Training has been pretty sporadic lately. It hasn't been my main priority.  I have been training the things that need improvement mainly back, shoulders (rear and medial delt focus) and legs. I've pushed chest and arms to the side for the "holiday season". This is due to the increased amount of traveling I've been doing, shortened work weeks due to holidays, remodels to the clinic and gym and so forth. My training sessions are still planned and intense but they have not had my full 100% attention, and I am ok with this.

There are certain points in your life where some things "level" up or down. They take a back seat, not so much by choice but because there are other things that require a higher level of your attention, focus, and effort. This happens all through your life weather you see it or not. I find the trick is not to fight it, but give it all you can. If you love it, it wont stay at a low level forever, it will whether the storm and be at the level in which it was before. I believe they call this "balance". I choose to see things on different levels. I think the most important thing is being truthful with yourself and not to put something on a higher level then it needs to be.

I was able to train with my person over Christmas break which is always a blessing. It was like old times and things fell back into place. I enjoy pushing her and watching her bust her ass. We trained back and then did some cardio. Here was our training, sorry no videos.

1A. We started with a single arm hammer iso row. We angled ourselves so we were pulling more around hip height and really focusing on depressing the shoulder down and squeezing the elbow to the side for a lat focus. We worked up in sets of 10 until we reached a heavy weight and then we sat in the seat and did two additional heavy sets with a shortened range of motion and then a triple drop set on our last set.

2B. We moved to a lat pull down with a wide grip. The first two sets were facing away to really focus on just priming the lats and not using any momentum. We then turned around and worked an additional 3-4 sets at 12-15 reps increasing weight each set. We only came down to about mid eye height. This is where we found the best contraction. Play around with where you end to see if it changes the level of contraction.

3C. Here was our main heavy movement of the day. We worked ez-curl bar bent over rows. This really forces the lats and upper back to work because of the underhand position. We worked up to a heavy set of 6-8 reps. I ended with (3) 45's per side.

4D/4E. We ended with a super set of meadows high rows and rope bent over cable row. This was our "metabolic" portion of the training session and we just alternated back and forth for four rounds until we were smoked. On the last set we ended with partial reps keeping as much tension on the last as possible and then ended with a 10 sec assisted stretch to really finish them off.

20 min of stairs to burn some extra calories and that was it.

Training will "level" up at after the holidays when things calm down. Such is life.