' started by nekoashi, Sep 14, 2011.

  1. Mangosteen

    Mangosteen Hold strong not

    whats a gravitron pull up?
     
  2. nekoashi

    nekoashi Valued Member

    Its a machine for fat people who can't pull up their bodyweight:

    [​IMG]

    It is a bit of a different feel than a lat-pulldown and more like a true pull-up.
     
  3. Mangosteen

    Mangosteen Hold strong not

    i never used to be able to do pull ups until i started working on lateral pull downs.
    i avoided this masheen cos it looked silly.
    the lateral pull downs, dead hangs and climbing really helped.
     
  4. nekoashi

    nekoashi Valued Member

    My primary back exercise is the deadlift. I can't say enough about these, really. They have dramatically improved my back, as I used to be in almost constant back pain before doing them. I have done a ton of lat-pulls in my life and can do almost my bodyweight with them. However, pull-ups on the gravitron seem to be much more challenging. I look forward to the day I am doing pull-ups with a weight belt on me, instead of a stack of weights assisting. Unfortunately, I have pretty long arms and excess flab, so this will be a while. What is funny though, is that I lift much more with my back than most of the guys in my gym who look much more muscular than I. These guys are almost always working their chest and biceps, they seem to be forever curling and benching. They never squat/deadlift, etc and their back work seems to be an afterthought. Most have chicken legs.

    Like most of you, I train for my sport (karate). So overall balanced body strength is my primary objective. Right now my lower body is much stronger than upper body, so my goal is to balance this out a bit.
     
  5. Mangosteen

    Mangosteen Hold strong not

    lol ive noticed the "high school kid" style training of bis and pecs aswell.

    I was massively into climbing and that really helped me with pullups.
    i also started doing levers and eventually got to one arm pull ups.
    its a high power to weight ratio that does it with pull ups.
    i'll try to dig out some of my old training logs if you want some stuff on progression. it helped a lot with my endurance with grappling but i decided to stop being a skinny climber at uni and work on my explosiveness rather than endurance.
     
  6. nekoashi

    nekoashi Valued Member

    Thanks. It really is just a function of time and effort at this point. Pull-ups recruit almost all of your upper body muscles, so they are great to work.

    Killed my shoulders, abs and chest today at lunch. I figure I will complete this current bulk cycle and then cut for four-six weeks. Promotions/belt tests in February and I am now working with that in mind. So I am considering two months of heavy lifting and eating, followed by a month of cutting with a lot of speed-HIIT type work, endurance (TRX) and sandbag training. That will give me a few weeks of eating normally and just training karate up to the promotion.

    I don't want to pack on too much fat over the next six weeks (what is left of the two months), so I need to be pretty tight with the diet. That said, I really want to see some gains in upper body strength and muscle size. As always, I will need to play it by ear with the body, etc. I also start another cycle of creatine Wednesday. With the holidays here and no swimsuit on the beach to worry about, now is the time to hit the iron hard.
     
  7. nekoashi

    nekoashi Valued Member

    Did a karate class on Thursday night and gave lessons yesterday. My muscles seem very tight still from last weekend. Probably could use a nice massage at some point.
     
  8. nekoashi

    nekoashi Valued Member

    Lifted today and yesterday. I am feeling a bit beat from it. Also did some hiking both days. I will post my lifts tomorrow. I am seriously considering buying a set of indian clubs instead of making them. I think they will be good in my program.
     
  9. YouKnowWho

    YouKnowWho Valued Member

    What's your feeling when you look at your weight? Do you happy to see it, or do you hate to see it? It's better to allow yourself to dominate your weight. Never allow your weight to dominate you. If you think that you will continue your current weight training 30 years from today, you are on the right track. Otherwise you may push yourself too hard and scare yourself away from your weight.
     
  10. nekoashi

    nekoashi Valued Member

    I am sorry, I don't really understand your post. Considering I am 44 as of yesterday and have lifted on and off since the age of 16, I don't think I am all that worried about scaring myself off from lifting any time soon and I am certainly not all that concerned about the next 30. I really hope I am lifting doing martial arts and active at 74.
     
  11. Obewan

    Obewan "Hillbilly Jedi"

    Happy B lated Birthday Neko!
     
  12. nekoashi

    nekoashi Valued Member

    I left my training log in the car, so I will post my lifts tomorrow. I did nothing today other than recover from two good days of lifting. Plan on taking a karate class tomorrow and maybe a bit of swimming. I am debating throwing in an extra lifting day on Wednesday. I may do a rare arms work out, or if we don't go crazy with push-ups tomorrow, I may do a chest and back superset workout. I do want to lift before turkeyday Thursday and I am dead in the middle of a bulk.
     
  13. nekoashi

    nekoashi Valued Member

    Sorry all for being so lazy with this lately. Lot's of stuff going on personally been taking me offline. Anyway here goes.

    Last workout:

    Saturday:

    Dead-lifts
    12 x 185
    6 x 295
    3 x 295
    1 x 225

    Gravitron Pull-ups
    10 x 90
    7 x 70
    7 x 80

    Barbell Squats (I have been going very, very deep with these and I feel it in my gracillus that has been bothering me. It has turned into rehab.)
    12 x 185
    6 x 205
    12 x 155

    Bent-over Rows
    12 x 135
    1 x 185
    6 x 165
    6 x 165

    Calf raises (rack max is 140, may need to go to the smith machine)
    20 x 140
    20 x 140
    20 x 140

    Farmer's walk
    1 loop 65
    1 loop 80
    1 loop 80

    2 x wrist rolls with 20lbs
     
  14. nekoashi

    nekoashi Valued Member

    I can't find my prior workout on here, so I will post my last three:

    First workout back after two weeks off from lifting

    Second workout back:
    Sunday:

    Barbell Press
    12 x 75
    12 x 75
    6 x 115
    3 x 115

    Dumbbell Bench Press
    12 x 50
    5 x 70
    8 x 70

    Dumbbell Side Lateral raise (I have dropped these for this cycle, as I feel my traps were getting a bit over worked)

    Leg lifts at ab/dip station
    20 straight
    15 straight (15lb dumbbell between feet)
    4 straight (15lb dumbbell between feet)
    10 mixed

    Incline DB Bench Press (I added these instead)
    12 x 40
    11 x 50
    7 x 55

    Dumbbell Flyes
    12 x 30
    8 x 30
    7 x 40
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2011
  15. nekoashi

    nekoashi Valued Member

    Tuesday night I went to karate class and since I usually go Thursday night, it gave me the opportunity to add an extra lifting session Wednesday (pre-Thanksgiving). So I took some key lifts from my regular routine to make it as much whole body as possible without killing myself with the volume of doing all my lifts in one workout:

    Squats: (my butt is almost touching the floor)
    12 x 115
    12 x 115
    10 x 205
    6 x 225

    Shoulder Press:
    12 x 80
    12 x 80
    3 x 120
    3.5 x 115

    DB BP:
    12 x 50
    7 x 70
    8 x 70

    Barbell row:
    12 x 135
    6 x 165
    5 x 170

    I also did a fair amount of stretching after and yesterday.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2011
  16. Mangosteen

    Mangosteen Hold strong not

    WOW!
    great squat there!
    whats your deadlift like?
     
  17. nekoashi

    nekoashi Valued Member

    Thanks, there are others on here who can lift considerably more. However, I am happy with where I am and just glad that I figured out I wasn't going deep enough on the squat.

    You can scroll up and see my deads: I am currently lifting 295 for 6 reps. I peaked my last cycle at 300 x 3, which is pretty much where I am at 295 x 6. I may try for 300 x 6 this weekend. I do find that doing the deads before hurts my squat (and visa versa) and do like to reverse the order of my lifts from week to week, so I don't know how I will feel this weekend. My traps are feeling fried the past couple of weeks, as I think I over-did the volume on them.
     

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