I always stick to a basic exercise for each muscle. I will vary the basic exercise from time to time but I think the basics give the best results. I love triceps push downs. You have to be careful that you don't cheat and use the upper body to move the weight down. I like to make sure the triceps do all the work. This way you might not be able to train with very heavy weight but you will get better results.
I did 5 sets of triceps push downs. 1 set light 16 reps 1set medium weight 12 reps 3sets medium weights 8 reps with a superset of 10 reps medium weight over head extensions.
This was a killer triceps workout. I thought my triceps were going to burst. I worked so hard that I actually felt weak in the knees. LOL
Training your chest is a lot of fun and very rewarding. I think the important thing to remember is that it is your chest and you have to train and build it. It is pointless if you have a spotter to help you and the spotter lifts more then you do. I enjoy training on my own and all I have to beat is me. Each time I train I will try to do a bit better than the last time I trained. This is not always possible and sometimes you will do worse. That is fine as long as you are doing your best each time you train.
Today I did 5 sets of flat bench press. These are my favourite and I find the most effective for me. 1 set light 16 reps 1set medium heavy 8 reps 1 set heavy 5 reps 1set medium heavy 8 reps 1 set medium 12 reps
Without a free day now and again, you can lose interest and feel very hard done by. No matter how healthily you eat, there are times that you will enjoy some ice cream or crisps. Slim people eat the odd junk food and never worry about it. People who have a bit of a weight problem are much more conscious of the food they eat, and if anything is slightly fattening, the guilt sets in. It is like you are fighting an uphill battle. You seem to constantly crave unhealthy food. This happens the minute you make the decision to change the kind of food you are eating.
If you have a free day you give yourself permission to eat junk. It becomes allowed food. This then makes the rest of the week a bit easier when you are sticking to more healthy food. Have the free day and enjoy it as you have allowed it in your diet.
I love calf training, mainly because I don't have to worry about making them any bigger for the time being. This takes all the pressure off my training. I really feel sorry for people that have small calves. This is a result of genetics. You can change how you look and the size of your calves but you must remember that calves are hard to build up and will take a lot of effort and time. There are no shortcuts.
Do your calf raises 2x a week and go as heavy as you can manage. It is as simple as that. You can do a few extra reps as calves like to work hard. If you think about it, the minute you move your legs your calves work. They are used a great deal that is why they are so hard to build. There are a few other reasons regarding muscle fibres but I will not go into that now.
I did 5 sets of heavy calf raises with 15 reps per set done slowly. The focus was mainly on going as high as possible at the top of each rep.
The hamstring is often known as the leg bicep. If you think about the position and what the job of the hamstring is you can understand why it is called a bicep. The arm bicep contracts and the arm is bent up. The leg bicep contracts and the legs is bent up. Both biceps do the same work. Training them is quite hard as they are a very big muscle. I have found the easiest way to train them is with a leg curl attachment on your bench or a leg curl machine. The very best way to train them is of course dead lifts. What you use is up to you. They all work including Bulgarian split squats, good mornings and lunges.
I did good mornings as they are very easy to do. I felt rather tired with the heat and wanted to make the training session as easy as possible.
We are having incredible weather here in the UK. I cannot remember the last time we had such wall to wall sunshine. The daily temperature is up to, and over, 30 degrees C. This makes it very hot here because of the humidity and I can assure you it feels like 35 degrees in Africa. Training in this temperature is not always easy. You can feel very fatigued , hydration is really important.
Here is a trick I used when I was in the army and we were in very hot places. The Zambezi valley in Zimbabwe would often be in the high 40’s. I would have an orange drink with 2 spoons of sugar in it and a ¼ spoon of salt. It was quite nice tasting but would give you instant energy and remove that fatigued feeling. It is not good to overdo the salt though. If you would rather buy an energy drink and stay away from the salt then that is what you must do. Never do anything that you feel is not healthy for you. Remember there is loads of conflicting information on the amount of salt you should have.
My training was very simple. I did 5 sets of normal medium heavy weights squats. Each set consisted of 10 reps. Think about what you are doing and make sure you are really focusing the mind on the quads working.
I often hear people tell me they are riding a bicycle or running on the road to get fit and lose weight. I think that is fantastic and any exercises are better than nothing. The problem is, not a lot of people know how to do an aerobic session that will be the most effective. You will find them starting out doing 15 minutes training and then as often as they can, they increase the time they spend doing the aerobics. In the end you will find that they are training for an hour or even more. There is a way that you can start and stick with just 20 minutes. You can be a beginner or an advanced athlete and everyone will get the maximum from this kind of training.
I would only do this 2/3 times a week for fitness. If you want to lose weight then use this exercise every day. 1 minute slow then 1 minute faster 1 minute faster 1 minute faster 1 minutes as fast as you can go
Increase with each minute. The first minute is like walking speed with little stress. By the 3rd minute you are running at a reasonable speed. By the 5th minute you are sprinting as fast as you can possibly go. You are giving it every thing and then some. If you use a stationary bike or other stationary equipment you can increase the resistance or the speed to get the same effect. I use a stationary cycle. I cycle at about 100/110 RPM and play with the resistance. Instead of going faster I increase the resistance. On the last minute of the set I really give it my all as I have it on a high resistance and it is a real strain to finish the minute.
This is very similar to what we used to do when I played rugby many, many years ago. lol We called them “wind jammers”.
If you repeat the above 3 more times and you have done a very intense 20 minutes of aerobics. You will only need to do this a few times a week and you will be amazed at how much body fat you will burn off and how fit you will be.
This exercise that I did on Monday was so good that I decided to make a video and put it on my YouTube site “Train with Baz” I was not feeling my strongest today but I managed medium weights. I did 5 sets standing bicep curls with supersets of hammer rotation curls as you will see in the video. They are a killer exercise and one you will remember if you do them right.
I changed my training time so I ate a bit differently today. I normally train early evening but today I trained at 10 am. This gave me a chance to train and not worry about being too full before I train. I had a great day and I think I would like to find a way to train on an empty stomach as I know from past experience that this is the best way to burn body fat.
7:30 oats and protein powder. coffee 11:30 omelette with potato sausage and onion. coffee 14:30 protein shake with banana and raw egg. Water, coke zero 17:00 chicken stew with potato, frozen vege and rice. Coke zero 20:00 chicken stew with potato, frozen vege and rice. Coke zero 21:30 bowl of strawberries.
I put home-grown chillies in my stew with some homemade hot chutney. This stew was hot !! I loved it because it was so filling. I had as you can see 2 small meals of the same stuff.
Day 41 - This is how to build a V shaped back with supersets of lat pull downs and dumbbell shoulder shrugs
I trained lighter than usual but did more. I really need to make each training session count. Today I did lat pull downs with a superset of shrugs. This really hammers the back muscles. You do not have to do the heaviest weights for a brilliant training session.
I did 5 sets medium weights lat pull downs with supersets of shoulder dumbbell shrugs. Each exercise consisted of 12reps per set. It was amazing.
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