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.
Sunday, Chest
Floor press with fat bar.
I used the fat bar that we just came out with, with the deeper knurling, and really liked the fact that it had the deeper knurling because I was able to use a thumbless grip which takes a lot of the stress off the pec insertion, which I've had all my problems at over the years, and disperses the bar throughout my hand, forearm, triceps. I get a better training effect out of it without feeling the pain that I typically would in the elbows, more in the shoulders.
I worked up to a plate, a quarter per side, and then started loading 1 chain per side with each set, doing sets of 6. I got up to 8 chains per side for 6 repetitions, and then at that point, because I was too lazy to walk all the way across the gym to find another set of chains, I just threw a quarter over top, so I had a plate, two quarters per side, plus 8 chains and did 1 set of 5 reps, and that was to failure. There was no way I was going to be able to get another rep.
American cambered yoke bar.
Began with the bar for sets of 10, and then added a quarter per side, for 2 sets of 10, and worked up to 4 quarters per side for 2 sets of 10.
Machine flys.
2 warm-up sets of 10-12, and then 4 work sets of 12-15, with going to failure.
Pec minor dips.
2 sets to failure, which wasn't a whole hell of a lot of reps. I have a hard time remembering exactly what it was, but I can tell you it was not over 6. So probably a set of 6 and then a second set of 4.
Eccentric chain flys on a slight incline.
1 set, taking a 30-count to lower. After that was done, I did 1 more set, taking 10-count to lower, then held a loaded stretch for a 40-count. And that was it.
