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.
Monday, chest training.
This week, I'm going to be trying to jam a lot of training sessions in within the next three or four days because I'm going to be out of town over the weekend. Monday is normally a day off for me, which is why I trained today was to start trying to get all these sessions in while I can.
I started with the Smith machine, slight incline bench presses. By slight incline, we're talking the back end of the bench was on a 100-pound plate. Seven warm up sets of five to 15 repetitions. I started with a dime per side and just kept working up pretty much a dime per side and then started going quarters per side. Top weight was 305 for three sets of 10 reps.
Pec minor presses. The way I did this is I created this movement using the pit shark machine with the dip handles. They have neutral grips and then regular grips. By grabbing the regular grips and standing reverse on the machine and leaning forward into it first, and then letting the belt, the weight belt pull me down, put a lot of stress on the pec minor. Just by bending my knees a little bit and falling down into it, not really into a dip position, but pretty much like a modified dip press is what it was so, it was halfway between both, it allowed me a really good contraction out of the pec minor, a lot of tension in the lower pec, a lot of tension in the lower pec.
I didn't have to use a whole lot of weight. I only needed about 90 pounds per side and was able to hit failure between six and eight repetitions. I did five work sets with that and then, did three work sets of just eccentric only because it's the perfect set up for that because I can lower myself and then just use my legs to stand back up. While I was there after those sets were done and I had the belt on, I just used the belt around my waist and walked from side to side to do a little bit of hip work, glute work, and did this for five minutes.
Incline presses with tsunami handles. Four sets of eight to 12 repetitions, all sets to failure. At this point, I did not need any warm-up sets.
Cable flys, using a thumbs in grip pointing across at chin level. Two warm-up sets to find the right weight and the right cable position and then, four work sets of 10 to 15, all sets to failure.
Pec decks using a neutral grip. One warm up set just to make sure the machine was set at the right position and to gauge how much weight I was going to use and then, four work sets of 10 to 15 reps. Once again, all sets to failure.
Stretch push-ups. With this exercise, I used the hex dumbbells. Lie flat on the floor, fall into a stretch push-up position so the pecs are stretched with a slight contraction, flex a quarter of the way up and then back down. Four sets to failure, which wasn't really a whole lot. I probably averaged around four reps per set.