TeenBodybuilding.com - Alton Hare - Building A Champion 10!

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'There is nothing more to peaking biceps than just curling.' - Arnold

There's a fine line between endurance training and power training.

By: Alton Hare

Training Journals: Main Page

My Training Journal
Entries: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

I've made some great gains this segment. I've also sent some pics with this update. Well, I'll jump right into it!

Monday, March 18th
(Max on bench, last max 335, best set 315x3 calculates to a 345 max).

Bench: 185x10, 225x8, 315x1, 340x1, 345x1, 330x1
DB Press: 115s for three sets 6
Superset flyes and cable crosses: used 45 pound dumbbells on flyes!
skullcrushers: 115x9, 95x11
Dips with 25 lb. plate: 11, 9, 7 + 1 forced
Cable Pressdowns: 70x12, 9, 60x11

Tuesday, march 19th
Barbell Row: 210x6, 210x6, 215x5 plus 1 forced, 215x4 plus 1 forced
DB Row: 115sx8, 7, 7 right and 6 left
wide straight bar pulldowns: 120x10, 8, 110x11
Seated Close Grip Rows: 105x12, 12, 10
Curls: 75x21's, 85x8
DB Curls: two sets to failure

Wednesday legs
Today I was gettin' a picture of me doing a 405 squat.

I figured 405 was enough to look impressive but not enough to possibly hurt myself on. I had Derek spotting me and a guy named John who wanted to start working out. Derek knows exactly when I stop my squat at the bottom so he told John he would say when to take the picture, and that John should take the picture RIGHT then. Well, I took 405 down and stopped and Derek said, "Take it!" and I was ready to explode up and get a few more, but the flash didn't come, so I was sitting there, in the bottom of the squat, grunting, "Take the damn pic" and john finally said, "Oh!" and snapped it and I came up, barely. So I was burnt from that one rep where I paused like 5 seconds. All I got on my next set was 365x4 below parallel, still not bad weight. Then:

Leg Press: 14 plates plus 2 25sx8, 8, 14 platesx10 Superset leg extensions and leg curls, went up 10 pounds on both exercises.

I also started taking 5 grams of glutamine today before workout, and five before sleep with shake.

Thursday, incline chest/shoulders
Incline Press: 235x3, 215x7, 195x8
DB Press: 90sx7, 85sx8, 85sx7 (ALL up from last week) Superset cable crosses and incline flyes, used 40s on the flyes over all 3 sets, and on one set I put a 2 and a half lb. plate on the cables to get a little over 30 lbs.
Bent lateral raises, 15sx12, 15sx8 drop 12sx6, 12sx10 drop 10sx6
These may seem like a pussy exercise because of the low weight, but man I've never felt such a pump in my rear delts, if you really squeeze and resist it on the way down it is actually a VERY effective exercise for balancing out your rear delts with your front.
Lateral raises: 30sx6 plus one cheat drop to 25sx5 plus 2 cheats drop to 20sx6 plus 3 cheats
On my cheat reps I use a little momentum to get it to the top then I hold it as long as I can and resist it down, man my shoulders burned!
And finally two sets of front dumbbell presses with 45s for 12 and 10

Friday back/biceps
Preacher Curls: 85 for three sets of 8
Hammer curls: 35sx11, 9, 30sx8
Cable Curls: 50 for three sets of 10 (whoever says cables can't be great mass builders have never done them).
Noticing my biceps looking like mountains in the mirror while I do these. I wonder how big they are pumped? They looked unbelievable popping out like that. I was very pleased, my biceps were pumped after the first set of preacher curls, at this point their on fire and I can barely get through the full range of motion because their so pumped. When I get to the top its hard to contract fully just because they are about to explode already. Beautiful.
Seated Straight bar rows: 100x12, 11, 10
Straight Bar Pulldowns (palms facing each other): 140x6, 130x6, 120x6
Superset dumbbell Shrugs with hyperextensions, used 75 lb. dumbbells this week instead of 70s.

Starting out this was supposed to be a conservative, no sets to failure back day with hard and heavy biceps. Well lately with my recovery being almost perfect (I'm hardly sore at all anymore, and everyone can see that I'm training hard), almost like I'm on juice, it has turned into an all out bicep assault and whatever angles of back I didn't work the time before, heavy and to failure or nearly so. Also, man I've been missing out on true shoulder training all that time I didn't include them directly in my routine! Man the stuff I did in weightlifting just didn't cut it. Rear lateral raises make me tight where I've never been tight and pumped, and heavy drop set side laterals with cheat reps and partial reps are just great. Finishing it all off with some heavy meat 'n' potatoes overhead dumbbell presses and your shoulders feel great. I was always afraid that if I trained shoulders directly that my chest workouts would suffer because the shoulders assisted the chest and wouldn't fully recover. Was I wrong! My shoulders don't get sore either from chest training OR from direct shoulder training. They are very highly conditioned and I am adding dimensions to them I never previously foresaw.

Monday chest/tris
This is where I begin four sets of 4-6 reps. I wasn't sure how much strength I would lose over the course of four sets. I went by the fact that in BC9 I only got 290 for three on my fourth set, and the other sets weren't even low rep sets to fatigue fast twitch fibers. So, I went with a little less than that to insure that I'd get at least four on my last set: 280.

But man did I surprise myself! Maybe it was the glutamine that boosted me, or the fact that I trained light 10-8-6-4 pyramids for two weeks and only maxed last week, but 280 was nothing. I don't think it was the fact that I maxed last week, I did three singles plus after that I pushed myself as hard as I could. Glutamine looks like a winner so far... but I won't jump to conclusions. I also changed the workout around a little to avoid staleness. No more cable/dumbbell flye superset, I wanna see how much weight I can really use on dumbbell flyes, and cable crosses are gettin' old. Also my warm ups just felt like nothing was on the bar, flew right up. And 280 felt more like 180. Just everything felt light today. Even the dumbbells felt light even though I got fewer than normal, just because back when I was doing 7 or 8 I was only doin' two sets of bench.

Bench: 280x6,6,6,5 plus 1 forced 290 next week.
DB Press: 115sx6, 5, 5 plus a 10 second negative
Dips with a 45#: 8,8,8 (most weight I ever used so I didn't think I was gonna do so well)
DB flyes: 45sx10, 50sx8, 45sx8 (much more weight than normal, probably because I didn't superset, but I also definitely felt MUCH stronger today in general)
Skullcrushers: 115x6, 105x6, 100x5
Cable Pressdowns: 70x10, 8, 60x11 I think I need to change the triceps exercises around some too
Push-ups: 13 I've been doing these every week but I forget to post them sometimes, great finisher.

Tuesday back/bis
Again, I underestimated myself. Last week I used 205 and it was too light and I moved up to 215 and it felt pretty good, so I went with 215 again this week and knocked it out just like bench...

Barbell row: 215x6, 6, 6, 5 plus 1 cheat
DB Row: 8, 8r 7L, 7r plus a cheat 6L
Straight bar pulldowns: 140x8 plus 1 cheat, 135x7, 125x8
Seated close cable rows: 125x7, 115x8, 105x9
DB Curls: 40sx6, 30sx10, 30sx9

Then I decided to try the machine preacher curl, but I couldn't contract fully at the top cuz my biceps were so pumped, plus it hurt to crunch them in like that. So I went over to what is becoming one of my favorite bicep exercises, Standing Cable Curl: 50x8 (not failure, just as a finisher because my biceps are already fatigued from back, and db curls.)

Wednesday legs
Rock bottom Squat: 390x3, 340x6
Looks like this is to be a week of underestimating myself, you'll see on leg press:
Leg Press: 16 platesx8, 8, 8 wow... all I got to say
Superset leg extension and leg curl
Calf Presses, I've forgotten about these, I always start doing them intending to stick with them but then I forget about them. Anyway I did them today but weights aren't terribly important on calves I don't think.

Thursday chest/shoulders
Determined not to underestimate myself again, I put on 225 for the incline and targeted six reps, more than I've ever done.

Incline Press: 225x6, 6, 5 (Way up from the last time I used 225)
DB Incline: 90sx8, 7, 7 last one with a touch spot (Again up from last time)
Superset Incline Flyes with cable crosses: the 40s were even lighter this time, 45s next week
Rear lateral raises: 15sx12, 15sx10 drop to 12sx6, 15sx8 drop to 12sx4
Lateral Raises: 30sx7 drop to 25sx5 plus 1 forced, drop to 20sx6 plus 2 cheat
Finish 'em off with a couple sets of front dumbbell presses with 50s for 10 and 8

Friday iso back/heavy biceps
I didn't get around to writing up this day until a week later, so I can't recall my exact weights and everything. I don't remember making any P.R.'s today, it was a pretty regular bicep workout.

- Alton

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