A Change in my Bicep Routine.

Last week was one of those weeks. After a kick a** flat bench workout on Monday it was straight down hill. First I had meetings in the morning on Tuesday and Friday. Next the starter in my truck went so I had to spend Wednesday morning fixing that. To top it all off I can down with a cold that had me out of commission on Thursday. This all added up to a really crappy week for working out. I don’t remember the last time I only hit the gym one day out of the whole week. It is sure good to have things back to normal and be back in the swing of things.

I’ve decided to mix up my bicep routine a little bit. Instead of starting off with straight bar curls, I switched to preacher curls. I feel I’ve been cheating the weight to much over the past couple of works out with straight bar curls. I’m worried that I’m cheating myself and not getting the most out of the exercise that I should be. I think that the preacher curl will be a great exercise to really isolate my bicep and give me a great pump.

Today was my first day with the preacher curls. I kept the format the same as with the straight bar curls. The number of sets and reps are the same, just a different exercise. Here are the weights that I worked with today:

warm up: - 45/ 17 - 55/ 8 - 65/ 6
1st: - 95/ 10
2nd: - 100/ 7
3rd: - 105/ 5
4th: - 110/ 4
5th: - 115/ 2
6th: - 120/ 1

Next week I'll be going up five pounds. I'll be starting my first set with 100.


That’s it for today. As always, I look foreword to your feedback!!



~Matt

Flat Bench 11/12/2007

I had an awesome flat bench workout today! I was able to hit all the reps in each weight, which means that I can move up in weight next week!

Here is what I did today:

Warm up: 135/ 17 - 145/ 8 - 155/ 6
1st: - 210/ 10
2nd: - 220/ 7
3rd: - 230/ 5
4th: - 240/ 3
5th: - 245/ 2
* I did an extra set: - 250/ 1

I was super psyched to bust out of this weight group so quickly. This was only my 2nd week working with this weight and I'm already through it! The progress that I've been making with my flat bench over the past few weeks has been incredible. In the back of my mind I keep thinking "enjoy it while you can, you'll be hitting a plateau soon", but I try not to let this get me down. I keep pushing it as hard as I can ever set of every workout and the numbers keep going up.

That's all for today, I hope to hear from you all soon!

~Matt

Work out stats for 11/5/07 - 11/9/07

Hi Everybody,

First I would like to thank Jason for posting a comment! It was awesome to hear from him and he had some great advice on supplement stacking. Keep the comments coming!

I am extremely happy to report that there was some progress made this week! My flat bench has gone up again! I am honestly amazed at the progress that I am making with my flat bench. After months of plateau my bench has been steadily going up work out after workout. This week I added more weight, here is what I’m working with now weight first then the amount of reps:

210/ - 8
220/ - 5
230/ - 4
240/ - 3
245/ - 2

I’m psyched! I can’t wait to hit the gym Monday and bust out of this weight group!

I honestly don’t know why, after struggling with the same weight for such a long time, I am making so much progress all of a sudden. Is it just coming out of the plateau state or is something else going on. In a previous post I mentioned that I have been eating a ton of fish (tuna mostly) lately and soon after making the change on my diet It seems like I can do any wrong in the gym. Before I switched to a bunch of tuna I was still getting plenty of protein, just from different sources. Is the protein in tuna different than the protein in meat and whey protein shakes?

I’m dying to hear what you folks have to on this subject. I can’t wait to hear from you!

~Matt

A little about protein

Hi All,

Things have been going pretty well in the weight room this week (it’s only Tuesday thoughJ). I’m back on the creatine after my three week off cycle. Bodybuilding.com shipped my third bottle of Higher Power CE3 to me. This time it is a complete success! It’s great to have it back. I love the extra energy it gives me. I can just keep pushing it. I don’t fatigue easily at all with creatine. I’m getting ready to order more Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard protein. The banana cream flavor is my favorite. I’ve tried the chocolate malt, strawberry, and the vanilla. I strongly recommend the banana cream. For whey protein, they are all pretty delicious. It’s nice to have found a line of protein that I don’t have to choke down and that I can actually enjoy drinking. I used to just get the cheap stuff at Wal-Mart and it absolutely sucked! I didn’t really know to much about what was out there for protein until my brother in law turned me in to the ON brand line of proteins. It digests so much better, doesn’t upset my stomach, and I honestly notice a performance difference. I love it!

That’s it for today. Really soon I’m going to update my workout stats to keep you up to speed on my progress. It’s great to be able to report progress!!

Talk to you soon,

~Matt

I love supplements

Hi Folks,

Last time I talked about my workout, now I want to talk about supplements. I absolutely, positively love supplements! I swear by them. I am currently taking creatine ethyl ester and it is the best thing since sliced bread in my opinion. It has all the positive benefits of regular creatine with out needing all the glucose that is required to deliver regular creatine to your muscles. It takes a lot of sugar to deliver regular creatine effectively to your muscles. That means a lot of calories. Creatine EE is designed to absorb straight into you bloodstream and, in turn, be delivered into your muscles more effectively. The majority of regular creatine spends most of its time in the small intestine and not doing much for you performance. If you’re into creatine, ethyl ester is the way to go.

I’ve also been taking No-xplode. This stuff is great! If you want an awesome boost before a workout, this is where it’s at! This stuff will jack you up like you won’t believe. Kiss those plateau’s good by! This was just the kick start I needed to get over a slump in my flat bench routine. In addition to an awesome energy boost, No-xplode also has out buddy creatine in it . It’s a one stop shop for most people. Me, personally, I still supplement creatine along with it.

A while back I was taking HMB and I must say, I think it works pretty well. It helped reduce my body fat along with aiding in strength gains. They say that HMB is a beginner’s supplement, however, I don’t consider myself a beginner and I’ve seen decent improvement with the stuff.

I have a love hate relationship with fat burners. They work pretty well for me, but they make me feel all anxiety stricken and weird. Usually I quit taking them after a week of so because the results aren’t worth the way they make me feel. Lipo 6 is pretty decent though. It has the fewest bad side effects and the results are the bomb. I recently tried Zantrex3 and that stuff made me feel sick and irritable. I don’t know if it’s because it’s really strong of what but holly crap, I didn’t like it. Nothing like paying $30 for something that I took for 5 days and then stopped.

I have got to tell you about my recent Bodybuilding.com experience. I recently ordered higher Power CE3 (the creatine EE that I can’t like with out! Bu far the most bang for the buck.) and when my order came, the capsules were all stick together. It was like they were heated up and melted or something. I called Bodybuilding.com and let then know and they apologized and sent another bottle right out. When the second bottle showed up, it was the same thing. All melted together. So, I called them back and, once again they sent another bottle out. Well, the third time was the charm. The third bottle was perfect. I’ve been doing business with Bodybuilding.com for a long time and nothing like this has ever happened. I was extremely impressed with there customer service. They were friendly and didn’t hesitate to put another order in the mail with not hassle what so ever. They were great! The prices are hard to beat, and with customer service like that they have a customer for life with me. I strongly recommend checking them out if you haven’t already. They are just a click away.

That’s it for me today. Post comments and let me know what you think. I’ll update my workout stats for the week on Saturday.

By y’all.

-Matt