My training History: I trained less than one year before competing in my first powerlifting meet as a teenager back in 1983. Before leaving the sport partially due to injuries in 2005 I achieved my elitefts status in the 198,220,242,275 & 308 weight class. Throughout these years I did have a 3 year run in the bodybuilding world. I have degenerative joint disease, have had two shoulder surgeries (right shoulder now needs replaced), one full hip replacement, knee surgery, and herniation's in all three regions of my spine, Bone spurs (all joints). I can't even begin to list the number of muscle tears I have had, surgical and non surgical. I am "The Mashed Up Meathead" and this is my story.
You can find my training log archives HERE and my most current training log posts HERE.
My best lifts are behind be but my best training is yet to come.
* Unless otherwise noted the tempo of the work sets is about 1/2 of what most would consider normal. In most cases, if I did the set with normal temp what I fail at with 8-10 reps in training I could do for 20 reps with a normal tempo. This is to keep the joint stress down while increase the stress on the muscle. I have found this to work best for me provided the conditions listed in my training history above.
Saturday ... Back day.
Lat pull-downs, using a new lat pull-down bar that we designed and should have up on the site within the next couple weeks. It's the same design as the Reverse Grip Angle American Bar. With this bar, and pull-downs, the advantage is, it puts your hands in a great position to do supinated or reverse-grip pull-downs without any stress on your wrist. We did three sets of 10-12 with a neutral grip for our warm-up sets, and then we used three different grips on the bar.
There's an inside grip, and then the wider grip. We used three different grips, and you can turn the bar around so there's two grips, basically, each side. We did three work sets with each grip, of eight to ten repetitions, with maybe two reps shy of failure. There were 9 total work sets using three different movements with the same bar.
Low rows with a wide grip. Two warm-up sets, three work sets, ten repetitions ... All sets to failure.
Low rows with a double D handle, but sitting 8 inches higher ... Two warm-up sets, four work sets of six to eight reps, to failure.
Two-arm kettlebell rows, supersetted with one arm; dumbbell rows, four work sets of 10 to 15 reps, per set and per exercise. This sucked! To me... dumbbell rows are nothing more than bodybuilding burpees.
Fuckin' Bodybuilding Burpees - double KB. Rows superset with DB rows #elitefts #row #fuckingamazing
A video posted by Dave Tate (@underthebar) on
Next exercise: using another bar, that's a new bar for us. It's a modification of the Swiss pull-down bar, but a little bit wider with an angle grip center. Three sets of 10 repetitions ... Just working on the stretch.
Going back to the first pull-down handle that we used (the green one), a wide, supinated grip, for two sets of 12 reps with a major focus on the stretch; supersetted with four-inch grenade ball, straight arm pull-downs. Both for two sets ... Focusing on the stretch.
Last exercise: chins, one loaded stretch, for 45 to 60 seconds.
I was sent some pre-workout powder to test out. I rarely if ever, more likely never have taken a pre-workout drink. I will admit to using fat burners, cialis. sudafed, inhalers, etc but never used any type of "pump juice". I have also used intraMD and Plazma as well (when dieting) but those are not the same thing. After having to ask what the label said ( The print was too small for me to see), I mixed it up and over the course of the entire session drank about 4 sips (tasted like sour patch kids candy - I'm not a fan of sour flavors) but did manage to drink 32ox of water and one AMP drink. I would say my first test with this sucked and it was my fault. Didn't hurt my training at all. Maybe I will try again tomorrow since it will be leg day.